Rivers of the Night - Chapter 675

Capítulo 675: Bloodline

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird didn’t reply.

Theron, though, didn’t seem impatient. It would take him a small bit of time to reach his destination, and unless you had a top-flight flying vessel capable of allowing you to train, there was no cultivating that would be getting done in the depths of space either.

All Theron had was this. He had all the time in the world.

If the Nightingale Ancestor Bird just wanted the legacy of its family to come to an end right here and now, then it could make that choice too. Theron didn’t care.

Though the Nightingale Dark Resonance was somewhat important to him, he didn’t trust the Nightingale Ancestor Bird to make changes to his body right now. He would rather go without it than let something hostile to him have control over his most vulnerable parts.

A sigh echoed.

This one didn’t sound like the Heavens. It sounded tired, as though it had run to the very ends of its rope.

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird knew that things were out of its control now. Before Theron’s breakthrough, it still had some leverage. But those days were certainly over now.

There was simply no chance.

“The Nightingales are an Ancient Race of Human. They carry the bloodline of the Asuras, a race that isn’t quite Demon, but was close. This made us unique close to death as compared to others, and our Dark Mana was able to benefit from that.

“Mandates as you know them are amplifiers in layman’s terms. For a genius like yourself, you’ve probably come to understand that Mandates are a looking glass into Mana. It’s not an amplifier, but instead a method of seeing the secrets of the energy you control, allowing you to manipulate portions that others can’t otherwise sense, or you wouldn’t be otherwise able to.

“However, as grandiose as the name of a Mandate is, it is purely the beginning of cultivation. It helps you to arrange Mana in such a way that the characteristics of it shine through via a method that is most conducive to your personal path.

“There is a level beyond. It is a level that many even of the Dome of Heaven Realm may never reach.

“The Edict.”

Theron felt something tremble in his skull when this word reverberated through it. Energy stirred within him on its own before it settled down.

“An Edict formation is when a cultivator truly begins to leave their imprint on the world. They aren’t just taking advantage of Laws and bits and pieces of Mana that already exist, but instead are capable of adding to it.

“At least, this is the layman’s definition. In reality, as you go through cultivation, you’ll realize that the closer to the ceiling of a world you are, the more grandiose and imposing the explanations for those limits become. But when you step outside of them, you’ll find many who simplify these godlike concepts much like I have Mandates just now.

“In reality, Edicts are also not adding anything to Mana. Instead, they are touching upon portions of it that the universe usually reserves for itself.

“A Fire Mancer with an Edict might gain the ability to heal. A Water Mancer with an Edict might form tides as sharp as blades. A Lightning Mancer with an Edict might be able to trigger an individual’s cultivation ahead of time.”

Hearing this explanation, something within Theron stirred again.

It sounded like Edicts were slowly breaking free of the constraints of Mana, allowing them to exhibit skills they usually wouldn’t be able to.

Almost like Dark Mana exuding enough chill to trump even Ice Mana.

But it reminded him of his own path as well… was water supposed to be able to freeze like ice or burn like fire? Technically, it could, so it didn’t quite fit. But even so…

It felt like Theron was so close to something and yet so far at the same time.

“My Nightingale Clan has a very rare bloodline, one that is highly sought after. The lowest tier of bloodlines only provides Resonances, but they are still highly sought after—especially if it’s a Resonance of great power. Middle-tier bloodlines, however, can allow a certain subset of Laws to be easily comprehended, some of the best of them allowing one to grasp Mandates upon certain breakthroughs.

“However, the high tier of bloodlines—ones so rare they are often tracked down and bled dry—are Edict Bloodlines, bloodlines that allow one to grasp an Edict the moment one steps into the Dome of Heaven Realm.

“Not only does it allow this, but it makes the path to Dome of Heaven Mancy incredibly smooth, facing not the slightest hint of bottleneck…”

The Nightingale Ancestor Bird paused for a very long while, but the truth hung in the air nonetheless. The Resonance it wanted to give Theron was obviously not simple in the slightest.

It was no normal Resonance at all.

“We Nightingale ruled for a long time. Though not every child awakened our bloodline, enough of them did that it was something that left us dominant in our corner of the universe.

“However, as we expanded, so too did the mutations in our bloodline. Often, they were weaker, branching out as collateral branch families. But during one generation, something completely unexpected happened and the Umbra was born.

“While our Nightingale Ancestry gave our Dark Mana a deathly chill, the Umbra’s Dark Mana came with a hellish heat.

“At first, we thought we were the perfect complement to one another. But what we didn’t understand at that time was that the appearance of such a perfect opposite was a sign that our bloodline had reached its limits.

“When you reach a ceiling, the only way forward is down.

“The Nightingale Bloodline began to weaken considerably, falling by leaps and bounds in just one generation, while the Umbra only grew stronger as though to compensate.

“In the end, we lost our rights as the main branch, and the Umbra became the new overlords of our Edict Bloodline.”