Within the Immortals' Union, on a planet known for its ancient warrior traditions, a Japanese woman geared up in full samurai armor stood alone in a training hall, her sword pointed at a practice dummy that had been deliberately dressed to look like Ethan.
She held the stance with perfect stillness, hatred smoldering behind her eyes like embers that refused to die, the tip of her blade hovering inches from the dummy's throat. She had been standing like this for hours.
Then she paused. Something shifted in the air—a notification.
She reached into her armor and pulled out her phone, her eyes narrowing as she read the news of Ethan's upcoming marriage. She was a swordswoman—one who had dedicated her entire existence to the way of the blade, sacrificing everything else in pursuit of perfection.
Then Ethan had appeared in her life, and she hated him for it. She hated how she had once used her love for him as fuel to grow stronger, channeling the warmth of those feelings into her training until her blade moved with a passion it had never held before.
But after she discovered that what she thought was something real had been nothing more than a one-night stand to him, she had taken that love and forged it into hatred—a hatred so sharp and so refined that it had carried her all the way to Martial Emperor.
She was now titled the strongest female swordswoman in the entire human domain, and her name was Shiro. Every ounce of skill she possessed, every breakthrough she had achieved, every battle she had won—all of it had been built on the foundation of what Ethan had done to her. And now, all of that hatred she had stored away, sealed and compressed like a blade locked in its sheath, was about to be drawn and unleashed upon her worst enemy.
***
More such events were unfolding across the stars, one after another. Thousands of beings were turning toward Earth, dropping everything they were doing and rushing forward with a single shared purpose: to kill the bastard known as Ethan.
Well, some of them wanted to kill him. Others felt that death was far too kind and had more creative plans in mind involving prolonged torture, soul extraction, and punishments that would make even a demon wince.
The wedding was broadcast live to every corner of the human domain. Every screen, every communication tower, every magical display—all of it was tuned in. Ethan could be seen standing at the altar, dressed in a stunning suit that he had personally designed.
Ethan had stepped into the fashion world years ago and had introduced concepts like suits, jeans, dresses, and other modern clothing styles into this world, reshaping how people thought about what they wore. And today, he was wearing the finest piece he had ever created—a perfectly tailored suit that made him look like he had been carved out of marble.
But underneath the sharp appearance, the reality was far less glamorous. Ethan was chained. His wrists were bound, his feet were locked in place, and his mouth had been sealed shut with a formation that prevented him from speaking. He wasn't even allowed to reject anything—he was being forced into this marriage whether he wanted it or not, standing at the altar like a prisoner at his own execution.
Ethan's eyes moved across the crowd gathered before him, and what he saw made his blood run cold. The audience was almost entirely female, and every single one of them was barely holding herself back from rushing the stage.
Most of them weren't here for the ceremony—they were waiting to see who the bride was, completely ignoring the fact that Ethan was visibly being forced into this against his will. Sweat beaded across his forehead and rolled down the side of his face as he recognized faces in the crowd. Martial Emperors.
He counted them quickly—he had slept with a total of eleven Martial Emperors over the course of his life, and one Demi-God. So why were there twelve Martial Emperors sitting in the audience?
He spotted the Blood Queen near the back of the venue, sitting with her legs crossed and her arms folded, completely relaxed and unbothered by her surroundings. She looked like someone who had arrived early to a show she already knew the ending to.
She had kidnapped him once—that wasn't something a person forgot easily—and the calm radiating off of her was somehow more terrifying than if she had been openly furious.
Then there was Shiro, the Japanese swordswoman. She was harder to miss, even in a crowd of Martial Emperors. He avoided making eye contact with her, because every time his gaze drifted in her direction, he could feel it—her killing intent pressing against him like the edge of a blade held a hair's width from his throat. It was barely contained, trembling with a restraint that felt like it could snap at any second. She hadn't decided to act yet, but the moment she did, he knew there wouldn't be a warning.
There was a sea of female disciples from the Ice Phoenix Sect filling the venue. Normally, they were the picture of cold, untouchable beauty—the kind of women who could freeze a man's blood with a glance and not lose a second of sleep over it. But right now, every single one of them was looking at Ethan with open, undisguised hatred.
And standing among them was their sect ancestor, a Martial Emperor whose killing intent alone was enough to make the air feel heavy, flanked by the sect's eight Elders, each one a Martial Emperor in their own right. Together, they formed a wall of feminine fury that could have leveled a small country.
