Rising from the Ashes BY Only For You Novel

---- Chapter 3322 Andrew let out a cold shout, his expression arrogant and commanding. It was perfect timing, because ever since breaking into the Beyond Mortal realm, he had not met an actual opponent he could fight without holding back. Byron had clearly been hiding his strength, and only after running into Andrew today had he finally revealed it. With this level of power, there was no way he was just a senior member of Umbral Peak Sect. He might very well have been the true hidden leader behind the entire sect. What made Andrew even more certain was the look on Monty's face.

Monty was shocked that Byron's strength far exceeded anything he had known. Although Byron had always been stronger than him, it had never been by such an outrageous margin. Moreover, Monty was supposed to be his senior. A massive pillar of sword energy came crashing down from above. Monty let out a strangled grunt and was sent flying backward, smashing through a vast stretch of withered forest before he hit the ground and coughed up a mouthful of blood. ---- Byron erupted in fury.

Five massive phantom beasts made of pure dark energy came charging in one after another, relentlessly, all of them going straight for Andrew. Andrew planted his feet and swung his greatsword ina full, wide arc. Roaring sword light burst out around him like a rotating machine gun, spraying in every direction. The phantom beasts were torn through, one by one. However, some still slammed into Andrew's body. In that instant, Andrew felt his mind jolt violently, and even his sword hand trembled slightly. Byron burst into laughter. "You're strong, truly strong.

Even | have to admit you are a once-in-a-generation genius, born for the martial path. Anyone born in the same era as you would be doomed. "However, raw power won't break my Demon Waltz. My attacks don't go for the body; they go straight for the mind. They go for the soul. So tell me... are you starting to see things? Warm things? Tempting things?" Another wave of dark phantom shapes came surging toward Andrew, but these were not beasts. The forms had changed into something far more disturbing: writhing silhouettes of entwined figures, arching bodies, provocative shapes designed to set his.

---- blood on fire. It looked almost seductive, but Andrew felt nothing but danger. He recognized instantly that letting those phantoms wrap around him would be catastrophic, the kind of thing that could crack a person's mind wide open and send them spiraling out of control on the spot. Andrew steeled himself fast. He kept hacking his sword through the phantoms to destroy them while simultaneously stepping back, widening the distance between himself and Byron. Down below, Valerie and Rowan had both made the mistake of looking up.

Their eyes locked onto the figures drifting through the air, and their bodies froze without them even realizing it. Nyx, sharper and more experienced than both of them, understood exactly what was happening. That old monster's technique was designed to awaken the most primal urges. buried in a person's body, and once those urges got their hooks in, they would scatter your focus completely, until you died without ever knowing what had hit you. "Valerie! Rowan! Don't look!" Nyx's voice cracked out like a whip.

Both women flinched hard and snapped back to themselves, their faces going pale with alarm. Nyx said quickly, "Don't look, don't listen to the sounds either. ---- Lock your mind down and hold it." Eric was struggling the worst of all. Caught in the outer edges of Byron's assault, his entire body had gone wrong in an instant. Jerome, though not the most powerful fighter in the group, had spent decades navigating the world's worst situations, and his mental discipline was iron. He stepped forward without hesitation.

"Eric, don't circulate your energy, hold your breath, shut down your senses!" he barked, and before Eric could respond, he moved in and struck two precise pressure points at the base of Eric's skull, cutting him off from the technique's influence. Eric had changed. He was a different person now than he used to be. However, his past was still his past, and it was complicated. Among those old complications was a particular detail about his preferences that he had never once shared with another living soul.

In that split second when Byron's technique hit him, a vision had surfaced in Eric's mind: a man, broad-shouldered and perfectly built, pressing him down. What shocked Eric the most was that this perfectly sculpted, naked man was Andrew. ---- These were thoughts no one knew except himself. With Jerome's help, Eric immediately shut down his senses, sat cross-legged on the ground, and desperately resisted Byron's influence. Yet, his mind was in complete turmoil. Had he once harbored improper thoughts about Andrew? Eric felt so ashamed that he wanted to disappear. He was not that person anymore.

Under Brielle and Jerome's careful guidance and genuine investment in him, he had built himself into someone respectable, someone who could stand shoulder- to-shoulder with the best scions the Chetvine family had to offer, with a future wide open ahead of him. However, the past would not just erase itself because you moved on from it. Eric made a silent, iron vow right then and there: that secret would go with him to his grave, no matter what.