Chapter 140: [140]: The Masquerade Gala, Slipping the Leash

The skull split open, brain matter and blood splashing across the polished

stone. The body twitched violently for a second before going completely still.

It was over in less than ten seconds!

Sebastian finished his protein bar, wiping the crumbs from his gloves. He didn’t

feel a single ounce of pity. The Ethereal Plane was a meat grinder. If you

walked up to the blades without knowing how to turn off the machine, you

deserved to get ground into sausage.

The Void Wardens stood perfectly still for a moment, their internal logic

ensuring the threat was neutralized. Then, without a word, their black armor

dissolved into a flurry of dark pixels. They vanished back into the server’s defense grid, leaving the three mangled bleeding corpses on the floor.

Sebastian waited exactly thirty seconds to ensure the area was clear.

He hopped over the railing and dropped gracefully to the concourse floor, his boots making a soft tap against the marble.

He walked casually over to the absolute slaughterhouse in front of the diamond doors. There was a lot of fresh blood on the floor.

"Sucks to be you," Sebastian said deadpan, stepping over the bisected torso of the first rebel.

He didn’t care about their armor or their weapons. He crouched down next to the

leader, whose head was twisted at a horrific angle. Clutched tightly in the dead man’s rigid fingers were the glowing red decryptor chips.

Sebastian pried the stiff fingers open and plucked the hardware from the corpse.

[Item Acquired: High-Tier Decryptor Chips x4]

[Grade: Illegal Contraband]

[Effect: Brute-forces biometric and runic security locks.]

A cold and genuinely pleased smile spread across Sebastian’s face behind his visor.

He had the physical strength to rip the doors open, but that would trigger the alarms and summon the Wardens.

He needed to get into the Server Pillar quietly.

And these dead idiots had just hand-delivered the exact keys he needed to pull off the ultimate heist!

"Thanks for the donation, boys," Sebastian murmured, slipping the chips into his bottomless inventory. "I’ll make sure they go to a good cause. Like stealing this entire planet."

He turned his back on the bloody mess and walked away, casually returning to his guard post before Garret could notice he was missing.

—-

Three days later, the Vanguard Syndicate threw a party. And it was exactly as nauseatingly opulent as Sebastian expected!

It was the end of the fiscal quarter, a time for the corporate elites of Server 112 to pat themselves on the back for efficiently starving the lower sectors and converting human misery into a highly profitable energy surplus.

To celebrate their cruelty, they hosted the Masquerade Gala in the grand ballroom of the Inner Spire.

Sebastian stood near the massive reinforced glass windows of the upper balcony, looking down at the absolute circus below.

He was still wearing the boring grey and blue tactical armor of Trent. His kinetic rifle was strapped to his chest. He was assigned to the perimeter guard detail, tasked with keeping the unauthorized trash away from the precious executives.

"I cannot believe these people," Sebastian muttered, his voice barely audible over the swelling obnoxious orchestral music echoing through the ballroom.

The room below was a masterpiece of wasted resources. The floor was made of polished obsidian, laced with glowing veins of liquid gold. Massive fountains didn’t pump water, they pumped expensive pink wine that cascaded down into crystal basins.

The guests were a collection of the highest-level NPCs and aristocratic beta

testers on the server. They wore flowing gowns of woven starlight and tailored suits made from the hides of endangered digital beasts.

But the worst part was the masks.

It was a masquerade. Every single elite wore a mask carved from pure crystallized mana!

They were shaped like elegant foxes, roaring lions, and weeping angels. They pulsed with an aura of condensed magical energy that could have easily powered the water filtration systems of the Sector 4 slums for a decade. Instead, it was being used as a fashion statement.

"Look at them," Rix whispered from his guard post ten feet away. The young soldier was staring down at the dancing couples with wide envious eyes. "Guild Master Regis just walked in. He’s wearing a mask made of a Level 70 Diamond Golem core. Do you know how many credits that’s worth, Trent?"

"Enough to buy you a personality, Rix. Shut up and watch the door," Sebastian deadpanned, not even looking at the kid.

He didn’t care about the fashion. His silver-tinged eyes were entirely focused on the layout of the room. He was running a brutal tactical calculus in his head.

There were four primary targets tonight.

Guild Master Regis, the head of the Vanguard Syndicate. He was currently sipping pink wine near the center fountain, surrounded by fawning sycophants.

