2:00 a.m. The hour when even ghosts are too lazy to wander because of the bone-cutting chill of the Vegas desert. In front of a massive windowless concrete warehouse on the outskirts of the city, four shadowed figures moved in silence. A light drizzle fell, matching the rhythm of their adrenaline-driven heartbeats. The warehouse was called The Crimson Vault, the Central Blood Bank owned by the Council. Inside were thousands of liters of Grade A blood, harvested from selected humans to fill the wine glasses of aristocratic Vampires. “The security system is a real bitch,” Griz muttered, the Goblin Accountant crouched in front of a magical control panel on the warehouse’s side wall. His wrinkled green fingers flew across an illegal holographic keyboard. “Three layers of Blood Wards. Cut the wrong wire and we all explode into paste.” “You’ve got thirty seconds, Rat,” Oliver’s voice came through the earpiece. Oliver stood on the rooftop of a building across the street, two hundred

The carousel spun faster and faster. WHEEENG… The yellow bulbs that had glowed dimly now blazed with blinding brilliance, forming a wall of light that separated Oliver and Lucyan from the outside world. The off-key calliope twisted into a grand orchestra playing a song of death, Danse Macabre. Oliver still stood on the wooden platform, yet it felt as if the ground itself were spinning. Gravity shifted strangely. Nausea crawled up his throat, not from motion sickness but from the crushing pressure of Lucyan’s aura bending reality around them. “Get on, Oliver.” Lucyan patted the neck of the black wooden horse he rode. “Sit. Let us speak as fellow monsters, not as hunter and prey.” Oliver glanced at the Magnum in his hand. His system continued flashing red warnings: [TARGET IMMUNE]. Shooting Lucyan now would be like firing a water gun at a hurricane. He holstered the weapon and stepped onto the spinning platform. Strangely, when his feet touched the wooden floor, he was not t

"Hold your breath, Boss. This is going to hurt. Worse than losing a finger." Griz, the Goblin accountant who was doubling as an improvised mechanic, tightened the final screw on Oliver's left arm. They were inside the secret workshop behind The Kennel. The air smelled like enchanted oil and burnt flesh. Oliver sat in an operating chair with his shirt sleeve rolled up to the elbow. On his left hand, the one missing the ring finger, a device was now attached. It was not an ordinary prosthetic. It was a Concealed Mechanical Gauntlet. Forged from dark Mithril metal, light yet harder than steel, the device wrapped around Oliver's forearm from wrist to elbow. Fine needles pierced the skin, linking the gauntlet directly to his nerves. "Activate it," Oliver ordered. Cold sweat ran down his temple. Griz pressed the activation switch. ZZZT! A surge of magical electricity shot through Oliver's nerves. "ARGH!" Oliver groaned, teeth grinding together. The fi

"Don't... Touch... Anything!" Oliver's voice cut through the narrow corridor, sharp and deliberate. The sound echoed off the walls that were... blinding. They were now deep inside The Maze of Avarice, and the name was not metaphorical decoration. The labyrinth walls were not made of brick or concrete. They were formed from compressed treasure fused together by high-level gravity magic. Ancient gold coins, crowns of long-dead kings, jeweled goblets, diamond necklaces, all melded into towering walls twenty meters high. The floor consisted of black marble tiles interlaid with bars of pure gold. The lighting here felt unnatural. There were no lamps, yet the gold itself glowed faintly, casting a dull yellow illumination that hurt the eyes while quietly stirring greed inside the heart. "Boss..." Griz the Goblin Accountant spoke with a strained voice. His breathing sounded like an asthmatic wheeze. "Boss... you see that? That's the Crown of King S

The blinding white light slowly faded, replaced by the warm glow of crystal chandeliers. Soft instrumental jazz drifted through the air, a mellow saxophone replacing the screams of death and the roaring chainsaws of the Minotaur that had filled their ears moments earlier. Oliver opened his eyes slowly. For a brief second he wondered if he had died and entered heaven, or at least the version of heaven reserved for the wealthy. But as his gaze moved around the room, he quickly realized this was not a peaceful afterlife. This was the Rest Area. The room was enormous, designed like the lobby of a five-star hotel in Dubai. The floor was covered in thick red carpet that swallowed every footstep. The walls were paneled with expensive mahogany and decorated with enchanted paintings that moved slowly within their frames. At the far end of the room stood a long bar staffed by an octopus bartender mixing ten d