Eternal Thief

The instant the idol shattered far below the earth, Ace felt it, a tremor in the fabric of his cultivation heart, followed by a deep, resonant hum that rose like a heartbeat awakening for the first time.

Ace was flabbergasted before he quickly peered into his inner world. At that moment, the incomplete Sin Seal that had barely reached a quarter formation despite devouring so many corrupted abyssal beasts with Sin Law in the mines, surged as if swallowing a river of scarlet light.

Ace had no idea where this strange surge of mysterious yet profound Qi had come from. Still, he could feel it contained the purest form of Sin Law, specifically the Law of Gluttony, as the black-crimson radiance coiled around the Sin Seal, tightening, sharpening, and forging it.

Ace gasped softly, “…what’s happening to you?”

The Sin Seal didn’t answer with words; instead, it seemed to roar, and a shockwave rippled through his inner world, causing all seven Sin Stars to flare momentarily.

Wrath crackled, Pride vibrated, Greed shimmered, Lust pulsed, Envy flickered, Sloth glowed faintly—and at the center, Gluttony burned with strange resonance, devouring the ripple of foreign power still clinging to the forming Seal.

Thereafter, ’click’…a crisp sound echoed through Ace’s inner world, and the Sin Seal snapped into clarity, no longer blurry or skeletal. It now shimmered with a terrifying, deliberate perfection.

It looked like a crimson chain-glyph wrapped around a burning black core, the two opposing forces, law and sin, entwined, locked in harmony, consuming and judging, devouring and refining.

’A complete Sin Seal!’ Ace stared and was stunned., ’It didn’t even finish after devouring those Abyssal Grand Lord and Abyssal Lord Realm Abyssal Beasts, but now it has suddenly completed. How…?’

At that moment, he stopped because something deeper pulsed inside the seal. It was a faint echo, like a memory but not his own.

The feeling was strange, like a weighty, ancient presence, carrying the scent of judgment and the most significant one… death!

Most of all, the Seal radiated ownership as if something had bowed to him.

As if something corrupted had been forcefully purified, broken, and offered as a tribute.

Ace didn’t know it, but the shard of the idol’s power that the Profane Chains annihilated had rushed into him through the dominion circuit, ushering the Sin Seal to completion, which shouldn’t be possible for Ace to do yet; it was a totally unexpected boon.

Nonetheless, for Ace, it was simply a massive stroke of fortune because, despite having only created a single Sin Seal, it was enough to become Ace’s biggest trump card!

“…Sin’s Dominion is even more insane than I expected.” His breath steadied, and he gently touched the inner world with his will, feeling the power of the Sin Seal.

The completed Sin Seal pulsed once, and a tidal wave of insight struck him.

Profound principles of sin, corruption, purification, resonance, judgment, and devouring all at once.

It wasn’t knowledge through words; it was instinct, law, and instantiated truth flowing into him like water, and even Abyssal Kings couldn’t come in contact with something so profound that Ace was experiencing despite only being an Ascension Master!

At that moment, he staggered with a hint of ecstasy, “If just one Sin Seal already… feels like this…”

His fingers tightened, “…then what would ten feel like? One cycle? One hundred cycles?”

He trembled, not from fear, but from the terrifying potential of Sin Dominion left behind the Ancestor of Profane Chains, and according to the Ancestor, it still wasn’t complete!

But Ace quickly collected himself as his expression became somber, “This power… I have to be careful…”

The Ancestor’s warning came to his mind: ’Should your heart waver, Sin will not serve you—it will devour you!’

Ace exhaled deeply and forced himself to be calm, and the Sin Seal glowed quietly, as if acknowledging his restraint. Yet even as the exhilaration faded, Ace frowned.

Because buried deep within that Sin Seal was something else, something he didn’t understand like a foreign pulse, a trace of something shattered, a remnant of fear… and devotion. Like the heart of a believer torn from its god.

Ace shook his head and regained his calm since he needed to ’recover’.

If Dread Duchess were to know that the one who ’helped’ her in destroying the idol of the Undying Draugr, and unknowingly saved her from a terrifying fate, was Ace, no one knows how she would’ve reacted.

—

After Ace left the Black Hermit Mines, no one noticed, but the chaos within the mines lessened by half, and those Abyssal Beasts running rampant seemed to have calmed down a little.

Furthermore, some Abyssal Beasts even tried to leave the mines as if liberated from some dictatorship, but because of the Dread Duchess barrier, nothing can escape.

Mirage Shadow no longer returned to the mines because she was ordered to secretly look after ’Nomad’, while also making the real Khazar regain consciousness, which was nigh impossible. After all, he seemed to have fallen into a coma after pleading to Ace and Zaria.

However, what not even the Dread Duchess had expected was that while she was investigating and finding the Cult of Undying Star clues, two thieves were about to loot the Black Hermit Market!

Following the incident at the Black Hermit Mines, a city-wide martial law was declared, which resulted in the closure of the Black Hermit Market and a directive to the owners to remain closed until further notice.

Moreover, since the Abyssal Beasts were running rampant, no one in their right mind would go out for shopping, so the entire market was dormant, and those shopkeepers and guards were inside their shops, paying attention to the Black Hermit Mines.

But even they hadn’t expected that someone would be daring enough to raid their shops, especially after Dread Duchess made her presence known. Furthermore, they were incompetent, for they all belonged to various powers and individuals affiliated with the Evernight Council.

Yet, because of this exact reason, their guards weren’t up, and after Zaria recovered from her exhaustion with Ace’s help and her astounded recovery speed because of a peculiar effect of her bloodline, they didn’t waste any time and started to move, and they weren’t far either, for they were hiding in the market.

Lastly, this time around, Zaria was more confident because the target wasn’t some lord castle but measly shops that didn’t have those high-grade formations and master locks!