The bandit leader saw Yale’s smile like if he was in front of a monster smiling before eating his prey.

“Please stop! I will tell the truth! Don’t come!”

Yale was just walking towards him with a cold smile in his face.

“You tried to kill everyone in Sword City. Why would I believe you? You should know that resisting while I use the Soul-search in you will only increase the chances of something going bad and you may end with the same cognitive ability than a tree.”

The bandit leader wet his pants; he never thought that after having reached the Expert Rank he would be so frightened in front of a mere Apprentice Rank.

Yale reached the bandit leader and put his hand of the bandit’s head while activating Soul-search.

After a few seconds, Yale retrieved his hand from the bandit’s head as the Soul-search had ended. The bandit leader was lucky enough to end better than Yale’s previous targets, but his thought capability had been downgraded to a beast one and couldn’t even speak; he could just make some sounds impossible to understand.

“Oh, I thought you would kill him in the process, but he is still alive.”

Herken knew that it was possible to extract all the memories without damaging the target, but that level was far too high. In Herken’s opinion, for Yale as long he obtained the memories it was a great success even if the other party died.

“I improved quite a bit lately, but I am still too far from being able to do it without any consequence.”

Even without the influence of emotions, doing the Soul-search without harming the other party’s soul in the slightest was too difficult.

“What information did you obtain?”

That was the most critical point to Herken because that topic was far too important to be ready against any plan that bandit alliance had.

“The situation is far worse than I expected…”

Yale jumped backward where Wyba, Lar, and Durgan were situated and wielded his Space-time Judgment Sword; he had been retreating slowly since he ended the Soul-search.

“To think that even people from your Larken Clan have betrayed the Revgen Empire. I thought your clan had more moral integrity than that.”

Lar, Durgan, and Herken were dumbfounded by Yale’s words, but he wasn’t joking, and his sword pointing Herken was just a distraction as he was ready to activate the random teleportation to flee together with Wyba, Lar and Durgan in case Herken tried something. Yale knew that there was no way Lar or Durgan were implicated with their personalities, but he didn’t trust that much into Herken.

“Wait, I don’t know if what you said is true or not, but in any case, I know nothing about that. I would rather die than do something as shameful as being a traitor. I swear by my own soul that I am not related to any organization planning to betray the Revgen Empire, nor I do have any intention of betraying the Revgen Empire.”

Herken didn’t hesitate in making an oath; he was perfectly aware of his innocence and given his rank his soul would have received some damage if he lied in the oath.

“Sorry for my caution, but I needed to be careful after discovering that.”

Yale lowered his sword, but he didn’t store it again; he wasn’t relaxed after discovering such a big plot to destroy the Revgen Empire.

“It is alright. After discovering some danger, you rushed to protect your family, that says a lot about you. I can’t blame you for distrusting me. Please continue; if someone of the Larken Clan is also implicated this matter is more serious than I thought.”

Herken didn’t want to believe that his clan was a traitor, but he couldn’t discard that someone was speaking in the name of the clan without the clan head knowing it.

“This is a big plot that has people from the five noble clans implicated. The main target is to eradicate the Imperial Family and everyone who doesn’t agree to obey them no matter the background. I know that there is no way the whole clans were implicated, but there are some traitors in all of them. What matters more is who is implicated in each clan. If a clan had some important higher-ups implicated, the matter is far more serious than if those implicated doesn’t have any power inside the clans.”

The bandit leader knew that there were factions of the five noble clans that supported them, but he wasn’t important enough to know more than that.

“The other clans don’t have a good control of their members, but our Larken Clan has strict controls. It would be impossible for a normal member to betray the clan without the help of an elder, and if an elder is implicated all his faction would also be implicated. I belong to the faction of Lar’s grandfather as I am the strongest member of my branch and we have no authority in the clan; the same applies to other branches. Only those who have a member at least at the Elder Rank can create an independent faction inside the Larken Clan. I can ensure that our faction is clean of any type of corruption, but I don’t know the others that well.”

Herken would also want to ensure that other factions wouldn’t dare to do something like that, but he didn’t have that much knowledge about them, so he couldn’t discard that they had some secrets.

“This bandit alliance had an extreme way of thought. They plan to use a huge formation to enslave all the beings in the Revgen Empire to ensure that no one would be able to revolt against them later on. Anyone who collaborates with that plan shall be someone who loved to control others while also hates outsiders. Do you know some elders that narrow-minded? Maybe some who also are tired of being a righteous clan and tended to suggest stopping with that behavior?”

Herken’s face paled because in the latter years the number of elders with that kind of thoughts increased a lot.

“By your face, you know some. Are all the people staying in this mansion from the faction of Lar’s grandfather?”

Yale was wary of all the other members of the Larken Clan; if someone wanted to harm the Larken Clan, the easiest method would be killing their talented members, and Lar was the most talented member of the younger generation.

“No, most of them are from our faction, but some of them are geniuses from other factions. We are fair and although each elder always favors those in his own faction, those extremely talented were also favored disregarding their faction.”

Herken didn’t want to think about having any traitor among the geniuses that were with him in that travel, but with their levels, an oath would have almost no effect on them, so it was difficult to confirm.

“Forgive me for being so cruel with my words, but I am almost sure that there is some traitor in your group. You should have come to this city knowing that Lar was here, right?”

Lar and Durgan were hearing without saying anything; both of them believed completely in Yale’s words no matter what he said. On the other hand, Wyba just stood there without understanding well the situation.

“Yes, we planned to come to invite you to join our clan and ask Lar to return. Thus, everyone knew that Lar was here from the start.”

Lar had a grim face because she had thought that no one knew about where she was hiding while the truth was the opposite.

“Just as I expected. If my guess is correct, Lar would have died before returning to Imperial City due to a traitor in your group. Killing her would be a great blow to the Larken Clan, and no one would have suspected that there was a traitor before she died.”

Herken could only nod after hearing Yale’s guess; if it weren’t due to that discovery, he would never have thought of having a traitor inside his clan.

“Was that plan in the bandit’s memories?”

Yale slowly shook his head.

“No, this bandit didn’t know anything else about the plans of the traitors inside the clans. The plan to attack Sword City was due to his personal matters, and he just used the power of the bandit alliance on his own benefit. He knew that unless he obtained huge rewards on this trip, he would have been severely punished.”

Herken was relieved a bit as there wasn’t any confirmation about the traitors, but he couldn’t just discard the possibility either.

“I have a plan to catch any impulsive traitor that could be lurking here. This is the best method to be at ease.”

Since all the members of the group were young and prideful; Yale had confidence in making them show themselves.