Despite his accusatory question, the Baron didn’t turn to look at him. His fluctuation didn’t indicate any suspicion or ill-will either, which left Red even more confused.
A few seconds later, the youth shook his head. “I was out of town. I couldn’t have done it.”
The Baron frowned. “You are sneaky enough. If you wanted to wander back into town without anyone noticing, you could have certainly done it.”
“Could I?” Red asked with skepticism as he looked around the room. “I don’t think I have the skills to have killed him like this.”
“Maybe not on your own, but with the aid of magical treasures and talismans, it would have certainly been possible.”
The youth sighed. “Then do you think I did it?”
There was a pause after he made this question.
“No.” The Baron shook his head. “I don’t think you did. I don’t think Hector did it either.”
‘So he came to the same conclusion.’
“Then do you have any idea who might have done it?” Red asked.
“Plenty of people have motives to do it, but few have the means in this town. It’s clear this was done by an external force, but that shouldn’t be possible either.”
“Why not?” The youth was confused.
The man shook his head and smiled at him in resignation. “This is not something I can tell you right now.”
The youth didn’t press the matter. He examined the Baron’s appearance, impressed by the fact he barely seemed to age from seven years ago, still resembling someone in their thirties despite the fact he was likely in his fifties or sixties. This wasn't surprising when one took into consideration the fact he was at the Lesser Ring Realm.
Cultivators that opened their Spiritual Seas could easily live beyond one hundred years of age, and the aging process of their body would be slowed down considerably. For the Baron’s body, seven years might as well not differ from one year to a common mortal.
Despite that, the posture and expression of the regal man didn’t match to the noble air he usually carried himself with. There was an immense and obvious weight of pressure on his shoulders, something that he didn’t bother masking in front of Red.
His fluctuation told the youth just as much.
“Do you know what happened?” Red asked.
The Baron shook his head. “Not any more than any of the guards. They found him like this, and there was no sound of combat or any cry for help. It was a swift and silent assassination.”
The man sounded downtrodden as he spoke of the death of his captain, but he didn’t spare any details.
Red looked around the room once more, his gaze stopping on the corpse. “Do you mind if I inspect him?”
“Go ahead.” The Baro nodded. “I have already taken a look myself, but I want to see if you can gleam something I’ve missed.”
The youth didn’t stand on ceremony.
He approached Orvin’s corpse. The old veteran was sat on the ground, slouched with his back against the wall where a vertical trail of blood stood, indicating he most likely slid down from a standing position as he was struck. There was no blood anywhere else in the room, meaning that he was attacked in killed in this exact spot.
‘One fatal blow, with no room for reaction.’
A perfect assassination, with the attack piercing straight through his body and staining the wall crimson - or attacks, judging by the multiple splotches of blood. Although, when Red looked at the smeared stone surface, he didn’t find any collision marks of a weapon or whatever else could have pierced through the captain’s body. Either the old man was struck a few meters away from the wall before stumbling back into it, or the assassin was careful enough not to have his weapon strike against the stone bricks.
After examining the wall, Red’s gaze was drawn to the corpse below. The old man was slumped over in a pool of his own blood, making it hard to see his expression or the state of his body. The youth was about to lift his upper body up, but he then hesitated as if remembering something.
‘I shouldn’t touch his blood.’
He took a pair of gloves out of his pouch, which he kept for exact situations like these. Over the years, he had learned how to stop absorbing blood as soon as it came into contact with his skin, or at the very least, he convinced the crimson being in his body to stop doing it. However, he thought it was better to be safe than sorry, much more so considering the current weakened state of the being.
It just so happened that it wasn’t uncommon to use gloves when handling corpses, so the Baron didn’t say anything about his actions. With his preparations done, Red lifted Orvin’s slouched upper body, setting it against the wall so he could examine it.
“I closed his eyelids.” The Baron said before the youth could even start his examination. “I couldn’t bear to see him like that.”
Red frowned. “Did he seem surprised?”
“Yes.” The man nodded. “Even if the blow was fatal, he still had an instant to process and understand what was happening, but didn’t have the opportunity to react.”
The youth let the matter go and continued his examination. The man was completely soaked in blood with his clothes sticking to his body, yet now that Red could look at him more closely, he was able to identify where he was struck.
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They were actually multiple blows, just as he assumed earlier. In fact, there were five of them, all puncture wounds roughly 3 to 5 centimeters wide, that seemed to have pierced the old man’s body straight through without exception and left gaping holes on his flesh. What surprised Red the most, though, was the fact that each of these blows seemed to have been aimed at a vital part of Orvin’s body.
One at the throat, one at the heart, one at the right lung, one at the liver, and one at the stomach - all made with pinpoint accuracy. The work of a true assassin.
Red frowned at this sight, but he continued to examine the flesh around the wounds, hoping to find something that might indicate what could have inflicted these punctures. He didn’t have any luck, though.
Whatever killed the man punched straight through his body with almost no resistance, shattering bones and organs alike as if it was nothing. It left no discernable marks going in or out.
The youth examined the rest of the body, but after finding nothing else that caught his attention, he stood up. The Baron was there, looking at him with a serious but expectant gaze.
“Any luck?” the man asked.
Red shook his head. “There’s nothing. The blow seems to have been made with extreme force and speed, and it left no traces behind. They must have been made by someone at the Lesser Ring Realm.”
Only someone that strong would have enough strength to punch through a human body with that much strength.
