Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 163: The Secret Realm Of Ititius [II / Bonus Chapter]

Jaxon stiffened with his knuckles turning white around the handle of his shield while Maya bit her lip, her cheeks flushing dark red with humiliation.

Silas didn’t react.

He just stared at the man with dead eyes.

The cousin, interpreting Silas’s silence as fearful submission, turned his smug gaze entirely onto the Lord.

He took a step forward, extending a gauntleted hand, attempting to put on a show of fake aristocracy.

"I am Julian Verinda," the cousin introduced himself, trying to be friendly with him in the most deeply insulting way possible. "Try to stay behind me in the dark, peasant. If you grovel nicely enough, I might let you carry my loot bags when we clear the vault."

Silas looked down at the extended hand.

He didn’t take the handshake.

All Silas could feel was a deep rising tide of disgust.

He looked at the pristine silver armor, and he remembered how much this guy had insulted him the last time. It seemed that Julian didn’t even recognize him.

Silas’s right hand twitched as his body muscles tightened.

’I could break his wrist,’ Silas thought. ’I could grab his hand, shatter the radius bone in three places, and kick his ribcage so hard his spine turns to powder before he even blinks.’

However, before the killing intent could elevate into actual physical violence, Elora stepped directly between them.

The City Lord’s daughter didn’t yell and she didn’t cause a scene.

"Julian," Elora spoke, her voice dropping into a tone so chillingly flat it made the temperature around them seem to drop. "Fuck off. Politely."

Julian’s smug smile faltered. His hand dropped to his side. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Elora stared him down with her eyes completely dead. "You are embarrassing the family name. Weren’t you meant to be serious here? Father only secured you a slot in this raid because your core progression has completely stagnated. If you don’t do well here, and you fail to secure a high-yield artifact from this vault... he is going to banish you to the outer wards."

Julian’s face instantly drained of color.

Then, the realization that she had just aired his deepest, most shameful familial secret in front of a group of "commoners" hit him. The cousin reddened, his face turning a brilliant furious shade of crimson.

"You manipulative bitch," Julian cursed her out, completely dropping the facade.

He pointed a shaking, armored finger at her. "You think you’re so untouchable because you scored high in the Novice Trial! We’ll see who makes it out of the sand alive!"

He spun on his heel, kicking up a spray of dirt, and walked off, storming back toward his own clique of armed sycophants.

Silas watched him go, letting out a slow breath. He looked down at Elora with a sliver of genuine respect for her ruthless family dynamics forming in his mind.

Before Silas could even talk or offer a comment about her cousin’s impending doom, the ground beneath their boots violently lurched.

RUMBLE!

The massive ancient stone gate vibrated, sending deep concussive tremors across the Earth.

The grains of sand around their boots began to literally dance and hover in the air from the sheer volume of ambient mana flooding the basin.

The heavy obsidian ring elevated on the stone stands began to glow with blinding searing white light.

The Secret Realm was opening.

Instantly, a familiar glowing blue digital tab appeared directly in front of the eyes of every single Lord in the vicinity of the Secret Realm.

Silas looked at the translucent screen floating in his vision.

[SECRET REALM OF ITITIUS IS OPENING.]

[SPATIAL CAPACITY LIMIT DETECTED.]

[COMMAND: SELECT ONE (1) ENTITY (HERO / TROOP / MOUNT) TO SUMMON FOR DEPLOYMENT.]

Below the command prompt was a comprehensive, scrolling list of everyone currently stationed in his Territory.

He didn’t need to scroll. Aeli’s name was sitting right at the very up top of the registry, glowing with the distinct golden border of an Epic-Rank Hero.

But before he summoned her, a series of bright flashing magical signatures erupted all across the sandy basin.

Flashes of light came from right beside him.

Jaxon, sweating heavily under his armor, tapped his screen. He summoned his own Hero first.

In a burst of generic white light, a man materialized on the sand next to the tank.

It was a middle-aged man that was entirely shirtless, showcasing a torso covered in faded scars.

He had two heavy iron sword hilts strapped to the side of his hips, and he was wearing nothing but a pair of loose, dark black trousers.

The man cracked his neck, spitting a wad of saliva into the sand. He looked and felt to be quite a seasoned swordsman, possessing the rugged heavy-handed aura of a veteran mercenary.

Silas looked the man up and down, instantly evaluating the summon’s physical density, center of gravity, and muscle distribution.

’He’s a brawler,’ Silas thought with a shake of his head. ’But he’s quite slow. I’m quite confident that he is not taking Brida in a fight. Brida would catch his blade on her shield and snap his femur in half within ten seconds.’

Comparing like this only made him realize how strong his girls were actually.

A second flash of light illuminated the dune.

Maya’s purple hair whooshed wildly in the dry wind as she tapped her screen and summoned her own Vanguard entity.

A tall and incredibly edgy-looking man appeared beside the Lord.

He was a one-handed guy, his left arm cleanly amputated at the elbow as he was wearing a fitted black shirt with the free, empty sleeve blowing dramatically in the wind.

Strapped across his back was quite a big, heavily recurved longbow, which he supposedly fired using his teeth or a prosthetic hook.

The archer immediately dropped to one knee in the sand, bowing his head. "I pledge my loyalty to you, Lady Maya. My arrows shall find your enemies."

’A one-armed archer?’ Silas sighed internally, rubbing his temples. ’She summoned a gimmick character, that’s fantastic.’

To his right, Elora stepped forward as she tapped her screen.

