Chapter 1216: Blood & the Sixteenth Key

It did not really explode outward; Consort was far too controlled for something so crude. Instead, every trace of softness vanished from her face while one hand settled around the hilt of her katana with such quiet finality that Phei immediately understood what would happen if he allowed her another three seconds.

He caught her wrist... Consort looked toward him.

Phei shook his head once: "Not yet."

What would her anger even do? could she take on all the cultivators with the same cultivation base as her?

She knew rushing would only get her and Phei killed.

Her fingers remained closed around the sword, air around them felt suddenly thinner. Phei looked back toward the vial, and something colder than the wasteland above settled into his eyes.

Elena’s little sister.

The bastards had taken blood from Elena’s young sister.

His jaw tightened.

Eira had showed him the Ashford estate whole fight Consort had been there.

The One Above’s protection had been hanging over the estate whether the attackers understood it or not and the two families had already discovered exactly how suicidal it was to treat an Ashford home like an unlocked storage room.

So how the hell had Danton gotten close enough to Damien’s daughter to collect blood from her?

Phei turned slightly toward Consort. "How?" She understood immediately: "If you and the One Above were protecting the Ashford estate, how did they get her blood?"

Consort’s stare remained fixed upon Danton: "The day before the attack on the estate, Young Miss travelled here to the island with Master Damien."

Phei’s eyes sharpened.

Consort continued. "They were away from the estate’s that day. Danton must have arranged it exactly the same time when the Void-Djinns attempted to seize the Ashford key."

Because let’s face it, Danton and boys used to be under Consort, Phei and Consort knew that but they must’ve been stupid to think Danton was going to rely on his Void-Djinns just because he didn’t know the depths of his former master’s power before Danton awakened.

He was anything but fool was not what you’d use to describe the current Danton! While Consort and One Above protected the estate, he’d a plan B in place being executed just in case and voilà, see what happened!

Phei slowly looked back toward Danton.

Of course.

"A Plan B." He was not surprised.

Annoyed, certainly but also impressed against his will, unfortunately.

But surprised?

No.

Danton had spent eras surviving situations where the first plan failed. Expecting him to send thieves after the Ashford key without preparing another method would have been almost insulting to the bastard’s intelligence.

Danton knew the One Above.

Or at least, enough to know their existence and since the mysterious Master behind the Red Door found Phei and placed him at the center of whatever impossible grand scheme she was weaving, Danton and the other Legacy Progenitors had once carried out her bidding. Danton therefore knew better than most that an Ashford operation could suddenly encounter interference that ordinary strategy could not explain.

He had prepared for failure.

Phei’s eyes narrowed.

"Crafty bastard." If Phei wasn’t long then, did Danton also prepare the same plan for each of the other families too?

Eira glanced toward him. "You sound almost proud."

"I am deciding which part of him I hate most."

"That list may require a book with several volumes."

"Try a leather-bound book."

"Naturally."

Phei’s attention returned to Consort: "She’s okay then now?"

That question finally pulled her gaze away from Danton. "The Young Miss?"

"Yes."

Consort hesitated for barely a heartbeat: "The last time I checked, she was unharmed."

Phei’s expression did not relax.

"When?"

"Before the attack."

His eyes narrowed.

Consort added, "I have not been at the Ashford mansion here on the island for several days."

That was not the answer Phei wanted but it was also the only honest one she had after all, Consort was also a person with several things to do.

"Fine." He released her wrist. "But we’re confirming that the moment this is finished."

Consort nodded.

At the base of the tree, Danton had climbed toward the opening as if something inside the orb were calling it and the crimson spilled across the deep-blue sphere.

The reaction was instantaneous.

A magic circle exploded into existence beneath the sixteen keyholes.

Phei’s True Void Sense recoiled.

Golden inscriptions spread across the living tree in enormous rings, thousands of characters igniting one after another until the entire lock resembled a celestial formation carved into the heart of creation itself.

The blood vanished into the orb; for one breath, nothing happened before the empty Ashford keyhole lit crimson.

Phei stared.

The blood had become the missing key.

"That’s disgusting," he murmured.

Eira’s expression was much less amused now. "But effective."

The fifteen keys turned all at once and heavy metallic click echoed through the hidden realm.

Then another.

And another.

Sixteen invisible locks seemed to release somewhere deep inside the colossal tree, each sound heavier than the last.

