Chapter 220: Bandit Alliance’s Soul Mark
“Do you really have confidence in discovering them?”
Herken would prefer that everyone in the group was still loyal to the empire, but he was ready to kill anyone who had turned into a traitor. The Larken Clan was very strict with that, the only punishment for traitors was death.
“Given how your Larken Clan usually teaches the younger generation, I believe that they will all fall into the trap.”
Prideful youths were the easiest to cheat; even the Larken Clan relied on that to make them train harder.
“Please, tell me. I will do everything I can to help you.”
Yale smiled and started to tell his plan to Herken while also asking for a profile of every member who had accompanied him to Sword City. Herken gave Yale all the information he needed and agreed with his plan without complaining.
They had decided to start the plan the next day, and they separated after killing the bandit leader because he wasn’t useful in his state and they didn’t have any reason to let him live more time given their current situation.
Yale was extremely happy while returning to his mansion with Wyba and Lar because he knew something that he didn’t tell to Herken.
He had learned a method to identify those who were on the side of the bandit alliance. That was a secret method that anyone who had subordinates in the bandit alliance knew and let them detect a mark left on the soul of anyone who had collaborated with the alliance. They didn’t believe even in their own members, and that brand could turn them into slaves at any moment.
That was the policy of the bandit alliance, those born inferior to others would never be able to improve their original situation because they will just turn into slaves at the moment they try to do it. The thing they hated the most were geniuses born later than them who could end surpassing them one day; suppressing those geniuses and forcing them to obey in all situations was one of the things most members liked the most about that bandit alliance.
The bandit alliance was born from a massive inferiority complex from the bandits and from the members of the noble clans who hated those with more talent than them.
Thus, everyone related to the bandit alliance had a mark on their soul, even if they were just members of the younger generation under a traitor elder. Of course, someone at Herken’s level of strength or higher would have an easy time to hide a mark like that from being discovered, but for the younger generation members of the Larken Clan that was impossible.
Yale had discovered three members of the group that had that such mark on their souls. Thus, all the plan to discover them was only to hide that detection ability from Herken because Yale knew that Herken wouldn’t consider them traitors without a true proof, and Yale saying that they were traitors wouldn’t be enough; in such situation, at most they would be controlled more than usual.
The reason for Yale’s happiness was that he was finally confident in succeeding to the recreation of the Sword Bloodline soon thanks to the betrayal of those three members.
Since they had their souls marked, they could turn into heartless murderers at any moment if they received an order from the bandit alliance, so they had no salvation. Moreover, erasing that mark wasn’t easier than healing Aiwai’s soul, and they were time bombs that couldn’t exist for too long or would bring a disaster.
Yale hadn’t any reason or ability to save them, so killing them before they turned into puppets was already merciful enough. Yale planned to use his Space-time Judgment Sword to kill them, so in case they weren’t bad people and had been just dragged to the bandit alliance by their elders, they would be reincarnated.
The next day, the members of the Larken Clan had some battles in the Sword Arena. Selenia was the one who had been challenged the most by them, but she managed to win all the battles thanks to the restrictions of the rules.
She could just sight because it was normal that the members of the Larken Clan wanted to challenge the Sword Five, but she was the only option available for them.
Ralen was too strong compared to those members of the younger generation, but he was also older, so they didn’t bother about him.
Lar was the little female tiger from the Larken Clan; they didn’t dare to anger her without a good reason even if they were stronger than her in rank because her swordsmanship had proven to be able to skip ranks.
Yale was simply a monster capable or annihilating an army without help; they would need to have brain issues to challenge him in a direct battle.
Finally, Wyba was still too young, and no one wanted to anger her because that would also provoke Yale’s fury.
Thus, the only member of the Sword Five that could be challenged by the members of the Larken Clan without the need to worry was Selenia.
Excluding Ralen, the others at the Expert Rank had also suffered quite a bit as some of the stronger members of the Larken Clan’s younger generation challenged them and beat them after a long battle.
Those Expert Rank swordsmen weren’t able to beat Selenia, so after the members of the Larken Clan also lost against Selenia, they had targeted those at the Expert Rank to clean their names because they didn’t want to leave the Sword Arena without winning at least one battle.
Of course, the usual rule that if one lost couldn’t battle more on the same day didn’t apply that day because that would be the only day those members of the Larken Clan would fight there.
While the younger generation of the Larken Clan Battles, Yale just watched the battles in silence, but he focused his attention on the three members with the mark on their souls.
They weren’t bad at all, but they weren’t the best either; they could just be considered ordinary geniuses inside the Larken Clan. For anyone else, that level would already be a lot, but the members of the Larken Clan had high standards and being an ordinary genius wasn’t enough for them.
After all the battles finished, everyone met in the main plaza again.
“I am representing the Larken Clan to give thanks to all the citizens of Sword City for your hospitality. We have important matters to report to Imperial City related to the bandit attack towards Sword City. Thus, we will be leaving now. However, I need to inform you that we will take with us the Sword Mage, Lar, and Wyba. I am sorry for that, but you will need to find another three new members for their places in the Sword Five.”
Taking three members of the Larken Clan at once was a lot, and Herken was ready also to take Selenia and Ralen with them, but given their current situation, he decided that it would be better to delay that a bit more. He had already informed both of them about it, and they agreed to join the Larken Clan latter after the problems with the Bandit Alliance were solved. Of course, he didn’t tell anything about the traitors, only that the Bandit Alliance was an urgent problem to be solved and that everything else would need to wait.
The people felt sad about their departure, but they knew that going to the Larken Clan was far more alluring than staying in Sword City although the true reason was completely different as Yale, Wyba, and Lar would have preferred to remain in Sword City.
Once the group had advanced a bit, Herken stopped.
“I have something to tell to all of you.”
Everyone stopped after hearing Herken because he was in charge of the security of the group, and they feared that something important had happened.
“I discovered that there are traitors in our Larken Clan that collaborated with the Bandit Alliance. This is a serious matter that involves people of a high standard in our clan, and we discovered that there is a plot to kill Lar in this travel. Our travel isn’t secret, so we can’t discard the chances of suffering an attack, please everyone be extremely careful.”
The news was shocking, but the members of the Larken Clan didn’t dare to say anything about the topic. Moreover, since Herken only spoke about higher-ups, those traitor members felt that they hadn’t been discovered and Herken expected an attack from the outside. They had been in fear after the bandit leader had been captured, but they sighed in relief after confirming that they weren’t suspects.
“I doubt that we need to worry, anyone who is colliding with that Bandit Alliance can only be considered a coward. We are a lot of us here; there is no way that those cowards dare to attack us.”
After saying that Yale noticed that the faces of the three who had the mark slightly reacted to his words while all the others seemed to have their mood improved after hearing Yale. That was just a cheap trick, but for a prideful and narrow-minded person avoiding that cheap trick would be difficult.
Yale was sure that those three would act after his taunt, and that recklessness would cost their lives.