Rivers of the Night

Chapter 786: Theron’s Hiatus (6)

Theron had just been sitting in meditation, seemingly wasting time once again just observing the tower before him.

Whenever he summoned it, it was just a small figurine in his palms. But he could expand it to its true size whenever he wanted.

Theron thought of using it as a crushing weight to catch enemies off guard already, but that hadn’t ended up working out.

The one creature he tried that with ended up being sucked in. It was lucky for him that he had purposely chosen a creature with weaker talent just in case exactly that happened. In the end, the creature died on its run up the tower, and Theron chose to not try that again.

What if a creature he trapped ended up succeeding and was rewarded a broken technique as a result? Although the techniques were incredibly complex, and apparently required Bloomstone to activate, who was to say if something wouldn’t change after the tower was successfully activated in this world?

The risk wasn’t worth it.

After making that decision, Theron didn’t expect that he would have to make the opposite choice soon after. The reason?

He ran into his first Transcendent Beast.

Theron had sensed it long before it arrived. The power of his senses was on an unfathomable level by the ninth month. But it was also because of those very senses that he knew escape was simply not an option.

He had been close to death many times by now. But at that moment, he thought he was well and truly finished.

Surprisingly, he had felt... unwilling.

Theron couldn’t remember having lamented the loss of his own life for any reason other than a failure to get revenge for his own family in the last two to three years. Everything had always been about that to him.

But in those moments, all he could think was that he really wanted to finish reading all the books in his library... he really wanted to see what the end of his Profound Truth’s Path had in store for him... he wanted to see the peak of the world not just for the sake of sitting upon it and watching the world crumble to satiate the pain in his heart, but just to satisfy the curiosity in his soul.

And it was after those thoughts that he had that same familiar feeling of guilt.

Why was he suddenly living for himself? Why wasn’t he thinking about his mother, his father, Little Bobo... Why?

He wanted to know the answer to that as well. How could he die before he could finally live a life rid of this guilt?

He had to live... he had to live...

And so he did.

In that moment, Theron recalled the Luminescent Tower and used it. He was prepared to trap the beast within, and while it was completing its challenge, he would escape.

Would that probably result in a beast with a broken technique and cost him an invaluable treasure apparently capable of forcefully teleporting even a Transcendent?

Yes. But Theron had finally reached a point where he began to value his life more than just that.

The moment he successfully used the Luminescent Tower, he pulled out the Karmic Needle and Thread, finding the line that connected himself and the tower and severing it.

Theron had come across his fair share of Kings and Saints in his time in the wilderness. He had been forced to run from the vast majority of them, but he had a much deeper understanding of their abilities now, more than enough to know that if he just ran casually, a Transcendent Beast would be able to use its world-breaking abilities to find him unless he erased all traces of himself.

He had been about to leave at that moment when he noticed that there was a thread connecting the tower and Alpha as well, so he directly sniped that one away too.

And that was when something odd happened.

Alpha had had four lines connecting to the tower. One was his main body, and the other three were his clones.

Theron hadn’t thought much about it and was planning to quickly cut all four. But he just so happened to cut the karmic thread of one of the clones first.

The result was completely out of his expectations.

He had never tried to manipulate the Karma of the clones before. And he had never gotten Alpha to enter the tower because the latter already had his hands full trying to master the Entanglement Inheritance—he didn’t need more techniques to try and grasp.

But the moment Theron cut that string, it was like a bungee cord had snapped on the way down. The clone was ripped out of Alpha’s body and thrown into the tower, being thrust into a battle as well.

In a completely odd series of events, Theron watched as a projection of a Transcendent Beast appeared on one side, and Alpha’s clone appeared on the other.

Theron hadn’t stuck around to watch the result. With much pain in his heart and an apology to Alpha, he cut the other strings and rushed away. As expected, the main body of Alpha didn’t snap back the same way.

The clones were obviously much more fragile. They were incredibly sensitive to changes in Karma, so cutting their strings like that had led to a backlash that ended in this result.

By comparison, Alpha was fine, though now far weaker than before.

But more clones could always be made. Their lives weren’t going to magically come back if they lost them, though.

Theron thought that that was going to be the end of it. But...

The Transcendent Beast also died in the tower. As did Alpha’s clones.

But when Theron returned, he found something shocking.

The remnants of Alpha’s clones fused back into his main body. Not only did they fuse back, but they came with added experience. So...

Theron let them enter again.

And then again.

And then again.