Lin Mu and Hei Bao heard her words clearly, and their eyes went towards the direction of her finger. They spotted the two assassins and locked on to them.
The two assassins had evidently realized that they had failed in their attempt to kill Hei Wan and Hei Bao, thus they had turned around to escape.
"GUARDS PROTECT THE COMMONERS! MERCENARIES LOOK OUT FOR YOUR COMPANIONS!" Hei Wan shouted.
The guards that were standing in two files at the sides of the crowd immediately became already and acted on the orders that were issued. They surrounded the crowd and made sure that they were covered from all sides.
The crowd was panicking, but was still responsive enough to listen to the words of Hei Wan and the guards. The mercenaries on the other hand were used to danger, thus they did not panic, but instead withdrew their respective weapons and got ready to fight.
"We have been waiting for this moment, brothers! Time to show those culprits what it means to challenge us." A mercenary from the group shouted.
"YEAHHH!!" The mercenaries shouted in unison, having no fear on their faces.
The culprits were on the other side of the square on top of the buildings. They were already a good distance away, thus it would be a little difficult for Lin Mu and Hei Bao to catch up with them. Still, they weren't going to let them go.
"I'll take the one on the right, you go after the left." Lin Mu spoke.
Hei Bao nodded in response and jumped down onto the lower roof from the balcony, just as he had done yesterday. Lin Mu too did the same and went after the assassins.
Lin Mu strengthened his legs with spirit qi and increased his speed. He leaped down from the roof and started running through the streets in the direction of the culprits. He ran for a bit and once he was sure that he was away from the eyes of people; he blinked to the top of the roof of a building.
Once he was up there, he could see the culprit in the distance clearly. The culprit was still pretty far from him and he had to catch up with him. Lin Mu observed that while the culprit was far, he wasn't as fast as him.
Lin Mu was steadily catching up to him. The culprit was running on the ground and thus had not spotted Lin Mu yet, who was high up on the roofs. Lin Mu would leap from roof to roof and when some of them were too far apart, he would just use blink to teleport to the other side with ease.
Lin Mu's regular use of 'Blink' had made it easy for him to maneuver through the buildings. In a minute, Lin Mu had caught up with the culprit and was on the right of him, up on the roof of a house. By now they had crossed up the central area and had entered the residential area.
Because the houses were relatively smaller in size than the buildings in the central area, the culprit finally saw Lin Mu. If the culprit's face was not covered with a cloth, one would have been able to see an absolutely stunned expression on his face.
Lin Mu took this moment where the culprit was stunned and blinked right behind him. The culprit just became even more shocked when the person in front of him had disappeared in the blink of an eye into thin air.
Lin Mu appeared behind the culprit and punched the man on his head. While the punch was not strengthened with spirit qi, Lin Mu's tenth stage body tempering realm strength was already enough to knock him out instantly.
The culprit fell on the ground and scattered the dust on it.
~Haah~
Lin Mu let out a breath after ensuring that the man was incapacitated, but still alive. Honestly, he was a little unsure of his strength and had held back. He was a little worried that if he used too much strength, he may just end up killing the man instead of knocking him out.
Lin Mu then realized that he actually didn't have a rope to tie the man with.
"Ugh, I need to remember to buy more things now." Lin Mu muttered to himself.
He then took out some clothes and wrapped them around the man's hands and legs to tie him up. Now that he was done with this, another question came to his mind. It was about transporting the culprit. He could just wait there for the guards to come, but he was worried that the culprit's companions may find him, or perhaps the culprit would free himself.
Not having any other idea, Lin Mu just decided to put the man in his ring temporarily. Though he knew that he couldn't keep him in there for long or the man would suffocate.
"Try to store some air in your ring. I'll restrict it in a place so that the man can breathe in it." Xukong chimed in Lin Mu's mind.
Lin Mu's eyes lit up, and he replied.
"Yes, senior."
Lin Mu had actually tried storing air in his ring before, but the problem that occurred was that the air would just diffuse in the environment inside the ring. Even senior Xukong had been unable to grasp the size of the space inside the ring, thus one could only imagine the sheer massiveness of it.
No matter how much air Lin Mu tried storing in the ring, it would just end up spreading and would become useless. His previous experiment of storing beasts had already made him understand the consequences. But now that senior Xukong was helping him personally, it shouldn't be much of a problem for him.
Lin Mu willed it, and the air in his surroundings started to enter his ring. He could actually see the dust in the surroundings, moving towards him. A minute later he reckoned that he should have stored a sufficient amount of air in the ring, though he still couldn't estimate the exact quantity of it.
"Don't worry, this should be enough air for him to breathe for an hour at least," Xukong spoke.
"If you say so, Senior." Lin Mu respectfully replied.
He then stored the unconscious culprit in the ring and started running towards the direction of the second culprit. Lin Mu of course wouldn't leave Hei Bao alone to deal with the culprit. He actually didn't even know if Hei Bao had caught up with the culprit or not.
Lin Mu climbed up on the roofs again as he knew that it would be nearly impossible to spot Hei Bao and the culprit on the ground. He used blink to quickly reach the top and started running towards the location that he was expecting them to be.
