Rivers of the Night

Chapter 763: Alfone

The space around Theron solidified. If before it had been the vaguest of feelings, now it felt as though the hand of a god had constrained the very air around him.

Heavy and shuddering, it squeezed down as though to take his life in a suffocating vacuum of air.

Theron’s aura flared.

Space reacted to a surge of heat and cold, a dichotomy of dancing, fluctuating temperatures that oscillated with the pace of Theron’s will. In that moment, the old woman seemed to feel something slip from her control and Theron took a step forward.

Chi.

Space shattered, the space Theron had just been standing in folding in on itself. If one looked right through it, it would look as though the scenery on the other side had been distorted and compressed through odd, mirrored angles. Straight lines became crooked and curved, and curved lines became sharp and angled. Up was down and down was up, a mishmash of confusing sensory signals sending even one’s Third Eye into a spiral.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed, and she raised a palm as though to end things with more finality. Before, she had only made a casual gesture toward the region, space reacting more to her emotions than her intent. But now, as far as she was concerned, Theron was finished.

"Granny Chu, there’s no need for you to take action personally on such a matter," the voice of a confident young man came from the groom’s sedan. His voice, while not particularly deep, carried hints of arrogant authority and lofty sentiments.

Space vibrated to his tone, and the distorted space in the region Theron had just been standing in actually mended itself, forming and reforming until reality had smoothed out perfectly.

"Please, take my bride inside. I will only be but a moment."

The groom’s sedan came to a stop, and a flash of silver and blue robes flapped in the winds as a foot stepped out.

The foot landed on air, compressing it not with the abilities of a Cloud Mancer, but as though it had truly become solid amidst a compression of space.

The step rippled like fine glass, looking beautiful to the sight and impenetrable by might other than Alfone’s alone.

He took another step and then another until he was standing in the streets. Taking a look around, Alfone shook his head.

"It seems my dowry will need a bit of a facelift," he sighed to himself before his gaze landed on Theron.

Alfone held out a palm, and a silvery blade appeared. It was a simple straight sword—or so it seemed. After a slight glimmer, the blade became longer, more curved. It reflected the light of the dim rays above, the clouds Theron had blown apart actually beginning to expand once more and swallow up what sunlight remained.

Even so, the glimmer of the now long, curved katana wasn’t affected in the slightest.

Interesting, Theron thought to himself.

The katana was at least seven feet long, but a weapon of such a size was inconvenient to carry around, so Alfone seemed to have decided to shrink it.

But what was interesting about this was the fact Alfone wasn’t carrying it around in a normal sense. He had plucked it out from a pocket in space just now, as though a piece of paper he had folded several times into a smaller footprint, only to unfold it when it was most convenient.

Without a single attack, Theron could feel that Alfone’s skill was far beyond Orchu’s, and even that of the sedan drivers. He just might very well rival the old woman despite his cultivation being two tiers lower at the Eighth Resonance of the Dome of Heaven Realm.

It was too bad.

Theron’s wrist flicked, and his spear spun in his palm, sliding to the back of his hand as though a trick of a dagger rather than the movement of a weapon as heavy as a mountain.

Turning his hand back over, Theron caught it with a satisfying pa.

Trails of darkness had followed the blade everywhere it went—lines, cyclones, and churning black spilling out into the atmosphere until it seemed as though Theron would vanish into his own inky cloud construction.

Chi.

The space around him relaxed, and Alfone’s not-so-subtle assassination attempt failed completely.

Theron didn’t say anything else as he took a step forward. Alfone wanted to fight? He would gladly oblige.

In a flash, he had already appeared before Alfone, who somehow seemed to be lagging. The latter was still staring up into the skies where Theron had once been, as though he was far too slow to keep up.

And yet, just when Theron was about to skewer his throat through, his pupils constricted and he vanished.

Chi.

A curved katana slid right through the space where Theron had just been, his foggy black afterimage being cut in two seamlessly. The streets split apart, the skies above reacting in kind.

The sharpness of the space was unconscionable. Unlike Theron’s earlier attack, it wasn’t a residual strength that caused the clouds to react. Alfone’s blade was simply so sharp that the subtle cut kilometers around affected even those regions.

Theron appeared once more, looking down at his robes to find a fine cut down the outermost exterior. It was subtle to the point that most wouldn’t have normally noticed.

But he certainly had.

Theron pursed his lips a bit and nodded as though to say, not bad. Quite frankly, he hadn’t had any intentions of getting into a long, drawn-out struggle against those of his generation. He had expected the real battle to begin with the old fogies, but it seemed he was wrong.

If others could hear Theron’s thoughts, they might very well think he was being ridiculous...

In what way was Alfone, a man ten or more years his senior...

In his generation?

Theron’s knees relaxed into a calm stance, and he exhaled a breath. He guessed that he could still be a bit more serious.