The Conquerors Path Chapter 1068 - 1066 — The Vault of Tides

The financial collapse of the Abyssal Bourse was, for all intents and purposes, entirely complete.

We left the trading floor behind, the roaring cacophony of panicked bankers and flashing red runic boards fading.

Krave was practically glowing. The manic, predatory thrill of systematically dismantling an entire localised economy had elevated her mood to a level bordering on divine euphoria.

"I give it three hours before the central algorithms initiate a hard reset; by tomorrow morning, the Mermaid nobility will be in for a small panic."

Krave predicted happily, her dark eyes tracking a squad of heavily armoured templars sprinting in the opposite direction.

"You have single-handedly caused issues in the primary financial hub of the deep-tide empire. I imagine the Whale emperors will be profoundly irritated."

I noted, my hands resting casually in my coat pockets as we navigated a sweeping platinum walkway.

"The Whales won’t even notice until their next migration cycle, and by then, the Mermaid royalty will be too busy executing each other for treason to explain where the gold went. It is a victimless crime, assuming you don’t count the aristocracy as victims."

Krave dismissed with a wave of her hand.

"I do not."

Luna projected lazily from my shoulders.

The ostentatious, blinding gold of the outer city was abruptly replaced by the cold, sterile weight of deep-sea diamond. The entrance to the central vault was not a building; it was a sheer, monolithic wall of compressed, translucent crystal that stretched from the platinum floor all the way up to the curving ceiling of the ancient turtle shell.

There were no handles. There were no visible seams. The door was a solid block of diamond, three feet thick, pulsing with a terrifying network of dark red, vein-like runes.

Standing in perfect, rigid formation before the wall were two dozen elite Mermaid templars.

Unlike the Triton guards in the Aethelgard Dukedom, these soldiers were genuinely lethal. Their lower halves were long, heavily muscled serpentine tails wrapped in shifting scales of midnight blue. Their upper torsos were encased in thick, jagged obsidian plate armour. They wielded massive, two-handed tridents forged from abyssal iron, and their eyes were entirely white, devoid of pupils, permanently attuned to the shifting flows of blood-pact magic.

Peak Origin level 10, all of them.

"The vault perimeter, the ambient pressure in that diamond is heavily modified. If a mortal even touches the surface without the proper blood-resonance, the kinetic feedback will instantly vaporise their skeletal structure."

Krave whispered, floating to a halt a few yards away.

I analysed the runework, my eyes tracking the complex mathematical flow of the blood-pact magic. It was a beautiful, deeply paranoid system. The vault didn’t just lock out physical intruders; it actively rejected unauthorised concepts of entry.

"How do the bankers get inside?"

I asked.

"They don’t; the central vault isn’t for liquid currency. It’s for the private safety deposit boxes of the ocean’s wealthiest emperors and warlords. When a deposit is made, the templars use a highly specific, sacrificial blood-ritual to temporarily liquefy a section of the diamond. It takes six hours and requires the presence of three high-priests."

Krave smiled.

"Fascinating,"

I murmured.

"So, are we going to blow a hole in it? Because I would very much like to see the templars try to contain a localised diamond-shrapnel explosion."

Krave turned to look at me, her eyes dancing with challenge.

"We are not blowing anything up."

I replied smoothly. I stepped forward, walking directly toward the centre of the templar formation.

The lead templar didn’t even blink as I approached. My aura simply suggested to his highly trained mind that the space in front of him was empty.

I stopped mere inches from the surface of the deep-sea diamond wall. The dark red runes pulsed angrily, sensing the proximity of an unregistered entity, preparing to unleash a kinetic shockwave that would level the entire sector.

I didn’t give the magic time to react.

I reached out with my intent and gently grasped the physical laws governing the three-foot block of solid crystal. I didn’t attempt to shatter it or melt it. I simply aligned the spatial coordinates of the diamond’s interior with the spatial coordinates of the empty air directly behind it. I folded the concept of the wall over itself, creating a seamless, microscopic tunnel through reality that completely bypassed the atomic structure of the crystal.

