Zhou Yan didn't mind. These people were all under his control. As long as they could safely bring out all the items, Zhou Yan was confident he could take their belongings without them knowing.
Time passed by, and the third group of thieves entered. They again discussed taking things according to their own abilities, as fighting amongst themselves was not beneficial.
Smart people naturally wouldn't fight here. The kind of fights that occur when encountering different groups only happen in movies. After all, movies need to capture people's attention, and without some conflict, who would watch?
They all knew who the others were. They were all top theft guilds on Canglan Continent, and they were quite familiar with each other.
They had their grudges, but they wouldn't choose to settle them here.
The three groups each took their share. Tens of thousands of auction items were enough for each of them to take a lot.
With over a dozen people, they had to be extremely careful to take these items. Each item was stored individually in a glass case. Merely taking these items was a time-consuming task.
They only had a few hours left. Each person could at most take over two hundred items per hour. It was impossible for a dozen people to take all the items.
At this time, the fourth and fifth groups also arrived.
"There are many items here. Take as much as you can, but no fighting," someone said.
So they all quickly took items. They had to take more and leave, as time was running out.
Zhou Yan checked the time. It was already three in the afternoon. There were still four hours until the auction started, but the auction attendees would enter two hours in advance to prepare. They only had two hours left.
These people had to take all the items within two hours. If they were fast enough, it was still possible to take everything.
Two more groups joined in. They only had four people. Seeing everyone taking items, they also tacitly began to take things.
Those who dared to come here and take items were people who had obtained specific information about the place. They all had their own tools to bypass the alarms.
Zhou Yan kept watching the time. He had been busy all afternoon and had purchased countless items. At this point, Zhou Yan also needed to prepare to leave.
The items in the auction warehouse were rapidly decreasing, and the time was getting closer to five o'clock.
"Quick, quick, quick, leave!" The first team had already begun to withdraw. They had taken the most items, leaving the rest for others.
They left quickly without any hesitation, returning the way they came. Their retreat was swift. In just ten minutes, they had successfully returned to the crowded convention center through the original route.
At this time, Zhou Yan used his clone technique, creating countless versions of himself, but these clones had different appearances.
Zhou Yan controlled these clones to walk past the thieves, and in an instant, he took the spatial items containing treasures from them and placed them into his territory.
Meanwhile, the thieves were trying to figure out how to leave, completely unaware of any anomaly.
Zhou Yan smiled. These people helped him take the items, and now they had to escape. It felt great to get things for free and have others take the blame.
One by one, their belongings were taken. The second and third groups also quickly retreated, and finally, all the groups withdrew, each leaving from a different location.
However, as they left, someone would always brush past them, and the items on them would mysteriously disappear.
Zhou Yan restored the surveillance viruses and deliberately left clues. The clues showed the process of these people conspiring to enter the venue and then reaching the auction warehouse to take the items.
The traces left by Zhou Yan were very subtle and would only be discovered after careful investigation.
Group after group of thieves left quickly, exiting the venue, and then using various modes of transportation to leave.
"Hahahaha! We succeeded!"
"Congratulations to us. We're rich this time. It was a perfect operation."
"What a thrilling and dangerous operation! Fortunately, we left. Let's leave immediately. They will be here to pursue us soon."
The members of the group of master thieves were overjoyed, and some even began to celebrate.
Then, a member named Jason wanted to take out an item to look at. To his horror, he discovered that his items were gone. The spatial ring he had stolen was missing.
"Wait! I've discovered something very bad." Jason's smile was frozen on his face.
"What is it?" the other members of the master thief group asked.
"My spatial ring is gone." Jason replied.
"Don't joke around. This is not a funny joke." The others didn't believe him, thinking Jason wanted to hoard the treasure.
"I'm not joking at all. I swear, it's really gone. What the hell went wrong!" Jason said very seriously.
The smiles on the faces of the others also froze. Then, the spatial rings of the other three members also disappeared.
"Oh my god, I think we've been tricked. My spatial ring is gone too."
"I don't think this is a coincidence. The items on me have also disappeared inexplicably."
"Damn it, how did they do it!"
The members of the master thief group fell silent. They suspected that these four people wanted to keep the treasure for themselves, but seeing that the four didn't seem to be lying, they began to inquire carefully about the process.
They found nothing, not even knowing where the problem occurred.
"Could it be other guilds!" someone guessed.
"Impossible. We had no interaction. Everyone was taking what they liked. They didn't have time to commit the crime."
"Then where did it go wrong? Did we work for nothing?"
The members of the master thief group were all furious, even angry. They had planned for so long, only for the items to disappear inexplicably.
They weren't foolish enough to return the items. Going back now would be a dead end. What they needed to do now was to hide in their previous locations and wait for the storm to pass before coming out.
"It's too late now. We must investigate this matter thoroughly and see which bastard did it!"
"I also think this is too strange, and it felt like everything went too smoothly."
"I think so too. The most crucial thing is why so many people could enter that place. We didn't think anything was wrong at the time."
"But thinking about it now, it doesn't make sense. We believe that besides us, it's basically impossible for others to do this."
"There must be some information we overlooked."