Rivers of the Night - Chapter 680

Chapter 680: Unspecified Services

Theron chatted with the stall owner for a bit longer, trying to find the exact location of the assassin.

Whoever they were, they were good. Theron’s sensitivity to such things was just far beyond others—that and the fact his senses were on the same level as a Dome of Heaven expert of this world right now.

Well, his senses were actually far beyond one. This was because he not only had a Cloud Realm Soul like most of them did, but he had progressed it in the most perfect way, using four Mandates the likes of which rarely appeared even in a city as large as this one.

Although the assassin was very good at hiding their traces, Theron was sure they existed.

The problem was that he didn’t know exactly where they were coming from.

‘They seem to be using a special technique. They’re bouncing their senses off of multiple location points, creating several clones.’

These weren’t real clones, but more like clones in name. There was no real tangible human puppet in those regions. Instead, there was a center of soul energy that radiated Third Eye fluctuations.

If one was not careful or subtle enough, they would end up targeting one of these fluctuation points instead of the real body. By the time the assassin realized what was happening, they would have more than enough time to be long gone.

‘Three layers? What an interesting technique… they’re likely also using a technique similar to [Entangling Silence] to fully hide the presence of their real body. However, they’ve made a mistake. With a technique like this one, the amount of effort it would take to make every one of these layers of protection perfect would be excessive unless some variables instead became constants… like distance… meaning…’

Theron’s gaze flashed as his thoughts landed on a location without the slightest hint of fluctuation. All he could see was the dark corner of a building so tall there was no vantage point to the roof at all.

‘There you are.’

Even though Theron couldn’t see anything, he knew the person was there.

He was wrong. This technique wasn’t like [Entangling Silence] in any way other than the fact it hid presence. [Entangling Silence] was most definitely the superior technique.

While [Entangling Silence] matched the frequencies of your body with the Mana around you, making it seem as though you were a part of the normal currents, this technique wasn’t nearly as good at replicating those currents.

The result was a space that was far more stagnant than every other location around it.

In practice, most wouldn’t notice this…

Unless you were looking for it.

As Theron expected, in order to lower the difficulty of deploying the skill, the assassin had to limit some of the variables. In practice, this meant that every node they used to project out their Third Eye into these hollow clones of senses was an equal distance apart.

Ironically enough, if they had only mastered the technique to form two layers of these sensory clones, then Theron wouldn’t have been able to triangulate their location so easily. But since they had, it took Theron no more than a handful of seconds.

After Theron found the assassin, he no longer felt the need to be as alert. However, he was very curious about one thing.

‘A Dome of Heaven expert… odd…’

It wasn’t a surprise that Ilzan might have this level of pull and sway, but…

There were just too many oddities.

How did Ilzan know where he was? And even if he was a Dome of Heaven expert himself, the act of hiring a Dome of Heaven expert to do work for him couldn’t have been cheap.

Theron had only just touched down here. Unless Ilzan had seen through his actions, how could there possibly be such a threat waiting for him?

The fact the assassin was so powerful also eliminated the possibility that they were only after Theron’s wealth. There was no way someone with such skills would be interested in his paltry sum of money.

Now, that left only one path forward…

How was he going to deal with this?

Theron’s gaze flickered and he walked away from the stall. As expected, the stagnant current of Mana began to follow after him.

**

Theron didn’t find anything of interest in the markets even with the help of the Nightingale Ancestor Bird. But he didn’t really expect to find anything shocking anyway. The odds of such a thing were far too low.

In the end, he ended up just spending extravagantly on things that didn’t matter all that much, like a few new pairs of robes.

Theron was one who had always been a little bit of a clean freak. Before his days as an assassin, he dedicated quite some time to looking prim and proper.

Since then, though, his care for such things had plummeted. But in his act, he ended up indulging in some of his previous habits.

He remembered having dreams of wearing those extravagant robes that only noble scholars could, standing before a sea of powerful men and women and changing their minds with little more than a gentle voice and a silvery tongue.

That world seemed to be a lifetime away from him now, even though he had only just been hoping for such things a little over a year ago.

Maybe these robes were just a small way of regaining such control.

He returned to his accommodations, the largest inn of the city. It was grand and imposing, the lobbies sporting tall ceilings and a marble walkway.

Theron took a seat inside and had a large meal. As he ate, he wondered if the assassin would dare to attack in here or not.

As the largest inn, it likewise came with the protections one would expect at such a price point.

If, however, this assassin was bold enough to attack, it probably meant that the owner would be choosing to turn a blind eye.

Theron wouldn’t mind teaching said owner a lesson too, if that were to happen.

After he was finished, Theron paid the bill and slowly returned to his room, sliding the waiter a covert tip for unspecified services.