"You have no right to banish Raymond, he is the rightful heir to the Clover family, only the family head and the Emperor has that authority." Victor stormed into the hall furiously.
"Hmph." Rachel snorted at his words and didn't say anything. She didn't really want to banish Raymond, her anger made her say that. Her eyes were fully focused on Raymond as if she was seeing him for the first time.
'There seems to be something strange with this brat, even the way he carries himself feels different from before.' She thought inwardly.
Meanwhile Raymond went near Jasmine, he hugged her and patted her back to say everything was okay now.
"Are you alright? They didn't do anything you, did they? Tell me what happened while I was gone." Raymond whispered in her ears in a soothing voice.
Jasmine explained everything that had happened. How she was only trying to shake off Vincent's hand but ended up throwing him away.
"Master, I am sorry. I didn't mean to hurt him." Jasmine sniffed.
"Hah, why are you apologising? It's my fault that you are in this situation. Just watch, I will show you what happens when someone messes with my people." Raymond wiped her tears and told her to stand back.
He turned around and looked up at Rachel, suddenly his aura changed and the entire hall descended into silence.
"You like to follow rules, don't you, Madam Rachel?" chuckled Raymond.
Rachel was immediately on alert when his aura changed, she had goosebumps when she saw him smiling like a demon. There was astonishment and a trace of fear in her eyes when she looked at Raymond, but there was also a sliver of hope, hope that Raymond had finally matured enough to accept that his father was dead and he had to move on instead of drinking and wasting his life.
"Hmm, even if I don't like some of them, I still have to follow them as a subject of this empire." She replied flatly without showing any emotions.
She held back from saying anything else, to see what Raymond would do next. And he definitely didn't disappoint her with his next question.
"So, according to your so-called rules, what is a nobleman supposed to do if some other noble lays a hand on his wife?" Raymond asked, cracking his knuckles.
There was a small smile hiding at the end of her lips when she heard that question. She could already guess the relationship between this master and maid wasn't the same as before when he hugged her in front of everyone.
"He can challenge that noble to a fight of life and death, in case the other party disagrees then if the evidence is clear, the Emperor will take the matters into his own hands and execute that noble." She smirked at Vincent when she said that.
She was 100 percent sure that Vincent would accept to fight Raymond. After all he was an easy target, even if Raymond had a change in his temperament, it didn't mean he could fight and win against a Grandmaster.
"Good, then I, Raymond Clover, member of the Noble house of Clover, challenge Vincent Clover to a fight of life and death for laying his hands on my wife Jasmine." Raymond declared loudly.
Instantly the whole family hall was in a buzz, there were shouts of surprise and outrage among the people present in the hall.
All the servants were surprised by this sudden turn of events and some of the female servants even looked at Jasmine with envy.
After all, being a spouse of a noble was the fastest way of getting the noble status, to these maids that was the ultimate goal of their life, they would do anything to attain noble status, yet this Jasmine had casually become a noble just because of Raymond's words. They were extremely jealous of Jasmine.
Rest of the nobles were in uproar due to Raymond accepting a lowly maid as his wife, to them maids were only bed warmers, they were not supposed to be given a high status.
Some of them even started asking Rachel not to approve of this marriage.
"Hmph, if anyone has a problem with Jasmine being Raymond's wife, they can take it up with me. I am sure we can reach an agreement." Victor said with a sinister smile.
All the members of the family started shouting again at his words but nobody dared to come forward.
"Silence, Raymond is of age and has all the right to choose his own wife, I will respect his decision if that's what he wants. Grandmaster Vincent, do you accept this challenge?" She was looking forward to see how Raymond was going to fight against a Grandmaster when he was only a Martial Minor.
But to her surprise, Vincent actually refused to fight against him.
"No, Madam Rachel. I won't fight against this monster, he has been practising some kind of evil sorcery to gain power, I will definitely not fight against him." He tried to avoid fighting Raymond at any cost.
After all he had no idea how he was sent flying last time, what if Raymond used the same trick again? Then he wouldn't even know how he died.
Rachel and Victor had a dark look on their faces when they heard about evil sorcery.
