He suppressed every trace of his presence; even the small Fire Unicorn he usually kept at his side now slept inside his storage ring. With predator-sharp eyes, he surveyed the valley below.
A demonic array sealed the entrance, and a warping forcefield bent any probing sense away from the gorge. Charging straight through would be marching to his doom.
“A clever array…” he murmured, the faintest grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Rather than force a breach, he waited. He timed the guard rotations, memorized the rhythm of their lanterns, and studied the momentary flickers in the array’s current. At the same time, he slipped a thread of spiritual sense into the valley—so light, so fluid, it slid past every detection node like quicksilver.
Bit by bit, the hidden layout unfolded in his mind. At the center stood a colossal obsidian hall where subterranean flames roared beneath the floor.
Dozens of blacksmiths toiled there, and farther inside loomed several frightening auras, the strongest a Level Six Heavenly Immortal, seated like a dragon on its hoard.
Spread around the forge, he sensed three warehouses crammed with ore and half-finished blades, and, buried under the main yard, a vault whose brilliant aura screamed of completed treasures.
A Level Six Heavenly Immortal… Troublesome, but not impossible to deal with…
Jared’s goal was loot, not slaughter. If he moved fast enough, he could strip the vault and vanish before any Level Seven Heavenly Immortal even stirred.
So he waited, an hour, maybe more, until the time before dawn when it was the darkest, and guards grow dull with fatigue.
His chance was here!
A patrol team finished their shift, and the replacement squad had yet to arrive, leaving a heartbeat of empty ground. At that same instant, the valley array rippled—an almost invisible distortion born of the subterranean fire’s pulse.
Okay… Now!
He moved. Space folded around him as he triggered a flight art woven with Spatial Law; to any watching eye, he simply vanished from the cliff and reappeared inside a shadowed corner of the gorge, as if night itself had carried him there.
No sound, no quake, not even the faintest shimmer betrayed the trespass.
Jared slid into the gorge. Dense demonic energy and furnace-hot wind rushed at him, blistering the air like a desert storm breathed straight from the pit.
Drawing one steady breath, he folded his presence inward. Chaotic energy thinned and reshaped, mimicking the fiery miasma until his outline dissolved into the shadows of every ruined wall.
He avoided the main corridors, choosing crooked service paths instead. His spiritual sense fanned outward like invisible radar, catching each patrol stride and every hidden sentry’s heartbeat long before they emerged.
When an array barred the way, he lifted one finger. A hair-thin filament of chaotic energy sliced the array’s core node with surgical precision, killing the current just long enough for him to pass.
Each motion flowed into the next, timing and force in perfect harmony, and he moved through the den with the leisure of a man strolling a quiet garden.
Soon, a squat warehouse of rough stone loomed ahead—the first ore depot.
Two Level Two Heavenly Immortals slouched beside the doors, eyelids drooping in the stifling heat.
Jared’s eyes cooled to glacier steel. He flicked his fingers twice. Twin threads of Prismatic Sword Aura whispered through the night and bored into the men’s brows, shredding their souls before fear could rise.
The bodies collapsed, silent, as though sleep had simply deepened into death.
He pushed the doors wide. Stacks of ghost-lit iron, dark soul stone, and other cursed alloys glittered in wavering green.
With one sweeping gesture, his chaotic energy swirled into a vortex, swallowing the mountain of supplies like a whale gulping an ocean mouthful, and funneled it all into his storage ring. Barely five heartbeats passed.
He repeated the raid on two adjoining depots, harvesting half-forged blades, spear shafts, and other wicked components until each shelf stood empty.
At last, he halted before the underground vault that housed completed weapons, the most heavily guarded site in the valley.
