Eira had wondered three things after discovering that.

The first was simple: how much did the Coffer hold?

Because let everyone be honest; the Legacy Families were filthy rich. Obscenely rich. Rich in the way that made ordinary billionaires look like children collecting coins under sofas. There was no way their yearly allocations had been a few miserable millions or billion tossed into the ancestral jar like loose change.

Yes. You can broaden the treasury with World-Origin Fragments, Law Crystals, Divine Blood Essences, Soul Crystals, Sacred Flames, Heavenly Waters, Space-Time Stones, Bloodline Fruits, Immortal Herbs, Ancient Relics, Fate Treasures, Dao Bones, Divine Beast Eggs, and sealed inheritances. These sound valuable without becoming so specific that each treasure demands its own side arc and suspicious old grandfather.

More importantly, long before these families crowned themselves the sovereigns of Earth and began treating paper currency with solemn respect, their wealth had been measured in treasures that possessed weight, essence and power of their own:

Such were Veins of Realm Core, Elemental Veins, mountains of spirit stones, divine metals and Void Crystals. Eira knew they even had Primordial Beast Cores, rare treasures like Phoenix Tears, World-Origin Fragments, Law Crystals, Soul Crystals and condensed Divine Blood Essences.

Their Coffer held Sacred Flames that had burned for countless eras, Heavenly Waters capable of nourishing dying foundations, Space-Time Stones used to construct hidden domains, Bloodline Fruits guarded for generations, and immortal herbs whose fragrance alone could awaken dormant cultivation.

There were Divine Beast Eggs, ancient relics, inheritance tablets, sealed scriptures, Fate Treasures and fragments of shattered divine weapons, each carrying enough value to sustain a clan, restore a ruined bloodline or begin a war between families who otherwise considered themselves civilized.

Such treasures were exchanged casually within the hidden world of power. A single Primordial Beast Core could purchase a kingdom. Several Void Crystals might secure access to an ancient realm if one didn’t use them for their own cultivation. One Phoenix Tear could save an heir whose soul had already begun slipping toward death, while a World-Origin Fragment might persuade an old monster to leave seclusion after ten thousand years.

Earth’s money was merely a convenient costume these families wore when dealing with the mortal world.

Their true wealth remained sealed inside this ancestral Coffer.

So how much was in the Coffer?

Eira’s answer had been immediate.

’Unimaginable.’

The second question was not really a question at all.

How much would each family expect to receive if they collected their share?

The answer was undoubtedly more than she could comfortably imagine.

Unimaginable too, but it she were to indulge in Earth currency, then it would be trillions.

More than a few trillions, perhaps. Maybe more.

And she was not exaggerating in the cute way people exaggerated when they called an expensive meal a disaster for their wallet while still owning three houses.

Eira knew how precious treasures from the world of power truly were. A single simple gem from that world could be worth millions here on Earth, if humans on this rock could even begin to understand what they were looking at.

Most could not:

They would probably polish the thing, place it in a museum case and argue over its auction value while completely failing to harness the energy sleeping inside it.

She’d be damned if they could even use the energy property.

Eira whispered with a faint, wicked smile. "Tiny rock monkeys staring at divine batteries. Cute. Tragic, but cute."

But truthfully, the treasures in the Coffer apart from a few precious stones here on Earth, they could not be measured in money!

But the third question was the dangerous one.

Would the Heavenchilds sit back and allow the families to take their fair shares of the treasure they had guarded for centuries?

Would they surrender not only unimaginable wealth, but also the leverage that had helped them keep the Legacy Families within their orbit?

Would they quietly allow their authority to collapse?

Eira chuckled.

The answer to that question was floating below her.

’Cunts.’

She hissed the word softly, and it tasted like truth.

The Heavenchilds and the Maxtons were doing exactly what rotten powers did when they realized history was about to collect its debt:

They were trying to steal the whole Coffer.

Their intention was simple, elegant and disgusting...

...They would move the treasure, hide it somewhere beyond easy reach, and keep feeding the Legacy Families the illusion that their hoard remained beautifully safeguarded under Angel protection...

...The families would continue believing the Coffer stood where it always had, guarded, preserved, waiting for the day of division. Then, when the time came for everyone to demand their share, the Heavenchilds could shrug with wounded dignity and announce that the Coffer had been stolen...

What would the other families do then?

The answer was ugly.

’Nothing.’

Not immediately, at least.

Because with the resources inside that Coffer, how much force and army of powerhouses could the Heavenchilds and Maxtons build? How many hidden powerhouses could they train? How many artifacts could they be armed with? How many powerhouses could they feed, arm, awaken, bind or bribe to join their alliance against other families or anything that stood against them?

The wealth inside that hoard was not merely money. It was future armies. It was cultivation resources. It was treasures capable of not only rising a rank of one’s bloodline but also awaken one’s bloodline.

It was leverage sharpened into a sword and pressed against the throat of every family foolish enough to believe the keepers had remained honest.

The other families would rage, curse, hiss at the betrayal and perhaps even prepare war, but by then the Heavenchilds and Maxtons would have swallowed enough of the hoard to make retaliation expensive, dangerous and possibly suicidal.

And it was elegant, Eira had to give them that, in the rotten way only old power managed elegance.

The genius of it was the timing.

Do it now in this week, while the whole world was still choking on the interview, while every camera and every spy and every furious Legacy elder had their eyes locked on the burning Heavenchild name and the boy who had lit the match.

Nobody watched the back door during a house fire.

Phei had not merely embarrassed Maxtons and Heavenchilds on live television. He had, without knowing it, built the two families the perfect distraction to rob the world under.

The thought sat in Eira’s chest with a strange, sour weight, because her Master had handed his enemies a gift tonight, and other families would not even know it until the smoke cleared and the vault was empty.

And they were serious.

Dead serious.

Five Chained World Transcendents had been allocated to this task.

Five.

Eira watched the hidden procession below, her eyes narrowing as the robed figures moved through the dark with the bound powerhouses drifting among them like conquered giants.

The chains around their necks, wrists and ankles pulsed with restrained force, suppressing beings who should have made most elders tremble. This was not some desperate little theft performed by panicked servants.

This was a planned operation, a centuries-old betrayal stepping into motion under the cover of a night already drunk on disaster.

And the longer she watched, the more one detail refused to leave her alone:

The Chained were not cargo being carried tothe Coffer. They were the labor being marched toward it; the Five World Transcendents was not the price of moving treasure; treasure could be moved by servants and trucks and obedient artifacts. Five World Transcendents was the price of moving the Coffer that was not made to be moved, or of breaking something old and guarded that sat between the thieves and the hoard.

Whatever sealed that Coffer, the Maxtons had decided it would take five bound Transcendents to crack it.

And that told Eira the most unsettling thing of all: even the people stealing the Coffer were afraid of what guarded it.

Eira’s small fingers tightened around her lollipop stick.

"Well," she whispered, her smile sharp and mischievous despite the cold unease in her chest, "Master wanted to steer chaos in the families. Congratulations, Master, the menu has expanded."

She hovered in the darkness, watching Danton lead the procession onward, and for the first time that night, Eira was not entirely sure whether she should laugh, scream or start taking notes in very large handwriting.

So, while she watched them move beneath her, Eira could not help asking herself one thing.

’What would Master do?!’