Master of Lust-Chapter 331 - -

Chapter - 331

The ventilation shaft was not designed for human travel. It was a steep, galvanized steel intestine that smelled of dead rats, Freon, and fifty years of accumulated dust.

Rick slid feet-first, his speed accelerating as the angle steepened. He could hear Sharon screaming curses behind him and Nadia whimpering behind her. The sound of the war raging in the ballroom above—the thump-thump of heavy ordnance and the crackle of energy weapons—faded into a dull, rhythmic vibration in the metal walls.

"Brace!" Rick yelled, seeing the end of the tunnel approaching rapidly.

The vent didn’t end in a room. It ended in the ceiling of a room.

Rick shot out of the ductwork like a cannonball. He fell ten feet, flailing, and landed hard on a pile of what felt like... money?

He rolled, groaning, his bruised ribs protesting the impact. He sat up. He was sitting on a pallet of shrink-wrapped US hundred-dollar bills.

"Ouch," Rick muttered, patting the cash. "That’s a hard currency."

Sharon dropped next, landing on her feet with a tactical grace that immediately vanished as she slipped on the plastic wrapping and face-planted into a stack of gold bars.

CLANG.

"Ow!" Sharon groaned, rolling over. "I think I broke my nose. Again."

Nadia fell last, landing squarely on Rick.

"Oof," Rick grunted. "Watch the merchandise."

Nadia scrambled off him, her eyes wide, scanning the room. "We’re alive. We’re actually alive."

Rick stood up and dusted himself off. He clicked on his flashlight. The beam cut through the dark, cold air of Sub-Level 3.

They were inside the Vault’s staging area. The ’Oubliette’.

It was a stark contrast to the opulence above. This was a bunker. Cold concrete walls, flickering fluorescent lights, and rows of shelves stacked with the tangible assets of the Warner Empire. Gold. Cash. Artworks stolen during wars that hadn’t been fought yet.

But the centerpiece was the Vault Door itself.

It was a circular slab of titanium and steel, ten feet thick. And right in the center of the locking mechanism, smoke was rising.

Rick walked over. There, fused to the keypad, was Mickey, the Rat King drone. The little robot had done its job. It had chewed through the power coupling and then short-circuited itself in a final, glorious act of sabotage. Its red eyes were dark.

"RIP Mickey," Rick whispered. "You were a good rat."

The massive door was cracked open, just a few inches. The failsafe had triggered.

"Help me push," Rick said.

He and Sharon wedged their shoulders into the gap. Nadia pushed from behind.

"On three," Rick grunted. "One... two... PUSH!"

The door groaned, the heavy hinges screaming in protest. It moved inch by agonizing inch, revealing the inner sanctum.

They squeezed through.

The inner vault was small, climate-controlled, and lit by soft, amber LEDs. In the center, on a pedestal of black marble, sat two items.

One was the Black Laptop. The real one. The one Silas had personally carried here.

The other was... strange.

It was a box. Not like the Pandora’s Box. This was ancient. It looked like a cube of obsidian, roughly the size of a toaster, etched with glowing, blue geometric lines that pulsed with a slow, rhythmic heartbeat. It didn’t look like technology. It looked like magic. Or alien tech. Or something that shouldn’t exist.

"That’s it," Rick said, his Terrifying Presence tingling. Not with fear, but with a strange resonance. "Johnson’s ’Older Thing’."

"It looks... radioactive," Sharon whispered, keeping her distance.

"It looks expensive," Nadia said, her eyes gleaming with a avarice that cut through her fear.

Rick stepped forward. He reached out and touched the Laptop first.

[System Notification: Quest Item Acquired.] [Item: The Warner Ledger (Master Copy).] [Contains: Everything.]

He tapped the laptop. It vanished into his Inventory.

Then he reached for the Cube.

As his fingers brushed the cold stone, a jolt of static electricity snapped against his skin.

[System Alert: Unknown Artifact Detected.] [Item: The Precursor Core (Dormant).] [Warning: High Energy Signature. Do not drop.]

"Precursor Core?" Rick muttered. "Sounds ominous. I love it."

He tapped the Cube. It vanished into his Inventory.

"Okay," Rick said, turning to the women. "We have the loot. We have the data. Now we just have to get out of a mountain that is currently being demolished by two armies."

He checked the blueprints in his HUD. "There’s an emergency extraction tunnel. It leads to the ski slopes on the north face. It’s about two hundred yards down that corridor."

He pointed to a heavy blast door at the back of the vault.

"Let’s go," Sharon said, racking her SIG. "I hear explosions getting closer."

She was right. The ceiling of the vault dusted them with concrete powder as a heavy impact shook the mountain. Valerius was bombing the upper levels.

They ran.

The escape tunnel was cold, dark, and slick with ice. It sloped downward, leading them away from the heat of the battle.

Rick took point, MP7 raised. Sharon covered the rear. Nadia was in the middle, clutching a waterproof duffel bag Rick had given her earlier to carry some loose cash bricks they’d swiped from the staging area.

They ran for five minutes, lungs burning in the thin mountain air.

Finally, they saw light ahead. A grate, looking out over the snowy expanse of the Alps. The wind howled through the bars.

"We made it," Rick said, kicking the grate. It flew off, tumbling down the mountainside.

Outside, the world was a blinding white blizzard. It was night, but the snow reflected the moonlight and the flashes of explosions from the Chateau above.

Rick pulled two heavy, black backpacks from his Inventory.

"The Fulton Balloons," Rick explained, handing one to Sharon. "We deploy these. They shoot up five thousand feet. Johnson’s recovery plane snatches them out of the air. Then we ski down to the village and pretend to be tourists."

"What about the loot?" Nadia asked. "The laptop? The Cube?"

"I have them in my Inventory," Rick said. "But the Inventory has a weight limit for ’live transport’ if I’m skiing. It throws off my balance. I need to offload the heavy stuff into the balloons."

This was a lie. The Inventory had no weight limit. Rick just wanted to secure the objectives so he could fight if he had to.

He pulled the Laptop and the Cube out of the air. He put them into a padded, hardened case attached to the first balloon pack.

"Okay," Rick said, kneeling in the snow to arm the helium canister. "Sharon, you take the cash. I’ll take the data."

He was bent over, fiddling with the straps. Sharon was scanning the ridge for snipers.

"Rick," Nadia said. Her voice was strange. Tight. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Yeah?" Rick asked, not looking up. "Almost done. Just gotta prime the—"

CLICK.

The sound was unmistakable. It was the sound of a hammer being cocked on a pistol.

And it wasn’t coming from Sharon.

Rick froze. He didn’t turn around. He just sighed, his breath pluming in the cold air.

"Nadia," Rick said softly. "You don’t want to do this."

"Turn around," Nadia said. Her voice wasn’t scared anymore. It was cold. It was the voice of Raven.

Rick stood up slowly and turned.

Nadia was standing ten feet away. She was holding a pistol—one she must have swiped from the armory in the kitchen, or maybe she’d had it hidden in her boot the whole time.

It was aimed directly at Sharon’s head.

Sharon froze, her eyes wide. "Nadia? What are you doing?"

"I’m surviving," Nadia said. Her face was a mask of grim determination. "And I’m retiring."