"The door’s open."
Julian arrived at the fifth floor that Arcanine had ntioned, only to find the door ajar. Before stepping inside, he glanced at tagross, who shook its head, indicating that there weren’t any Pokémon inside.
The door was open, and there weren’t any Pokémon inside—Julian couldn't help but wonder if Arcanine had made a mistake.
Surely a spy’s vigilance couldn’t be this low.
However when he walked into the room, he saw soone lying in the middle of the living room, a knife stuck in their chest, fresh blood pooling beneath and staining the floor red.
His Aura sense confird that the other party had no signs of life left.
tagross floated over to examine the body and confird that the person was indeed dead.
Julian walked over and was taken aback to see that the deceased was none other than Max, the very person he had co to apprehend.
"He's dead?!"
His expression was one of disbelief. With how cautious this guy had been, how could he have died so easily?
His death really did co too suddenly.
"Gengar, is his soul still here?"
"Gen~"
Gengar erged from Julian's shadow, looked around, and shook its head.
Once a person had been dead for more than five minutes, the soul would completely dissipate. Julian had wanted Gengar to devour the man’s soul to retrieve his mories, but now that thod was no longer viable.
Staring at Max's body, Julian frowned. He wasn't trained in forensic investigation and couldn't tell whether it was suicide or murder.
The briefcase containing the docunts wasn't with him. Julian searched the entire apartnt but found no sign of it.
Instead, he ca across photos of the actual hoowner, making it clear this wasn't Max's residence.
The hoowner was really unlucky—just stepping out for a while, and now their house had beco a cri scene. The place would surely be considered unlucky from now on.
Since the briefcase wasn’t here, the docunts had either been moved by Max or taken by whoever had killed him.
Julian crouched down, intending to examine the corpse more closely.
Just then, five fully ard personnel burst through the door, weapons drawn, each accompanied by a Pokémon.
"Don't move!"
The man in the lead leveled his gun at Julian. Julian’s recent actions had already severely disrupted public order, and now he had trespassed into a private residence. Most critically, there was a dead body right in front of him.
Since Julian had his back turned, the man couldn't see his face.
"Arf!"
Arcanine, seeing this fool daring to point a gun at its trainer, gathered flas in its mouth, ready to lt him on the spot.
"Arcanine," Julian called out.
Arcanine reluctantly dissipated the flas gathering in its mouth.
The captain and the ard personnel behind him were already pale with fear, intimidated by the prelude to Arcanine's attack.
"Who are you?!"
The captain shouted, his voice tense, but he didn't dare pull the trigger.
Because just now, that Arcanine could have killed them all in an instant—his instincts as a pseudo-Elite were screaming at him.
The Arcanine before them was definitely at the Elite-level. Wiping them out would take no effort.
anwhile, Julian had already stood up and turned around. "Relax, I’m Julian."
At this mont, tagross floated out from another room. It had gone to check again and had indeed found no trace of the docunts.
That face, plus the silver tagross—no doubt about it. The person who had just rampaged with Arcanine on the streets was indeed Champion Walker.
"Are you sure you still want to point your guns at ?" Julian frowned at the n before him.
Without a Pokémon, even a Champion could be killed by an ordinary handgun.
However, with psychic abilities—especially interdiate ones—the bullets could be slowed. Advanced-level psychics could even block bullets outright.
"Lower your weapons! All of you, lower them!"
The captain finally snapped out of his daze, realizing the gravity of the situation, and imdiately ordered his subordinates to holster their guns.
He then stepped forward, saluted Julian with excitent, and said, "Champion Walker, Captain XXX of the first squad of the Ashford County Inspection Bureau, reporting to you!"
(Let's just call him Random Guy—no need for a na.)
Julian waved his hand and pointed at the corpse. "After I finish examining this, inform your director. He'll know how to handle it."
"Yes, sir!"
The man responded loudly.
Julian: 'Is this guy on steroids or sothing?!'
He crouched down and placed his hand on Max's body. Suddenly, a series of images flashed through his mind.
Unexpectedly, he could still see the life mories of the deceased.
The power of the Unown made Julian's eyes glimr slightly.
However, he only saw fragnts of Max's life after arriving in Ashford County: the six packages, that mysterious phone call, the mont Max took his own life, and the triggered device he had set up—anyone touching his body would imdiately set off an explosion.
A wave of imnse danger washed over Julian.
"tagross!!"
Julian and tagross were already ntally synchronized.
Just as Julian saw the final monts of Max's life, the detonator inside the body activated. tagross instantly wrapped Max's entire body in a psychic barrier.
BOOM!
Contained within the psychic barrier, the bomb inside Max's body detonated without harming Julian. tagross perfectly controlled the explosion, not even allowing a single ripple of energy to escape.
Naturally, Max's body was reduced into a cloud of blood mist.
"Really can't guard against every danger," Julian muttered, his heart pounding violently. If tagross hadn't reacted a split second faster than the explosion, he might have been killed.
His Master-level psychic abilities only allowed him to teleport a few dozen ters instantly—far from enough to escape the blast radius of such an explosion.
"Champion Walker—"
What had just happened left the captain completely at a loss. He felt as though he had just brushed past death itself.
"Phew… Clean this place up."
After saying that, Julian left with a grim expression.
Everything that had just unfolded made him realize sothing: Max—and the people behind him—already knew that Julian had used Celebi’s power to track down clues about Max.
Max hadn’t been murdered—he had committed suicide.
The purpose of his suicide was to completely sever the trail, to prevent Gengar from devouring his soul, and at the sa ti to possibly drag Julian down with him.
From now on, it would be wise to avoid touching corpses altogether. One touch could trigger an explosion—who the hell could handle that?
The only clues now were the six packages Max had sent from the courier station. The data on the new incubation fluid was undoubtedly in one of them or possibly all.
Even with Celebi's power to travel back in ti, it would be impossible to determine which package contained the data without opening them. And once a package was opened, the past would be altered, causing significant backlash to Celebi.
The opposing side surely knew this and was confident Julian wouldn't take such a risk.
But they never expected Julian to possess the ability to glimpse the past of the deceased.
So now Julian already knew exactly which of the six packages contained the docunts.
*****
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