Elsewhere, within the Chinese Dynasty, on a planet locked in an eternal blizzard where snow never stopped falling and the wind howled without end, there existed a sect composed entirely of women.
The sect's ancestor—a peak Martial Emperor whose cultivation had reached the very edge of what was possible before Demi God—sat alone in her meditation chamber, looking at a report on Ethan that detailed his upcoming marriage.
Long ago, she had encountered Ethan when word reached her sect of a product called "soap" being manufactured in the United Empire. She had been curious enough to investigate, wanting to understand the formula so she could recreate it for her own people.
So she had arranged a meeting with the creator… and she had been a fool. How could an old woman—someone who had lived for centuries, who had survived wars and betrayals and the collapse of entire civilizations—allow some kid to butter her up with sweet words?
But Ethan just had a way with words that defied all logic and reason. How could she not blush when someone looked her in the eye and said, with complete sincerity, something like: "Age like fine wine? Yet here you are, making the young generation look like rotten fruits."
How could any woman, regardless of age or power, not feel something when those words were spoken truthfully—without a shred of deception behind them? The way he spoke his heart so openly and honestly, without filtering a single thought.
The way he looked at her, without a hint of lust or ulterior motive, but instead as though she were simply the most wonderful being in existence and he was grateful just to be in the same room as her. The way the rest of the world seemed to disappear when his eyes were on hers, as though nothing else mattered. She had fallen in love before she even realized it was happening.
She was a fool. She had brought the bastard back to her sect, invited him into her home, her life, her bed. She gave him her virginity—something she had guarded for centuries—and she gave him everything else alongside it.
He did things to her that made her clench her fists to this day at just how embarrassing it had been, at how completely he had unraveled every shred of composure and dignity she had spent a lifetime building… but it had been so unbelievably pleasurable that even the shame couldn't erase the memory of how it felt.
She had talked about marriage afterward—she wanted to marry him. A cripple. She didn't care about that. After over a thousand years of living, she had finally fallen in love with someone, and the fact that he couldn't cultivate meant nothing to her compared to what he made her feel.
But Ethan had rejected her, saying that he wasn't worthy of someone like her… and in her post-pleasure haze, exhausted in ways she didn't think were possible for a peak Martial Emperor, she had agreed in quiet disappointment.
The tiredness had pulled her under, and she had slept for an entire day—something that hadn't happened since she was a child. She was honestly speechless at how a mortal like Ethan had left her so thoroughly drained that her body needed that long to recover.
But when she woke up, Ethan was gone. And so was her peace of mind. Because what she discovered in the hours that followed was that the bastard hadn't just slept with her—he had slept with multiple sect disciples and sect elders during that single day she had been unconscious, and then vanished without a trace.
She was angry. No, angry didn't cover it—she was boiling with a rage so intense that the blizzard outside her sect had worsened for three straight weeks, the temperature dropping so low that even Martial Kings couldn't step outside without protection. But Ethan knew how to disappear.
No matter how hard she searched, no matter how many resources she poured into tracking him down, she never found him. And so she was left cursing his name to this day, the hatred festering in her chest like a wound that refused to close.
"Let's go." She said coldly, rising from her meditation seat, and the entire sect responded in unison. Every disciple, every elder, every woman in that frozen fortress nodded with killing intent burning behind their eyes.
They all hated that bastard—every single one of them had their own personal reason to want Ethan's head on a pike—and now, with word of his marriage spreading across the stars, it was finally time to collect.
***
Elsewhere, on a planet far away from Earth, Iris could be seen pausing mid-step to look at a screen displaying the announcement of Ethan's marriage. Her amber eyes, the same ones that could melt through reality itself, locked onto the image of his face with a coldness that could freeze a sun.
"Found you…" She said, her voice carrying the quiet finality of a death sentence. For years, she had been searching for him across every corner of the galaxy, tearing through star systems and shaking down information networks for even a whisper of his location.
Maybe she shouldn't have helped Ethan create the stealth technology that made him virtually invisible—technology so effective that even a Demi-God like herself couldn't track him through it.
