“Good luck to you two. Let’s survive this!”
Jonathan extended his hand and encouraged his two friends and colleagues.
Stella was filled with trepidation whereas Frey was half-worried and half-hesitant.
Unfortunately, it was too late to call off the heist or back-off now. Everything was in order, the bombs were planted by Joshua and Jonathan had prepared the Translocation Formation and informed Parmenas.
After many months, it was finally time to steal the Alchemy Scripture.
“W-what do I do?”
“You will wait here or in your dorm room. No matter what happens, don’t go outside.” Warned Stella as she playfully pulled Joshua’s cheeks, treating him like a kid albeit being the same age.
“The Golem will last for 10 minutes. If you don’t hear from me after that, run away.” Repeated Jonathan for the hundredth time.
Although Jan’s betrayal had emotionally scarred him, the youth didn’t let it get to him, instead, he focused on the mission and paid no heed to anything else.
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The sky above the Nemia Academy was dark and the only source of illumination were the long lamps at the sides of the roads.
The curfew prohibited all students from leaving the rooms, so the place was eerily empty. There was only the occasional passing of a teacher.
Amidst the deafening silence, there was a slight tremor caused by a loud explosion South of the campus.
A couple of seconds later, three other explosions occurred. As expected, the teachers and the Dean dispersed and headed toward the explosions.
The door to the building housing the Library was opened and two elderly teachers ran outside. They glanced at each other before raising their hands and mumbling an incantation. Their jobs were to protect the library, specifically the Vault, regardless of what happened.
Alas, before they could finish setting up the barrier, two projectiles flying at high-velocity struck their chest.
The poisoned throwing knives took barely five seconds to make the two of them fall to the ground, foaming leaking out of their lips.
Jonathan, dressed all in black and with a cloth hiding his lower face, rushed into the library. He headed toward the stairs and soon came face to face with the semi-translucent sturdy barrier blocking the second floor.
There were motionless statues, labelled as the Guardians towering over the stairs and seemingly dormant.
The youth retrieved a scroll and put it on the ground before spilling some glowing dust on it; The momentarily flashed with a bit of light before it vanished, but underneath it there was a magical rune engraved on the stairs.
With the one-way Translocation Formation set up, Jonathan took out a magical artifact that looked like an old and rusty lantern.
He poured his Mana into it, which made it shake left and right before letting out a thin but concentrated blast of energy.
He repeated it three times, which physically exhausted him. Nevertheless, he eventually broke the large barrier and awakened the guardians.
‘It’s now or never!’
The Alchemist spy pulled his sleeve and held his wrist with his other hand before gritting his teeth and unleashing his power.
His hand turned as pale as a corpse’s as all blood flow was cut off from it. When the pain was replaced by numbness, Jonathan picked the lantern at his feet and directed it toward his hand.
The artifact reacted instantly by releasing a golden brilliance that ate away at Jonathan’s hand. It stopped exactly at his wrist, and after a couple of breaths, it let out the same light, but on a much bigger scale.
A deep and low growl echoed across the library as the golem made its appearance. It was over 5 meters in height, made of weird yellow plaques and pipes, steaming coming out of its faceless head.
Jonathan quickly climbed on its shoulder and controlled it as the guardians made their move and swung their halberds in their hands.
The golem, with ease, deflected the attacks and then waved its large and mechanical hand at them, sending one flying to the side.
It followed up by taking hold of the second’s one halberd and pulling it closer. With the lantern in his remaining hand, Jonathan pointed it at the guardian and let out a blast of energy that made it fall, which allowed the golem to step on it and crush it.
Even though the golem was relatively slow, Jonathan stood on its shoulder and used it to move around the Vault. When he actually stepped into the 2nd floor, the place no longer looked like a library, instead, it was a large and circular room, dimly-lit and filled with numerous objects sealed with a cluster of moving black chains.
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What made the navigation difficult was the presence of random walls that made the room look like a small maze of some sort.
With the clock ticking and very limited time, Jonathan hastily controlled the golem and tried to find the Alchemy Scripture.
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A total of four explosions happened, respectively South, North, West, and East of the campus. It caused enough of a diversion for a couple of minutes, but it wasn’t enough.
That was when the former Deacon, Parmenas made his move. He was calmly standing near the magical rune of the Translocation Formation, but his wooden white staff was raised in the air and letting out threads of Holy Magic.
When he took out a blackened bone, the magical threads were instantly corrupted, but the worst was when they became uncontrollable and transformed into hideous living monstrosities.
There were at least twenty of those ungodly beasts, growling menacingly at the Deacon. They tried to attack him, but he had set up a barrier to protect himself, Stella, and Frey.
The monsters were intelligent enough to understand the futility of their actions, so, when they detected an abundant presence of ‘life’ in the campus, they rushed there.
“7 minutes.” Muttered the middle-aged man as he glanced at the apprehensive youths whispering to each other.
“H-he will make it.”-Stella
Unbeknownst to the three of them, there was an invisible entity a short distance away, eyeing them eagerly for a bit before it retreated.
‘I can see it now. Clearly.’
Arthur wasn’t personally participating in the heist, but he had sent two relatively unwilling ‘thieves’. One was Feylord Lernon, and the other was Teresa Moon.
