Chapter 246: Behind the Gloves

The auctioneer let the audience’s curiosity build before satisfying it with the information he had. The price he would announce would lend that information greater weight, even if the stone itself was not worth the money.

He lifted the box containing the red stone with both hands, taking care not to touch the stone with his bare skin. The precaution drew everyone’s attention, and the whispers gradually faded until the entire hall fell silent.

Every gaze was fixed on the red stone inside the box.

The last of the special and obscure items was always the most expensive and valuable of the lot, or at least the one with the most intriguing information surrounding it.

"And now, my dear guests, we have reached the final and most important moment of today’s auction."

The auctioneer raised the box before his chest as though displaying a medal.

"This beautiful red stone before you is the crown jewel of today’s auction."

"Yes!"

"Come on, man! Tell us what it is!"

The audience below Ravian began shouting, impatient to hear what was known about the item. The auctioneer seemed to realize that delaying any longer would do him no favors; it was time to reveal the sensational information he had about this piece.

He gestured to one of his assistants behind the platform, and an auction house employee immediately approached carrying a pair of gloves in both hands. They were black, an overpoweringly deep black, and he handled them as though they were no less valuable than the stone.

The employee handed him the gloves, then hurried back to his place behind the platform.

The auctioneer stared at them for several seconds, his expression difficult for the audience to decipher, Ravian included. He looked afraid, terrified even, as his gaze moved from the gloves to the red stone in the box before him.

’What’s going on here?’

That was the only thought running through the minds of those present, including Ravian and the Death Squad.

The auctioneer’s visible tension made this feel like something other than an ordinary auction. Some guests had begun whispering when the employee brought him the gloves, and they seemed to know exactly what they were.

"Aren’t those insulating gloves made using the darkness and space elements?"

One guest spoke to the person beside him, his voice reaching Ravian’s enhanced ears.

"They are, aren’t they?" his friend replied, looking equally astonished. "I noticed that too. Those gloves cost hundreds of gold coins."

"But why would the auctioneer wear something that expensive to insulate himself from spiritual power just to display a red stone?"

"I don’t know, man. This is starting to look suspicious as hell."

Ravian heard all of this from his seat in the elite room. He frowned slightly, his gaze returning to the auctioneer, who had put on the gloves but still hesitated before the stone.

’Insulating gloves?’ Ravian repeated the term, recalling what he had read about them. ’Aren’t those a more advanced version of the Seal Box that held the Eighth-Rank heart I received?’

These gloves were used to handle objects tainted with spiritual energy or dangerous spiritual objects that required caution. They insulated the human body from the object’s spiritual energy and prevented direct contact, using the space element to keep the two apart and the darkness element to absorb any residual energy that leaked through.

While the audience was still trying to understand what was happening, the auctioneer closed his eyes, swiftly reached into the box, and seized the red stone with both hands.

The movement was so sudden that several girls and noblewomen in the audience cried out in fright. He looked as though he were grabbing a bomb rather than the stone he had just been hesitating over like a coward.

The auctioneer held it for several seconds with his eyes still shut.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened at all.

As that realization sank in, he slowly opened his eyes, then smiled, looking absurdly pleased.

Now everyone in the audience shared a single thought.

’Has this auctioneer finally lost his mind?’

He seemed to realize how badly he had embarrassed himself, and that his suspicious behavior threatened to cost him his job. He hurried to explain.

"My apologies, ladies and gentlemen. But I wasn’t exaggerating just now, nor was that some sort of performance. I was genuinely worried about what might happen to me if I touched this stone."

His words had the desired effect, drawing the audience’s attention back to him.

"This stone..." He turned it from side to side between his gloved hands beneath the platform’s lights, as though presenting proof of its origins. "This stone caused the deaths of hundreds of people in the space of a single month."

His expression was flat as he delivered the words, and when his voice faded and silence fell once more, it felt more ominous than ever.

’What?’

Ravian was just as shocked by what he had heard.

"You heard correctly, ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer continued. "This stone contains spiritual energy whose source and purpose remain unknown. A group of Awakened sailors found it while traveling across the oceans, inside an insulated box floating on the water."

Ravian heard several gasps at the mention of the oceans, but the auctioneer was not finished.

"The Awakened opened the box to examine it and see what was inside." His expression filled with sorrow. "And there they found this gleaming red stone."

He held it in one hand to give the audience a better view.

"But do you know what was strange?"

He let the question hang over the hall.

"What was strange was that everyone who touched this beautiful red stone before you died a few days later."

The revelation swept through the hall like frost, shocking the entire audience.

"What?"

"Everyone who touched it died a few days later?!"

"Is it cursed?"

"Perhaps one of the Taboos placed a curse on it!"

The audience erupted in alarm at the consequences of touching the stone, but the commotion gradually subsided as they noticed something else.

Wasn’t the auctioneer touching it right now?

One of the few guests who had recognized the gloves raised his hand, and the auctioneer gestured for him to speak.

"Is that why you’re holding it with those insulating gloves?"

"Exactly!" The auctioneer pointed at him approvingly. "This stone causes its owner to die a few days later, but what do you suppose would happen if I wore insulating gloves?"

He let the silence feed the audience’s curiosity.

"Then I could escape its lethal effect. I might even give it to my blacksmith along with the gloves and have him forge a weapon from this unknown material, one that kills anyone who touches it, even ’by accident’!"

The audience immediately stirred again. Ravian heard voices rising above the usual whispers in the other elite rooms as their occupants discussed the opportunity.

But while all of this was happening, his attention was fixed on someone else entirely.

The auctioneer stood at the center of the platform, finished with his explanation and about to announce the stone’s price. Yet that was not what had caught Ravian’s attention.

It was the trembling in the man’s hands, both while he spoke and now that he stood silent. Ravian remembered how frightened he had been to pick up the stone earlier, even though he had already been wearing the gloves.

’And he never mentioned how the people who touched this stone died. Accidents? Murders? Natural causes? Assassinations?’

There were plenty of possibilities, but they all pointed to one thing.

This stone was dangerous in a way none of them understood, beyond anything the people gathered here could imagine.

The gloves seemed to reassure the audience, but they had not reassured the man wearing them. Ravian watched his trembling fingers, wondering how much of the auctioneer’s confidence rested on knowledge and how much on hope.

Before Ravian could pursue the thought any further, the auctioneer drew a slow breath and tightened his grip on the stone. The movement did little to hide the trembling in his fingers.

"Naturally, such a dangerous object cannot be evaluated by ordinary standards," he said. "Its true nature remains a mystery, and purchasing it carries risks that even our auction house cannot fully predict. Anyone who bids must accept responsibility for whatever follows."

That warning should have discouraged them. Instead, several guests leaned forward.

Ravian heard chairs scrape against the floor in the neighboring elite rooms. Below, wealthy merchants exchanged eager glances, while representatives of noble families whispered calculations to their attendants. To them, danger did not diminish the stone’s value. It increased it.

The auctioneer noticed their reactions, and a faint smile returned to his face, though his hands continued to tremble.

"Because of the uncertainty surrounding this item, there will be no formal valuation," he announced. "Its worth will be decided entirely by those brave enough to compete for it."

He lifted the stone higher, bathing his face in its crimson glow, then announced the starting price.

For one heartbeat, the hall remained silent.

In the next, bids erupted from every direction.