Theron took slow breaths, ignoring the needling pain in his lungs as lightning sparked across his body.
He pulled his father’s blade back, the long, swooshing surge of Water Mana rushing back as it shrank to normal.
He might not be able to cast any spells right now, but he could certainly pour what Water Mana he did have into his blade. He had just been waiting for the perfect ti to use it.
And the chance to take out a powerhouse like Ott? That was all too valuable.
But it wasn’t enough.
He was already looking for more.
Chi.
His step forward was so light, and yet it seed to reverberate across the battlefield. He had sohow beco death incarnate. Even with how weak his body was, with how insignificant he seed in the grand sche of it all, everyone that attacked him suffered.
The Tyre Clan was finished, the Black Clan was retreating, the four geniuses that Garethon had put years into bringing up had been crushed beneath his boot.
At this point, the Mandate Guild didn’t even want to attack, because none of their thods were more powerful than the Tribulation already descending upon Theron’s head, and the old assassin had already almost lost his life once by trying to sneak attack Theron. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to make another attempt, even as he hid in the weaving lines of the shadows.
However... their actions alone didn’t matter at all to Theron. He was already walking forward toward the one man he wanted to kill the most.
When this battle started, Theron knew that there would be threats he needed to chill before he could begin. Ott was too great a threat; the four bodyguards of the Seijin were another.
Now... they were long out of his way.
Garethon just stood there, the distance between himself and those around him extending further. The only one who seed to stand even remotely close was the aged Patriarch Gian.
The man was decades older than Theron rembered him being, almost as though he had aged overnight through so unknown ans.
But Theron didn’t comnt on it, nor did he care to.
Garethon’s smile never faded, and Gian seed to have found a way to heal his broken jaw.
Slowly, the barrier put up by Ott faded, and the rain began to fall back onto Theron’s body, beginning to soak him through once more.
Against the charred flesh that fell from his body from ti to ti, the feeling was actually quite soothing, like ice to an aching bruise or a moist towel to an open wound.
It began to soothe him again, almost as though he was behind that window once more. The pitter-patter against his body thrumd to a rhythmic beat.
His expression didn’t look infuriated; it didn’t even look chilling anymore. It just... was.
His eyes were lost in a bit of a daze, his mories flashing by one after another. But he didn’t seem intent on letting them form completely, the steaming underbelly of his emotions being kept to a slow simr.
And then he stopped.
A re three ters away from the man.
This was probably the closest he had ever been. That day, he had only been able to see him from a distance, so far away that he seed like nothing more than a god hanging in the skies, a deity he would never be able to touch.
Today, though, he would do more than just stand on the sa level as him. He would crush him.
"Well, it’s very nice to formally et you," Garethon said with a smile. "I didn’t expect that such a coincidental eting would bring us together like that. Karma and Fate really have a fascinating way of doing things, don’t you think?"
Theron didn’t respond, his expression not changing in the slightest. His breathing was sohow not haggard any longer.
He felt close... almost there...
To defeat Juliax, he had done sothing he never had before. He impacted her soul.
His Mandate Path was quite interesting. Being able to tap into his emotions to pull chills and heat he should have never been able to from Water Mana made him extrely powerful. But what he realized was that those underlying principles were what were also refining his soul.
So, he wondered... why was it just him?
Why didn’t any of these people have to deal with wild emotional fluctuations to touch onto their Mandates?
That was when he found a weakness of Juliax’s thods. Her soul was so pure, but there was a reason souls matured, becoming more hardened, less susceptible to outside influences.
A child’s mind was malleable—but too malleable. Theron hadn’t even had a soul attack thod, and yet he was able to use his Resonance to mimic aspects of Spirit Mancy and pressure Juliax’s soul directly.
As a result, she lost control for the split mont he needed to crush her. But she also gave him a new path, a more tangible and hands-on approach to refining his soul.
All the while, he had been letting the necklace do it on its own, randomly controlling and wielding his emotions day by day and hoping the next outburst he had would allow his soul to advance once again.
But that was easier said than done.
The problem was... he was still suppressing his rage.
So how would he take the final steps in refining his soul if he wasn’t even allowing the soul cultivation thods he had been born with to do what they were ant to?
Now, though... standing here in front of this man who looked back at him with a smiling expression...
That simring heat within him was beginning to bubble and boil over.
Theron didn’t say a word, but his chilling blue irises slowly beca a resplendent athyst color, his hair peeling away its black layers until it shimred a demonic violet.
The cracks in his skin began to pool with more blood as his heart rate increased, but his expression remained just the sa as a steamy hot breath left his lips.
This kill...
This kill was going to be the first one in his life that he well and truly enjoyed.
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