Rivers of the Night - Chapter 340

Chapter 340: Quasi Gold
Theron stood in the middle of a field of destruction, his breathing heavy. Blood ran down his body in streaming rivers, dribbling to the ground in a cadence that matched the heavy falling rain.

He exhaled another heavy breath, steaming fog painting the air before his face.

Quasi Gold.

He could feel the new power coursing through his veins, but the pain in his body, the aching cries of his Meridians, the slow movement of his Water Mana, painted a completely different picture.

His gaze shifted down from the skies, looking at the short sword in his palm. It glowed, a transparent blue rippling through the darkness. It almost felt heavy in his hand.

He was tired.

It was rare he had such a thought. But when you had laid out everything so perfectly, only for things to still go wrong, it was only human to be frustrated. It seemed that he still had room to grow.

How long was it now before his 15th birthday? Had it passed already, maybe?

No… not quite yet.

The rumbling of the ground caught Theron’s attention, but he still didn’t look toward it, his gaze lingering on his short sword for a little while longer before he looked up to the skies above once more.

The clouds slowly receded, the rain coming to a slow as the lines of the blue moon began to manifest.

A beautiful hue fell in streaming silvery rays, casting light over the darkened palace grounds in ways that only illuminated the destruction further.

Theron took a final breath as the shaking ground reached its peak. He flipped a palm, a dagger appearing.

With a wave of a hand, his torn and worn hood was pulled over his head, his mane of hair vanishing in a stream of blackness. In the end, the only thing that could be seen was his floating blue irises, reflecting like the depths of the ocean in the darkness.

He took a step and vanished. The next time he paused just long enough for his figure to appear, a head flew into the skies.

The army didn’t even seem to realize that Theron had moved in the first place. A shadow weaved through them—one figure, then two, then ten, then twenty.

Every time Theron acted, he split off from another [Water Clone]. Only his main body should have been able to do any killing; [Water Clone] was a spell for distraction, not attack. And yet…

Dozens of heads flew up at the same time.

Theron’s gaze left streaming lines through the air, every breath leaving a heavy steam.

Chi. Chi. Chi.

Theron landed behind the armor, his chest heaving and over 10% of them having been wiped out in a single instant of time. Chaos erupted once more, but none could seem to tell where the real Theron was.

Those Laws of Concentration were truly on another level. They made even non-lethal Water Mana so potent. All he had to do was form the shape of a blade in the hands of his clones, and suddenly their inconsequential attacks became akin to an executioner’s guillotine.

General Pennel stood shoulder to shoulder with Theron, his body frozen in place. Three [Water Clones] stood around him, each one with a blade at his throat, the real Theron forming the fourth figure that simply stood there, taking deep breaths.

The members of the Nightingale Empire stood in their own chaos as well, some of them wondering if they should attack Theron, and others trying to stop those from other Empires from interfering for fear that Theron might go through with it and take the General’s life.

General Pennel was their strongest soldier. They simply couldn’t lose him here like this. If not for how important this gathering was, his life wouldn’t even be risked in this situation at all.

The General’s eyes couldn’t help but shift over toward Theron, trying to keep his neck straight. He thought that maybe Theron would be looking at him, maybe trying to decide whether to take his life or not, but that couldn’t have been further from the case.

Theron was just standing there, breathing heavily. He was…

Catching his breath.

The reality hit General Pennel like a punch to the gut. Theron didn’t care about him at all. He was just a convenient pawn to use in the middle of the battlefield, a checkpoint Theron had been trying to reach so that he could take a break before continuing on his way, a—

PUCHI.

General Pennel’s gut was stabbed through by several daggers, the bones in his legs shattering as he fell. By the time he hit the ground, Theron was already gone, shooting ahead with all the speed his legs could carry him.

It really was nothing more than a checkpoint to him. As for why he didn’t kill General Pennel, it was for no other reason than that he was more useful alive than he was dead.

Theron’s movement pace accelerated. Though his [Water Clones] were being quickly destroyed, he just made more, pulling on the Water Mana soaking the ground and hanging in the air with an efficiency only possible from a Runebound Water Resonance.

The speed with which he was cutting a path out of the army was nothing short of shocking. A Quasi Gold Mancer turning an army of Silver and Gold Mancers into his own personal playground.

But everyone knew, including Theron, that such a thing could only continue for so long before it reached its end.

And that it did.

Theron had only just broken out of the encirclement when he found himself blocked by Aetherion. He stood there, waiting for him to tire, prepared to take advantage of the situation.

Even without looking, Theron could feel that Morelle and Marcel both were not far away, standing on buildings adjacent to the region.

There was a clear moat of road between the palace grounds and the rest of the city, and they stood on the first line of buildings that began the rest of the city.

In a flash, they were already on the ground, blocking Theron’s path again—the latter’s heavy breathing fogging up the region.