Rivers of the Night

Theron raised his gaze toward the young man. He had known that there were twelve Core Disciples, the weakest of whom was in the higher Middle Gold Resonance Realm, and the best of which was at the Quasi Cloud Realm.

But this was the first time he was seeing a Core Disciple that was in the top three. He had no idea what rank he was, but he saw through his cultivation with a single glance.

Sixth Gold Resonance.

Not good enough.

Theron raised a finger. He had never learned a finger technique, but honestly, he didn't think that he needed one right now.

The separation between himself and the Seventh Core Disciple was just a hundred meters or so. Usually, this would be a distance that diluted his attack too much. But a Sixth Resonance Gold Mancer was so weak to him now that…

It didn't matter in the slightest.

[Shadow Extend].

PCHU.

The last act of the Seventh Core Disciple was to barely release his bowstring. He hardly knew what happened, not even registering the line of foggy black that extended through the skies.

An odd feeling came through Theron's finger as he felt it squelch through flesh, blood, and bone, ripping through the forehead of the Seventh Core Disciple as though his defenses were as worthless as moistened paper.

The battlefield fell into silence.

The technique was different from what they were used to seeing from Mancers that they didn't even register that it was the most commonly used technique in their Sect—[Shadow Extend].

And how could they?

Most were used to [Shadow Extend] having a limit of a meter or two at most. The more length you extended, the more Mana it took, and the more deconstruction the attack underwent.

Not only did it take more skill to reform what had been deconstructed, but the power would be spread over too large a surface area.

A normal disciple attacking from such range wouldn't even be able to harm a housefly, even if they managed to extend their attack that far.

Yet… Theron had just killed a Gold Mancer as though it was as easy as breathing.

It was such an absolute show of strength that there was no second person who dared to attack Theron at all.

It had taken the disciples an entire month before they felt comfortable killing one another. Although the Matriarch said there were no longer any rules, they had grown up with these rules, lived with them as the guardrails that protected their lives—how could they give them up so easily?

Theron had only just stepped out, and yet he seamlessly adjusted.

He was allowed to kill?

Alright. Why would he think twice, exactly? So that he could let others take advantage of him?

These greenhouse disciples had no idea what he had been through to stand here today.

With another step, Theron was already walking up the stairs that led to Lyra. By now, she had lost so much blood that she was unconscious. But what was interesting was that she wasn't humiliated in the ways Theron would expect a beautiful woman to be.

This wasn't a fantasy world imagined up in some novel. Theron knew exactly what happened to helpless beautiful women when they had no ability to fight back.

But all signs pointed to Lyra being treated like any other male combatant.

Theron didn't believe that the Nightingale Sect was uniquely moral. There had to be another reason for this.

'Is it her background?'

Theron recalled the saber that Lyra brought out, but then immediately dismissed it. It was still a possibility that they were worried, but it was more likely that they wouldn't dare to do anything to her if they knew the true extent of her background.

In that case…

'An elder is involved.'

Theron had already felt this was the case after seeing how he hadn't been bothered at his Immortal Cave. Lyra alone couldn't stop elders from targeting him, so backing her had to have. And for her to end up like this, it meant that whoever had been backing her had been dealt with.

Maybe if he had taken any longer to come out, someone would have broken his door down.

Theron reached a hand forward to bring Lyra down when he sensed hints of danger. He hurriedly pulled his hand back as a line of whizzing black peeled across the skies. It wasn't an arrow, but instead a concentrated beam of Dark Mana that seemed to deconstruct in its path.

"True cruelty—"

Theron tuned out the rest of the speech. The moment he heard the first two words, he ironically came to understand two things.

It was an old voice. As he expected, an elder had taken action. Second, he was taking action with the pretext that Theron was cruel.

However, there was a third thing hidden in there.

'True rage. He's furious.'

Theron understood then. This was just the first layer of the trap that was being unearthed.

He had killed the Seventh Core Disciple, and this man was especially furious about that. Someone had likely set it up so that would happen. Now, this Cloud Realm expert wanted nothing more than to take his head off.

That said…

Theron hardly reacted much at all to this. He had come here without schemes, openly, because he wanted to test himself. If he really wanted to avoid a trap like this one, he wouldn't have done that.

He wanted to see just how much this person had to throw at him.

[Shadow Step].

Theron's body flashed as he vanished from the platform, appearing seven meters away as a disheveled man with snot and tears running down his face appeared.

While Theron didn't recognize him, everyone else certainly did.

The Eighth Elder.

He might have been the last ranked amongst the Nightingale Sect Elders, but he was still a Cloud Realm expert, and the flaring of his Cloud Mana made that very clear.

"DIE!" he roared, reaching out a finger and causing another beam of light to tear a path toward Theron.