Rivers of the Night

Chapter 838: Playing

“Theron—.” Lyra was about to say something when she froze. The sudden appearance of a woman caught her off guard. She hadn’t even sensed anything properly.

Messo stood on the edge of the tree branch, and yet it hardly swayed at all. At first glance, one might think that she was just flying in the skies to mitigate her weight. But there wasn’t the slightest Mana fluctuation around her either.

It was like… she was forcing the branch to ignore her weight as though she wasn’t there at all.

A complete ghost. Untouchable, unknowable.

Theron looked over. “Are you here to arrest me?”

Messo looked Theron up and down in silence for a long while.

“Is this your wife?” Messo finally spoke.

Lyra blushed from head to toe, looking for somewhere, anywhere to look that wasn’t here.

Theron chuckled. “That’s not the question you want to ask, is it?”

“Actually, it is. Because I’m not sure you understand how important your status is now.”

Theron frowned, something clicking in his mind.

“Originally, I was going to leave this matter untouched and leave you unbothered, but now that things have come to this, it’s important that you know that you can’t be careless anymore—.”

“Is this about the Undefeatable Spirit?”

Messo nodded. “Yes. It is.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Theron replied.

“It is exactly what it sounds like.”

Theron chuckled again. “Well, if it’s exactly what it sounds like, then it also sounds to me that if you have to nickel and dime your way through life, avoiding conflict and dodging danger just to maintain it, then you don’t really have much of an Undefeatable Spirit. Now do you?”

Messo’s pupils constricted into pinholes.

Theron’s words seemed to be spoken so casually, but she felt something wash over her as though Mana in her own domain was reacting to his words.

Her heart skipped a beat.

This should have been impossible. She knew her own abilities better than anyone else. Her Path wasn’t something that even Ameridia could easily deal with.

The idea of Theron stirring her domain with words alone was asinine.

After a long while, she calmed down.

“I see.” She nodded slowly. “In the morning, I’m sure that Ameridia will take that into account.”

Theron raised an eyebrow. “You still haven’t told me what an Undefeatable Spirit is.”

Messo looked at Theron calmly. “It’s a key to a door beyond a Profound Truth.”

After she said this, she vanished. Theron couldn’t even feel how she vanished. It was like she had never been there from the very start.

‘… It can’t be…’ Theron thought to himself.

If he had sensed what he thought he did just now…

He shook his head.

“Well, I guess this means we have until the morning.” Theron grinned, and Lyra nearly fainted from blood loss.

**Ayame stood in silent meditation. It was a simple horse stance, but she had squatted so low her thighs were perfectly parallel to the ground, along with her arms.

For a cultivator of her caliber, though, standing just like this for years wouldn’t be an issue.

And yet, Ayame was covered from head to toe in sweat. Beads fell from her blemishless skin like droplets of rain pelting down from above.

But she didn’t so much as quiver.

Calm and unbothered, she continued to stand.

All day, and all night.

Was it a punishment of sorts, maybe? But the pain also left her with nothing to focus on other than lasting just one more second, just one more breath.

Every fiber of her muscle, from the ligaments of her toes to the largest flesh of her thighs, worked in tandem, feeding off of one another.

Her breathing was even, as though to force her heart rate to likewise remain steady.

But the artificial slowing of her blood and heart was exactly why she was sweating so much. Her body was overheating, not being allowed to reach the thresholds of recovery and prowess it was meant to.

Her heart only echoed once an hour…

And then only once every two hours…

By the end of the first day, she hadn’t even experienced double digits in heartbeats.

Trapped in time, forced into a punishment of her own creation.

She didn’t think about men. She didn’t think about the danger she was in or the mission she was on.

She only thought about improving just a little bit more, only about sensing what weaknesses she had and ruthlessly stomping them out.

And every time she thought she just might collapse…

An image of her mother flashed in her mind, and her will roared like an infuriated lioness.

**Theron found himself standing before Ameridia the next morning. His hands were clasped behind his back, an unfamiliar military garb on his body.

It was the same military wear he had seen from the recruits right before he got into his first scuffle with them. It was quite a cool getup, though he preferred his own robes now that he had begun to weave them himself.

Unfortunately, you didn’t really get that choice in the army.

“What did you say?” Ameridia asked again.

Theron’s smile didn’t fade. “I said I’d like you to train me.”

Ameridia sat behind a large desk, her four Timeless Fairies behind her, a series of medals and awards lining the dark oak bookshelves behind them.

There was a map spread out before her, and all things considered—especially since Theron was the only one here—she was definitely about to give him quite an important mission.

Yet, before she could do any of that, Theron came out with this.

Ameridia was rarely ever shocked, but this…

What was this supposed to mean?

Part of the reason she was so successful was because she was great at reading people. Theron wasn’t the sort of person to ask for personal guidance or help. Why was he suddenly doing so now? And with that cheeky smile on his face, no less?

What was he playing at this time?