Chapter 240: A Clear Slap!

Chapter 240

Julian turned around sharply, with his expression already twisted into that familiar sneer of his. He looked like he was fully prepared to unleash a torrent of insults on whoever in their right senses just had the audacity to speak to him like that.

But the moment his dog eyes landed on the source of the voice, the irritation that had clearly been on his face instantly melted away, replaced almost instantaneously by a look of dumbstruck admiration.

Well, that was because the woman standing there, who was calmly setting her drink down on the bar counter, was without a doubt even more stunning than the one he’d been flirting with just moments ago. Like she f*ckin looked hot as hell.

Alex’s jaw tightened slightly as he realized who exactly had spoken up. It was Sylph. Of course it was her. Moments ago she had been silently sipping her drink beside him, seemingly indifferent to the entire spectacle unfolding a few feet away, but apparently Ella’s discomfort hadn’t gone unnoticed by her either.

Julian’s lips curled into a shameless, greasy grin as he looked Sylph up and down without even trying to hide it like someone with a bit of common sense.

"Well, well, well," he drawled, straightening up and smoothing down the front of his obnoxiously expensive shirt. "What a truly beautiful woman. Forget the appetizer, I think I just found my main course for the night."

He took a step toward her, completely abandoning whatever interest he had previously had in Ella, and his eyes began to practically gleaming with entitled hunger.

"Hey there, babe. How about you ditch this boring corner of the bar and come have a real drink with someone who actually knows how to treat a woman like you deserve?"

Sylph’s expression, which had remained mostly neutral up until this point, turned unmistakably cold, and she narrowed her honey-colored eyes with a warning gaze that was probably sharp enough to cut through glass.

"Last warning," she said in a low and frosty voice. "Scram, or else."

Julian, predictably, didn’t take the warning seriously at all. If anything, it seemed to amuse him further, and his grin widened into something even more greedy and presumptuous.

"Or else what?" he challenged, leaning in slightly with an infuriating smirk. "You gonna suck me out of here with those pretty lips of yours? Though, I gotta say, I really wouldn’t mind that idea one bit. Haha."

The words had barely left his mouth before Sylph moved.

She rose smoothly from her seat and closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Alex watched with amusement as her palm connected with the side of Julian’s annoying face with a crack so loud it momentarily cut through the loud music of the club.

Julian was really lucky that the strength behind it was calculated, and just enough to shatter nearly half his teeth without actually killing him outright, which, given how casually she’d delivered it, was clearly an act of mercy on her part. If not he would have lost more than just a few teeth.

Julian spun a full circle from the sheer force of the impact before stumbling backward. And his knees couldn’t help buckling under his weight as he spat out a mouthful of blood along with five bloodstained teeth that clattered onto the polished floor.

"Young Master!" someone shouted in a panic from somewhere nearby, and within seconds, three fearsome looking men in dark suits came rushing over, steadying Julian on either side as he swayed unsteadily on his feet.

They were clearly his personal bodyguards who’d been lurking somewhere in the club keeping an eye on him.

It took Julian a good few seconds to regain his bearings, before he finally used his trembling hand to wipe at the blood dribbling down his chin. When his eyes finally refocused, they were bloodshot with pure rage at the sheer audacity of being humiliated like this in public, by a woman no less.

"Good," he muttered under his breath, voice shaking with rage. "Good. Good."

He repeated the word three times like some kind of unhinged mantra before snapping his fingers toward one of his men, barking out orders with his family’s influence to have the entire club cleared out immediately. Within minutes, security staff were scrambling to usher out patrons, citing some vague excuse about a private reservation, and the once-lively club began emptying out rapidly.

Allen, watching the drama unfold from across the bar, let out a soft sigh.

"Well," he muttered under his breath, shaking his head, "there goes my fun night."

Almost everyone filed out obediently under the club staff’s urging, except for Alex and the rest of his squad, who remained firmly seated, clearly having no intention of budging.

Julian, now flanked by his three bodyguards, turned his venomous glare back toward Sylph, with his voice dripping with wounded pride and malice.

