Rivers of the Night

"Theron…" Malaya called as they raced down the stone-paved roads.

"Yes?"

"Are you injured?"

Theron raised an eyebrow. "… Not by anything worth considering."

"… Why… why did you make a claim like that…? You’re usually so… levelheaded…" she asked softly.

"Sometimes there are things you have to do no matter what," Theron replied.

Malaya fell into silence. Her brother and father said stuff like that all the time, and she just never understood. There were some things that just weren’t worth it.

"Okay…" she said after a long while.

The sound of rain and hooves stomping against stone echoed again and again.

Theron was quite calm. Even with there having been a while since the last enemy appeared, he didn’t feel anxiety, nor were his eyes constantly scanning for them. It was as though he wasn’t in a deadly situation at all.

They crossed the halfway point between the Vermouth Clan and the venue. Until now, the streets had been relatively deserted, the commoners having cleared away.

These regions were mostly the business and high-class districts, so they weren’t common to be seen here.

But as the venue approached, the number of people began to increase. While they were still sparse, being mostly stragglers that weren’t in the know of what was happening today, their appearance seemed to be like a signal.

As they got closer to the wedding venue, the number of people increased, and from stragglers… they became spectators.

’Interesting choice,’ Theron thought indifferently.

They had gone from a strategy of tiring him out to this. Maybe they thought that he was already nearing the end of his rope, but to only make him step out a single time before reaching this point…

Were they really so confident in who they were sending?

Theron pulled on the reins, his steed’s hooves rising to the skies as it came to a stop, skidding across the wet stone.

Up ahead, two young people stood, one man and one woman.

Cuco and Moreno.

The former was a woman with a clean-shaven head and sharp silver eyes. She had a weapon by the side of her hip stored in a sheath that was impossibly thin, so much so that from some angles, it seemed to vanish from sight entirely. ⱤАℕőʙĚṣ

The other had his hands clasped before him in thick, large, and heavy sleeves. He looked more like a monk on his way to pray rather than someone that had come to battle, and that was only further borne out by the fact his glasses were fogging beneath the humidity of the rain.

Theron calmly set Malaya down once again, slowly sliding off the back of the horse and landing on the ground. His actions seemed a bit labored, but the coolness of the rain soaking him through seemed to temper some of the pain away.

’Both are Quasi-Silver

It was truly a large leap. Right from Seventh Resonance to Quasi-Silver.

Theron took one step after another, the puddles he stepped through hardly rippling at all. But anyone who knew him would know that this wasn’t his best.

Even when he was in the Third Resonance, these puddles he stepped through would be as still as a calm lake. The fact there was any ripple at all went to show his current state.

The shift to his ribs and their fractures were pressing against his meridians in several locations. Not only did it make it painful to circulate his Mana through those areas, but it disrupted the flow.

For someone with as much control as Theron, every little detail mattered, let alone details as important as this.

But that didn’t stop his steps.

He didn’t question anything. He didn’t ask why there were two, he didn’t taunt them, he hardly looked at them. It was like he wasn’t seeing two people at all, but rather that he was looking at two whetstones.

BANG!

Cuco stomped a foot. "I’ll end this."

Moreno watched her back for a moment and then dashed forward. There was a look of indifference on his face, his back leaning forward and his hands still clasped within the large sleeves of his robes.

He had just made a risk assessment. The crown prince had implied that they should fight together. So even if they didn’t, he had to make a show of it.

Cuco snorted when she sensed him behind her, but she didn’t say anything.

Just when she entered a two-meter radius of the walking Theron, she unsheathed her sword.

Lightning fast, blindingly so. She was so swift and powerful that in an instant, her blade had passed through Theron’s throat…

Hitting nothing.

Theron had swayed, [Touch of Mirage] activating.

Cuco spun, ready for an attack from the back, only for a blade to run through the back of her knees in a swift motion.

Assuming that his [Touch of Mirage] was so easily handled just because Easton seemed to have done so was foolish to an extreme. Easton’s method had worked only because Theron had allowed it to.

Cuco’s head flew into the skies.

If they would like to say that this was bullying women, they were free to do so. Today, he would be killing everyone that stood in his path.

Moreno’s eyes narrowed. He was barely a few steps behind Cuco and had seen everything happen. It was like Cuco had presented her back to Theron.

"Your [Touch of Mirage] is powerful," Moreno said lightly, his footsteps not slowing in the slightest.

There was a rattling in his sleeves and his hands finally unclasped.

Nine rings shot out from around his wrists.

Theron had already seen through it.

Soul Mancer. Quasi Third Eye.

He could have warned Cuco, but he didn’t.

Unfortunately for him, Theron had already seen their dynamic from the first time they stepped out. He could hear the reluctance in Moreno’s steps, see the annoyed twitch in Cuco’s eye.

They hadn’t been seamless from the very start.

The Soul Mana fluctuations hadn’t escaped Theron at all, and as the nine sharp rings converged toward him from all sides, he only calmly took a breath and then exhaled.

This would be tougher without [Touch of Mirage].

But still not enough.

[Bursting Water Shield].

A sphere of water suddenly manifested around Theron, the rain pelting down from above rotating into a cyclone.

The nine rings entered and were ejected out in nine different directions as the sphere burst apart, not a single one touching Theron.

[Water Scythe].

Moreno lost sight of Theron, only for a water blade three meters across to suddenly appear in his sights in the latter’s stead.

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