"Let’s go."

I instructed mildly.

I stepped forward.

A moment later, we stepped out of the crystal and onto the floor of the Vault of Tides.

Behind us, the diamond wall remained completely intact. The dark red runes settled back into their dormant rhythm. Outside, the Mermaid templars continued their rigid, unblinking watch, utterly oblivious to the fact that their impenetrable perimeter had just been effortlessly bypassed by a casual stroll.

The interior of the vault was big.

There was no water in here. The space was a perfect, artificially maintained vacuum, designed to prevent the corrosive deep-tide currents from degrading the priceless artefacts stored within. I expanded my personal barrier slightly.

Endless rows of perfectly cubic, floating lockboxes stretched out in every direction, suspended in the vacuum by independent anti-gravity arrays. They were constructed from varying materials—obsidian, pearl, deep-earth aurum, and solid starlight—each one pulsing with its own unique, terrifying layer of defensive magic.

Luna let out a long, disappointed sigh, the sound echoing softly within the confines of my barrier.

"This is a pantry, and yet, there is not a single piece of meat in it. The priorities of this empire are fundamentally broken."

Luna said.

"They store power here, Luna, artefacts from the lost Eras. Weapons that can boil cities. The physical anchors for entire bloodline curses. It is the history of the deep, locked in a dark room."

Krave breathed, drifting past a massive lockbox forged from black coral.

"Let’s see what the Mermaid Emperor is hiding."

Krave declared.

She drifted toward the absolute centre of the vault, navigating the labyrinth of floating boxes with an ancient, intuitive grace. I followed at a leisurely pace.

We arrived at a raised dais of pure white marble. Hovering above it was a single, massive lockbox forged entirely from liquid silver. The runework binding it was so dense and complex it looked like a solid sheet of glowing, overlapping text.

"The Emperor’s private cache, the Templars claim this box holds the mythical Crown of the Sunken King. A First-Era artefact of unfathomable power, supposedly forged by the gods of the deep before the continents shifted. Open it, Austin."

Krave said.

I looked at the liquid silver box. The magical locks were tied to the unique genetic resonance of the Mermaid royal bloodline, layered with a temporal stasis field that would instantly freeze the timeline of anyone attempting to force the lid.

I bypassed the genetic requirement by rewriting the lock’s definition of royalty, and inverted the temporal field to accelerate rather than freeze.

With a soft, metallic hiss, the liquid silver peeled back, revealing the interior of the box.

Resting on a cushion of perfectly preserved, black kelp-silk was the mythical Crown of the Sunken King.

I stared at it. Luna stared at it.

Krave took one look at the artefact, covered her mouth with both hands, and burst into a fit of absolute, uncontrollable laughter.

"What is that? It’s nothing special at all."

Luna asked, her nose twitching in profound confusion.

"It’s a steering wheel."

I observed smoothly; to the mortal eyes, the structure and function do indeed have special effects even if kept in sea, tehcincally thi sis a one of kind mind blowing treasure for royalty, but.....

It was, unmistakably, a wooden steering wheel from a sunken surface galleon. The oak was heavily rotted, petrified by the deep-sea pressure, and the wooden pegs were banded with heavily rusted iron. It was completely, utterly mundane.

Krave was laughing so hard she was physically hovering, tears forming in the corners of her dark eyes.

"They don’t know! The Mermaid royalty—the absolute rulers of the oceanic military—they found a piece of garbage from a sunken treasure three thousand years ago! They had never seen surface woodworking before! They thought the wooden pegs were spikes on a crown!"

Krave wheezed, pointing at the rotting wheel.

"They locked a piece of rotted oak inside a vacuum, and assigned two dozen elite templars to guard it with their lives. This entire civilisation is a hallucination."

Krave wheezed, pointing at the rotting wheel.

