Rivers of the Night

Streams of vaporized blood came from Theron’s eyes and ears, his veins bulging in size until they looked as though pythons were writhing beneath his skin.

When his foot pressed down, the soil compressed by an entire half-foot. But the swirling concentration of Water Mana was so high that the earth that should have swallowed up his feet became a liquefied mesh that propelled him forward instead.

BANG!

The legs of Theron’s pants ripped apart as though his quads had exploded with too much strength.

Holding onto his short sword with two hands, Theron’s body seemed to blink forward, streams of water wrapping around him in larger and larger tidal waves.

And then they all vanished in the blink of an eye, being sapped into his pores, as though pooling into dried sand.

SHIIIIIING!

There was a heaviness that suddenly formed around his blade, a bright coating of blue blooming so bright that it swallowed up the sunlight itself.

If not for his cultivation level, even the old man would have had to blink.

Theron’s body appeared on the other side of the Ebonstone, his heels grinding into the dirt and leaving large trenches before his knees buckled. He collapsed to the ground.

His veins burst, blood leaking from his ears, nose, and eyes as he keeled over. Every part of him twitched, and yet it seemed like the Ebonstone was still standing tall…

Or so it seemed from the old man’s vantage point.

Slowly, the old man stood, rounding his table and standing before the stone.

There was a large trench formed, starting from where Theron had taken his ready stance to three dozen meters ahead, where he finally came to a grinding halt.

And in the middle of that, split by the large trench, there were the two halves of the Ebonstone.

The pupils of the old man trembled.

’He… used [Blood Escape] and [Songful Blade] at the same time. Then he used some odd method to increase the concentration of Water Mana in the air, before somehow concentrating it all into his blade with a heavy resonance

Theron had layered so many abilities that as someone who wasn’t a Water Mancer, the old man simply wasn’t able to see through it all.

He was right about Theron using both techniques the old man taught him. It made him a madman, but he had done it.

Using [Blood Escape] when he first learned it would have already made him fast enough to escape from most Low-Tier Silver Mancers. Now, however, he was definitely fast enough to escape most Middle-Tier Silver Mancers.

Rushing forward with the speed of a Fifth Silver Resonance cultivator with the body of a Bronze Mancer… right toward an indestructible wall…

That was begging for death.

Not only was the boldness shocking, but the fact he had been able to activate both it and [Songful Blade] at the same time was enough to leave the old man floored.

[Blood Escape] concentrated its power into the legs and lungs, pumping the body with oxygen while driving one’s speed. It focused on fast-twitch muscles and only a single region of the body.

By comparison, [Songful Blade], focused on far more robust muscle fibers, didn’t include an oxygen-pumping method, and mostly concentrated its strength into the arms for a single swing.

Being able to activate the two together practically meant that Theron could already cast [Songful Resonance].

If Theron had done this alone, it would have been enough for the old man to have no words to speak. The rest, though… somehow, he felt that it was even more impressive.

And that it was, especially considering that Theron had used his Blue Pufferfish Resonance to increase the density of the edge of his blade.

A Bronze Mancer… not even at Quasi Silver… capable of matching the raw power of a Seventh Resonance Silver Mancer…

Even if it was just for one attack, even if Theron had nothing left to give and could be killed by even a mortal now…

Just what sort of monster was this child?

The old man took a breath and shook his head.

"Idiot."

If Theron had just left a nick, it would have been enough. All he had wanted to do was knock him down a peg. But…

’The boy Raiden. He only cut halfway through at Quasi Silver

The old man felt himself wavering slightly. It wasn’t until Theron’s coughing up blood caught his attention that he snapped out of it and threw the boy a High-Tier Silver Healing Pill.

...

"Come back later. Your body is in no state to learn those techniques right now." Experience more on

"But I can learn [Soul Escape], no? Don’t try and shortchange me, old man."

"[Soul Escape] isn’t what you think it is."

"It’s just a method of using soul strength to amplify the body, right?"

The old man opened his mouth to refute before pausing.

Normally, when people heard that name, they would think it meant expelling the soul from the body and running away with it. Theron, though, seemed to have already grasped the truth.

That was why the moment he heard it, he knew he had to learn it. This might be the missing piece he needed to grasp what was truly special about the Luminescent Moon Sect’s methods.

He knew that a real soul escape was impossible for anyone. The soul was too fragile. For the old man to bring out this method as a final shot at convincing Theron to give it a go, it obviously couldn’t be so useless.

The answer was so obvious it wasn’t worth even considering the other possibilities.

"… This method is even more dangerous than the other three. A drain on the body is far different from a drain to the soul. The latter you might never recover from without very special methods. If your soul is permanently weakened, everything from your intelligence to your Mana control will take a permanent hit.

"Do you understand?"

"I understand," Theron said, his eagerness still bleeding through.