He whispered brokenly, "Why were you born me as a man? If I was even a bit able to open my energy centers like..."

His voice didn't help him as his hand clawed at his chest. He slowly sat down, jaws clenched, placing his hand on his face, angered because this world was completely unfair to men.

'Sigh, your silence isn't helping him, sister,' thought Sylvane, eyes narrowing as she turned to leave.

Men did cultivate in this world and were very strong too, reaching levels like Diamond Body and such, which in itself was considered the level where they could shatter mountains and the like.

But that was their limit.

To be exact, women biologically were the carriers of life; they have the ability to give birth.

And that simple biological advantage makes them able to pull out Life and Death energy more easily than a man ever could, leading to their cultivation speed being much faster than generally men.

To open the inner gates, men need to have purer bloodlines or special physiques, but for women, the criteria were looser just because they have emotional channels open since birth with no blockage.

And for her nephew, he was weaker than most men due to having a strange physique that did not seem to have any hope of ever entering body tempering, let alone above realms.

"Let's first deal with those brutes—!?!"

Sylvane's thought was cut short as movement exploded in her peripheral vision.

A body—no, a green-skinned body—hurtled through the air like a stone from a catapult, screaming.

The orc woman's limbs flailed helplessly as she rocketed overhead, her trajectory wild and uncontrolled.

Before Sylvane could process what she was seeing, the flying orc collided with something in the distance.

The impact created a shockwave that rippled through the air, followed by a thunderous blast that shook the trees.

Sylvane's eyes widened.

Without thinking, she sprinted forward, her boots finding purchase on the nearest rooftop.

She leaped from building to building, her movements fluid and practiced, then to tree branches when the structures ran out.

The forest blurred around her as she closed the distance, heart pounding not from exertion but from whatever the hell could throw a full-grown orc woman like a damn toy.

She found the orc in a crater.

The green-skinned woman lay motionless, her eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.

Blood trickled from her nose in dark rivulets, staining her tusks. The ground around her had splintered into a spider-web pattern of cracks, earth displaced by the sheer force of impact.

No visible wounds. No broken bones jutting out.

Just blood from the nose and the unconscious bulk of someone thrown with enough force to crater the ground.

Sylvane's jaw tightened.

She recognized this woman—one of the Grak'thar hunters. Clearly in Peak Body Tempering Realm.

Her eyes tracked the trajectory backward, following the angle of the throw. She spotted something metallic glinting in the dirt—a bow. One of the orc women's bows.

She snatched it up along with the quiver of arrows and ran.

The forest opened into a clearing, and Sylvane's breath caught in her throat.

Three orc women floated in the air, suspended by nothing she could see except for a faint blue light that flickered around their struggling forms.

Their faces were twisted in terror, mouths opening and closing uselessly as they clawed at invisible bonds.

And standing below them, draped in black robes that seemed to swallow the light around him, was a man.

Sylvane's gaze locked onto the scene before her—one of the floating orc women, the leader who'd harassed her nephew not twenty minutes ago, was lifted higher than the others.

A tree branch, impossibly thick and strong, had wrapped around her neck like a serpent. The wood didn't break despite the pressure; it didn't crack despite the force.

The orc's scream was silent, her mouth gaping wide as her face bulged red then purple.

Veins popped along her neck and forehead, straining against skin as the branch tightened, tightened, tightened—

"So," the man said, his voice carrying across the clearing with unnatural clarity, "are you going to tell me if there is any elf here or not?"

Sylvane's entire body went cold.

The man's back was to her, but even from this distance, she could sense something wrong about him.

The air around him felt heavy, oppressive, like standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing one wrong step meant death.

Her mind raced. An elf? He's looking for an elf?

She blinked, taking in his appearance more carefully.

The black robes obscured most of his form, but she could make out pale skin at his hands, a sharp jawline visible from the side. His ears—not pointed even with a handsome face, so not quite elven. Different somehow.

The strangled orc woman's eyes bulged further, seconds from death.

Fear shot through Sylvane like lightning. If he was hunting elves, if he was asking about elves, then her village—her nephew—everyone—

She couldn't let him find them.

Her hands moved on instinct, muscle memory from decades of hunting.

She nocked an arrow to the stolen bow, drawing the string back in one smooth motion.

The bowstring creaked as she pulled it taut, arms steady despite the adrenaline flooding her system.

She aimed for his head. Center mass. Kill shot.

The arrow flew.

It cut through the air with a whistle, straight and true, death sailing on feathered wings toward the back of his skull—

—and stopped.

Just stopped. Mid-air. Inches from his head.

The shockwave erupted outward from the halted arrow, a concussive blast of displaced air that slammed into Sylvane like a physical wall.

She staggered, boots skidding backward across the dirt as wind whipped her braid loose.

And in that moment, as the shockwave cleared, her eyes met his.

He had turned.

Crimson and gold, eyes that pinned her in place more effectively than any arrow ever could.

His face—gods, his face was beautiful in that terrible way that predators were beautiful. Sharp features, pale skin, and a smile that curved his lips with such gentleness it made her skin crawl.

He looked at her the way someone might look at a delicate flower they'd been searching for. With appreciation. With satisfaction.

"Oh," he said, his voice soft and warm and utterly terrifying without him even saying further.

The three orc women dropped from the air like stones, crumpling to the ground unconscious. The tree branch around the leader's neck uncoiled, letting her fall in a heap, gasping and wheezing.

But Sylvane couldn't look away from those eyes.

Couldn't move.

Couldn't breathe.

'Huh.'

One moment he stood there, twenty paces away, those crimson-gold eyes fixed on her with that gentle, terrifying smile.

The next—

He vanished.

Sylvane's heart lurched into her throat.

It wasn't speed.

She'd seen speed before—watched warriors in the Diamond Body realm move so fast they left afterimages, seen arrows that bent the air itself.

But this? This was different.

He hadn't moved through the space between them. He'd simply ceased to be there and started being here.

He just seemed to manipulate reality.

Her hand clenched around the bow, knuckles white, the wood groaning under the pressure of her grip and might have snapped if not for her looking at hands holding hers.

Pale fingers, long and elegant, reached for hers with such casual confidence it made her breath hitch. No hesitation. No doubt.

She blinked, mind stuttering as his hand wrapped around hers—not forcefully, but with a gentleness that somehow felt more dangerous than any grip could be.

Warm. His skin was warm against hers, and that realization hit her harder than the shockwave had.

She'd expected cold, expected something inhuman, but the heat of his palm pressed against the back of her hand felt achingly alive.

He lifted her hand, her gaze lifted following it, watching as he brought her knuckles toward his face.

The world narrowed to that single point of contact—her hand in his, rising, rising—

His lips brushed against her skin.

A hand kiss.

The kind of courtly gesture she'd never thought existed.

She looked down at their joined hands, blinking slowly, as if her mind needed multiple attempts to process what was happening.

"I must say," he said, and his voice wrapped around her like silk, smooth and warm and utterly at odds with the raw power she'd just witnessed, "you are pretty, my lady."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.