CHAPTER 474: CHAPTER 474: NO, NO, NO—LET ME FINISH MY HEARTBREAK SAGA, PLEASE. I AM IN PAIN

The entire clearing was dead-silent except for Zyran humming like a deranged bard who’d found a new audience. The invading men—frozen in place, muscles locked, eyes bulging—looked like they wanted to melt into puddles and escape between the cracks in the earth.

Their leader, the three-striped, pride-swollen brute who had strutted in like he owned the continent, was now visibly trembling. His jaw quivered. His pupils shook. He had the haunted look of someone who had just accidentally stepped on a god’s tail.

Zyran lifted one dainty panther-black brow, swirling the wine bottle in his hand like he was tasting drama more than the wine.

"Oh no, forget it," he said with an airy wave of his fingers. "I don’t care anymore about your attendance or answering my questions. Honestly, you’re all terrible listeners. Let me continue with my storytelling."

He cleared his throat theatrically.

The leader flinched.

That was how traumatized they all were.

Around the clearing, the villagers watched in stunned horror. Mothers pulled their children behind them. Hunters gripped their spears tighter. Even animals perched on branches had gone dead still, staring with wide eyes as if whispering in their own little languages:

"This panther god is insane."

Valen’s jaw was tight, his brows furrowed, his hand still on Ophelia’s waist to keep her behind him.

Ophelia whispered, trembling, "He just... cut their heads... just—three heads—just like that..."

Valen nodded stiffly. "Yes, sweetheart. I... saw."

Cyrus leaned against the newly crafted table he’d been sanding moments ago, his anaconda tail curled protectively behind him. His face was a perfect flat line of exhaustion.

None of this surprised him.

This was Zyran.

Which made everything worse.

Zyran continued, oblivious—or just uncaring—about the wide-scale panic happening around him.

"In fact," Zyran announced, strolling around the frozen invaders like he was on stage, "I was trying to forget her."

He placed a dramatic hand against his chest.

"I was trying to forget my heartbreak. I really was. I was trying to breathe, you know? To move on. To heal. But then you—" he slapped his hand down on the shoulder of one frozen man so hard the man made a strangled sound "—you came. And reminded me of her."

The leader’s voice cracked. "W-We will go. We will leave. Please, just—let us go. We won’t come back."

Zyran blinked at him.

Slowly.

Tilted his head.

Smiled wider.

Everyone trembled.

"Why," Zyran said sweetly, "do you keep interrupting me?"

He stomped one foot.

Dust jumped.

"I am trying to talk about my heartbreak. Please. I am mourning."

The men looked at him like he was an apex predator who also needed therapy.

Across the field, Valen whispered, "Cyrus... is he... serious?"

Cyrus didn’t even look up. "Unfortunately."

"Oh," Zyran said dramatically, pacing again, "you think this is funny? You think you can just walk in here, demand my goddess, insult our village, interrupt my emotional process, and leave? No! No no no!" (When did it become their village😭)

He pointed accusingly at the leader.

"You reminded me of her. Do you know how much my heart hurts now? Hmm?"

The leader shook his head frantically.

Zyran didn’t care.

His voice dropped into a low, aching tone—just to be dramatic, of course.

"I even defied my father," Zyran declared, sweeping his arm across his forehead like a tragic widow in a bad stage play. "I defied a very powerful man—the kind of man whose shadow people kneel before—all for her."

The villagers murmured, confused.

"Powerful... how powerful?"

"Is he a chief?"

"A mountain elder?"

"Some kind of spirit wielder?"

No one knew.

Zyran didn’t explain.

And the way his aura flickered—just for a heartbeat—sent a cold ripple down the spines of everyone who sensed it.

Whatever he was hiding...

It was big.

Very big.

And it only made the invaders more terrified because suddenly, they couldn’t tell if Zyran was a harmless drunk or something ancient pretending to be a man.

"And guess what?" Zyran continued. "She ran away. Ran away. Left me here—abandoned, wounded, holding onto bitterness and wine."

He swirled the bottle again.

Then pointed to Cyrus with a sharp flick.

"And this man—him—no matter what I do to him, he refuses to tell me where she is."

Cyrus finally looked up with a deadpan expression that screamed I hate my life.

"I have nothing to tell you, Zyran."

Zyran threw both hands dramatically into the air.

"See? SEE?! He doesn’t help me! He just watches me spiral!"

Cyrus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Because you are spiraling."

"That’s not the point!"

Everyone nearly jumped out of their skin when a new voice cut through the clearing—deep, cold, commanding.

"What is going on here?"

The crowd parted instinctively.

Even the wind gentled.

And from the shadows at the forest’s edge, Kian stepped out—broad-shouldered, sharp-jawed, aura thick like storming thunderclouds.

The man looked carved from stone and ice.

Isabella always described him as "too fine, too cold, too calm," and everyone in the village agreed.

He moved with controlled power, every step a quiet warning.

Kian’s blue lion eyes flicked across the scene:

• The frozen invaders

• The headless corpses

• The trembling villagers

• Cyrus with stress wrinkles

• Zyran posing like a diva who murdered people for interrupting his monologue

His voice was flat.

"Zyran."

Zyran brightened like a child seeing a favorite uncle.

"Thank the stars! Our cold, mysterious Lion King is here!"

He spread his arms as though presenting a festival.

Kian did not even blink.

Ophelia whispered to Valen, "Oh no... Kian is here."

Valen whispered back, "This is about to get worse."

The leader of the invaders felt hope spark in his chest—maybe this new man would stop the mad panther?

He opened his mouth to speak—

But Kian’s gaze snapped to him, slicing through him like a blade.

The leader’s mouth clamped shut.

Everyone could feel it—that dangerous quiet power rolling off Kian in waves.

He was not loud like Zyran.

He was not dramatic like Zyran.

But his silence was more frightening than Zyran’s chaos.

Zyran leaned lazily toward him, voice sultry and teasing.

"Kian, darling, I’m in the middle of emotionally expressing myself."

Kian stared at him.

Zyran continued anyway, shrugging.

"And they interrupted me. So I handled it."

Kian looked at the corpses.

Then at the frozen soldiers.

Then at Zyran.

"You killed them because they interrupted you," he said flatly.

Zyran nodded cheerfully.

"Yes! Exactly. Finally someone understands me."

Kian exhaled slowly through his nose.

That was the closest he ever came to yelling.

The leader of the invaders, voice trembling, tried again, "P-Please—let us go, we—"

Zyran snapped a finger.

The leader’s mouth sealed shut.

Literally.

"Ah-ah," Zyran said. "Do not ruin this moment for me."

The invaders all screamed internally.

Kian rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Zyran..."

Zyran waved him off dramatically. "No, no, no—let me finish my heartbreak saga, please. I am in pain."

Kian’s jaw twitched.

Cyrus silently prayed for the ground to open up and swallow them all.

And the invading men?

They had realized something stronger than terror.

They had stumbled into a village protected by a broken-hearted psychopath, a depressed anaconda god, and an irritated Lion King.

They were doomed.