The air in the subterranean vault of the Obsidian Club didn't smell like money. It smelled like ancient dust, copper, and desperation. This wasn't a place for the wealthy; it was a sanctuary for the powerful. To find Sarah and the Void Eye, I had to be here.
"Eyes down, Elias," a contact had whispered to me at the door. "In here, your bank account is worthless. They only take what's inside your soul."
I walked through the gilded double doors, my heavy boots thudding against the plush velvet carpet. The room was a sea of masks—porcelain, gold, and bone. At the front, a stage was set with a single, glowing pedestal.
"Welcome back to the market of the damned," a voice boomed from the shadows.
I felt a tug on my sleeve. A young woman, her face pale and her eyes rimmed with red, clutched a silver tablet. She looked like she was drowning in the middle of the room.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, my voice low.
"I have no choice," she whispered, her hands shaking. "I'm Lydia. My father is... he's dying. The doctors said it's a curse, not a disease."
"The Mayor's daughter," I realized. "You're looking for the Soul Pill."
"It's the only thing that can purge the Qi-poison," she said, her voice breaking. "But the price... I don't have enough. I've offered twenty years of my own life-force, and it's still not enough."
"Twenty years?" I looked at her, truly seeing the exhaustion in her frame. "You'll be an old woman before you leave this room."
"If it saves him, I don't care."
"Quiet!" a man roared from the front row. He was dressed in traditional silk robes that pulsed with a faint, threatening light. Sect Leader Yan of the Iron Blood Pavilion. He didn't look at us; he looked at the stage as a small, translucent orb was brought out.
"The Soul Pill," the auctioneer announced, his voice a gravelly rasp. "Bidding starts at fifty years of Essence."
Lydia gasped, her tablet slipping from her fingers. "Fifty? That's more than I have left."
"Sixty years!" Yan shouted, his voice echoing with spiritual pressure that made the weaker guests drop to their knees. He turned and sneered at the room. "Unless someone else wants to die today, this belongs to the Iron Blood Pavilion."
"Seventy years," a voice called from the back.
Yan's face contorted. He slammed a fist onto his chair, the wood splintering. "Eighty years! And I will personally flay the next man who speaks!"
The room went silent. Lydia slumped against a marble pillar, weeping silently. "It's over," she choked out. "He's going to die."
I looked at Yan—a man who lived on the stolen life of others—and then at the pill. If I wanted to find the Void Eye, I needed to be the biggest fish in the pond. I needed to slap the smug look off every Sect Leader in this room.
I stepped forward into the center aisle.
"One hundred years," I said. My voice wasn't a shout, but the gravity in the room shifted, making the chandeliers rattle.
The auctioneer paused, his eyes narrowing. "A bold claim, stranger. But we don't take promises. We take Essence. You look barely thirty. You don't have a hundred years of mortal life to give."
Yan turned, his eyes burning with killing intent. "Who is this dog? Kill him and let's be done with this."
"I'm not offering mortal life," I said, stepping closer to the stage. I felt the well of power Sarah had called a 'battery' stir in my chest. I focused on that heat, that endless, crushing weight of gravity and stars. "I'm offering one hundred years of Divine Qi."
The silence that followed was absolute.
"Divine Qi?" the auctioneer whispered, stepping back from the pedestal. "That... that's impossible. That rank hasn't been seen in a thousand years."
"Test it," I challenged, holding out my hand.
The auctioneer brought forward a crystal gauge. As I touched it, the glass didn't just glow; it shrieked. A blinding, golden light erupted, cracking the crystal and sending a shockwave through the room that blew the masks off half the guests.
Yan stood up, his face pale, his bravado gone. "Divine Qi... you... you're a monster."
"I'm the winner," I said, my voice cold as ice.
I looked at Lydia, who was staring at me in shock, and then at the auctioneer. "Give her the pill. The debt is mine."
"Sold!" the auctioneer yelled, his hands trembling as he handed the case to a stunned Lydia.
I felt the eyes of every predator in the room turn toward me. It wasn't just envy anymore; it was hunger. By revealing what was inside me, I hadn't just bought a pill. I had put a neon target on my back.
Yan stepped toward me, his hand on the hilt of a glowing jade sword. "You think you can just walk out of here after humiliating the Iron Blood Pavilion? You've just signed your death warrant, boy. You're the richest prize in this city."
I didn't flinch. I let the gravity in my small radius increase until the floor tiles under Yan's feet began to powder into dust.
"I didn't come here to buy toys, Yan," I said, loud enough for the entire room to hear. "I came here to find the Void Eye. And now that I've shown you what I am, I know they're watching."
I turned my back on the most powerful man in the room, a move of pure defiance.
"Elias, wait!" Lydia called out, clutching the pill to her chest. "They'll kill you for this! You don't know what you've done!"
"I know exactly what I've done," I said, looking toward the dark corners of the balcony where I could see the faint shimmer of black tactical gear. "I just stopped being the prey."
But as I moved toward the exit, my blood went cold. A small red dot appeared on the back of Lydia's neck, then moved to mine. A familiar whistle pierced the air—the sound of a Void Eye extraction team.
The heavy steel vault doors slammed shut, locking us all inside.
"The auction is over," a cold, feminine voice echoed through the speakers. I knew that voice. Sarah. "Now, let's see how much that battery can really put out before it explodes."
The ceiling vents hissed, releasing a thick, purple gas. The guests began to scream as the "Life Essence" they had just traded started to bleed out of their pores.
I looked at the stage, then at the locked doors. I was trapped in a room full of dying predators, and the woman I once loved was about to turn the key.