"Something is waking up."
Those words killed the last trace of greed in the group.
Sage felt cold sweat slide down the back of his neck. He remembered the Abyssal Mana Leviathan. He remembered the corpse-like old man who had killed Riven without effort.
He remembered how the Vault had separated them, tested them, swallowed them, transported them, and thrown them into impossible situations one after another.
The treasury had already revealed traps, guardians, illusions, gravity fields, and elite golems. If something even deeper than those defenses was waking up now, then it was not something they could afford to meet while exhausted, injured, and surrounded by loot they could not even carry properly.
His mind moved faster than his body, calculations crashing into one another. How much could they take? How fast could they move? Could they leave the gold? Could they return later? Could they risk losing the Skill Stones? Could they escape if they delayed even ten more seconds?
Another roar answered him. This time, the entire hall shook violently.
The cracked marble floor split open in several places. Broken golden pillars groaned as their damaged bases shifted.
A section of the ceiling ornamentation collapsed in the distance, crashing into the floor with a massive explosion of dust and stone. Several bubbles high above burst on their own, spilling treasures that never reached the ground because they dissolved into light halfway down.
The untouched bubbles began retreating upward, rising higher and higher as if the treasury was pulling its remaining wealth away from the intruders.
Sage stared at them with open pain on his face, his greed screaming in agony as the treasures drifted beyond reach, but survival finally dragged his mind back into place with brutal force.
"Everyone gather close!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the tremors. "Forget the bubbles. Forget the rest. We are leaving now!"
Gregor did not argue this time.
Brutus forced himself to his feet immediately, grabbing his axe and kicking aside a pile of shields. Caelis began pushing the nearest adventurers toward Sage, while Lyana withdrew her vines from the treasure piles and used them instead to help the most exhausted members stand.
Vanthrice figure flickered as she immediately appeared beside Valeria. Her hand tightly gripping her bronze spear. The two women cast a quick glance at each other before walking closer to Sage.
Mina crawled out from the gold mountain with several coins still stuck in her hair and clothes, her face pale but her hands stubbornly clutching a pouch that looked ready to burst.
Boren scrambled off his silk pile in a panic, somehow managing to snatch up the half-eaten mana fruit before realizing what he had done and throwing it away with a horrified expression.
"Boss, what about the treasures?" Boren asked, his voice trembling as he looked at the mountains they had gathered. "We can’t carry all this while running."
Sage did not answer with words. He raised one hand and for a brief moment, the air around him distorted.
A dark ripple opened beside him, silent and smooth, like the surface of a black lake disturbed by an invisible stone. It was not wind magic. It was not a storage ring. It was not anything the others had seen him use before.
The space beside Sage stretched open wider, revealing a depth that seemed impossible, a dark interior that contained no light and no visible end.
Everyone froze, even with the treasury shaking around them. Gregor’s eyes widened. Caelis’s mouth parted slightly. Lyana stared at the opening with stunned silence.
Brutus looked from the space to Sage, then back again, as if trying to decide whether exhaustion had finally made him hallucinate. Even Valeria’s eyes narrowed faintly, though she said nothing.
Sage moved his hand. The mountains of treasure vanished.
Not slowly. Not one pile at a time. Everything disappeared at once. Gold coins, Skill Stones, ancient tomes, weapons, armor, mana crystals, rare ores, herbs, artifacts, scrolls, and even several piles of broken golem cores were swallowed by the dark space in a single breath.
The glittering mountains that had filled the floor only moments ago were gone, leaving behind bare cracked marble, scattered dust, a few stray coins, and the stunned faces of every person who had just watched a fortune larger than most kingdoms disappear into thin air.
Mina looked down at the empty place where her gold pile had been, then slowly looked at Sage with a betrayed expression, clutching her bulging pouch to her chest like it was the last survivor of a massacre.
"Petty uncle Sage... you ate my treasure."
Sage snapped his gaze toward her. "I saved your treasure."
Boren pointed at the empty hall with trembling hands. "Boss... what in the gods’ names was that?"
"No time," Sage said sharply.
"But..."
"No time!"
Another roar thundered from beneath the treasury, and this time the pressure that followed slammed into them like a physical wave.
Several adventurers staggered backward. The remaining bubbles above them exploded into frantic movement, scattering toward the ceiling. The broken gates at the far end of the hall began bending inward as if something enormous was pushing through from beyond them.
Deep cracks spread across the walls. The golden pillars that had survived Valeria’s battle now trembled like reeds before a storm. Sage felt the air change. Something was coming.
Not a golem. Not a trap. Something alive, or close enough to alive that every instinct in his body rejected the idea of staying to see it.
Valeria moved to the front of the group, her sword already in hand, crimson mana beginning to coil faintly around the blade.
Sage saw that and immediately grabbed Mina by the back of her collar, pulling her close while turning toward the nearest exit route they had spotted earlier beyond the damaged golden gates.
His face was pale, his eyes sharp, and his voice carried no room for argument.
"RUN!!"
The word exploded across the treasury, and this time nobody questioned him.
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