Malaya coughed, gasping for breath, but there didn’t seem to be nearly enough oxygen for her. Theron could hear it—the problem wasn’t a panic attack, but that her lungs were filling up with water and mucus.
She was in a state where she was already on the verge of dying.
How many days had it been? Did she even get the chance to spend ti with her family before she was kidnapped again?
The thoughts ca to Theron’s mind before he could stop them, and he found himself actually feeling...
Angry.
What was wrong with these people? Could they not tell that he didn’t care? Did they just get off on harming and humiliating the weak? Was that all their strong cultivation amounted to? Was that what their foundations were built on?
CLANG.
Theron’s arms tensed around the chains that bound him, a spark of pain ripping through him. But that didn’t stop the land they were attached to from trembling.
Malaya happened to be near one of them and looked up toward it. However, she couldn’t seem to focus on it at all.
That was when Theron noticed an odd green tinge in the whites of her eyes, while her irises themselves were paler than they should be.
She was blind. She could only vaguely look toward the sounds she was hearing. The poison had spread so far that it was eroding her nervous system. The fact she could walk at all was a miracle.
Theron gritted his teeth so hard and so suddenly his molars cracked, and yet the pain didn’t seem capable of waking him up.
How had she even made it up here? Did they drag her up here just to make her walk the last of the steps herself?
Theron’s breathing was beginning to grow uneven.
He didn’t care. He really didn’t care. But these thods... the more they used them, the more they infuriated him.
It was like he was seeing the callousness of this world play out again and again.
"If you listen closely, and stop being distracted by those emotions you pretend not to have, there’s quite the battle happening down there for your sake."
Theron didn’t respond. He couldn’t hear anything, and he doubted the old assassin could either—at least not without using his Sound Mana, but he wasn’t using it on nearly a large enough scale for him to reach that far.
It was likely he knew the battle was going on before he even stepped foot here. Or maybe he had gone to personally check or left a few formations to feed him information about what was going on.
"The irony is that I bet you have quite a bit to do with how many people showed up. The Tyre and Blacks are at each other’s throats, the Mandate Guild brought out their Ancestors, the poor little Firewing Empire is in turmoil, and I didn’t even get a chance to call my wife here to help out because I’m quite afraid that you’ll end up killing her in revenge, and I can’t have that, now can I?"
The old assassin brought out a jug and took a large swig. Even from here, Theron could sll the dense waft of alcohol.
He had never seen the old man drink before, but for so reason, he could sense that rather than growing weaker, he was actually growing stronger.
"The world is a mysterious place, Rain. You’re quite intelligent for a child, but you lack experience, and because of that, you lack wisdom. If I had wanted to, I could have made Raiden so powerful that he could have killed you with a fart if he so wanted, but I slowed his progression down on purpose because there’s sothing to be said about struggling to gain your power.
"When it cos too easily, there will always be issues with that. I didn’t think catching you would co at such little cost to myself, and yet here we are."
"Well said, old friend," the voice of Patriarch Gian echoed from a distance, but it sounded fatigued.
"Oh. It looks like we have company."
"You said this as though you didn’t know I was approaching for a long while."
"You were moving so slowly I assud you were a little turtle that got lost on your way back to your little pond."
"Harsh words to speak. I’m just an old man trying my best."
Patriarch Gian slowly walked out of the fog while Malaya quivered by a rock formation, not daring to move. It was clear from the way that she reacted to Gian’s voice...
He was the reason for all of this.
Theron took a deep breath, hoping that this ti it didn’t send him into a spiral. Luckily, this ti, the water that fell into his lungs worked properly and healed him rather than making him feel as though he was suffocating.
’The Black Limbo Tortoise Beast Core...’
The thought ca to mind and Theron couldn’t help but wonder just how much of his eting with Patriarch Gian was truly serendipity and him taking advantage, versus how much of it had been planned by this man from the very start of it all...
It was unfortunately impossible to tell... but sothing told Theron that the truth would co out in short order.
Even with the chatter of the two n, it was the sound of Malaya’s attempts at breathing that reached Theron the most.
"But I guess there’s no need to be in such a rush. It seems that the ti isn’t ripe yet. Maybe we’ll just have to sit here and wait for your precious wife to die of natural causes.
"I will have you know, though, that I’ve treated her quite well. I didn’t do anything to her. You knew already that she would die after three days. I just thought that it would be best if you witnessed her final monts personally. It would be a bit ridiculous if you missed this, no?"
Patriarch Gian smiled lightly.
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