Eternal Thief

Chapter 1616: Central Repository (1)

The moment Ace crossed the threshold, the world changed. The space around him warped instantly, and what lay beyond the entrance was not a simple corridor but an ethereal tunnel suspended within chaotic space.

All around him, layers of distorted reality folded and stretched endlessly. Streams of fragmented spatial currents drifted like shattered glass caught in slow motion.

Some currents moved forward, and others twisted sideways, while a few seemed to flow backward entirely, defying all sense of direction. Ace was astounded because it was his first time seeing space currents like these, and he could feel that the space law here was extremely profound.

Yet despite the chaos surrounding it, the path beneath Ace remained stable as a narrow, translucent pathway stretched ahead, like a thread woven through a storm of broken space.

Without wasting any time, Ace moved quickly and didn’t dare to stop because time was running out and he needed to find the exit as quickly as possible.

At the same time, there was also a possibility that someone else might come to the Central Repository while the lock terminal was still open, and at that time, everyone within the Corpse Clan would be alert, which would be troublesome.

Ace used his movement skill, turning into a blurry gust of wind, while his senses remained fully alert as he advanced through the tunnel, the Primordial Spirit Qi around his soul serving as a thin protective layer.

Time was continually running out on the system interface, but inside this mysterious tunnel, time seemed to lose its meaning; there, Ace subtly sensed that time felt distorted.

When the sixth minute started, and Ace still hadn’t found the exit, he started to panic a little and finally became serious.

’Dark Tempest!’

Ace’s soul body instantly turned into a dark streak the moment he used the exclusive spell he got from the system, the Dark Tempest, at the perfect proficiency stage, which increased his speed by twenty times!

Now, with Dark Tempest spell’s enchantment, even his real body’s speed could rival a 1-Star Ascension Lord, and matching with the extra strength that mirror persona provides, his speed skyrocketed even further, probably matching the middle stages of the Ascension Lord realm.

But despite his best efforts, another minute passed, and Ace’s heart snaked as he wasn’t expecting this ’passage’ to be so long that even with the speed of an Ascension Lord, he couldn’t find its end.

At that moment, Ace was about to ask the system if he could extend the temporary access by repeating the same process, when, all of a sudden, far ahead, a faint light appeared.

’An opening?!’ Ace’s eyes sharpened as the opening was small, but unmistakable; it was just like someone who had found a lifeline in the midst of a storm.

Without any misgivings, he charged towards the opening as his soul form glided along the narrow path toward that distant exit.

But instead of charging right past it, he stopped the Dark Tempest and slowed to a halt just before the faint opening, and the light ahead was no longer distant. It hovered at the end of the narrow spatial pathway like a thin tear, flickering softly as if it existed between two states.

However, he didn’t rush in, even as time ran out; Ace forced himself to remain calm as Pixy’s warning echoed in his mind.

This place was not some ordinary treasury. It was a Half-Independent World Realm with its own rules. Charging in blindly would be no different than walking into a killing formation.

Ace’s gaze turned sharp, and then, without hesitation, he made a decision.

The next moment, the gray-black Undead Soul began to shift. At first, it was subtle. The corpse-like aura faded, and the unnatural resonance belonging to Dargoth Veyr started to peel away layer by layer, like a disguise being stripped off.

Then the transformation accelerated, and the silhouette compressed, refined, and reshaped before the aura completely changed as the cold, hollow presence of an Undead Soul vanished entirely.

In its place, a figure cloaked in absolute darkness emerged as Ace returned to his true state, a long robe forming around his body, as if woven directly from the void itself. Its color was pitch black, so deep that it seemed to devour even the faint light leaking from the exit.

The robe moved without wind, flowing like a living shadow. Behind him, a faint image manifested upon the fabric; the dark blue form of the Devilish Wise Owl, its massive wings spread wide in silent dominion.

Its devilish horns curved upward, longer and slightly twisted, while its eyes now bore mysterious black runic marks that seemed to shift if one stared too long after the robes were upgraded to intermediate grade.

Furthermore, an ancient, quiet authority radiated from it, and Ace’s face was hidden beneath the long hood; only a faint glimmer of dark blue flickered within the shadows where his eyes should have been.

This was the descent of the real Sky Stealer within the Abyss of Wandering Souls!

The moment Ace became the Sky Stealer, the surrounding chaotic space reacted ever so slightly, as if recognizing something fundamentally different from everything else within this tunnel.

Ace didn’t waste a second as his presence faded completely as if being erased, and his figure blurred and dissolved into nothingness as his stealth activated to its peak.

At the same time, a deeper power beyond the compression of even laws stirred when a faint, almost imperceptible ripple spread from his existence.

But it didn’t distort space or emit any type of Qi; instead, it simply ignored everything, for this was the authority of Lawless Darkness!

The moment Ace used the Lawless Darkness, any restrictions, rules, hidden mechanisms, or anything that attempted to define or limit his existence were quietly bypassed.

First Ace wanted to use his thief symbol summon, but decided against it since it could be used only once; instead, Lawless Darkness can be used anytime, as long as he can support its terrifying Primordial Spirit Qi consumption.

Without hesitation, Ace stepped forward and slipped into the exit like unstoppable darkness!