Theron lay on his bed, Lyra by his side already in a deep sleep.

If he was honest with himself, he was already getting very antsy. These days of not cultivating or meditating were really beginning to get to him.

Was he a workaholic? Maybe. But he also felt like if he wasn't cultivating, his life had little purpose. If he wasn't chasing his revenge, then what good was breathing?

He looked out toward the moon's light by the open windows. There was a balcony there with glass doors opening to the chilly air. He wondered if she would come tonight or not.

Well, even if she didn't, at least the act of using his Water Mana to keep the chill away was about as good cultivation training as he would get now.

He had been doing it all day, and it was about the only thing stopping him from going insane.

At least tomorrow he would be able to fight to his heart's content, something he had realized long ago he quite liked doing. Maybe it was the heated side of his bloodline that liked it so much.

Theron suddenly sat up. The sheer curtains of the glass doors drifted in the wind and then back. In one moment, there was no one there at all, and in the next moment, a moving middle-aged beauty dressed in a silky white robe appeared.

She was prim and proper in ways that were hard to describe, the sort of woman that ironed her underwear before she put them on. That was the best Theron could do to illustrate the sort of feeling she was giving him right now.

But what was more important than all of that to Theron was the fact she was still not a Quasi Dome of Heaven expert. When he saw that, he relaxed slightly, but not enough for the chill in his eyes to recede.

He calmly stood, walking to the open doors and meeting Elder Lyrah's gaze head-on.

The two of them were about the same height, and they both shared a chilling blue gaze.

"You are much more reckless than Caulderone was. The last time I met him face-to-face was as a child, but you actually dared to come here."

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Theron said calmly.

"I'm sure you do, actually. What need is there to bother hiding it?"

"Did the elder from earlier today send me a prostitute to warm my bed? That's very kind of him, but as you can see," Theron pointed over his shoulder, "I already have that covered."

There was a flash of fury that flickered in Elder Lyrah's gaze, but it lasted for but a moment.

She looked the child before her up and down. Theron didn't even look like he was trying, wearing a pair of silk boxers and nothing else at all.

Her glance lingered just a little bit on the spatial ring that adorned his finger, wondering if she could kill him before he took the King Soul Lamp out. The temptation was great, but her self-control was even greater.

Or so she thought.

If her self-control was that great, she wouldn't be here at all.

In fact, the fact she was here meant that Theron was very much correct.

There was no such thing as a Sect without internal conflict. For someone like Lyrah who was so talented and such a recent rising star, her foundation was certainly highly lacking compared to the others.

In addition, Theron had noticed a pattern in all the experts Caulderone had chosen to control. All of them were exceptional talents, but not a single one of them had an exceptional background they didn't forge for themselves.

Patriarch Nightingale was too cautious to target any genius that would have had substantial protection, and any genius on the level of Elder Lyrah would have certainly had powerful escorts everywhere if she was such a great talent.

The fact she didn't only meant one thing:

She might have had exceptional talent, but she had no background. Any family she had now was either incredibly weak or only powerful because she built them up to be so.

And knowing the cultivation world as well as Theron did meant that he knew almost too well that Lyrah had her fair share of enemies in the Sect precisely because of this.

"You are quite bold. Why are you so sure that I won't slaughter you where you stand if I am to believe what you say?"

It was an obvious flaw in Theron's lies. Who could stand before a Ninth Resonance Cloud Realm expert so nonchalantly as a Silver Mancer if they didn't have something like the King Soul Lamp to rely on?

"Because you need me, of course. You've been secretly acting against the Nightingale Sect all this time. For what reason? I couldn't possibly know, as I'm just an innocent bystander. But what I do know is that you probably have quite a number of enemies looking for weaknesses of yours to poke at. You are only a Third Elder, meaning you have a Second, First, and Grand Elder to worry about. Maybe even a Matriarch, should she not be on your side. And each of them has good odds of having a stronger faction under their wing than yourself.

"And just today, I used your name to stir up quite a bit of trouble. Being as smart as you are, you probably used the disciple of another faction to get at the Sect today. You probably also knew that your enemies would be on high alert, so maybe you even used the disciple of a neutral party.

"Meaning, if you expose yourself as having nothing to do with me, you won't just be angering someone who was already your enemy, but instead someone who was willing to stand on the sidelines before and now has reason not to.

"So, not only do you need me to not expose the fact you were targeting the Nightingale Sect, you probably need me to perform quite well in the gathering so that everyone not only believes that you would bet on me, but also that your insight and perception is as sharp as can be…

"Now is that so, Elder Lyrah?"

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