Lin Mu leaped from roof to roof and soon reached the area that he was expecting Hei Bao to be in. Though when he looked around, he couldn't spot him anywhere. He wondered if he had gone further or were they at the back instead.
Lin Mu knew that he was faster than the Hei Bao and the culprit, thus the chance of them being ahead was much less. He turned to the back and ran towards there. A couple of minutes later, he saw the two men on the ground fighting and knew that his guess was right.
"Let's get this done with." Lin Mu muttered.
He then jumped down from the roof and approached the fighting duo. Hei Bao and the culprit easily spotted him. No change of expression could be seen on the face of Hei Bao, but Lin Mu could tell that the culprit was getting tense now.
Lin Mu had already sensed the cultivation of the culprit and knew that he was at the mid stage of the qi refining realm, the same as the one he had captured before. While Hei Bao was at the peak stage of the qi refining realm, he wasn't using all his strength as he wanted to catch the culprit and not kill him.
Lin Mu was just about to act when the culprit did something he had not expected. The culprit withdrew a black pill from his sleeve and moved his face cover aside.
"NOO!!" Hei Bao shouted.
He lunged forward to restrain the culprit, but before he could do so, the culprit had already popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed it. Lin Mu too rushed forward and stood next to the culprit. He wanted to save him but was too late as the black pill's effect started and the culprit started convulsing.
"It's no use. You can't save him now." Xukong spoke.
Lin Mu simply nodded and kept on staring at the culprit who was now lying still on the ground, no longer convulsing.
"We were too late. I should have just taken the risk and restricted him from the very start." Hei Bao spoke in regret.
He then turned to look at Lin Mu and looked around.
"I take it you lost your culprit?" Hei Bao asked.
"No." Lin Mu replied while shaking his head.
He then withdrew the unconscious man from his ring and laid him down.
"What!? You put him in a spatial treasure! Is he even alive?" Hei Bao exclaimed.
It was common knowledge that living creatures usually cannot be kept in spatial treasures unless they are specially made for storing them. If one was to store a person or a beast in spatial treasure, they would just die of suffocation, if not from other reasons such as being splinched due to insufficient space or dismembered due to unstable space.
"Don't worry, he wasn't there for more than a minute. I was close by." Lin Mu replied, not wanting to reveal much.
Hei Bao nodded in response and then checked up on the culprit.
He frisked the culprit's body and removed a few things from there. Lin Mu had not known that the culprits would commit suicide before, or he would have done the same thing. He had already knocked the culprit unconscious and had restrained him thus was not as worried.
Hei Bao retrieved a pill and a small crossbow from the sleeve of the culprit, along with a small vial of black liquid and a quiver of bolts from the culprit's waist. He also took away the dagger that was hidden in the culprits' clothes.
The crossbow that Hei Bao had removed from the culprit, seemed to be intricately crafted and looked complex. While its size was small enough to hide within the wide sleeves of the culprit, its range and power were still sufficient to kill someone.
The crossbow was made mostly from some kind of metal and was slightly shiny as if it was polished to perfection.
"What kind of crossbow is this?" Lin Mu questioned.
Hei Bao furrowed his brows while staring at the crossbow in his hand.
"This is a special crossbow made for assassinations. There aren't many people that can make this and it is rather expensive to make as well. I think I know where these crossbows may have come from." Hei Bao answered.
"Oh? Where are they from?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Wen Dao armaments, in Xiangwei city. They are specialists in hidden weapons such as these. Their workshop isn't as big as the other major ones, but because of their unique weapons they are rather rich and powerful." Hei Bao answered.
"So this means that if we inquire there, we may be able to get the identity of the culprits?" Lin Mu asked.
"Not exactly. They won't reveal the names of their customers that easily, they are rather strict about keeping the privacy of their patrons. It will be difficult in finding out clues from them. We will need to figure out something else." Hei Bao replied.
~Sigh~
"Alright. Let's return back for now." Lin Mu spoke.
"Yes, let's go." Hei Bao responded.
He then picked up the unconscious culprit from the ground and slung it on his back, while Lin Mu stored the other culprit, which was dead now in his ring. They began their journey back and reached the town center after five minutes.
The crowd had dispersed by now, evidently having been moved to safety by the guards. There was still a squad of town's guards protecting the square though. The mercenaries were also standing there, looking a little frustrated and lost.
Lin Mu had heard their shouts of vigor before, thus could guess that they had perhaps been unsuccessful in their endeavor. He could also see the Ming brothers standing beside Hei Wan along with a couple of more people.
One of these people was the driver of Hei Wan's carriage and the other two were men who had large straw hats on their head's which hid their face. Hei Wan was vigilantly observing the area along with the other cultivators, looking ready for anything.
They soon spotted Hei Bao and Lin Mu, who were approaching from the far. After they reached Hei Wan's position, Hei Bao put down the unconscious culprit that he was carrying on his back.
"We were able to capture this one, the other is dead." Hei Bao informed.