Under the night sky of Faloro, several figures were currently soaring through the air, sturdy, heavy, and broad Stone wings riding the cold evening wind of the dark night, carrying extremely heavy bodies forward, in the sky shone the bright moon and stars, while the earth was shrouded in darkness.
Among these flying figures, the leader was Angri, one of the Dark Gold Society's stewards; at this moment, he was spreading his Stone wings, using the wind power stored within them to fly in the air, and not far from Angri, two Stone Gargoyles with Stone wings were also flying, one of whom was Roque, and the other was a middle-aged man with slightly white hair and beard, wearing a standard gentleman's suit.
"How much further, Angri?"
During the flight, the older Extraordinary spoke frankly, and Roque, who was leading the way ahead, responded directly without turning back after hearing the question.
"Almost there, Kleven, that fellow has stopped, it seems he's finally reached his base, humph, to have run such a long distance, he seems quite cautious." Angri replied thus; compared to a moment ago, he now had a monocle on his face, and on the lens, streaks of flowing light seemed to pass through, Angri appeared to be using the information displayed in this lens to locate the distant presence and guide the team forward.
"After all this time, that thief hasn't discovered the slightest anomaly, humph... it seems his ability is only good for deceiving mortals, as an Extraordinary, he's really not much." The one speaking at this moment was Roque, flying on the other side, his eyes now showing a trace of anger and disdain, he seemed eager to find the thief who had nominally stolen his collection and teach him a good lesson with his true power.
"What you said is overestimating that thief too much, the counterfeit he stole was meticulously crafted from some fragments of Grand Steward Frederico, the'Shadow' concealment contained within it is subtle and profound, not something an ordinary Extraordinary can casually detect the anomaly of."
"That thief should have performed Extraordinary detection on the stolen item to remove traces like Beacons. But the Extraordinary anomaly concealed by the necklace in his hand cannot be seen with ordinary methods; only a powerful enough 'Lamp' exceeding the ordinary Chalk level would have a chance to reveal it, but that thief is a'Shadow', he doesn't have that ability."
After hearing Roque's statement, the middle-aged man named Kleven on the other side responded directly, and not long after, Angri, who was navigating ahead, also added.
"Kleven is right, that counterfeit wouldn't be detected by that thief because it came from the hands of Mr. Frederico and Mr. Dalis, although this thief's behavior of showing off in front of mortals is very clownish, it's undeniable that he has some enlightenment, otherwise he wouldn't have used the Church in Adria to string Garib along, his strength, perhaps exceeding ordinary Chalk, we shouldn't be careless."
Angri said this, and after hearing his words, Roque also nodded slightly and fell silent, quietly continuing to follow Angri as they flew further away.
Although the maria's light exhibition was a trap set by the Dark Gold Society for Thief K, the members of the Dark Gold Society anticipated Thief K's arrival, but they didn't think he wouldn't bring an irrelevant trophy like the Golden base with him for no reason, so they had no intention of capturing Thief K at the exhibition site from the start, instead waiting for him to steal the maria's light and then using the Beacon on it to track Thief K to his base, they all believed that Thief K would only hide the Golden base in his base.
Just like this, the three continued flying for a distance, until after several more minutes, the leader Angri began to slowly descend.
"Almost there, let's go down first."
Angri said this to his teammates behind him, and then the three of them quickly and slowly descended towards the dark earth below, and after a while, they landed on solid ground, looking around in the darkness, they found themselves in a relatively undulating hilly area, standing on a dirt slope.
After surveying the surroundings in the darkness, Angri directed his gaze towards another small hill not far away, under the moonlight, a dilapidated ancient fortress could be seen standing there, seemingly very old.
"That abandoned fortress is where the coordinates finally stopped, he... or rather, their base is there." Looking at the distant fortress, Angri said frankly, and after hearing his words, Roque beside him spoke again.
"It looks like a remnant from the Cold Moon Civil War... does he think this kind of old-fashioned fortification can protect himself? Heh..."
"Without further ado, let's begin."
Roque said with a slightly mocking chuckle, and then Kleven also spoke solemnly, after their words, the bodies of the three of them began to gradually sink, merging into the ground like sinking into water.
