There was a delegation of well-dressed men in the greatest liveries. Jewelry hung from their bodies like it was roadside trash, with not a single one below the Rank of Epic and even a few Legendaries!
Even Zaine was left speechless deep down by the sheer wealth and opulence of the Merchant Guild. If this was borne by their 'surface' wealth, then how much was their 'secret' wealth in total?!
Suddenly, any regret or guilt Zaine held about robbing them blind faded away, not that there was much of that in the first place. From her new point of view, the Merchant Guild had been kind enough to save that money over the centuries for Eva, and she was just coming to claim it.
In fact, they should kowtow before her that she was kind enough to only go for the money... this time.
These men ranged from pudgy to thin, with even a few women among them. After all, riches weren't tied to a single gender in this kind of society. The females also ranged from slim to absolute unit, giving a great contrast to the whole array.
They all greeted Zaine casually by introducing themselves proudly telling her about their great lineage one by one, and Zaine also returned the greetings lightly. Politically and financially, both powers were equal. As such, neither side needed to bow or act subservient towards the other.
A wide man with a monstrous paunch seemed to be the leader of their group and tried to hide his hungry gaze as he took in Zaine's assets, yet failed to do so from the succubus, spoke. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? I was told you had something good for us to see?"
Zaine tittered. "Yes, that's right. I wasn't only referring to myself, but a very special item I brought for us to trade… in private."
The group also chuckled lightly at Zaine's self-praise. The woman was eye-candy and she knew it, which was a refreshing change from sensual women who feigned modesty when using their charms to enhance negotiations.
Of course, that didn't mean they fell for it. They just respected her ability to speak bluntly without acting fake or speak the usual bullshit they had gotten used to.
"If that is the case, then please, by all means, follow us to our special trade room." The man suggested with a laugh.
Zaine nodded and followed the group into the premises proper. The Merchant Guild's headquarters were more like a super huge castle rather than a mere establishment for them to gather.
Zaine was led into a comfortable lounge with music, servants, and premium runes that controlled everything from air quality, to airflow, temperature, and even smell.
It was almost on par with the best lounges in the modern era. Zaine sat down and spent some time making idle chatter with these fellows, as they all danced around the topic while they ate and drank great food.
Eventually, the matter could not be shelved any longer. The pudgy man who seemed to be the leader asked: "So, can we see the item you propose to trade with us?"
Zaine nodded, but looked around. "How secure are we from prying eyes? I need your absolute certainty that nothing can disturb us from outside, and no one can interrupt us to see what we're dealing with until the trade is made. Otherwise... well I am pretty sure you already know the consequences."
When she said this, the faces of the guild members here became grave. They didn't suspect that Zaine asked for this so that they could be cut off from the outside world granting Eva more leeway, but rather the supremely taboo item warranted such caution.
This was a partial truth, something which Devils absolutely loved and worshipped, because it made their deceptions easier and smoother. When the guild members thought about what at all Vita City-state could feel was so dangerous that they'd require this much, their mind latched onto one particular item.
When they thought about this, their breathing became rough. As such, they unhesitatingly complied with Zaine's request and even went above and beyond by locking down the whole courtyard and telling the guards to focus themselves on their location, neglecting all other places.
An unexpected development for Zaine and Eva, but a good one. It was clear why Jada's prediction had been so favorable in terms of her success. They had underestimated the value of the Advanced Spatial Creation Devices to these powers who feared the Great War's looting the most.
Zaine began the negotiation with the merchants, going back and forth in an epic financial as well as verbal battle that would be told in histories to come, every trick in the book being cast out like it was from a shounen anime, with flashy lights and crazy technique name-calling.
As for Eva, she had had never followed Zaine. The very moment Luxia had landed, Eva had receded into shadow using her bloodline. Relying on her measly Shadow Assassin class alone would not be enough.
She was primarily relying on a few skills in addition to her bloodline. There was the passive from the Abyssal Ring, two skills from her Divine Heraldry and her Eye of Heaven as well as some class skills.
｢Passive 2 – Shroud of Darkness: A permanent layer of darkness covers your form, making you 300% harder to detect in stealth and 70% resistant to darkness element attacks.｣
｢Light Manipulation – Passive skill
Effect: Control natural light energy freely and with no restrictions.｣
｢Free Movement – Passive skill
Effect: Suffer no movement inhibitions whatsoever.｣
｢Passive 1 – Light Amplification: Light-based skills and techniques are boosted by 300%.｣
｢Shadow Illusion – Passive skill
Effect: When in stealth or under the effects of any concealment technique, you will summon a shadow illusion of yourself when your concealment technique is broken.｣
The Shroud of Darkness made her stealth 3 times stronger, which meant she was practically undetectable unless one had something specific to counter it. Eva used her Light Manipulation passive from the Divine Heraldry in conjunction with her Goddess of Light Inheritance to manipulate all flows of light around her body.
