Rivers of the Night

Ruu returned to Daggers of the Night calmly, her expression hidden beneath her cloak.

Soon, she stood before a desk that seemed identical in all ways. However, this time, there was a woman behind it. Old, wrinkled, and looking as though she had already passed away, the elder sat there and didn’t seem to acknowledge Ruu’s presence at all.

It was then that things shifted. Or rather, they shifted the moment Ruu placed the bag in her hand down.

The murky eyes of the old woman opened and she looked at it. Read new chapters at

"There is no blood," she said calmly.

"My mission didn’t require blood. It was a retrieval mission."

"The Guild has grown soft," the old woman said indifferently.

There was a chilliness to her tone that made Ruu feel goosebumps race across her skin. She couldn’t find it in herself to lie to this woman at all. Those eyes, no matter how murky they were, were too sharp, too powerful, too all-seeing.

She could only hope that she wasn’t asked any questions… but she also didn’t know why she was so nervous either.

Using children as hostages, killing pregnant women, raping and pillaging. As far as Ruu was concerned, or the Guild was at that, something like someone else completing her mission for her then handing her the rewards might as well have been a fairy tale.

Why would they care about such things?

But, even so… Ruu didn’t want to let anyone know, and had no need to let anyone know either.

All she knew was that her mission was complete, and that was all they needed to know.

With a raise of her head, she waited as the old woman pulled out the jade and booklet.

"Mm…"

It took a long while before the old woman said anything, and the hum left Ruu on tenterhooks.

"Here are your rewards."

Finally, Ruu exhaled a breath.

"But…"

Ruu froze again.

"You took much too long to complete this mission. Your next quota is already coming up. Any more lags like this and you’ll be executed."

Ruu stiffened considerably before she felt a flash of rage in her. She was nowhere near close to her quota coming up. In fact, she was far ahead.

The old woman grinned a toothy grin.

"What? I don’t like it when people try to hide things from me, and I like Light Mancers even less. Would you like to have a duel about it? I’m sure it’s been a while since the last time our branch had a Daggers Call. What do you say? Let’s do it.

"I hear that another branch had one recently. It really got my blood going. How much of it do you think was spilled?"

Ruu’s fury was like a flame doused in ice-cold water. She stood there for a long moment before turning around and leaving without a word.

The old woman’s sneer didn’t vanish for a long while, but then she went back to her usual half-dead look, her senses passing over the jade again and again.

’Interesting

…

The days passed and the old woman continued to sit at the desk as though she never had anything better to do. Then, over a week later, she suddenly awoke and vanished.

When the world stopped spinning around her, she stood high in the skies, fluctuations rippling across the bottom of her feet.

If others had been there, they would have recognized this Mana… a rare Mana, so unlikely to appear that in all likelihood, in the whole of the province, she was the only one with such an ability…

Space Mana.

The old woman took another step forward, and when she appeared again, she was standing in quite a familiar place.

The Patriarch of the Luminescent Moon Sect’s abode.

With a wave of her hand, the sack carrying the jade and the booklet fell onto the old Patriarch’s desk.

He looked up. "What is this?"

"Open it."

With a frown, the Patriarch’s senses poked at the bag. When he saw what it was, his frown deepened further.

"There’s more than one?"

"You know that there were originally 17 pieces. Clearly, he hid them in different locations."

"Did you interrogate the one that handed it in?"

"She had an odd reaction to be sure, but nothing that seemed worth looking into. I could smell the scent of men on her, she probably just used some unsavory methods to get what she wanted."

The old woman’s face twisted with disgust and the real reason she had punished Ruu came to light. If you had strength, why did you need to use such methods?

The Patriarch shook his head and barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Using babies as shark bait was fine, but god forbid someone open their legs.

This old lady was truly insufferable to him, but having a Space Mancer as an ally was too important.

"Interesting. I was almost 100% certain he had the rest."

"He?"

"You don’t need to know."

The old woman pouted, a sort of look that didn’t seem to fit her appearance at all. It was enough to make a man shudder.

"Well, he could still have a few. But it seems that Beifong likely hid the bulk of it in a secretive place. It’s even possible he already gave it over to the Obsidian Eclipse Sect…"

"How did you even allow this to happen?"

"I let him take it," the Patriarch said with a wave of his hand, still lost in thought.

"What?!" the old woman was taken aback.

"Is it so surprising? The only way to get these snakes to show their tails is to bait them out with some rats. I just didn’t expect Beifong to die so easily—that was a miscalculation on my part."

"Who killed him?"

"Just worry about the matters of your branch."

"You know that I’m the only one that can cross provinces so quickly, right? I’m not so limited. I can help here."

"No. Don’t do too much or you’ll ruin everything."

The old woman fell into silence and this time, she waited for the Patriarch to finish thinking.

Eventually, he exhaled a breath. "We need someone to enter the Obsidian Eclipse Sect to confirm. Send the same girl. She is familiar with the mission and she has the unsavory methods necessary to weave her way in."

The old woman rolled her eyes. "Fine."

"Stay in touch. Send me information she gathers. Once we can confirm or deny, I’ll talk to you about the next steps."

"Understood."

There was a flicker of silver and she vanished.

The Patriarch’s eyes narrowed, his finger tapping at the desk.

’Theron… Theron… Theron… you’ve really caused me a great deal of trouble by killing my son so easily. Luckily, you’ve made yourself useful.’

Slowly, he exhaled a breath.

’If I want to pierce the ceiling of this world, I need more… I can only suppress it for so long. A True Chosen is in my hands now, but the Tribulation Bloomstone is too important… With both

There was another flash in the Patriarch’s eyes.