Rivers of the Night

Chapter 809: Battle Style

Theron smiled, unsheathing his swords in one fluid motion. Since he didn’t want to kill everyone here, and Jung had happily given him such a good excuse to deal with him, he didn’t want to use the Dagger Call Platform.

He had a feeling that after this, he would have to make a trip to DiBarr City, so having those loyal to them know as little information about him as possible was ideal.

Plus... he wanted to see how powerful he was this time. Not how powerful the Dagger Call Platform was.

He raised his dagger.

CLANG. SKREE.

Jung’s claws sang and sent sparks flying as he scraped against the body of Theron’s dagger. The arms of the two moved like the wind, countless counters and counters to counters being exchanged between them as they moved.

Claw and dagger remained attached to one another, but just to do this displayed a shocking amount of skill from both parties, their wrists and forearms continuously twitching as they zipped around the city, blocking each other’s attempts from slipping by their guards.

Jung frowned. Theron was strong—too strong. But why was he not affected by the poison? The area had already been flooded by it all.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The city shook on its very foundations as the battle between Alpha and the others erupted. But the three of Jung’s escorts could only smile bitterly.

After Theron brought out that letter, they had had no intention of helping Jung at all. If Jung survived, they would seal their lips and use it as a bargaining chip to stay by Jung’s side. But if Jung died, they would simply inform Demon Prince DiBarr of what happened, and he would understand.

The world of the Demon Corps Heirs was cruel, and the Demon Prince was smart enough to know what would probably happen to his son if news of that spread back to his elder brother.

But now they were forced into a battle they didn’t even want to fight, while the one with the lowest status among them—Ayame—was entirely unbothered by it all. It was like Alpha was purposely not targeting her.

Which was exactly the case.

...

Theron wasn’t worried about Alpha. His body billowed with Dark Mana, wrapping around him in a tight cloak.

He fought like something many times taller than himself, as though his body was an amorphous, vaguely humanoid cloud of darkness that could move, shift, and change at will.

Theron’s smile hadn’t faded—a telltale sign that he wasn’t all that serious at all. And yet Jung seemed to be pulling out all the stops, thinking and calculating five, ten, twenty moves ahead to try and catch Theron off guard with a slash of his poison.

Theron, though, always seemed to be ready. He parried and blocked, countered and struck back. He seemed to be quickly getting used to Jung’s battle style, and as he did so, a battle that had seemed dead even slowly began to shift.

Jung took a step back, Theron’s arm length suddenly changing by a few fractions of an inch, throwing off his calculations.

A foot extended and slammed toward his chest, but he quickly blocked with an elbow, only for Theron’s short sword to swing down from his exposed side.

Jung twisted out of the way, using the momentum of Theron’s kick to pivot. The action was supposed to also throw off Theron’s timing and balance, and yet it was like Theron’s kick was suddenly made out of cotton, having no strength in it at all.

Without the momentum to rely on, Jung’s parry attempt failed, and he had to move his head at the last minute.

A piece of his ear went flying into the sky, and blood spurted before his healing factor quickly covered it up.

Theron pressed, and then pressed again. At first, it felt like every dozen or so moves, Jung would suffer a minor wound he quickly healed from. Then it was only every ten. And then only every eight.

It happened more and more frequently until Jung was taking one step back after another, spurts of blood starting to come in pairs... and then in trios.

One attack stacked on top of another, and the predictability of Theron’s movements plummeted to rock bottom, his wild grin like a beaming sun right into Jung’s eyes.

Jung howled, realizing that if things continued like this, he would really die here to this nameless bastard. Even until this very moment, not a single one of them knew who Theron was or where he had come from. That was precisely why it was so odd that they wouldn’t have sent someone to check on Theron in the first place.

But it was clear that their intentions from the start were to have someone else take over the position anyway.

Unfortunately for them... Theron wasn’t so easy to stomp out.

Jung’s body exploded with power, his violet veins bulging as his muscles grew a size. His horns seemed to become more prominent, and his Mana churned as his claws grew even longer.

He skyrocketed to four meters in height, a hidden Profound Truth circulating in the depths of his Mana. But Theron only smiled.

At this point... reading Jung’s movements was like reading an open book.

So predictable.

Undergoing such an evolution in the presence of someone who was already pushing you into a corner was a bit foolish, don’t you think?

[Songful Blade].

Theron’s face flashed with seriousness for the first time in the battle, and he suddenly accelerated forward.

Chi.

Theron was already sheathing both of his blades by the time he appeared again, having returned to his previous height with a gentle smile on his face.

PSH. PSH. PSH.

Streams of blood crisscrossed Jung’s body. He shivered once, and then fell to his knees, the light slowly fading from his eyes.

"Well, that settles that." Theron looked to Ayame and smiled. "It seems we’ll be making a trip together to the DiBarr Clan, hm?"