Chapter : 781
They walked in a tense, profound silence. Lord Qadir led the way, his massive shoulders slumped, a king leading a stranger into his own tomb. Lloyd followed a few steps behind, his face a mask of appropriate, scholarly awe, but his mind was a razor-sharp instrument of analysis. He noted the age of the stonework, the faint, almost invisible runes carved into the walls at regular intervals. They were wards. Powerful, ancient, and layered with a complexity that spoke of generations of paranoid magical craftsmanship. This was not just a vault; it was a fortress within a fortress.
Sumaiya followed behind him, her hand resting on the hilt of her knife, her eyes wide with a mixture of trepidation and wonder. She was a ghost in the palace, a whisperer of secrets, but this was a secret so deep, so foundational, that it felt like she was trespassing on the very soul of the kingdom.
After what felt like a descent of a hundred feet, the spiral staircase opened into a long, straight corridor. The corridor was not carved from simple stone. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of a seamless, polished black material that seemed to drink the light. Lloyd recognized it as obsidian, magically treated and hardened to a strength that would rival steel. The corridor was a hundred yards long, and every twenty feet, they passed under a heavy, iron-banded portcullis that was currently retracted into the ceiling. Each one was guarded by a pair of silent, unmoving sentinels—not men, but fully armored, seven-foot-tall war-golems, their single, glowing red eyes tracking Lloyd’s every movement.
Even Lord Qadir, the master of this domain, seemed tense. He walked with a specific, rhythmic gait, his footsteps falling on particular stones in the floor. A pressure-plate activation system, Lloyd noted with clinical detachment. A single misstep would likely bring all ten portcullises crashing down, turning the corridor into a series of inescapable deathtraps.
Finally, they reached the end of the corridor. Before them stood a single, massive door. It was not made of wood or metal, but of a solid, ten-foot-thick slab of the same magically-hardened obsidian, set into a frame of what looked like pure, gleaming adamantine. There was no visible lock, no handle, no hinge. It was a perfect, seamless wall of black.
Lord Qadir stopped before it. He placed his right hand flat against its surface. Then, he pricked his left thumb with a small, silver pin he produced from his sleeve and pressed the bleeding thumb to the stone as well.
“I, Timur, of the blood of Qadir,” he intoned, his voice echoing strangely in the confined space, “seek passage.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a network of faint, silver lines, like a spider’s web, spread out from his hands, glowing with a soft, ethereal light. The lines traced a complex, intricate pattern across the face of the door—a blood-magic and spiritual-attunement lock of the highest order. There was a deep, resonant thrum, a sound that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of their bones, and the massive, multi-ton obsidian slab began to silently, impossibly, retract sideways into the wall.
The air that washed over them from the revealed chamber was… alive. It was cool and carried the scent of ozone and freshly turned earth, but it also hummed with a faint, almost imperceptible energy. It was a quiet, constant, whispering vibration, like the sound of a thousand tiny, crystal bells ringing at the very edge of hearing.
“Behold, Doctor,” Lord Qadir said, his voice a mixture of profound pride and equally profound sorrow. “The heart of my house.”
He stepped aside, and Lloyd looked into the vault. It was not a treasure room filled with gold and jewels. It was a natural cavern, vast and cathedral-like. The walls were a rough, glittering granite, but the source of the faint, internal light and the whispering hum was immediately apparent.
Growing from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of the cavern were clusters of crystalline rock. They were not the beautiful, faceted gems one might expect. They were dull, milky-white, and semi-translucent, like chunks of unpolished quartz. They ranged in size from small, fist-sized nodules to massive, pillar-like formations that reached from the floor to the ceiling.
These were the raw, uncut Lilith Stones. And they were pulsing. A faint, soft, white light emanated from deep within each one, a slow, rhythmic beat like a hundred sleeping hearts. The whispering sound was the collective resonance of their contained power, a symphony of pure, untapped potential.
Sumaiya let out a soft, sharp gasp, her hand flying to her mouth. She had heard the legends, but to see it, to feel it… it was a power that was both beautiful and deeply, fundamentally terrifying.
