The auction began.

Noah stood among strangers, wearing a half-mask of red that covered everything but his eyes.

He looked like any other collector ...just another noble fallen from grace trying to buy himself another title with cursed gold.

The crowd was a sea of masks.

Ranging from foxes, lions, ravens, faceless porcelain.

Perfume mixed with smoke and the faint trace of blood.

The air shimmered with mana from protective barriers.

A quiet murmur rippled through the rows as attendants rolled out the first glass cases.

A bell chimed.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a voice smooth as silk from the balcony.

The auctioneer wore a white mask shaped like a dove.

"Welcome once again to the Parliament Vault Exchange ... tonight's selection is… extraordinary.

Let us begin."

Polite claps then the room turned quiet.

---

The first item... a crystal heart from a wyvern.

Starting bid: fifty thousand crowns.

Hands rose, rings glittering in candlelight.

"One hundred thousand."

"Two hundred."

"Three hundred."

The prices rose faster than the rain outside.

Noah sat still, eyes scanning every face, every motion.

Information was worth more than money tonight.

He'd come here for a lead... the rumors of an ancient relic unearthed from the northern ruins, something said to "belong to a saint who spoke to the stars."

The Hand of the Saint.

Noah's coin purse weighed light.

It held the last of his Ashbourne inheritance ...the single favor he'd managed to wrest from his former house before walking away.

Once it was gone, there'd be no more comfort, no more gold.

He'd live on what he earned as a guard at the Bluerose estate and whatever the Chrome Hearts could scrape together in the alleys.

Still, he lifted his paddle once.

A few heads turned.

Bidding against nobles was unwise, but he did it anyway...small things but useful things.

A vial of alchemic smoke.

A rusted dagger once used in a sacrificial rite.

A map of half-forgotten tunnels beneath the northern continent.

The audience barely noticed him. His red mask was too plain.

He kept his tone low whenever the attendant approached.

"Two hundred thousand.

Cash."

When the gavel struck, he won the vial and the map.

Half his purse gone in an instant.

The audience murmured, unimpressed, already waiting for grander prizes.

---

Next came a phoenix feather sealed in glass, said to burn endlessly.

Then the bones of a beast that once devoured souls.

Then a forbidden tome written in a language the Church erased.

Each item sold to the masked lords and ladies who whispered numbers like confessions.

A man with a serpent mask laughed whenever he won, his voice echoing off the stone.

"Four hundred thousand!"

"Ha! A million! Who dares challenge the House of Aldric?"

Laughter followed him, soft and poisonous. Everyone wanted to be seen, but no one wanted to be known.

That was the paradox of this place.

Masks made them brave and made them monsters.

Noah sipped his drink slowly.

His hand trembled once before he stilled it.

He could feel the Chrome in his blood reacting to the relics on display.

They were all tainted in one way or another, reeking of old magic.

His mask reflected faintly in the glass ...yellow eyes that had seen too much already.

Then the auctioneer clapped once.

"Lot 41," he said.

"A relic from the First Era — retrieved from the ruins near the border of the Northern Continent, sealed by the old Saint herself...or rather what people refer her as 'Witch of Envy'.

The Hand of the Saint."

The attendants rolled out a long rectangular case.

Inside was something wrapped in white cloth.

When the cloth peeled back, the room fell silent.

It wasn't a hand in flesh ...it was a metallic sculpture.

Its surface rippled with veins of silver light.

Symbols in an unknown language pulsed faintly along the knuckles, each rune humming like a heartbeat.

The mana that leaked from it was gentle but infinite, the kind that whispered of another world entirely.

Even through the glass, Noah felt it ...that faint pulse, that echo of something alien.

It wasn't just magic.

It was… familiar.

He clenched his jaw.

The auctioneer raised his voice again.

"Rumored to have belonged to the Saint who caused and ended the First War.

Scholars claim she descended from the heavens.

Her miracles changed history ...her hand, preserved and immortalized, has been recovered for the first time in centuries.

The bidding begins at one million crowns!"

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Fans snapped open.

"One point two!"

"One point five!"

"Two million!"

The serpent-masked noble leaned forward.

"Three million crowns!"

Noah's hand hovered.

