The auction began.
Noah stood among strangers, wearing a half-mask of red that covered everything but his eyes.
He looked like any other collector ...just another noble fallen from grace trying to buy himself another title with cursed gold.
The crowd was a sea of masks.
Ranging from foxes, lions, ravens, faceless porcelain.
Perfu mixed with smoke and the faint trace of blood.
The air shimred with mana from protective barriers.
A quiet murmur rippled through the rows as attendants rolled out the first glass cases.
A bell chid.
"Ladies and gentlen," said a voice smooth as silk from the balcony.
The auctioneer wore a white mask shaped like a dove.
"Welco once again to the Parliant Vault Exchange ... tonight's selection is… extraordinary.
Let us begin."
Polite claps then the room turned quiet.
---
The first item... a crystal heart from a wyvern.
Starting bid: fifty thousand crowns.
Hands rose, rings glittering in candlelight.
"One hundred thousand."
"Two hundred."
"Three hundred."
The prices rose faster than the rain outside.
Noah sat still, eyes scanning every face, every motion.
Information was worth more than money tonight.
He'd co here for a lead... the rumors of an ancient relic unearthed from the northern ruins, sothing said to "belong to a saint who spoke to the stars."
The Hand of the Saint.
Noah's coin purse weighed light.
It held the last of his Ashbourne inheritance ...the single favor he'd managed to wrest from his forr house before walking away.
Once it was gone, there'd be no more comfort, no more gold.
He'd live on what he earned as a guard at the Bluerose estate and whatever the Chro Hearts could scrape together in the alleys.
Still, he lifted his paddle once.
A few heads turned.
Bidding against nobles was unwise, but he did it anyway...small things but useful things.
A vial of alchemic smoke.
A rusted dagger once used in a sacrificial rite.
A map of half-forgotten tunnels beneath the northern continent.
The audience barely noticed him. His red mask was too plain.
He kept his tone low whenever the attendant approached.
"Two hundred thousand.
Cash."
When the gavel struck, he won the vial and the map.
Half his purse gone in an instant.
The audience murmured, unimpressed, already waiting for grander prizes.
---
Next ca a phoenix feather sealed in glass, said to burn endlessly.
Then the bones of a beast that once devoured souls.
Then a forbidden to written in a language the Church erased.
Each item sold to the masked lords and ladies who whispered numbers like confessions.
A man with a serpent mask laughed whenever he won, his voice echoing off the stone.
"Four hundred thousand!"
"Ha! A million! Who dares challenge the House of Aldric?"
Laughter followed him, soft and poisonous. Everyone wanted to be seen, but no one wanted to be known.
That was the paradox of this place.
Masks made them brave and made them monsters.
Noah sipped his drink slowly.
His hand trembled once before he stilled it.
He could feel the Chro in his blood reacting to the relics on display.
They were all tainted in one way or another, reeking of old magic.
His mask reflected faintly in the glass ...yellow eyes that had seen too much already.
Then the auctioneer clapped once.
"Lot 41," he said.
"A relic from the First Era — retrieved from the ruins near the border of the Northern Continent, sealed by the old Saint herself...or rather what people refer her as 'Witch of Envy'.
The Hand of the Saint."
The attendants rolled out a long rectangular case.
Inside was sothing wrapped in white cloth.
When the cloth peeled back, the room fell silent.
It wasn't a hand in flesh ...it was a tallic sculpture.
Its surface rippled with veins of silver light.
Symbols in an unknown language pulsed faintly along the knuckles, each rune humming like a heartbeat.
The mana that leaked from it was gentle but infinite, the kind that whispered of another world entirely.
Even through the glass, Noah felt it ...that faint pulse, that echo of sothing alien.
It wasn't just magic.
It was… familiar.
He clenched his jaw.
The auctioneer raised his voice again.
"Rumored to have belonged to the Saint who caused and ended the First War.
Scholars claim she descended from the heavens.
Her miracles changed history ...her hand, preserved and immortalized, has been recovered for the first ti in centuries.
The bidding begins at one million crowns!"
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
Fans snapped open.
"One point two!"
"One point five!"
"Two million!"
The serpent-masked noble leaned forward.
"Three million crowns!"
Noah's hand hovered.