That had been her own foolishness, and she had paid for it with years of fruitless hunting. But now, with his location being broadcast to the entire human domain, Ethan had nowhere left to hide. She would find him, and she would kill that bastard for what he did to her.
***
Elsewhere, on a planet that held no humans—a wild, untamed world where civilization had never taken root—a massive, breathtakingly beautiful white dragon could be seen resting atop a mountain of crystal and bone.
Its scales shimmered like polished pearl under the light of three distant suns, and its eyes, ancient and sharp, turned toward the lone human that had dared to set foot on its planet.
"Dragon Elder, I found a report on Ethan." The human messenger cried out with visible unease, their voice shaking under the weight of the dragon's gaze. The moment Ethan's name left their mouth, the dragon stood. Its enormous body rose from the mountain with a grace that belied its size, and its eyes turned ice-cold as memories it had tried to bury came rushing back.
The human who had stumbled upon her in her weakened state. The human who had helped her recover from injuries that should have been fatal. The human who had dared—dared—to make her fall in love with him while she was vulnerable.
She had never shown Ethan her human form. But the bastard hadn't needed to see it. He had told her, with that insufferably sincere voice of his, that he didn't need to see her human form to know how beautiful she was.
That her dragon form alone told him everything he needed to know… he even said she looked more beautiful in her true form than most humans. And those words had caused her heart to do something it had never done before—something that felt warm and terrifying and completely unwelcome.
She had been a fool to trust a human. Those weak, fragile, disgustingly short-lived things that scurried across the universe like insects. But Ethan was the worst of them all. He was the most dangerous insect she had ever encountered, and he needed to die.
She was an elder of the Dragon Empire—one of the most respected beings in her entire race—and she had been badly injured by a demon when Ethan found her. Ethan had hidden her on this desolate planet and had been by herself, ensuring that she was okay.
It was bad enough that a human had saved her life. It was worse that she had fallen in love with one. And it was beyond unforgivable that she had slept with him.
"He has to die!" She roared, her voice shaking the planet beneath her, her eyes bloodshot with a fury that had been building for years. She had to erase this shame. Until Ethan was dead and the memory of him was burned from existence, she could never return home.
***
Within a dark dimension that existed between the cracks of reality, a red-skinned demon could be seen sitting on a throne of black stone, her clawed fingers gripping a report on Ethan so tightly that the edges of the paper were beginning to smolder. Yeah, Rosa wasn't Ethan's first demon. This woman right here was—and unlike Rosa, she had been sent to kill him on purpose.
The demon race had grown increasingly uneasy with how rapidly Ethan was improving humanity's capabilities. His inventions, his businesses, his underground network—all of it was tipping the balance of the war in humanity's favor, and the demons wanted it stopped at the source. So they had sent her to eliminate him. It should have been simple. He was a mortal. A cripple. One strike, and it would have been over.
But she was a talker. She talked too much, and Ethan had weaponized that against her. He had used their conversations to plant ideas in her head—that he could be an asset to the demon race rather than a target, that working with him would benefit them far more than killing him ever could.
She had foolishly listened, going so far as to let his words charm her into lowering her guard completely. And even though she had known what was happening, even though every instinct she had was screaming at her to stop, Ethan had slept with her anyway. And then, true to form, he had run for his life the moment it was over.
That bastard dared to make her feel heaven—true, genuine, soul-shaking pleasure—and then left her behind like she was nothing. She hated him. She hated him so deeply and so completely that the hatred alone had fueled her breakthrough to Martial Emperor, propelling her through a bottleneck that should have taken centuries to overcome.
That rage had carried her all the way to becoming a general in the Demon Lord's army, one of the most feared commanders on the battlefield—and every drop of that power had been born from her desire to make Ethan suffer.
"If I don't torture your soul…" She said, her eyes burning with hatred as they locked onto a picture of Ethan—one where he was smiling that infuriatingly charming smile back at her, as though he knew exactly where the picture would end up and who would be looking at it. She crushed the paper in her fist, watching it disintegrate into ash, and stood from her throne to prepare her forces for an assault on Earth.