"Boy, they are good," Karl said as he watched another official being killed in cold blood. There was barely any pause between the assassination and the reading of the evidence against the victim, making it clear that the Reapers had little interest in giving their targets time to react. Before each execution, the audience was shown approximately five seconds of footage from the moment before the victim died. Even with that brief glimpse, Karl had to concentrate carefully to catch sight of the assassin responsible for the killing.
"Sure, but you already know that, don't you?" Annemiek replied with a smile, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle unfolding on the screen. "It isn't as though they would have stood still and allowed everyone to see them clearly. They work to improve their skills just as much as we do, and it seems their efforts are paying off rather well." She watched another recording, trying to spot the slightest movement that might reveal the assassin's position. Although the footage was brief, she appreciated the skill required to remain almost entirely invisible while carrying out such a dangerous task.
"That is true. I can't wait to hold their coming-of-age ceremony," Karl said with a smile, his attention still fixed on the screen. It had been quite some time since the Sonnenbergs had last hosted one, and the ceremonies were always a sight to behold. The assassin family was particularly eager to attend whenever they were ready for one, as the Sonnenbergs were among the very few people with whom they could behave naturally. Their relationship had developed over the years into something that allowed both families to lower their usual defences and enjoy one another's company without constantly worrying about their secrets.
For the assassin family, that freedom was especially valuable because concealing their identities had become an unavoidable part of their lives. Unless they were acting under their civilian identities, they generally kept themselves hidden behind masks and carefully controlled their movements, revealing as little of themselves as possible. Maintaining that degree of secrecy could be exhausting, particularly when they had to suppress their natural behaviour to prevent others from discovering who they really were. However, when they visited the Sonnenbergs, they could remove their masks and show their entire selves without worrying that someone would misunderstand their habits or expose their identities. Consequently, their gatherings were always lively occasions, and Karl was looking forward to welcoming them again.
"Yes, that is true, but that will have to wait," Annemiek said, still smiling as she turned her attention towards her husband. "For now, I am sure that everyone is wondering who these Reapers really are." She found the question particularly interesting because even the Great Houses would not necessarily have enough evidence to identify the people responsible. The assassins had demonstrated an extraordinary ability to conceal their involvement, and the recordings offered very little information that could be used to trace them. Even people who understood the methods of professional assassins would have difficulty determining which family was behind the executions without additional clues.
"Don't underestimate them, dear," Karl replied, his expression becoming more serious. "They know what they are looking for, especially after one of their people has ordered the killing of a United States senator." He recalled the extensive efforts made to examine the footage of that assassination, which had now been under review for four days. Despite all that scrutiny, investigators had failed to uncover any meaningful information about the assassin's identity or method of approach. The only clear clue was the knife used to stab the senator, and even that offered little help in identifying the person responsible.
Karl had no doubt that the assassin family understood the risks involved and had taken every precaution to prevent their secrets from being exposed. After all, the people behind the Reapers were not ordinary killers who relied on luck or the confusion surrounding a chaotic situation. They were professionals who had spent years improving their abilities, and the current crisis merely provided another opportunity to demonstrate how effective those abilities could be. If the footage had revealed nothing substantial after four days of examination, then the investigators would have to work considerably harder before they could establish the truth.
"Now, we just need to get our boys safely back home, because I can't stand Bennie's stupid smile anymore," Karl said with visible disgust. The old patriarch had little patience for the treasurer's current mood, especially when he himself was buried beneath an ever-growing mountain of paperwork. Money had been flowing into the family accounts over the past few days because the secret realms under their direct protection were generating considerable income. Meanwhile, the ten secret realms to which their people had been dispatched were not proving any more dangerous than the ones they normally guarded, meaning that the additional assignments were bringing in money without causing the disasters Karl had feared.
Even though the Sonnenbergs received only twenty-five percent of the total earnings from those ten secret realms, Bennie was still unbearably pleased with the arrangement. Karl could understand why the treasurer was happy, since additional income was always welcome, particularly when the family had so many responsibilities to fulfil. Nevertheless, understanding the reason behind Bennie's good mood did not make it any less irritating to watch him grin while everyone else struggled to keep the family running. Karl had no intention of admitting it aloud, but a small part of him suspected that Bennie was enjoying the situation precisely because he was not the one drowning in administrative work.
The real problem was that the family had sent a substantial portion of its workforce to deal with the crisis in the United States. Almost half of the guild had been dispatched to support the secret realms there, while another three thousand people had been assigned to maintain and protect the Sonnenbergs' own secret realms. Those deployments came on top of the ordinary responsibilities that still had to be handled, including administration, finances, logistics, and the countless small tasks required to keep the family's operations running smoothly. No matter how Karl approached the problem, he could not find enough people to cover every responsibility without placing an unreasonable burden on those who remained.
The shortage was becoming increasingly difficult to manage, and Karl was beginning to fear that the situation might grow worse before it improved. He could redistribute the work, postpone less urgent tasks, and ask the remaining staff to shoulder additional responsibilities, but none of those solutions would create the manpower they desperately needed. Eventually, he might have no choice but to ask the two elders to leave their seclusion and help manage the situation. The thought was hardly appealing, as he would rather allow them to remain undisturbed, but the family's needs had to come before his personal preferences.
