The armory doors closed behind them.
The corridor beyond was quiet again.
Behind that silence lay the bodies of the fortress's elite guard.
Amina did not look back.
Jin moved beside her as they slipped into the narrow maintenance corridor branching away from the armory sector.
The passageway was dim and narrow, built for servants and maintenance staff rather than soldiers. Pipes ran along the ceiling. The faint smell of soap, oil, and damp stone lingered in the air.
This was the route Jin had selected during the simulations.
Not a combat path.
A service path.
The type of corridor guards rarely watched.
Behind them, somewhere in the armory sector, soldiers were beginning to notice something was wrong.
But the fortress had not yet reacted.
The armory unit had simply failed to check in.
The control room had dispatched an auxiliary team to investigate.
Nothing more.
For now, the fortress still slept.
Amina and Jin moved quickly through the corridor.
The concrete walls slowly gave way to carved stone as the passage connected to the residential compound.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
The military sector had been built for war.
This part of the fortress had been built for comfort.
Lanterns burned softly along the walls. Decorative carvings lined the corridor arches. The scent of cooking drifted faintly through the air from the servants' quarters nearby.
Ahead stood a narrow iron gate.
Beyond it lay the commander's private courtyard.
Jin paused beside the control box. His fingers slipped beneath the panel casing.
One movement.
The locking mechanism died without a sound.
He opened the gate just wide enough for them to pass.
They stepped into the courtyard.
Moonlight washed across polished stone tiles and carefully arranged garden beds. A narrow irrigation stream cut across the courtyard, feeding the greenery before disappearing beneath a grated drainage channel.
Several buildings surrounded the massive open space.
Family residences.
Guest halls.
Servant housing.
Private guard posts.
The courtyard itself was large enough to swallow the entire armory hall.
But the security here was different.
Slower.
Looser.
Because no one believed anyone could reach this place.
The armory was supposed to be the final barrier.
Jin had counted on that certainty.
A patrol crossed the courtyard from the far side.
Two guards.
Talking quietly.
Complaining about the noise coming from the armory wing.
Amina and Jin stepped into the shadow of a stone column.
The guards passed within three meters of them.
Neither man turned his head.
They kept walking.
Once they disappeared around the corner, Jin moved again.
The largest structure in the courtyard stood directly ahead.
The commander's residence.
His private study lay inside.
The door was locked.
Jin slid his blade into the seam beside the handle.
A slight twist.
The internal latch snapped.
They entered.
The room smelled of paper, ink, and expensive wood.
Bookshelves climbed the walls from floor to ceiling. War maps covered the central table, marked with supply routes and patrol patterns. A heavy desk stood beneath a hanging lantern near the far wall.
The study of a man who believed he would rule the ruins of the world.
Amina's eyes swept slowly across the floor.
Then she stopped.
The stone beneath the desk was different.
Older.
Heavier.
Jin noticed it immediately.
They moved the desk aside.
A metal ring lay embedded in the slab.
Jin pulled.
The stone lifted with a low grinding sound.
Cold air rose from the darkness below.
A spiral staircase descended deep into the earth.
Amina stepped down first.
The underground chamber that opened beneath them stretched farther than either of them had expected.
Rows of vault racks filled the enormous hall. Steel cabinets lined entire walls. Wooden crates stacked three levels high held gold bars, jewelry, foreign currency, and sealed artifact containers.
A war treasury.
The hoarded wealth of a man preparing to crown himself king of a broken world.
Amina walked forward.
Then the room began to disappear.
Entire vault racks vanished into the system inventory.
Cabinets dissolved.
Crates blinked out of existence.
Gold bars.
Ancient coins.
Paintings.
Artifacts.
Even the reinforced storage cages disappeared.
Jin moved through the chamber behind her, dismantling cameras and control panels with quick, precise strikes before they too vanished into Amina's storage.
The massive underground hall emptied rapidly.
In minutes, decades of hoarded wealth ceased to exist.
Amina finished clearing the last section of the vault.
The massive underground chamber stood empty now.
Where rows of gold, safes, and artifacts had once filled the hall, there was only bare concrete and scattered dust.
Jin moved quickly.
He climbed the stairs first and lowered the stone slab back into place. The mechanism slid smoothly beneath the desk, sealing the entrance as if it had never been opened.
The study above looked exactly as it had before.
Amina stepped beside him.
Then the system spoke.
Alert.
Fortress auxiliary units approaching inner compound.
Estimated arrival: three minutes.
Amina lifted her eyes toward Jin.
He understood immediately.
A single nod.
They turned toward the door.
Then—
Boots.
Running in the corridor outside.
Voices shouting.
A man barked an order through the hallway.
"Check the residence! Move!"
Jin's gaze met Amina's.
The plan had just accelerated.
The escape phase had begun.