Chapter 538 Framed.



"I am looking for both defensive and offensive artifacts." Jerry replied after he composed himself.

"Can I know what your budget is, because we have lots of offensive and defensive artifacts with different price ranges?" The salesman said.

"The price isn't a problem, my boss is the one paying for everything." Jerry said as instructed by Blake through the mic.

"You are one lucky man. Please come take a look at these." The salesman said with a smile as he gestured for Jerry to come closer.

For the next 15 minutes, the salesman began showing and explaining the functions of the different artifacts to him. With Blake's instruction, he selected a defensive artifact, but when it came to an offensive artifact there was nothing that caught Blake's eye.

"Do you have something stronger than these?" Jerry asked the salesman.

"Sorry sir, but the highest level of artifacts we have are all capped at the Hero realm. Artifacts of the demigod realm and above are very rare to find." The salesman explained.

"Alright then, I will only be taking this." Jerry said hoping that the salesman would show him his hidden stock, but he just agreed.

After making the payment with the gold coins given to him by Blake, Jerry walked out of the shop and returned to the carriage where Blake was waiting for him.

"You did a good job, take me home." Blake said.

"Sir, the artifact I purchased." Jerry said as he handed over the artifact, but Blake rejected it.

"Consider it a gift for your efforts, use it to protect yourself." Blake smiled.

"Thank you so much!" Jerry was touched by Blake's kindness.

Although the ash corps carriages possessed defensive arrays for both the passengers and the drivers, there have been multiple cases where they were not strong enough to protect the driver from strong attacks from enemies. So, Blake spending so many gold coins just for his safety moved him.

With a smile on his face, Jerry quickly commanded the horse to move.

'If it was another person investigating this matter, they would have most likely believed the salesman, but the locator spell doesn't lie!' Blake thought.

[It's most likely that they don't sell to just anyone, but to people with high status. Maybe you can try using Camilla to find out.] The system said.

'Most likely, but I don't have that kind of time and energy to find out.' Blake shook his head at the system's suggestion. 'It's best I take a more direct approach, I think I will infiltrate the shop or house of the owner to get more info and get them arrested.'

Blake began thinking of his next move, but that was when a thought popped into his head. He quickly took out his map and activated the locator spell.

"Where is the assassin that tried to kill me at Coastville?"

Since the divination artifact couldn't discover the identity of the assassin Blake hadn't bordered using the locator spell to find the assassin because he felt it was useless. However, his intuition was telling him to try it out now.

After a few seconds of waiting, an area in the middle region lit up with white light!

'There was no sign of interference, so it is legit. However, this doesn't feel right.' Blake said.

[Yes, there is a high chance that he knows you are looking for him, so he dropped clues for you to meet him so that he can finish the job he started.] The system said.

'That is exactly what I would do if I was an assassin, but I feel it is something else.' Blake pondered for a few seconds before continuing. 'The assassin used an Angel rank artifact, meaning he is at most in the demigod realm. Since everyone knows that Ebony and Ivory can easily beat anyone in the demigod realm it is highly unlikely that it is a trap to finish me up.'

'Either he gets help to finish me up or something happened to him and he actually lost the ability to interfere with the locator spell. Either way, it's not actually much of a threat to me.' Blake thought.

The only way the assassin's ambush would be a threat to him was only if he got an Angel's help, but that was highly unlikely because Angels were few. So he was pretty confident that he could check out the 'trap' without any issues.

"Stop me here." 

Blake got down from the carriage and instructed Jerry to go home, while he activated the guardian scarab and flew to the location.

Using the darkness of the night to mask his movement, Blake flew around the location to make sure nothing suspicious was going on before entering the large 4-story tall apartment complex.

After making sure that nothing was out of place, Blake activated the trail variation of the locator spell. He felt that taking the elevator would open up a lot of opportunities for a surprise attack, so he went straight for the stairs and began following the white trail.

While checking the stairs for traps, Blake continuously scaled the stairs before finally reaching the last floor.

Following the trail, Blake got to a door with '419' as its room number. The system scanned the room for both traps and heat signatures.

[There is only one heat signature, but no traps.] The system reported.

Without wasting another second, Blake twisted the nob and pushed the door open.

"Gunnar?!" Blake was shocked to see the corpse of the lieutenant Colonel lying in a pool of his own blood.

[The corpse is still warm, so the killer should still be close.] The system said causing Blake to be on alert.

He quickly checked the windows but none of them were open meaning the killer didn't escape through there.

'So it turns out that he is the assassin, but what was he doing here, and why would someone want to kill him.' Blake thought as he took out his communication amulet to inform the ash corps, but that was when spatial corridors opened up in the room.