Rivers of the Night - Chapter 661

Chapter 661: Levitating

It wasn’t the fact that Matriarch Macie was fighting that was so shocking. It was the fact her aura was so absurdly powerful.

Just as shocking was that right across from her, she was locked in a dead heat with none other than Kempe of the Mercenary Guild. Right this moment, the latter’s expression was particularly ugly. He hadn’t had any desire to expose this much of his power, but if he didn’t, he was actually on the verge of losing his life to this Matriarch of a tiny Sect.

It didn’t make any sense to him.

He was already invested in Macie because he felt that there was something of interest in her. But he didn’t expect such a thing to cost him so much.

The moment the Hall started asking questions, one thing after another would be exposed, and then he wouldn’t have much of a choice but to be wholly screwed over.

At that point, his life in the Mercenary Guild would become a living hell. It couldn’t have been any worse than this.

Theron, who was still watching from below, frowned, and his gaze turned toward a distant location to spot the Matriarch of the Hall standing there without doing much of anything.

At first, he was confused, but then he understood.

To her, this was a battle she couldn’t easily get involved with, even if these two were much weaker than herself.

On one side, there was the Mercenary Guild. Although they were supposed to be neutral, no one was foolish enough to test this too much.

The martial world was still the martial world at the end of the day. Who knew how many Sects the Mercenary Guild influenced from the shadows or how many powerhouses they had killed in secret for violating their bottom lines?

While it was possible to extort something out of the Mercenary Guild like Theron had suggested the Matriarch do, it had to be done within reason and without too much arrogance.

Theron’s gaze flickered as he felt Kempe’s mask slip. He outputted more than 60% of his strength, and the result was the mask of a middle-aged man he wore flickered out for a moment before he dipped back beneath the strength threshold.

‘FUCK!’ Kempe roared in his mind.

Although he reacted quickly, the likes of a Dome of Heaven expert would have never missed that brief window. He had already been exposed.

Kempe took a strong step back, stomping the air with such force craters appeared dozens of meters below. Flipping a palm, he pulled out a mask and put it on.

His aura exploded after this, his power climbing like a rocket into the skies.

With a swift motion, he unsheathed both scythes from his back. He wanted to end this quickly and get out of here, but Matriarch Macie grinned a savage grin, blood leaking from the corners of her mouth.

Theron could swear that she had substantially fewer wrinkles now than when he met her, as though she was slowly aging in reverse.

Her weapon was even odder. It looked like a spear of bone, like she had ripped out the spine of a large beast to build the three-meter-long behemoth.

Despite this, the spear didn’t have any more flex to it than any other spear would in the heat of battle. More shocking than that, Theron could feel her becoming sharper, faster, stronger in real time in ways that defied common sense.

Theron had already found it odd that Macie had made it to the Ascending Cloud Realm after being promoted from Grand Elder to Matriarch. But now, she was actually in the Treading Cloud Realm, the same level Kempe had been when he hid his cultivation previously.

Now, Kempe was radiating the aura of a Quasi Dome of Heaven expert, but Macie was actually radiating the aura of an Eighth Resonance Cloud Mancer.

More shocking than even that, while she was clearly at a great disadvantage and suffering one injury after another—especially after Kempe stopped holding back in hopes of ending things quickly—she was somehow still holding on.

And that led to the second reason the Matriarch of the Hall of Ice and Heart wasn’t interfering.

She likely believed that Macie was some secret agent of the Umbra Clan. There was no way she would want to get involved in such a battle.

Matriarch Macie unleashed a wild howl, raising her head to the skies as wings of darkness exploded from her back. One of Kempe’s scythes sliced her neck through, almost decapitating her, but only curving through about halfway.

Kempe had been compensating for what he thought was a coming dodge. But because Macie was such a madwoman, she not only didn’t move at all—this saved her from a fate of losing her head.

Even so, this gushing of blood should have at least knocked her unconscious, killing her moments later. But instead, tendrils of darkness stitched it together as the wings grew so large they practically blotted out the moons.

It was then Theron felt a stirring deep within the black box on his back.

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird shook, and then shook again. The jigsaw pieces formed of blocks and prisms began to slowly ease apart as though levitating on a magnetic turntable.

Theron frowned, and the instant he did, the savage eyes of the Matriarch snapped over toward him.

She seemed to have grown younger by another decade, and slowly the beauty she had once been was shining through as she crept back into her middle ages. Her bust stood more proudly, her back straightened, and her legs unbent from the wear of age.

Her soft calves and delicate feet began to peek out from the edges of her robe, but the look in her eye was no less savage than it had been before.

‘A true awakening…’

The ancient voice of the Nightingale echoed in Theron’s skull.

He didn’t have the time to understand what was happening before the Matriarch reached out a palm and his spear box was ripped from his back, nearly taking his arms with it.