CHAPTER 303: AUCTION FINISHED!

Davina’s voice rang clear again, trying to maintain composure amid the rising tension. "We have another bid—twenty million gold!" Gasps rippled through the room. Surprisingly, it was Phoenix.

Damon snapped out of his thoughts as he noticed the girl. She was still going at it? He bitterly smiled. If this filthy rich brother and sister duo somehow managed to flop his carefully strategized plan, that would be the ultimate fuck up.

He quickly pulled up his status screen and decided not to let that happen, even by chance. He never thought that the duo had such deep pockets. Did they perhaps run into some sort of gold mind inside the game?

Thinking about it, Damon quickly sent a message. "Back out of the auction. Right now." He was typing and retyping some sort of explanation, which did not involve him revealing the truth, but it looked like that wasn’t needed after all.

As soon as he sent the first message, Phoenix stared at the words in shock for a moment before decisively shutting her mouth. When Blood Wraith tried to ask her about it, she simply shook her head.

Blood Wraith blinked at her, confused. "Wait, what the hell? You were just about to break them! Why stop now?"

Phoenix shrugged with practiced nonchalance, but a faint sweat glistened at her temples. "Not worth it," she muttered, gaze flicking in Damon’s direction just once.

Blood Wraith frowned but didn’t press further. Something about the way his sister said that made even him uneasy. Damon, watching from across the room, allowed himself a breath of relief. That was one potential grenade defused.

Both during the purification raid and now, Blood Wraith and Phoenix had helped him out quite a bit. She did not even try to pry and see if the masked person was him. Damon appreciated that. He made a mental note to meet with the two soon.

As he was thinking about them, it looked like the auction was finally coming to an end. With Phoenix backing out, the other four aggressively bid for a while until something unexpected happened.

Damon quickly caught the small development. All of a sudden, one player from each guild quickly stepped forward and whispered in the bidding players’ ears.

The shift was subtle, easily missed by most. But Damon wasn’t most people. His eyes narrowed as he watched the chain reaction unfold. The moment those whispers landed, the bidders’ expressions darkened. One by one, like dominoes toppling in sequence, they began stepping back.

The momentum of the auction had slammed to a halt, not because someone had outbid the rest, but because the heavyweights had, for some reason, surrendered.

Davina blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Um... it seems..." She cleared her throat and glanced at the stage managers, who only shrugged helplessly. "The current high bid of twenty-five million gold... stands uncontested."

That meant...

Damon slowly turned toward the last bidder, the Legion of Justice. The American super guild was walking home with the grand prize. Or so it seemed.

But something felt wrong.

Damon’s gaze lingered on the Legion of Justice booth. The man standing there, a tall, clean-cut warrior in silver-blue armor, was the very picture of victory, nodding calmly as Davina tried to recover her composure.

The sale of the legendary treasure chest had finally come to an end, and applause kicked in along with gasps, murmurs, and chatter.

In the midst of all of this, Damon instinctively turned towards Aiden and to his surprise, the guy was busy staring in front of him, his hands busily moving, almost as if he was orchestrating something from his system interface.

The next moment before the auction even concluded, the guy quietly slipped away from the auction house using some sort of teleportation token.

"Son of a bitch," Damon muttered. "Just who the hell are you?" The person whom he had assumed to know, the petty bastard who had backstabbed him, suddenly looked very different.

"Fuck you." Damon gritted his teeth. He did not care. For all it mattered, he could be some Moriarty-level master mind piece of garbage. He would still make that bastard kneel before him, weak and powerless.

And it was all going to start with this single treasure chest!

"You should be pretty content that you managed to snag this, huh? Wait and see what happens."

Damon’s gaze turned cold as he continued to observe the crowd for a while longer before he too teleported out of the auction house to the outskirts of the Valemire city and then directly to the Blood Hall. He still had a lot of work to do.

"Ellora, can you come with me?" Damon called the eager vampire, who immediately ran over to him. "Come with me. We are going somewhere."

Ellora’s eyes sparkled with curiosity, her crimson pupils locking onto Damon with quiet intensity. "Where to, my Lord?" she asked, already matching his pace as he began walking briskly through the Blood Hall’s shadowy corridors.

"It doesn’t matter, my Lord. I would go anywhere with you. All you need to do is say the word. I would do anything for you." She beamed with happiness. "Please tell me that clothing is optional, my lord?" She added with a wink.

And when Damon did not respond, she became overjoyed. "Are we finally going to do that, my Lord?" Ellora gave a shy smile as if she were a virgin all over again.

Damon snorted. He continued to ignore the woman until they reached a secluded room. He then started explaining to her the plan. "I need a favor from you. This is only for your ears and not for anyone else. Not even Varnyx. I need you to disguise yourself-"

He paused for a moment, looking at her seductive figure from top to bottom. There was no way to hide this marvelous body. "Just... can you make yourself look like an old hag. I mean, like you were doing it before for your shop. Maybe just take the look of a different old woman."

Ellora immediately pouted. "I thought you wanted to see me naked, why are you asking me to make myself ugly?" But she stopped joking after sensing that Damon was in no mood for jokes at the moment.

"This is serious. I am trusting you and relying on you. Don’t disappoint me." He then proceeded to fill her in on the details.

"Observe the small city of Lotera for the next few days. As soon as you notice something out of the ordinary, message me. Keep me up to date on every small development in the city. I need to know every person who walks in and out of the city and every move the city lord makes."

Ellora’s playful demeanor vanished in an instant. Her crimson eyes sharpened, her smile fading into something more fitting of her true station, a top-tier C rank vampire of the Blood Hall, loyal only to her lord.

"Understood," she said, bowing slightly. "You’ll have eyes in every shadow. No one will enter or leave without me knowing."

"Good," Damon muttered. Everything was in play now. He had moved all the pieces he needed to.

Lotera wasn’t some random town. It was the stage where the chaos was going to unfold, the chaos that would inevitably unfold when the so-called legendary treasure chest opens up!