The first gargoyle lunged, its heavy stone claws whistling through the air with enough force to shatter a horse's skull. Arkael ducked, his movement so fast it looked like a frame-skip, and drove his blade upward through the golem's jaw.
CRACK. The suppressed energy detonated inside the golem's head. It didn't explode outward; it imploded. The stone shattered into fine dust, and the iron frame slumped into a heap of rubble without making a sound louder than a dropped book.
The second gargoyle opened its stone mouth to roar—a sound I knew would wake the entire manor. I immediately reacted, spending a chunk of my Faith to manifest a [Silence Zone] around the balcony. Arkael didn't even bother with his sword for this one.
He caught the golem's stone punch with his bare hand, the iron gauntlet screaming against the rock. He twisted the arm until the iron joints snapped, then delivered a kick that sent the construct flying into the ravine below. It fell in total silence, swallowed by the dark.
"Nice work," I whispered, though the effort of the silence spell made my spectral form flicker. "Now, find the service stairs. We have less than fifteen minutes before the main ledger is gone."
We slipped through the French doors and into the manor's interior. The hallways were plush, lined with gold-framed portraits of Valerius's ancestors, but the air felt heavy with the scent of burning secrets. My system was screaming at me now; the temperature in the basement was rising rapidly.
Using my [System Navigation], I projected a glowing path onto the floor that only Arkael could see.
"Left at the next junction. There's a secret staircase behind the tapestry of the 'Sun King'. Hurry, Arkael! He's using oil to speed up the burn. The system is detecting a chemical accelerant."
We reached the basement level, but the air here was different. It wasn't hot yet; it was bone-chillingly cold. It was the kind of cold that came from high-level necromancy.
"Stop," Arkael commanded, his body tensing into a combat stance.
I scanned the room with the system. "I don't see anything, Arkael. The thermal sensors are clear. The room is empty."
"That's because you're looking for things that breathe, ghost," Arkael said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, predatory whisper. "I'm looking for things that refuse to stay in the ground."
Suddenly, the stone floor beneath us erupted. Dozens of skeletal hands, wrapped in rusted iron chains and wearing tattered remains of Valerius's former house guards, burst through the rock. This was a Necrotic Trap. Valerius hadn't just hired mercenaries; he had desecrated the graves of his own fallen men to create a final, tireless line of defense.
"System, [Divine Light: Nova Flash]!" I screamed.
I released a burst of pure, blinding white energy from Arkael's chest. The undead shrieked as the holy light seared their ancient bones, turning the dark room into a strobe-light of horror. But they didn't stop. They were bound by blood-ink contracts that ignored pain.
Arkael became a whirlwind of obsidian steel. He spun in a circle, his blade decapitating five skeletons in a single arc. But for every one he shattered into dust, three more rose from the floor.
They weren't trying to kill him with swords; they were trying to slow him down. They were clinging to his legs, their iron chains wrapping around his armor, trying to pin him to the floor through sheer weight of numbers.
"Arkael, we're losing the window!" Ishouted, feeling themental strain of the synchronization hitting 60%. My head felt like it was being squeezed by a vice. "The furnace is at 900 degrees! The ledger is on the edge of the pit!"
"Get... out... of my way!" Arkael roared, his voice echoing through the manor like thunder.
He didn't use his sword anymore. He grabbed two skeletons by their skulls and slammed them together with such force they disintegrated into powder. He began to plow through the crowd like a juggernaut, dragging the iron chains and half-dozen undead clinging to his back along with him. He was a force of nature, a mountain moving through a sea of bone.
We finally reached the heavy, reinforced door of the Crimson Vault. It was glowing a dull, angry red from the heat inside. There was no keyhole—only a complex array of glowing runes that shifted and changed every second. It was a Dynamic Mana Lock, designed to be unhackable by mortal means.
"I can't break this physically without triggering the self-destruct mana-crystals inside," Arkael growled, punching the door in frustration. The metal dented, but the runes stayed lit, mockingly bright. "It's your turn, Manager. Hack the damn thing before I lose my temper and level the whole wing!"
I felt the mental strain reaching a breaking point. My physical body back at the orphanage was likely sweating or bleeding from the nose. To "hack" this lock, I had to project my consciousness into the door's internal logic, weaving my own mana into the gaps between the runes.
[ Warning: Overclocking System Processing... Mental Strain: 85% ]
[ Risk of Permanent Neural Damage! Faith Pool: 400% Remaining. ]
"No! Keep it open!" I screamed internally.
I dove into the runes. It felt like being submerged in a pool of boiling oil. The magic of the lock tried to reject my "foreign" divine signature, sending jagged spikes of pain through my mind.
"Focus... focus on the prime sequence..." I told myself.
I saw the "logic" of the lock. It was based on a sequence of ancient Prime Numbers and the alignment of the stars. It was clever, but it was linear. I used my 21st-century manager's brain—the part of me that handled complex spreadsheets and logistics—to calculate the bypass. I snapped the first layer... the second... the third.
"Almost... there..." I gasped, my spectral form nearly transparent in Arkael's mind.
The massive, three-ton door swung open with a hiss of superheated steam. Arkael didn't wait for it to fully open. He burst into the room. Lord Valerius was standing by the furnace, his face twisted in a panicked grin as he tossed armfuls of papers into the roaring fire.
"Die in the flames, you nameless orphans!" Valerius screamed, his voice muffled by the crackling heat. "Die with my secrets! I am the law in this valley! I am—"
Arkael's gauntlet closed around the Noble's throat, lifting the round, velvet-clad man off the ground as if he weighed nothing. The grin on Valerius's face turned into a wheeze of terror.
"The Manager said I can't kill you," Arkael hissed, his face inches from the terrified Noble's. "But she didn't say I couldn't make you wish I had."
I quickly used a [Kinetic Pull] to snatch the heavy black ledger from the pedestal just as the first spark touched its cover. It flew into Arkael's free hand.
"We got it," I whispered, my voice sounding weak and distant in our shared mind. "We got the evidence. Arkael, look... the contracts. They're all here. The names of the children he sold... the embezzled taxes... it's all here."
But the victory was short-lived. Suddenly, a loud, crystalline ringing sound echoed through the entire manor. It was the sound of a High-Tier Alarm, a signal directly linked to the Capital's Garrison.
"The vault was rigged," Arkael said, his grip tightening on Valerius. "The moment the door opened, it sent a pulse to the local Inquisitors."
From the narrow window high in the vault walls, I saw the lights of the distant city. A dozen flares of brilliant white light were rising into the night sky. The Inquisitors. They were coming.
"We need to go, Arkael," I said, feeling the synchronization slipping as my mental energy bottomed out. "The 'Clean' mission is over. Now, we run."
Arkael tossed the unconscious Valerius into the corner like a piece of garbage and tucked the heavy ledger into his belt. "Hold on tight, ghost. This is going to be a very loud exit."
He turned toward the balcony, but the wall behind us exploded in a shower of stone and dust. A group of elite knight in shimmering silver plate armor burst into the room, their swords glowing with holy light.
"Halt, heretics!" the Captain screamed.
Arkael didn't halt. He grinned, a dark, terrifying expression. "Finally. Someone worth hitting."