He held his hand steady in the air, resisting the urge to touch it, choosing instead to feel the energy radiating from the screen. "If you really want to speak," he said quietly, "then show me. Don't hide behind broken words."

Suddenly, the screen sparked. A tiny arc of energy, like a flicker of lightning, leapt from its surface. Alaric instinctively stepped back, shielding the jade box with his arm. But the spark didn't attack. It twisted, spun, and curved mid-air, forming a symbol that hovered in front of him.

A flicker of memory tugged at the edges of his mind. An old manuscript buried deep in the restricted wing of the Central Archives. He had seen this pattern before, etched in the margins of a page that no one dared translate. They had called it "The Language of the Unseen," dismissed by most scholars as superstition. But now, here it was—alive, real, and communicating.

Alaric swallowed hard, his heartbeat pounding in his chest. "What is this…?"

He pulled the jade box closer to his side, almost as if to protect it from whatever came next. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, unmoving, waiting—watching—to see if the symbol would shift again or vanish before he could understand its meaning.

.....

Alaric only realized then that the sound he had been hearing wasn't coming from the floating screen. The glow that had once pulsed steadily now began to dim, slowly fading into nothingness, leaving the room in silence once more. But in that silence, his eyes caught something he had previously overlooked—a faint reflection of the screen's lingering light glinting off a corner of the wall.

There, seamlessly embedded into what appeared to be a solid, unbroken surface, was a rectangular shape. It wasn't large, but it stood out against the otherwise uniform pattern of the wall. The edges were sharp and too precisely aligned to be a natural crack or decorative feature. The longer he looked, the more convinced he became, this wasn't just part of the wall's design. It was a hidden panel.

"A safe," he whispered under his breath, as if speaking too loudly might summon something he wasn't prepared to face.

The curiosity that had just moments ago been fixated on the screen now shifted entirely to this mysterious panel. The jade box still pressed firmly against his chest, but his free hand began to trace the edges of the rectangle, feeling for an opening that wasn't immediately visible. Cold metal met his fingertips beneath a thin layer of wall material, confirming his suspicion.

Before he could search for a latch or a switch, a faint noise from outside the room caught his attention. Footsteps. More than one pair. Heavy, deliberate, and getting closer.

"Damn it..." Alaric held his breath, his eyes widening as his entire body tensed instinctively. He crouched quickly, pressing his ear to the cold wall. The vibrations from the floor beneath him confirmed what he feared—whoever was out there, they were heading this way. He had only moments, maybe less.

"I need to move fast," he muttered, this time with a sharp edge of urgency in his voice.

He turned back to the panel. There was no fingerprint scanner, no retina reader. Just a smooth metal surface with faint engravings that, upon touch, lit up with a thin glowing line. The light quickly formed a pattern... and from that pattern, a set of numbers appeared, arranged in a complex mathematical equation.

Alaric's brow furrowed. This wasn't a simple passcode. It was a puzzle. Full of nested brackets, square roots, and unfamiliar symbols he had only seen buried deep in archive records. Whoever designed this wanted to ensure that only someone capable of quick and accurate thinking could get through.

Each digit, each symbol broke away from the chaos, aligning into order like stars into constellations. He didn't just solve equations, he felt their rhythm. The nested symbols weren't just math; they were a language of precision, of protection. Whoever wrote this didn't just want to hide something. They wanted to challenge the one who found it. Test their worth

His heart pounded. Outside, the footsteps were drawing nearer. One heavy step sent a puff of dust floating down from the ceiling above.

But Alaric's mind snapped into gear. He began working through the equation, letting his thoughts race ahead of his fear. His fingers hovered over the glowing panel, sketching mental notes in the air. One symbol at a time, he broke it down, even though he faltered once or twice. "No, wait... not multiplied. This part drops here..." he murmured, his breath quickening.

A flicker of movement by the entrance caught his eye. Shadows were beginning to spill into the room from the corridor.

Sweat beaded at his temple, but he didn't look away. A single mistake might trigger a lockout or worse, an alarm. There was no room for error.

"Come on, Alaric... come on..." he urged himself, teeth clenched.

Then, at last, he found it. The solution. Without hesitation, he tapped the final symbol. The glowing pattern flared brightly for a second, then faded. A mechanical click echoed through the room, low but unmistakable. The rectangle began to slide inward, revealing a hidden compartment behind the wall.

Alaric barely breathed. "Got it," he whispered, the word laced with cautious relief. But he knew the footsteps outside hadn't gone anywhere. This small victory could just be the beginning of something much more dangerous.

Inside the compartment wasn't what he expected. No files. No jade artifacts. No conventional weapons like pistols or rifles, the kind he often found in smuggling cases.

There was only one object.

Its shape was unusual. A pentagon, precisely carved, almost like a small shield made to fit between two hands. The surface was a dark, matte gray, reflecting just enough of the room's dim light to hint at a metallic composition. It looked ancient, but refined, as if forged from a rare alloy by artisans who understood not just beauty, but function.

Alaric stepped closer and gently set the jade box on the floor to free both hands. His fingers traced the intricate lines carved into the surface of the object. Almost immediately, he noticed a small recessed section. A hidden button, cleverly embedded within the swirling mandala-like design.

He hesitated, his throat dry. "If this really is a weapon, why hide it so well?" he whispered, half to himself.

His eyes shifted to the inside of the compartment door. There, etched into the inner panel, was a short inscription... written in ancient Latin. He leaned in to read it more clearly.

"Arma occultum... praeparatum ad ultimam defensionem."

He read the phrase aloud slowly, parsing each word with what he remembered from the archives. "A hidden weapon... prepared for the final defense."

The words sent a chill down his spine.

"So it's true... this isn't just some forgotten artifact. Someone went to great lengths to make sure it stayed out of sight until the right time. It could be a relic... or something only meant to be used when every other option has failed."

Alaric frowned, his mind spinning through possibilities. He imagined it functioning like a mine. Compact, distributed, deadly, and nearly impossible to detect. But it lacked the usual traits of an explosive. No wiring, no circuitry, no visible storage for volatile materials. And that was precisely what made it all the more unsettling.

"Why would they use something this small... instead of a specialized mine with a known mechanism?" Alaric asked himself quietly, almost pleading for an answer.

He stared at the object for a long moment, as if waiting for it to speak. The weight of uncertainty was almost enough to make him hesitate again, but he couldn't afford it. Not now. He had already spent too long here.

With a determined breath, he shook the doubts from his mind. "No. I can't stay here. If they come in now, it's over."

He carefully closed the compartment, making sure the mechanism locked without making any unnecessary noise. He slipped the strange, shield-like weapon inside his long coat, securing it in a concealed inner pocket. Then he picked up the jade box again, though the weight in his hands had now doubled. Not just from its mass, but from what it now represented.

He gave the room one last scan, making sure nothing looked out of place. No signs that anything had been disturbed.

The silence around him made every heartbeat feel louder. He strained to hear any movement outside. The footsteps weren't as close as before, but he could still sense a presence. Someone was still out there.

"I have to move quietly. No mistakes."

He began to make his way toward the door, moving low, keeping his breathing shallow, carefully choosing each step so as not to create even the faintest echo. Every movement was deliberate, calculated, like a predator evading a trap.

Finally, with one long, steady breath, Alaric slipped out of the room. He carried with him not just the rare jade box that had started this whole trail, but also something far more dangerous. A mystery forged in secrecy, hidden for who knows how long, waiting for someone like him to find it.

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