Riding on Marcus’s neck was like being trapped inside a perfume factory that only sold old lavender soap. The guy walked with this annoying, bouncy stride that made my invisible body jiggle up and down against his silk cloak. Every two minutes, he’d stop to fix his hair in a window reflection or yell at a street vendor to get out of his way.
"System," I thought, keeping my translucent scales tucked tightly into his fur collar. "How far are we from this royal warehouse? If I have to smell this guy for another ten minutes, I’m going to hawk a sludge bomb right down his shirt."
[System: Almost there. Just look ahead. That giant stone fortress with the angry-looking guards and the iron spiked fences? That’s the place. Try to act like a scarf and don’t sneeze.]
We crossed the main square and stopped in front of a massive, grey stone building that looked more like a prison than a storage unit. Six guards wearing armor and holding long halberds stood at the main entrance. Above the door, another one of those giant magic eyeball crystals was spinning around, casting a green light over the entryway.
Marcus didn’t even slow down. He pulled a silver badge out of his pocket and slapped it into the hand of the head guard.
"Director Marcus," the guard said, quickly stepping aside and bowing his head. "The lower levels are clear. The crystal eye has been calibrated to bypass your signature."
"Excellent," Marcus grunted, snatching his badge back. "Make sure nobody else enters the sector. I have a private audit to conduct."
We walked through the doors and headed straight down a long, winding stone staircase. The walls down here weren’t made of regular brick; they were lined with thick plates of iron that hummed softly whenever Marcus walked past.
Instead of going straight to the main vault doors, Marcus turned left down a narrow, completely unlit hallway. He stopped in front of a small wooden door that looked like an old broom closet. He knocked three times, waited a second, and then knocked twice more.
The door creaked open. Inside the tiny, cramped room stood a guy wearing a dark, tattered robe with a hood pulled so low you couldn’t see his face. The room was totally dark except for a single purple candle burning on a small crate.
"You’re late, Marcus," the hooded guy said. His voice sounded like two flat rocks grinding together. It was creepy, but it didn’t scare me. I used to work night shifts at a grocery store in the bad part of town; a guy in a bathrobe was nothing.
"The girl was slowing me down," Marcus said, his fake friendly tone completely gone. He leaned against the wall, adjusting his fur collar—which squeezed my midsection slightly. "Suzy is getting suspicious. She’s already asking questions about the shipping lines."
The hooded man let out a low, dry chuckle. "Let her ask. By tomorrow morning, the final shipment of the Royal Mana Potions will be safely inside our hands. The Dark Sect pays well for high-grade fuel."
’The Dark Sect?’ I thought, my snake eyes narrowing in the dark. ’So this guy isn’t just skimming inventory to make a quick buck. He’s selling government-grade magic steroids to the local terrorist group. That is a massive corporate compliance violation.’
"Is the vault ready?" Marcus asked, pulling a small silver key card from his inner pocket. "The guards think I’m just checking the records."
"The vault is ready," the hooded man said, reaching out a bony, pale hand from beneath his sleeve. He held a small glass vial filled with dark red fluid. "But you know the rules of the lock. The royal security system doesn’t just take the key card. It runs a biological scan. Drink this."
"What is it?"
"A temporary blood alterer," the hooded guy explained. "The vault lock belongs to the Royal Treasurer, Lord Raymond. He is currently sleeping at his estate across town. This fluid will trick the lock into thinking your blood belongs to the royal family for exactly ten minutes. If the timer runs out while you’re still inside... the iron doors lock permanently, and the room fills with toxic gas."
Marcus swallowed hard, took the vial, and downed the red liquid in one big gulp. He wiped his mouth on his silk sleeve, his face turning a weird, pale shade of grey for a split second before his normal color returned.
"Let’s get this over with," Marcus muttered.
They left the broom closet and walked to the very end of the hallway. Standing there was a massive, circular door made of solid, gleaming steel. It looked like it belonged in a modern bank, completely covered in complex moving gears and glowing blue lines of magic.
Right in the middle of the steel door was a small glass plate with a sharp needle sticking out of the center.
