Supremacy Games

With one glare from Felix, Sekiro hid under his straw hat and nothing was heard from him again.

"Cough, feel free to sit anywhere." Miss Sanae offered as she took them to the living room.

After everyone was seated, the candle boy brought snacks and drinks...Then, he slid away again.

"Thanks, little Timmy."

"Mmmm." Little Timmy replied sluggishly.

"I wonder why hasn't he left you as well?"

Felix inquired calmly.

"Looks like you heard about me." Miss Sanae chuckled, not too bothered by his question.

"I didn't expect that it will be a two-man show." Felix narrowed his eyes, "10% doesn't sound too fair when it's going to be a partnership."

"Fine, you will get 15%, just drop it." Miss Sanae caved in immediately.

She thought before that there was a very slim chance Felix would either sign the contract right away or have enough principle to not renegotiate after a price had been decided.

Alas, Felix hadn't contemplated of either option as he wasn't stupid to get himself scammed in such an important decision.

"That works."

Fortunately, Felix wasn't that greedy and agreed to the offer.

"Sign this...All conditions are written there."

Miss Sanae uttered as she forwarded a holographic contract to Felix.

Felix read it carefully for a few minutes before he nodded in her direction and then signed it. Although there were some terms such as absolute loyalty, listening to orders, and other freedom-limiting terms, Felix still signed it.

After all, no matter how good the conditions were, at the end of the day, he was still a servant through and through.

The moment he did so, a wide smile broke on Miss Sanae's face. "At last, I will have a decent assistant."

"It can't be that no one has piqued your interest before me. I am not the only blacklisted spirit." Felix frowned.

"True, I had plenty of other assistants before, but I was forced to release all of them time and time again after they were offered to be removed from the blacklist."

Miss Sanae shook her head.

"Doesn't the contract ensure absolute loyalty? Why did you let them leave." Sekiro asked.

"What's the point of having assistants that don't want to work wholeheartedly to steal - Cough, to bring those f*ckers down to justice?" Miss Sanae said coldly, "So, anyone who came to me with the request, I void their contract and let them leave after paying the termination fees."

No wonder Miss Sanae wanted Felix badly...She was clearly listening to his conversation with the city's rich lords in the restaurant and realized that Felix would never get removed from the list by them.

So, he wouldn't be swayed like the others.

"You don't have to worry about me." Felix uttered calmly, "I am not interested in removing my blacklist order but in their assets."

"That's what I like to hear." Miss Sanae smiled.

"So, what cases are you working on right now?"

"Before I answer that, I need to ask you something." Miss Sanae's voice turned tenser as she inquired, "Are you familiar with the term Fallen Specters?"

"No."

Felix turned to Sekiro for answers and realized that he was just as ignorant as him.

However, what piqued his interest, even more, was Karra's reaction to the term. Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest, a sudden gasp escaping her lips.

"What's the matter?"

"N..Nothing." Karra stuttered.

"Didn't I tell you to not hide anything from me?" Felix's gaze got colder in displeasure.

"I..I can't."

Felix's expression turned a bit softer as he knew the difference between can't and won't. Karra not being able to speak meant that a previous master of hers was related to this term and she couldn't talk about the subject without receiving punishment.

All servants were banned from sharing any private details about their masters even if they broke off from them.

This was a strict law that was respected and feared by everyone due to the vile consequence of being thrown off from the heavenly plane immediately.

"Interesting, you have just signed the contract and have already given me a significant lead." Miss Sanae uttered with a thrilled tone.

Even though Karra didn't say anything, her reaction alone was enough to make her understand that the case was related to one of her masters.

All she needed to do was gather information about her previous masters and pinpoint the exact culprit.

It turned out, she didn't even need to do this.

"Was it the noble? Your last master?" Felix asked.

"I can't..." Karra muttered, tears threatening to drop from her eyes.

Felix didn't know if she was crying because of his questions or if she recalled some bad memories.

Whatever it was, he backed off as he knew that nothing out of value would come out from her lips.

"Can you tell me more about these Fallen Specters?" Felix inquired.

"Fallen Specters is a term not even golden spirits know about. If it wasn't for an unfortunate coincidence, I would have been in the dark about them as well." Miss Sanae manifested a hologram before everyone, showing a red-colored normal spirit.

Before anyone could comment, the interior of the red spirit started to turn darker and darker like he was infested by an evil seed and it had spread its roots across his entire body.

"What the..." Sekiro was left stunned as he watched the red spirit still emitting a red hue around him without a single change in his exterior appearance. However, his entire internal body was now a clamp of unsettling darkness.

"What are we watching?" Felix asked, his voice as stern as it could get.

"This was the process of spirits becoming fallen specters after feasting on negative energies: Spirits such as hate, fear, or despair for a consistent period of time until their new personalities break apart and allow those emotions to take hold of them."

"When that happens, fallen spirits begin to lose their illumination slowly until they became black-colored spirits." Miss Sanae narrowed her eyes, "Here is the kicker when they reach that far, the fallen spirits can't lose any more illumination even if they had a hundred billion Lumus of debt."

"In other words, they couldn't be kicked out of the heavenly realm at all and had earned a permanent residency here."

"How is that possible?!" Sekiro responded strongly, "There is no way the ethereal elders and Lord Hades would be ignorant about such a dangerous matter!"

"I don't know about the elders, but Lord Hades definitely knows about this." Miss Sanae sneered, "But so what? There aren't enough fallen specters to cause a scene in the heavenly plane and even if there were a decent amount of them, it was impossible to find them as they look just like us."

Lord Hades wasn't interested in handling any small issue arising in his realm as that was the job of the elders.

Unless big matters that threatened the entire realm had occurred, he would turn a blind eye to everything happening under his nose.

As mentioned, if Felix wasn't related to Asna, he wouldn't have made Elder Kraken's life difficult.

"How do those fallen spirits even come to light? Is there someone responsible? Or the process just happens naturally?" Felix asked.

"The process itself might be natural, but I am certain that someone in the upper echelon is running an underground cartel responsible for this." Miss Sanae snickered, "As for the reason? You tell me."

Felix contemplated about it for a moment before answering, "Permanent black spirits mean loyal slaves who don't need to worry anymore about getting kicked out of the realm for eternity. Since they are considered as 'breaking the rules', those spirits will never snitch as they will end up forcing the law enforcers and elders to get involved and fix the 'loophole', which means their permanent stay is over for good."

"Bingo."