Eternal Thief

Noa stood in the center of the vast underground treasury, her pitch-black eyes cold and calculating. The once-glorious vault, filled with treasures, wealth, and illicit spoils, was now eerily empty.

Not a single spirit coin remained, and not a single hidden compartment was left unchecked. Every last valuable had been stripped away, leaving only cold, barren walls as evidence of their meticulous plundering.

Behind her, Thomas stood in black robes, his head covered in a hood and face hidden behind a mask. Two slender, unconscious figures were slung over his shoulders, and his tall, muscular frame was unbothered by them.

Their ragged breaths and faint groans were the only sounds in the room. Their identities no longer mattered—perhaps they were high-ranking members of the Fiend Assassin Guild, or maybe they were mere unfortunate souls to catch Noa’s eyes. Either way, their fates had already been sealed.

Noa gave one last glance at the emptied treasury before turning away. “We’re done here,” she murmured, her voice devoid of any triumph.

“Well, Boss, you’re certainly ‘done’ here!” With a hint of exhaustion in his voice, Thomas sarcastically stated that he had just fought a war and followed her toward the exit.

Noa seemed to get used to Thomas’s way of speaking, and like always, she ignored him. She didn’t care about anything else as long as he was doing his job and knew his limits.

As soon as they stepped beyond the treasury’s threshold, they entered a corridor that could only be described as a descent into hell!

Corpses littered the floor in grotesque, lifeless heaps, their blood pooling like spilled ink, staining the dark stone walls. Severed limbs, empty eye sockets, and expressions frozen in eternal agony decorated the passage like a grotesque masterpiece. It was a massacre—silent and absolute.

“Your poison has evolved again?” Noa impassively spoke as she walked through the carnage with an unshaken expression, her boots leaving faint crimson footprints as she stepped over bodies without care.

Despite his usual indifference, Thomas couldn’t help but glance at the devastation with an amused smirk and proudly said, “It’s all thanks to these vile bastards, oh, and also because of your graciousness and wits.”

But Noa shook her head, “You don’t need to flatter me; it was all your plan from the beginning. I was just cooperating with you. According to your contribution, half of everything is yours, and you can choose the reward you want from me.”

“I’m just happy to help. As long as Boss promises not to be reckless in the future, it’s all I want. If something happened to you, I won’t be able to face him.” Thomas curtly stated a hint of subtle intent in his tone.

But when he noticed Noa’s indifferent reaction, he could only sigh and change the topic, “Anyway, why did you take such drastic measures so soon? I thought we were going to wait until you joined the secret organization behind the Guild. Yet now, we not only emptied their treasury and robbed everyone, we even annihilated the entire core of the Guild.

“Furthermore, you also left these two troublemakers out, which means you have made up your mind. Has something happened back ‘home’?” He asked meaningfully.

Noa nodded and ambiguously replied, “We have a more important mission, so we have to abort our current tasks. Furthermore, I’ve already gotten what I wanted from here, so I finished it completely! As for these two, they are just out of necessity.”

Noa looked at the carriage; she had no remorse or guilt. The Fiend Assassin Guild had bathed in the blood of others for far too long, enslaving the weak, selling lives like commodities, and creating grotesque blood puppets from the corpses of their victims.

They walked the Evil path, and now, they had met their end in her hands. The underground headquarters, once teeming with life and whispers of deathly contracts, had become a graveyard—a tomb of silence and regret.

With one final glance at the ruins of an empire built on murder, Noa stepped forward. It was time to leave!

—

Alina appeared in the center of a white room. It was plain and simple, with the only exception being the walls, which were filled with mystical lights emitting sword intents. Each light seemed alive.

The moment Alina appeared, she looked at the white room and all those sword intents, and a complicated glint flashed past her eyes.

“Where did you go just now?” A gentle, ethereal voice drifted into the room, and the intents instantly trembled under this voice as if terror-stricken.

Alina’s eyes flashed with a hint of alarm when that voice rang. Before she could reply, a fairy-like woman adorned in a white dress appeared in front of her. Her long hair was completely white, her eyes bright gray, and a sword mark shimmered on her glabella.

“Master!” Alina hurriedly greeted respectfully.

Although she knew accepting the house meeting summoning could raise complications, she only thought it wouldn’t be a big deal as long as she returned quickly. Even if someone noticed, Lillian was standing guard outside her private cultivation chamber.

However, she hadn’t expected this woman to not only detect her disappearance but appear right here to interrogate her. Alina knew how terrifying this fairy-like woman, who was also her master, was, and the reason she could progress so much on her sword path was because of this woman’s guidance.

Still, Alina knew she had to leave this place now; after all, she could only choose between Thief House and here, and she would always choose the Thief House no matter how attached she became. She was still a thief, and she knew the rules.

“Well, at least you didn’t seem to be under someone’s spell. But I didn’t sense any space fluctuations around you either…how curious? Is this your physique awakening? Quickly tell your master!”

The woman’s eyes shone with child-like curiosity as she instantly lost her fairy-like demeanor and looked at Alina with a burning gaze. She didn’t even seem to care about Alina’s sudden disappearance at all.

Alina smiled wryly as she looked at the childish expression of her master in front of her and felt somewhat helpless.

But if anyone else saw her like this, no one would dare to believe that this woman was one of the Sky Swords of the Sky Sword King Tower, called the Phantom Sky Sword, who had a record of slaying three Quasi-Kings with a single sword slash!