Marcus walked up to the plate, held his silver key card against a slot on the wall, and then forcefully pressed his thumb down onto the sharp needle.
Prick.
A drop of his altered blood smeared across the glass plate. The blue magic lines on the door instantly flared a bright, violent crimson. The massive iron gears began to turn with a grinding roar that shook the stone floor beneath my tail.
[System Notification: Royal Vault Lock Disengaged.]
[Timer Triggered: 10 Minutes until Total Lockdown and Poison Gas Deployment.]
The door slowly swung outward, revealing a massive room stacked high with wooden crates. Inside those crates, thousands of small, glass bottles filled with glowing blue liquid were neatly lined up. It looked like the back storage room of a super-pharmacy, and the sheer amount of magic energy in the air made my scales tingle.
"Beautiful," Marcus grinned, stepping inside the vault. "Get the bags. We have nine minutes to empty these shelves."
The hooded man stepped in behind him, pulling out a large, empty burlap sack from his robe.
They were so focused on the glowing blue bottles that they didn’t notice a single thing drop from Marcus’s fur collar. I let go of his silk cloak, falling silently onto the cold stone floor of the vault. The moment my weightless, invisible body hit the ground, a cold, greedy smile spread inside my snake head.
’Hey, System,’ I thought, looking at the mountain of high-grade inventory. ’They think they have nine minutes. How much of this can I eat before they even notice the boxes are empty?’
[System: Oho! A complete warehouse liquidation! Forget the bags, Barry. Let’s show these amateurs how a real professional cleans out the back room. Use the watch right now!]
I reached under my translucent scales, gripping the gold pocket watch I had stolen from the merchant wagon. The orange crystals inside the watch flared with sudden heat.
The world ground to a total, freezing halt. Marcus was frozen mid-stride, his hand reaching for a blue bottle. The hooded man was a statue, his burlap sack hanging loosely in the air. The countdown timer on the vault door stopped blinking.
[Chronos Distortion Active: 10 Seconds Remaining in Local Time Freeze.]
Ten seconds was an eternity for a Tier 4 Void-Scale Stalker.
I didn’t slither. I became a black blur, zipping across the wooden crates like a loose wire. I didn’t open the bottles—I used my new [Void-Scale] trait, unhinging my jaw to its absolute maximum limit, and slammed my face straight into the first crate of potions. My mouth didn’t just bite; the absolute vacuum of my new stomach devoured three whole cases of Royal Mana Potions in a single, massive gulp, glass and all.
Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.
[Biomass Gained: 10,000 / 50,000]
[Biomass Gained: 25,000 / 50,000]
[Biomass Gained: 45,000 / 50,000]
The pure, concentrated magic fluid hit my core like a tidal wave of ice-cold energy, melting the glass instantly and turning the liquid into raw fuel. The blue rings around my neck flared so brightly they threatened to break through my invisibility.
With two seconds left , I darted back to the entrance door, slid my thin tail through the manual release switch on the inside wall, and yanked it down, jamming the main gear with a loose piece of iron scrap I found on the floor.
The time freeze snapped. The world lurched back to normal speed. Marcus finished his step, his fingers clamping down on... empty air. He blinked, looking down at his hand, then looked at the wooden crate in front of him.
The entire middle section of the shelf was completely bare. Fifty bottles of premium royal medicine had just vanished into thin air in the blink of an eye.
"What the..." Marcus stammered, his jaw dropping as he rubbed his eyes. "Where did the third row go? I swear it was right here!"
"Marcus, stop playing around!" the hooded man barked, turning around to grab a bag from the side wall—only to realize the side wall was also completely empty. "Wait. What is happening to the stock?!"
Before they could even figure out the mystery, a voice come from the entrance. The gear I had jammed let out a sharp spray of sparks, and the massive door suddenly began to slide shut ahead of schedule.
"The lock!" the hooded man screamed, his creepy voice hitting a high-pitched panic. "The blood alterer is failing! The door is closing!"
"No! Wait for me!" Marcus shrieked, dropping his gold cane as he bolted toward the narrowing exit gap.