Then there were the three lieutenants. Inquisitor Vance, the psychic interrogator who had tried to scan Sebastian in the holding cell. Commander Sterling, the arrogant noble who had sponsored Sebastian in the Crucible. And General Kael, the man directly responsible for running the Harvest Dens where refugees were boiled into batteries.

They were all gathered in one room. It was the perfect opportunity!

But the security was tight. There were at least fifty heavily armed Vanguard elites patrolling the floor. Magical drones the size of

hummingbirds floated near the ceiling, constantly recording the entire event for the Vanguard broadcast network.

Sebastian pulled up his spoofed green and blue UI. The red [Admin Suspicion] meter sat at a comfortable zero.

"Time to slip the leash," Sebastian whispered to himself.

He accessed the internal Vanguard security network through his Elite badge. He

didn’t cast a massive Reality Hack. He used his [Code Compiler] to execute a series of microscopic surgical edits to the surveillance grid.

He highlighted the patrol route assigned to Gunner Trent. He pulled the digital line of his route and gently dragged it across the floor plan, perfectly overlapping it with the known blind spots of the hummingbird drones.

[Action Registered: Modify Patrol Parameters.]

[Status: Accepted. Route Updated.]

Next, he targeted the specific camera drone monitoring his current balcony. He didn’t disable it. That would trigger an immediate maintenance alarm.

He just copied the last five seconds of his visual feed. An image of Trent standing perfectly still, staring blankly ahead. He pasted it over the live feed on a continuous loop.

"Enjoy the screen saver, command,"

Sebastian smirked behind his visor.

He turned away from the railing and walked silently toward a heavy iron maintenance door tucked away in the shadows of the alcove. He slipped his ID badge over the scanner.

CLICK.

The door unlocked. Sebastian slipped inside and pulled it shut behind him, plunging himself into the dark dusty confines of a ventilation shaft.

The heavy thumping of the orchestral music was instantly muffled. The smell of expensive perfume was replaced by the comforting scent of rust and stale air.

Sebastian didn’t waste a second!

He unclasped the heavy grey and blue chest plate of his Vanguard armor.

CLATTER.

He dropped it onto the metal grating. He stripped off the bulky shoulder pads, the restrictive greaves, and the standard-issue combat boots. He tossed the kinetic rifle onto the pile of discarded gear.

He opened his bottomless inventory.

"Manifest," he commanded softly.

The air shimmered. He pulled out the sleek featureless tactical suit he had stolen from the surplus depot. He pulled it on. The polymer immediately compressed against his skin, locking in his body heat and completely erasing his physical profile. He felt impossibly light.

He reached into his inventory one more time and pulled out the helmet. It was a smooth completely blank dome of impact-resistant black glass. No eye-slits. No breathing vents. Just a terrifying void.

He slid it over his head. The internal HUD remained entirely dark.

Trent the Gunner was gone. The loyal pudgy soldier had ceased to exist.

The Blank had returned!

Sebastian rolled his neck. The joints popped with a dense heavy sound. He reached down to his thigh and drew the Rusty Iron Dagger. The pathetic weapon looked absolutely ridiculous against the high-tech assassin gear, but it hummed with the apocalyptic promise of the [God-Slayer’s Edge].

He crawled through the ventilation shaft, moving with the terrifying frictionless grace of a predator that had just slipped its cage. He navigated the metallic maze until he found a vent overlooking the private upper balconies

of the grand ballroom.

He peered through the rusted slats.

Directly below him, sitting in a plush velvet chair in a secluded VIP booth, was

Inquisitor Vance. The psychic interrogator had his silver visor pushed up, sipping a glass of glowing wine and laughing at a joke told by one of his aides.

Sebastian didn’t feel anger. He didn’t feel a rush of heroic justice. He just felt the cold unyielding necessity of taking out the trash.

He pressed his black-gloved hands against the vent cover. He didn’t kick it. He simply applied his raw Demigod-tier physical strength and bent the iron screws until they snapped silently.

He pulled the grate inward, setting it gently down inside the shaft.

Sebastian looked down at the Inquisitor. The party raged on below, entirely oblivious to the nightmare hovering right above their heads.

"Let’s kill the music," Sebastian whispered into the dark. He dropped from the ceiling.