Rivers of the Night-Chapter 433: Thrice

BANG!

Thessa landed in a fiery heat. At that instant, trees even hundreds of meters away spontaneously combusted. Not a single ember had hit them, and yet the heat seemed to be too much.

With a glance, though, Theron could see that it wasn’t so simple. It seemed to be a Law, almost as though Thessa was causing all of the Fire Mana in the air to make themselves known.

Theron’s eyes couldn’t help but narrow.

The irony was that he had created this monster. Thessa had entered Gold Mancy. But without him, it would have been impossible for her to do so with such speed. Back then, it was he who triggered her evolution so that Patriarch Gian would think that she was responsible for Ironvale’s death.

Well, that had succeeded, and it had bought him a lot of time. But it seemed that not all of his problems would be ignored until he felt the need to address them.

Thessa’s Laws were powerful. Too powerful for him to believe that she had comprehended them on her own, and without help from the Mandate Guild at that.

But it only took him a moment to understand.

Her Fire Spirits.

Thessa had a very unique cultivation method where she tied her progress to her Fire Spirits. It was actually because Theron had gotten her a second that she had immediately shot up to the high tier of Silver Mancy. This was the only reason she made it to Gold Mancy so quickly at all.

Fire Spirits weren’t just burgeoning nuclear bombs strapped to one’s soul. They were kernels of the truest fire essence in all of existence. There was no purer form of Fire Mana in the whole world. There was quite literally no better method of comprehending Fire Laws than having a Fire Spirit.

Once Thessa entered Gold Mancy and gained the ability to see, feel, and manipulate her own soul, her communication with her two Fire Spirits only deepened.

That was all to say that...

Thessa immediately gained two complete Mandates while Theron himself had only just finished building the foundation of his. She had, without exaggeration, become dozens of times more powerful in a blink of an eye, and that was disregarding her cultivation itself.

Theron seemed to have accidentally created a monster, and that monster was now right in front of him.

Yet he seemed to be looking right through her.

Thessa stood there for a long while, her breathing calm and even. But she didn’t act, she didn’t even move. After a long while, she slowly shook her head.

"... Somehow I still feel like I can’t beat you..."

It was hard to understand what her tone was supposed to be.

Theron didn’t say anything, even as Thessa unsheathed her sword.

"... However, it doesn’t matter. I can’t allow you to go and do as you please. It’s best if you’re stopped here and now. For the sake of my own soul, even if I can’t win, I must try."

Theron’s eyes remained a chilling, indifferent blue. Aeryn’s neck was still in his hand, the latter’s body shaking with pain due to the heat searing against his skin. It felt to him like he might be turned to ash any moment now.

However, behind those eyes, Theron was trying to understand something. Thessa’s resolve was nice and all, but for what purpose? What was she chasing after so hard that she felt the need to do this? What did she know?

It couldn’t be that?

"You don’t want me to save Malaya?"

There was a flicker in Thessa’s eyes. In that moment, Theron saw a reflection of the woman that had killed her best friends.

That night, during the Thistles’ banquet, he had seen a side of Thessa that most probably wouldn’t understand. Most probably thought that her relationship with those two Luminescent Sect Disciples had been fake, but Theron was very good at reading people.

He knew how real that relationship had been, but she had still made such a decision.

It wasn’t beneath her to sacrifice someone like Malaya after she was willing to do something like that. After all, unlike Soren and Teagan, Thessa didn’t even have a relationship with Malaya.

The question was only if she would benefit from the death or not. And that was what left Theron the most baffled.

Did they really believe that Malaya’s death was capable of influencing him to this extent? Did they think that forcing him to know she had died due to nothing more than his roping her into all of this would impact him as much as they thought? So sure that they were even willing to put their lives on the line to this extent?

The anger Theron had suppressed came bubbling back up. It wasn’t because of the audacity, but because of the words Grand Elder Acer had spoken.

The reason they believed all of this was because of his mother. They actually thought that they could use her memory against him.

"Three times I’ve let you live," Theron said slowly. "Thrice."

The first time, he didn’t kill her after those words she said about his parents.

The second time, he didn’t kill her in the volcano even though her life was well in hand.

The third time, he let her live when she was under Exsaa’s control.

None of this even counted the time he saved her from dying beneath Yonowai’s sword.

Every time he did so, he had a purpose for her, which was fine enough. But every time, she came back, with a tone that was more annoying, a posture that was more infuriating. Time and time again.

Right now, however... she had no more use remaining.

BANG!

He tossed Aeryn to the side, taking a step forward as he unsheathed his blade. It churned with life and all of a sudden, the heat in the atmosphere became a sizzling steam before it froze over.

SHUUU.

Theron moved, crossing the distance between them in the blink of an eye, his blade swiping down.