"Relax. Everything will work out, and once this is over, we will be able to improve many things with the extra money we have earned," Annemiek assured him. She offered her husband a reassuring smile, hoping that he would stop worrying long enough to consider the opportunities the crisis might create. Although the current circumstances were inconvenient, the additional income could be used to address problems that the family had previously lacked the resources to solve. With careful planning, the Sonnenbergs might emerge from the crisis in a stronger position than before.
"Sure, but I want to pass on this job as quickly as possible," Karl replied, his voice carrying a mixture of exhaustion and genuine frustration. He had never particularly enjoyed being the head of the family, and the responsibilities associated with the position had done little to change his mind. The role required constant attention to finances, personnel, politics, and disputes between family members, leaving him with precious little time to concern himself with the things he actually enjoyed. Although he understood why someone had to carry that burden, he had never believed that he was especially suited to it.
"You have to endure it," Annemiek said with a supportive smile. She knew that her husband would have to remain in his position for some time yet, regardless of how eagerly he wanted to hand it over. In her private thoughts, she also knew that Arin was nowhere near ready to assume the role of patriarch. The boy had almost no interest in the position, and forcing it upon him would probably result in a leader who cared about the forest while treating everything beyond its borders as someone else's problem.
That attitude might be perfectly understandable for someone whose life revolved around nature, but it was hardly ideal for the head of a major family. A patriarch had to consider far more than the forest, including the livelihoods of thousands of people, the family's relationships with other powerful groups, and the disputes that inevitably arose between relatives. Annemiek knew that Arin could develop the necessary qualities with time, but he would first have to show some interest in the responsibilities waiting for him. Until then, handing him the position would solve Karl's immediate problem only by creating a much larger one for the family.
Unfortunately, there were few convincing alternatives. The other potential candidates were not much better suited to the position, although their shortcomings differed considerably from Arin's lack of interest. A few women in the family possessed the necessary abilities and experience, but they had already made their positions clear. They had no desire to spend their days settling disputes between family members, a task they were already forced to perform far too often. Consequently, the question of succession remained unresolved, leaving Karl to continue carrying the burden while hoping that a suitable replacement would eventually emerge.
Meanwhile, deep inside Beijing, a meeting was taking place in a secure bunker where the nine elders responsible for running China had gathered. The atmosphere was unusually tense, as the information presented to them concerned an organization that threatened far more than ordinary political stability. They had been informed of the existence of an organization composed of corrupted humans and, more troublingly, had learned that a considerable number of its members were operating across the Asian continent. The revelation raised serious concerns about how deeply the organization might have infiltrated their institutions and how much damage it could cause before the government discovered its presence.
"These are troubling revelations, and I can confirm that we have found no reliable information about this organization," Yan Wen, the Minister of Intelligence, said as he addressed the room. "What worries me even more is that I am almost certain we have corrupted humans within our own party, yet we have been unable to identify them. Have you discovered anything, sir?" he asked, turning towards Wan Gengxin, the president of China. Yan understood that the problem could not be handled through ordinary investigations alone, especially if the suspects had access to the country's political and administrative machinery.
Wan Gengxin was not only the president of China but also the head of the Party's Supervision Commission, the institution responsible for combating corruption within the party. Given the seriousness of the revelations, he had brought the matter under the commission's jurisdiction and had already begun examining the limited information available. His position gave him access to reports from multiple departments, allowing him to compare suspicious cases and determine whether any common patterns might point towards the hidden organization. Nevertheless, the results had been disappointing, and he knew that the current investigation was nowhere near sufficient to expose the people they were looking for.
"I have had a few cases cross my desk, but none of them involved the major figures described in these reports," Wan Gengxin replied after considering Yan Wen's question. "Given that the threat is considerably greater than we initially believed, I propose that we invest more resources into researching methods of detecting corrupted humans." He spoke calmly, but the gravity of his words was unmistakable. If the organization had managed to establish itself within their political system, then conventional investigations and routine corruption checks would not be enough to guarantee the country's security.
The other elders considered his proposal before expressing their agreement, a reaction that did not surprise Wan Gengxin in the slightest. None of them had spent their lives building and maintaining the country only to allow a group of opportunists to undermine their achievements from within. They understood that the danger extended beyond individual acts of corruption, since an infiltrated official could use their authority to compromise national security, misdirect resources, and obstruct investigations into other members of the organization. If they wanted to protect the country, they would have to uncover a reliable way to distinguish corrupted humans from ordinary citizens before the situation spiralled beyond their control.
For the moment, however, they had little more than suspicions, scattered cases, and an incomplete understanding of their enemy. The organization had concealed itself well enough to evade even the extensive investigative machinery of the Chinese government, suggesting that its members knew how to exploit the weaknesses of existing systems. The elders therefore faced a difficult task: they had to develop new methods of detection without allowing the organization to discover that the government was closing in on it. Their first priority would be to expand the research, gather every useful piece of evidence, and determine how many corrupted humans had already infiltrated the institutions responsible for governing China.