Rivers of the Night

Chapter 862: First Step

Theron heaved for breath, looking around. He hadn’t tried to control where he went too clearly, but he had activated Death Walk.

His control over the skill was a lot greater now than before. Had Kenton levied that final killing blow, he would have escaped just the same. But now, he could trigger it even without death and even take someone along with him.

That person being Ayame.

Theron clutched her foggy, darkness-radiating body close to his chest. Right now, her silhouette still looked more demonic than human, but it didn’t matter. He was never going to allow her to end up in their hands.

It was his fault that this had happened. How could he have the stomach to do that?

‘Hm?’

Theron was taken aback. He had teleported to the place where energy was the least volatile in order to guarantee survival. It was the only thing he could focus on with his mind so weak and fragile right now.

But what he didn’t expect was to get caught between the shadow of two behemoths.

One was a city with towers taller and larger than any he had ever seen, and in the other direction was a mountain that somehow towered even taller than it.

It almost felt like the mountain and city were… competing for supremacy, one a feat of humanity and the other a feat of nature.

Something stirred inside Theron when he had this thought, and somehow he felt that this reflected something going on inside him as well.

Was he real? Or was he just the byproduct of the Heavens’ machinations?

Theron was stuck.

One direction lay the city and the other lay the mountain. Somehow, he felt like the first step he took would decide something larger than he could have ever expected.

Standing there, in the one place Mana was calm and relaxed in this entire world, he felt more conflicted than he ever had in his life.

Logically, it shouldn’t even be a choice. The city clearly had people, and people were precisely the ones targeting him right now. Going into the city, especially without understanding the rules of this place, would be foolish.

But at the same time, he also felt that something was wrong with Ayame and he needed to help her in some way. He needed a quiet and secluded place for that, and given how large the city was, finding a place to hide there might be easier so long as he had the time to lay a formation.

That said… the mountain felt extremely important. Even with his mind in such a fog, Theron felt that if he took a step toward it, it would cause a commotion.

A mountain like that couldn’t just be ascended because you wanted to. Could he do it with Ayame in his arms?

Maybe the answer was yes. But could he do it while making sure that she didn’t suffer or die in the process?

And yet, despite this, Theron couldn’t make a decision. His feet were rooted in place.

His toes curled, what was left of his shoes having long been shredded to pieces in battle. It was like he was trying to root himself in place to avoid making a decision. But he knew he had to make one.

Why did he have to make one when he didn’t have the mind about him to do so?

Theron looked down at Ayame. The dancing of his father’s necklace in the wind just barely kicked it up into his line of sight.

‘Dad…’

His hair flickered afterward, and he seemed to recall all his mother’s praise. He remembered her talks of a lion’s mane, of the pride he should take in his hair.

‘A lion never cuts his mane…’ Theron thought softly, almost like he was whispering his own thoughts to himself.

Theron looked toward the mountain.

There was something peaceful about spending all those years in the wilderness. He got to know himself better than he ever had before; he managed to find peace for the first time since that incident.

Nature had always called to him. Whether it was the pitter-patter of the rain as he read, or when it was coming down from above and soaking him through.

It could chill a person, but it could also calm them.

Nature didn’t have to be competed with all the time. And this city, for some reason… it felt like it was in competition.

Theron turned toward the mountain and took a step. His hair danced behind him, and as he crossed the distance from the city to the mountain, one could almost feel his steps becoming lighter and lighter.

He practically glided forward, his gaze becoming sharper and more confident with every step.

One after another, a light path formed behind him, a path he didn’t even see.

Theron knew nothing about the state of the universe. He didn’t know that Ancestor Tatsuya had condemned them to death with his actions, nor did he know that even before him, Ancestor Sacharro had faced the end of the world and chosen his family instead as well.

While the latter didn’t actively destroy things like Ancestor Tatsuya had, his decisions had ultimately led to similar results.

It was a problem that neither tried to solve, either because they didn’t care or because their philosophies didn’t mesh with it. Or maybe…

They simply couldn’t, precisely because their philosophies didn’t mesh.

Theron, though, was different.

From the very start, he never hated the Heavens like they had. Whenever he had someone to blame, he blamed people. He blamed society. His hatred for the martial world didn’t blame the Heavens for giving them power, but instead humans, humanoids, and other Races for taking it for granted and doing evil with it.

Theron had only ever had one goal from the time he was young…

And that was to understand the world. He wanted to read in peace, to learn from the whispers of the wind and the roads of thunder.

Cultivators had effectively ruined his chances at truly achieving this peace.

Theron took his first step onto the mountain, and everything trembled in response.