Chapter 210: I Wonder |
"You're back."
The old man sat at a familiar stone table, sipping at his tea. He seemed like he was always there, and yet he also seemed like he was always at the front desk of the guild as well.
It was obvious to Theron that he just traveled back and forth, so he wasn't sure why the old man was insistent on pretending like this. It would have been a little cute if not for the fact that this man was trained to kill.
"I am." Theron said with a smile.
"The Thistles haven't killed you yet?"
"Not just yet. But maybe soon, who knows."
"You seem quite nonchalant about that."
"Isn't that part of an assassin's job? To be casual in the face of death?"
The old man took another sip of his tea and didn't answer immediately.
"Did you go to the Imperial Capital?"
The response had nothing to do with Theron's question.
"I did. Why?"
"What did you do there?"
"Just joined the main Imperial Academy and stirred some trouble in the Obsidian Eclipse Sect."
"Is that so?" the old man asked lightly.
"Mm, come to think of it, there was some more trouble brewing by the time I left. It probably helped me out quite a bit."
"And that is?"
"I'm not sure. If I stuck around to find out, I probably wouldn't be here."
"And you know nothing?"
"Not nothing. But mostly just speculation."
"Then speculate for me."
Theron's head tilted to the side as though he was curious about why the old man was suddenly asking so many questions about this one topic.
"Remember the Beifong mission? There's rumors that he had other stores of Bloomstone and copies of the technique hidden elsewhere. Some storms are being stirred up in the Obsidian Eclipse Sect because of that, I would assume. Seems like one of their geniuses really wanted to get their hands on the Tribulation Bloomstone."
"Mm…"
The old man seemed indifferent to it all until his gaze suddenly sharpened. Theron felt as though he had fallen into an ice cellar as those cold, murderous eyes landed on him for the first time.
A frostiness radiated from the necklace in Theron's robes, but his own mind was entirely focused on the old man in front of him as though it would make much of a difference.
"And you had nothing at all to do with this?"
Theron frowned. "To do with this? I mean, I killed Beifong, but you already know that. You're the one who gave me the mission in the first place."
"Is that so? Then why is there such a rotten stench over all of this?"
Theron's frown only deepened. "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about. If I had extra copies of that technique to use to screw things up for the Thistles, why wouldn't I just tell you? At the very least, I could make an elaborate fake—I thought about doing it.
"But the issue is that I had no method of sneaking into the Sect, so I abandoned the thought and took another route instead. I just assassinated a bunch of their little noble heirs to sow chaos."
The old man's frown deepened.
Everything about Theron's words made perfect sense. It was just that… he didn't believe it.
There was definitely some subterfuge going on here, and it felt like it was aimed at him. He had an instinct for this that came not only from his cultivation and the sense it granted him over his own Fate, but also his years as an assassin.
Someone was playing with him, and he didn't like it.
Not even in the slightest bit.
And the biggest issue was… he couldn't figure out how or for what purpose?
So what if the capital was in chaos? So what if there was another copy of Beifong's stolen technique? It had nothing to do with him at all.
It was right then the old man's eyes suddenly widened.
He stood up violently, the stone table shattering not to pieces, but directly to ash. A vibration of sound too subtle and out of bounds for the ears to hear radiated out in all directions.
And then the old man was suddenly calm. His expression became akin to stone, his heartbeat slowing to the point it only thumped once every several minutes. It was almost like he was completely dead.
The old man's head turned to Theron slowly, his eyes shifting along the latter's body from head to toe and then back as though he was trying to decide on something.
"You broke into Silver Mancy."
"Second Silver Mancy," Theron corrected, a frosty hint of cold in his voice that was very different from his usually arrogant, nonchalant air around the old man.
"Is that so?" the old man only said these words, but Theron knew they were as good as a lifeline.
With a flicker, the old man vanished entirely.
Theron didn't move nor relax, he only calmly turned his own head toward the direction the old man had disappeared, something he shouldn't have even been able to tell with his current cultivation level.
But the fact he could told him one thing clearly.
The peak the old man stood on wasn't all that far away from him after all.
With a pivot of his foot, Theron turned and began to walk toward a particular location. At this point, he knew that his plan had worked. There was only one thing left to do.
…
Theron's footsteps echoed through the eerie darkness of a dungeon, the cold stone radiating its piercing needles of frost up his heels and through his ankles.
And then he came to a stop.
Up ahead, a young man with shaggy, messy blond hair sat in meditation, a stench radiating from him, but an even greater power sizzling at the air.
Raiden.
"I'm surprised," Raiden said calmly. "For you to be here… I wonder what that means."
Theron's reply was an unsheathing of his blades.
**
In a distant location, the head of a young woman was pierced through a pike. The wooden sharpness ran through the flesh of her neck, through her jaw, and out the top of her skull, the pole clearly visible in place of her tongue as her mouth hung open.
Silver Assassin Ruu.
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