Rivers of the Night

BOOM.

Grand Elder Macie landed on the shore of the Dark River, her eyes scanning the scene wildly.

She looked to the side, seeing the devastation from a battle previously fought. However, the trouble was that all of the Mana in the air was Gold Mancy coded. There didn't seem to be any signs of Patriarch Nightingale entering a struggle with a higher-level cultivator at all. So where had he gone?

Even after looking for a while, Grand Elder Macie couldn't find anything. She wasn't Elder Dezend—her ability to scan regions and deduce what happened was limited. All she could see was that Theron had definitely clashed with the Core Disciples here.

She roared in frustration.

Logically, she should feel assured. Patriarch Nightingale was much more powerful than herself and should have everything under control. So why was her chest filled with so much anxiety?

Taking haggard, deep breaths, her hair flailing wildly in dry, grey strands, she realized that she had no choice but to return to the group and have Elder Dezend head out instead. Acting personally wasn't going to get her anywhere.

**

Theron walked right through the front gates of the Sect, using a disciple badge from one of the many that he had long since killed. Of course, he wouldn't use the Patriarch's badge at the entrance—that would just be asking for trouble. He wouldn't need that until he was much deeper.

Recalling the map of the Sect in his mind, he walked ahead unhurriedly, his steps calm and even. One of the simplest tenets of assassination was the importance of confidence. Often, 70% or more of a successful covert operation was simply pretending like you were meant to be somewhere you definitely weren't.

Not everyone was as sharp as Theron. And even those that were didn't have the care to have it "on" all the time. There were many things that happened in day-to-day life that were taken for granted.

On paved roads, people behind followed along with those in front of them, taking cues from them on how to act. If one person started running in a crowd, many more would follow soon afterward. If someone shouted in the same crowd, everyone would instantly be alerted.

The amount of times human interaction was based on the push of the many or the pressure of the few was enough to make one wonder what free will truly was.

But it was knowing how to take advantage of these things and press these buttons at the right time that could allow those at the fringe edges of society like Theron to take advantage of situations.

And this time, it was what allowed Theron to enter the Core of the Sect as though he was owed restitution for the trouble they had put him through.

The main hall of the Nightingale Sect was an enormous mountain of obsidian at the center of it all. It had jagged edges and protruding caves formed into windows that almost made it look like a castle chiseled out of stone rather than a true mountain.

This time, Theron didn't choose to walk into the front entrance. Using the presence of the Patriarch's badge, the hidden formations didn't harm him, so he slipped into the darkness, using [Entangling Silence] to hide his presence and practically fuse into the Dark Mana.

There was no map of this region, so he was flying blind. Unfortunately, Patriarch Nightingale's ring didn't have what he needed. But what it did have were a few keys.

From what Theron could tell, the keys had to be matched with the presence of the badge to unlock certain regions, and these regions were what he was looking for.

While he didn't have a map, what he could do was deduce their locations based on the hidden formations protecting the main hall.

These safes formed the foundations of the Sect. They were the Sect's accumulation of wealth, their treasures, where their darkest and most important secrets were kept.

As such, when these halls were being built, the core of the formations would be built around the regions that were most important to protect.

Following this trend, Theron could reverse-engineer the location of the safes by feeling out the flow of Mana in the hidden formations.

Of course, what Theron didn't know just yet was that sensing formations, their movements, and the runes that made them up was a very specialized task in this world. It wasn't something that just anyone could do. And sensing a formation drawn by a Treading Cloud Realm expert as a Silver Mancer was even more impossible.

Yet, it wasn't even a few minutes until Theron found himself standing in a deep, underground hall, with a curved ceiling as tall as 20 meters above his head, dug right out of the mountain's stone.

Three large, heavy metallic doors were built into curved archways ahead, each one being about five or so meters tall and so sturdy that Theron felt it would take even someone in the true Treading Cloud Realm a while to break through.

Someone like Patriarch Nightingale, who was in the Ascending Cloud Realm, certainly couldn't do it without several days to weeks of continuous bombardment.

'These doors are heavy, Theron thought to himself. If I open them, the mountains might rumble—'

Theron was thinking of a way out of this or if the risk was worth it when he noticed something else in the formations. His gaze flickered.

It seemed that he was overthinking things.

He moved toward the first door and opened it up. Then the second, and opened it as well, before opening the third too.

He didn't step into any of them immediately, even as the dust settled down. He wanted them all open first to see which ones to target first.

However, what he was surprised to see was that one of them was filled with… Soul Lamps?

'Why would Soul Lamps be hidden away here? How would they tell if someone died? What's the purpose?'

Theron's gaze flickered as he stepped inside.