Rivers of the Night

Chapter 259 259: Weak

Theron's world seemed incredibly small at the moment. Staring up into the skies, able to see nothing at all but vague darkness and a heavy, oppressive aura, he forgot time.

The loops of his fear and hardship just kept playing in his ears again and again. It was then he realized something…

This Tribulation…

Was quite weak.

To have such thoughts while he was a charred mess, his body seemingly just moments away from collapsing, was nothing if not absolutely ridiculous. To have such a boldness about him, such an indifferent, uncaring resolution in his mind…

It belied his age to such an extent that even his previous and obvious maturity still seemed to be lacking in this moment.

At that moment, something in the back of Theron's mind snapped, a hold that had been on him that he didn't even notice, a chain that was unraveling before his eyes.

If Theron had to put into words why he had faced off against this Tribulation before this moment, he probably couldn't have done it. It was stupid, it was reckless, it was all the things he had never been, that he had avoided being all of his life.

But right now, he felt it was great clarity.

From the start, he had had shackles weighing him down, shackles that weren't just the product of his parents' gruesome deaths, his little sister's last tear-filled look, but instead the machinations of another man…

This Imprint of a coward.

"To think… that your Tribulation… would be so weak."

He had sacrificed so many lives, crushed the hopes and dreams of so many innocents, just to get a Tribulation like this one…

Only for Theron to stand here and take on all its rage with four Cultivation tiers beneath where he had been back then.

Theron needed to see it for himself, that this man wasn't some great boogeyman.

He was a coward.

A coward that targeted the elderly, women, and children.

A coward that farmed Bad Karma from the weakest and the lowest.

A coward with a Tribulation that couldn't even kill a mid-tier Silver Mancer.

"Nothing but a coward. I will slaughter you like a pig. You deserve nothing more."

There was a deep malevolence in Theron's eyes as the circulating hot and cold energies within him settled down for a moment before reaching their boiling point.

They pooled over his body, through his Meridians, and shot up to their favorite spot in his mind.

A light of gold sparked between Theron's brow, then came the swirling masses of deep red and icy blue forming a dance between them.

Theron's eyes had long been charred black, but at that moment, there was a flash of radiant blue that took shape, carrying just the slightest tinge of violet in its midst.

BOOM!

The Blood Crystals, mostly empty beneath Theron's feet, cracked as though something heavy had just fallen onto them.

Theron broke into the Sixth Resonance, his charred flesh splintering more as blood began to run down his body… blood that carried within it small flakes of the very same blue and slight violet that had just been on his forehead.

BOOM!

He sank further into the ground, shattering the barrier to Seventh Resonance as though kicking down a door.

His Cultivation methods circulated all on their own, flowing through his body in wider and wider streams as his Meridians were bashed against and forcefully expanded.

But what was curious was that as his blood passed through his Meridians, the flakes of blue and slight violet were absorbed by it, healing the microtears and making them thicker, larger.

Theron didn't seem to notice these changes to himself at all. He just continued to stare into the skies as though to remind himself how truly indifferent he was to it.

That man… if this was all the strength he had, no matter his backing, no matter what Clan he came from, no matter how far he ran when he came to understand who he had provoked…

Theron would make certain he understood just how small he well and truly was.

The Tribulation Clouds began to wane as though they had already given all the energy they could. Theron didn't seem surprised by this.

Even after slashing at it so many times, it was as though his Mandate of the Heavens had no real pride to it. It truly did feel weak.

He had wondered why it was the Luminescent Moon Sect would create a method to make them harder, and he seemed to finally understand.

Deep inside, he subconsciously knew that just slashing at the Tribulation Clouds wouldn't make them much harder than normal. There seemed to be something special about him that pissed them off in particular… but even then, it just sputtered and gave up in the end.

He might seem torn from every angle and every limb, but the reality was that his inner organs were well protected and insulated, the lightning flashing through him as though it might as well have not been there at all.

And then it suddenly came to a stop as the last of the Blood Crystal's energies were sucked away.

Theron stood there in silence, still unable to move freely. He might have said that the Tribulation was weak, but that didn't mean that he wasn't heavily injured…

Slowly, he began to shift his arm.

His skin cracked, large chunks of flesh falling from him in grotesque piles.

There was no smooth skin beneath, just muscle, gristle, and tendons.

Blood continued to fall, but one would have thought from Theron's lack of a word that he didn't feel anything at all.

And then… his hand made it to his mouth, a Vitality Bloomstone being pressed into the fused gap between his lips and ripping them apart with a punch of his palm.

He could have taken this long ago, he could have right before his battle with the shadow, or right before his battle with Halder, or right before the Tribulation, or even right in the middle of it.

But he hadn't.

He hadn't to prove something to himself.

And that was exactly what he had done.

CRACK.

A rippling life force began to run through Theron's body, large amounts of Water Mana fallen from the Tribulation surging into his body in waves.