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Garovel, however, seemed to think that there might be more to the Jercash story than what was being reported. According to his logic, even an emperor would struggle to take on three marshals simultaneously, so unless Jercash was suddenly emperor-class himself, there must have been some other factor at play there.

Most likely, Garovel said, Jercash had tricked them in some way. The guy was known as the Devil's Knife, after all. He had a reputation for catching people by surprise. And Garovel also suspected that Jercash was in the habit of taking credit for his subordinate's accomplishments, which would in turn suppress their notoriety and make their enemies misjudge their threat level.

'Normally, that's not really an option,' Garovel had told him. 'Abolish is full of greedy, glory-hungry maniacs who would sooner desert than allow their superiors to take their credit. Reapers included. But I've been gathering information on all the major players within Abolish for months now, and Jercash's followers are strangely devoid of mid- and high-tier threat. People like Bloodeye, for example. Jercash should have several guys like that working for him, but no one seems able to identify them.'

'So you think Jercash is able to control his men better?'

'That's one way of putting it. When it comes to Abolish, though, I'm not sure how much it could be about "control." His subordinates might just believe in him more than others. So they don't even mind if he gets the credit for everything. Like they're just THAT on board with what he's trying to do.'

'Hmm.'

'Whatever the case, it creates a huge problem for the Vanguard. He could have some insanely dangerous people working under him. Even if the Vanguard is able to pinpoint their exact abilities--materialization, alteration, whatever--it won't be that helpful if they can't gauge the current strength of said abilities. I guess what I'm saying is... Jercash could already have one or more marshal-level servants working under him, and if they're playing along with his game, then no one would even know it.'