Rivers of the Night - Chapter 308

Chapter 308: I Swear
Theron left the throne room, his steps slow. The wind hit him as he reached the balcony, looking out into the distance. Whether by coincidence or not, the direction he looked was almost perfectly trained onto where the Sangun fortress would have been.

Petty games and petty answers.

Honestly speaking, when Theron first entered this realm, his goal was to win, and quite handily at that. But he didn’t plan on doing so to an extent that he would reveal anything.

It wasn’t on a metric of strength he was thinking, but rather on a level deeper than that. He didn’t want to humiliate those he didn’t have to humiliate, or step on any toes he didn’t absolutely have to.

In this case, he might have allowed the Gold Clan more dignity in the way they lost, maybe allowing them to stretch out their ignoble existence for longer—if for no other reason than that their ire wouldn’t be able to be aimed at him even if they so wanted it to.

After all, despite what happened to Riyan in the end, Theron had helped them.

But… after seeing the state of all of this, Theron had changed his mind. Now, it was no longer about saving the feelings of a few fringe individuals here and there.

He wanted nothing more than to crush the Sangun and their helping parties in the most humiliating way possible.

With a flash, he began to dash across the endless plain once more. When he got to the forest, he found a host of puppets standing around without direction.

They immediately turned toward him when he appeared, but Theron weaved through them with ease, suddenly smashing out a palm on the chest of one.

The moment the puppet was sent flying, its body bending around a tree and falling limply, the other puppets seemed to have lost their direction.

‘It is true.’

One of the historical records Theron had read about this final round told of a method to steal puppets. The requirements were high, but it was still very much possible.

First, you had to conquer the opposing fortress, and then you had to force them to submit. This latter part was trickier and not entirely obvious.

But there was a ranking system in the puppets much like there was a hierarchy amongst humans. There were commander puppets, and lesser puppets.

So long as you took the head of the general, the rest would come easy. As for which one the general was… that much was obvious.

Just pick out the strongest one.

While observing their march the first time, Theron had already found them.

“Follow me back,” he said calmly.

The puppets shook and began their march once again. But this time, they were nothing more than a sea of reinforcements.

…

BANG!

Marcel lost his temper completely, his throne smashing against a wall. The Gold Clan Crown Prince had done well to maintain his temper for the last few days, but this time it was well and truly boiling over.

Humiliation. Outright, complete and utter humiliation.

On the first day, their First Year chose the side of the Sangun and didn’t even get to say a word before being given the lowest grade.

On the second day, their First Year was all but crippled before the entire world, and the subsequent military stream students were humiliated one after another.

And now, on this third day, they had chosen a strategy that he actually agreed with, one that he was proud that the citizens of his Empire had chosen. It was risky, but it showed off their pride, their strength of heart.

And yet, before they could even get the chance to execute, their hearts were ripped out.

From an outsider’s perspective—especially a layman—it looked like luck. Theron had just so happened to get there just in time to see their methods, and he just so happened to have a method of hiding himself in the denser Water Mana of the forest.

But even if Marcel was willing to accept that, was it luck that he had rendered their Fourth Year military stream genius unable to battle with a single blow? Levying an attack so fast that even Marcel himself could hardly track it?

And what was that spell? [Water Bullet]? He nearly crippled a Ninth Resonance Silver Mancer with [Water Bullet]? A damned Bronze Resonance spell?!

Marcel grit his teeth so hard the veins that popped up along his jaw threatened to burst into a rain of crimson thicker than the one gathering in his eye.

At this point, he didn’t even care that there were others in his sky box, or even that the world could see what was happening.

But right then, Aetherion waved a hand and shadows of black coated the windows. No one managed to see much more than Marcel standing to his feet. Even the sounds of the crashing throne were muted.

Marcel huffed for breath, his hands clenched into tight fists.

“I can only apologize on behalf of my First Year—”

Marcel waved a hand. “I don’t need that nonsense. When I find who did this, I’ll squeeze the life out of them with my own hands.”

As much as Marcel wanted to rip Theron’s head off, he suppressed the feeling. This wasn’t the boy’s fault. Targeting him would also only damage the prestige of the Gold Clan even more than it already was.

If he wanted to claw back the face they had lost in this last week, it was going to have to be at the expense of whoever was pressuring even the Black Clan.

“I swear I will. I swear.”

Gold Mana rippled off of Marcel in waves.

Chi.

There was a break in Marcel’s dantian and his aura overflowed.

Aetherion raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations.”

Marcel didn’t respond. With heavy steps, he walked to his throne. It must have weighed tens of thousands of jin, but he ripped it up from the ground with a single hand, slamming it back down where he had pulled it up from.

He would be seeing this through to the end.