"Don't mind what the others said. They've just been disappointed recently so they find it hard to trust people." The Family Head sighed, before gesturing all the Elders to sit down and to not intervene.

Gabriel also stopped, turning back to the Family Head. As long as these people weren't really going too far, he didn't mind working with them. In any case, he was also curious about this Shadow Garden that many powerful clans in the Upper World were interested in.

"Every five years, the shadow garden opens. And every major clan sends people inside the Shadow Garden. We also do the same. However, throughout the years, we've always been failing to even get to the inner area, let alone reaching the core." The middle aged man on the main seat sighed.

As he mentioned, the other Elders also showed frustrated expressions. This had been the great shame of their clan.

The Shadow Garden was supposed to belong to their Clan. However, everyone was allowed to enter it ever since their family fell. Moreover, despite being the original owners, the performance of their family had been worse when it came to exploring the Shadow Garden.

Every year, they selected the best Shadow Mage that they could find. However, most of the better ones were already selected and groomed by the bigger clans. And the ones that the Stein Family selected were either bribed by the other clans, or proven to be useless.

After being disappointed so many times, all the Elders had slowly started giving up on the Shadow Garden, only taking part for the sake of it.

Moreover, throughout the years, it wasn't the first time where some shadow mages approached them to scam their clan. That's why, they got angry when they felt like they saw another person like that.

Even though they still didn't trust Gabriel, but at least after seeing his performance, they did start having some hopes.

All the Elders sat down, listening to the Family Head.

The Shadow that was keeping one of the Elders hostage also disappeared.

However, at the same time, another shadow appeared behind Gabriel, taking the shape of a majestic dark seat.

"I'll give it another chance then." Gabriel sat right before the Family Head, without showing much reaction.

It was as if he was implying that he wasn't a subordinate of the Stein Clan, but a partner.

The Family Head only smiled in response, but he didn't comment on anything. He waved his hand, closing the main doors to prevent anyone outside from listening to the contents of the meeting.

*****

For the next two hours, no one came out of the meeting hall. There were many servants outside who were quite curious about the contents of the meeting. Amongst the servants, there were also some spies, who wanted to get as much information as they could to send to their masters.

Unfortunately, this time the family head was more careful. He even cast a sound isolating barrier, which made it almost impossible for even the spies. However, they could easily guess that this meeting was related to the opening of the shadow garden which was supposed to be opening soon.

****

In another place, there was an isolated clan which didn't involve themselves with the outside world. However, not many people knew that there was a reason that the clan was so isolated.

They didn't get involved with the outside world much because they had things that even they wanted to hide.

Unfortunately, because of the banquet of the Generals, they had no choice but to send an heir with a guard to attend the meeting.

They didn't realize that their heir was the same person whose identity was stolen by Karyk and Gabriel to enter the banquet.

Moreover, to make sure that there were no loose ends, Karyk had already taken some steps.

Since his identity was the biggest flaw he had, he just had to do one thing... Kill the people who could expose him.

As for the blame, that was naturally going to fall on the Death Star. Karyk already realized that the world was going to justify that action, saying that the clan was wiped out by Karyk because one of the clan members became a Disciple of a general.

It was even better when he found out that the clan was more isolated. Even in the banquet, they didn't interact with the others, remaining separate as if they were just here for formality.

The clan didn't want to keep any relationship with the outsiders, especially since they didn't want to attract the attention of a General. It was another reason why the heir of that clan was out of the Stairway test so soon.

The clan had told him to avoid attention as much as possible, and just to show attendance in the records, since not attending was also going to attract attention.

Since the clan dealt with the dead bodies and evil souls, they didn't want to attract the Generals and found out. The Generals were already looking for Karyk who used the element of death after all.

The clan didn't realize that their heir had attracted unwanted attention. Before he left the banquet, Karyk had already attached a shadow to the heir of the clan whose identity he was stealing.

Fortunately, using the shadow wasn't enough to attract much attention since his shadow was always out.

As the heir returned to the isolated clan, entering the main building to meet his Father and brief him about what happened in the banquet, the shadow finally became bigger.

Two of the stronger generals of Karyk came out of the shadows. Before the clan master could even react, his head flew high in the air. His eyes remained wide open in disbelief as he died.

Even his son died right before his eyes.

No one realized that a clan had disappeared like nothing. Everyone in the clan died. However, when the Death Generals reached deeper into the Clan building, even they were slightly surprised as they sensed the aura of death filling the entire place.