CHAPTER 374: THE FRUIT AND THE WOLVES (2)

Third Person’s POV

Though they glowed with a rich, lustrous, and magical orange glow that seemed to pulse faintly with life, or to be exact, a magical multicolored shower of energy that had just hit him moments before.

Even at a distance, their sweet and heady fragrance spread and tugged at his instincts with irresistible allure as every second, dense swathes of multicolored elemental energy radiated from them and surged outward in visible waves that blanketed the clearing.

Feeling them, Ethan’s breath caught, and for a moment, he was not the cold and brooding reincarnator, but simply a man staring at a fragment of home reincarnated before him.

"Mangoes..."

The word slipped from his lips in a low murmur in an unguarded manner as he became stunned with wonder.

He could hardly believe that after so long, a taste of his past life was hanging before him, dazzling and untouchable.

But before he could savor the moment, a sharp, mocking voice cut across the clearing.

"What are mangoes? This is a Blood Crystal Fruit, dumbass."

The derisive tone belonged to a girl, and her words were quickly joined by a chorus of laughter filled with ridicule and arrogance, while being grating to the extreme.

Ethan turned sharply, while his eyes narrowed toward the sound.

Soon, he saw a group of figures emerging from the far side of the clearing.

They were gray-haired wild looking men and women, though their expressions were brimming with mockery.

Yet before he even registered their postures, his gaze locked onto a detail that struck him harder than the laughter.

It was none other than the unconscious figure of Velcy slumping over one of the girls’ shoulders.

Seeing this, he was stunned, and a rush of relief and dread clashed within him.

He could finally rest the worry in his heart as he knew now that Velcy was alive, as he could see and sense the steady rise of her chest, while no obvious wounds were marring her body.

But despite that, she was unconscious, and clearly a captive, as he saw that her hands and legs were bound by thin silver chains.

His fists clenched at his side, and for an instant, the urge to teach these young fellows a lesson they would never forget appeared in his mind, but he delayed it and let his face remain unreadable even as cold resolve settled in his heart.

The reason he did this was that he didn’t want to give them any opportunity to exploit his weakness, and to be honest, he didn’t yet know the true temperament of this group and the reasons behind their capturing his little cat girl.

The others, however, saw his solemn expression and mistook it for fear as their jeering only grew louder.

"Looks like this country bumpkin is terrified of you, Big Sister Wolfe!" one of the busty girls sneered with a toothy grin as her lips curled.

"Where did he crawl from, I wonder?"

Another, a shorter male with a squat build and thick frame, clearly a dwarf among them, snorted through his laughter.

"This little bloodsucking cave-rat must have stepped into daylight for the first time in his life!"

Their ridicule rippled through the clearing, and Ethan’s gaze finally swept over them with clinical clarity.

There were five in total, and their metallic-gray hair stood out like needles as they were shaped like an unnaturally sharp spine and almost looked like pine needles.

Their faces and bodies bore maroon crisscross fang tattoos etched in jagged patterns.

Of the five, two of them were girls, the first being quite beautiful and petite with a quiet, cute, and noble air.

Her pointy gray hair was long and almost reached her knees, and her snowy skin shone in the pleasant morning sun, while her platinum gray eyes were observing the magical mangoes.

As he observed the beautiful girl, he was dazed by her beauty and innocent charm, but he didn’t let it show on his face.

Soon, he calmed the waves in his heart and silently observed the way others crowded around her and flattered her.

In seconds, their actions led him to understand that this petite, short, beautiful girl was their leader, and most likely she was some noble heir, and the other four were her retainers.

The other girl was provocatively dressed in skimpy shorts and brimmed with an almost insane level of arrogance.

As his gaze shifted to the men, he found them to be clad in ragged, punkish attire, though their smirks were bristling with the signature disdain that this group carried with themselves.

They looked bizarre, wondrous, and laughable at the same time, but Ethan’s eyes missed nothing, and he was not deluded by their arrogance or the petite girl’s beauty.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement drew his attention to the periphery, and there, leaning with calculated indifference, he found Alrin, the bamboo-thin demon, and his group of three standing.

Further beyond, he found another pair, a man and woman, who stood stiff with anticipation as their gazes were fixed greedily on the radiant fruits, but for some reason, all of them were silent in their position, and no one made a move.

Suddenly, Alrin caught Ethan’s eye for a brief second and gave him a small nod, and then nothing as the man turned his focus elsewhere, though his brutish companion and the sultry woman beside him flashed mocking smiles, clearly amused at Ethan’s predicament and the way he was being mocked by the group of five.

Through it all, Ethan remained calm.

His attention returned to the unreal beauty that was the petite girl at the front of the gray-haired group, who had now turned with her cold but curious eyes as she started to study him in silence.

Unlike her group, she hadn’t spoken a word, but the others orbited her like stars around a sun.

Though her busty companion had mocked him, she herself radiated quiet authority.

Just as Ethan prepared to move, his mind weighing whether to strike first and seize the fruit, a detail of the group of five snapped into focus in his gaze that he had somehow ignored previously.