Rivers of the Night

Chapter 777: Everything

The change was unexpected for Theron. He pulled his finger back and raised an eyebrow.

Maybe he had gotten used to everything being so hard, so complicated. But he honestly didn’t feel like he had put in much effort just now at all.

Was this what it felt like to have a powerful legacy at your beck and call?

Until now, Theron had always mostly done everything himself. His cultivation method was self-created, built off his own personal understanding of Water Resonance and the simplest of Water Elementalist cultivation methods he could find. Even when it came to his Spells, he tended to use far weaker ones to battle against far stronger opponents, causing him to not only have to master them, but tweak them to suit his tastes and increase their power.

He was always trying to find the right balance between the Mana he was spending and the power he was outputting. But he had never expected to come across something that simultaneously took up so little of his stamina, and yet was so very potent and powerful nonetheless.

It couldn’t be that every powerful legacy was like this. They often took a lot of something, whether that was complexity or stamina. But... Theron didn’t feel like he was anything close to a true Master of formations, yet this happened.

Was this how potent understanding the underlying laws of the world was? Or was this just how powerful the Demon Doctrine was?

And if the Demon Doctrine was so powerful, what of the Angel Doctrine? Should he be trying to use it more?

Lyra gasped for air and almost fell out of her seat. It seemed the formations on her had been forcing her body to stay in a certain number of preset positions. The moment she was no longer being held up like that, her muscles were a hint late in recovering.

But she managed to catch herself, looking down at her body. Tears she hadn’t been able to cry before began spilling out and she leapt into Theron’s arms, seemingly not realizing that her body was still in the midst of an enormous breakthrough.

She went from the Gold Mancy Realms to the Cloud, and the skies from high above shook.

"You should prepare, your tribulation is coming," Theron said softly.

Lyra jolted up and scrambled back to her seat, suddenly panicking about how she was about to get her mother and Theron in a lot of trouble because of this.

"I wouldn’t worry too much about it. This is a Soul Tribulation so it will be very personal. It would be hard to help you even if we wanted to. Good luck," he said with a smile.

Before Lyra could respond, she was forced to hurry and close her eyes, quickly sitting in a lotus position.

Theron gave her a glance and stood up. He gave Lyrah a nod and turned to leave. From here, there wasn’t much he could do. It would be up to Lyra to figure things out.

"You’re leaving?"

Theron smiled but didn’t reply as he grabbed toward the door handle.

"My daughter... she loves you," Lyrah said softly. She felt like her usual self would be quite embarrassed to say such words. Even though it wasn’t like she was professing her own love, she had been long used to being drawn away from the world and never speaking of such things.

But for the sake of her daughter, she felt that she had to say something.

"I’m sure you saw the sort of trouble I got into today. For your daughter’s sake, it’s probably best that she find another man to fall in love with, don’t you think?" Theron’s gaze was oddly quite soft compared to the Theron Lyrah was used to, and for a moment the latter couldn’t seem to react.

She felt like Theron had changed, but she couldn’t exactly tell how.

"..." Lyrah lowered her gaze and then slowly looked toward her daughter as Theron opened the door. "... That is the one thing in life you cannot choose."

Theron’s steps paused for a moment before he continued through the door, closing it softly behind him.

He walked down the hallway, his mind wandering. A figure came from down the stairs and immediately turned tail and ran the moment they saw him, but Theron hardly reacted at all to the change.

Love was such a peculiar thing.

When it came to Malaya, Theron was so sure for so long that he didn’t love her. But every move she made, every sacrifice she committed to, right up until her last moments...

She was so selfless right until the very end.

They had cracked him.

Theron placed a palm to his chest.

But now she was gone. She was gone and it hadn’t even been because Theron wasn’t strong enough to protect her.

He had done it. He had won the battle, slayed the bad guy, come out on top.

Yet because of it, the world he had known shattered apart, and the only woman he had ever loved went with it.

He felt like his thoughts were quite pathetic. He had only barely gotten to love her for a few fleeting minutes, and yet it hurt just as bad. Another loss, another scar on the row of scars.

Could he even love again? Was it fair of him and her memory for him to do so?

Theron looked back toward the inn room he had left to Lyra and her mother, shaking his head again.

He walked down the stairs and out of the inn to find Ayame standing before him. She held a familiar spear box in her arms, crossing it over her chest as though it weighed no less than any other normal box.

"You’ve gotten what you wanted?" Theron asked.

"Yes. I have everything."

Theron looked at the box and shrugged. He didn’t care that much about the spear. If he was going to the Demon Corps anyway, he might as well use his main weapons.