The three Stone Gargoyles who had submerged underground used their abilities to quickly approach the distant abandoned fortress, and after a while, they approached the fortress from beneath the earth and Stone, during this process, they used their abilities to sense the building structure of the fortress, and as expected, they discovered a clear space underground, from which fine vibrations were transmitted, indicating personnel activity there.
Through the vibrations, the three who had submerged underground perceived that the seemingly uninhabited abandoned fortress actually contained an underground space with multiple people active, and immediately accelerated their underground movement, submerging towards the space beneath the fortress.
During this process, they felt some Extraordinary detection of anti-substance penetration, but they quickly and successfully resolved it and continued forward, not long after, they had submerged behind the walls of the fortress's underground space, with only a thin Stone wall separating them, they were already able to let their sight penetrate the wall and see the situation inside the underground space.
As the three expected, unlike the pitch-black abandoned fortress outside, the underground space was now a bright scene, many places in this underground space were lit with Lights, several underground rooms and corridors were connected to each other, the interior was cleaned very neatly, various daily life objects and utensils were arranged orderly, completely unlike a desolate scene, it was clear that people had been living here long-term.
Through the thin walls, the three saw people wearing different outfits moving between the passages and underground rooms, and there were guards at various key bottlenecks, there were a total of about ten residents inside. The three began to continue wandering within the rock, observing the scene of the underground space from behind various walls and ceilings, searching for their target.
Not long after, their search finally yielded results, in an underground room with a closed door, spacious, and filled with various exquisite furniture, they found their tracking target, Thief K was located here.
At this moment, Thief K seemed to have just arrived at his base, still wearing his masquerade-like attire, and hadn't even had time to take off the half-mask on his face, he was sitting behind a large desk, playing with the trophy he had just obtained not long ago, the maria's light, and above the desk, an object that made all three of Angri's group extremely excited was placed, a Golden irregular body, this seemed to be exactly the Golden base that contained the maria's light crystal!
Under the burning gaze of the three, Thief K slowly removed the four largest crystals from the Maria's Light necklace and installed them onto the Golden Base, then began to fiddle with them seriously, seemingly trying to figure something out. However, after several attempts, there was no reaction. Seeing their opponent attempt this with a fake item, the three hidden within the wall couldn't help but want to laugh. Finally, after a simple exchange of glances and gestures, they decided to attack together.
Just as the odd character, still dressed in his ballroom attire, was carefully examining the object in his hands, a shadow darted out from the solid wall on the ceiling of the room he was in, launching a surprise attack from above towards the seated odd character. Roque, whose entire body was already covered in an incredibly tough layer of black-gray solid rock, was the first to strike, holding a sturdy Stone Spear in his hand and thrusting it towards the odd character, seemingly intending to pierce his skull.
Just as he was about to be impaled, the odd character sitting in the chair seemed to sense the danger from above. He kicked the table in front of him with his leg, causing his entire body and the chair to slide backward, avoiding the Stone Spear thrusting from above.
After the Stone Spear missed the odd character and embedded itself in the ground, its Spirituality was injected into the earth. Countless sharp bamboo shoot-like Stone Spikes suddenly erupted from the ground, rapidly spreading outwards from the point of insertion. Just as these ground spikes were about to pierce the odd character, he stepped out, stood up, and leaped into the air. After the ground spikes shattered the chair he had been sitting on, they quickly spread throughout the entire room, turning it into a spike hell. All the furnishings in the room were completely destroyed and rendered useless at this moment.
The odd character, who had leaped into the air, adjusted his posture in mid-air, then landed towards the spike hell below him. Then, like an acrobat, he stood firmly on a Stone Spike without moving, using only one foot. Holding the "Golden Base and Crystal Assembly" in his hand, he adjusted his top hat and said to the Roque before him with a smile.
"Oh dear... customers have come knocking so soon. It seems there was some accidental mistake in the previous performance."
The odd character said so, but the three members of the Dark Gold Society clearly didn't want to chat with him. After Roque's surprise attack failed, Angri and Kleven, also covered in a tough black-gray shell, burst out from the ground and walls. Each took a Stone Hammer and a Stone Axe and struck towards the odd character. Seeing this, the odd character nimbly leaped onto another Stone Spike, and the Stone Spike where he had been standing was fiercely shattered by a tremendous force.
