Rivers of the Night

Chapter 727: Trust

Theron never realized that he would have such a hard time trusting someone else.

Logically, he knew the Alpha wasn’t a fool, he knew it wasn’t trying to kill him, he knew it probably had a plan. Right about now, its understanding of [Entangling Clone] was most certainly deeper than Theron’s own. While the other three techniques Theron could cast himself and get a feel for, this one he could not.

It was only natural, then, that the Alpha would have insights and be able to see paths he could not.

But while Theron knew this, every fiber of his being was screaming at him to do something, to take control, to veer their path differently and execute the half a dozen personal plans he had already come up with.

His entire body tensed and his muscles flexed so hard that he could feel them tearing as though they were under great strain, lifting a weight he could never push away because... the weight itself didn’t even exist.

Theron was about to reach his tipping point. The only thing that had kept him sitting in place was the very logic that he had always relied on his entire life.

And yet, right this moment, he felt mere inches away from becoming the very same irrational being he seemed to outsmart all the time.

He had his own flaws, his own times when logic alone wasn’t enough to dictate things. But in this regard, it wasn’t positive in the slightest. In fact, his act of clenching his muscles with such force was actually bearing down on the sides of the Alpha’s ribcage, restricting its breathing and slowing its forward progress.

The Alpha, though, didn’t so much as whimper. There was a flash of determination in its eyes, a violent upswell of might that carried echoes of Veinsong itself.

Its next stride came with a palm that clawed through the world and hit the rock with such force that everything around it glowed crimson and filled with cracks.

BOOM.

Theron vaguely felt the formation of another skill, yet another that he was entirely unfamiliar with. And in a flashing instant, he went from walls collapsed down around him to suddenly soaring beneath open blue skies.

A sharp intake of air ravaged Theron’s lungs, and he found the winds to be almost too sweet and free. Compared to the dingy underbelly of the world he had just been in, this was an entire world of difference.

Theron didn’t register how they had suddenly escaped the collapse at all. But before he could cobble together his disjointed thoughts and stretch out his tense body...

BOOM.

The ground beneath them collapsed. Or, it was more accurate to say that an entire mountain range did.

For kilometers around, ancient strongholds that had stood for millions of years crumbled before Theron’s eyes, and for a moment, Theron could only take in the devastation with the realization that this was probably... his fault.

He hadn’t expected things to go so far, but in reality, although he did technically trigger it all, the fault wasn’t entirely at his feet. If this organization hadn’t hollowed out all of these mountains, trying to make more and more space for whatever reason, they wouldn’t have suffered nearly so egregiously.

Unfortunately for Theron, it was hard to gloat at this moment.

It was a rule he had learned in his library.

Every action had an equal and opposite reaction.

If such a large swath of land suddenly collapsed, all the air that had been within it had to be forced out somewhere, the world had to react somehow, and Theron, who was in the air along with a half-shriveled Alpha...

BOOM.

A wall of wind hit Theron so fast his sight went completely black.

...

Theron’s coughing woke him up long before his eyesight did. He felt like he was inhaling ash itself. The air was not only hot, but it was filled with large particles too small to settle down to the ground, but too large to breathe without feeling as though gravel was clawing down your throat.

Groaning, Theron slowly pulled himself out of the rubble, his thoughts swimming in his mind as though boiling in vats of water. He couldn’t seem to catch any one of them before their bubbles popped.

Theron knew that he couldn’t possibly have much time to work with. Wherever this was, the commotion had been shocking. There were undoubtedly powerhouses on the way here.

’How long?’ Theron asked the Nightingale Ancestor Bird.

’Three hours.’

Theron pulled the rest of his body out of the pile. When he heard the reply, he couldn’t help but frown.

His body was in an incredibly poor state right now. It felt like at least 70% of his bones were at least fractured, if not split clean through.

For him to have been out for three hours, it was likely that the previous state of his body had been even worse, and this was just the result of his powerful body acting to heal him in the margins.

He couldn’t imagine how bad it must have been before for things to end up like this.

Theron’s mind flashed to the Alpha. If it had been three hours and he hadn’t already been killed or harassed, it was either the powerhouses interested in all of this hadn’t bothered to deal with him, or there weren’t any powerhouses left to come and investigate all of this.

What Theron was sure of, though, was that the only person who should be aware that he was responsible for it all should be dead. That being Betrix.

Theron suddenly frowned as he sensed a familiar aura in the distance.

Pulling himself up the rest of the way, he limped forward, scaling up a pile of rubble until he could look over the other side. He had no choice but to do this if he was going to be cautious with his Third Eye.

But the sight he saw left his eyes as cold as ice.