Chapter : 782
Lloyd, however, felt a surge of pure, unadulterated, scientific ecstasy. The Major General, the engineer, the creator of the Aegis suit, was looking at a motherboard forged by God. He could feel the latent computational power in the very air, a quiet promise of a technological revolution.
He forced himself to maintain the guise of the awestruck healer. He took a hesitant step into the cavern, his eyes wide. “Incredible,” he whispered, his voice filled with a perfect, feigned reverence. “The purity… the resonance… I have never felt anything like it.”
Lord Qadir followed him in, a grim, silent shadow. “My ancestor, Qadir the Founder, discovered this cavern four centuries ago. It was a secret he took to his grave, passing it down only to his chosen heir. We have harvested from it sparingly, carefully, taking only what we need to maintain our position, and selling the lesser stones through untraceable third parties to fund our ventures. The world thinks our fortune is in steel. The truth is, it is in stone.”
He gestured to the vast, glittering cavern. “Choose, Doctor. Find the stone that will sing the song of healing for my son. Take what you need.”
The offer was a blank check, an act of absolute, desperate trust. But Lloyd knew it was also a test. He could not appear greedy. He could not reach for the largest, most powerful-looking crystals. The humble doctor would be cautious, respectful, almost fearful of the power he was being offered.
He began to walk slowly through the cavern, his hand outstretched, as if sensing the subtle energies of the different stones. In reality, his [All-Seeing Eye] was engaged at maximum power, conducting a full-spectrum analysis of the crystalline structures. He was not looking for a healing resonance; he was looking for processing power, for data-storage capacity, for the most efficient energy-conduction pathways.
He passed by the massive, pillar-like formations, shaking his head with a feigned, sorrowful regret. “Too powerful,” he murmured, loud enough for the lord to hear. “The resonance is too… violent. Too chaotic. It would be like trying to perform surgery with a thunderstorm.”
He moved towards a smaller, more modest cluster of stones growing from a ledge on the far wall. These were smaller, fist-sized nodules, but his scan revealed their internal crystalline lattice was almost perfectly uniform, ideal for precise energy channeling.
He stopped before one particular cluster. “Here,” he said, his voice filled with a dawning, reverent excitement. “This one… its song is different. It is quieter. Purer. More stable.”
He reached out and gently placed his hand on a single, palm-sized, milky-white stone. In his mind’s eye, he saw its flawless, internal architecture. It was perfect.
“This one,” he said, turning to Lord Qadir. “And perhaps two or three of these smaller ones. For… for calibration and to prepare the stabilizing elixirs. I will need to study their properties, to attune myself to them before the procedure.”
His request was a masterpiece of calculated humility. He had been offered a mountain of gold, and he had asked for only a handful of silver coins. He had chosen the smallest, least impressive-looking stones in the entire vault.
A wave of profound relief washed over Lord Qadir’s face. The doctor was not a greedy charlatan. He was exactly what he appeared to be: a true, dedicated healer, interested only in the precise tool he needed for his work. The last, lingering shred of his suspicion dissolved, replaced by a deep, and deeply misplaced, trust.
“Take them,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. He produced a small, velvet-lined satchel and carefully, reverently, used a small, mithril-alloy chisel to break the chosen stones free from the rock. He placed them in the bag and handed them to Lloyd.
The weight of the stones in his hand was almost insignificant. But Lloyd knew he was holding the future. He was holding the key to his Aegis suit, the source of his true, ultimate power. The infiltration was a success. The prize had been secured.
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The journey back up the spiraling stone staircase felt completely different from the descent. Before, it had been a tense, uncertain plunge into a world of secrets and shadows. Now, it was a triumphant ascent. Lloyd clutched the small, heavy velvet satchel in his hand, the dull, crystalline weight of the Lilith Stones a solid, reassuring presence. The subtle, almost imperceptible hum of their contained power was a quiet promise, a whisper of the technological revolution he was about to unleash.