Faintly, by her ear, she seemed to hear the sound of teeth grinding, as if some monster were pondering where to take its first bite for the freshest flesh.
She had imagined countless versions of her future, but she had never, ever expected to end up like this.
Trembling, she closed her eyes.
Yet what she had expected did not happen. All she heard was a shrill, miserable howl.
She instinctively opened her eyes and saw a demonic monster being dragged out of Father Zhao's shadow by Zhao Cheng with one hand. The monster was still struggling, trying to return to the shadow, but it was all in vain.
Zhao Cheng's five fingers were like iron pincers. The monster's head had already twisted out of shape in his grip, as though with just a little more force, it would burst with a bang.
But that was not the most crucial part. The most crucial part was that with every breath Zhao Cheng took, his muscles continued to swell. In an instant, they burst apart the fitted formalwear he had been wearing, revealing sinews that looked as though they had been cast from gold and iron.
The lines across his back faintly formed the character for "tyrant."
Across his skin, sun-like patterns spread at tremendous speed, as though he bore a blazing sun upon his back.
Father Zhao and Mother Zhao, who stood closest, had both gone completely blank. They had never imagined that their son, whom they had always considered weak and incapable, possessed such a side.
The stern, tyrannical intent surging from Zhao Cheng's body at this moment, like the sun itself, felt countless times more terrifying to them than when the old master had once displayed his own power.
It was as if a sun had truly been