Chapter 319: The Empire's Blade (7)
Leandro remembered it clearly. His mother had hunted the twelfth-generation Garbera, one hundred and twenty years old. However, the one he had just killed was a newborn. A fresh sprout born after the lineage had been severed.
How strange. If the special commission that returned his mother's sword had truly annihilated Garbera, there should have been no seed left to sprout here. If they had failed to finish it and only lost the trail, then what emerged now should have been a matured one of one hundred and twenty years.
Neither possibility fit. The feeling stuck under his skin like grit.
Afterward, Leandro searched the entire forest, but no adult Garbera appeared.
***
Just in case, Leandro spent several more months in the woods, then wandered the world for a year. Other forests yielded nothing. In the end, he went to find Laura. Perhaps this was what he meant when he said revenge was never simple.
By then, Leandro had learned what he was: head of the Imperial Shadow Commission, the Empire's foremost sword, a power behind the throne.
"Well now… you've finally come to me!"
Once Leandro gave his name, meeting Laura was easy. The man had scattered bait for him everywhere.