"Are you mad? Have you gone insane due to your old age? What sorcery? Raymond has done nothing of that sort." Victor retorted harshly.
"Yeah, don't you know evil sorcery leaves behind signs when it is used? There are no signs of evil sorcery on Raymond. Don't make excuses if you are scared to fight him." Rachel followed with her part.
"No, he is deceiving you people, he is definitely using some kind of trick to hide those signs, yeah, that must be it. I am not going to fight him. I will go to the Emperor if you can't give me justice." Vincent uttered, feeling scared of his death.
"Hmph, how impudent. Are you saying that I am incapable of giving you justice? Are you trying to bring shame upon our family by going to the Emperor for this small matter?" Rachel narrowed her eyes at Vincent.
"Madam Rachel, I am not questioning your judgement. I am just not willing to fight him, I have the right to not accept this challenge, I hope you will consider my decision and not force me to fight him." With that Vincent gave a deep bow at Rachel.
'Sigh~ what a headache. I thought he would be eager to accept this challenge, I really wanted to see how Raymond was going to fight him.' Rachel sighed in her head.
"Alright, since you are not willing to accept the challenge, we can only do this the long way, Elder Bert, please start your investigation regarding this matter." She ordered the disciplinary elder.
"As you command, Madam." The elder bowed and started questioning Vincent.
"Grandmaster Vincent, what were you doing near Young master Raymond's house at that time? Is there a reason why you were there?" The elder asked.
"I had a doubt that Raymond was doing evil so-ahem some unpleasant things to gain power, so I decided to investigate this matter. That's why I went to his house to question his maid. But as soon as I asked about Raymond she started attacking me out of nowhere, that's why I was caught off guard and injured. Allen can testify to this if you doubt my words." Vincent explained the incident by trying to twist the truth to his advantage.
"Yes,yes. Grandmaster Vincent is telling the truth, that's exactly what happened." Allen quickly nodded his head in agreement.
"Alright, now I have heard and noted down your version of the events, let me ask Jasmine about this incident." The elder called for Jasmine to step forward.
Jasmine was in a daze from the moment she heard Raymond called her his wife, things were moving too quickly for her to properly process everything.
For one moment she was just a commoner who was about to be punished for attacking a noble but in the next moment she became a noble who had the right to ask for justice. She was getting a headache from thinking about everything that has happened leading up to this moment.
"Jasmine, miss- ahem, Mrs.Jasmine, please come forward and tell us what happened." The elder called again.
Jasmine was pulled out of her daze when she felt her master tapping on her shoulder, she looked around and went forward to give her statement.
Meanwhile Raymond was watching all of this with a small smile on his face. After all, these people were putting on a great show for him, he would be a fool to interrupt the show.
'Hehe, this is nothing short of a soap opera.'
"I didn't mean to attack him, he was the one who grabbed my hand and tried to drag me away, when I told him that master wasn't home." She quickly recounted what had really happened.
The disciplinary elder had a helpless look on his face, there was no way to prove these two statements wrong. He shook his head in exasperation and looked at Rachel.
Rachel too sighed in boredom, she would have yawned if she wasn't in public. But she had to follow the procedures set up by the Empire or else it was equal to going against the Emperor.
"Sigh~ since there is no solid proof against anyone, we can only dismiss this case and hope that these kinds of incidents will not happen in future." She was going to continue when she heard a clapping sound, she looked ahead to see Raymond slowly walking towards the centre of the hall while clapping.
"Yawn~ if you guys are done with your nonsense, let me tell you one last thing. It does not matter what laws and rules you have to follow, if you mess with my people there is only one outcome and that is death." He casually said and then disappeared from his place. He appeared in front of Vincent with his right arm stretched out.
"Wha-" Vincent's eyes widened when he felt wind brush against his face and before he could complete his sentence he saw his body standing at a distance and it fell to the ground near Raymond's feet.
Raymond had performed a casual lariat move on Vincent which sent his head flying off from his body so quickly that nobody had realised what happened until the head fell to the ground.
'What is this,If not evil sorcery?' Those were the last thoughts of Vincent before he died.
Raymond turned and locked his eyes on Allen, he had a small smile on his face when he looked at Allen.
"Hehe~ you're next."