"Any news of the Larken Clan?"

A cloaked man asked to another man who wore the same clothing.

"Nothing. They completely shut themselves a few days ago. They should be in another of their private events; those members of the Larken aren't sociable at all."

That man had been trying to obtain information about the Larken Clan for a few days, but the Larken Clan didn't let anyone contact with the outside. The Larken Clan had made the same a lot of times in the past, so it wasn't anything surprising nor to worry about; it was just that the timing wasn't good for those men.

"We need to wait. We can't start our plan properly without the members of the True Larken Clan."

They feared that if the plan started with the Larken Clan isolated, the later would discover their plans after finishing the isolation and avoid the backstabbing by the True Larken Clan. Among the noble clans, the Larken Clan was ranked at the top; the True Empire couldn't neglect it.

While the members of the True Empire were starting to turn impatient waiting for the Larken Clan to end its isolation state, Yale was calmly training in a VIP room of the clan head's mansion.

A few days ago, he unveiled all the traitors who were in Larken City, but he couldn't check correctly those who were only married into the Larken Clan and didn't have the Sword Bloodline if they surpassed the Veteran Rank.

After seeing the situation, Lashar decided that instead of killing those traitors who she had already identified, she would just seal everyone in their houses ordering that no one was allowed to exit; she used the city formations to block any exit from those houses. Without the traitors being able to move, she cut their flow of information and the chances that they started a killing spree in Larken City. Due to that, Larken City had turned into a ghost city since that day.

More than a third of the Larken Clan members were traitors; the numbers should have been far lower if all those members of the outer clan hadn't died in that trap mission.

Lashar had spent those days visiting the houses of every member who was a traitor and dissipated all the Inner Qi and magic in their bodies, turning them in mere mortals. She decided to not kill them hoping that Yale could use them as materials to power up some loyal members of the clan.

As for those members that were at least at the Master Rank and didn't have the Sword Bloodline, Lashar had interrogated them all personally, but they were all clean. The True Larken Clan hated outsiders, so they didn't try to recruit them, nor any of those without the Sword Bloodline joined them. After all, they held good positions in the Larken Clan given their power; they had no reason to harm themselves by joining the True Larken Clan that would discriminate them.

While Lashar was doing all the dirty job, Yale focused on training his Spiritual Sense; he hadn't time to train it while traveling and he wanted to fulfill that sub-quest as soon as possible.

Of course, Lashar agreed to Yale focusing on training; the reincarnated experts had the fame of training extremely quickly, and she wanted Yale to be stronger.

In fact, after two days, Yale completed the sub-quest, but the reward he obtained from the sub-quest was the reason that made him continue training for more time.

The reward from that sub-quest was something extraordinarily beneficial to Yale, but at the same time extremely dangerous if he used it bad. It was a Condensed Death Essence.

Learning from that essence could improve Yale's control over the souls a lot, but making a mistake while learning could end killing those who were near to him, so he remained in isolation trying to understand a bit of that Condensed Death Essence.

Trying to comprehend the essence without being able to practice wasn't good, so he ended up asking Lashar for some traitors; even if their souls were trashed by the experiments, their bloodlines could still be used later on, so Lashar had no problem in Yale's request.

Those traitors thought that they couldn't suffer more after being crippled and turned into mere mortals, but they discovered that their thoughts were too optimistic.

They were unable to move while seeing how Yale turned all the other traitors into fools. Most of them didn't understand what Yale was doing, but those who had been experts at the Grandmaster Rank understood that Yale was doing something to their souls. That filled their hearts with fear.

At the Grandmaster Rank it was possible to start understanding the laws, but using that understanding after being crippled was far too difficult; they were still stronger than the other crippled traitors, but the seals on their bodies were also stronger, so they were unable to struggle.

There was also one of the chief elders at the Sage Rank who was a traitor. Lashar felt pain while crippling and sealing him because he was her son and she had trained him personally because he was one of her first sons she had after turning the clan head and one of the two who remained alive that much time. She felt that she had wasted too many time and resources to groom a traitor.

However, she didn't show any mercy; losing a Sage Rank expert was a huge loss for the clan, but a traitor at that level was far worse than that. The only difference was that she didn't send that son of hers to Yale to be played with his soul; she wanted to have her son fully conscious of himself when she asked Yale to trash his bloodline in front of all the clan.

Lashar had decided to use him to show that she wouldn't have favoritism for those who dare to betray the clan.

Of course, she would let Yale use Soul-search in him later because that man was the leader of the True Larken Clan. He was the strongest of the True Larken Clan and probably had a good position in the True Empire, so soul-searching him was imperative.

Lashar might seem cruel doing that to her son, but he was planning to kill Lashar, his own mother, and even after being captured he only had one regret, and that wasn't betraying the clan. He regretted having measured the powers of his mother wrongly, who he believed that was still at the peak of the Sage Rank until she captured him effortlessly.

There was only a step between the peak of the Sage Rank and becoming a Law Master, but that step was incredibly difficult, and it wasn't unusual exhausting all the lifespan without being able to advance, so no one expected that Lashar had advanced without saying anything to the members of her clan.

With some trickery, it could still be possible for someone who was at the Sage Rank but far from the peak to kill someone at the peak of that Rank, but doing the same to a Law Master wasn't realistic.

In about two weeks, Yale had trashed the souls of all traitors of the Larken Clan except the one Lashar reserved for later; he worked non-stop, and some mistakes killed a bunch of them at the same time without wanting to do it.

However, it didn't matter too much losing some traitors in exchange of improving Yale's control over the souls; thanks to his improvement even those at the Master Rank wouldn't be able to escape his detection if they were traitors.

The method to detect those marks in the souls was something that couldn't be taught by anyone who wasn't the one who created the marks; Yale stole that knowledge from the bandit leader and obtained the capability to detect the marks, but he couldn't teach it to others. Thus, that increase in the capability of sensing the marks was very important for his future plans.

Fortunately, Lashar had sent puppets periodically to take away the bodies of those who had already been trashed and then gave him new ones until Yale finished with all of them except the Sage Rank one. If he had needed to do that himself, he would have wasted a lot of time.

Yale had increased his power a bit thanks to his new understanding of the Condensed Death Essence, but his increase couldn't compare to the huge increases received from the Condensed Sword Essence. After all, understanding the Death Law was far more difficult than the Sword Law and the same applied to essences.

"Name: Yale | Age: 16 | Origin Level: 36 |Origin Points: 59263/59263"

"Vitality: 59249| Strength: 59842 | Agility: 59388 | Intelligence: 60000 | Wisdom: 60000 | Dexterity: 58571"

After checking his increase in power, Yale checked the Quest menu; he had checked it a lot of times since he finished the previous sub-quest.

"Sub-quest details not available. Reward: Unknown."

The next sub-quest was acting weird again; it was the same that had happened before in the special realm.

Yale sighed while leaving the room where he trashed the souls of the traitors; he decided to look for Lashar to speak with her about their next movement. After all, Larken City couldn't remain isolated forever without starting to raise suspicions that something happened.