Rivers of the Night

Chapter 873: Really.

Theron stood there in silence, carnage all around him. It looked like the only wound left on him was the very one that he had allowed Macie to leave. What had been left from the poison attack had long vanished.

He still remembered a time he would have liked to sit at the peak of the world and watch it all be destroyed before his eyes. That time wasn’t all that long ago.

But he had been through a lot since then. He had never been built for carrying around so much hatred all the time. His voice was gentle, he preferred peace, he liked to listen to the pitter patter of rain along a nearby window and listen to the wind whistle through the leaves of a green tree.

He liked battle for the chess match of it all. Killing itself was never what moved him the most, and maybe that was why he kept moving further and further away from his roots as an assassin.

Other than Jun, he couldn’t remember the last time he had assassinated anyone or anything even though it would have been greatly useful to him in the wilderness.

This world, though, wasn’t built for a scholar like him.

When he was young, what he wanted more than anything was to become an Imperial Scholar. He thought there was so much value in fixing the world through intelligence, through politics—through understanding would come true peace.

But when he most needed strength, he hadn’t had it. He could only rely on luck to survive. And ironically, it was because the person who ruined his life was chasing after even more power that he fell.

If he hadn’t wanted to use Theron to cultivate more Bad Karma, if he hadn’t been continuously chasing the peak regardless of the cost like so many seemed to do, Theron would have died that day and he would have kept his life instead of losing it in such horrid fashion.

‘It seems there’s a long road ahead.’ Theron thought to himself.

He turned around, and with a flash, he appeared before the group waiting for him. He had barely landed when Lyra jumped into his arms.

Theron chuckled. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

The words didn’t stop Lyra from sobbing like a baby.

Theron looked over to find that Ayame had woken up at some point. She stood to the side, her gaze a mixture of relief, confusion, and a hint of guilt. She didn’t meet Theron’s eyes directly.

“Are you okay?” Theron asked.

It took a moment for Ayame to realize that Theron was actually speaking to her. She looked up and then quickly nodded before looking away again.

“Are you sure?”

Ayame didn’t know how to respond. Most people just moved on after the first question. How was she supposed to answer this?

She immediately thought of just confirming again, but before she could, Alpha’s head bumped into her back and she stumbled forward into Theron’s arms.

Theron laughed and Ayame went red from head to toe.

Holding them both tightly, Theron felt content, and yet also like something was missing. But he didn’t linger on the feeling for too long.

At some point, Daisy and the other Timeless Fairies had arrived, and she was giving him quite a dirty look.

“Men.” She scoffed.

“You’re welcome.” Theron said with his same gentle smile, holding onto Ayame and Lyra tightly so neither escaped.

“For what?!” she snapped.

Theron only smiled and didn’t bother to answer.

“What do you want to do now?” Ameridia asked Theron. She could feel a large amount of Karma surging toward Theron, but the latter hardly seemed to be reacting to it at all.

“Me?” Theron looked out into the distance. Then he thought of his library…

It was already larger than life. A mortal could have never read so many books even if given a whole lifetime, and yet each one was diligently read cover to cover by Theron.

Yet, the more he learned, the less he felt like he knew.

This was just a small piece of the universe. If he wanted to fix the martial world, he was going to have to learn everything there was to know.

Wasn’t that the task of an Imperial Scholar? How could he have ever guided a country without understanding everything it had to offer?

This was no different… just on a much larger scale.

Yet, the words Theron spoke next didn’t reflect that at all.

“The Demon Corps have been around for long enough, don’t you think?”

Ameridia’s brows jumped. “You want to…”

“Why not? If nothing else, I need to help someone kill a certain Demon Emperor Chosen.”

“Really?”

If Theron defeated Macie who had implied that she had killed the Supreme Commander so easily, the idea of wiping the Demon Corps out shouldn’t have been too difficult.

The problem with that, of course, was that Theron was pretty certain that Macie had used a trick. If he was correct, that trick was almost certainly related to the spear Ayame had brought back to the Corps as proof of her mission being complete.

Otherwise, how else could Macie have gotten the Nightingale Spear back? That was precisely what her scythe was.

But even if Theron’s speculation was incorrect, with all this Karma flying around, and the ceiling of cultivation having risen so far, he had a feeling that a lot of people who had been stuck at bottlenecks for so long would be quickly breaking through one after another.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The faded echoes of exactly that rang out in the distance, but Theron hardly paid it any mind as he looked toward Ameridia with a smile.

Daisy stepped in front of her commander as though she was scared Theron’s eyes would mesmerize her into becoming the third woman in his arms. This young man was too dangerous.

Theron, though, pretended like he didn’t see her at all, his grin widening.

“Really. Now, what should our next step be, Supreme Commander?”

—

PART ONE END.

Thank you for making it here, everyone. I understand that it might be disappointing for you all that a part one is ending like this with no clear start date for part two. As much as I wish I could write whatever I want, when I want, life unfortunately doesn’t work like that.

Hopefully, soon I’ll write a some culture-shifting banger that’ll make me a millionaire and I can just do whatever after that, but I haven’t been so lucky yet.

What I can promise, though, is that I will do my best to start Part Two as soon as I can.

I may write an epilogue for RN the day after tomorrow. Write comments about what you would want to see in a bonus chapter (so long as it doesn’t fast forward into true end-game RN), and if an idea intrigues me enough, I’ll write about it. This will be my last RN gift to you all for a while 🙂

Love you guys, thanks for everything