Rivers of the Night

Chapter 832: Innocence

Ameridia felt her Undefeatable Spirit slip away, but one would have never thought that she had.

To anyone else, this would have been a devastating matter, but her gaze didn’t so much as flicker.

“Quite impressive.”

Theron’s eyes narrowed. The voice didn’t come from in front of him. Instead, it came from the side.

He looked over to find Ameridia standing there, just as beautiful as he recalled, and yet somehow more, as though this version of her had something the one in his arms did not.

He ignored her and looked toward the Ameridia in his arms, only for her to begin to morph and change until she had the face of a much older woman. This woman was still a beauty in her own right even in her middle ages. But she was no Ameridia.

Theron chuckled. “Is this one of your Timeless Fairies? Interesting. Well done.”

It wasn’t often Theron was fooled.

“I don’t think there’s a need for you to pretend.” Ameridia said calmly.

“Pretend? I don’t know what you mean.” Theron said with a gentle smile.

“Are you having a good time?” the Timeless Fairy gritted her teeth. She wanted to push away, but she didn’t have the strength.

“You want me to let you fall to the ground?” Theron asked, blinking.

“Yes!”

Theron let go of her and she collapsed to the ground, groaning. But to her credit, she at least didn’t get more angry. If anything, she was more content there on the ground.

Either that or she was very good at pretending. Considering her acting job just now, that very well might be the case.

“I don’t mind working together.” Ameridia said calmly. “But I cannot have a wild card in my army. Any plans must be executed with my full knowledge. You will also have to complete missions on my behalf when I should have need of them.”

Theron shrugged. “Alright.”

Then, he left with a smile on his face, pausing only once when he was shoulder to shoulder with Ameridia to get a good look at her face.

It might have been more than just a small pause. But Ameridia barely looked back at him, her emotions impossible to see through.

“Choosing is very hard.” Theron said after a long while.

Then he turned and left.

Ameridia’s eyes narrowed and she finally looked toward Theron, only to see his back.

That arrogant bastard. He was obviously talking about choosing between women.

Did he think that she was on a chopping board for him to claim whenever he wanted? His balls hadn’t even dropped yet.

Ameridia’s gaze flickered and she looked back toward her Timeless Fairy, her gaze calming. She had just spared more thoughts for a man than she ever had before. She refused to make a habit of that.

“Are you alright, Viper?” Ameridia walked forward, helping the middle-aged woman up.

“General… you…”

Ameridia shook her head. “Don’t mention it.”

“But, General… your Undefeatable Spirit… if I had known what would happen, I would have never suggested this. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Viper began to bawl, crying so hard her chest convulsed.

She tried to control herself, but nothing she did worked.

Everyone who knew Viper knew that she was the most headstrong of Ameridia’s Timeless Fairies. She hadn’t cried since she was a little girl, but here she was crying like a little girl.

The Undefeatable Spirit was an odd thing. Ameridia hadn’t fought personally, and yet she had still lost it. The reason was simple…

She knew that if she had been in Viper’s position, the ending would have been the same.

There was also a reason she had told Theron not to pretend. She had felt it during that spear strike.

Theron had immediately picked out that Viper was no master of the spear. The moment he noticed that, he knew she was a fake.

But that went to show just how powerful Viper’s illusion abilities were. Until that moment, Theron had had no idea. And if not for the fact that Theron had used a spear for a great period of time as well, he would have never picked it out so easily either.

It was said that Ameridia’s Timeless Fairies represented every one of the four paths of Mancy… but not only that, but that they represented the pinnacle of each one.

And Viper certainly did so for the Path of Spirit Mancy.

Unfortunately for her, that was probably also why Theron was a little more heavy-handed than he originally planned to be.

He really… really didn’t like Spirit Mancers.

Ameridia helped Viper stand to her feet.

“We’ll take you to Messo.”

“I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it…”

Ameridia could only shake her head. “I don’t need the world to tell me I’m undefeatable.”

SHUUU.

There was a shake in the wind and the aura of an Undefeatable Spirit formed once more.

Viper’s eyes widened under the shocking change, her gaze fixed on the dancing light in Ameridia’s hair.

“General… you…”

“Come. We will go and get you healed.”

In her excitement, Viper didn’t notice when the Undefeatable Spirit wilted away and vanished to nothingness.

Viper didn’t understand where the Undefeatable Spirit came from, and how could she? She had never had it herself.

The only thing that could decide whether one felt Undefeatable was their own sense of belief.

The reason she had lost it was because even though she hadn’t lost to Theron on a technicality…

She felt like she had.

If she was of equal cultivation and on an equal playing field with Theron… she felt like she would lose nine out of ten times.

There was simply nothing she could do to easily overcome that feeling.

Her Undefeatable Spirit was gone and she wouldn’t be able to get it back unless she could convince the deepest parts of herself that she was better than Theron.

That was the real reason she had let Theron leave. But as for her confidence in ever convincing herself of that…

They ran at near zero.

She could be as shameless as others, ignoring circumstance, pretending as though her birth was a god-given right, like her family’s standing gave her privileges others didn’t have the right to have.

But she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t ignore the fact Theron was a King while she was a Saint. She couldn’t ignore the fact that from everything she could tell, he came from nothing. She couldn’t ignore the fact that he had already overcome far worse odds than herself—including this very moment now.

Compared to him, every other genius she had ever come across just felt so…

Mediocre.

If she couldn’t beat him, then she would just have to use him.

**

Surprisingly, Theron didn’t return to see Ayame and Lyra like he had originally planned to. Instead, he left the encampment and found a random tree. He reclined on a branch that was probably several hundred meters above ground, staring out at the moon.

Alpha lay on his lap in silence as though he could feel Theron’s mood.

“This world sucks, huh buddy?”

Theron stroked Alpha’s ear and the latter growled in response.

He hadn’t been back for very long, and he kind of already felt like vanishing into the wilderness again.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he was feeling like this. All things considered, he had won. But he could just feel that Ameridia had let things go today because she felt she needed him more than she wanted to kill him.

Part of him liked the battles, the scheming, the constant living on the edge of life and death.

But another part of him wished it wasn’t so easy to run into stuff like this.

Even if he had gone out of his way to avoid everything, he would have been pulled in no matter what. If not for the fact a literal Goddess was looking over his shoulder and threatening death, then probably by sheer coincidence and circumstance.

He still hadn’t forgotten how he had walked into the Mercenary Guild just to join, only to end up teleported to some secret assassin’s abyss where he had to fight against his first Quasi King.

He hadn’t even been looking for a fight back then, it had just happened.

Yet, there was nowhere for him to go to truly relax.

A rustling caught Theron’s attention and his eyes narrowed. He looked over, only to find a burst of Dark Mana rushing toward him and then deftly landing on a branch nearby. Soon, that burst of Dark Mana formed into a petite young woman with a smile on her face.

In her hands, she held a woven bamboo box that wafted an intoxicating aroma into the air.

“I hope I’m not bothering you, but I thought you could use some company. Are you hungry?” Lyra asked in a soft voice.

Theron blinked, and before he could answer, Alpha became a blur who disappeared into the thick foliage of an adjacent tree.

Lyra suddenly found herself blushing, the full, silver moon the backdrop to her naive innocence.