SSS Investment: Legendary Rewards From My Wife

Reinhard moved deeper into the Garden, stepping over broken stone and the bodies of Bloodkin left behind by battles spreading throughout the area. The destruction was getting worse the farther he went.

Blood Mana hung heavily in the air, buildings had already collapsed into the streets, and distant explosions continued to shake the ground beneath his feet.

A woman was waiting for him in the middle of the road. She wore a long black-and-white dress stained with old and fresh blood, her crimson hair falling around her shoulders, red eyes fixed on him with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

Unlike the First Order, she didn’t attack. She simply smiled.

Reinhard activated Emperor’s Insight Enhanced. The moment the information appeared, his expression sharpened.

Special Order.

There was no wild hunger in her face, none of the hesitation he’d seen from the Bloodkin he’d already fought. She looked completely comfortable, as if she already knew how this would end.

”Oh? Another silly human found themself in my area.”

”Don’t mind me, I’m just sightseeing.”

”But I do mind, after all. Anyone who passes by is a dear guest of mine.”

”And you are?”

Her smile widened. ”Bathory.”

A strange pressure spread through the area, and something inside his body locked.

He tried Spatial Step. Nothing. A Space Tear. Nothing. All-Cutting Slash, Right Hand of God — every ability refused to respond.

His Mana was still there, still flowing, but something had been placed between him and everything he’d spent years mastering.

Bathory laughed softly. ”You noticed. My Gnosis locks away the abilities of anyone caught within it. It doesn’t destroy them or weaken them. It simply makes them unavailable.” She tilted her head. ”Most Awakeners build their entire fighting style around their abilities. Then someone like me takes them away.” She smiled. ”Now you’re just a normal person.”

Reinhard looked at his hands, then back at her. ”That’s a little disappointing.”

Her smile vanished.

She closed the distance before he could blink, and her fist slammed into his guard hard enough to send him skidding backward. The second punch caught his face and threw him through the wall of a nearby building.

Bathory walked through the dust without slowing.

Bloodkin bodies ran roughly three times stronger than an ordinary Awakener’s, and their regeneration meant they never had to worry about trading blows the way humans did.

An injury that would cripple anyone else simply closed itself within moments, so she could afford to fight recklessly.

Reinhard climbed out of the rubble and glanced at her dress, then her fists. ”For someone who looks so ladylike, you sure enjoy close combat.”

”Nothing feels better than crushing a person’s bones with my own two hands.”

”It seems someone needs a new hobby.” He raised his fists. ”Don’t worry. Your new teacher will help set you back on the right path.”

”My new punching bag shouldn’t be joking.”

”Now that isn’t how you talk to your teacher.”

They collided.

For several exchanges neither of them stopped — fists against fists, elbows into ribs, knees into stomachs, kicks tearing through the ground whenever one missed.

Bathory fought with the confidence of someone who knew her body could repair almost anything done to it, taking hits and shrugging them off, throwing herself forward again and again without ever bothering to defend what she didn’t have to.

But Reinhard was starting to understand something.

The Gnosis had taken his abilities. It hadn’t taken his physical strength, and his body had been reinforced so many times over that her advantage no longer meant what she expected it to. A punch to his chest barely moved him. His counter caught her jaw and sent her skidding across the street.

She stood slowly, her expression changing. ”You... you shouldn’t be this strong.”

”I get that a lot.”

She rushed him again, and this time he met her head-on.

Catching a fist, twisting an arm, driving an elbow into her ribs before she could pull free, trading blow for blow as the fight ground on.

A kick caught his stomach and slid him backward; he looked down at the point of impact, unimpressed. ”That one was decent.”

She screamed and charged.

His fist slammed into her ribs hard enough to crack them audibly, launching her through a building. He followed her through the ruined wall and found her already standing, ribs knitting back together.

He stopped.

That was the problem, every injury disappeared as long as she had Blood Mana left to spend on it.

Bathory smiled when she saw him understand. ”You finally figured it out. You can’t kill me faster than I can heal.”

”Maybe.” He stepped forward. ”Then I just need to make healing more expensive.”

From that point on, he stopped trying to end the fight with a single overwhelming blow.

He broke her ribs. She regenerated. He dislocated her shoulder. She regenerated. He slammed her into the ground. She regenerated.

But every time she repaired herself, another piece of her Blood Mana went with it, and Reinhard kept attacking, not to win quickly anymore but to drain her dry, patient in a way that clearly unsettled her more than any single hit could have.

She grew more frustrated with every exchange. ”Stop!”

”Why?” He caught her next punch and drove his shoulder into her chest. ”Because you’re my student?”

”Shut up!”

Her hand shifted into a blood blade and drove straight through his body. She smiled but then she felt the weapon stop. The weapon had punched through his flesh and reached his reinforced bone, and could not cut any deeper.

