Rivers of the Night

Chapter 733: Bad Karma

Theron didn’t seem to react to the word very much. One would have thought he hadn’t heard them at all.

As far as he was concerned, there were only so many ways that Lyrah could have ended up here, and the fact it was related to her daughter was probably at the very top of that list.

That said, considering she was standing here, just fine and seemingly without injury, also made it pretty clear that this wasn’t exactly a life-and-death situation. At the very least, if they were in the family, the Umbra Clan Head wasn’t going to let anything too overt happen to his daughter and her mother.

If the Umbra Clan Head was so open to such things, then his wives wouldn’t have had to be so cautious with how they dealt with Lyra and Lyrah.

The cultivation world wasn’t exactly known for its mercy. These two would have been uprooted at the root long ago if it was that easy.

Clearly, it wasn’t.

The fact that Lyrah had had a guard for so many years, hidden away in secret, only made it all the more obvious.

Of course, one might wonder, then, how it was the likes of Patriarch Nightingale got a sliver of her soul, but these were likewise obviously matters that happened many years apart.

Patriarch Nightingale targeted children with extremely great potential while they were still at their most immature stages, while a Lyrah worth being protected by Ilzan would have already given birth to a child for the Umbra Patriarch.

Clearly, these two timelines weren’t in alignment.

This was all to say that Theron... didn’t care.

He had too many other problems to deal with, and he wasn’t quite in position to deal with the Umbra just yet. He had killed a Seventh Resonance Dome of Heaven Mancer just now, but that was on the contingency that he used the latter’s Dome of Heaven Mana and, well... the fact he was "only" in the Seventh Resonance.

The Umbra likely didn’t have any King Realm experts, from what Theron could tell from the information he had already gathered, but there was about a 50-50 chance that they’d have at least one Quasi King.

Theron had killed one of those before too, but a chain reaction of nuclear-reactive bombs wasn’t going to present itself to him so easily again, nor was he a fan of using such methods.

If he was going down such a path, he could have just used the network of information and pawns Patriarch Nightingale had left behind and executed his victory flawlessly long ago.

This wasn’t what he wanted.

He wanted something to push himself... but not kill himself.

Obviously, the difference between those two was slim, but it was clear as day for him here.

He would need to enter Cloud Mancy to succeed, and he was still two half-steps from that.

When Lyrah saw Theron’s lack of a reaction, her heart fell to the pit of her stomach. She opened her mouth to say something else, but in the end, her lips pressed together in silence.

This was the reality of the cultivation world. How old was she? How would she not know this?

Plus, what right did she have to ask Theron to help her?

In truth, she had only asked for two reasons. First, because Theron was so much more powerful than herself she couldn’t see his limits. To her, he had killed a Seventh Resonance Dome of Heaven expert so easily—two of them, in fact—so maybe the Umbra Clan wasn’t much of a challenge to him anymore.

And second, she had somewhat hoped that Theron might at least have the smallest bit of feelings for her daughter, considering how much she pined over him every day.

But clearly... she had thought too much.

She had never asked anyone for help in her life, but to think the first time she would, it would be for a child not even half her age to put his life on the line for her.

A child she had basically abandoned at his greatest time of need no more than a few weeks ago.

The more she thought about it, the more ashamed she felt.

"Why would a mid-tier Dome of Heaven expert know about the secrets of a General of such esteem?" Theron suddenly asked.

It was like he was talking into the wind, but when Lyrah looked up, it somehow felt like he was giving her a chance. She couldn’t explain it or even put a finger on it—even barely—but she knew.

But she didn’t have an answer.

She practically did all she could but shake her head vigorously with her own hands, hoping that the juices would flow and an answer would come to her.

Theron didn’t seem to sense her struggle at all. His gaze landed on a certain young master in the distance who had known better than to move even a single inch.

Venicin shook when he felt Theron’s gaze. "I don’t know. Ilzan has always been odd. His path doesn’t match with our own and he’s been seen as a sign of bad luck to the family—"

"I know!" Lyrah’s eyes practically shot out beams of steaming cold when she heard Venicin’s words.

Theron slowly looked back toward her, his face the picture of something that shouldn’t have ever shown on a boy so young.

Lyrah regained her composure and met the gaze. She had her own pride, and as far as she was concerned, the only reason she hadn’t wiped the Umbra Clan off the face of the map herself already was because of Patriarch Nightingale.

"If I tell you, I want my soul sliver back," she said firmly.

"Okay," Theron replied. He truly didn’t care, and while she was speaking of things that concerned her, he was pretty confident in himself as well. Her soul could be thrice as strong, and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

But at the very least, he could appreciate the fact she was bold enough to draw such a line.

He pulled the King Soul Lamp out and tossed it to her. Then, he tossed her personal Soul Lamp at her as well.

She could have both. He wasn’t even sure how the re-extraction process worked, but since it was her soul, he was sure she’d have a better go at it.

Lyrah trembled. She didn’t expect it to be so easy.

If she had this sliver of her soul back, combined with her now healed soul thanks to reaching the Quasi Dome of Heaven Realm back then, her new prowess would hit a new tier entirely.

It would be like fusing back together two halves when one of the halves had already become its own whole. The result would be far greater than the original sum.

How many decades had it been since she’d seen this piece of her? Despite the length of time... it felt so very familiar, so very warm...

"Thank you," she said softly. She knew well that Theron didn’t have to do this if he didn’t want to. "I’m not sure if you know about the backstory between the Umbra and the Nightingales—"

"I know," Theron replied.

Lyrah nodded. "In that case, you know that the Umbra are very obsessed with not following in the footsteps of the Nightingales. Some of them even somewhat believe that their bloodlines were always designed to be inferior and think that the only way to become dominant is to wipe out all the Nightingales that remain, but they are a small minority.

"Regardless, when deviations like Ilzan are born, they’re often treated as bastards even if their original standings were high."

Mancy affinity was most often decided by blood relation, but there would always be deviations. Theron himself was technically one as well, though he was the more common type—an offshoot of a rarer affinity into a lesser affinity—from Ice to Water.

But Ilzan was a complete deviation. Born into a family of Dark Mancers, he had somehow become an Ice Mancer. This was the far rarer form of deviation, and to the Umbra who were obsessed with not experiencing their day of Karma, he was little more than a scourge.

"The Umbra have many superstitions, and that very same small minority I mentioned likely wanted to kill Ilzan at birth. But while deviations are rare, at the scale of a Clan of the Umbra’s size, it’s just not practical to kill every one of them.

"Many would also be born to those of high standing, and it would be impossible for every one of them to be okay with their kin being slaughtered for reasons most of them thought were ridiculous.

"So there was likely a compromise made—one that’s used to offset the bad Karma they believe is involved.

"One such way is to join the Resistance Army. Many families do this to raise their Karma in the world, but it can be said that the vast majority only send their fringe members, as being a member is far too dangerous for the heirs they truly value. Only on rare occasion will there be exceptions made."

Theron continued staring at Lyrah because while she was explaining how Ilzan might have known, it wasn’t enough. A normal foot soldier, even of the same army, shouldn’t be aware of such sensitive information.

Lyrah, though, was unfazed as she got to the crux.

"This was supposed to be a compromise, something both sides could agree on. The divergent might likely die, but even if they didn’t, they should manage to offset the bad Karma they brought with their birth.

"But this actually ended up being far more effective than the Umbra Clan could have ever imagined. As far as I can tell, the resources they’ve put toward the Resistance Army is far higher than other Clans of their caliber...

"I believe there is a secret involved here."