"Damn, it still scares me every time he does that," Bertho said, taking another step away from the expanding yellow pool on the floor. His face had gone pale, and even after witnessing Karl's bloodlust several times, he had never become accustomed to it. "It is stronger than any other test we have ever experienced." He swallowed nervously as he stared toward the end of the hallway.
"He must really be furious for something like this to happen," Bertho muttered. The killing intent had been so overwhelming that even he, someone who had grown accustomed to the strange abilities awakened by mana, could not remain calm. There was something fundamentally different about feeling Karl's bloodlust compared with the resistance training they had endured. That training had been painful, but this felt like standing directly in front of death.
"You are right," Arin said, his expression grim. "This is unpleasant." He glanced toward the negotiation room before turning around. "I will notify the rest of the family, because someone is going to regret sending this negotiation team here." With that, Arin left the building to contact his father, who would handle the rest of the situation.
The bloodlust was far more frightening than any resistance training the Sonnenbergs had ever experienced. Since the arrival of mana, strange phenomena had begun appearing throughout humanity, and bloodlust was apparently one of them. Most people could only manifest it during moments of extreme emotion, but there was one exception within the Sonnenberg family. Karl could release his bloodlust whenever he wanted.
It was therefore not particularly surprising that a highly distressed person would collapse after being exposed to it. Nobody outside the Sonnenbergs even knew that the phenomenon existed, because there had been no proper studies into bloodlust yet. That was unusual in the current era, considering governments and corporations were throwing enormous amounts of money at scientists to investigate every phenomenon created by mana. Anything remotely interesting could attract funding, yet bloodlust had somehow remained almost completely unexplored.
The Sonnenbergs themselves did not understand why Karl was different. Every member of the family had killed at least a thousand goblins during the last trial, and their collective killing intent had become noticeably stronger. The number of creatures they had killed was the only theory they possessed for why their bloodlust could emerge during moments of heightened emotion. However, that explanation could not account for Karl's ability to summon his bloodlust deliberately.
The only obvious difference between Karl and the rest of the family was his past. He had crawled out of an actual war and had killed a great many people during that conflict. He had survived a battlefield where death was not an abstract concept but an everyday reality. That experience was also one of the reasons he had eventually been made patriarch.
Karl had not merely survived that war. He had led a successful warband while he was there, proving that he possessed qualities the rest of the family did not. Afterward, he had returned to his forest and deliberately hidden his identity. At that time, being openly associated with the military was dangerous, and remaining out of sight was the safest option for the family.
Apparently, Karl had awakened the ability to manifest his bloodlust at will during that period. The family could only speculate about the circumstances because Karl had never explained exactly how it happened. Even then, there was an enormous difference between deliberately releasing bloodlust and allowing it to escape because of overwhelming emotion. The latter could happen to any sufficiently enraged Sonnenberg, while the former required the discipline Karl had developed through years of warfare.
That distinction had become painfully obvious during the negotiation.
After Emerson threatened the Sonnenberg family, the entire room had fallen silent. Karl had remained seated for a moment, his expression almost completely unremarkable. Then his eyes had opened fully, and a wave of bloodlust had rolled across the negotiation team. The effect had been immediate.
The Americans had been terrified out of their minds. Their backs became soaked with sweat, while two of them lost control of their bladders entirely. Even Emerson, who had been shouting only moments earlier, had been reduced to trembling in fear. The man who had entered the negotiation believing American money could buy anything had suddenly been confronted with something money could not protect him from.
"Right," Karl said calmly. "I think it is best for all of you to leave and never come back before I do something drastic." He stood up without raising his voice or making another threat. Then he simply walked out of the room, clearly having no desire to communicate with the clowns any longer. There were other people he needed to contact.
"Let's go," Emerson finally managed to say.
The fright of his life had temporarily broken through his arrogance. He was still shaking as he stood, and he had to change his clothes before leaving because he had lost control of himself during Karl's bloodlust. His colleagues followed him out of the meeting room, and the entire delegation eventually returned to the hotel in the nearby city. Emerson was still too shaken to understand what had happened.
He certainly did not realize that his actions had effectively signed his own death warrant.
"Grandpa, do we need to do something?" Arin asked after returning from his call with his father. He had felt the bloodlust coming from the negotiation room and knew that the situation had become much more serious than a failed business meeting. The question was no longer whether the Americans would leave peacefully. It was what the Sonnenbergs intended to do about them.
"Yes," Karl replied. "Can you tail those cowards and update their location every hour?" He looked toward Arin with a serious expression. "I have a job for the assassin family, and it is imperative that I know where they are." Karl paused briefly before adding, "One of them said things he should never have said, and he meant them."
"Okay, it will be done," Arin replied.
Arin immediately disappeared into the shadows, waiting for the negotiation team to leave the area. His task was simple enough: follow them without being detected and maintain a constant record of their movements. The Sonnenbergs did not intend to act blindly, especially when another family was likely to become involved. Information would be necessary before anything else happened.
Meanwhile, Karl returned to his private office.
He took out his phone and stared at it for a moment. He was still somewhat amazed that the device continued to function normally, considering how much of the old infrastructure had been disrupted by mana. The satellites he depended upon had not shown any signs of failing, which meant communication was still possible through the remaining network.
"Hello, Karl. What can I do for you?" Natasia asked when she answered.
She sounded surprised that Karl had called her at all. These kinds of communications were actually easier to track than they had been before the arrival of mana, because there was no longer an enormous amount of internet traffic to hide them among. The internet had become primarily local, while the data sent through satellites was beamed down to enormous quantum servers. Those servers processed the downloaded information and then distributed it among the cities.
"It is important, so listen closely," Karl said.
He did not trust his phone completely anymore. The Sonnenbergs might have been invisible to most ordinary civilians, but people with political connections were another matter entirely. Their family had accumulated too much influence and history to assume that nobody was watching them. Karl therefore needed to make absolutely certain that his real message could not be identified through a simple recording.
He spent the next five minutes talking about absolutely nothing.
Natasia immediately understood what he was doing and played along. They discussed meaningless subjects and allowed the conversation to wander naturally from one topic to another. Anyone listening to the call would have heard nothing important. To an outside observer, it would have sounded like two people casually catching up.
Then Karl shifted the conversation.
"Hey, there is something else I was interested in," he said casually. "I heard some rumors that the private equity group Broken is interested in buying mana veins." He allowed a brief pause before continuing. "Apparently, the entire staff of the firm stands behind that decision. If I were their headquarters in the United States, I would fire them as soon as possible."
"That is interesting," Natasia replied.
Her voice remained calm, but she had understood the message. "I would do the same. Thinking they could get their hands on mana veins here in Europe is rather strange."
"Yes," Karl answered.
The two continued speaking for another five minutes, carefully maintaining the appearance of an ordinary conversation. Only after enough meaningless discussion had passed did they finally end the call. Karl placed his phone down, knowing that the message had reached the person who needed to receive it.
Natasia hung up and immediately walked out of her office.
Five people were waiting outside, having listened intently to the conversation. None of them needed an explanation. The moment Natasia stepped into the hallway, they looked toward her for instructions.
"Right, don't just stand around," Natasia said.
A dangerous smile appeared on her face.
"There is work to do," she continued. "Someone went too far."