'Birds of the same feather…'
Rehaal looked at Eren and Rodrick both with a single glance before fixing his gaze on his cousin.
"Don't complicate things for you and your friend here, Rodrick. Those twenty pieces you have stolen will eventually become your downfall now that you are merely in the Ace rank.
I'm only helping you by taking the heat away from you.
The other competitors won't be as considerate as me. They'll destroy this city if they have to to get those pieces before killing a whole bunch of people along with you."
Rehaal said, his voice getting deeper as he spoke. This time, his aura was even stronger than before. The chair that was cracked disintegrated into pieces when Rehaal's aura manifested. The ground would have cracked too if it wasn't fortified with the runes.
Both Ace rankers would have been brought to their knees if Eren hadn't protected them with mana sense. Argo was about to make a fuss. So Eren took him inside his beast space before looking at Rehaal.
Rodrick was about to respond to Rehaal as he gritted his teeth. He knew he'd sound pathetic if he started speaking under Rehaal's influence. Thankfully, Rehaal's threatening words had managed to drag Eren into the mess.
"If you want to threaten my city, say it to my face. Don't use roundabout ways to do these things."
Eren radiated a grim aura as he spoke, his voice grimmer than ever. In the next moment, the surroundings changed for those who listened to his voice.
A wave of invisible haze spread over the surroundings. It felt like Agatha's office had become submerged in deep waters.
Rehaal was brought to his knees. The royal was left aghast by the suppression he felt at the moment. He felt like he had been thrown into a pit of lava before someone closed the only way out of it.
Rehaal's heartbeats increased and his ears started hearing white noise. He started seeing haze in front of his blurred vision and he lost his ability to speak properly.
Eren had tried to control the effects of his aura on the royal lad in front of him. But his soul sense slipped into the equation, making things more difficult for Rehaal than Eren planned them to be.
The thing about the soul sense was that once it awakens, one could not precisely control it like their mana sense. Extreme emotions and other reasons could cause the soul sense to inadvertently manifest itself.
Soul sense was even more potent than elemental attainment in this case. Both would get influenced by their wielder's emotions and personalities. However, soul sense begins affecting the living beings first and foremost in the surroundings rather than the surroundings themselves.
Therefore, it was dangerous for people with slumbering souls to be anywhere near someone who had awakened their soul sense.
Eren only realized what had happened to Rehaal when he saw his condition. The guy was looking at him with extreme fear. The butcher could read the royal's mind and knew that he was trying to flee the place due to a senseless fear that took hold of him. But his body wasn't listening to his orders. So he couldn't get up.
'Heh! I was once like this.'
Eren smirked when he saw Rehaal gasping for breaths. He couldn't help remembering when he was on the receiving end of the same ordeal. Only, his condition was much more severe because the soul he was affected by belonged to Eliza.
Eren controlled his aura and soul sense to offer the royal a much-needed relief. He didn't want to upset Rehaal's retainers any further than he already had.
Eren was genuinely angry when he heard Rehaal speaking about destroying his city for the royal scions' royal competition. Eren's soul sense manifested as a result, and Rehaal received a mentally scarring punishment.
Cough! Cough! Cough!
Rehaal started coughing and began taking quick breaths as he felt the suffocating pressure getting lifted. He didn't know what had happened to him but he knew who caused it.
"You….."
Rehaal looked at Eren wearily as he managed to blurt out a word. The feelings of wanting to run away from the guy in front of him were still trying to take over him. However, the royal fought against those feelings in order not to ruin his royal status any further.
Rehaal eventually stood up with his shaky legs and retrieved a strange potion from his storage. He uncorked the vial before drinking the contents inside it. Only then did the color on his pale face turn.
Rodrick and Agatha had been exposed to Eren's soul sense as well. But thankfully, they weren't affected by it because Eren's anger wasn't directed at them.
Nevertheless, they both could vaguely understand that Eren was much more than he let on. That his ranking status alone wasn't enough of a parameter to gauge his strength. Anyone who did that and tried to mess up with him was bound to be up for some rude awakening.
Rehaal was very angry at himself for getting down on his knees in front of a commoner. Even worse was the fact that he did it while Rodrick was in the same room.
Eren walked towards the now-standing royal with hands behind his back, prompting the latter to take a few steps back. He enjoyed watching a royal become more frightened with each passing moment because of his mere presence.
The butcher chuckled before speaking up in a clear voice.
"Let me get this thing clear to you and your retainers, Rehaal. I'm not preventing you from participating in your royal competition. I have no interest in being part of this charade.
But you need to find some other way to get Rodrick out of the city. Maybe you can set a trap for him outside the city when that happens."
"Oi…!"
Rodrick suddenly had stress lines on his forehead when he listened to Eren's words. He wanted to call Eren a conniving son of a bitch. But he knew that the guy would simply accept whatever negative thing that is being said about his mother.
Eren ignored Rodrick's objection and carried on.
