Rivers of the Night - Chapter 658

Chapter 658: Only Ask

The Matriarch of the Hall of Ice and Heart realized that getting what she wanted wouldn’t be so easy anymore. But honestly, she had already expected this. A child like Theron couldn’t possibly lack backing.

Rather than making an enemy, she should try to make a friend.

“I see that I’ve made a mistake.” She nodded slowly.

Raising a hand, she flicked out a finger.

First Elder Bertrum didn’t even see it coming. He was still on a high, believing that he had cleverly forced Theron into a corner. So long as Theron fell, what leverage Lyrah had would completely vanish.

As high as he was, he came crashing down even faster.

Chi.

He didn’t even feel it initially. What came first was the feeling of a breeze where there shouldn’t have been one.

He looked down, his eyes beginning to bulge as he then felt the second thing… a large amount of his power being leeched away from himself. His body almost deflated as though he was a balloon, his blood leaking out of him almost as fast as his Mana.

He was… crippled?

First Elder Bertrum fell to a knee, his face paling. The Matriarch had shattered his Core with a thought, not even giving him time to explain himself or pull himself out of the quagmire.

The Grand Elder shivered, lowering his head to the ground instantly.

It was easy to forget the gap in strength between them when the Matriarch was always in seclusion, striving for new tiers of power.

But times like this reminded them just who the inferior amongst them was. There was no escaping the truth. In this world, strength ruled everything, and they weren’t nearly strong enough.

“We won’t allow baseless speculations to rule our decisions in the future,” the Matriarch said calmly. “If you would follow me, please. There is something that I would like to discuss with you. Lyrah, come with me. We will also promote you to First Elder in the meantime.”

Lyrah blinked and then slowly nodded.

She knew why the Matriarch wanted her there. Obviously, it was as a buffer for Theron. Whatever the Matriarch wanted, she hoped a friendly face would help her.

Unfortunately, she had no idea the sort of relationship that she and Theron had.

In the crowd, whether it was Little Third or the twins, Violet and Lilac, their expressions paled to ash.

This was especially so for the twins, who had lost everything in a single go. Their former master was promoted to the very same level the master they had betrayed her for had once been. But now the latter was little more than a cripple, and the former had risen far beyond them.

What would they do now?

It wasn’t long before they were in a palace formed of ice, cool waters running along the path they walked.

Theron found his eyes constantly moving toward these streams of water. They reminded him a lot of his own path. Such cold, and yet not formed into ice, but instead water.

However, Theron felt they were lacking something. They weren’t like this because of Laws, but instead because the Water Mana that made them up was resisting the Ice Mana. It was a completely different concept, and it seemed to be being helped by complex formations Theron didn’t understand.

He had vaguely heard of formations in the past, but he didn’t know anything about them outside of some surface-level information.

There were some teachings in the Assassination Tenets about them, but the problem was that these things were incredibly rudimentary compared to the complexities in this world. And, in the Tenets, they were rarely described because too few powers used such formations on a small scale.

As for large-scale formations, it was smarter to find a way to disguise yourself and blend into a city or castle rather than breaking the formation itself.

After seeing through this matter, Theron looked away. This water was just here for landscaping. The Matriarch probably thought it was more interesting to look at flowing water than bands of ice everywhere.

Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anything special about it.

Soon, they came to a stop in a courtyard lined with white roses.

The Matriarch looked toward the spear on Theron’s back for a moment. The Ancestor Bird had long vanished, but with the Matriarch’s sight, how could she not have picked up on the fact it had come from the box that looked as though it was formed of jigsaws?

“I know some of the secrets of the Nightingale Clan…” she started slowly. “… You are aware that your appearance here today will cause me no small amount of problems in the future, correct?”

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird didn’t reply, and a silence hung in the air. However, the Matriarch didn’t seem perturbed. In fact, she seemed to expect this. To her, it meant that she had hit the nail on the head.

“The relations between the Umbra Clan and the Nightingale Clan aren’t exactly the best as far as I understand it. You once ruled the Umbra, but you were then relegated to a subordinate force, being replaced as the main Clan. You continued to deteriorate over the years until you weren’t even fit to be a subordinate force any longer. You are a footnote in the Umbra Clan’s history, a vaguely connected power not even in name or essence.”

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird still didn’t reply, but the Matriarch continued unbothered.

“The odds that anyone on the outside knows this are minimal. However, as slow as it will be, this news will eventually reach the Umbra. At that point, how do you think they will react? Will they welcome this descendant of yours with open arms? Or will they seek to uproot you entirely?”

The Matriarch’s gaze slowly shifted from the spear to Theron.

“I can do my best to seal this information. This is my territory, after all—I still have quite some sway. I only ask to take a look at the Nightingale Clan’s Soul Method.”