The first thing Red did was to communicate with the crimson being in his stomach. He asked if it could retract the blood contract, to which he received a negative answer.
“Tied… essence. Only… death... release. If… stronger… maybe.”
‘The contract is tied to his blood essence. Only death will allow me to release him from it.’
As for the last part, Red wasn’t sure whether the being was referring to itself or to him being stronger. Being unable to renege a contract was a rather frustrating factor to blood contracts, but this was already an ability far beyond his means normally, so it made sense it couldn’t be manipulated at will.
‘That means I can only negotiate.’
Yet, his stance remained unchanged.
“I can’t let you live.”
“Well, that’s debatable,” Reinhart said as he cleaned the blood from the corner of his mouth. “What you need is for me not to reveal your presence to anyone else. Unless you have some other reason to kill me, that is.”
‘Do I have another reason to kill him?’
Red thought to himself for a second, recalling the last time they met. Reinhart crushed a Sea Opening Pill in front of Narcha before fleeing, ultimately dashing all hope she had of advancing to the Lesser Ring Realm. This would also lead to her taking more dangerous chances in hopes of breaking through, which would then lead to her death. Yet, while Narcha might have remembered that fact, he didn’t know if Reinhart had his memory wiped in the same way.
‘Is that enough of a reason to kill him? Retribution?’
He couldn’t invoke the desire for revenge one would be expected to in this situation. However, this lack of emotional resonance was normal for him, and it didn’t mean Reinhart didn’t deserve to die either.
“You are a liability,” Red said. “Not only are you smart and dangerous, but you know things you shouldn’t know.”
‘And I don’t know if the blood contract is impervious, either.’
He didn’t know at what the level of the blood oath the crimson being used was. Still, his guess was that only someone with the ability to manipulate souls could find a way around its restrictions to interrogate the man, meaning a Spiritual Awakening cultivator. While there were none of those around, it wasn’t impossible that Reinhart could eventually run into one and be found out, and he knew the Empire had plenty of those at the frontier.
Reinhart smiled as he noticed Red’s refusal to budge. “Well, the issue is that right now I am more useful to you dead than alive. But what if I could prove you wrong?”
“…I will give you one chance. If you can’t convince me, then I’ll kill you and deal with the consequences.”
Even if Reinhart’s death compromised his position in some way, it was important to be decisive and cut his losses as soon as possible.
The man smiled. “Good. My proposition is simple - I can help you avoid the Empire’s notice and act as a spy in the Golden Hand Temple.”
“Why would I need your help with that?”
“You want to keep that girl safe, don’t you?”
Red didn’t respond, but Reinhart continued.
“Besides, your identity is under threat right now if I’m correct in my assumptions.”
“And what is your assumption?”
“You were involved in that attack on the auction house, weren’t you?”
“Why does that matter?”
“Well, right now, the Golden Hand only has some suspicion about it, but this is not the first time you acted against them. Suffice it to say, your presence has now attracted their attention fully, and some of them even suspect you might be an agent of a rival organization. Now, all of a sudden, your identity has become a matter of particular interest to them.”
Red frowned. “Is this a guess, or do you base it off something?”
“Well, you know I can’t lie to you,” Reinhart shrugged. “Even if it’s just a guess, it’s an educated one. And if they are indeed interested in your identity, it’s entirely possible they could ask the Imperial agents for intelligence. They’ve done it in the past, quite often, in fact.”
‘This is indeed troublesome.’
He was prepared for some level of scrutiny after targeting the Golden Hand, but he didn’t expect their organization to be so closely tied to the Empire.
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“It seems unlikely they could make such a connection just off that alone,” Red said, still skeptical.
“Maybe, but the Empire is quite obsessed about this matter. If they start to look into you, are you certain that nothing they come up with would raise their suspicion?”
‘Not for the most part, but…’
There were indeed some things that could raise their alarm, mostly related to his skills with Arcane Scripture. This wasn’t something a lot of people knew about back when he was part of the Water Dragon Sect, but Gustav was well-informed and probably could have known about it just from the ingredients Red and his master bought from the market. This was a connection with his new identity he couldn’t wipe out, even if he wanted to.
“Even the smallest thing could give you away in this situation, you know it best,” Reinhart said.
“And you could draw that attention away from me?”
“I am not only the main connection between the guild and the Imperials in the capital, but I am also their source of information in the underworld. The Golden Hand would never risk getting caught communicating with the enemy of the kingdom, so they maintain their contact secretive and rare. I could easily misdirect their efforts to find out your identity if that ever came to pass.”
“You seem very confident for someone who is not even a cultivator.”
“Hah! You know it best that someone doesn’t need cultivation to be useful.”
