Rivers of the Night

Chapter 810: Jun

Ayame hadn’t moved an inch since the last words she spoke to Theron. But her mind couldn’t help but be surprised once again. She had seen Theron fight several times before, but somehow he always seemed to have something else up his sleeve.

He was so... adaptable.

When he fought Urong, he had been very straightforward in his actions. There was no layered complexity or flair at all. He minimized errors and focused on winning with overwhelming power and a single, precise scheme.

But when he fought Jung, he was a completely different person. He could have won with overwhelming power, but he chose to decipher his combat style first as though he knew he could afford to. But it wasn’t as flippant as just trying out whatever.

She understood... he was trying to learn more about the DiBarr by allowing Jung to overextend himself. Even if Jung wasn’t the best they had, he was close. So a lot of the methods he had used were things that Theron would inevitably come across later on.

And when that time came, he would be ready for them. At that point, the battle might seem easy and simple, but she would know the truth.

Theron was already ten steps ahead.

Even with all that said, his battle this time was particularly fascinating because of how he used his Dark Mana. The first time she met Theron, she got the impression that he didn’t really like his Dark Mancy half at all.

She thought that maybe that was related to some ill feelings he had related to it, or maybe he just wasn’t as good with it. But now, it had completely flipped.

Theron’s Dark Mana was easily as powerful as his Water Mana now, and he used it even more expertly in battle.

There was a reason Water Mancy was seen as weak in combat. Now that Theron had Dark Mana and he treated it the same, the separation between Water Mana and other Elemental Mana became more obvious.

The versatility of Dark Mana in battle was too great.

Theron had quite literally been changing the form, shape, and even flexibility of his body at will with his Dark Mana, continuously constructing and reconstructing it. In the last exchanges of the battle, Theron had even made it look as though he was taller than Jung despite being a head shorter.

Theron had had no choice but to experiment with things like this in the wilderness because powerful creatures were always so large. Sometimes it was an advantage to be much smaller than them, but other times it was a huge inconvenience.

So, Theron learned how to use his Dark Mana as an expansion of his body, essentially like [Shadow Extend], but on steroids. At his peak, he could easily be dozens of meters tall if he wanted, increasing the span and distance between his individual cells until it looked like he had really become a giant.

And yet the most frustrating thing for his enemies when he did this was that even if they managed to aim their blades correctly, he might just decide to let it slip right through his body as though he wasn’t even there.

The more Ayame analyzed the battle style, the more she began to wonder if Theron’s Dark Mana hadn’t just reached the same level as his Water Mana, but instead that they had swapped places entirely.

Was his Water Mana now the far weaker of the two?

Something told her that that wasn’t the case.

When Theron fought Urong, his Dark and Water Mana had become Dark Water Mana. He fused the capabilities of the two into one, something that should only be possible with the highest levels of affinity and control for both.

But back then... she hadn’t seen much of what this Dark Water Mana could do. Theron only used it as a conduit to cast a single spell... a spell that brought down a Tribulation.

Her eyes couldn’t help but narrow.

If Theron’s Dark Mana Control had evolved so much...

Just what level was his Water Mana at now? What could he accomplish if he decided to use it exclusively in battle like he just had his Dark Mana?

Ayame was so lost in her thoughts she almost didn’t notice that Theron had appeared right in front of her.

She looked up at him just the slightest bit. The difference in their height was just an inch or two, but somehow he still felt larger than life.

"You remind me of someone," Theron said.

Ayame blinked, and then frowned. She didn’t want to remind him of anyone.

"Which is odd, because the two of you are nothing alike."

BANG.

A heavily injured man fell from the skies.

"All right, Alpha, that’s enough. Let them leave. We have things to do."

Alpha howled into the skies, but he appeared by Theron in a flash of red.

Soon after, two other figures collapsed from the skies.

Theron hopped onto Alpha’s back and then reached a hand down with a smile. But Ayame didn’t take it.

"Who do I remind you of?" she asked.

Theron blinked. "... My wife."

Ayame’s expression was hard to read, her frown from before having vanished, but it wasn’t exactly replaced with a smile. It was just the usual deadpan, icy expression.

"Why?"

Theron looked at her for a long while, his hand still stretched out.

"Because your hearts are the same."

"How?"

"I mean, it’s a bit silly of you to side with me over a Demon Prince, now isn’t it?"

"I haven’t done that."

"Haven’t you?"

Ayame’s frown returned.

"Now it’s my turn to ask a question, no? Why did you make such a choice?"

"I haven’t," Ayame insisted.

Theron laughed, his hand still stretched out. "Come."

Ayame’s arm found itself moving before she registered her own action. She took Theron’s hand and her body was scooped up and into his lap.

"All right, we have things to do, people. Get up."

Alpha trotted over to Jung’s corpse and snapped up the latter’s core, licking his lips clean. By now, the fact Alpha could even eat through such tough meat was its own shock.

Ayame sat in Theron’s lap in a bit of a daze, not understanding what was happening. She hadn’t been held like this since she was a little girl, and she certainly wasn’t expecting the first of it to happen today of all days.

But Theron had done it so naturally, and without any forethought at all. She couldn’t even feel his intentions before it was too late.

No, she should have, shouldn’t she? He had stretched out his hand while sitting on the back of a beast there wasn’t much space on. Alpha wasn’t very large.

Why had she just put her arm out without thinking?

Ayame was stuck in this daze for so long by the time she snapped out of it, the sun was already coming down and they had been travelling for hours.

Suddenly she didn’t know if it even made sense to break free anymore...

The shattering of Jung’s Soul Lamp was something that was seen to immediately. Even in the weakest of Clans there would be someone constantly monitoring, let alone one as large as the DiBarr Clan.

The elder in charge immediately broke out into a cold sweat when he saw the change. Jung should have only just arrived at the Demon Duke territory—was he really already dead?

What happened?

Elder Nixe dabbed at his forehead.

Now came the hard part of the process.

Just as he turned around, he collapsed to the ground, scrambling back.

A shadowy figure had appeared looming overhead.

Jun. The firstborn of Prince DiBarr. The difference between him and his younger brother’s names was just a single letter, but the difference between the two young men themselves... was as vast as an ocean.

It was said that Demon Prince DiBarr had named Jung as such because he expected his younger son to be the better of the two parties—not because he was more talented, but because he came later.

Demon Prince DiBarr wasn’t the sort to like going backward. Everything he did, he wanted to be one step better than the last. The methods he used to raise his second son would inevitably be better than the methods he used to raise his first... so he gave him an extra letter.

Jun seemed to take this matter very personally. Since his brother’s birth when he was just eleven years old, he hadn’t relied on a single resource given to him by the DiBarr Clan. Most often, he didn’t even rely on them as a roof above his head, spending most of his time a long way away.

This was why Elder Nixe was so shocked by his appearance... at least in part.

But Elder Nixe was a Transcendent himself. A Quasi Transcendent, no matter how powerful, shouldn’t be able to sneak up on him...

And yet Jun had.

Jun stood in silence, staring at the cracked Soul Lamp, his expression unreadable.