Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 40: Dead Man Walking.

Lucius continued to walk down the academy paths, heading towards the teacher's building. He had to report in and provide a suitable reason for his continued absence. This was his original goal, upon entering the academy gates, when he strangely felt reminiscent.

Seeing those sturdy academy gates, stirred some old memories within Lucius. He himself wasn't quite sure on why he spoke those words.

'That was dangerous.' Lucius furrowed his brows while thinking within his heart.

'If I carelessly speak too much about the future path, the causality will start shifting. I might even end up bearing most of it and ending up discovered by 'Them'.'

While he had spoken those words to vent out some emotions within his heart, Lucius still felt strange at his own behaviour. 'Is this also related to that strange hunger changes on mine.' Looking down at his own body Lucius wondered, 'What is happening to me? None of these issues were present in my previous life.'

He even sunk his consciousness into his mindspace to check his soul, but detected no changes. His soul was still in the shape of a hazy humanoid outline whose figure could not exactly be seen. It was currently slumbering and no obvious change was detected.

Shaking his head, Lucius expelled all unnecessary thoughts. Worrying about this would not help him currently. What was important right now was to get Ka'lor'ah back. Everything else was of secondary importance.

Lucius eventually made it to the teacher's building and reported his reason of absence. He had to explain the reason of absence and had to take some supplementary lessons in his free time. To Lucius none of this was problematic. Nodding his head and agreeing to his teacher's words, Lucius turned to leave.

Exiting the building, Lucius decided to visit his room first to take a shower. While he was already using his soul power to mask the scent of blood from his body, he currently felt a little uncomfortable wearing a stranger's clothes.

'I also need to get rid of this dress, lest someone connects me to the murder of those guys.', thinking back about those people he had killed, Lucius had intentionally not destroyed their bodies using the power of [Decay].

He had decided to use this opportunity to get the various influential families moving. Their actions were integral to the next major part of his plan, involving Reyna. He was intentionally having the 'Rule of Cause' gather among the families.

This was also the reason he had killed everyone in the warehouse in such a high profile manner. Considering Lucius' abilities and experience killing all the guards and the bald man could have easily been completed with no evidence. His power of [Deacy] even makes the job of disposing bodies that much easier, granted he restores his soul energy between uses.

Hiding his identity, hence resulted in the various families not being able to find the identity of the perpetrator. Without finding the cause(Lucius), they were thus not able to link the effects (the deaths and missing people) to him. This led to a scenario with the gathering of the 'Rule of Causality' and it being unassigned.

As he was walking, while quietly pondering about his future actions, Lucius crossed a teacher. This teacher had a long face and a sharp thin. Nothing was worth nothing about his face except his thin moustache and sunken eyes.

Lucius naturally ignored this man and walked past him , when he noticed a intense fluctuation with his soul power.

Ever since Lucius' soul was upgraded to Stage 1, he unconsciously released a small amount of soul energy into his surroundings. Soul power due to its unknown nature, cannot be detected by any means.

The constant release of soul power into his surroundings meant that Lucius had a very acute understanding of his surroundings. So acute that, no changes within a 5 metre radius, around his body would go unnoticed by him. These changes also included emotional fluctuations.

Now, feeling such an intense emotional fluctuation being released by a man, that he had never met put Lucius on his guard. He instantly became alert and slowed his footsteps. Without turning around, Lucius focused on monitoring every single action performed by the man using his soul power.

'Increased heart rate and blood pressure. His muscles have tensed up and his breathing has also increased. Pupil dilation also detected.'

'Currently he's feeling intense shock and fear, coupled with tiny amounts of doubt and curiosity.' Lucius instantly concluded from the feedback he was receiving from his soul power.

Whoever this teacher was, clearly knew Lucius. Although he wasn't sure why this man felt fear and shock upon seeing Lucius, he still came up with some hypothesis.

Lucius' brain rapidly worked as he drew up some possible scenarios,' This man had seen me before. When and Where is the question. Judging from his reactions, it had to be quite recent.'

'Could he have seen me kill the other?'

'But where? It shouldn't be those to students or at the warehouse.' About this Lucius was absolutely confident. During both the scenarios Lucius had checked the surroundings using his soul power. Under the inspection of his soul power, absolutely nothing, both tangible and intangible in nature can escape.

'This means he witnessed me kill those guys in 'The Pit'.' Lucius concluded. 'Seems like that noise I heard towards the end wasn't my imagination, it should have been this guy!'

This was the most probable scenario that Lucius' mind came up with. Cross- checking with the facts that he knew, this was most likely.

'Seems like I have to deal with this guy.' Lucius calmly thought. Still he did not move immediately, as they were currently in the middle of the academy.

The entire process of analysis and conclusion lasted for less than 3 seconds. Lucius had walked past that man and had crossed no less than 5 steps. Lucius' thinking speed can be considered to be simply monstrous.

Not reacting in any way, Lucius continued to head towards his room. Regarding this man, since Lucius had already noticed the abnormality, he was as good as dead.

'I'll deal with this guy, later today.' Lucius thought with absolute indifference.

----------------------

Sean Escker was currently in a very joyous mood. The case of investigating the 2 dead students handed to him by the department head had been finally resolved. The sheer speed at which Escker had returned with conclusive evidence, shocked his superior James and had even received his appreciation.

Of course, Escker cannot be considered to 'truly' have solved the case. In fact it was quite the opposite, he had no clue on who the real murderer was and how he had killed the 2 students.

After the case was handed over to Escker, he was contacted by the young master Keith, to whom he had many dealings with. Keith offered him a simple job, to get capture a student names Lucius alive and send him to the pit. In return, Keith would offer him a scapegoat, whom Escker to frame as the murderer.

Keith had even told him that he was willing to pay, whomever Escker was going to employ to capture Lucius.

Hearing this Escker was stunned first and then overjoyed. Still being the cautious man that he is, he thoroughly investigated the student called Lucius.

Realizing that he was a commoner with no significant background, Escker immediately moved to complete the task, going as far as employing the best capture team available in the city.

The kid was caught and everything went well after that. Escker even received a bonus and a week of holiday from the department. He was in the mood to celebrate

As he was going in the direction of the academy's gate to exit, he suddenly met a ghost in daylight. The student Lucius who was supposed to be 'dead' walked right past him. Escker was so shocked that he almost felt his soul fly away from his mortal body.

'GOOD GOD!' this was the first thought in Escker's mind.

Checking the kid, a few times Escker was absolutely sure. The person who just crossed him and did not seem to notice him was 100% the kid called Lucius.

'How is he here? Did he escape or something? Impossible!' thinking so Escker no longer was in the mood to celebrate and rushed in the direction of his office. He immediately had to confirm this fact.