Red started to seriously consider the proposal. Having Reinhart working as an insider could provide Red with something he seriously lacked in the city - intelligence. Most of the sensitive information he came to learn about in the capital was provided by others, and he couldn’t ask them to look into certain matters, either. Reinhart could give him intelligence about two factions he was most worried about - the Golden Hand and the Empire - though on the other hand, he could be overestimating his own abilities.
‘He is under a blood oath, so he can’t lie. However, his confidence could come from a sense of self-importance rather than from his skills.’
Yet, like earlier, Red still felt the man exuding an air of confidence and mastery that he had seen in few people before. Something told him he wouldn’t be able to find a more reliable subordinate, but there was some hesitation he couldn’t dispel from the back of his mind.
This was one of the few situations where Red hesitated for reasons he couldn’t explain logically.
“Why go to these lengths?” He asked.
For the first time in their conversation, Reinhart’s half-smiling expression turned serious.
“Let me ask you this - were you the one who won the inheritance?”
Red, again, didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure how the anti-divination technique worked or if it extended to shield others he revealed this information to, but even if he knew for certain, he wouldn’t tell Reinhart the truth.
Reinhart, however, didn’t seem bothered about this. “You know, after the trial, I had my memory completely wiped. I mean, I can’t even remember what went on inside.”
‘This seems to differ from what the others went through.’
While his sect members also had their memories altered, they could remember the broad strokes of what happened in the trial. Reinhart, however, seemed unable to remember even a bit of the details - possibly a measure from the hawk for someone who worked for the Imperials.
“I only had this lingering feeling that a weight was taken off my back, like I accomplished something that I had been wanting to do for a long time…Did we meet in there?”
“Get to the point.”
“Well… Did you know I had my Spiritual Sea ripped from my body?”
“I do.”
“So then, do you know who was responsible for this?”
“…I do.”
“This makes things easier to explain, then. For a long time, I thought about revenge against Hector and that boy, but somehow, after the trial, that feeling was no longer there. But this shouldn’t be possible, right?” Reinhart looked down at his hands. “They were still alive, so how could my desire for revenge be fulfilled?”
“So you want to know what happened inside the trial? Is that it?”
“No, that’s not it,” he shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I was confused for a long time, trying to find that hatred and anger again, but something else seems to have filled my heart instead. I didn’t understand what it was for a long time, but then one day when I broke through, I understood what it was.”
Red frowned in confusion. “You broke through?”
“Yes, not in cultivation,” Reinhart looked at him with a grin. “I reached the level that Domeron was at. I became a sword grandmaster.”
Suddenly, Red understood the feeling of danger he felt from Reinhart. A sort of instinct that told him this was a man not to be underestimated despite his lack of cultivation, which he sensed in only Hector, Domeron, and Aurelia before.
‘This is a man that can manipulate the laws of the world without the need of Spiritual Energy.’
After sparring with Aurelia, Red was now certain someone at this level could be a threat to your average Lesser Ring Realm cultivator without the use of Spiritual Arts. In fact, if he hadn’t ambushed him, perhaps it wouldn’t have been so easy to capture the man.
“It was then that I realized perhaps my road doesn’t need to end yet,” Reinhart said. “Maybe, by relying on this ability, there is still a way I can become a cultivator.”
“So that’s why you sought the members of that sect? You were hoping to find the winner of the inheritance?”
“Correct. I imagine if there was any chance I could recover my Spiritual Sea, it would be found in that inheritance which the Empire placed so much importance on. It was a gamble, but surely you can see that it was worth pursuing.”
As he heard this, Red had a realization.
“Were you hoping to steal the inheritance?”
“I considered that, yes. I hoped to surprise whoever came to find me with my skills and kill them, and if they had the inheritance, then all the better. If they were stronger than me, then I thought about making a deal with them instead - similar to what I’m doing with you now. Of course, I just had some hopes that we could have done it in more equal terms.”
“You would just admit to wanting to kill me?”
“Well, it’s not like I can keep it a secret, right?”
Reinhart couldn’t lie, but he didn’t seem to want to either. His plan, however, would have failed even if he killed Red, considering the full inheritance was never with him.
The man smiled. “So that’s my reason - I want to be a cultivator, and this was the best way I thought to go about it.”
“So that’s what you want to negotiate with me? The possibility of recovering your Spiritual Sea?”
“More or less. Of course, I plan to earn it. To begin with, as a show of good faith, I can help you with Yrsa.”
“Help me how?”
“She is under surveillance, from not only me but from a few other people in the Golden Hand. She is also close to dying, and I know the pills they have been providing to her are fake. I can get you the real ones.”
A more compelling reason to keep the man alive suddenly presented itself.