Eternal Thief

Lilly glanced at Ville’s face before her eyes jumped to the token in his hand.

Her eyes shimmered with reverence as she bowed, showing her deep cleavage, and spoke, “Your excellency, it’s an honor to be in your presence!”

Ace knew why these demons were so submissive and respectful toward ‘Ville’ because Leona had told them her personal aid will be here, which meant someone with a superior status from the royal zone!

Although these demons had sold their loyalty to Leona, they did it because of her lofty status, or even if a demon king pay them lavishly, they would never dare to allow anyone to enter this place no matter what.

“Don’t waste my time. Open the vault!” Ville coldly ordered.

Lilly didn’t mind his indifferent tone and quickly responded, “Your excellency, as you know because of the impending threat of the thief name Sky Stealer, this treasury vault was built with peak-grade-5 materials, arrays, and formations.

“Beside me, only the Association President can enter this treasury vault without triggering anything. But I can’t take or touch anything and can only use a display formation to show treasures on the main stage, and then they will be returned to their respective places and locked down within a formation.

“Only at the end of the auction can these treasures be retrieved and given to the buyers. Before that, if anyone even touches them, the President would instantly know.”

She looked meaningfully at Ville and spoke gently, “I’m not questioning your capabilities. or anything. But if the alarm were triggered between your ‘switch’, this entire place will be locked!

“Furthermore, there’s a monitoring array and someone is always watching this vault, so you have to be mindful of showing yourself. You also have 20 minutes at maximum to do your mission, before the President will check this place through a monitoring array here. This is all I have to say. Please be careful!”

‘They really put a lot of effort into making sure if I come, I would never leave this place. Well, I wouldn’t have if this wasn’t ‘arranged’ and so well planned. I’m going to eat the fruit of their labor and even going to expose them.’ Ace couldn’t help but pull an ecstatic smirk on his face.

“Alright.” Ville coldly nodded without saying anything excessive.

Lilly knew time was essence as she quickly took out a formation plate before she activated it and a huge metal gate appeared behind her. She controlled the formation, and a small slit appeared.

She quickly said, “I can’t enter there between breaks. So, I can only open this small gap or you to sneak in, or they will notice it.”

Ace nodded before he vanished before Lilly.

She was startled. ‘So, this is the supernatural ability that gave them the confidence to pull this sham. Even I can’t sense his presence anymore. Well, this also means this task is as good as complete, and I will be able to enter the royal zone after this auction!’

Ecstasy filled Lilly’s face when she thought about the promised reward for taking part in this conspiracy.

Before, she was afraid and had doubts, but she had no choice since the person who ‘asked’ her wasn’t someone she would offend, so she complied. But now that she had seen Ville’s ability, she felt like it was all worth it!

However, she had no idea it was Ace’s heartless stealth, which was inferior to Paul’s innate ability, but to fool someone like her, his skill was enough. Only a manifestation realm cultivator could tell the difference.

Ace didn’t enter the vault after going into stealth because his stealth wasn’t ethereal like Paul, who could walk past even grade-6 runes without being detected. This ability made even Ace jealous.

That was why Leona selected Paul and made him enter the outer continent to silently use his ability and achieve her aim without anyone finding out about it.

‘This guy is extremely suitable to be a thief with this rare ability. Sigh… if only I could steal this ability, who could stop me then?’ Ace thought bitterly.

Nevertheless, he knew this wasn’t the time to be envious of someone else ability. He had a mission to complete.

Ace took out a grade five, which was the ghost lurking formation. It was valuable in this scenario. With this formation, he won’t trigger any traps on the floor as long as they didn’t exceed the formation’s runes by an entire grade. It was the same as Paul’s ability.

After attaching the active formation with his belt, he finally entered the vault through the gap.

He knew he had to proceed with caution and arrange everything meticulously if he wanted to complete the 3rd and 4th requirements, which included him to expose Leona and the upper echelon of the demons’ schemes to the world.

He had a rough idea of how he can do this!

Furthermore, he had to fool those who were monitoring this place so he could first steal everything. He can’t fiddle with those monitoring arrays either, or he was done for!

Although Leona had already handed Paul an illusion talisman that can fool those monitoring arrays for thirty minutes by making it look like everything was the same.

However, their goal wasn’t to steal anything from the treasury vault like him, but to replace an item with a fake one!

If the side mission hadn’t appeared, Ace would do what Paul intended to do from the start because the item they wanted to switch was the Myriad Hex Manual!

The Myriad Hex Manual was actually a Grade-9 Ancestral Grimoire left behind by Freya’s race, and their entire legacy about hex magic was stored in it.

Ace had two purposes for coming to this auction: first was to find a face and memories of the demons from the royal zone, and second, was to get this grimoire. The former was a must and had a very high chance of success, while the latter was optional in his mind and quite hard to achieve.

Because he knew for some time that this grimoire will be going to appear in this auction since everyone still believed he was a Hex Demon or Witch.

So, the Imperial Prince who came here before her sister Leona had bought this Grimoire just in case, to use as bait to entrap the hex demon if he failed to capture or refine him using normal means and this was his backup plan.

The Imperial Prince had never thought he would end up using this book in the end because the thief was just too deceitful and astute, and in these past years, the Sky Stealer would grow to such a height!

Even Grand Demon Duke was sent here to capture him, so he knew he can’t have the thief’s secrets and his ‘blood’ to himself. So, he had no choice but to let Grand Demon Duke in his scheme and raise some goodwill with him.

He was also wary and worried about his crafty sister, who seemed to have the same goal, and she was much stronger than him and more influential.

That gave him even more reason to share this plan with Grand Demon Duke.

Leona also got the wind of this from her spies in the association, and she also thought the chance of Sky Stealer taking this bait was really high. So, she can’t sit still and let his brother claim the credit.

That was when she decided to use Paul’s ability, bribery, and enticing rewards to win over every demon who was going to guard this place, just so she could take the book and exterminate any chance of Sky Stealer getting captured here.

Then she would’ve used this grimoire to lure him out, as for how only she knew.

Although this plan was flawless and could be completed without any hitch. But then Ace bought something that caught Leona’s interest, and she sent Paul to retrieve it.

In the end, she bought it upon herself and also sent Ace an enormous windfall!

If Ace hadn’t received this enticing side mission, he was also planning to switch the original grimoire for another fake and gave it to Leona. She would not know if it was real or fake unless she tried to destroy it.

But now the goal has changed, he also had to change his method.

The vault was extremely large, probably over five hundred square meters in diameter.

Furthermore, each item was aptly placed over a formation. In the center was a platform that led to the stage in the arena, and every item’s formation was connected to this platform.

‘This is going to be troublesome. I have little time, or that demoness outside might suspect something.’ Ace’s expression turned grave when he saw the security measures.

This treasury vault is specially constructed.

Even if Ace somehow managed to break past every security measure and enter this place. He would not have had an easy time taking the treasures and might make some lapses!