Before the third and fourth guards could line up their sights, I activated my mana footwork.

I leaped straight across the wooden table, sending plates of takeout noodles and pistol cleaning kits flying onto the concrete floor. I slammed my boots straight into the third guard’s heavy chest armor.

CRASH!

The force of the impact drove him backward into a tall steel storage rack. Boxes of printer paper, spare radio batteries, and heavy metal folders rained down on top of him, pinning him firmly to the ground.

The fourth guard swung a wild right hook straight at my face mask.

I slipped under his swinging arm, stepped inside his attack range, and grabbed his elbow. With a quick twist of my hips, I drove my knee sharply into his floating ribs.

THWACK!

He gasped for air, his knees buckling underneath him. Before he could recover his balance, I chopped the side of my palm against the back of his neck.

His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed flat onto his face, completely unconscious.

Over by the main desk, the scarred boss managed to yank a heavy, double-barreled shotgun out from a leather holster hidden underneath his chair. He racked the slide with a loud metallic CLACK and aimed the wide barrels straight at my chest.

"Don’t move, you little bastard!" he roared, his finger tightening against the front trigger.

A thin, cold edge of steel pressed lightly against the side of his throat.

Carmilla was already standing right behind his leather chair. She hadn’t pulled her long black sword. Instead, she held a sharp iron

dagger firmly against his neck, right over his pulse point.

Her dark sunglasses had slipped down her nose slightly, revealing a pair of glowing red eyes in the dim light of the basement.

"Drop it," Carmilla whispered softly near his ear. Her voice was quiet, but it carried an icy, razor-sharp warning.

The boss froze instantly.

The heavy pressure of Carmilla’s high-tier mana radiated through the air like a heavy weight, smothering his breathing. Cold sweat broke out across his forehead, running down his scarred nose.

Slowly and carefully, he unclasped his fingers from the trigger guard, letting the heavy shotgun clatter onto the metal desk.

"Good choice," I smiled under my mask, stepping around the wooden table and approaching the desk.

I reached into my inner jacket pocket and pulled out a small, high-speed extraction drive I had gotten from somewhere. I plugged it directly into the side USB port of his main computer tower.

Even though the disruption coin had fried the desk’s alarm circuit and killed the overhead monitor, the internal hard drive memory was still powered up and functional.

CLICK-BUZZ.

My wrist terminal beeped softly, displaying a bright blue progress bar as the raw files began copying over automatically.

"What do you want with Sector C-9?" the boss grunted through gritted teeth, keeping his neck completely still against Carmilla’s blade. "Black will skin you alive if you touch his mountain facility."

"Black is building a spatial anchor he can’t control," I said calmly, watching the numbers climb past 40%. "We’re just here to make sure his shift schedules are accurate."

"You’re crazy," the boss spat softly. "That facility is locked down tight. Heavy cannons, automated ridge turrets, and twenty elite guards. You won’t make it past the lower perimeter."

"We’ll manage," I replied, checking my wrist screen.

BEEP-BEEP.

The blue progress bar hit 100%. A green checkmark flashed on display, confirming that the northern cliff rotation schedules, sensor frequency codes, and master keycard layouts were fully downloaded.

"Download complete," I said, pulling the extraction drive from the terminal tower and slipping it into my pocket beside my iron dagger.

"Clean work," Carmilla noted softly, slowly pulling her utility blade back from the man’s throat and sheathing it into her belt loop.

I patted the boss’s shoulder politely. "Thanks for the hospitality. Tell your boys outside to take an early coffee break."

Before the boss could shout for help, Carmilla delivered a swift, precise chop to the nerve bundle on the side of his neck. The scarred man went limply unconscious, slumping forward onto his metal desk.

We moved quickly through the room, making sure no secondary silent alarms were ticking. We dragged the four unconscious guards behind the heavy steel storage rack, binding their hands and ankles with thick plastic zip-ties so they couldn’t run up the stairs the moment we left.

Five minutes later, Carmilla and I walked casually out the front door of Bloom & Stem.

RING-DING.

The small brass bell chimed overhead as we stepped back out into the bright morning sunlight. The street was still bustling with office workers and shoppers.

Across the road, the three guards at the outdoor café were still sitting at their small table, casually sipping their drinks and completely oblivious to the fact that their basement branch had just been stripped of its most critical intelligence.

