In the Atrium, the sound of the Automaton Angel's implosion was not a crack of thunder, but a deep, pressurized thump, like a giant heart seizing up deep beneath the stone. The light crystals embedded in the walls flickered wildly, casting dancing, erratic shadows over the massive piles of wealth.
Vex, the Syndicate's Expert-rank auditor, felt the energy spike and subsequent vacuum. She inhaled sharply, her calculated mask cracking for a brief, furious second. The Legend had won.
He is wounded, she determined, her eyes narrowed. No Legend expends that level of focused power against a simple Sage-tier defense and walks away whole. He is running on fumes. Now is the time to negotiate, or to push.
She watched Grandmaster Lira, the elven strategist, who had been guarding the rear archway entrance to the Forge. Lira stood like a statue, her hand on the hilt of her sword, ready to defend a Legend who was currently out of sight and, likely, moments from collapse.
"Remarkable," Vex called out, her voice carrying easily across the commotion of the Legionnaires dismantling the ancient armor. "Lord Vayne is as ruthless in solving technical problems as he is in combat. However, Grandmaster Lira, that explosive noise suggests significant structural damage to the deeper facility. If the Forge collapses, the entire Atrium could follow. Our contract dictates a safe extraction of assets."
Lira's eyes, steady and gold, never left Vex. "The Lionhart Legion is handling the safety assessment. Our priority remains unchanged: securing the Mythic Pillar."
Belos, meanwhile, was directing the brute-force operation around the twenty-meter obsidian slab. Eighty exhausted men and women—dwarves, humans, and scarred demi-humans—were hauling massive Mythril plates, using them as makeshift levers and counterweights against the pillar's base. The noise was indeed deafening: the screech of metal on metal, the roar of mana-powered cutting edges, and the grunts of exertion.
"Faster!" Belos yelled, his Grandmaster aura barely holding the chaotic energy together. "If that pillar shifts without the counterweights in place, the vibration alone will shatter the floor!"
Vex saw her opportunity. She didn't have the power to challenge Lira or Kaelen's authority, but she had the contract and the subtle weight of every major organization that backed the Syndicate.
She walked directly up to Belos, stopping just outside the ring of struggling Legionnaires. "Grandmaster Belos, as of this moment, the Hidden Sun Syndicate is formally declaring the Mythic Pillar an 'Unstable Hazard.' Any attempt to remove it without our geological and magical engineers is a breach of the safety clause." She gestured to her own, smaller team of Expert-rank scholars, who were clearly useless for the physical task. "We demand the pillar be left in place until a full stability review is complete."
It was a brilliant bureaucratic maneuver. If Belos stopped, Kaelen's most vital artifact was delayed, allowing Vex to recover her forces. If Belos continued, Vex had legal grounds to accuse the Lionhart Legion of causing the inevitable collapse, thus voiding the contract and seizing all the recovered assets.
Belos glared at Vex, his face mottled with rage and helplessness. He couldn't risk the safety clause, but Kaelen's order was absolute.
Just as Belos opened his mouth to contest the safety claim, a microscopic change occurred.
Deep within the Forge, resting against the cold wall, Kaelen Vayne had closed his eyes. He wasn't meditating or healing; he was listening. The residual chaos of the automoton's destruction, the frantic, loud efforts of Belos's team, and the sudden, predatory calm of Vex—it all flowed into his Legendary senses. He heard the bureaucratic trap being sprung.
He didn't move. He simply exerted a minute, controlled pulse of his Legendary Will—a silent, focused mana-wave that bypassed the physical defenses and hit Vex like a sledgehammer of cold, clear truth. It was a single, non-violent command, laced with the unchallengeable authority of his rank.
Silence, Vex. You know the price of impatience.
Vex stumbled back half a step, the blood draining from her face. It was not a magical attack, but a mental one—a chilling, undeniable reminder that she was playing checkers while her opponent commanded the continent's most powerful piece. Her professionalism was momentarily shattered.
"We proceed with the salvage," Vex said to her team, her voice low and tight with humiliation. "Maintain the inventory. Do not engage the Legionnaires. Do not interfere with the pillar removal. Wait."
Belos, sensing the sudden withdrawal of Vex's pressure, roared, "Keep pulling! Anchor the counterweights! Now!"
With a sound like granite grinding against granite, the twenty-meter pillar was finally, painfully, unanchored. It didn't fall; instead, it tilted slightly, secured by the enormous Mythril plates and chains. The Legionnaires cheered, but the sound of success was cut short by the deep, resonant crack that echoed up from the ground beneath where the pillar had stood.
Belos stared into the open void. "Lord Vayne," he gasped, grabbing a communication rune. "The pillar was sealing something. There is a secondary shaft below. It's too deep to see the bottom."
Back in the Forge, Kaelen opened his eyes. The Automaton Angel was dust, the silent chamber was his. He saw the crack in the floor.
Of course, Kaelen thought, a dangerous mix of triumph and fatalism. Why would the Forge Master only build one lab? This is the R&D level. The shaft must lead to the Power Core—the true source of this whole facility's lifespan. And if it's a source, it's a magnet.
He forced himself to take a single step toward the humming central apparatus—the heart of the Forge he had just compromised. He wasn't looking for a treasure chest; he was looking for a desk. The Mythic blueprints had to be stored near the central power source, where they could be easily accessed and modified by the original designer.
Kaelen found it behind the humming core: a single, simple metal cabinet. It was dark Adamantite, resistant to all known forms of energy and corrosion. It was locked. Not with a key, or a spell, but with an identity lock.
The lock demanded the thumbprint and mana signature of the Architect who built this place. The Mythic Forgemaster.
Kaelen leaned his forehead against the cold metal, his breath hitching. He was a Legend, a genius of innovation, but he was facing a door that could only be opened by a ghost. His mind, the technical mind that had solved the Angel, began spinning wildly, searching for a bypass, a loophole. How do you fake the identity of a Mythic being?