Crumbling Mid Air Thief Novels & Stories

Chapter Seventy-Two: Beneath the Surface Vanessa tapped her long, polished nails on the wooden table of the quaint café she'd chosen for her meeting with Clara. The scent of freshly brewed coffee filtered through the air, mingling with the soft hum of murmurs around her. Clara was already running five minutes behind, but Vanessa wasn't bothered. It gave her time to strategize. This wasn’t just a casual catch-up—it was a carefully crafted move to uncover the truth about Noah and Stephanie.

And then there was the implosion. The wind was torn from their lungs. Walls crumpled in, then outward, a perverse folding that hurled waves of dust and fragments of stone crashing like a storm. Ignatius leapt over Krishna, covering her as the ground broke away underneath. When the light grew clearer, half the hall was erased devoured by a vast chasm that yawned into the empty space beneath the fortress. And in the center of that ruin stood Miyal, barely standing, his skin glowing faintly with threads of silver that now faded into ash. He was breathing barely but the light in his eyes had dimmed.

The sound of gravel crunching under tires replaced the smooth hum of asphalt, and my stomach twisted with dread. “Where are we?” I whispered, my voice shaking despite myself. No one answered. The car stopped. Doors opened and closed. My own door creaked open next, and before I could react, hands gripped my arms and pulled me out. “Let me go!” I shouted, twisting and kicking, but they didn’t loosen their grip. I stumbled over what felt like uneven ground, relying entirely on their hands to keep me from falling. The cool night air bit at my skin, sending shivers down my spine.

I said, spreading the vault map on the bed. “Here, here, here, here,and here” I marked out the camera point with an x sign on the map. “So to get in without being caught by the camera I need to operate with a cloak and make sure I pass through here and here”I said and marked those points too. “The only thing left right now is the fingerprint lock”. Only Raymond can open the vault. So stealing the diamond means i need Raymond’s fingerprint. “I can't simply break into the vault. I need to get close enough to Raymond to use his fingerprint”

CRASH. The grate burst outward, snapping off its hinges and plunging into the midnight air. Lyra tumbled out first, followed immediately by Natalia and Marcus, just as a pressurized piston of black smoke and white-hot alchemical sparks shot out of the pipe behind them, painting the night sky in a violent arc of crimson. The trio plummeted fifteen feet down, crashing heavily through the canvas awning of a wealthy merchant’s estate before rolling onto the pristine cobblestones of the upper residential plaza.

I screamed, arm snapping forward on instinct. The rogue didn’t land. Instead, his body crumbled mid-air, turning to ash before he ever hit the ground. A pile of dust scattered across the stone like he was never there at all.

The void below widened as the light tiles dropped away one by one. "Aiden, we must go back!" Lucian yelled. Despite the pandemonium, Aiden's voice remained calm as he said, "There is no turning back." With the crystal dangling just out of grasp, he ran for the next portion of the bridge. However, the earth beneath him completely collapsed when he approached the midway mark. "Aiden!" Lucian's voice was piercing and tense. As Aiden fell into the emptiness, the light from the crystal vanished along with him, and his heart leaped into his throat.

The Gears of the Past The transition from the collapsing vault into the subterranean flume was a violent shock of ice-cold mountain water and absolute darkness. Vikram felt the current seize him instantly, dragging him through a narrow, stone-lined conduit that twisted beneath the foundational rock of the Ridge. The water roared in his ears, a deafening sound that masked the final, distant thuds of his grandfather's workshop destroying itself. He held his breath, keeping his arms crossed over his chest to protect the leather satchel containing the silver watch and the glowing vial of ash. Beside him, or perhaps ahead of him in the blackness, Devashish was tumbling through the torrent.

The day before the college entrance exam, the class belle everyone adored stepped onto the podium. "I wasn't going to tell anyone, but I couldn't bear to let you all miss this opportunity. There's a hidden rule in this year's college entrance exam system. If you soak your answer sheet, it'll be transferred for a special manual review by top universities." I froze, staring at her for a long while before finally blinking dumbly. In my previous life, those exact words had been enough to make someone as dull as me lose my composure for the first time in my life. I ran to get the teacher and stopped the entire class from soaking their answer sheets. In the end, the class belle failed the exam

Areś says, stepping further into the room, his boots crushing glass beneath them from a shattered tumbler no one remembers breaking. “One.” My breath stalls. “Two.” Nico's jaw flexes. “Russo, this is neutral ground—” “Three.” Areś takes hold of my arm, and in one motion he pulls me behind him and then lunges. There’s no warning. No buildup. Just the sound of impact, flesh meeting flesh, bone cracking beneath the force of it. Nico flies backward, slamming against the mirrored wall behind the booth, the glasses on the table shattering as they hit the ground.