The Golden Glass Inn gleamed like a polished gem under the lights. Inside, laughter flowed, and the scent of exotic incense mingled with the aura of powerful cultivators. Elegant robed men and veiled women from prominent sects lounged in gold-laced chambers, their guards positioned like idle statues.
Unknown to everyone in the inn, a dark, hooded figure stood at the top of the grand building like a majestic specter.
Ace silently sensed with his Law Thief Sense's passive Spirit Sense, before he finally opened his eyes, '1032 targets' and the weakest of them are Ascension Grand Generals, while the strongest is a peak Ascension General.'
He narrowed his eyes slightly as he revisited his plan.
'This entire inn is around 2800 square meters, which is more than enough for the ten-mile radius range of the Night Collapse Travesty. Good thing there is not a Lord present in this inn, or he might discover the effect of the Night Collapse Travesty…'
After finalizing the steps, Ace closed his eyes, pressing his fingers together in a strange, spiral seal. Thereupon, black runes pulsed briefly on the back of his hand, leaming like a reverse star.
In a whisper only existence could hear, he murmured, "When the night collapses… even light forgets it existed!"
The next moment…Silence!
No boom. No shockwave. Not even a gust of wind.
But something changed. The surroundings didn't go dark—they folded, like a blink too long. An ethereal curtain made of nothing descended on the inn and its surroundings.
To the outside world, the Golden Glass Inn simply ceased to be perceived. Even if someone stood five feet from the door, their senses would slide right over it like a phantom memory. Only an Ascension Lord can probably see through this terrifying spell.
On the inside, the space didn't stop—but it lagged, like dripping ink in water. Voices faded into echoes, then silence. Movements became sluggish and dull, like everyone was underwater.
A young cultivator in silver tried to turn his head, confused by a sudden chill, only to freeze mid-motion, his pupils stuck in spirals.
Some tried to speak, others twitched, but none could escape the collapse loop—a fragmented cycle of space in which each breath reset their awareness.
Among everyone within this Taboo Spell, only one can move freely: the caster, Ace!
Despite his somewhat pale complexion and drenched body once he activated the Taboo Spell for the first time, Ace could observe everything, even more so after he cast the spell.
Ace was shocked when he witnessed the terror of a Taboo Spell. For a moment, he couldn't even believe that he had cast it.
However, he knew he didn't have time to admire his work, so he quickly threw a system pill in his mouth to quickly recover. Since all the force in his body had been completely used to activate this spell, he couldn't move for now, but he didn't need to move at all.
Ace was ready for this situation, and the moment the spell was successfully activated, fine invisible threads shot out from his fingers like a spider web. But unlike a web, these threads were numbered in hundreds!
Guided by Ace's will, the 'soul threads', the first spell he ever created, now seemed to have evolved into 'space threads' because of his new understanding of the Absolute Pick Pocket. They moved towards their own respective target, whether they were inside some restriction or in the open. Those threads were unstoppable because of the Taboo Spell!
The Night Collapse Travesty spell embodies the thief's perfect moment—a pocket of space where consequences are erased, presence is nullified, and runic treasures also start lagging like the space itself, which makes it perfect for a thief to move around!
This spell was perfect for Ace with the Absolute Pick Pocket since he can freely use his Qi within this spell, while the others will be in a strange state of desolation.
It took Ace over eight minutes to 'place' the threads in their respective position, and he only had two minutes before the spell would lift off.
Now, he appeared like a puppet master holding hundreds of strings on his fingertips. The only difference was that those strings were connected to wealth!
Inside a grand chamber, a female cultivator was halfway into a smirk, sipping wine. She was frozen now, half-smile on her lips, mid-blink. Three strings were attached to her body: one on her index finger, one on the pendant around her neck, and the last one on her hairpin.
A violet-haired rogue cultivator was inspecting a treasure orb, stuck in a slow-motion reach. Now, a string was attached to the orb in his hand and another to the bracelet on his wrist.
Inside another chamber, two third-grade sect elders were discussing the valley incident with grim expressions. A secret jade scroll was in the center of the table, now attached to a string with the storage space treasures of these two elders.
At this moment, the same scene was present throughout the inn. Anything valuable has a 'string' attached to it.
Ace paused once he made sure to get everyone, and then he grinned, before his finger flickered, "Absolute Pickpocket!"
The next moment, the threads from his fingers suddenly vanished, and in a small corner of the Thief's Space, treasure rained down before they added into Ace's personal collection.
But Ace didn't have time to inspect them as the ten-minute timer in his mind reached its final heartbeat, and he had recovered a bit of his physical strength as he fled out of the inn's boundary.
A few seconds later, the invisible ethereal veil shattered—or rather, it folded back into the void it had come from.
The inside of Golden Glass Inn returned to normal as if nothing had happened. Time snapped back. The conversations resumed precisely where they left off. The air warmed again. No one screamed. No one noticed.
But slowly… murmurs began.
"I swear I had… wait, what were we saying again?"
But then a shrill voice suddenly heard, "W-wait, what the hell is this thing appearing on the back of my hand!?"
Confusion bloomed. Panic rose. But there was no enemy, no fight, no trace… except for a thievish symbol, making its debut in the Great Crown Domain!