Chapter 141: Stripping the Nobles
The vault was soundproof.
Holden knew because he could feel the layers of magical insulation built into the walls, designed to keep everything inside, from a whisper to an explosion. The Duke clearly didn’t want anyone outside hearing what happened down here.
That worked out perfectly.
Holden dropped the Void Mantle’s concealment. The black fabric rippled as it became visible again, settling around his shoulders like a familiar weight. He didn’t need to hide anymore. Not in here. Not against a machine.
He drew the Solar-Forged Sword.
The crimson blade burst to life, filling the golden vault with a red glow. The Aether Crystals lining the room flickered in response, their soft light almost disappearing beneath the sword’s intense radiance.
For the first time since arriving in the Capital, Holden let his aura flare.
His Rank 2, 7-Star power exploded from his core and spread through the room. The air grew heavy around him, and the temperature rose sharply.
The Golem didn’t care.
It couldn’t feel fear or intimidation. It only saw a target and followed its programming.
GRND!
Its legs slammed into the floor, cracking it as the massive machine launched itself forward. Eight feet of blood-red steel came at Holden with the speed of a Rank 3 fighter, both fists raised above its head like enormous hammers.
Holden didn’t dodge.
He stepped forward and swung upward.
CLANG!
The Solar-Forged Sword collided with the Golem’s right fist, sending a shockwave through the vault. The nearest pedestal cracked, and a stack of gold bars toppled onto the floor.
Holden slid backward across the floor, but he stayed on his feet. His Iron-Body absorbed the force and spread the impact through his bones before the remaining energy was pushed into the ground.
The Golem’s fist now had a dent in it.
GRND-GRND!
The machine recovered almost instantly and swung its left fist in a wide arc. Holden ducked beneath it, feeling the wind from the blow brush across his hair, then stepped in and drove his sword toward the Golem’s exposed ribs.
SPARK!
The blade scraped across the blood-steel plating, leaving behind a bright, white-hot gouge, but it didn’t cut through.
Holden’s eyes narrowed.
The armor was tough. Reinforced, too.
GRND!
The Golem brought its fist down again.
Holden stepped aside, and the massive fist smashed into the floor where he’d been standing. Holden answered with a slash across the Golem’s forearm.
More sparks flew.
Another gouge appeared.
Still, the armor held.
The Golem was Rank 3, 1-Star. Its raw strength was greater than Holden’s, and its armor was tougher than anything he’d faced in the wild. If this turned into a long fight, the machine could slowly wear him down through sheer endurance.
But Holden wasn’t going to fight it that way.
He poured his energy into the Solar-Forged Sword.
The crimson blade changed.
Bright red became deep orange.
Deep orange became white.
Heat rolled off the sword in visible waves, twisting the air around it. The gold bars closest to Holden began to soften, their edges slowly rounding as the temperature inside the vault climbed.
Hellfire Cleave.
This time, Holden pushed the technique as far as he could.
The Golem swung both fists at once.
A crushing double strike.
Holden didn’t move away.
He swung directly into it.
The Hellfire Cleave met both fists at the point of impact. Instead of being knocked back, the wave of crimson fire wrapped around the blood-steel plates and began to sink into them.
The metal screamed.
A sharp, high-pitched sound filled the vault as the steel warped under the heat. The Golem’s fists changed from dark red to bright red, then orange, then almost white. The armor covering its arms began to bubble and melt like wax.
FWOOSH!
Holden pushed the Cleave through.
The blade cut into the Golem’s right arm and kept going, burning through the blood-steel plating, the mechanical joints, and the thick cables underneath.
The arm separated from its body.
Molten metal and sparks sprayed across the floor.
The Golem staggered.
Holden was already moving.
He stepped inside the machine’s guard and ducked beneath a wild swing from its remaining arm. Before it could recover, he drove the blazing sword straight into its chest.
The softened plating offered almost no resistance.
The blade punched through and buried itself deep inside the Golem’s core.
The red optic in its head flickered.
GRND... grnd... g...
Its movements slowed. The remaining arm twitched once.
Then it dropped uselessly to its side.
The red light in its optic dimmed, brightened, then dimmed again.
Finally, it went dark.
The eight-foot machine stood frozen for another moment, the Solar-Forged Sword buried in its chest and molten metal dripping from its wounds. Then its body slowly tilted backward before crashing into the vault floor.
WHAM!
The impact shook the entire room.
Gold bars bounced across the floor. Aether Crystals rattled on their pedestals, and a cloud of dust and steam rose from the cooling metal corpse.