The Baron sighed. “I came to the same conclusion. However, you do notice what stands out about this, don’t you?”
The youth nodded and looked over at the wall. “Judging by the height of the blood spatters against the wall, Orvin was struck all five times while he was still standing up.”
The problem with this was the fact that, from what they understood from the situation, Orvin didn’t even have the time to react before being killed in an instant, making no noise to alarm his soldiers. This meant that the five blows, each of them fatal in their own right, were dealt before his body lost its strength to support itself and death probably embraced him while he was still standing.
This, in turn, told them that either the blows were made in extremely fast succession or they were all made at the same time. Either possibility was terrifying enough for Red.
The Baron nodded. “To do five such attacks all carrying the same strength in such a short interval… I fear not even I would have been able to survive such an onslaught.”
Of course, the caveat with that statement was that the Baron probably wouldn’t have been taken by surprise like Orvin, but this was still a testament to the strength of whoever did this.
“Do you know of any cultivators that could accomplish something like this?” Red asked.
The Baron shook his head with a resigned expression. “Only someone like Hector could accomplish something like this with his control and cultivation. No one else in this town could get even close to it.”
The youth frowned. “You said you didn’t suspect him.”
The man gave him a helpless smile. “I don’t. I’m only offering you a perspective on the kind of power whoever is behind this has.”
In other words, he was saying only someone as strong as Hector could have accomplished this kind of feat.
“It could have been done with a magical treasure or a talisman.” Red offered another perspective.
The Baron sighed. “That would be even more problematic. These kinds of items are far harder to detect than a living cultivator.”
The youth was inclined to agree. He could detect if a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator was in his vicinity, but he couldn’t detect if someone was carrying a powerful magic treasure or a talisman.
“So we have no suspects?” Red asked.
“Everyone at the Lesser Ring Realm in town will be treated as a suspect.” the Baron said.
“Other than Hector, there are only two people that fit that criteria.”
“Indeed. It is not outside of the realm of possibility that one of Gustav’s bodyguards could have been hiding their strength.”
Red frowned at this. It wasn’t that he disagreed with the man, but there was something else bothering him.
“How can you be so sure it is not an outsider?” he asked.
It all came back to his initial question.
The Baron sighed. “Do you remember that Crystal Sky Sect cultivator?”
Red nodded.
“Do you remember what realm she was at?” the man asked.
“The Greater Ring Realm.”
The Baron nodded. “That is right, and not even she was able to escape my detection inside of town.”
This came as a huge shock to the youth.
A possibility immediately came to his mind. “Is it the formations?”
The man nodded again. “The very same. It is the reason why this town is still standing to this very day. Not even a Spirit Core Realm cultivator would be able to escape its notice.”
Red finally understood where the Baron’s confidence was coming from. However, upon further thought, he recognized an inconsistency with this claim.
“Are you certain that there is no way to escape its notice?” the youth asked.
“A cultivator in the Spiritual Awakening Realm could probably do it, but someone like that has little need for subterfuge.” The Baron stared at him. “Why do you ask?”
Red hesitated at this. “… Hector claims he felt someone spying on him.”
“Huh?” This time the Baron seemed legitimately shocked. “Since when?”
“Since a few weeks ago.”
Red assumed this person might have been the necromancer his serpent had killed. Yet, after learning that another Lesser Ring Realm cultivator was likely behind the death of Captain Orvin, he wasn’t so sure.
“This shouldn’t be possible.” The man frowned. “Is Hector certain this is a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator?”
The youth nodded. “He is fairly certain. Not only that, but he thinks it’s someone very strong too since he has been unable to locate them even if he can feel their gaze.”
The Baron’s expression continued to worsen. “Why wouldn’t he tell me this? Even after he cause a ruckus in town a week ago he didn’t mention it!”
“He was probably considering the possibility that you were involved in it.” Red said. “There is a precedent for it... However, above that, he was probably reluctant to get involved.”
The fact his stalker made themselves known to Hector while still being able to hide their location was as overt of a warning to the elder as possible in the situation. It meant someone was watching his every move and that if he did something reckless, they would act. In that situation, the one more likely to pay wouldn’t be Hector, but the ones around him.
It wasn’t surprising that the old man would keep this information to himself and adopt a passive stance, much more so when his main concern was the safety of his sect and not of the townsfolk. It was a selfish choice, but one that those who knew him wouldn’t be surprised by.
Judging by the Baron’s angered expression, he was coming to the same realization. “I don’t know why I was expecting anything different… All these years, and that bastard won’t hesitate to forsake his allies in their time of need. I must thank you for telling me this, or else I might have still been in the dark about a terrible danger in town.”
In truth, the youth was also reluctant at first to reveal this information to the man after noticing he was unaware of it. However, considering the situation, it was the most sensible choice, even if Hector would likely scold him for it. There was still more, though.
Red hesitated. “… There’s something else.”
“Hm?” The Baron looked at him in surprise. “More terrible news?”
“No, not that.” The youth shook his head. “Actually, I think I know who might have been responsible for killing Orvin.”
This individual almost escaped his mind after such a long time, but after hearing their name again, the connection between them and the assassination method became too strong to ignore the possibility they were involved.
The Baron’s expression became severe. “Who?”
“Rickard.” Red said. “I think it was him.”
The bandit leader from seven years ago, and the person who almost killed him at the final stretch of the trial back then.