Liquid gold began leaking from the keyholes.

Phei’s eyebrows rose.

It did not drip downward: the molten radiance flowed through the inscriptions surrounding each lock, travelling along the enormous magic circle in branching streams. Every ancient character filled with gold, first slowly and then faster, until the entire formation burned like a small sun against the dark trunk.

The final streams reached the central orb.

Blue became violet, violet became white then the entire sphere turned gold.

The luminous tree groaned... Phei felt the sound through his bones as the hidden realm shook violently.

Water leapt from the river below in great silver waves. The enormous bridge trembled beneath their feet, while thousands of blue lights fell from the canopy like stars shaken loose from heaven.

A fracture appeared in the tree.

Then another.

The massive wall beneath the lock began opening.

Living roots withdrew from one another with ancient reluctance, revealing darkness behind them. The door widened slowly, its edges spilling gold light across the valley until an opening several dozen meters high formed inside the tree.

Something moved within.

Fast.

Phei barely registered it before a small object shot from the darkness; it looked almost ridiculous at first.

A box no larger than something one could hold beneath an arm before it flew beyond the threshold, stopped in midair and began expanding.

Phei’s eyes widened.

The box became the size of a coffin.

Then a car.

A room.

A house.

It continued.

Metallic surfaces unfolded over one another while ancient seals awakened along its edges. Corners stretched farther apart. Reinforced bands thicker than bridge supports appeared across the exterior, and whatever substance formed the object changed between black, bronze and a strange deep gold depending upon where the celestial light touched it.

Within seconds, the little box had become enormous.

A vault.

No: ’A fortress pretending to be a vault.’

The Coffer hovered before the luminous tree like some ancient bank treasury torn from a divine civilization and dropped into the modern world without explanation. Its doors alone were several stories high, engraved with sixteen interlocking crests whose designs shifted whenever Phei tried following them too closely. The material itself felt wrong beneath True Void Sense. His perception touched the surface and found almost nothing beyond it, as if the Coffer rejected the idea that being observed was a right other beings possessed.

Phei stared.

"That... is the Coffer?"

Eira floated closer to his shoulder: "Yes, Master."

His eyes travelled over its ridiculous size. "That’s smaller than I expected given the treasures you said it holds."

Eira looked at him.

Phei looked back.

She smiled: "That is not its real size."

Phei became silent.

Of course it wasn’t.

Why would anything tonight possess the decency to stop being absurd when given the opportunity?

The eleven Chained moved as several rose into the air and surrounded the Coffer, taking positions along either side while chains hanging from their bodies rattled beneath the enormous treasury’s golden radiance. Their hands pressed against the strange material, and the sheer difference in scale made even World Transcendents look like attendants preparing to carry a particularly arrogant piece of luggage.

Danton floated before them.

His gaze moved once toward the open path leading away from the tree.

"Move."

The Chained obeyed.

The Coffer began travelling.

Its enormous body floated from the hollow beneath the tree while the eleven World Transcendents guided it forward. Danton took position behind them, golden flames faintly circling his body as the procession headed back toward the passage beneath the dead Titan.

Phei watched quietly.

The keys remained behind in the tree and Ashford blood had vanished.

The Coffer was finally outside its hiding place.

Everything they had waited for was now moving.

Eira touched him lightly, the world folded and Phei, Eira and Consort disappeared from the hidden realm and reappeared near the lips of the enormous entrance beneath the Titan, once again facing the murderous Dead Winter Realm outside.

The cold greeted them with screaming wind.

Frozen mountains groaned beneath the storm.

Meteor-sized masses of ice continued falling from the ruined heavens, smashing into the distant wasteland in blue-white explosions while the corpse of the Titan slept above them beneath ages of frost.

Far behind, Danton and his eleven Chained were approaching with the Coffer.

Phei looked into the storm.

His expression slowly changed.

The hours of preparation, upgrades, True Void training, Lust Reality, Consort’s unexpected arrival and every ridiculous little piece of the plan had finally reached the point where none of it could remain theory.

The thieves had succeeded.

They had opened the Coffer and removed it from its sanctuary.

And now they were carrying centuries of stolen Legacy wealth directly into Phei’s playground.

A smile spread across the Young Dragon’s face.

"It is time to steal from the thieves themselves."