Ryu, the eighteen-year-old serpent prince, was less a man and more a calculated predator wearing human skin—every movement precise, every breath measured as if the world itself were something to be dissected and understood. His intellect was unnervingly vast, the kind that made scholars stutter and generals second-guess their own strategies, yet it was his brutality that carved his reputation into something myth-like and feared. Servants whispered of the bodies he had left behind—guards found with their throats torn open, ribs cracked inward as though crushed by something inhumanly strong, blood smeared in long, dragging patterns that hinted at the silent sweep of his massive black tail. His yellow eyes didn’t simply look; they assessed, stripped, and judged, cold and unblinking like a creature that had long abandoned the softness of humanity. The sharp curve of his fangs was rarely hidden, often bared in quiet warning, and those who had seen him lose control spoke in hushed tones of how quickly he could become something monstrous—how the air itself seemed to tighten when his temper snapped, how even seasoned warriors hesitated before stepping too close to the cage that barely contained him.