His entire purse wouldn't reach half that amount.

But he couldn't ignore it.

That relic resonated with him the same way fragments from his past lives did.

He could feel a faint ache behind his eyes, like a whisper from somewhere older than this body.

He leaned toward the attendant.

"Who delivered it?"

The attendant blinked.

"Anonymous...

All relics of high order come sealed from the northern collectors."

'Collectors?'

The same word from the ledger from Dock Nine.

So this is where their treasures end up.

His heart beat faster.

If this artifact came from those collectors, then it was proof of corruption and the nobles funding forbidden excavations.

But to expose it, he needed a distraction.

He stood up and left quietly through the side corridor.

Behind the curtains, servants whispered and moved boxes.

The air smelled of dust and greed.

Noah changed quickly ...a black coat, gloves, and the opera-style mask with only thin silver slits for eyes.

His cane changedband took form into a chrome-spear that gleamed faintly blue under lamplight.

When he walked back into the hall, the murmurs changed tone.

"Machiavelli…"

Someone whispered.

In this city, that name was already whispered in alleys, feared by gangs, admired by the poor.

The silver-faced gentleman, the leader of Chrome Hearts.

The serpent-masked noble froze mid-bid.

The auctioneer hesitated.

Guards at the corners straightened.

Noah walked straight to the front row and rested the spear against his shoulder.

His voice echoed, calm, cold.

"Quite the display tonight. I didn't expect the Parliament Vaults to turn into a graveyard for history."

The auctioneer laughed nervously.

"Sir Machiavelli, your presence is...unexpected.

Perhaps you'd prefer to register for..."

"I prefer honesty," Noah cut him off.

"This relic you sell as the Saint's Hand...do you know where it came from?

Or did you simply take it from a ruin drenched in blood?"

Gasps. Someone whispered.

"He's accusing the council…"

The auctioneer stiffened.

"I suggest you leave before..."

Noah slammed the spear's end on the marble.

The guards moved instantly ...a dozen armored figures rushing from the wings.

The crowd erupted in panic, masks turning, skirts rustling, chairs scraping.

The serpent-masked noble shouted, "Seize him!"

Noah moved first.

The spear spun in his hands like a storm of light.

He struck the first guard's armor ...chrome energy burst outward, sending the man sprawling.

Another came from behind.

Noah twisted, parried, and cracked the shaft against his helm.

The crowd screamed as chaos consumed the hall.

Crates shattered, relics fell and glass broke. Someone shouted, "Protect the relic!" while another yelled, "Kill him before he reaches the vault!"

Noah ducked under a blade and slammed his palm against the floor.

The Chrome in his veins responded, spreading a silver pattern like veins through the marble.

The ground split slightly enough to knock guards off balance.

He looked toward the display case.

The Hand of the Saint pulsed brighter, reacting to the chaos.

"Stay with me," he whispered — he didn't even know why. The relic thrummed once, a resonance echoing faintly inside his chest, and for a fleeting moment he saw… an image.

A hand reaching out across a void.

A woman's voice, faint and sorrowful.

"You still remember me, don't you?"

Then the vision was gone.

"Dammit," he hissed.

The serpent-masked noble drew a pistol infused with mana and fired.

The bullet screamed past Noah's ear.

He dived behind a fallen column, tossed the vial of alchemic smoke he'd bought earlier which everyone had mocked as useless.

It burst into a thick gray fog, swallowing the hall whole.

Noah slipped through the haze, grabbed the relic's case, and smashed it open with the butt of his spear.

He didn't take the hand...instead tore off a fragment of cloth with its residual mana, proof enough for later.

Guards lunged from the smoke.

He deflected two blades, disarmed one man, struck another's knee.

He darted toward the vault doors.

Behind him, the noble shouted for reinforcements.

Ahead, the doors thick iron barred with runes.

"Stop him!"

"He's stealing the Saint's Hand!"

Noah slammed the spear into the locking rune.

Chrome energy surged, overloading the sigil.

He kicked the door open, spilling into the rain-soaked night.

Cold air hit his face.

He ran through the narrow alley behind the parliament...the relic fragment pressed against his chest.

Behind him, the vault erupted with alarms.

By the time the guards reached the street, he was gone.