Celene swallowed her words so fast she nearly choked, her pale face turning an unsightly shade of green. Her eleven red tails wrapped so tightly around her body that she looked like a crumpled silk pillar.

She stumbled backward, her knees shaking as she finally stood aside, leaving the path to the inner court’s lower structures completely wide open.

​"Lead the way, old man," Hana said flatly. Though she could see the location through her system’s guide, she can’t exactly share her system map with them.

​Lord Kaelen didn’t answer. He strode forward with rigid, majestic steps, his white fur bristling with a dignity that made even the surrounding snow leopard archers uneasy.

The six red-tailed elders immediately scrambled off their granite platforms to follow behind their Sovereign, their arrogant expressions entirely replaced by a tense, nervous sweat.

They knew the law of the Eleven Spires; if Celene, who was doing all she could to make sure they did not search the value, was found guilty, she would definitely be taken down.

And if one of the leaders of the eleven spires fell today, the political stance of the entire valley would be rewritten.

​Hana walked right behind the High Sovereign, her round belly leading the way under her white dress.

​Caspian kept himself planted firmly on her left, his massive frame radiating a thick, protective wall of heat.

On her right, Kulu marched with smooth, dangerous strides. His crimson wings were tucked, but his steeled feathers kept making a low, metallic scraping sound with every step—a deliberate, territorial warning meant entirely for the white-haired feline walking behind them.

​Ren was trying his best to focus on the rescue mission, his icy blue eyes scanning the dark stone corridors they were descending into.

But his gaze kept instinctively drifting back to Hana’s swaying white dress and the sharp, unyielding line of her profile. Every time he looked, his black-striped tail gave an excited, nervous twitch. He had never seen a female stand so tall against the apex forces of the ridges. Especially one as rare as a human.

​Clack.

​Kulu suddenly shifted his weight, his spear tilting just enough for the razor-sharp tip to graze against the gravel right in front of Ren’s boots.

​Ren blinked, halting his steps as he looked up. He met Kulu’s predatory, narrowed amber gaze. The bird beastman didn’t say a word, but the lethal slit of his pupils and the tight, aggressive flare of his feathers made the message clear: Keep looking at her, and I’ll pin your pelt to the bunker wall.

​Ren cleared his throat, his ears twitching as a flush of embarrassment crept under his white fur. He quickly looked away, forcing his eyes to stay glued to the back of Lord Kaelen’s pristine white robes.

​Raiden, walking right at Hana’s heels, noticed the silent friction and let out a dark, quiet snicker. His nine pink tails swayed with a vicious amusement.

"The cat’s eyes are too big for his stomach," he murmured under his breath. "He doesn’t know Hana only collects high-tier resources, not stray strays."

Hana looked over her shoulder ​and then looked forward. They were being noisy.

The descent grew steeper, the lavished, silk-lined walls of the upper palace giving way to damp, raw granite blocks.

Hana’s system gave a high-frequency ping as it picked up the exact density of the structure below.

> ​[PROXIMITY WARNING: 10 METERS TO SUBTERRANEAN STRUCTURE]

> Anomalous Spatial Distortion Detected: Active High-Tier Illusion Array.

​"Stop," Hana commanded, her voice dropping into a flat, clinical register that instantly halted the entire procession.

​Lord Kaelen turned his head, his predatory green eyes narrowing. "The vault gates are just around the next corridor, human. Why do you halt?"

​"Because your gates aren’t there," Hana said, a cold, superior smirk touching her lips as she tilted the tablet toward him. "Look at the layout. The corridor in front of us is a structural dead-end wrapped in a high-frequency illusion loop. The actual entrance to your vault is hidden right behind that false stone pillar to your left."

​Celene, who was trailing at the very back under the tight watch of two snow leopards, went entirely breathless. Her eyes bulged in pure, unadulterated horror. She found it? Without even touching the stones, she found the illusion array?

Lord Kaelen did not hesitate. He followed the line of Hana’s pointing finger and turned his piercing green eyes toward the heavy granite pillar on the left.

The stone looked as ancient and solid as the rest of the foundation, but to a High Sovereign of the Crimson Line, the sudden disruption in the flow of local energy was now impossible to ignore.

​"Step back," Lord Kaelen commanded, his voice sending a cold shiver through the narrow passage.

​His eleven red-tipped tails violently flared out behind his white robes, gathering a dense, glowing crimson mist that crackled with raw spiritual pressure. With a single, sharp swipe of his clawed hand, he slammed his own power directly into the pillar.

​Crack! Shatter!

​The space fractured like glass. The illusion of the solid granite pillar dissolved into thin air, exposing a steep, hidden stone staircase that spiraled down into a dark, damp sub-cellar.

The distinct, stale smell of enclosed space—and the undeniable, overlapping scents of terrified female beastmen—instantly billowed up into the corridor.

​Ren’s nostrils flared, his icy blue eyes flashing with a sudden, wild rage as his leopard ears snapped completely forward. "That’s her! I smell my sister’s scent!"

​"Celene," Lord Kaelen rumbled, the sheer coldness of his voice making the six elders completely freeze. He didn’t even look back at her but he could sense lingering traces of her scent coming from the stairs. "Do you have anything to say in regards to this?" He asked but Celene had gone quiet.

She stood there, her heart racing and her eyes searching for an explanation. She had been confident that they wouldn’t sense the false entrance. Once they went through the perceived entrance, they would find nothing. They were supposed to find nothing.

But then this human spotted it. Out of every beastman with sharp senses, a human found it.

​Hana walked in after Ren who ran ahead. Caspian and Kulu pressed closely on either side of her, their expressions dark and lethal, while Raiden kept his hand hovering near her back, his nine tails completely still as they stepped into the hidden vault.

​At the bottom of the stairs, the hidden cellar opened up into a wide, iron-barred holding facility.

And there, huddled together on thin mats under the dim light of a few flickering torches, were fourteen young female beastmen from various surrounding tribes—including a beautiful white-haired snow leopard female who instantly looked up with tear-filled eyes.

​"Mina!" Ren roared as he rushed toward the iron bars.

​"Brother!" the girl cried out, rushing forward to grip the cold iron.