Theron tossed everything to the back of his mind, reaching a deep state of focus.
Something earlier had pulled on his blood, that much he was certain of. Somehow, that must have been related to this change.
Though the Lightning Blood Hounds were called as such, their abilities should have nothing to do with either lightning or blood. And yet, Theron would never question his own senses, not when it came to something .
But the problem was that the arrow should have come from a person.
'Wait, arrow? Why am I so sure that it was an arrow?'
The moment Theron had this thought, a wolf lunged at him. He was sure that it was coming from his front, but he felt a prickling sensation on his back. All the blood vessels down the vascularity of his lats and shoulder blades, pulsing within the scars that littered his body, suddenly pulled at him all at once.
It was almost like his blood was trying to exit through his very pores.
It was an irritating sensation that Theron immediately turned toward.
The maw of a hound suddenly appeared out of thin air, Theron's blade being the only thing between it and a bite that would have severed his head clean off.
Its jagged teeth bit at Theron's blade, and a crack appeared in the short sword. Theron hadn't taken out his father's blade just yet for obvious reasons, and he almost paid for it instantly.
'What's going on? It's too powerful…'
Theron stumbled back, trying to pull on Mana from the air to cast a spell, only to realize that he was out of luck. The mist was interfering heavily.
This was far worse than what he had faced as a Bronze Mancer back when he fought his first few Silver Mancers. He was practically cut off from the world of Mana entirely.
No, it wasn't a severance technically speaking. Instead, it was more like the area had been so saturated with Mist Mana that there was nothing else to draw on.
And because no one else in their party had any Mist Mancers, the end result was obvious.
Theron had heard that though Mist Mancers were weak in combat, their auxiliary abilities were actually quite top-notch. It seemed that… this was very true.
Without a choice, he allowed himself to fall to his back. A second hound soared over his head, missing his back due to his maneuver. Then, at the same moment, he slammed into the ground. He kicked his foot up and moved his dagger-wielding hand.
In one fluid motion, Theron sent yet another hound flying over his head, this time with a long vertical wound down its belly that sent its guts spilling out.
Theron rolled to the side out of instinct and popped back up to his feet. He closed his eyes and shut his Third Eye down to the outside world, focusing every ounce of his attention on the shifts and changes in his blood.
There was a sudden calmness about him that belied the situation. Had he ever fought by relying purely on such a sensation before? No.
The adaptation of an assassin was most important. And he had plenty of experience adapting.
Theron's blades suddenly began to move through the air with a fluidity that cut through the mist akin to lightning striking down through clouds.
The trouble he had before seemed to have vanished. Just the slightest tug on his blood meant death for them.
He didn't care for their cultivation, their speed, their savagery.
If their cultivation was stronger, he would just be more skilled. If their speed was greater, he would just be more precise. And so what if they were savage…
His blade ripped through the head of a hound, twisting until one of its eyes was minced to meat.
With a pull along the dull edge of his dagger, the hound was swung to the side, its head still impaled, right into the path of a lunging wolf.
The hound didn't even realize what was happening until it had already bitten into the neck of its half-dead companion, and with its maw occupied, Theron pulled his dagger out, his hips pivoting and generating momentum down through his short sword.
The neck of the second hound was cut in two.
One careless reaping of a life after another came in stronger waves. The number of hounds didn't seem to be decreasing, but Theron's ability to read and react to the shifts in his blood was only growing.
However, as time ticked by, he could sense the poison in the air growing more dense. There was even a connection he could sense directly between the death of the hounds and the increase in the poison.
Every time he killed, it bore down stronger, and the pull on his blood became more and more obvious.
But when Theron realized this, he didn't panic. If anything, he became calmer.
That line between life and death, he had grown used to it. This wasn't a bad thing at all. In fact, the denser the poison became… the more he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
Theron sidestepped a claw. His dagger spun in his palm from a backhanded grip to a forehand one. Without missing a step, he stabbed it upward, disemboweling yet another wolf as his eyes flashed open.
His head turned with a vicious sort of momentum, a cool radiance coming from his steely blue eyes.
Theron took a step, and the dry soil compressed beneath the point of his toes.
He accelerated forward in a line of murderous intention.