Chapter 66: The Grand Heist’s Idiotic Punchline

The shadow rain’s fading mist clung to the jagged edges of the charcoal crevice, obscuring the exact shape hiding within the darkness. Kerwon’s eyes locked onto the silhouette with lethal precision, his hand tightening on the haft of his planted halberd.

To anyone watching, it looked as though the bleeding, bare-chested intruder had finally been cornered, trapped flat against the freezing stone with nowhere left to run.

Kerwon took a sharp step forward, his voice cutting through the damp air like a blade. "Show yourself," he commanded, a low, venomous rumble vibrating in his chest.

"Let’s see what kind of rat crawls in the dirt of my Lord’s kingdom."

But as the heavy, dark mist finally parted, the illusion shattered. It wasn’t Cassius who stepped out into the dim torchlight.

Instead, a normal, low-tier vampire slave stumbled forward from the deep recess of the rock face. His skin was grey, caked in heavy ore dust, and his posture was permanently hunched from years of carrying jute bags. He had simply been separated from the hauling line, a mindless casualty of the system trapped in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The broken slave couldn’t comprehend Kerwon’s question. As the elite executioner closed the distance, a raw, primal panic took over the low-tier worker. The innocent vampire bared his fangs, letting out a loud, frantic hiss that echoed sharply off the cracked granite pillars, his chest heaving as he growled blindly at the high-ranking officers.

Kerwon’s face darkened with immediate, cold anger at the disruption. He sneered, looking down at the wretched creature with pure revulsion. "A mindless beast," Kerwon spat, turning his head slightly toward the pale, trembling assistant general.

"Get this filth out of my sight before I paint the stones with it."

The other assistant general, beside Kerwon’s father... moved instantly to salvage his own pride, lunging forward to grab the innocent vampire by his rough half torn tshirt.

The slave thrashed violently, his frantic growls and wild hissing filling the damp cavern as his bare feet scraped uselessly against the grimy stone floor.

Without a shred of mercy, the officer dragged him away, the harsh sounds of the struggle echoing down the dark corridor while the real intruder remained completely unseen, buried deeper within the true shadows.

Kerwon turned his back on the retreating sounds of the struggling slave, his posture relaxing into a fluid, dangerous grace. He stepped toward his planted halberd, his fingers wrapping slowly around the cold metal of the haft.

With a smooth, casual pull, he dislodged the heavy blade from the stone floor, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the immediate perimeter, checking the surrounding shadows and the edges of the granite pillars one last time for any lingering threats.

Satisfied with the quiet, his gaze dropped back to the grimy dirt. He leaned down with a calculated slowness, plucking the weathered, brownish paper from the stone floor.

He didn’t spare a glance at the assistant general’s, basically his father’s empty pocket. Instead, Kerwon used the tip of his fingers to unfold the thick, stained paper, expecting to find the heavy leverage or ancient secrets that an officer would guard so closely as an order of the Lord.

He unfolded it fully under the dim torchlight, only to find the surface completely blank. There were no ledgers, no names, and no political conspiracies. The vast expanse of the aged parchment was entirely empty, save for a single, very small English word written precisely in the center:

Idiot.

Kerwon stared at the single, mocking word, his face freezing into a mask of pure disbelief before settling into a terrifying, rigid stillness. The pristine composure he usually carried as the silent, elite assistant to the vampire king didn’t crack into erratic movement; instead, it hardened into something deadly and precise.

His sharp eyes darkened, veins faintly pulsing against his pale jaw as a suffocating, lethal aura flooded the immediate corridor.Kerwon stared at the single, mocking word, his face freezing into a mask of pure disbelief before settling into a terrifying, rigid stillness.

The pristine composure he usually carried as the silent, elite assistant to the vampire king didn’t crack into erratic movement; instead, it hardened into something deadly and precise. His sharp eyes darkened, veins faintly pulsing against his pale jaw as a suffocating, lethal aura flooded the immediate corridor.

With a slow, deliberate twist of his wrist, he crumpled the thick parchment, threw the paper to the ground, and slammed his heavy military boot directly over it, grinding the insult into the grimy dirt.

When he spoke, his voice wasn’t just a loud scream; it was a deep, guttural roar that carried the absolute authority of the throne, vibrating so violently that dust drifted down from the cracked granite pillars.

"Bring that wretched bastard to me right now!"

The sheer force of the command made the surrounding sub-officers and low-level guards flinch violently, their bodies locking into a state of sheer panic as Kerwon stood motionless, his boot still crushing the paper, staring into the deep shadows with the cold, focused promise of an executioner.

------

The oppressive atmosphere of the dark corridor faded, replaced by the suffocating stillness of Fukuro’s secret base.

