色戒无删除版

The sentinel who was there agreed with the duke\'s conclusion. He did not hear any commotion or a fight breaking out after the man entered his house. They looked on as the duke continued to walk around the house while inspecting things that could give them a clue.

"Have you seen the face of the suspicious man you saw?" Duke Ulysses finally stopped and looked at the sentinel who first discovered that the man was dead.

The man shook his head, "Unfortunately I did not see his face because I was rushing here. I apologize, Duke, I should have been more attentive."

"That\'s okay since I already have an idea who did this. The only problem we have right now is that we don\'t have any evidence." Ulysses waved for the sentinels to clean up the crime scene. "Does this man have any family?"

"According to records he doesn\'t have a family. All he had is a debt," the sentinel answered. They already investigated the man after receiving the report and relayed the result of it to the sentinel who found the body.

"Alright, then I want you to keep this incident a secret from the people. We don\'t want them to have another reason to hate Duke Blackwell. For now, let\'s keep this amongst us until we find the killer." Ulysses went out and saw that the Archmage was busy.

"Did you find anything?" Sigma asked when he saw that the duke came out from the house. He was casually walking towards him with a serious look on his face.

"Nothing. The assailant must have killed the man after he was granted permission to enter the house." Ulysses shook his head and stopped a few feet away from him. "Are you trying to track the killer?"

"Yes, since the crime just happened so traces would still be lingering around." A magic circle appeared under the archmage\'s foot and it started to float up as it passed through the man\'s body. The magic circle disappeared above his head.

On the archmage\'s palm a small compass appeared. He then walked towards the house and entered it. The compass lit up and the light filled the whole room. It slowly disappeared and what was left was a faint red and grayish dust in the air.

"That faint red is the dead man\'s energy signature since it remained close to the place where the man died," Sigma said to them. However, the grayish dust started from where the blood was and the line went all the way to the door and outside. "The gray lines must have belonged to the killer."

Ulysses who followed behind and stayed by the door stared at the gray lines that were coming out from the room. He could not see any gray lines outside though. He observed as the archmage gathered a part of the gray lines in the air and placed it on the compass.

The needle of the compass started to move and it pointed at the direction of the door. Sigma stepped out and the needle moved a little bit as it pointed the direction where the killer went. Ulysses followed closely behind together with three other sentinels.

By the path that the killer had taken, Ulysses could immediately infer that he took his time to leave the place. He was probably casually walking because on one would suspect that he just killed a man. He walked along the sidewalks where most people would take to perhaps avoid suspicion.

They were already walking for a couple of minutes now until they finally deviated from the sidewalk path and took a way that led to the back of the buildings that were lined up along the sidewalk. That place was a bit deserted except for those who were probably resting from their work. They continued through the back alleys until they came to a dead end.

Sigma looked at the compass he was holding but the magnetic needle was not moving which meant that they reached the right place. He looked around and found that there was something unusual about the place. He stomped his feet and blue lines that resembled a tree\'s roots appeared under his foot which spread through the whole place.

Pieces of something like a glass fell on the ground as the blue lines spread out. It appeared that there was a cloaking barrier placed in the area to hide what they had done. Behind the broken barrier was the dead body of a man. At first, they couldn\'t see the state of the body but when the duke got close, he couldn\'t help but frown.

He crouched down and removed the man\'s hood to reveal a wrinkly face. The man was clearly a young man but his body had shriveled. Sigma also crouched down to take a look at the body, he placed his hand above the body and the blue lines that he used a while ago spread through the body.

"His life force was sucked out thus the shriveling of the body. Whoever did this is truly sinister," the archmage commented. He stood up and tried to feel if the person who did that had left any traces.

He used the same technique to follow the dead man\'s energy but the place was empty. There was not a trace left. Sigma and the duke met eye to eye before the duke finally nodded his head. The sentinels went to take the body and with the magic of Archmage Sigma both bodies were transported to the manor.

They also returned after making sure that nobody would know what had happened. When Galahad was informed that they were back, he stood up from behind his desk and went to meet them. The Archmage and his friend were sitting in the living room on the first floor of the manor.

"How was it?" Galahad asked just as he stepped inside the living room. He joined them inside and made himself relax since he had stayed inside his study staring at nothing in particular. If anyone could have seen him in that state, they would have thought that he was not a duke.

"Well, it didn\'t go well. We brought back two bodies. One was the victim and one was the killer. Apparently, the killer was killed by an unknown assailant and had his life drained out of him," Ulysses summarized.

"That sounds complicated, as long as nothing like this will happen again, we can still cover it up for the time being while we investigate." Galahad found himself feeling nothing even after the report. His enemy was really dedicated to making sure that he would be destroyed and creating chaos inside his territory.

"That\'s awful," a voice interrupted. The three adults gazed at the entrance to the living room and saw three teens standing there. "Draining one\'s life force only means that you are up against a monster. They could use it to strengthen their power or extend their life."

Three adults with raised brows looked at Cygnus who spoke those words. "You seem to know a lot about these things," Galahad commented as he held back the chuckle that almost came out from his mouth.

Cygnus shrugged his shoulders and pointed at Isaiah who raised a book he was reading a while ago before they decided to step out from the library. It was a book that Isaiah happened to pick up from a fairly hidden part of the library. It was a book that detailed some monsters that have been recorded through the history of the kingdom.

Just as luck had them, they were exactly at the page where a demon was detailed to have the ability of sucking out the life force of its victims until they were dead. Though these monsters haven\'t appeared for a few hundred years now, it was still possible that they could still be out there. They walked towards them and took the empty seats.

"You have a point but this can also be the work of a mage that uses dark magic. They could drain out a person\'s life force to empower them, which in this situation is most likely since the creatures listed in that book are now mostly treated as myths." Sigma reached out for the book and opened it.

It was a book that was written a long time ago. Though some of the monsters could be sighted once in a while, they were still considered myths. Besides, with the increase in the kingdom\'s population, they would have a difficult time staying in a place filled with people. Even without magic, there were people who could be sensitive with them.

"For now, let\'s stick with the guess that it was a person who possessed dark magic who did it. I also want to assume that the person who commanded the man be killed is the same one as the person who incited that man to make a fuss this morning." Ulysses clapped his hand and gave his conclusion which will be the direction of their investigation.