A blinding, freezing pulse of pale blue light erupted.

Elora summoned a woman that had flowing ice-blue hair tied back in a severe, highly disciplined braid.

She wore pristine, tailored scholar robes adorned heavily with her territory’s official corporate emblem.

The woman was holding a thick glowing magic spellbook bound in white leather and she didn’t grovel in the dirt like Maya’s archer.

The ice-mage simply stood tall, offered a crisp perfect military salute, and immediately bowed, pledging her loyalty to Elora.

"At your command, Lady Verinda," the mage spoke.

Silas looked at the three summons.

They were standard, mid-to-high tier entities. They were exactly the kind of competent, generic soldiers you expected a Lord to bring to a raid.

Silas then sighed, raised his hand, and summoned his own, tapping directly on Aeliana’s name on the glowing blue screen.

The energy in front of him didn’t just flash after that... It violently swirled.

A roaring vortex of blinding blue-white starlight mana erupted from the sand, tearing a temporary hole in the fabric of the desert.

The ambient temperature around Silas instantly plummeted as in a brilliant, pixelated flash of golden light, Aeliana appeared on the ground.

The Starlight Arcanist was wearing her pristine tailored white spider-silk robes.

Her silver hair cascaded down her back like spun moonlight, and her green eyes glowed with an ethereal presence that completely dwarfed the generic mercenaries standing nearby.

She immediately dropped into a graceful fluid bow with her white robes pooling elegantly on the sand.

"I have arrived, Lord Sy," Aeliana stated, her melodious voice carrying effortlessly over the dry wind then, the Summon stood up.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Harper, who was standing fifty feet away by her rover. Maya, who was clutching her staff and even Elora.

All three women turned their heads. They looked at Aeli, taking in the flawless, aristocratic bone structure, the glowing green eyes, the impossibly pristine skin, and the overwhelming high-fantasy beauty radiating from the Epic-Rank Elf.

A single frustrated insecure thought ran simultaneously through their minds.

’Why the hell does she look so pretty?’

Aeli stood up to her full height.

She was an elite fighter and her situational awareness was flawless.

She didn’t blatantly look around the basin, but she could physically feel the envious glares of the people staring at her intensely.

She could easily guess that it was the people interested in her Master.

Aeliana’s silver eyes narrowed slightly.

She remembered the loud but effective words that Morwenna the Pirate Queen had just told her back in the barracks mere hours ago.

’If there are women jealous of you, pointy-ears, then you need to make them more jealous. Mark your territory before they try to plant their own flags in the Lord’s deck.’

Aeliana didn’t hesitate. She completely abandoned her usual respectful distance.

So she stood up, took a deliberate half-step forward, and went directly to her Master’s side.

She didn’t just stand near him... she aggressively closed the gap, pressing her soft, considerable breasts firmly and deliberately against his muscular right bicep.

She looked up at Silas through her long silver eyelashes as her voice dripped with an overwhelming devotion.

"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here with you, my Lord," Aeliana purred softly, ensuring her voice carried just enough to be heard by the surrounding women.

Silas froze.

’What is she doing?’ Silas thought. ’Why is she touching me like this in public? She’s a fighter, not a succubus!’

Five feet away, Maya gritted her teeth instantly.

An audible grinding sound of pure jealousy escaped her lips as she glared at the gorgeous Elf clinging to Silas’s arm.

Elora simply sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

The City Lord’s daughter wasn’t prone to petty jealousy, but she recognized an overwhelming high-tier threat when she saw one.

This summon felt very strong... the starlight bleeding off her robes was suffocating but Elora was not too convinced.

’My summon over here has the same feeling... I need to see her in action.’

She needed to see her actual combat capabilities in the field before she considered Silas to be the true target.

Elora stepped forward, cutting through the romantic tension with ruthless efficiency.

"The Secret Realm will be opening shortly so listen closely," Elora commanded, reaching into a small leather pouch on her belt. "These are spatial tether bands."

She brought out a handful of glowing black metal bands.

"With this band, we can meet up together after being separated in the Secret Realm," Elora explained, handing them out. "Because upon entering a high-tier Secret Realm through a raw portal, the entry fractures. While you and the specific member of your territory will be tethered together and deposited in the same location, the same could not be said for others. Our strike team will be scattered across the first floor. Wear these, and we can track each other’s coordinates to regroup."

All four of the Lords took the bands and wore them, snapping the metal around their wrists. She even gave them to the summons, producing four more bands so all eight of them were wearing it.

Silas took Aeliana’s band.

Because she was currently holding a staff Thora had made in one hand and pressing herself against his arm, Silas had to physically reach out, grab her delicate wrist, and wear Aeli her own band, snapping it into place for her.

The Elf smiled up at him and before Maya could complain about the intimate display, a deafening roar shattered the silence of the desert.

BOOM!

The massive white portal rippled once again. The blinding light violently expanded, surging outward like a tidal wave.

The gravitational force came out of the gate, exerting massive pressure on the Lords and their summons as the sand beneath their feet was instantly stripped away, sucked into the swirling vortex.

WHOOSH!

It immediately sucked everybody into it and Silas didn’t fight the pull. He grabbed Aeliana’s hand, bracing his core.

The world went black.

Silas once again felt the agonizing nauseating teleportation thing.

His stomach flipped into his throat as his physical mass was forcefully shoved through the spatial sieve of the dead god’s vault.

It felt like falling down an endless and suffocatingly tight elevator shaft.

Then, reality slammed back into place.

THUD!