Rivers of the Night

Chapter 776: Demon Doctrine

Theron sat in silent meditation, a frozen Lyra standing before him.

Leaving the scene was surprisingly easy when no one dared to even look at you. It was hard to blame them when Theron had quite literally just cut a King in two. Even the members of the Resistance Army present seemed to have completely forgotten that he had killed one of their own not long ago.

While Theron doubted that things would end so easily, at least for now, there was no one breathing down his neck.

He wasn’t sure what Ayame chose to do with the Umbra King. The last time Theron saw him, he was still alive, though mostly unable to battle. However, Theron didn’t really care... he would find out later.

Now, whether Ayame managed to get anything she needed from the Merchant King’s body, though... that was far more interesting to him. But once again, he would just have to find out later.

For the time being, his focus was Lyra.

In truth, he hadn’t gone to the wedding purely to save her. In fact, even now, he hadn’t brought her here because he had a wild urge to save her. He more so wanted to test out his Demon Doctrine and see how effective it was against the formations restricting her.

That said...

Lyra had always been kind to him. He felt that he couldn’t go through life treating everything as a perfect exchange.

He had used her to get to her mother. The least he could do was help her, especially if it was ultimately going to help him in the end.

Theron’s eyes opened with a sudden sharpness and he began to scan her body, his pupils jumping from the earrings hanging from her ears to the jewels wrapped around her ankles, and then toward the interlocking formations that swam between them.

They were invisible to most naked eyes, but not Theron’s.

Ever since he absorbed the Angel and Demon Doctrines, his eyesight had changed, allowing him to see formations without any other special methods.

Every Formation Master had a method exactly like this one. But something so seamless and uninvolved was very rare.

The foundational method most Formation Masters used was learning to pour Soul Mana into their eyes, using it as a filter to see formations.

Non-Soul Mancers could do this as well, but it took a lot more effort and practice. Essentially, they had to have a Soul Method like [Songful Blade] or [Blood Escape], techniques that allowed one to directly control the energy of their soul.

For obvious reasons, Soul Mancers had a far easier time of it.

Spirit Mancers had a harder time than Soul Mancers, but still a far easier time than Flux and Elemental Mancers. And unlike the latter two groups, they didn’t need an external Soul Method either.

It had to be remembered that the dividing line between Soul and Spirit Mancers was how they applied their souls.

Soul Mancers gave, while Spirit Mancers took. The former were the usual Treasure Masters, Formation Masters, and Alchemists of the world, while the latter were the Necromancers and Beast Tamers.

If such existences knew that Theron had such a method, though, they might react even more fiercely than Matriarch Hall had when she thought Theron had a Soul Cultivation Method.

Ironically enough, Theron did have one... it just wasn’t one that he could share because it was tied to his bloodline.

’Complicated...’

That was Theron’s final conclusion about the formations restricting Lyra.

He had a perfect understanding of Bronze Resonance Angel and Demon Doctrines. And now he had a stronger grasp of what they represented and what they were meant to do.

But what he didn’t have was the time to improve further beyond that.

That said... Theron had another advantage, that being his library.

With the improvement to his Third Eye and senses, his reading speed had accelerated to an exaggerated degree. When he first stepped foot into Nightingale Sect territory, he thought it would take him decades to finish the new books that appeared.

Since then, the library had increased in size every time he stepped onto a new world—especially ones that were stronger.

And yet... Theron had still completed over 80% of them.

His understanding of the fundamentals of the world, the science and physics that dictated it all, was impossibly strong. And because of that, every single understanding he came to in a small subsection of Formation Mastery counted for thousands of fold more than it should.

In Theron’s estimation, he only had a strong comprehension of Bronze-tier Formations. And yet, while he was calling the formations before him now complicated... what he wasn’t saying was that he couldn’t understand them at all.

These were restrictions drawn for the sake of restricting a Gold Mancer, but they were at the Cloud Resonance realm. A Bronze comprehension of them shouldn’t have been enough to grasp anything, and yet...

’These are entirely Cloud Resonance. The new, surface ones aren’t. But the original ones are only at Gold, namely the ones designed to restrict her cultivation talent and speed.’

Theron’s eyes glowed and he slowly pressed a finger forward.

A dark gold flame manifested and he pressed down.

Chi.

It was like a house of cards was crumbling right in front of him, and even Theron almost jumped back for a second.

He had targeted the first weakness he found, his only goal to start slowly unraveling the web.

But he had underestimated himself.

He thought that after that portion collapsed, he would just have to continue on, targeting new weaknesses until he finished. In fact, he thought he would have to press down for a much longer time, and use up more stamina for that matter. But...

Nothing of the sort happened.

The entirety of the layered formations all collapsed one after another until it was all gone.

In fact, the flames even spread to her earrings and anklets, burning them to ash.

The moment they vanished...

BOOM.

Lyra’s cultivation Core shook as though a greedy beast swallowing everything in sight.