He also noticed the silver-haired woman seated near the front—the dragon clan elder he had slept with. The fact that she wasn't lashing out, wasn't screaming, wasn't trying to tear the building apart to get to him, was somehow more terrifying than if she had been.
She was arrogant by nature, the kind of woman who would burn down a city over a perceived slight without a second thought. But right now, she was holding back, sitting perfectly still, and glaring at him with a hatred so pure and so concentrated that it made every survival instinct in his body scream at once.
Her restraint was what made him uneasy. A woman like her holding back meant she was planning something far worse than a simple outburst.
That accounted for all eleven Martial Emperors he had slept with. Every single one of them was in this room, spread across the venue like landmines waiting to go off. But there was one among them who stood out—a woman wearing black leather, lounging in her seat with the posture of a street thug rather than a cultivator of her caliber.
She sat with one leg crossed over the other, leaning back like she owned the place and was bored by everything in it… and Ethan didn't recall ever coming across her. he would definitely remember her... she's smoking hot.
But he couldn't afford to look at her for too long. Every second his gaze lingered in any direction that wasn't the floor, the killing intent from the hundreds of females whose eyes were locked onto him spiked to dangerous levels.
There were more than a thousand women packed into this venue—so many that there weren't enough seats for all of them. Some were standing along the walls, others were crowded outside the doors, visibly annoyed that they couldn't make it inside to witness the event firsthand.
What was worth noting was that just about every single one of them was wearing white… something that, traditionally, only the bride should be wearing on a day like this. So that was pretty rude of all of them, to put it mildly.
It was a statement—a collective, unspoken declaration that every woman in this room considered herself more deserving of standing at that altar than whoever was about to walk down the aisle.
Oh… and then there was Iris. The Demi God ancestor of the United Empire herself. She was almost invisible—her presence so thoroughly suppressed that no one in the room had noticed her. No one but Ethan.
His eyes found her the moment he scanned the crowd, locking onto her position without any difficulty at all. She noticed, and her eyes narrowed dangerously at the realization that a mortal had picked her out that easily.
But it wasn't his natural senses that had done it—his armor's detection systems had picked up on traces of her aura even through the masterful job she had done concealing it. Without the suit, he would have missed her entirely.
"Welcome all to this wonderful day. Ethan, would you like to make a speech?" The priest asked with a warm smile, turning toward Ethan, who blinked rapidly in a silent, desperate plea for help that no one answered.
"None? Alright, looks like you can't wait to see your bride," the priest said cheerfully, and the room detonated with killing intent so thick and so violent that Ethan could practically taste it on his tongue. He almost cried. He was here against his will—dragged, collared, and forced into this ceremony without a single say in the matter—and yet somehow, he was the one they were blaming? He was the victim here. He was innocent.
"Well, let's welcome the bride." The priest said with a smile that was either brave or suicidal given the atmosphere, and every female in the venue tensed at once. Their eyes locked onto the stage with the intensity of predators watching prey emerge from cover. They wanted to see the woman. They wanted to see the bitch who thought she could claim Ethan in front of all of them.
Next to Ethan, darkness began to gather—pooling from the shadows in the corners of the room, bleeding up from the floor, swirling together in a column of pure black that slowly, elegantly, took on the shape of a woman. But she wasn't wearing white like tradition demanded. Instead, even her wedding dress followed a goth theme—black lace, dark fabric, a design that looked more like something pulled from the depths of a nightmare than a bridal catalog. It suited her perfectly.
Raven materialized fully, ignoring the crowd entirely as though a thousand murderous women simply didn't register as worth her attention, and walked up to Ethan with unhurried steps. She smiled softly when she saw how he was staring at her, stunned by the sight. But the moment lasted only a second before Ethan forced his eyes shut, feeling the death stares boring into him from every angle like physical pressure against his skin.
"So, you're the bitch." A chilling voice cut through the silence from the crowd… except it wasn't one voice. It was a hundred—a chorus of rage from women who couldn't hold back any longer. Their cultivation erupted outward all at once, auras flaring and crashing against each other as they unleashed their power. Many of them were at Martial Grand Master, with the stronger ones radiating the pressure of Martial Lords.
"You stole my man!" They cried in unison, and Ethan stood there, genuinely baffled. When exactly did he become their man...?