Carmilla adjusted her sun hat, resting her hands inside the pockets of her beige trench coat as she walked beside me.

"That went smoothly," Carmilla murmured softly, adjusting her sunglasses. "No blood, no explosions, and no alarms."

"That’s how real detective work is done," I chuckled, feeling the weight of the extraction drive safely tucked inside my jacket. "Now we have the exact shift change window for the northern drainage shaft."

Carmilla and I climbed into the back seat of the taxi. I gave the driver our residential neighborhood address, and the car glided smoothly away from the curb, leaving the flower shop behind in the background.

Thirty minutes later, the taxi dropped us off near the quiet street of our villa.

The afternoon sun was warm, reflecting brightly off the stone walls and green garden hedges.

"We’re back!" I called out, setting my keys on the entryway table.

Leo came running out from the hallway, his face bright with excitement. He was holding a pair of heavy leather boots in his hands.

"Did you fight anyone?" Leo asked eagerly, peering closely at my jacket. "Did you use your dagger?"

"No fighting today, shorty," Carmilla smiled, pulling off her sun hat and letting her long hair fall over her shoulders. She reached out and tapped his nose gently. "Just quiet gathering. Like shadows."

"Aww," Leo sighed, though he still looked impressed. "Well, I got your travel boots ready! Viora said we are prepping for the big mountain trip!"

Mia walked out from the kitchen, holding a tray with three steaming mugs of chamomile tea. Viora walked right behind her.

"Set the tray on the dining table, Mia," Viora directed gently before turning her head toward us. "You two made good time."

"The basement team was unprepared," I said, walking into the dining room and pulling out my laptop. I plugged the extraction drive into the USB port and opened the newly downloaded files on the large screen. "Take a look at this."

Viora, Carmilla, and even Leo gathered around the table as the detailed security schematics of Sector C-9 expanded across the monitor.

The files gave us a complete, real-time picture of Black’s mountain base.

"Look here," I pointed to a red glowing line running along the northern cliff face. "This is the automated sensor grid. The shift change happens every day at exactly 6:00 AM. During that ten-minute window, the upper motion sensors enter a diagnostic recalibration loop. That’s when the grate power drops by eighty percent."

"Ten minutes to climb eight hundred feet," Carmilla calculated, her red eyes focusing on the elevation grid. "With blood-mana footwork and silent grappling lines, we can easily reach the upper ventilation grate in six minutes."

"And once you cut through the grate," Viora added, pointing to the blue sub-station icon inside the cavern blueprint, "you enter the lower power sub-station. Cutting the primary mana breaker here will instantly disable the automated ridge turrets, the internal security cameras, and the blast door seals on the main cavern."

"Leaving Black and his core guards completely trapped inside without heavy artillery or automated backup," I grinned. "We hit the sub-station, destroy the artificial spatial anchor core, and secure the server drives before Black realizes his base has been breached."

"It is a solid plan," Viora stated, her tone approving. "Minimal risk of civilian collateral, and maximum tactical advantage for a two-person strike team."

"When do we leave?" Carmilla asked, her voice dropping into a serious, resolute tone.

"Tomorrow at 4:00 AM," I said, shutting the laptop screen flat. "We drive out to the northern ridge under the cover of early morning fog, scale the cliff during the 6:00 AM recalibration window, and finish the job before breakfast."

Leo puffed out his chest, resting his hands on his hips proudly. "And Mia and I will hold down the base! Right, Viora?"

"Correct," Viora smiled faintly, resting her slender hand on Leo’s shoulder. "Our home will remain completely secure."

For the rest of the evening, the villa was filled with quiet, purposeful preparation.

Carmilla sat in the living room, double-checking her grappling gear, sharpening her iron utility blades, and making sure her black arming sword was securely strapped inside its silent cloth wrapping.

We ate a quiet dinner together—a warm meal of grilled fish, steamed rice, and fresh vegetables. There was no tension or anxious silence around the table. We had planned every detail of the entry, gathered exact real-time intelligence, and had total trust in each other’s skills.

After dinner, the kids went to bed early.

By 10:00 PM, the villa was silent and dark, save for the soft nightlight burning in the hallway.

I stood by my bedroom window, looking out at the calm, star-lit garden below. My iron dagger was buckled firmly to my hip belt, and my shirt hung ready on the chair beside my bed.

’I have only got 10 hours remaining in the quest.’

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