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Chapter 279: Investigating Commander Marcus’s Body
To confirm his suspicion, Aldrian had to check Commander Marcus’s body himself.
"Then why does the Flamecrest hold you in this place? What do they hope to achieve by keeping you here?" Aldrian asked.
"The elders seem suspicious of me or anyone who became witnesses. However, since it’s not certain, they can’t act excessively and are just asking questions about that time. I don’t know why they’re thinking like that," Jil answered.
Aldrian narrowed his eyes.
"Suspicious of the witnesses? Could the Flamecrest already suspect this to be a trick from the devils?"
This was the only guess he could think of that made sense as to why the Flamecrest would hold these people here and interrogate them. They might suspect that these individuals could be part of a scheme to tarnish the Flamecrest’s name in public. Although, from the outside, they appeared to have just coincidentally passed by, the Flamecrest had to investigate them thoroughly to ensure they weren’t part of another ploy by the mastermind to divert their attention.
Aldrian then looked at Kroz beside him. He thought this information was enough for now, but to be certain, he needed to verify it with the others first.
"Let’s meet with your other underlings then," he said before turning back to Jil.
"Thank you for your cooperation. I can’t do much about your condition, but once I uncover what really happened in Commander Marcus’s case, you’ll be released from this place if nothing is found amiss in the investigation."
After that, Kroz told Aldrian the names of everyone besides Jil. Aldrian then extended his senses throughout the dungeon, and after a few moments, he located all of them, each confined to a different room on separate floors. They all seemed to be in the same condition as Jil. Without delay, Aldrian and Kroz vanished from Jil’s room, leaving Jil stunned by their sudden disappearance.
Following this, Aldrian proceeded to question each of these individuals, asking them the same questions he had asked Jil. After more than an hour, he finally finished with them. The conclusion he reached was that all of them gave answers identical to Jil’s, without any inconsistencies or suspicious behavior among them.
After confirming that all their answers aligned, he only needed to inspect Commander Marcus’s body. However, this task wasn’t as simple as asking questions earlier, where no one had been guarding inside the room. In the morgue, several cultivators were present, seemingly physicians examining Commander Marcus’s body. Most of them were at the Duke stage, with one even at the King stage.
They used their techniques to search for anomalies within Commander Marcus’s corpse. Each cultivator meticulously examined a specific part of the body, ensuring no area was left untouched. At the entrance to the morgue, four guards stood watch, all at the Duke stage—a formidable lineup to guard a single room.
Aldrian focused intently, carefully constructing a formation within the morgue. He crafted it with precision, ensuring it wouldn’t disrupt the energy flow and alert the people inside. Only after completing the formation did he teleport into the room.
The cultivators inside the morgue were stunned by the sudden appearance of Aldrian and Kroz.
"Who are you?" asked the King-stage cultivator, an elderly man with a white beard.
Aldrian didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he surveyed the group before speaking.
"I must apologize in advance, but I need to examine this corpse—"
Although they were physicians, all of them were high-ranking cultivators, so their instincts kicked in, and they attempted to use their techniques to subdue Aldrian. However, Aldrian merely ignored them. With a shift of his will, their bodies collapsed to the ground. He altered the gravity, and before they could react, Aldrian teleported to the King-stage cultivator, who was still in shock, and touched his forehead.
"I’m sorry, but please sleep for now," he said before injecting his lightning, shocking the old man’s soul, causing him to instantly faint. The rest of them received the same treatment, unable to do anything as Aldrian sent all of them into the Dream Realm.
Kroz, who could only watch in silence, was speechless at how easily Aldrian subdued these people. He knew all of them, as they were famous physicians from the Flamecrest family. Though Kroz sensed that Aldrian only had Marquess-stage cultivation, he was shocked by how Aldrian had subdued cultivators far stronger than himself.
"Is this Commander Marcus?" Aldrian asked, to which Kroz responded,
"Yes, he is. His condition is the same as when I last saw him—when he was brought to the cell and when he died inside it."
Aldrian looked at the pale corpse, preserved in good condition. He paused for a moment, then, with a shift of his will, Jil suddenly appeared beside him. Jil, who had no time to be shocked, remained disoriented by the sudden change in scenery. He took a few seconds to realize he was in a completely different room.
He finally had time to process his shock as he saw Aldrian and his captain again. His gaze shifted to the corpse of Commander Marcus, then to the few unconscious cultivators lying around them. It was at that moment he realized he was now in the morgue. Before he could ask any questions, Aldrian pointed at Commander Marcus’s corpse.
"Is his body condition the same as when you saw him exuding devil energy?" Aldrian asked Jil.
Jil swallowed his words, then looked intently at Commander Marcus’s body. After a moment, he answered Aldrian.
"Yes, this is the same as when I saw him on that road, where he suddenly exuded devil energy. The paleness of his skin is exactly the same."
Aldrian nodded, confirming another of his guesses. He then touched the corpse and began inspecting Commander Marcus’s internal condition. He focused his energy, checking for anything like a gu or any signs of influence or control over him. After thoroughly examining the body, he didn’t find any signs of the gu, but he did find something strange.
Besides finding residue of devil energy, he also discovered a trace of something that was already familiar to him. Inside Commander Marcus’s soul space, where a cultivator’s soul resides, he found remnants of black energy and laws. Although it wasn’t the same as that black energy, it had almost the same feeling and properties as his own.
His black energy, of course, referred to his death energy, or in other words, the death laws. He could sense the residual traces of a kind of death energy, but this black energy couldn’t be called true death energy, as it didn’t give him the same sensation of "death" like his own. The laws he sensed also couldn’t be classified as true death laws, as they lacked the complexity of the death laws.
This was truly an interesting find, as he had never encountered anything like it in the corpses of those he had killed. However, this wasn’t the only intriguing discovery. He also found the binding of the karma laws within Commander Marcus’s soul space. He could see the long black karma threads, but he couldn’t detect where the other end led. The threads seemed to vanish into the void, but that was enough of a clue for Aldrian to conclude that these karma threads were connected to something—or someone—even after Commander Marcus’s death.
He then concluded that all of these traces were the residue of someone’s technique. He wasn’t sure if the Flamecrest could detect this anomaly, but based on his understanding of such residual energy and karma laws, it seemed they couldn’t sense it. After a few moments of thought, he nodded in understanding. The death-like energy could not be detected through normal means, and he doubted that anyone other than him could sense this residual energy.
The karma threads couldn’t be seen by anyone else as clearly as Aldrian saw them. With the binding of the karma laws, it only meant that something—or someone—on the other end of the threads still had influence over Commander Marcus’s dead body.
Aldrian now confirmed that Commander Marcus was indeed under some kind of influence or control, but it wasn’t from gu. It was something else—something that seemed to involve both karma laws and death-like energy. From his knowledge, there was only one technique with this kind of characteristic and property, and that was...
Necromancy.
Aldrian narrowed his eyes. If it’s necromancy, then it could explain why Commander Marcus suddenly became strange, although he still didn’t know why he exuded devil energy. If it’s necromancy, it’s safe to assume that when Jil and his friends saw Commander Marcus, they were actually looking at a dead man walking, controlled by someone. This also aligned with Jil’s information—that Commander Marcus’s current condition was the same as when he saw the commander that night.
Aldrian felt satisfied with this discovery. If it’s necromancy, he had someone in mind who could be responsible for this high-grade technique—one that could only be mastered by very few individuals, even in the history of the Barisan continent.
After reading many memories of the devils, he knew there was one person who was the master of necromancy among the devil ranks: one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
The Sloth Devil.
