2978 Murder, She Said (Part 2)

"Yeah, I can see that pissing anyone off big time." Lith pondered. "Especially someone who has never worked to live. With no reputation to back their skill, the shadow disciple is going to lack a consistent source of money.

"Which means being forced to lower their living standards by a lot until they build their reputation. I supposed that doing that while hiding the techniques passed on by the master should take years."

"More like decades." Strider pointed out. "Non-Awakened don't trust those who didn't attend one of the great academies and Awakened have no need for amateurs. Our quality standards are much higher."

"What about the fight, then?" Lith pointed at the piles of books.

"Someone of that age can be knocked out by a single sucker punch." Jirni said. "Limbell was old and almost dead whereas his disciple is bound to be young and with a very powerful core. He had no chance in close quarters.

"My guess is that either Limbell was already almost dead after the first strike and put up a little fight or, as I'm inclined to think, he died on the spot. Look carefully. The evidence isn't consistent with a struggle between two powerful beings.

"More like the havoc caused by one powerful being throwing a fit after realizing what they have done."

Looking at the scene from that perspective, Jirni's words sounded painfully obvious to the members of the Hand of Fate.

"Thank you, miss. Your help has been enlightening." The Zouwu gave her a respectful bow. "I'll pass your suggestion of recruiting Constables like you on to the Council."

"Gods, no!" Solus said in horror, imagining what a small army of Awakened Jirnis could do.

Everyone but Lith had no idea what she was rambling about so they looked at Solus like she was crazy.

"I mean, thanks Jirni." She blushed, lowering her gaze.

"Thank you, kind sir. My name is Jirni Ernas. Feel free to look for me if you ever need a few names." She returned the bow as much as her swollen womb allowed her to. "Is there anything else, Lith?"

"No, but I will call you again if we need your help. Thanks, Jirni. Lith out." After ending the call, Lith looked around the room with an annoyed look on his face.

"Bottom line we have to deal with an Awakened with at least a violet core who had five months to get accustomed to whatever Limbell gave them and prepare for our arrival. Once we find them, we're up for a deadly welcome."

"First we have to find them." Zoreth said. "Lith, collect everything you need and let me know when you are done. My tracking methods are destructive and once I use them there won't be anything useful left."

Lith nodded and released his bright violet aura. At the same time, he circulated the power of the elements, his mana, and life force through his seven eyes. Then he turned on and off the Call of the Void multiple times.

It was all absolutely pointless since he had yet to discover anything about his eyes' bloodline abilities. The problem with unique races was that they came with unique traits and no instruction manual.

Everything was just layer upon layer of deception as he activated the Eyes of Menadion to study the room. This way, even if the Awakened looked at him with Life Vision, the artifact would be hard to notice with all the mana flowing through him.

Also, being a part of the tower, the Eyes shared Lith's mana and energy signature which further helped hide their presence.

Lith immediately excluded the arrays of the palace's defensive systems. They were back in perfect condition and held no clue. Then he filtered out the auras of all those present so that they wouldn't contaminate the readings.

With each layer of magic he eliminated, the strain on his and Solus' brain lessened and the Eyes could narrow their focus on the lingering traces of Limbell and his shadow disciple.

He ignored the enchantments protecting the books and the shelves, leaving only the energy signatures of those who had touched them visible.

'If Jirni is right and the disciple had a meltdown, he might have injured themselves while breaking stuff. A single hair or speck of skin is enough for the Eyes.' Lith thought. 'And shit!'

"I need something of Limbell." Lith said. "Something he wore or enchanted or we have a 50% chance of chasing a dead body."

Strider took a blood sample out of his dimensional item. It was an alchemical tool devised to put its content into stasis to preserve it even outside a dimensional distortion.

"Thanks." Lith scanned and removed Pharek's energy signature, leaving only one.

By focusing on it, the Eyes projected on his corneas hazy images of the shadow disciple's actions and movements in the room. Lith could estimate the height, build, and gender of the culprit.

He saw one of the residual images throwing a single punch filled to the brim with fusion magic and then casting spells while destroying things in a fit of rage. Most importantly, Lith had the energy signature of his prey.

"This tall, male, muscular build of a Forgemaster." Now Lith could find the shadow disciple, but he needed to be in the area of effect of the Eyes.

"How do you know he's a he and 1.9 meters (6'3") tall?" Azhom the Lich asked.

"My eyes can read the elemental fluctuations left by his body. I can tell where they start, finish, and what shape they outline, but that's it." Lith lied through his teeth while also conjuring a life-sized hologram of what he saw through the Eyes of Menadion to divert everyone's attention.

"Remarkable." Rhuta said in admiration.

"Sort of." Lith replied, faking modesty to hide the full scope of his abilities. "Now I know his energy signature and I can follow his trail but if he Warped away, I'll lose his trace until we get close enough to perceive him."

"Are you done?" Zoreth asked, receiving a nod in reply. "Byt, give me a hand."

The two Eldritches raised what looked like bandanas that they wore on their necks, revealing them to be metal face masks that covered their noses and everything below eye level.

To Lith and Solus, they resembled the cloth a ninja would wear to hide their face if not for a major difference that didn't lay in the material they were made of.

Each face mask was studded with fourteen elemental crystals arranged in two curved lines.

Each line was comprised of seven gemstones of different colors, one for each element plus a violet dimensional crystal. Adding a Spirit Crystal would have made the artifact useless for anyone but its crafter.

The elemental crystals were paired up based on their element, one above, one below, forming what looked like a grinning mouth filled with sharp crystal fangs.

"Is that-" Strider choked on his own words, incapable of believing his eyes. "It's impossible. There should be only one Mouth of Menadion."

"And you are right." Even with the face mask on, Zoreth's eyes were smiling and the fangs matched her expression with such perfection that it wasn't hard to guess who had inspired Bytra in her work.