"You lowly woman," he spat, blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth. "It was your great fortune, your great honor, to have someone like me take interest in you. And yet you dared to slap me with those filthy hands of yours?" His lips curled into an ugly, vindictive smile. "Tonight, I’m going to personally teach you a lesson on manners. And once I’m done correcting your attitude, I’ll let my men have their way with you afterward."

Sylph’s expression darkened several shades further, and her fingers curled into a fist at her side, clearly one more insult away from doing something far worse than simply slapping the blindsided fool.

But before she could move, Alex rose from his seat, causing his chair to scrape softly against the floor as he stepped forward.

"Bold words," he said calmly, "coming from someone like you." His tone carried none of the heat Sylph’s fury had, instead settling into something far colder and more dismissive. "It seems the lesson I taught you last time didn’t quite sink into that thick brain of yours. No worries though, I’ll be more than happy to help correct that now."

Julian opened his mouth, already prepared to curse out whoever had the nerve to interrupt him again, but the words died in his throat the instant he caught sight of those familiar forest-green eyes and that handsome, almost painfully perfect face staring back at him. A cold shiver crawled up his spine before he could stop it, muscle memory from their last encounter kicking in hard.

But then, almost as quickly, his posture straightened, and what looked very much like confidence returned to his face as he remembered the small fortune he’d spent over the past few weeks.

After Stone had first warned him that Alex might be an Awakened, Julian couldn’t sleep properly that night after instigating Renzo. The thought that he’d picked a fight with someone like that had terrified him enough to make him take action.

So through a friend who had connections in certain black market circles, he began desperately searching for an Awakened willing to serve as his personal bodyguard.

It had taken weeks, several dead end leads, and certainly hadn’t been cheap, but as luck would have it, he’d eventually managed to secure one, a man apparently sitting at something called the Early Realm. Not that Julian particularly understood or cared what that meant exactly, as long as the man was strong enough to protect him, that was all that mattered.

Even if hiring him had cost an arm and a leg, quite literally draining a significant chunk of his personal accounts, Julian had gritted his teeth and paid it without complaint.

With that thought bolstering his nerve, Julian straightened his spine and sneered, glancing between Sylph and Alex with renewed venom.

"Walker," he spat out the name like it tasted foul on his tongue. "I should have known it was because of you that this fiery little wildcat had the audacity to hit me." His sneer deepened, twisting into something particularly ugly. "But I have to ask you, you freaking prick, does Nyx know you’re running around with some hoe?"

Alex let out a low chuckle, though there was absolutely no humor behind it, and his forest-green eyes glinted dangerously under the club’s dim lighting.

"It really seems like you’ve grown even bolder since our last lesson," he mused, almost casually as if talking with a friend. "Seems I’ll have to give you another one, and this time, make sure it sticks permanently to that thick skull of yours."

Without waiting for a response, he began to calmly walk toward Julian at an unhurried pace.

Julian’s face trembled with a mix of panic and forced bravado as he quickly barked out an order, sending two of his bodyguards forward to intercept Alex before he could get any closer.

But the two men barely lasted a second. Alex handled them both with almost insulting ease, as effortlessly as a hydrogen bomb vs a coughing infant, with each strike so casual yet so devastating that they crumpled to the ground without even managing to land a single hit of their own. But of course he didn’t kill them, he just broke a few bones that was all.

Julian’s face paled considerably watching his men drop so effortlessly, but the third bodyguard, the one he’d paid a large fortune to acquire, merely sneered with disdain, looking completely unbothered by the sight.

Since he couldn’t sense even a single trace of primordial essence radiating off of Alex, that alone was enough to convince him that whoever this arrogant brat was, he clearly wasn’t an Awakened. Just some punk with decent enough fighting skills to handle a couple of lackeys, nothing more.

With that dismissive thought firmly cemented in his mind, the bodyguard rushed forward at an inhuman speed, which was more than fast enough to blindside any ordinary opponent.

But to Alex, who was watching him close the distance, the man’s speed felt agonizingly slow, almost laughably so, like watching a snail attempt to sprint across wet pavement.