Rivers of the Night
Chapter 445 - 445: Channels

One realization after another hit Theron in waves.

BANG!

His eyes suddenly focused as a lance of darkness shot toward him. Shaking his head, he walked away as though he hadn't seen it, the Alpha suddenly acting in a flash of red.

The lance was ripped in two, fogs of black collapsing to the ground and spreading out in a wave. The attacker didn't even get a chance to scream before they were sliced in two as well.

By the time they breathed their last, Theron had already disappeared.

Dean Pennel appeared a moment later, huffing for breath. She had had far more trouble than Theron in getting to the point. In fact, Theron had been so fast that many thought that she was the invader.

It made sense. Her son was about to be executed, her husband was dead, and her daughter-in-law was kneeling before the Imperial Palace. It didn't take a genius to think that she might have lost her mind to grief and was venting in the only way she could. They just didn't understand why she would choose to attack the Pavilion. Was this some sort of petty revenge to hit the Imperial Clan's pockets?

Dean Pennel's old bones ached, blood leaking down one of her arms. She already knew that she was quite lucky to keep her life until this point. Theron and the Alpha had taken care of the strongest players, while she was already long past her prime.

But the young man she was looking for was gone.

She stood there in shock. Had she missed him after all?

Did he just not want to see her? With Theron's abilities, she didn't believe that he hadn't sensed a commotion behind him. Did he think that she wanted to stop him as well?

No, that was impossible. He was smart enough to see that they were trying to stop her too.

Her head lowered, her gaze dimming. This was her last chance to save her son, but it seemed to have slipped away from her.

Feeling empty, she looked the scene over to find that Theron had completely cased the region, and yet…

Why?

Confusion colored her features. So many things were destroyed, but Theron didn't seem to have taken anything. He had even left the Water Mancy spells behind as well. It was like he was here more for destruction than anything else.

But if that was the case, why didn't he destroy the spells too? It was odd.

She frowned, but then realized something.

No, that was gone. There was one spell that was missing, a spell she had seen several times here, one that had always intrigued her, but the description was too simple and the sum you needed to pay too astronomical to make it worthwhile.

However… why would Theron take a Dark Mana Spell?

Dean Pennel's heart shook when she noticed the corpse nearby. Was that…?

He's actually so… powerful…

She recognized the guardian that now lay collapsed, bisected in their own pool of blood. A powerful high-tier Gold Mancer that was probably among the ten strongest combatants in the whole Empire. This was a person even her own son would be wary of.

And it looked like he hadn't even had the chance to fight back.

Xixi.

There was a sudden flash on Dean Pennel's lapel and her eyes widened.

Theron had returned to the Imperial Academy?

She didn't even wait to figure out why, rushing back as fast as she could.

Theron was, indeed, once again in the Imperial Academy, scanning through books on anatomy and things of the like. Not only did he go through the known Meridian structures for humans, but he also looked through some for beasts.

There weren't as many books on beasts, and even fewer for Mana Beasts for obvious reasons, but they did exist.

But why wouldn't I notice if there had been a change…

Theron's gaze flashed as he came to the realization a moment later.

Everyone had the same exact Meridian structure regardless of the affinity they were born with. It was a system based on race, not affinity. So long as you were human, you had the same structure.

This was the same for beasts. Depending on the type of beast, you would have a different structure.

The section of the Meridian system you would use more, though, was highly variable depending on which affinity you had.

Water Mana Spells circulated in a different region than Earth Mana Spells would, and that location was different from where Fire Mana Spells were. There was some overlap, but it was very minimal. And usually, that overlap would be between lesser and variant Manas.

For example, Wood Mancers would use channels from both Water and Earth Mana. Lightning Mancers would use a lot of the same channels Fire Mancers used. So on and so forth.

All of the Spells Theron had circulated along the same paths, in the same regions, while he rarely touched the other regions of his Meridians. Because of this, he never checked, and wasn't even familiar with the other sections of his Meridians at all.

In fact, if it was broken down into percentages, the section of his Meridians that Theron used was probably maybe… 2 or 3% at the very most. The other more than 97% was completely foreign to him. And that was why he had missed such obvious changes from the very start.

Using his Third Eye to compare what was happening here, he realized something profound.

His Meridians had changed. He had new pathways here that didn't match with anything that should appear in a human.

It wasn't just that either, but from what he could tell, he had never seen a Water Mancy Spell that ever used these channels to begin with. It was like he wasn't human at all, but something else entirely.

However, that still wasn't the answer.

The death escape spell he had taken from the Pavilion… the reason the Nightingales couldn't comprehend the full scope of it was because it used channels they didn't have.

That meant… there just might be Spells out there that used these new channels Theron had formed at some unknown time.