Rivers of the Night

Chapter 819: Perfect

Theron lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He was wondering what the plan was, exactly.

According to Ayame, the mission she had originally been given was related to the Resistance Army as well. She was supposed to join, infiltrate, and gather information about their teleportation lines.

Apparently, the Resistance Army was in the middle of overhauling their lines. And, unsurprisingly, the woman who was basically their most powerful Spatial Mancer was right in the middle of it all.

Resource lines, defensive lines, advancing lines... they were all extremely important in war. Theron had read countless books on strategy by now; they were one of the few books in the library that didn’t just speak about things in the abstract, but actually pinned them to the real world.

Though, they had also come with their fair share of psychological insights, and it would probably be best to call them books on psychology rather than wartime strategy.

The main point was that how an army advanced into enemy territory, how it formed its line of retreat, how it protected and crafted its supply lines, were all arguably more important than how well-trained or powerful they were.

Having a plan for how to attack, where to attack, and when, were key to successful campaigns. But no less important than knowing how to retreat, when to retreat, and whatever methods mitigated casualties while doing so.

Then, even for cultivators, they needed food, they needed water.

Cultivators could go long periods of time without food, water, and even sleep, but all of that was predicated on their Mana reserves.

If a cultivator battled day and night, many of them would have cycles of need similar to a normal mortal’s. Even Transcendents who could fight for months or years on end would often have to dedicate a large portion of their stamina to replenishing what reserves they had. Otherwise, they would starve to death in the middle of a battle.

This was why how speedy you could recover and how well you control and mitigate Mana loss was so important in battle. The one with higher Mana Control might not always win against those with higher strength, but the former often overtook the latter within reason.

Space Mancers were incredibly rare. Space Mancers as powerful as Ameridia even more so.

Honestly, she wasn’t even a Transcendent yet. She was "just a Saint," according to the reports.

But Theron could practically feel it from Demon Prince DiBarr...

He feared her.

What was truly special about General Ameridia was that not only was she powerful in combat, but her technical knowledge of space was arguably what made her the most dangerous.

Her unit had one of the top three success rates in the entire Resistance Army. She had never suffered a heavy loss in battle, and all of the losses she had suffered came not only from the hands of intricately laid plans to try and take her head—precisely because of how dangerous she was—all ended in minor losses.

The Resistance Army had a hierarchy of rankings that was judged externally. This ranking was a measure of how well a battle went, and it was divided into two halves: a Loss and a Victory.

Losses were divided into Minor Losses, Major Losses, and Crippling Losses.

Victories were divided into Minor Victories, Major Victories, and Dominant Victories.

This wasn’t just a way to measure the merit of an army, but also a method of tracking military objectives and how well they’d done in achieving them.

General Ameridia did not have a single Major or Crippling Loss on her résumé.

Not one.

And her number of Dominant Victories was on par with only two other Generals... both of whom were Transcendents, not of the Demon Prince Level, but of the Demon King Level.

She was a monster.

That was the only way to describe it.

Theron hadn’t known about any of this until he was briefed by Ayame. And apparently, Ayame’s original goal was to outline all of the plans that General Ameridia had for redressing the various lines of her army before reporting back.

This sounded simple. But for someone as organized and focused on the details as Ameridia was... well, it was certainly a mission worthy of Demon Prince-level acknowledgement.

Getting close to such a woman was difficult. It would take years, and you’d have to work up the ranks all while trying not to be exposed yourself.

And the higher up in the army you went, the more scrutiny there would be on your background and where you might have come from.

For Theron to participate in such a thing, it would inevitably be revealed at some point that he was the one who killed Ameridia’s brother—maybe brothers. He wasn’t sure if the others survived, honestly.

Not that he had cared much until this point.

For Ayame, if she got close enough to Ameridia, it would eventually be revealed that she had ties with the Demon Corps.

Theron might still somehow survive, but Ayame? That was as good as a death sentence. There was no surviving that at all.

To make matters worse, DiBarr actually wanted Jun to go as well.

Theron could guess why. DiBarr had probably put a bit of effort into understanding Theron’s background, only to find that there wasn’t much to know at all.

He could see that Theron could probably easily come out as a real member of the Resistance Army if the time came. Though his standing as a Demon Duke might be a problem... that was only if the Resistance Army managed to find out.

And how would they?

Theron had never been officially recognized or sanctioned as a Demon Duke. He had just taken the position by killing another Demon Duke. Information like that would spread at a snail’s pace.

But maybe that was exactly why sending Theron to do this was so perfect.

’Perfect, indeed.’

Theron chuckled and closed his eyes to rest.

His goal was to wipe out the Demon Corps, and they were just handing him a foot in both armies.