This made her completely visually impalpable. No matter what visual trap method or technique anyone below Divinity had, they would be unable to detect her, especially when one added the Light Amplification passive.
The Shadow Illusion skill was her secret means to give herself some time to escape if she was spotted. It was usually meant for combat, but had great effects outside of it.
Free Movement was Eva's trump card to walk through all traps unhindered. Nothing could stun, debuff, cage, or lock her below Divinity.
Of course, those traps could still detect her if she triggered some of them, so she still had to be careful and sneak her way along the halls of the castle.
Just mere visual impalpability was not enough to hide from detection. This might be a game world in the medieval age, but they had similar technologies to the real world thanks to Magical Engineering. While it may not be as efficient or powerful, it still existed.
There were many ways to track a person, sight, sound, touch, and heat. The Merchant Guild had procured all of these methods, so Eva had only covered one aspect of herself.
How was she going to mute herself? Or remove her weight and turn her blood cold?
As one could imagine, there was only one way to realistically do so, which was Control! Eva's Control had already been shown to be different from Draco's. Draco had developed his Control in a way that helped his combat and Tradeskills.
On the other hand, Eva developed in a slightly similar way to the normal Control master, only that hers had been tuned to hide her presence from enemies, which had been edgelord Draco's biggest headache in the previous timeline as he sought to murder his soulmate.
Eva didn't use just one ability to hide herself, but used both the Void of Perfection and Body of Godliness in tandem. She manipulated her body's weight distribution with each step, lowering the sound and pressure of her steps to almost nothing, like a feather hitting the ground, while she suppressed the heat in her body greatly.
She used her Void of Perfection in tandem with her Celestial Maiden's mental prowess to control the area within 2 meters of her body completely, not allowing any leftover sound, sight, smell, touch, or heat to show to anything outside that range.
This was something Draco was unable to do with his own Dark Angel Inheritance for obvious reasons, but it was the key to Eva's success in all her espionage and assassinations in the previous timeline.
Eva moved through the building quickly, the Orb of Worlds in hand as she sussed out all the nearby locations with her full activated Control. Both her mental stamina and bloodline energy were burning away slowly due to this, so she had to move quickly.
Eva checked and was sure that she was getting the same readings as before. No new pocket spaces were in or around the area, only the two from before as well as the two Bags of Holding.
Now that she had verified everything from a close range, it was time to make the first critical decision of this heist. Which of the targets should she go for? She only had one shot at this, otherwise everything was more than likely to go up in smoke before it ever truly began.
Jada stated that she had a 70% chance to guess the right answer, meaning that should she not have listened to Jada's readings, her initial choice would have most likely been right.
As such, Eva clenched her jaw and resolutely headed to the main treasury. Her train of thought was simple, most people who didn't own anything of value which needed hiding thought that those who did would put it in a super-secret unthinkable area with the requirement of 1000 IQ and 10 riddles to find its location.
However, the truth was that most people just hid it in plain sight, knowing that those who came to rob would think themselves smarter than everyone else, trying to find hidden and obscure meanings when it was right in front of them.
Eva wasn't talking from her ass, this was a trend she had learned in and out of the game from her 15+ years of espionage, heists, and assassinations. If the Merchant Guild were wise, they would do the same, hence why one pocket space was in their 'surface' treasury.
When mugging a man, after seizing his wallet and taking the cash from the main pocket of the wallet, who thought to feel out the back to find a small zipper that held his hidden credit card with more than 90% of his wealth?
No, the thief would take his credit cards in the front pockets of the wallet, where they were lined up nicely, not realizing that they only had 10% of the victim's wealth in hand at best.
Eva greatly suspected the pouch in the armory, for that was so conspicuous, but it was also too obvious. The pocket realm in the garden was another option but suffered from a similar issue.
The one on the Guildmaster's body was impossible to filch at this time since he was negotiating with Zaine, so her best bet lay with the Treasury's pocket space.
Eva rushed to her destination while avoiding the few smattering of guards posted along the hallways. Thanks to Zaine's wit, this had become much easier for Eva and made her job smoother overall.
However, the closer she got to the treasury, the tighter the defenses. She had to avoid many specialized beasts that tracked scent and weird runes that monitored sound and heat in a room or hallway.
There were also space sealing runes, so one could not blink or use any spatial means to pop in and out with ease. The guard presence was also increased, as even if most of them were recalled to defense the negotiation room, they still needed someone to defend their riches.
All of this compounded to create a tough situation for Eva to surmount, but the madwoman was in her zone, feeling like old times when she danced on the edge of oblivion while shuffling through the darkness.
Eva crawled on the ground, crouch-walked at times, and even jumped on the ceiling or walls, like some bizarre spider-woman. If any guard could have seen her, that slim form with a dark hood staring down at them from above whole posed like a spider, contemplating whether to kill or knock them out, they would understand that they had narrowly avoided a horrible death.