Chapter 230: the demon girl is a big talkative

The path between the charcoal kiln line and the main treasury bunker didn’t offer a single inch of dry cover. The rain had turned from thin sheets into a heavy, freezing downpour that washed the black coal slime off the railway ties, collecting in deep, oily pools between the granite track ballasts.

Jun-ho walked right down the center of the sloped siding. His large rubber boots made a slow, rhythmic crunch-squelch against the loose shingle, his left hand keeping a loose, steady grip around the new matte-black hemp wrap of The Ash Remnant. Under his dark gray hood, the stone-gray slabs of the Ashen Monarch Core Plate remained perfectly dry, the absolute physical density of his Level 34 frame making his posture look like an unmoving wall of iron against the wind.

Every five seconds, the heavy canvas duffel bag slung over his right shoulder gave a slow, leather clink as the brass lock of The Monarch’s Ledger knocked against his water flask.

Right at the corner of his left eye, the solid black numbers were waiting, perfectly silent.

[ Level: 34]

[ Mana: 3700/8500]

[Active Trait: Ashen Domain (Phase 4 – 70-meter radius)] ℯ

[ Current Framework: Strength Multiplied 6,000x]

Tae-woo and the four elite vanguards formed a tight, heavy wall right behind his shoulders, their massive Tier 4 frames making the wet gravel creak under their weight. Their wide blocks of dark basin rock were hoisted ready, their iron knuckles clean and steady as they kept their eyes fixed on the massive, square structure looming through the gray mist ahead—the main treasury bunker.

The bunker didn’t use a standard steel frame door. The entrance was a massive, twelve-foot slab of reinforced gray mountain granite set straight into the foundational bedrock of the city, its edges sealed with three layers of a deep crimson mana-lock weave that pulsed with a thick, active Tier 5 security current.

"The front line is locked from the inside, Jun-ho," Eun-bi’s voice called out from right behind his shoulder guard. She had her canvas bag slung tight across her waist, her gray flannel shirt left unbuttoned at the throat because of the suffocating heat coming off his mana pool. Her dark hair was wet and messy, strands sticking to her chin, but her sharp face carried that regular, flat public-sector drawl as she adjusted her clipboard. "The database log says the inner deadbolts are three inches thick, forged from unrefined marine alloy. If you try to lift the latch manually, the network will drop the secondary stone seal from the ceiling."

Lilith slid right up to his left elbow, her exceptionally long, smooth legs cutting a clean line through the low purple mist of the gravel. The tight crimson leather of her outfit pulled dangerously flat across the voluptuous, perfect curve of her round hips, her narrow waist twisting with a lazy, deliberate rhythm that brought her frame right against his denim trousers. Her massive, half-visible chest rose and fell in quick, deep gasps against his bare upper arm, her full red lips parting into a low, breathless murmur that carried the sharp scent of raw sulfur and dark incense straight to his neck.

"The little nurse is too worried about the paper metrics, big guy," Lilith whispered, her wide crimson eyes glowing with a lazy, dangerous fire under her long ink-black hair. Her long fingers, tipped with sharp crimson nails, caught the wet hem of his gray shirt, pulling his torso an inch closer to her shoulder with a teasing, hot friction. "The system logic inside this stone slab is manual. My ledger has the old unranked bypass coordinates from the lower channels. Let me handle the drainage grid, Jun-ho... I want to watch you break the core from the inside of my skin."

Rea let out a short, soft laugh that sounded like silk sliding over stone, her golden-blue eyes spinning slowly in a lazy, dangerous circle as her full crimson lips tightened into a thin, jealous line. She wedged her own voluptuous hourglass shape tight against Jun-ho’s opposite sleeve, her wild orchid perfume cutting sharp through Lilith’s sulfur incense.

"The demon girl is a bit too talkative with her filters, big guy," Rea murmured, her bare arm rubbing against his shirt fabric with a heavy, possessive friction that competitive edge turning her tone sharp. "The master key for the lower drainage grid is already logged on my console. We don’t need her sulfur codes to clear the path. Let the mages play with their keys—you have the raw mass to break the line right through the center."

Jun-ho didn’t shift his weight back from either woman. He took two long steps forward, his large rubber boots sliding smoothly over the wet shingle until he stood exactly three paces from the massive granite slab.

"We don’t use the drainage grid," Jun-ho said, his voice quiet, sounding like a regular guy talking about the weather.

[Activating Trait: Ashen Domain - Phase 4.]

[Perimeter State: 70 meters (Extended by the Monarch’s Torc).]

[Mana Cost: 500 per minute. Current Mana: 3200/8500.]

A sudden, circular wave of thick grey frost blew outward from his boots, instantly covering the wet gravel track and turning the black mud puddles into solid white discs of hard glass for seventy meters around the bunker entrance. The temperature inside the circle dropped forty degrees in a microsecond, the crimson mana-lock weave pulsing on the granite door instantly freezing into a dull, dead current that cracked into thousands of tiny white pebbles, raining down onto the stone tracks below.

The world inside the seventy-meter perimeter slowed down until the white rain falling from the sky looked like slow, lazy drops of clear oil hanging still in the fog.

Jun-ho raised The Ash Remnant with his left hand, the new black hemp wrap solid and dry in his grip. He didn’t drop into a legacy vanguard crouch, and he didn’t use his back. He simply snapped his left wrist, driving the sharp matte edge of the six-thousand-fold blade straight down onto the center of the twelve-foot granite slab.

The sound inside the closed siding wasn’t a standard blast; it was a localized thunderclap that shattered the massive reinforced granite door into thousands of tiny stone shards. The force of the strike, multiplied six thousand times by the weapon’s bound trait, didn’t just clear the entrance; the shockwave traveled straight through the threshold, fracturing the twelve heavy iron pillars inside the main vault room and throwing the three inner guardian mages flat onto their backs before they could even lift their silver staves.

[Target Neutralized: Main Vault Granite Barrier.]

[The Monarch’s Ledger Multiplier Active: 100x Asset Calculation Applied.]

Right through the thick cloud of stone dust and white frost, the interior of the Sun God main treasury bunker was visible—six massive steel security vaults, their heavy iron lids already vibrating under the immense pressure of his thousand-fold blade, while the solid black text at the bottom of his eye mapped out the final extraction of the city treasury.

"Tae-woo, move the carts," Jun-ho said flatly.

Rea let out a short, soft laugh, her golden-blue eyes spinning in a lazy circle as she led the way through the broken threshold, her long bare legs cutting a clean line through the grey mist, while Lilith’s voluptuous hips leaned hard into his right side to mark her territory, her crimson eyes flaring with a dark, submissive passion as they stepped onto the frozen vault floor together.