His entire purse wouldn't reach half that amount.
But he couldn't ignore it.
That relic resonated with him the sa way fragnts from his past lives did.
He could feel a faint ache behind his eyes, like a whisper from sowhere older than this body.
He leaned toward the attendant.
"Who delivered it?"
The attendant blinked.
"Anonymous...
All relics of high order co sealed from the northern collectors."
'Collectors?'
The sa word from the ledger from Dock Nine.
So this is where their treasures end up.
His heart beat faster.
If this artifact ca from those collectors, then it was proof of corruption and the nobles funding forbidden excavations.
But to expose it, he needed a distraction.
He stood up and left quietly through the side corridor.
Behind the curtains, servants whispered and moved boxes.
The air slled of dust and greed.
Noah changed quickly ...a black coat, gloves, and the opera-style mask with only thin silver slits for eyes.
His cane changedband took form into a chro-spear that glead faintly blue under lamplight.
When he walked back into the hall, the murmurs changed tone.
"Machiavelli…"
Soone whispered.
In this city, that na was already whispered in alleys, feared by gangs, admired by the poor.
The silver-faced gentleman, the leader of Chro Hearts.
The serpent-masked noble froze mid-bid.
The auctioneer hesitated.
Guards at the corners straightened.
Noah walked straight to the front row and rested the spear against his shoulder.
His voice echoed, calm, cold.
"Quite the display tonight. I didn't expect the Parliant Vaults to turn into a graveyard for history."
The auctioneer laughed nervously.
"Sir Machiavelli, your presence is...unexpected.
Perhaps you'd prefer to register for..."
"I prefer honesty," Noah cut him off.
"This relic you sell as the Saint's Hand...do you know where it ca from?
Or did you simply take it from a ruin drenched in blood?"
Gasps. Soone whispered.
"He's accusing the council…"
The auctioneer stiffened.
"I suggest you leave before..."
Noah slamd the spear's end on the marble.
The guards moved instantly ...a dozen armored figures rushing from the wings.
The crowd erupted in panic, masks turning, skirts rustling, chairs scraping.
The serpent-masked noble shouted, "Seize him!"
Noah moved first.
The spear spun in his hands like a storm of light.
He struck the first guard's armor ...chro energy burst outward, sending the man sprawling.
Another ca from behind.
Noah twisted, parried, and cracked the shaft against his helm.
The crowd scread as chaos consud the hall.
Crates shattered, relics fell and glass broke. Soone shouted, "Protect the relic!" while another yelled, "Kill him before he reaches the vault!"
Noah ducked under a blade and slamd his palm against the floor.
The Chro in his veins responded, spreading a silver pattern like veins through the marble.
The ground split slightly enough to knock guards off balance.
He looked toward the display case.
The Hand of the Saint pulsed brighter, reacting to the chaos.
"Stay with ," he whispered — he didn't even know why. The relic thrumd once, a resonance echoing faintly inside his chest, and for a fleeting mont he saw… an image.
A hand reaching out across a void.
A woman's voice, faint and sorrowful.
"You still rember , don't you?"
Then the vision was gone.
"Dammit," he hissed.
The serpent-masked noble drew a pistol infused with mana and fired.
The bullet scread past Noah's ear.
He dived behind a fallen column, tossed the vial of alchemic smoke he'd bought earlier which everyone had mocked as useless.
It burst into a thick gray fog, swallowing the hall whole.
Noah slipped through the haze, grabbed the relic's case, and smashed it open with the butt of his spear.
He didn't take the hand...instead tore off a fragnt of cloth with its residual mana, proof enough for later.
Guards lunged from the smoke.
He deflected two blades, disard one man, struck another's knee.
He darted toward the vault doors.
Behind him, the noble shouted for reinforcents.
Ahead, the doors thick iron barred with runes.
"Stop him!"
"He's stealing the Saint's Hand!"
Noah slamd the spear into the locking rune.
Chro energy surged, overloading the sigil.
He kicked the door open, spilling into the rain-soaked night.
Cold air hit his face.
He ran through the narrow alley behind the parliant...the relic fragnt pressed against his chest.
Behind him, the vault erupted with alarms.
By the ti the guards reached the street, he was gone.
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