Rivers of the Night

Chapter 738: Slip

BOOM.

Palm and spear met, a cascade of explosions and shattering air radiating out in all directions, only to spill into the shadows of the world and vanish without a trace.

To the two of them, it felt like the world was ending, but to anyone just outside the range of their battle, there was little more than silence...

Until the wall of wind reacted.

Waves of elite guards were sent flying back from their positions, their attempts to close in and surround Theron falling in failure.

And then Analisc’s lips curled into a sneer.

Her palm exploded in size—not in a projection of flesh and blood, but instead in a pulsing wall of darkness that overshadowed everything in its path.

Suddenly, Theron felt as though all of his strength vanished—not from his arms and legs, but instead from his blade itself. It felt like he was pushing into a wave of air, and yet he wasn’t able to move forward. It was the most peculiar feeling he had ever experienced.

His eyes, still lost in a daze, seemed to become even less focused as the mechanics of the technique were reworked in his mind. It moved quickly until he slammed into a wall, realizing that it was formed of mechanisms he had never seen before.

Analisc’s palm pressed forward, and Theron was blown back—and yet not very far at all. There was a constant push and pull that was keeping him off balance, his spear not listening to him the way it usually did.

Suddenly, Theron caught a sleeve coming at his head from the corner of his eye.

He knew that it was already too late to move. When he felt the suction force coming from it, he realized that it was only all the more impossible.

The weight of it pressed down on him, and the power and momentum made him feel extremely small.

There was no way he could take such an attack head-on. The gap in raw power and defenses was too wide.

Theron suddenly released his spear and slipped away.

Analisc was shocked for a moment, her arm swinging at the air as she took a step back. She had never met a Mancer who would ever give up their weapon like this.

The problem was that Theron never treated the spear as his weapon. At most, it was a nice ornament to use from time to time. If they wanted to see the extent of his skill, that would appear when he dual-wielded his blades.

But they were not worthy of this either.

The Eighth Resonance of the Dome of Heaven... they were quite powerful indeed.

But it was also clear to him that this woman hadn’t fought a real battle in a very long time. Maybe she had never stepped foot onto that vaunted Resistance Battlefield at all.

She clearly had some skill, probably some reflexes she had honed in her very early youth. But since then, a soft life had smoothed over her edges, rounded out her sharpness.

She didn’t know what it felt like to wade through seas of fire and rivers of blood like he did.

Analisc stumbled, having committed far too much to her swing and not being ready for the heft of the spear she was now holding under her own power. She wasn’t able to fully control her body in time.

Nor could she react to Theron’s Third Eye blanketing the region and suddenly taking control of the dense Dark Mana in the air...

And then instantly converting it all to Water Mana.

[Seaglass Canon].

It sparkled and shimmered, the runes drawn with such speed and precision one would have never thought that this was a Spell that usually took a Gold Mancer upwards of 10 seconds to complete casting, even at Adept Mastery.

But not only was Theron beyond Adept Mastery...

He was no normal Gold Mancer.

BOOM.

It was just a small hiccup in the battle. The stumble was barely a half-step, if that. She recovered just as quickly, standing up to her feet and beginning to circulate her Mana in counter.

But it was all useless.

Theron didn’t even look at the result. He knew it probably wasn’t enough to kill this woman. Not only was she strong—who knew how many lifesaving trump cards she had on her as the Patriarch’s wife? Beyond that, he was sure that such a woman had real guards protecting her from the shadows—guards that didn’t think he was much of a threat until this very moment.

And in that small opening, when they were underestimating him...

He made his move.

In a flash, Theron had already appeared on the teleportation platform, the Nightingale Spear suddenly gaining life and spirit as it took advantage of Analisc’s horror to rip itself out of her hands and rush to Theron’s side.

Theron actually didn’t care about leaving the spear behind here if he had to. If the Umbra cared so much about it, they wouldn’t have left it with the Nightingales for so long. There was, of course, the option that the Umbra didn’t know about the whereabouts of the spear, but even in that case, it was little skin off of Theron’s back.

He didn’t think that the Nightingale Ancestor would go as far as to use one of its charges to ensure it could return to Theron. It seemed that... it quite liked it on this side.

Theron slammed a foot down on the teleportation platform, thanking his forward-thinking for learning how formations worked. If he hadn’t, there was no way he would have been able to finish things out in time.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Theron sensed several surging auras, but they weren’t rushing toward him at all—they were all rushing to protect their charge, the mistress of their Clan.

But even if they had been coming for him, it was already too late.

A laser of blue split the city in two as Theron vanished beneath the strong pulses of space.