Chapter 73 "Under Her Spell"

"Sold to the gentlemen number 104 for this session's auction!" said the auction host as he knocked the wooden hammer on his podium.

Some of the staff had already brought the next item to the stage as they were about to proceed to the next auction. The three people from the Chaos Insurgency just looked at it from a distance, casually watching it and waiting for the next move.

"Jeez, how come people just throw that amount of money like it's nothing?" Gale as he sipped a glass of champagne in his hands.

Vale laughed for a moment and replied, "They had a lot of money compared to you, that's for sure."

"I would if I had continued my career of robbing banks, but nah. It's more thrilling and fun to be here." said Gale.

"We should move now. Spending more time here would only just waste our time." said Skye. She looked at Vale and asked, "Has it finished already?"

"Yup, we've located where they could be hiding their precious items." replied Vale as she showed Skye her pinky finger, "We just need to follow it, and that's about it."

While there was nothing that could be seen in the eyes of Skye and Gale regarding Vale's pinky finger, only Vale herself could see something that was tied up to her finger as she was the one who had such ability.

A thin linen thread can be seen coming out of her finger, it expanded throughout the whole building and was connected to the needle that she threw before on one of the boxes that the auction staff was carrying.

Vale had located the location of the safe room that Marshal, Carter, and Dark use to store their auctioned items using her invisible thread. All they had to do was follow the thread to its end.

She gently pulled the thread in her finger, "It should be near here as the thread only moved for a few minutes. We can get there now immediately if you want."

"Well, I suppose there isn't anything better to do than watching these people spending their dirty money on some stupid things, right? Let's just go right at it!" said Gale as he couldn't hold his excitement.

Skye looked around for a moment and said, "Alright, Vale. Lead us to the room and get that spear immediately."

"Got it."

With that, the three of them started to make a move toward their target. Vale then started to pull the thread that was coming out of her finger into her as the others followed her lead as she was the only one who could see it.

They took a brief pause. Gale and Skye were puzzled as to why she had suddenly paused as she was trying to point to the entrance that had the two guards standing in front of it. Indicating their objective is there.

"The trail leads to that room, but people are guarding it. We need to get past them. Think you could do it?" asked Vale as she looked at Skye.

She walked up to the front, "No worries, I got this."

The guards instantly stopped Skye as she approached the front of the door, preventing her from entering. After that, she stroked one of the guards' chins, and his pupil began to dilate.

She also touched the guard's face with her hands while the second guard was going to stop her from what he could see as an inappropriate gesture—making him susceptible to her control as his partner did.

They could do nothing other than obeying her orders for the time being because they were both finally under her power. Skye then waved to the two of them, knowing that she had taken care of everything.

In the hallway leading to the safe room where all the auctioned things were kept, Vale and Gale made their way towards the entrance. The guards then took up their previous positions at the front door.

"Well, that was quick and easy." said Vale.

"It won't last long, so we need to grab it and just get out of here." said Skye as she quickened her step, "How far are we from the room?"

Vale looked at her thread in her finger, "It should be just around this corner. We just need to walk to that corner, and we'll arrive at our destination."

Gale hummed as he looked around the hallway, "Say, isn't it weird that something valuable to them like those artifacts and other things would be put under minimum security? I mean, they just put two guards outside and thought it would be totally safe."

He continued, "Even conventional bank companies would have better security than these guys. I mean, come on. You make millions of money from selling this stuff and couldn't even do proper security management."

"If you think about it. They might do this because they had confidence regarding their security in this place, or they're just plain dumb people who never expected such things like this to happen." Skye explained.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be the latter." Gale laughed.

They followed Vale's lead and passed through the intersection. With that, they could see the safe room where it holds all the items from Marshal, Carter, and Dark. The only thing that separates them now is the vault door.

There were no levers or wheels that were on the vault for them to open. By the control panels on the right side of the vault, they could guess that they would need to do a scan to open the vault.

"Well, this is gonna be a tough one," Skye sneered, "Can you open it with the equipment you have?"

Vale observed the vault door for a moment, and a look of doubt could be seen on her face, "I don't know. I have never seen anything like it. To be honest, I have never seen a vault without its handle to open it from outside."

"Any chance that it's custom-made by those people?" Skye asked.

After briefly humming, Vale began to take something from her hands. She began the equipment and used it briefly to examine the vault. She fiddled with it for a few seconds and sighed.

"Yeah, it was probably made specifically for this occasion. I guess there would be no other way than scanning someone's face into that scanner to get this thing open." Vale shrugged her hands.

She rolled her eyes, "I mean, we could probably do it forcefully, but it will take time. Considering how thick it is, I may need plenty of time while both of you guys fend off those guys once the alarm goes off."

Skye looked at Gale, "Well, I guess they're one step ahead of any of us."

"Well, now what?" Gale scratched his head as they were at a dead end despite their target being in front of their eyes.

"I mean, we sho-" before Vale could finish her sentence, Skye closed Vale's mouth with her hands.

A footstep can be heard and echoed through the hallway. It was light, and it seemed only one person was walking in their direction.

All of them were ready to ambush someone who was going toward their position. Vale was about to pull something out from her hand again but was stopped by Gale. He started to bite his thumb and inscribe his blood on the walls.