The massive obsidian door groaned shut behind Kaelen, the sound muffled by the still, ancient air of the Shattered Vault. Kaelen leaned against the cool stone, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the dusty floor. He was a Legend, a being whose internal clock ran on centuries, yet the infinitesimal stress of shattering the Residual Will had left him battered. His core was depleted, his muscles screaming from the sudden, near-fatal surge of the Iron Heart Slash. The sheer effort of achieving that 0.00001 second window had nearly cost him everything.
He allowed himself a brief, almost clinical assessment of his body—no permanent damage, just systemic fatigue. He regenerated quickly, but for now, the Legend was running on fumes.
He looked into the Vault's first chamber, known historically as the Atrium of the Forge. It was not a palace vault filled with neat piles of gold. It was a cavernous, dome-like space, impossibly high, that functioned as a disorganized warehouse for the most extravagant wealth imaginable.
Mountains of unrefined, shimmering Mythril and Adamantite ingots sat alongside stacks of faded, crystalline scrolls. Massive suits of forgotten armor stood sentinel, their power cores long dead. There were crates overflowing with gems and raw, glowing mana crystals the size of human heads. For the average power broker, this was enough wealth to finance a five-hundred-year war.
Kaelen barely glanced at the shimmering metal and gems. Raw capital is temporary. Knowledge is perpetuity.
His eyes immediately fixed on a corner choked with what looked like ancient, petrified papyrus rolls and metallic data tablets. This was the target: the high-grade cultivation techniques and the weapon blueprints needed to move his Grandmasters toward Sage-tier and allow his Legion to manufacture weapons that mattered.
A harsh, grating sound of boots on stone announced the arrival of the salvage teams. Grandmaster Lira, her elven features etched with cold relief, was the first through, followed closely by Belos, who held a protective, ready-to-detonate mana charge in his palm.
Behind them stalked the Hidden Sun Syndicate's representative, a Human woman named Vex with the sharp, indifferent eyes of a ruthless accountant and a cultivation base at Late Expert—a vast chasm of power below Kaelen.
"Lord Vayne," Vex greeted, her voice clipped and professional. "You were successful. The Syndicate is pleased. Per the terms of the secondary contract, the primary recovery team will now enter and begin securing the eight primary Mythic artifacts. You may proceed with auditing the twenty percent balance as stipulated."
Vex took two steps into the Atrium, already raising a hand to direct a squad of her Master-rank mercenaries toward a shimmering, fist-sized crystal that likely contained a Sage-tier core.
The Legend moved. Kaelen Vayne, still weak from the breach, did not speak or threaten. He simply stood up fully, allowing the full, crushing weight of his Legend-tier aura—the power that crushed Sages—to flood the chamber.
The ten Master-rank mercenaries from the Syndicate instantly collapsed to their knees, gasping, their mana cores trembling violently as their bodies instinctively sought self-preservation. Even Vex, the Expert, stumbled back three steps, her face draining of color as she understood the sheer, overwhelming truth: she was standing in the presence of a weapon of continental destruction.
"The contract terms are clear, Vex," Kaelen said, his voice quiet, almost a conversational murmur, but every syllable resonated with terrifying, undeniable authority. "I delivered the breach. I control the flow. Your teams do not touch anything until my auditors have secured the Legion's portion and logged the remainder. We will not be paid with your leftovers. We will select our fee."
The Ledger-like precision in his tone was more chilling than any battle cry.
Vex swallowed, her professional arrogance instantly dissolving into self-preservation. "Understood, Lord Vayne. We will await your instruction."
Kaelen nodded curtly. The matter of authority was settled. He turned to his own people.
"Belos, Lira, forget the gold and the gems," Kaelen commanded. "We are hunting IP. Find every single parchment, every crystalline scroll, and every metallic data tablet. Focus on anything related to the Alchemy, Metallurgy, or Cultivation disciplines. Lira, start logging every single Mythril ingot and Adamantite plate. We need a precise, verifiable inventory to check against the Syndicate's final count. We will treat their claims like a hostile takeover bid."
Belos looked from the piles of ancient weapons to the dusty rolls of script, his Master-engineer mind already cataloging the impossible task. "Understood, Lord. Knowledge first. We'll start with the scrolls."
As his two Grandmasters began the meticulous, time-consuming work, Kaelen moved deeper into the vast Atrium, his eyes scanning the architecture. The space was too large, too irregular for a simple treasury.
He stepped past a collapsed archway, wiping dust from a massive, ornate obsidian pillar. His heart—the heart of the man who once solved complex technical problems for a living—pounded. Engraved deep into the pillar was not a defensive spell, but a long, complex formula, a series of symbols describing the flow and manipulation of universal energy. It wasn't magic; it was the science of magic.
This isn't a vault, Kaelen realized, a slow, terrifying excitement building in his chest. It's the R&D lab of a Mythic-era genius. The wealth of knowledge here was not just worth hundreds of millions of crowns; it was the key to redefining the top powers of the entire continent, the key to solving the fundamental weaknesses of the Lionhart Legion forever.
But if it was a lab, the inner defenses wouldn't be simple traps. They would be experiments left running.