Chapter 70: looting everything

The hall was completely silent after the stone construct crumbled into a pile of sand. The air was still thick with the dense Spiritual Qi that had leaked out from the shattered battleaxe, but Barry did not waste any time looking at the wreckage. He walked quickly toward the high shelves on the left side of the room, his hands moving rapidly to sweep the glowing spiritual stones directly into his personal inventory space.

Suzy stood near the central platform, holding a cloth sack she had brought from the village office. She began manually packing the rare ores and small weapon pieces from the lower racks, her movements swift and organized.

"Barry, my bag is almost completely full," Suzy said, looking over her shoulder at him. "But there are still five more shelves of premium stones left on the back wall. We cannot leave these behind for Malakor’s men. If the border kings get their hands on this much raw energy, they will buy enough mercenaries to surround Oakhaven within a week."

"Don’t worry about the space," Barry said. He reached out his right hand, touching the edge of the third shelf. With a single thought, the entire row of glowing minerals vanished into air, transferred instantly into his private storage slots.

Suzy turned around and stared at the empty shelf in surprise. "How did you do that? I didn’t see you open a storage artifact or use a space ring. Where did you put all those stones?"

"It’s just a private inventory I keep," Barry replied with a normal smile,. He kept the system screen completely hidden from her sight, as the golden interface box was visible only to his own eyes. "A good partner always keeps a secret vault for emergency assets."

Suzy let out a soft laugh, shaking her head as she tied the top of her cloth bag. "You have too many secrets, Barry. But as long as the accounts balance out, I won’t question your distribution methods."

Suddenly, a loud, muffled thud come from the brick staircase outside the doors. The vibration was followed by the distant, faint sound of weapons clashing against shields, carrying all the way down from the upper pass.

Barry stopped his work, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the entrance.

’System, check the perimeter layout outside the crevice,’ Barry thought, pulling up his internal tracking log.

[System Notification: Warning, host! King Malakor and King Brandon have just arrived at the main canyon junction with a force of three thousand elite border soldiers! Victor’s five-hundred-man squad has formed a tight shield wall, but the enemy has deployed two siege crossbows. The rear gate will be completely breached in five minutes!]

’We are completely outnumbered at the front door,’ Barry analyzed inside his head, his teeth clenching slightly. ’ If I go out there right now and use the full power of the Heaven-Splitting Sword Strike, I can probably wipe out their front rank, but it will leave my core completely dry. Fighting two Ascendant kings with zero energy left is a terrible business deal.’

He turned back to face Suzy, his face serious. "Malakor’s main army just arrived at the crevice entrance. They brought three thousand men and siege units. Victor is holding the line, but we are completely blocked from the main path. We need an alternative exit."

Suzy’s expression turned serious as she dropped her bag to the floor. "The Prince’s audio diary said this treasury was fully sealed, but a manufacturing facility like this always needs a ventilation system to release the hot air from the lower boilers. Look at the ceiling bricks."

Barry looked up at the high roof of the vault. Right behind the central platform, hidden behind a large pipe that ran down the wall, was a square opening covered by a grate. The gap was only two feet wide, barely large enough for a young child to crawl through, let alone two full-grown Ascendant experts carrying bags of ore.

"The ventilation shaft is too narrow, Suzy," Barry said, measuring the square with his eyes. "You might be able to squeeze through if you drop the cloth bag.

"Then we leave the equipment behind and run," Suzy said, her hand tightening on her sword guard as she looked at the doorway. "The enemy is already halfway down the stairs."

"I don’t leave premium inventory behind for the competition," Barry smirked. He walked over, grabbed Suzy’s cloth sack, and touched it with his palm, sending it straight into his system storage slots alongside the spiritual stones.

Before Suzy could even express her shock at the missing bag, Barry triggered the internal link to his core energy. His human clothes and his six-foot frame dissolved smoothly, vanishing into a quick flash of light as he shifted completely into his snake form.

He moved silently across the smooth floor, his small body slithering straight up the pipe on the back wall with incredible physical speed. He reached the grate, opened his small jaw, and secreted a single drop of his new [Lethal Core Venom] directly onto the locking pins. The dark toxic fluid hissed quietly, eating through the metal bars in less than three seconds until the grate fell outward into the shaft without making a single sound.

Barry slithered back down the pipe, snapping instantly back into his six-foot human form right in front of Suzy.

"The path is open, manager," Barry said, his voice calm. "I am going to carry you through the shaft in my snake form. It’s the only way to bypass the narrow brick space without getting stuck."

Suzy blinked, her face turning a tiny bit red as she looked at his tall posture in the room. "You... you can carry me in that small form?"

"A good manager always finds a way to transport the primary asset safely," Barry laughed, stepping closer. "Just hold on tight."

He triggered the transformation once more, his body shrinking back into the three-foot body. Instead of staying on the floor, he slithered up Suzy’s leather boot, coiling his light body securely around her waist like a tight belt, his head resting safely near her shoulder tunic.

Suzy took a deep breath, braced her feet against the pipe, and used her high Ascendant agility to leap straight up into the open ventilation square. With Barry’s small reptile form guiding her path through the tracks, they slid deeper into the mountain layout, leaving the empty, looted treasury vault completely behind them just as the first footsteps of King Malakor’s vanguard reached the doors below.