I slipped into another room and shut the door behind me immediately. That door was a boundary. Beyond it, the two sharpest minds in the academy were already forming hypotheses, edging closer to the truth with their relentless logic. Inside, I was a cornered rat clutching an artifact that could manipulate time, something I couldn't afford to use carelessly. I couldn't.
After several tense minutes, the doorknob began to turn.
I didn't panic. Panic is a product of emotion, a luxury I couldn't afford at this moment. My mind, still running at heightened speed thanks to my forced cultivation session, processed scenarios in fractions of a second. Fighting them would be suicidal. Both were brilliant, and Irene, I suspected, possessed hidden combat capabilities. Escaping through the window would make too much noise. Staying put meant I'd be discovered once they switched on the lights.
I chose the fourth option. The least logical, the riskiest.
As the knob turned all the way and the door began to open, I channeled Void Essence into every corner of the room. What I did now didn't create darkness, I expanded the darkness that already existed. At the same time, I formed a sound-null zone. The air in the storage room turned cold and dead. With what little strength I had left, I pressed my body against the high ceiling, letting my Void Essence blur my outline with the shadows above.
The door opened. William and Irene stepped inside.
To them, the room appeared empty, shrouded in an unnatural, suffocating silence.
"He's gone," Irene said, her voice muffled, sound refused to carry here because of the Void Essence. "We're too late."
"Maybe," William replied. He didn't switch on the light. Instead, he pulled a small device from his pocket, probably a portable Essence sensor. I felt its pulse as he activated it. The needle inside flickered wildly for a moment, then settled back to zero. "No trace of active Essence. But there's residue. Something that absorbs energy rather than emits it. Odd."
He stepped slowly to the center of the room, directly beneath me. I held my breath, even though I knew he couldn't hear it. Every muscle in my body tensed, straining to hold my position against the ceiling.
"Your assistant theory makes sense," Irene said, her eyes scanning every shadowed corner. "The real thief staged an illusion on the stage, while an accomplice did the physical work. The linen storage room the butler mentioned… that awkward young servant, Timothee. He's the most likely weak link."
"We need to find him before anyone else does," William said. "If this 'W' is as clever as we think, he won't leave a witness alive."
They turned and exited the room, closing the door behind them. They were headed straight for the linen storage. They'd just given me my next objective—and my ticking clock. I had to reach Timothee before they did.
I released my grip from the ceiling and landed on the floor without a sound. A wave of dizziness hit me. Maintaining the Void Essence shroud while holding my weight in that unnatural position had drained most of what little energy I had left. I needed to move, now.
I slipped back out into the corridor, which had now become a hunting ground. I could hear the distant shouts of guards and the fire alarm still wailing. Augustine's manor was now on full alert.
I moved through the back corridors, using every bit of my knowledge of the building's layout to avoid patrols. I was no longer a guest or a technician, call me what I really was: an intruder in enemy territory. Every corner could conceal a guard. One wrong door could be a trap.
I had to find Timothee. He was the loose thread that could unravel everything. Killing him would be the cleanest solution, but it would leave a body, and trigger a much deeper investigation by Fravikveidimadr. I couldn't risk that. I needed to silence him another way.
I found him in a tiny pantry near the main kitchen, hiding behind stacks of flour sacks, trembling in terror. He'd heard the alarms. He knew now that he'd stumbled into something far bigger than a simple errand.
As I approached silently, his eyes went wide with horror. His mouth opened to scream.
I didn't give him the chance. One swift motion, my palm struck the back of his neck precisely, hitting the nerve cluster that would knock him out instantly. His body went limp and crumpled to the floor.
Now came the real problem: how to silence him permanently, without killing him.
I dragged him into a darker corner, behind racks of cheap wine. I stared at his pale, terrified face. I had a theory, more accurately, a dangerous application of Void Essence I'd never tried before. The Throne of Nothing mentioned it only in one vague paragraph: the ability to erase or overwrite memories by channeling raw Void energy directly into a subject's temporal lobe. But the process was wildly unstable, risking permanent brain damage or madness.
"Damn it," I whispered to myself. I had no other choice.
I placed two fingers on his temple and closed my eyes, focusing what scraps of strength I had left. I didn't force brute energy through, I threaded the thinnest strand of Essence I could, like a surgeon's needle, sliding into his mind.
I could feel his memories, a vast, chaotic maze of neurons. I saw his fear of the butler. I saw his love for the Countess's maid. And I saw his memory of me, a masked figure handing him the small bottle.