The former had no choice in the matter as he was threatened by the parasite. Then again, he was after the Phoenix Feather, and he was told he could have it if he succeeded, but he reluctantly agreed.
It took no small amount of convincing, but by using the cultist’s ravaged and melted face, Arthur was able to instil dread into Feylord, making him obedient.
There was a big chance that he might fail or simply run away, but Arthur didn’t particularly care. Teresa was dumb enough to go through the trouble of stealing the records the parasite needed just for a fair battle against him. Feylord was there to assist.
As for Parmenas and the rest, Arthur was going to wait until things spiced up and the real target revealed himself. At that time, he might even be able to find the real Alchemy Scripture.
For now, he was going to be patient and wait for his two ‘helpers’ to do their job.
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The golem took large strides as it followed Jonathan’s orders and destroyed any Guardian that got in the way.
With 5 minutes remaining, the spy finally found a golden and eye-catching book with chains wrapped around it.
The golem tugged the chains, breaking them, before Jonathan successfully retrieved the Alchemy Scripture. He was excited to have finally stolen it, but he didn’t inspect it as he needed to find the Phoenix Feather too.
The book was stored in the safe isolated dimension of his artifact before the golem resumed its loud movements.
From the corner of his eyes, Jonathan saw two figures running between the walls.
‘Unholy Blasphemers?!’
His heartbeat accelerated and his face paled as he moved the golem away from them. They wore masks and were dressed exactly like the standard members of the Unholy Blasphemers.
Jonathan linked them with Jan’s desire to obtain the Alchemy Scripture, so he distanced himself from them rather than risk fighting and wasting more time.
“Move faster!”
Teresa nagged the slow and exhausted Feylord, whose physique was frail and pitifully average. While gasping for breath, he kept moving his head and searching for the distinguishable Phoenix Feather.
He had noticed the ginormous golem and the cloaked figure on top of it, which made him more afraid. Thoughts of cowardly escaping haunted his mind, but he persisted by clinging to the hope that the Phoenix Feather will literally change his life.
“T-this is it!”
They reached a small and short bookshelf glued to one of the stone walls scattered all over the room. Teresa leaned forward and squinted as she tried to read the titles of the books, but Feylord pushed her and did it himself.
Within half a minute, he found the book Arthur needed, pulling it from the shelf then urging the Demon to move on.
“We’re done here!”
“Not yet!”
The young man gritted his teeth and sprinted as fast as he could, his eyes jumping from one sealed artifact to the other.
At last, he noticed a hand-size feather, as black as ink and hovering in mid-air. Unlike the rest of the artifacts, it wasn’t wrapped in chains but sealed in a cubic and transparent pillar made of glass.
It was barely 15 meters away, still and unperturbed by the chaos. While holding his breath, Feylord ran toward it only for one of the guardian to fall from above with a spear thrust at him.
Teresa appeared next to Feylord, pushing him out of the way before punching upwards.
A blast of purple flames engulfed the guardian, deflecting its spear and making it crash to the ground.
“Be quick about it!”
Teresa leapt at the guardian again, but Feylord couldn’t do it as Jonathan and the Golem also appeared.
The two, for a seemingly long second, looked at each other. The golem stomped on the ground and performed a backhand slap toward Feylord, who used his Pyromancy to defend.
Alas, his flames were useless as the golem’s hand struck him and sent him flying to the side like a kite.
Jonathan used the lantern to break the cubic glass and retrieve the Phoenix Feather.
As for Feylord, he sat up with difficulty while holding his broken ribs and coughing blood.
“Fuck! Fuuuck!”
He cursed outloud as his body refused to move, refusing to chase after what the prize he was seeking.
He saw Teresa Moon getting overwhelmed by two guardians and dashing towards the exit, while he laid on the ground, weakened and wounded.
“No… I can’t die like this. Not like this!”
He clenched his fist and stood up, walked a couple of steps and took the first turn to the right to hide from the guardians.
Much to his surprise, what met his eyes was a dead-end, in which laid yet another feather. It was vermillion, beautiful, and pulsating with a mesmerizing golden light.
Feylord was in disbelief as he unknowingly approached it and touched the glass sealing it inside.
In desperation, he kept banging on the glass trying to break it, but it was merely an exercise in futility. He was nowhere strong enough to use brute force to break it.
At his wit’s end, Feylord channeled his Mana into his hand and unleashed a burst of fire. Unlike his pitiful first attempt, the fire did cause a minuscule crack on the glass, which made him pour all of his Mana and use everything he got.
After two and long minutes of painstaking effort, part of the glass shattered, so Feylord slipped his hand and held the feather. The rush of adrenaline helped him overcome the pain and sprint toward the exit as he clutched the Phoenix Feather in his hand.
He felt a comfortable heat emanating from it, one which made his whole arm ignite in vermillion flames. Nevertheless, he was too preoccupied with escaping to question what was happening.
In 60 seconds, he arrived at the staircase and found a groaning Teresa standing there. At first, he thought she waited for him, but when he noticed the red-haired woman with an eye-patch awaiting them on the first floor, his expression turned ugly.