Everyone present in the hall were shocked speechless by this turn of events. Most of them were still in the middle of processing what had happened.
Jasmine felt a tug at her soul when she looked at Raymond with blood splattered all over his body. She felt the blood calling to her. Without knowing she started slowly walking towards Raymond.
`𝐤𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐤𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐬, 𝐫𝐢𝐩 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐭 , 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝`
She heard a strange hoarse voice in her head, with each step she took, that voice grew louder and louder in her head. In a trance she went closer to Raymond.
She was within the arms reach of Raymond and just as she was about to open her mouth to sink her teeth into Raymond's neck.
"Kyaaaa!!"
One of the maidservants started screaming when she came back to her senses.
Quickly it was followed up by the outrageous shouts from the other family members who started demanding Rachel and the disciplinary elder to punish Raymond.
Elder Bert quickly glanced towards Rachel who was trying very hard to hide the smile that was threatening to break out from her lips.
'Sigh, I am too old for this shit.' He quickly turned a blind eye to everything that was happening around him.
Raymond ignored everything and focused on Jasmine.
"What happened to you? Why are you walking around in a daze?" Raymond asked her.
"Huh? Wh-what happened? When did I come here?" Jasmine looked around in confusion as she found herself standing near Raymond.
Raymond looked at her thoughtfully, he recalled that this was her first time seeing him kill someone,well it was his first time killing someone in this world too.
'She didn't get traumatised by seeing all this gore, right?' Raymond thought. After all he too was traumatised when he first killed an enemy soldier in his previous life.
"Hmm, if you are not feeling well, why don't you go back to our room, I will finish this quickly and join you soon." He patted her head and told her in a calm voice.
Raymond gently pushed her to the side and walked past her to look for Allen. He soon found Allen slowly making his way towards the exit.
"Haha, my dear cousin, where are you going? We have some unfinished business. Why don't you stay here?" Allen stood frozen on the spot when he heard Raymond's voice.
"Uhm, th-that" he looked around with pleading eyes but no one came forward to stop Raymond, none of them were willing to take action, they were only shouting at the disciplinary elder to take action.
Allen realised that he was on his own, so he played his last card. He ran towards Raymond and latched onto his legs.
"Ray-,young master Raymond, please, spare my worthless life, I will never ever go near Lady Jasmine, please, I will even leave the city. I will not show my face to you again, plase show mercy." Allen bawled his eyes out. His face was covered with tears and snot and he looked extremely pitiful.
Seeing him like that Raymond sighed and said in a flat tone.
"You see cousin, I already spared your life once but you didn't seem to appreciate it. Thanks to you I have learned a very important lesson, mercy is very costly in this world, even I can't afford it sometimes."
Raymond would have spared his life if Allen had come after him for revenge. He had no respect for villains who went after someone's family when they couldn't deal with them directly. That was what cowards would do, going after someone's loved ones.
Raymond grabbed Allen by the neck and lifted him up. He tightened his grip around Allen's neck causing him to choke on his breath.
Allen struggled in Raymond's arms and tried to hit him with his elemental attacks but he couldn't even cause Raymond to flinch with his pathetic attempts.
"Remember this, in your next life be a man enough to fight head on." He heard Raymond's words before his life slipped away from his eyes and his arms fell to his side lifelessly.
Raymond placed his body on the ground gently and walked towards the centre of the hall. He looked around the hall at everyone and went near Jasmine.
He grabbed her hand and led her towards the exit. Just before he exited he said in a loud voice.
"If any of you think what I did was against the rules, you can go ahead and complain to your Emperor. Just know that it will be the last complaint of your life." With that he took Jasmine with him to his room.
*******
The hall was silent for a moment, everyone was waiting for Raymond to go out of hearing distance. As soon as he did that, all of the noble members of the family started shouting and complaining.
"Madam Rachel, this is preposterous! Who does he think he is? You must report this to His Majesty, have Raymond punished for breaking the Empire's laws." One of them said clenching his fist.
"Yes, this is equal to challenging the Imperial Authority, this is treason. He must be punished for his crimes." Another elder shouted from the side.
