Brilliant!
The word flashed simultaneously through the minds of both Elias and Old Ed.
Mr. "Hound" really was the real deal!
“It's a Freeze spell.”
Old Ed reacted instantly.
“Listen up, kid.”
“In the supernatural world, the only things that can make a living person stand perfectly still in the face of a fatal threat are a Freeze spell or Petrification.”
“But Petrification increases the body's weight, whereas a Freeze spell does not.”
“As for this case...”
“You should know.”
Old Ed's voice echoed in Elias's mind.
“Even in the supernatural realm, a low-Scale Freeze spell can generally only hold a creature equivalent to the caster's own body size.”
“Of course, whether it holds and for how long depends entirely on the strength of the target's soul barrier.”
“The higher the spirituality, the easier it is to break free.”
Old Ed paused for two seconds.
“But judging from the results this fellow deduced...”
“Captain Crowley's friend definitely hit a brick wall.”
“He must have been hit with a Freeze spell by a high-Scale transcendent!”
Elias gave an imperceptible nod in his mind.
The old ghost's analysis perfectly matched Brian's wild reasoning.
This also completely confirmed his initial suspicion.
This was a stone-cold supernatural case, and an extremely dangerous one at that.
However.
Although Brian's logical chain was seamless and quite brilliant.
Before officially accepting Brian's conclusion.
Elias wanted to test him a bit more.
He wanted to see if Brian's reasoning could be supported by other details.
Elias deliberately furrowed his brows, putting on a skeptical expression.
“Your conjecture...”
Elias looked at Brian, who was standing at the edge of the carpet, his tone carrying a perfectly measured hint of doubt.
“Isn't it a bit too bold?”
Brian didn't get agitated when he heard the skepticism.
He slowly turned around.
A strange, faint smile actually appeared on his face.
“Do you think the idea of a person being forcibly held in place by some unknown force is too radical?”
Brian took a sudden step forward, his boot making the old wooden floorboards give a dull creak.
“Or do you think...”
“The idea of a killer with a gun appearing out of thin air in this locked room with sealed doors and windows is just insane?”
Elias said nothing, merely watching him quietly.
“Actually, I thought it was insane at first, too.”
Brian shrugged, his gaze gradually growing deep.
“It sounds like the murmurs of a madman in an asylum.”
“But don't forget.”
He tapped his chest heavily with his finger.
“After the crime occurred, I was on the scene the moment Old Palace Yard received the report.”
“I only started drinking after I examined the scene.”
“Arthur and the chief both arrived after me.”
“I know exactly what the scene looked like.”
“That corpse...”
Brian spoke as if describing a bizarre work of art.
“He died very, very peacefully.”
“So peacefully that he didn't look like someone who had just been shot to death.”
“Furthermore, I was the first to inspect the entire room.”
“It was like a welded-shut iron tin.”
“Yet I couldn't find a single place where someone could enter or exit.”
“That is highly abnormal.”
Brian began to pace back and forth in the room, his voice low and suppressed.
“The coroner's findings showed that the degree of rigor mortis was completely inconsistent with the estimated time of death.”
“It was as if his physical body and his death were completely decoupled.”
“And...”
Brian stopped abruptly and stared fixedly at Elias.
“He died suddenly, and he died of brain death.”
“That unknown projectile did indeed pierce his lung.”
“But that didn't cause a fatal injury immediately.”
Brian reached out and gestured toward the lung area on his own chest.
“Under normal circumstances.”
“In a death caused by excessive blood loss after a gunshot to the lung, blood would backflow into the trachea.”
“Amidst extreme pain and drowning-like suffocation, the facial muscles would twist due to spasms.”
“After death, the eyes should roll back due to neural reflexes.”
A cold sneer curled Brian's lip.
“But the deceased lying on the autopsy table was completely different.”
“His eye muscles were extremely relaxed, and the state of his dilated pupils indicated one thing.”
“He did indeed die from some instantaneous burst of sudden brainstem damage that completely destroyed his central nervous system.”
“This, in fact, perfectly corroborates the autopsy report.”
Brian leaned closer to Elias once more.
“Think about it, Elias.”
“In what kind of extreme situation...”
“Would you be in a closed room and see a sudden intruder?”
“Let's not talk about what the killer came for yet.”
“After all, the existing evidence is sealed away at the police station.”
“Let's just speculate based on the information we have.”
“With the other person holding a gun.”
“You didn't open your mouth to shout for help, nor did you grab anything to resist desperately.”