”Hmm.” Reinhard looked down at the blade sticking out of him, then pulled it free with one hand. ”You managed to get through the soft part. Unfortunately, there’s more of me after that.”

His Black Bone truly was amazing.

He grabbed a broken sword off the ground and drove it through her shoulder, then a spear torn from a wall that she barely dodged, then a weapon pulled from a fallen Bloodkin’s corpse to pin her arm against the ground.

He began using whatever was in reach, every discarded weapon becoming an extension of his hands, every piece of rubble a tool to redirect her momentum.

The Assassin instincts he’d gained were proving far more useful than he’d expected, and he didn’t waste a single movement chasing what he could simply walk into.

Bathory became angrier with every exchange. ”Humans! Humans like you would have served us on your hands and knees a hundred years ago! Our father was in his prime then. Any Awakener who dared touch us would have been hanged on spikes and left to bleed until they died!”

To her, that past wasn’t shameful. It was something she missed, something she clearly believed had been stolen from her, and the resentment in her voice made that much obvious even without Mind Glance.

Reinhard wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. ”If I existed back then, that reality would have been nothing more than a fantasy.” He stepped closer. ”You would’ve been the one licking my boot before I put you to rest.”

Her expression twisted with rage, and she charged again, the exchange growing even more violent as their fists collided with fists.

Elbows crashing into ribs, knees into stomachs, neither of them giving an inch for several long seconds.

But something had changed.

She was slowing down.

Her regeneration still worked, but not as fast, her breathing heavier, her reserves running low. Her rage was making her easier to read, and Reinhard was starting to recognize the rhythm underneath it.

That was when he remembered his enhanced Mind Glance. He activated it.

For a brief moment, her next five movements unfolded clearly in his mind: a punch. A knee. A blood blade from her right hand before she stepped behind him and blasted her fist towards his neck.

But Reinhard moved before the punch finished extending, her fist passing beside his face. Her knee came next but he caught it. The blood blade formed yet he caught her wrist before it could swing. She stepped behind him and he was already turning. Her final strike never reached his neck. He caught her arm and drove his fist into her stomach.

She coughed blood. ”What— How do you—”

He kicked her across the ground.

Every decision she made from then on was turned against her before she could finish making it. A punch became an opening. A kick became a grabbed leg. A blood weapon became a trapped wrist. She wasn’t fighting Reinhard anymore. She was fighting someone who already knew where she was going.

Bathory stumbled backward, regeneration slowing again, staring at him with disbelief. ”Why...” Her fists clenched. ”Why, Father?! Why did you think our sickness wasn’t the lack of feeding? When did we ever need a purpose? Why did you make us change?” Her voice cracked. ”All we ever needed was blood!”

Reinhard looked at her. He could understand the anger, even if he couldn’t understand the belief behind it. Their father had apparently decided something was wrong with the way the Bloodkin lived, and Bathory had never accepted that, had never understood why they needed anything beyond hunger and blood.

”What’s the purpose of living without a purpose?” He shrugged. ”Sounds boring.”

For the first time, Bathory didn’t attack. Her expression went strangely blank. ”You... why do your words sound so familiar?”

”My words are just common sense, you idiot.”

She screamed and charged one final time. He saw it coming before she finished the first step, closed the distance, caught her body, and drove her into the ground hard enough to crack the street beneath them.

His fist rose, and for a moment it looked like he meant to crush her head.

He stopped just short.

Bathory laughed, blood covering her face. ”No wonder.” Her crimson eyes stayed fixed on his. ”You smell familiar. Tell me, foolish one. Do you understand anything about those close to you?”

Reinhard blinked, then sighed. ”You talk too much, you blood-starved fool.”

His fist came down.

The ground cracked beneath her head, and her body went limp.

The pressure of her Gnosis disappeared with her. Reinhard stood, flexing his fingers as his abilities returned one after another.

Spatial Tears worked again.

He glanced back at her body and her final words stayed with him, but he didn’t attach any mysterious meaning to them yet. She could have meant another Bloodkin, an Awakener, someone tied to the Garden, or someone he hadn’t met at all.

Instead he turned over everything he’d learned.

The Bloodkin hadn’t always been trapped here. They’d once moved freely through human territory, hunted humans, bathed in their blood, ruled under a father at the height of his power. Then something had changed.

Their father had decided their way of life was wrong, and the Bloodkin had been sealed away for it.

The Pale One had something to do with that change, though Reinhard still didn’t know who that was, what their father had actually witnessed to make him turn against his own children, or what had happened in the years before the Bloodkin were locked inside the Garden.

He looked toward the deeper part of the ruins. The Heart of the Origin was still waiting somewhere ahead, and whatever answers lay buried under this place weren’t going to dig themselves up.

Reinhard started walking again. ”Whatever happened here.” He glanced at the destruction around him. ”I’m getting closer.”