Rachel snorted at their words and stood from her seat, she looked at all the people present and said in a stern voice.
"Silence! Don't try to act self-righteous, none of you are saints. Not a word about what happened today should leave this hall. If I find any news spreading around, I will dig out every illegal thing you all have done and personally make a plea to the Emperor to punish you people. Is that understood?"
Everyone quickly shut up when they heard her words and didn't dare to meet her eyes. They only nodded to show their understanding.
"Hmph, it's good that you understand. Victor, follow me, I need to talk to you." With that she left the hall gracefully. Victor glared at all the members in a threatening manner and followed after her.
*******
They soon arrived at a private room which was isolated from the rest of the rooms in the manor.
Rachel looked around to make sure that no one was present near the room and closed the door after that. This room was specially designed to keep the sound from going out.
"Tell me Victor, when did he get so strong, even I couldn't guess his exact strength." Rachel asked Victor curiously.
That was something coming from Rachel who was in the realm of Martial King.
"I don't know all the details, he mentioned something about a body cultivation technique. He didn't elaborate too much on it." Victor quickly replied.
"Oh, Body cultivation? That's strange, how did he get his hands on something like that? Nevermind, as long as he isn't doing something immoral, it should be fine." Rachel said solemnly.
"Do you have any idea how strong he is? Have you tried asking him that?" She asked.
"Hmm, I did have a spar with him before coming here, you wouldn't believe this sister, but I actually lost against him. He could probably kill a Martial King with his bare hands." Victor replied honestly even though he was embarrassed about his loss.
After all he was like an open book in front of this woman, he couldn't hide anything from her even if he wanted to. He sometimes doubted that this woman was a witch who could read minds.
"Hahaha, I thought we were done for when Thomas died, but it seems like the gods are blessing our family." She laughed out loudly.
She was like this only in front of her immediate family members, outside she maintained an appearance of a dignified lady of the House Clover.
"Surely, sister, you are exaggerating. We aren't doing that bad honestly." Victor said, seeing her laughing like something heavy has been lifted off her shoulders.
"Hmph, what do you know? All of you brothers are dumb, especially your second brother, he can't be trusted to run the family. If it weren't for me holding the fort, we would have been ripped apart by those so-called great noble houses."
"Do you know how dangerously close we are to losing our marquis status? Your second brother isn't exactly doing great at the borders, that already puts us at risk. And then there is that bitch Scarlett, how dare she break off the engagement? We were finally going to make a marriage alliance with the Imperial family and then she just had to rub it in by cancelling the agreement." She started rambling.
"My son is only 10 years old, Raymond was the only hope we had to take a foothold in the Imperial Palace through this marriage. By the time my son comes of age it would have been a miracle if we still had a noble statu-"
"Alright, alright, you are right, sister. Please stop talking. Raymond has changed now. He isn't the same old kid he used to be. We can still do something about our current situation." He quickly stopped her ramblings. She was infamous in the family for her wicked mouth. Once she started she wouldn't rest until she cursed someone's entire 7 generations.
Rachel's mouth twitched in anger when she was interrupted by Victor.
"Hmph, that's why I let him off. That brat he didn't even ask me when he signed that annulment notice. Just because I punished him for drinking, does he think he can forget about his aunt?" She scoffed in anger.
But soon she started laughing when she thought about Raymond's newfound strength. It went from a small chuckle to a full blown maniacal laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
'This woman is unstable, I need to get out of here quickly.' Victor slowly started backing off from her.
Rachel abruptly stopped laughing and looked in his face.
"You just thought something bad about me, didn't you?" She narrowed her eyes.
"No,no, I did nothing of that sort."
"Then why are you trying to run away?"
"My back is sore from the spar we had today, yeah, that's it, I need to get a massage quickly or else it will start hurting." Victor said, forcing out a smile.
"Oh, is that so? Don't worry, I know how to give a back massage. Why don't you stay here?" She said, rubbing her hands and smiling sinisterly.
Victor wanted to run away but before he could take one more step, metallic chains sprung around him and wrapped him up.
"NOOOO-" The entire room was filled with Victor's screams but nobody outside could hear it.