Then, Roque also drew his Stone Spear and joined the other two in surrounding the odd character. For a time, the three Stone Gargoyles continuously maneuvered and attacked by constantly moving through the rock, completely ignoring the ground spikes. They continuously attacked the odd character from all directions using their weapons. And the odd character, in this extremely unfavorable terrain, continuously dodged the constant attacks from all angles, moving and jumping among the Stone Spikes, not being injured by the Stone Gargoyles' attacks in the slightest.
Seeing that ordinary conventional attacks were ineffective and couldn't harm the odd character at all, Angri temporarily disengaged from the close combat. While the other two continued to entangle the odd character, he flew back a short distance. Immediately after, orange-yellow patterns lit up on his body, and an incredibly hot flame was sprayed from his mouth, sweeping towards the entangled individuals. The other two Stone Gargoyles were not afraid of this level of flame, but the odd character might be.
Facing the incoming flames, the odd character, who had just skillfully dodged two attacks, grabbed his cloak and swung it, using the cloak to cover the flames in a turn. The flames covered by him miraculously disappeared and did not spread further. And when the odd character lifted his cloak again, a flock of white doves actually flew out from inside, flapping their wings and scattering in all directions of the room.
"What..."
Seeing this scene like a mortal stage magic trick, Angri widened his eyes in disbelief, while Roque and Kleven on the other side were not idle. They each opened their mouths, and after the Light flashed on their bodies, one sprayed out a thick mist, and the other sprayed out a bone-chilling cold air. Instantly, most areas within the room were enveloped by these forces. After being affected by these two forces, a layer of solid ice quickly formed on the odd character's body. In just a few seconds, the odd character was completely frozen onto a Stone Spike.
After the odd character was frozen and immobile, Angri immediately took action. He picked up his Battle Hammer and quickly flew towards the frozen sculpture in front of him, then fiercely struck the ice with his hammer. Instantly, the entire ice sculpture shattered into pieces. The three members of the Dark Gold Society quickly began searching for traces of the Golden Base among the shattered ice, but found absolutely nothing.
Not only that, they didn't even find the expected shattered body within the broken ice. Besides ice, there was nothing else among the scattered pieces.
"Not here... Where did that guy go?"
Seeing this situation, Roque couldn't help but speak. And just as he finished speaking, in a corner of the room, a damaged wardrobe squeezed aside by the ground spikes suddenly opened with a creaking sound. The odd character, wearing a black cloak, reappeared from inside, leaping onto a Stone Spike. In his hand, he still held the Golden Base and Crystal.
"Here I am, ladies and gentlemen..."
"You... How did you suddenly get there!" Seeing the odd character suddenly appear in an unrelated wardrobe, Angri couldn't help but ask in astonishment, while the odd character responded with a smile.
"Just a little escape magic. If you've often watched magic shows at the circus, you should have an impression. No matter what kind of environment they're trapped in... the magician will definitely escape in the end."
Adjusting the brim of his hat, the odd character with a half-mask smiled calmly at the three Stone Gargoyles before him. Hearing this reply, the three members of the Dark Gold Society couldn't help but take a step back together, exchanging glances with each other.
"Is this an Extraordinary ability? It's just a street trick..."
"This guy's ability is very strange..."
"Then don't get entangled with him here. Use a more direct method and finish this quickly!"
At the end of their exchange, Angri took out a large stack of talismans from his clothes and scattered them into the air with a wave of his hand. Upon closer inspection, they were clearly sheets of """Lamp""" Explosion Talismans!
"You can escape from there? Then I'll see where else you can run after I blow this whole place down!"
Angri said this, and then, accompanied by the appearance of orange-yellow light patterns on his body, a scorching radiance gathered in his mouth again. Kleven and Roque also began to imitate him upon seeing this, gathering explosive flames in their mouths.
Finally, the three of them simultaneously sprayed a fireball towards the basement floor. When the three fireballs touched the floor, they immediately exploded. The spreading flames activated all the scattered Explosion Talismans. Roaring explosions continuously echoed in the underground space. As the fire swept through every corner of the basement, its supporting structure also began to rapidly disintegrate, and a large-scale collapse began.