[Ding!]
[Blood-Steel Golem (Rank 3, 1-Star) Defeated!]
[+6,000 KP]
[2x KP Booster Applied!]
[+12,000 KP!]
[Balance: 159,890 KP]
Holden pulled his sword free and shook the molten residue from the blade.
The vault was a mess.
Scorch marks covered the walls. Gold bars were scattered across the floor, and the Golem’s corpse sat in the middle of the room like a broken statue, its damaged body still ticking softly as its internal systems shut down.
Holden looked around at the destruction and let out a slow breath.
Then he looked at the treasure.
The vault was packed with enough wealth to make most people lose their minds. Gold bars were stacked neatly along the walls. Crates were filled with jewels that could make a merchant king cry with envy. Bags of Capital-minted coins sat beside them, and dozens of Aether Crystals rested on their pedestals, glowing in every color imaginable.
These weren’t the low-grade crystals found in the wild. They were refined, high-purity energy sources, valuable enough that a single one could be worth more than what an ordinary family earned in years.
Holden walked over to the nearest pile of gold bars and placed a hand on one.
[Option: Store in System Inventory?]
Holden didn’t even hesitate.
Yes.
The gold bar vanished.
It simply disappeared from his hand, swallowed by the System’s storage space as if it had never existed.
Holden touched another.
Gone.
Another.
Gone.
He soon moved through the vault like a one-man cleaning crew. Every gold bar he touched disappeared into his inventory. Then came the bags of coins, followed by the crates of jewels. He didn’t bother counting or sorting anything. There was no point. The System could handle the storage for him, so all he had to do was touch it and move on.
The Aether Crystals were the real prize.
Each one held a large amount of concentrated cultivation energy. Holden could use them to help fuel breakthroughs, power certain skills, or possibly convert them into KP if the System allowed it later. Whatever their use, there was no reason to leave them behind.
He went from pedestal to pedestal, touching each crystal and watching it disappear.
Minutes passed.
The overflowing treasury slowly became empty.
The gold bars that had once been stacked against the walls were gone, leaving only bare stone behind. The crates that had been filled with jewels were empty. Bags of coins disappeared one after another, and the pedestals that had once held glowing Aether Crystals now stood completely bare.
An entire noble family’s treasury had vanished in the time it would take most people to finish a meal.
Holden couldn’t help smiling.
Maeve wouldn’t have to worry about money again.
And if he needed enough raw energy to push himself toward 9-Star, he had more than enough crystals stored away to fuel an entire army.
He finished the last section of the room and turned back for one final look.
The vault was empty.
Almost.
Something caught his eye.
Behind the spot where the largest crystal pedestal had stood, half-hidden in a small recess in the wall, was a safe.
It was almost laughably simple compared to the rest of the treasury.
No glowing runes.
No giant iron door.
Just a small black metal box with a keyhole.
Holden walked over and placed his palm against it. A thin thread of energy slipped into the mechanism.
Nothing happened.
He frowned for a moment before realizing it wasn’t magical.
The safe used an old-fashioned mechanical lock.
Holden applied a little more pressure.
Click.
The lock opened.
Inside was a single book.
It was bound in black leather with no title or markings on the cover. Holden picked it up and opened it.
The pages were filled with neat handwriting.
Dates.
Numbers.
Names.
Account references.
At first, he thought they were ordinary financial records.
Then he started reading.
Tax records. But these weren’t normal tax records.
They showed a huge difference between the amount House Sterling collected from its territories and what it reported to the Crown. The missing money wasn’t a small mistake either. The numbers showed millions in diverted funds spread across decades, moved through private accounts, shell companies, and investments outside the Kingdom.
Holden’s eyes narrowed as he turned another page.
The records were far too detailed.
The Duke hadn’t just been stealing from the Royal Family.
He had kept records of it for years.
Holden closed the book and slipped it inside his jacket.
"Well," he muttered, "that’s a nice little bonus."
He wasn’t sure yet how useful the book would be, but evidence like this could cause a lot more trouble for the Duke than a missing treasury ever could.
Holden pulled the Void Mantle over his head. The moment the fabric covered him, that familiar feeling of being erased washed over his body.
He turned toward the vault entrance.
Behind him, the Blood-Steel Golem’s corpse continued to cool, its metal body ticking softly in the silence.
The gold was gone.
The jewels were gone.
The crystals were gone.
The Sterling family’s carefully guarded treasury had been completely stripped bare.
And the Duke had no idea.
Holden smiled beneath the Void Mantle.
Time to go back to the party.