"Oh, this is incredible. The Emperor wears a human steering wheel during his coronation ceremonies. The sheer, unadulterated ignorance is breathtaking. I have to steal it. I have to take it just to watch the entire political structure of the ocean collapse when they realise they lost a piece of trash."

Krave wiped a tear from her cheek, catching her breath.

And I even thought of Marlene with that on her head.

[DAMN}

She reached out toward the box.

"Krave."

I murmured, my voice perfectly calm, halting her hand before it crossed the threshold of the silver box.

She looked at me, a pout instantly forming on her lips.

"Austin, please. It would be the greatest heist in the history of the deep."

"To steal it is to imply it holds value; to steal it is to play their game. If you take the wheel, they will simply assume a rival Emperor or a powerful Duke managed to bypass their security. They will go to war over it. It validates their delusion."

I corrected mildly.

Krave tilted her head, her dark eyes narrowing slightly.

"Then what do you suggest?"

"We are not thieves."

I said, slipping my right hand into my coat pocket.

I accessed my personal spatial storage. I bypassed the heavily guarded abyssal artefacts, the compressed deep-earth gold, and the lethal weaponry. I searched for something incredibly simple.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket. Resting in my palm was a perfectly ordinary, perfectly crisp, bright red surface apple.

Krave stared at the fruit. Luna sniffed the air, her ears pitching forward.

"It is an apple.

Luna stated.

"It is."

I agreed.

I reached into the liquid silver box. I didn’t touch the rotting wooden steering wheel. I simply placed the bright red apple on the black kelp-silk cushion, resting directly next to the ’mythical crown.’

"Think about it: when the Mermaid Emperor eventually comes to check on his priceless artefact, he will find the lock completely unbroken. The templars will swear on their lives that the diamond wall was never breached. The blood-pact magic will show zero signs of tampering."

I said smoothly, stepping back from the dais.

A slow, wicked, terrifyingly brilliant smile began to spread across Krave’s face as she understood the implication.

"And yet."

I continued.

"Sitting right next to their most guarded treasure, in a perfect vacuum where no organic matter could survive... is a fresh piece of fruit from the surface world."

"They won’t know how it got there; they won’t be able to comprehend the magical mechanics required to bypass their flawless security without leaving a trace."

Krave whispered, her eyes practically glowing with malicious delight.

"It will terrify them infinitely more than a theft; it proves that their absolute security is an illusion. It proves that someone can walk into their most sacred vault, touch their most prized possession, and leave behind a snack, purely out of boredom."

I confirmed, adjusting the lapels of my coat.

[You absolute monster, messing with the whole lifestyle of the woman you are seducing?]

[Aha....that’s what Hitler said.]

[A Hitler-like was being in this world too.]

"Psychological warfare."

Luna purred, a deep, vibrating rumble of approval in her chest.

"I try my best."

I replied mildly.

I reached out and re-engaged the temporal stasis field, allowing the liquid silver to seamlessly seal the box back up, trapping the apple inside the vacuum with the rusted steering wheel.

"I like you more and more now; you are an absolute menace to the established order."

Krave declared suddenly, throwing her arms around my neck and pulling me into a brief, fierce, incredibly strong hug.

"I appreciate the sentiment. Now, I believe we have thoroughly appreciated the local history. Shall we move on to the gambling?"

I murmured, gently detaching the divine kraken from my person to ensure she didn’t accidentally crush my ribs.

"Yes!"

Krave beamed, spinning around and drifting rapidly toward the diamond wall.

"The casino! I have 2% of the global gold reserve in my pocket, and I want to double it!"

I let out a soft breath of amusement, securing the spatial barrier around Luna as I followed Krave back through the endless rows of floating lockboxes.

I approached the deep-sea diamond wall, aligning the spatial coordinates once again, and folded reality back over itself. We stepped effortlessly through the three feet of solid crystal, emerging completely undetected directly behind the rigid line of Mermaid templars, leaving the absolute, untouched silence of the Vault of Tides—and one perfectly ordinary surface apple—behind us.