Akkun felt his world spinning around him.
Theron lightly tapped on the ground with a foot, his eyes still darting around as though he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing came of it.
Without turning back, his head tilted to one side as a spear thrust passed over his shoulder. There was a smoothness to his actions that made them incredibly hard to read, and the so-called imbalance that he was supposed to suffer according to Akkun didn't seem to be there at all.
Only Theron knew that it truly was there… it was just that Akkun was far too weak.
Being a few months younger than him, Akkun was surely a great talent, a young man already in the Sixth Silver Resonance. Unfortunately, before the current Theron, such a cultivation level, especially without a Manaborn Resonance to back it, was absolutely worthless.
He didn't need to use any special tricks, abilities, or even spells. The only reason he was so cautious was because this environment wasn't to his advantage. The Earth Mana was in high concentration, and the disorientation caused by the sound field was troubling. But…
Theron crossed his blades along the shaft of the spear just as the little prince tried to pull it back.
Unfortunately for him, Akkun only had one arm left and not nearly the same strength or balance. The spear blade's lower body got caught in the cross of Theron's blade.
Theron took a strong step back, his leg splitting Akkun's own as it pulled his crossed blades forward. With a twist of his hip and torso, he threw Akkun over his shoulder.
All the wind was knocked out of the little prince as his back slammed into the ground. He tried to get up, but both of Theron's blades pierced into the earth on either side of his neck so close that a layer of skin was peeled off.
At this point, Akkun didn't even dare to stand, even if Theron gave him the opportunity to. The blades were so close that if he shifted just the slightest bit to the left or right on his ascent, he would sever his own artery.
No, they weren't just "close." They were literally already embedded into a shallow depth of his skin. Just the level of weapon control it would have taken Theron to do this made Akkun want to shiver from head to toe, and yet he forced his body to stop, thinking he might accidentally kill himself if he did so.
"The likelihood a little prince like you would be walking around without protection is minimal. It seems that you've been betrayed," Theron said calmly.
Akkun's eyes widened, and then his pupils trembled.
He hadn't thought of it because before he left, he had told the shadow his services wouldn't be needed. But since when had the man ever listened to him?
"Maybe he's in the shadows right now, listening to that. I imagine even if I let you go, he'll kill you anyway to stop you from getting the chance, hm?"
"No… no, he won't." The first "no" was shaky, but Akkun seemed to remember who he was after hearing the cowardice in his tone.
"Oh yeah? Why's that?" Theron asked lightly as though he didn't know the answer.
"Because my soul lamp is too high level. My Clan will know if he is the one to kill me."
"Clever. Is that your way of warning me?"
Akkun didn't respond.
"You seem to forget that you already came here to kill me. What difference would it make if I killed you now? I'm sure another will come."
"You couldn't possibly know that."
"Well, I know it for sure now."
Akkun clenched his jaw, but then immediately stopped as he felt the slight bulge in his neck deepen the cuts.
"So why don't you tell me why, and I can consider letting you go?"
"… I don't know," he eventually replied.
"I don't know. My father is the one that informed me."
Theron didn't reply. Akkun's words came with a lot of implications to them. Implications that seemed to point toward the Emperor of a province maybe taking orders from somewhere else?
"And you're telling me that you have no guesses at all?"
Akkun's pupils trembled again, but his voice remained steady.
"Mm. Is that so? So you're just so sure that it wasn't your father that ordered it, and you want me to believe that, but also simultaneously believe that you have no inkling as to who might be directing from the sidelines?"
Theron tapped the hilt of his short sword just the slightest bit, sending vibrations down its side. Every slight shift took a little bit more blood, and now Akkun could feel the hot stickiness running down his neck and soaking the back of his head through.
"I… really don't know for sure."
"Give me your best guess."
"I don't know them. I just know that my father has been meeting with people I do not recognize. They came after the change to the moons. Other than that, I really don't know anything."
"Sure you do. Describe them to me."
"They were all covert. I didn't see anything other than black cloaks and swaying figures. I couldn't even make out the color of their eyes. They were definitely wearing some sort of masking technique."
"They, huh? So more than one of them appeared?"
"Yes. There were four of them."
This made Theron curious.
"How long after their appearance did your father give the order to kill me?"
"It was only after the moon phenomenon. It hasn't been long since then, and they appeared a day or two after it happened."
Theron looked up from Akkun, his eyes glowing in the shadows.
Akkun kept mentioning the moon phenomenon not because he knew Theron and it were connected, but because it was a fairly huge deal and an easy marker to use as a checkpoint in his memories.
But these words meant something very different to Theron.
I will let you live. Stoke that hatred, become the fuel for my Karma.
The words echoed in Theron's ears. The only Path of Mancy he knew almost more than Water Mancy was the Spirit Mancy Path. He spent every fiber of his being reading everything he could about it.
He still didn't know everything it meant for one person's Karma to fuel another, but he had some guesses.
He was being fattened up like a lamb.
The moment Akkun said there was more than one, alarm bells had gone off in his head. If the party could direct the actions of an entire Empire, sending more than one person seemed superfluous. Unless…
Unless the people sent weren't the real heads, unless they were just obstacle courses placed in front of him now that a certain Spirit Mancer was finally just a little bit interested in him.
If there was one person in the world that knew Theron was linked to the changes in the moon, it was that person. Theron felt it more intimately now than ever before.
And whoever those four cloaked figures were, they were coming after him.
Murder reflected in Theron's eyes. He really did just treat this like a game.
Theron ripped up his blades and Akkun's head went rolling to the side, eyes wide.
Heat bubbled up within him.