Rivers of the Night - Chapter 709

Chapter 709: Free
Theron’s blood roared through his veins, his Mana circulating with a vibrant heat that didn’t seem natural in its origins. His expression didn’t seem to change much even given the danger of the situation. In fact, there seemed to be an odd glint there, as though something that had been slowly awakening inside of him was only continuing to do so now.

His momentum kicked up into high gear, and in the same instant he reached the large foyer of the lobby, bursts of shadowy figures launched themselves outward as well.

Theron’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. From the start, he knew that the instant the assassin’s guild was revealed, they would be flushed out and forced to escape from all directions.

This had gone from a matter where the Shonagh Clan was acting unilaterally to one where the entire city might be on their side.

Which major power in the city hadn’t experienced some sort of loss at the hands of this assassin’s guild? Theron might not even know their names yet, but he certainly knew that all such guilds were the same.

They put profit above all else, and the people they would kill were only limited by what was placed in their coffers.

Their enemies would be as numerous as the stars in the skies. If they didn’t escape now, they would find themselves surrounded and hounded by every major and minor power in the city until there were none of them left.

Escaping now was the only option.

And in this chaos…

Theron’s opportunity would arrive.

“KILL THEM ALL!” Chen roared.

In a rare moment, he seemed to have completely lost his charming smile and witty grin. There was a fury in his eyes as though he was reliving just how close he had been to losing his own life just earlier today.

In his life as the Shonagh Clan’s young master, he had never come so close to death before. Whether it be his own personal power or the top-tier protection he was given by his elders, there had never been a chance for someone to make him face the song of death.

After someone experienced such a thing, there were two paths he could take. One path was to cower, to shrink, to look around every corner with a peek of your foot and a shift of your head, hoping that the next danger to your life wouldn’t be hidden around it.

The other path was that of a true warrior and cultivator.

He was standing here, in the den of his attackers, fury billowing from his chest as his hair and that of the brush danced in the wind.

He wanted revenge.

Chen’s calligraphy brush shook, and he raised it into the air. As though wielding a spear, he thrust it continuously, moving so fast he left afterimages in the air.

PUCHI. PUCHI. PUCHI.

The fine horse hairs of the brush lengthened like whips and sharpened like blades. It carried the undefined flexibility of a weapon formed of threads and silk, and yet could instantly harden into one that was finer and sharper than any sword.

And its range… its range was unlike anything Theron had ever seen outside of archers themselves.

‘What a weapon…’

Theron had always been indifferent to weapons for the most part. He chose his father’s short sword because it was a family heirloom, not because he felt he was most suited to the short sword. In fact, the reason he started to dual-wield in the first place was because he felt that the short sword alone couldn’t bring out the full strength of his Water Mancy.

The way he had answered in class that day was about as real as he felt. There was no one weapon that perfectly suited an Elemental Path, but there were certainly weapons that suited it more than others.

And this was the first time Theron was running into one he felt was truly superior in this regard.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t his weapon—nor did it matter that it wasn’t.

He tapped a foot and spun through the air. The lines of calligraphy brush hair sharpened into steel wires that crisscrossed through the air, tensioning against Chen’s Mana and then ripping toward him.

With another tap of his foot through the air, Theron slipped through just as it was about to enclose the region around him.

But the assassins around him weren’t so lucky.

Some of them continued to run forward as though they hadn’t even realized what had happened to them, only to collapse into heaps of their own flesh and blood in a grotesque sight.

BANG.

Theron touched down on the ground and immediately accelerated to the side, just barely dodging the descent of a magic circle that quickly deployed a killing formation.

He watched as others were trapped in it as well, his pupils darting around for a new exit path.

He could feel every aspect of his blood rushing into his very ears themselves, his heartbeat becoming louder and louder to him until…

Veinsong.

Theron slipped into it without even noticing, the battle falling to silence.

He hadn’t even noticed how long it had been since he entered Veinsong. In fact, even now, he was so lost in the feeling of battle and chaos around him that he didn’t notice he hadn’t entered it just now either.

In order to enter Veinsong, you needed to be at peace, in a state of complete calm. But Theron hadn’t had peace in so very long… even now, it wasn’t truly peace.

He was just finally distracted by a challenge great enough that his mind forgot everything else.

It forgot his pain, forgot the darkness in the depths of his heart, forgot the rage that was constantly threatening to bubble over.

And for the smallest of moments…

He was free.

BANG.

His power shot through a ceiling, reaching a whole other level. His limbs moved like a well-oiled machine and in an instant of time, he appeared before Chen.