Outworld Liberators-Chapter 170: The Surprises Awaiting After the Auction

[Sold for 2999 High Grade Spirit Stones.]

Mortals tried to chase it, eyes red, teeth clenched, but in the end the hand cannon was snatched by Empress Janis of Blessedgrove Fortunecrest.

She planned to gift it to their Summit Saintess, a gesture that would look like piety from the outside and control from the inside.

Behind her mask, she grinned wildly. In her mind she was already holding the stone tube, already hearing the crack, already watching the scoundrels who had once dragged their eyes over her back learn what shame cost.

One blast, and the world would remember manners.

Her gaze slid to Eldric on the stage, and something in her tightened. She could not forget what he had called her.

"Young lady," she murmured.

A simple phrase. A small thing. Yet it had followed her into meditation and ruined her sleep.

It made no sense, which made it worse. Her intuition kept scratching at it, insisting there were secrets behind this old ancestor.

Above, Radeon felt the auction house eyes turn on inside his own vision, the threads that tracked attention and intent.

One thread tugged at him, peculiar and unmistakable, a carnation pink strand stretching through the masks.

Infatuation. Puppy love. He followed it and found the source. Jamil.

Radeon slapped his forehead, quiet and sharp. He had been a loudmouth.

’Nothing really comes out great from a praising mouth,’ he thought.

Fay was a peerless beauty, yes, but Janis was no less.

Tall. Graceful. Dignified in a way that made the air around her feel arranged. Abyss black eyes and hair that held you like a deep well.

Eldric had praised her without thinking, because admiration had slipped past caution, and because at the end of the day he was still a man with needs.

He cut the thoughts off. Not now. Not here. Romance could wait. Trouble never did.

Eldric raised his hand and the hall settled.

"People of Goldkeep Crownmarkets," Eldric said, "I thank you for coming to our humble auction. Let me announce some things before you go."

His voice held the room like a net.

"First," he continued, "under your seats you will find a small board. It is not a device for bidding. It is for our bank, which we will also be opening today."

Murmurs rose immediately. Confusion first, then curiosity. People whispered to each other, asking what a bank was, and in the same breath admitting they did not want to look ignorant.

Eldric did not mock them. He spoke plainly.

"A bank is an establishment where you can store treasures. It does not display how much you have, because those details are kept secret to only yourselves."

The room stirred. Storage facilities were not unfamiliar. Vaults existed. Hidden caves existed. Sealed rooms under sect halls existed.

But to hand your wealth to someone else and trust secrecy as a service, that was a different matter.

Eldric let them chew on it, then tightened the hook.

"Those small boards," he said, "once you think you would like to apply for an account, they will activate. Instead of carrying spirit stones, you can use a card in our establishments."

Convenience lit up faces behind masks. No heavy pouches. No rattling carts. No guards hired just to transport a fortune from one street to another.

Even cultivators liked convenience when it did not cost face. Then, as if the hall had one shared mind, a single question rose in silence.

How much?

Radeon could feel it. Nobody believed a service like this would be free. Free services were always paid for later, in blood or leverage.

Eldric smiled as if he had been waiting for that thought.

"Please check our rates," he said. "Here on the board."

[Radeon Terraces Bank] (Charges incurred every month.)

[Deposited Amount] [100 Gold to 1000 Spirit Stones] [1 Silver]

[Deposited Amount] [1 Middle Grade Spirit Stone to 10 High Grade Spirit Stones] [5 Gold]

[Deposited Amount] [10 High Grade Spirit Stones to 999999 High Grade Spirit Stones] [1 Spirit Stones]

People thought this was very cheap. That was what people were telling talking about so Eldric started explaining.

"You see. These disciples," Eldric said, and pointed at the ghost attendants waiting by the walls. "It takes them a whole day to collect the earnings of the whole Terrace. Gathering. Counting. Recording."

He let the words sit in the air where cultivators could taste the waste.

"People of cultivation should understand this," Eldric continued. "A day missing is a day of cultivation that will never be regained."

That landed better than any sermon. Time was the only thing even immortals could not buy back.

"This makes the burden easier for us," Eldric said. "What more, imagine a hundred thousand people paying us a silver a month for just these muscles."

He raised his sleeves and displayed old arms that barely had any muscle at all. The joke was small, light enough not to insult the stakes. People chuckled. The room loosened.

The logic was simple. Mortals understood it too. Even those with private vaults could see the trade.

Five gold a month was paltry if it bought peace of mind, if it meant sleeping without a blade under the pillow and a guard at the door.

"There are stalls all over the Radeon Terraces if you want to avail the free bank account," Eldric said. Then he lifted a finger. "Oh. One more thing."

Attendants dragged in treasures of different calibers. Daggers. Axes. Personal arrays. Carriages. Accessories. So many items the eye stopped counting and started dreaming.

"I will be opening a Gaming and Social Club," Eldric said. "Three days from now. These will be the prizes one can win with just a silver coin." His gaze swept the hall again.

"If you want to test your luck once you arrive, it is best to have your bank with us activated. I’ll see you soon."

Then the darkness returned. It swallowed the hall, swallowing sound with it, and dots of light appeared on the floor, leading groups along different routes like stars guiding ships.

People filed out in silence, guided and separated. Yet when they emerged, they all found themselves back where they had entered, as if the auction house had folded and unfolded around them without leaving a seam.

Outside, the air was crowded with intent to battle and to kill. Summit Emperors had been uncontactable for three hours.

Not even the most advanced divination could confirm life or death.

Men gathered in ranks, watching the sealed doors as if staring hard could force answers out of stone.

Then the huge door opened. A towering Preta stepped out, twelve feet of black cloaked hunger, and for a heartbeat the crowd tensed as if a massacre might begin.

The creature removed its mask. It became a man again. Tiberius.

Manicus followed, peeling off his own mask. Sania stepped out as well, and her smile hit the anxious crowd like a balm.

"Lord Tiberius is safe! He is alive!"

Tiberius blinked at the shouting, stunned. He looked up and saw his own men of Contractcrown of Plunder Alp stationed outside in the hundreds of thousands, weapons ready, eyes wild with relief and suspicion.

Farther out, Hemal Tithe Cult members gathered like a dark tide, ready to declare him dead if he did not appear within the next hour.

On another flank, Silent Severance had raised Energy Prohibition pillars by the hundreds.

They stood like teeth in the ground, prepared to treat the Radeon Terraces as Eldritch-infested land if their people did not return.

Then more masked Preta men came out and removed their masks.

The Silent Severance members could be seen, still wearing the mask behind the mask.

Radeon could have sent a message to calm them all. He could have explained. He chose not to.

If he did, he would waste the best kind of publicity, the kind that fed rumor and built hunger.

The kind that made the Radeon Terraces feel larger than they were, stranger than they were, and worth traveling for.

And for him, publicity turned to faith all the same, because his name was welded to the peak.

Resources were secondary. Curiosity was the true harvest, and this afternoon, he had planted it in a crowd that would not stop talking for weeks.

At the back, Eldric’s face was plain to everyone who participated. This old man was about to crack another joke.

"Aye. Look upon these men." His gaze moved over them, cool and assessing. "Now tell me, where are all your leaders to put their faces?"

The mortals pinched their thighs and sides, trying hard not to laugh.

Cultivators punched themselves in the face, and some even fainted on the spot to keep it in.

This old man was far too flamboyant, everyone thought.