16 The Heist

New York City during nighttime was a spectacle to behold. Although it was past midnight, innumerable lights shining from the skyscrapers illuminated the sky, making it seem like it was still daytime. It wasn't called the 'city that never sleeps' for nothing.

From the suite on the forty-sixth floor of the Cosmopolitan, the girl with red eyes stared at the towering city skyline through the floor-to-ceiling window, deep in thought. Her gaze unfocused, she stared outside the window for a long time.

In the end, she exhaled a deep breath and muttered, "Shadow." The next moment, the calm surface of the girl's shadow was disturbed and ripples began forming in it. It twisted and turned, and soon an incorporeal figure jumped out of it.

The shadowy figure appeared to be a mirage. However, in the blink of an eye, it turned corporeal and formed the silhouette of a woman. The woman, who was wearing black clothes, had the same hair and eye color as the girl in front of her.

She placed her right hand on her chest and respectfully said, "At your service, young lady."

Still staring at the city skyline, the girl spoke without turning back. "We're still missing a necessary material for the ritual."

The woman asked, "And I suppose you know where it is?"

"I do." The girl turned back and her lips curled up into a smirk.

The woman confidently said, "All you need to tell me is the location, and the item will be in your hands by sunrise."

"The item I'm looking for is a red gem. It's part of a traveling jewelry exhibition here in Manhattan. According to the intel provided by the club, the gem is currently in Javits Center," the girl replied as she walked toward the couch.

After taking all the necessary details regarding the gem, the woman nodded. "Young lady, I'll be back before sunrise."

The girl nodded and solemnly said, "You must get it no matter what."

"Understood." The woman's body turned incorporeal once again and dissipated into shadows. She had completely disappeared!

Meanwhile, the girl looked at the place where the woman had just disappeared for a long time. She clenched her fists and softly muttered, "Soon…. I must be patient."

...

The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, commonly known as Javits Center, was a massive glass building that stood tall on Eleventh Avenue between 34th and 38th Street in Hell's Kitchen.

Security around the building was tight twenty-four-seven, but especially so at night. However, the guards standing at the entrance would never have imagined the building would be broken into by a superhuman.

Unbeknownst to them, their shadows flickered for a split second, almost as if someone had entered them and then immediately jumped out of it. The shadows of security guards and objects alike continued flickering until the movement finally stopped.

On a pedestal at the center of the building, which seemed to be the most secure place, surprisingly enough, no guards could be seen. However, the entire place was covered in red lasers. If so much so as a feather happened to touch one of them, blaring alarms would immediately sound throughout the building.

Atop the pedestal lay a red-colored gem the size of a fist. All of a sudden, the shadow formed by the pedestal formed slight ripples, and the next moment, a pair of red eyes could be seen lurking within.

The shadow seemed to have come to life as it slowly and quietly climbed the pedestal like a snake, the laser security system completely unaware of it. Soon, the shadow produced a small hand and, at lightning speed, grabbed the red gem atop the pedestal.

As soon as the gem was removed from its resting place, the entire building seemed to have woken up as blaring signals sounded throughout the place. But both the gem and the shadow were nowhere to be seen.

Traversing from one shadow to another, the woman with red eyes had a smirk on her face. However, right at that moment, her eyes narrowed and she was forced to jump out of the shadows.

The moment she jumped out, three spears made of stone suddenly protruded from the ground in the exact location of the shadow the woman had come out of.

She looked in a certain direction and coldly muttered, "I was wondering why this place didn't have a superhuman presence…."

Three men wearing suits slowly surrounded the woman. However, when they saw the color of her hair and eyes, their bodies trembled ever so slightly in fear. One of them pointed at her and spoke in horror, "I-Impossible…. You're—"

However, before he could finish his sentence, the woman had thrown a dagger at him that accurately landed in his throat. The next moment, she appeared from the shadow of the man.

She grabbed the dagger and plunged it further inside, instantly killing him. And that wasn't all; the following moment, dozens of black spikes made of shadows sprouted from around her feet and attacked the other two men.

However, they were on their guard and dodged the shadow spikes. But before they realized it, the woman had already escaped from the place.

"After her!" One of them yelled as he began to chase behind her. Everything had happened so fast that they were stunned. One of them was dead, and before they knew it, the woman was on the run.

The three continued fighting against each other as they jumped across rooftops or even in the alleys, drawing the attention of the surrounding people.

"Tsk, so annoying," the woman said in annoyance as she dodged a fireball. She jumped down from the roof and landed in an alleyway, planning to finish the fight. After all, the Cosmopolitan was less than a block away, and she didn't wish to bring too much attention upon her young lady.

The two men landed on the ground just a few moments later, but their states were miserable.

"Give back the gem and we can let you go," one of them tried to threaten. "We promise not to pursue the matter."

The woman simply scoffed. The next moment, her hands turned into black claws as she rushed toward the men. In their panic, the men raised their hands and aimed at her.

One of them shot a fireball while the other shot a streak of yellow lightning. But much to their surprise, the two elemental attacks went right through the woman! Then, her figure dissipated into shadows.

The next moment, she materialized from the darkness right behind them. With a wicked grin on her face that displayed her sharp teeth, she thrust her claws at lightning speed and stabbed right through their hearts.

Both of them spat mouthfuls of blood as life slowly seeped out of them. One of them turned his head backward to look at the woman. With great struggle, he muttered, "As expected… of the...."

However, before he could finish what he was saying, he had already died. Both men fell to the ground face-first. The woman looked at their corpses and scoffed, "Weak maggots."

The next moment, she took out her smartphone and dialed a number. A moment later, she said, "Yes, it's me…. I need cleaning services…" she looked at the two corpses which lay in a pool of their own blood, "...for two rooms."

After giving her location, the woman hung up. Without glancing at the corpses again, she blended back into the shadows and disappeared.

A few minutes later, a black van with a 'Waste Disposal' sticker on its body stopped at the entrance of the alley. Its doors opened and two men stepped out, carrying cleaning supplies with them.

They approached the corpses and meticulously wrapped them in a plastic bag, then tossed them into the van like garbage. Following that, they proceeded to clean up the blood and remove traces of fighting with great familiarity.

Not just that, one of the men who was still sitting inside the van was currently hacking into the Department of Transportation's data center and deleting any video footage of the fight that had taken place that'd been caught by the traffic cameras.

Within two minutes, the bodies had been loaded in the van and all traces of blood and battle had been thoroughly removed. All the cameras that had recordings of the woman's fight had also been deleted.

The van soon drove off and blended with the traffic, leaving none the wiser.