With painstaking care, I began to cut. I isolated the memory of our encounter, the box he placed. I didn't destroy it, I wrapped it in a cocoon of Void Essence and pushed it deep into the lowest levels of his subconscious, the place that stores the thousands of mundane moments we forget forever.
Then, I began to write. I planted a false memory, something simple enough for his panicked mind to accept. He got nervous because of the big event, stole a bottle of wine from the kitchen to calm himself, drank too much, and passed out in the pantry. No masked figure. No box. Just a foolish servant who did a foolish thing.
The process felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire. One slip, and I could wipe out his entire personality or turn him into a vegetable. Cold sweat trickled down my forehead behind the mask. My aperture burned, dangerously close to empty. My head pounded.
Finally, it was done. I pulled my Essence back. I uncorked a bottle of red wine from the rack, splashed some onto Timothee's clothes for scent, and set the empty bottle next to him.
I left him there. Now he was a defused time bomb. When William and Irene found him, they'd see only a frightened drunk, not a witness.
Now, I had to get out.
The aqueduct route was no longer safe. They'd probably found it by now. The front and back doors were heavily guarded. My only option was to blend in with the chaos of the guest evacuation.
I needed a new disguise. I slipped into one of the guest rooms on the second floor, its occupant had fled in a rush. I found an outfit that would work: silk trousers, a ruffled shirt, a brocade vest. Enough to pass as a spoiled young noble. I stripped off my technician's uniform and put it on. In the mirror, with my white hair and pale face, I looked like a sickly noble's son. Perfect.
"Clothes." I whispered.
The uniform vanished into the void—one of the small tricks I'd earned from the Throne of Nothing.
I rushed out and merged with a cluster of guests being herded toward the main exit by the guards. I walked among them, shoulders hunched, wearing a mask of panic.
As we neared the main lobby, I saw them, William and Irene, standing by a massive pillar, eyes scanning every face. They weren't looking for a noble. They'd be hunting for someone out of place, someone suspiciously calm.
I couldn't just walk past them. They were too sharp. I needed a distraction.
I spotted my mark, Cassian Droct. He was near the front of the group, loudly berating a guard about the "incompetent security" of House Augustine. His arrogance was a perfect weakness to exploit.
With a motion that looked like a panicked stumble, I crashed into him from behind. I deliberately spilled a glass of wine, snatched from a passing servant's tray, straight onto his expensive boots.
"What the hell is this!" Cassian roared, spinning on me, his face red with rage. His aristocratic eyes looked down at me with disgust. "You, you miserable wretch! Look what you've done!"
He grabbed my collar. "Do you know how much these boots cost? Probably more than your entire worthless bloodline!"
The commotion immediately drew everyone's attention in the lobby. Guards moved in. More importantly, William and Irene's eyes flicked away from the crowd, to my little scene.
I didn't resist. I just stared at Cassian with wide, terrified eyes, mumbling apologies like a scared servant.
"Enough, Lord Droct," a guard commander said. "We have to evacuate everyone now. Deal with this later."
Cassian shoved me hard, and I fell. "Next time, watch where you're going, maggot," he snarled before stalking off, still fuming.
In the chaos, while everyone's eyes were still on Cassian, I slipped back into the crowd, moving swiftly toward the exit. I drifted past William and Irene, who were still too distracted to spot me for what I was.
I made it out through the main doors. The cold night air slapped me in the face. I didn't stop, I kept walking, melting into the panicked crowd of guests, then slipped away into Clockthon's dark alleys.
I had done it.
I returned to my sky manor just before dawn, alone, the cold weight of Chronos Salvation heavy in my pocket. On paper, this was a victory: I had the artifact, I'd evaded pursuit, and most importantly, I'd silenced the witness.
But as I stood in front of my mirror, stripping off the stolen noble's clothes and staring at my own reflection, I felt no triumph. My aperture was nearly empty. My head throbbed with the aftershock of the memory operation. Sure, I could survive on Void Essence alone, but that was far too dangerous. That's why I made it secondary, aperture primary.
I had underestimated my opponents. I'd made mistakes. William and Irene now knew there was a player of 'W's caliber in this city. They'd hunt harder. The Consortium knew I possessed a powerful artifact, making me a more valuable asset, but also a bigger threat, since I could strike them at any time. And House Droct… I'd humiliated them in front of the entire royal elite. Next time, they wouldn't send petty assassins. They'd send something far worse, and I'd have to be ready.
I held Chronos Salvation in my hand. The golden pocket watch felt heavy, not because of its physical weight, but because of its potential. The power to manipulate time was madness itself.
Every victory has its price. And I had the feeling that for this one, I'd be paying that price for a very, very long time. The game had just escalated to an entirely different level.