Deep within the hidden sanctuary, Cassius sat motionless behind a massive rack of old, rotting books. The towering wooden shelves loomed over him like a protective barrier, heavy with the scent of decaying parchment and ancient binding glue.

He had pulled his knees tight to his chest, his large frame compressed into the narrow, dark gap between the back of the shelf and the cold stone wall.

He was completely camouflaged. The tattered, grime-stained fabric of his slaveric outfit blended perfectly into the deep shadows of the recess.

Weeks of accumulated dust from the cracked stone walls and the neglected bookshelves had settled over him in a thick, grey layer, coating his shoulders, his hair, and the coarse material of his clothes. Even the ancient books themselves, coated in decades of undisturbed soot, seemed to bleed into his silhouette, erasing any human shape.

"That was far too easy," Cassius murmured, his voice barely a dry whisper that died instantly against the dusty shelves.

From just a few meters away, cutting through the heavy silence of the hidden room, a voice drifted toward his hiding spot.

"But how did you manage to pluck that paper straight out of high security?" the voice asked, laced with a mix of genuine disbelief and mild amusement.

"Were you a thief in your past life?"

Cassius didn’t even bother to open his eyes. He remained completely motionless, leaning back against the crumbling, shredded stone wall with a rare, heavy exhaustion.

His large hands were loosely folded over his chest, anchoring the true, weathered piece of brownish paper where it rested securely on his tummy. Caked in a thick layer of grey shelf dust and soot, he looked less like a living threat and more like a discarded statue left to rot among the ruins.

From just a few meters away, the silence stretched until the voice spoke up again, tinged with a bit of impatient friction.

"HELLOWW? Are you even alive in there?"

Cassius didn’t shift an inch. He simply let out a low, slow breath that blew a tiny circle of dust off the parchment on his stomach.

"I don’t feel any pressing need to share my life story with you," he muttered, his tone entirely flat and drained of energy.

"I’m tired. Leave it."

The words had barely left his mouth when the entire heavy wooden structure groaned violently.

With a sudden, ridiculous display of brute force, Fukuro stepped directly into the space.

Without warning, he grabbed the massive, towering rack of ancient books and shifted the entire shelf out of the way in one swift, comedic jerk. The sudden movement sent decades of accumulated dust exploding into the air like a localized grey cloud, hacking and coughing as the heavy volumes rattled dangerously against their frames.

Through the thick, swirling haze of soot, Fukuro loomed over the resting vampire, looking absurdly strong and entirely unbothered by the absolute mess he had just created.

Fukuro wrinkled his nose, coughing lightly as he swatted away the thick cloud of gray dust he had just unleashed. He looked down at Cassius, a sharp, mocking grin cutting across his face as he gestured dramatically toward the resting vampire.

"Wow, what a hypocrite," Fukuro scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

He leaned in closer, his eyes narrowing with a look of pure, theatrical disbelief as he took in Cassius’s relaxed posture.

"First, you go ahead and destroy precious human architecture," Fukuro continued, shaking his head with a sharp chuckle.

He pointed a finger directly at the weathered paper resting on Cassius’s stomach, his tone dripping with absolute irony.

"And then you sit there playing games with that exact same human."

Cassius didn’t even open his eyes. He merely shifted his weight against the shredded stone, turning his towering frame to the other side to pull himself deeper into the shadows. A tiny cascade of grey dust slid off his shoulder as he settled back into his resting position.

"Get your a$$ out of my space," Cassius muttered, his voice heavy with a deep, bone-weary exhaustion.

Fukuro’s eyebrows shot up, his dramatic posture freezing instantly.

"What?"

Cassius didn’t move an inch, his back remaining firmly turned toward the loud intruder as he tucked his arms tighter against his chest.

"Your face..." Cassius growled softly into the dark corner. "...get it out of my sight."

Fukuro let out a sharp, mocking laugh that cut right through the lingering dust in the hidden room. He didn’t drop his arms; instead, he leaned his weight entirely against the edge of the shifted wooden bookshelf, tilting his head down to look directly into the shadows where Cassius lay.

"Firstly," Fukuro began, raising a single finger to count, his voice dropping into a cutting, deliberate rhythm.

"The thing you are talking about was carved within years... a masterwork that you cannot even see overall in Asia."

He paused, a sharp smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. He uncrossed his arms, taking a deliberate step closer to the wall until he was looming directly over Cassius’s turned shoulder, his eyes narrowing with theatrical pity.

"Secondly," Fukuro scoffed, pointing two fingers mockingly toward his own eyes before flicking them toward Cassius’s profile.

"Your eyesight is far too weak... just like your pathetic little dream to cure everything about this pristine Kingdom."

He straightened back up, his expression completely wiping itself clean of humor, leaving only a cold, blunt realism. He looked down at the resting vampire one last time, turning away with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Thirdly... your identity here is just calculated as absolute trash."