Chapter 140: Vault Heist
Chaos erupted in the ballroom.
Medics rushed toward the Shade’s crumpled body while nobles pushed forward to get a better look, only to stumble back when they realized he wasn’t moving. Someone shouted for a doctor. Someone else called for the guards.
The Duke stood frozen in place, staring at his unconscious bodyguard with an expression that made it seem like his brain had simply stopped working.
And that was when Lyra struck.
"How dare you!" Her voice cut through the noise, dripping with outrage. She had stepped directly in front of a man in a Sterling uniform, an uncle by the look of him. The man blinked at her, clearly confused, which only made Lyra’s performance more convincing.
"You brought that monster here knowing exactly what he would do! You promised me this would be a civilized evening, and instead you turned it into a blood sport!" She waved her hands as her voice grew louder. "Is this what the Sterling name has become? Hiring killers to murder children at parties?"
"Lyra, please calm down," her uncle stammered, holding up his hands.
"Calm down? Calm down?! You just watched a man try to carve up a sixteen-year-old on a dance floor, and you want me to calm down?"
Every eye in the room turned toward Lyra. The medics paused. The arguing nobles went silent. Even the guards near the exit turned to watch the Sterling heiress tear into her own uncle in front of hundreds of people.
And in the shadows near the back wall, Holden slipped away.
He moved through the crowd like smoke. Once he reached a marble pillar, he pulled the Void Mantle over his shoulders, and the world simply forgot he existed. He crossed the ballroom, walked past three guards who were too busy watching Lyra’s outburst to notice anything else, and slipped through a side door into a quiet hallway.
His earpiece crackled.
"You’re clear," Maeve said, her voice low and quick. "I’m tracking you through the estate’s security grid. The Duke brought almost every guard to the Gala. The estate is running on a skeleton crew right now."
"Good," Holden whispered.
"The private treasury is in the sub-basement, two levels below the ground floor. There’s a service corridor that runs from the east wing kitchen down to the lower levels. Look for a vent grate marked with a blue rune near the pantry."
Holden moved through the Sterling Estate like a ghost. The building was massive, with high ceilings, polished walls, and expensive artwork that probably cost more than entire city blocks back in the slums. A few servants passed through the halls carrying trays and linens, completely unaware that an invisible intruder was moving among them.
He found the kitchen. It was enormous, filled with copper pots and marble counters, but mostly empty since the staff was busy with the Gala. Holden checked the walls and spotted the blue-rune vent grate near the back pantry, exactly where Maeve had said it would be.
He pulled the grate free and slipped into the ventilation shaft.
It was tight and cramped. Holden crawled forward on his elbows, the Void Mantle keeping even the soft scrape of his clothes from making a sound.
"Turn left at the next junction," Maeve said. "Then go straight for about forty feet. You should see a vertical drop."
Holden followed her instructions. The shaft twisted left before opening into a wider section that dropped into darkness.
"I see it."
"The vent opens into a storage closet. Drop down carefully. The floor is concrete."
Holden lowered himself through the shaft, using the metal edges as handholds before dropping silently onto the concrete floor of a small closet filled with cleaning supplies and old furniture.
He eased the door open and stepped into the sub-basement.
It was cold down here. Bare stone walls stretched along the corridor, lit by dim magical crystals mounted at regular intervals. Holden’s footsteps made no sound as he moved deeper inside.
At the end of the corridor stood a door.
Beyond it was a massive vault door that filled almost the entire wall.
It was fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide, made of black iron covered in glowing runes that pulsed in a slow rhythm. At its center sat a complex magical lock made of spinning rings and glowing sigils.
"Okay," Maeve said, her voice taking on the focused tone she always used when she was working. "I’m looking at the ward schematics now. The lock has three layers. The outer ring uses a standard Sterling passcode. The middle ring rotates on a thirty-second cycle linked to the estate’s energy grid. The inner ring checks the Duke’s aura."
"Can you crack it?"
"I already did. Give me a second to sync the timing."
Holden waited.
"Okay. Outer ring. Press the third rune from the top, then the seventh, then the first. In that order. Wait for the ring to flash blue."
Holden touched the runes one after another.
The outer ring clicked and flashed blue.
"Good. Now the middle ring. Wait for the green sigil to reach twelve o’clock, then press it as it crosses the marker. If you’re even half a second late, it’ll reset."
Holden watched the ring spin.
The green sigil passed the marker once.
Then again.
"Now," Maeve said.
Holden pressed it.
The ring stopped and locked into place.
"Last one. The inner ring is checking the Duke’s aura. I can’t fake that, but I can overload the sensor for a moment. When I say go, put your palm on the center of the lock and push aura into it. Any aura will do. The sensor should get too confused to tell the difference."
"Go."
Holden pressed his palm against the lock and sent a thin thread of his 7-Star energy into the mechanism.
The inner ring flickered.
It hesitated, then the runes began scrambling as the lock tried to identify an aura that didn’t match anything in its records.
A moment later, the ring turned green.
The vault door groaned.
Heavy locks disengaged one after another before the massive slab of black iron swung inward, revealing a room filled with warm, golden light.
Gold.
Piles of it. Stacks of gold bars lined the walls, with crates of jewels and bags of coins scattered between them. In the center of the room, dozens of pure Aether Crystals sat on pedestals like museum pieces, glowing softly in every color imaginable.
The Sterling family treasury.
Holden’s 10,000x senses immediately picked up something strange.
The room was too warm.
The air was too still.
And beneath the soft glow of the crystals, he could hear a faint mechanical hum.
Slow, Steady and Patient.
Something moved behind the largest pile of gold bars.
It was big.
A figure stepped out of the shadows, and the golden light revealed plates of dark red metal covering its body like armor. It was humanoid, but its proportions were wrong. Eight feet tall, with arms that reached almost to its knees. Its head was nothing more than a smooth dome of blood-red steel, with a single glowing optic in the center.
A Blood-Steel Golem.
The mechanical beast turned toward Holden.
Its red optic brightened.
It had seen him.
The Void Mantle was designed to hide him from magical detection, but this thing wasn’t using magic. It was relying on basic motion detection, making the cloak useless against it.
The Golem’s massive fists clenched.
Its optic locked onto Holden.
Then it charged.