“You didn't even trigger the instinct to turn and run.”
“You just stood here like an idiot?”
“There is only one possibility.”
Brian provided the hair-raising answer himself.
“He was completely controlled in place.”
“He couldn't even move a single strand of hair.”
Brian straightened up, a feverish light flickering in his eyes.
“But I ask you, in the entire Kingdom of Velen...”
“What on earth can hold a living person perfectly motionless in place?”
“Let's consider the possibilities, Elias.”
Brian began to attempt to exhaust all existing human scientific means.
“Some unknown black market drug?”
He asked and answered himself.
“It's possible.”
“But here's the problem.”
Brian counted on his fingers.
“Ether, laudanum, chloroform, nitrous oxide, or even knock-out drops.”
“These chemical substances can indeed make a person lose their ability to resist instantly.”
“But which of these can allow a person to remain standing motionlessly after stripping them of their consciousness?”
Brian pointed at the two faint shoe prints on the carpet.
“Making someone stay still is easy, right?”
“Just knock them out with a club.”
“But 'standing'—this act of resisting gravity—requires skeletal support and continuous muscle contraction!”
“How could that be satisfied?”
Brian's speaking speed was incredibly fast.
“Martin Miller weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds.”
“It was precisely because of this heavy weight that the oils on his soles could seep into the carpet, leaving these two footprints.”
“There were no traces of rope friction at the scene.”
“So there is absolutely no possibility that he was hung from a beam to fake a standing position.”
He let his arms drop dejectedly, a flash of deep powerlessness crossing his face.
“So, unless he was held in place by some method that defies common logic...”
“Otherwise, with all my knowledge of criminal investigation, I truly cannot fathom it.”
“How to make an unconscious man weighing one hundred and sixty pounds stay put in an absolutely balanced standing posture.”
Brian's Adam's apple bobbed violently.
“Petrification from magic? Or something else.”
“In short, when scientific logic reaches a complete dead end...”
“I can only hopelessly associate this with things from myth.”
Holy shit.
Elias gave a heartfelt exclamation in his mind.
Is this guy even human?
My friend, you are already very impressive, Elias thought to himself.
As a complete and utter ordinary person, relying only on limited physical traces and an abnormal autopsy report.
He had used sheer logical deduction to exclude all impossible scientific factors.
Finally, he had accurately zeroed in on 'supernatural forces.'
Being able to reason and analyze to this point was enough to prove the absolute strength of the "Hound."
“What about the bullet hole?”
Elias looked up and asked, his gaze passing over Brian's shoulder.
He looked precisely at the shallow crater on the wall.
He wanted to see just how far Brian's limits went.
This also piqued the intense curiosity of Old Ed, who was hiding in his mind.
Brian followed Elias's gaze and looked back at the shallow pit.
No expression of being stumped appeared on his face; instead, he remained confident.
“I suspect it was an ice bullet,” Brian said in a firm tone.
“Ice?”
Elias raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
Brian continued his reasoning.
“A projectile ground from extremely hard ice.”
“After piercing the victim's lung, it struck the wall with its remaining momentum, leaving the crater.”
“But because of the force of the impact, it shattered, then melted and evaporated.”
Brian spread his hands.
“That's why no trace of a bullet could be found at the scene.”
It was logical.
Elias looked at Brian's confident face and nodded cooperatively.
However, he knew very well in his heart that this wasn't the case at all.
Because modern science and certain shows had long ago proven it.
An ice bullet?
Pure nonsense!
The melting point of ice is too low, and its hardness is simply insufficient.
Under the high temperature and pressure generated by the explosion of gunpowder in the barrel.
The moment before the ice bullet even left the barrel, it would shatter directly into powder within the rifling.
It was impossible for it to pierce an adult man's chest and then smash a hole in a wall.
Still.
Limited by the scientific understanding of this era.
For Brian, as an ordinary detective, to reach this level was already commendable.
Elias naturally wouldn't choose this moment to lecture him on modern thermodynamics and ballistics.
“So...”
Elias stared into Brian's eyes.
He asked once more.
“Given these bizarre circumstances, do you think he really died of brain death?”
Upon hearing this question.
The feverish confidence on Brian's face suddenly vanished.
It was replaced by a chilling gloom.
He shook his head mysteriously.
Under the dim light of the gas lamp.
Brian looked at him sinisterly.
“That is also why I asked you just now...”
“The reason I asked if there are ghosts in this world.”
“I mean.”
“Is there a possibility...”
“That this Martin is still alive, in the form of a ghost?”
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