Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 183: A Dragon Joining Blessed Land

Before his eyes, the rotting body rapidly started shriveling, turning entirely to harmless grey dust and blowing away in the dungeon’s drafts.

Silas waved the thick smoke away from his face with his golden eyes desperately searching the epicenter of the explosion.

As the dust settled, Silas saw her.

Standing in the center of the clearing, surrounded by falling ash, was Aeli. She was brushing the dust off her white robes, completely without harm.

Silas let out a sigh of relief with his tense shoulders finally dropping.

"Aeli," Silas breathed out, stepping forward.

However, as the dust cleared further, Silas stopped dead in his tracks as standing right next to Aeli in the ash... was another girl.

She was stark naked.

Her skin was flawlessly pale with her long hair was a vibrant,fiery crimson, and protruding from her lower back were two small incredibly cute crimson dragon wings.

The dragon girl had been forcefully expelled from the artifact alongside Aeliana, her massive draconic form violently reverting to her humanoid state due to the extreme magical exhaustion of the Land of Frost.

Upon seeing him approach, the naked dragon girl didn’t cover herself.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and visibly cringed her face in deep disgust as Aeliana gave her the robe she was wearing over her dress.

She looked Silas up and down, taking in his dusty trench coat and exhausted posture.

"This is the saintly human you bragged about?" the dragon girl asked Aeliana, her voice dripping with disappointment. "He did not even look good at all... He is quite average compared to my glorious form."

THWACK!

Aeliana didn’t hesitate. She immediately chopped the dragon girl directly on the top of the head with the edge of her hand.

"Ow!" the girl complained loudly, rubbing her head and pouting.

Silas blinked, completely bewildered by the bizarre dispute currently happening in the middle of a dungeon.

"Aeli... who is this?"

Aeliana turned to Silas, offering a polite, perfectly professional bow.

"Lord Sy," Aeliana introduced her, gesturing to the pouting girl. "This is Talira and she is a dragon."

Silas stared at the naked girl with the small wings. "Okay... why is she here?"

Aeliana smiled brightly. "She told me that she was very interested in joining the Blessed Land and she hates humans as well."

Silas raised an eyebrow, he was very skeptical.

An ancient dragon who hates humans just randomly decided to join his human territory after a fight?

"And as for how she got to be so interested in our territory..." Aeliana added smoothly.

Aeliana looked at Silas and offered a completely devastating, adorable little wink.

"I just beat it into her."

Standing next to the Elf, the naked Dragon girl visibly trembled.

Talira wrapped her arms around herself, terrified.

Dragons were fundamentally weak to high-tier ice magic... and this smiling polite elven woman was just able to spam Land of Frost like it was a baseline cantrip?

’She’s a monster!’ Talira thought, completely traumatized by the sheer brutality of Aeliana’s combat capabilities.

Joining the human’s territory was the only logical choice for survival!

However Talira calmed down.

She stood directly in the center of the settling grey ash with her pale arms crossed tightly over her bare chest as Aeliana’s white spider-silk cloak fluttered around her shoulders.

She narrowed her glowing red eyes, critically reviewing Silas from head to toe in her mind.

He was absolutely not like how the ancient stories described Humans at all.

Her rotting mother, in the suffocating darkness of the spatial prison, had constantly drilled it into her head that Humans were universally hideous, deformed goblins with weak fragile bodies and cowardly souls.

But as Talira looked at the dark-haired Lord standing before her, she had to begrudgingly admit the truth.

He was undeniably handsome.

His jawline was sharp and his body was muscled beneath his dusty trench coat, and those glowing golden-ringed eyes carried a heavy weight that demanded respect.

But Talira didn’t care about that.

Or rather, out of draconic pride, she wouldn’t tell that to his face. She was a proud dragon, and she had just been forcefully humiliated by his subordinate.

"I am freezing!" Talira complained loudly, shivering and wrapping the pale silk cloak tighter around herself. "Is this how your so-called ’saintly’ Lord treats his guests? Letting them freeze in the dark without a single scale of armor?!"

Silas let out a heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"I literally just saved your life by shattering a Mythic artifact," Silas pointed out flatly. "And Aeliana already gave you her cloak so stop complaining before you catch a cold."

Aeliana stepped forward, placing a gentle, reassuring hand on Talira’s shoulder.

"Listen to me carefully, Talira," Aeliana said. "Lord Sy is incredibly generous. However, there are rules if you wish to stand by his side."

Talira twitched her small crimson wings, sticking her chin up. "I don’t take orders from—"

Aeliana’s grip on her shoulder tightened just enough to let a fraction of frost nip at the dragon’s collarbone.

"Do not insult him," Aeliana interrupted with her green eyes locking onto the dragon’s red ones with a sweet terrifying smile. "Do not raise your voice at him. And if you ever try to bite him... I will personally freeze your tail off and use it as a coat rack. Do we have an understanding?"

Talira swallowed hard, the residual paralyzing terror of the Frozen World flashing brightly in her mind as her defensive posturing instantly dissolved into the grey ash.

"I... I understand," Talira mumbled, looking down at the dirt and wrapping the cloak tighter around herself.

"Alright," Silas interrupted, stepping forward and looking directly down at the shivering dragon girl. "Let’s make this official. You told Aeliana you want to join my territory?"

Talira avoided his piercing golden gaze.

She remembered the promise of endless libraries and a sanctuary where she wouldn’t be hunted for her scales.

Her mother had warned her to avoid humans at all costs, but hearing Aeliana speak of such a saintly devoted ruler had ignited a deep stubborn curiosity within her ancient heart.

She wanted to stay with this Human... if only to prove to herself that he was not as perfect as Aeliana made him seem.

"Yes," Talira agreed with her voice dropping into a begrudging and slightly embarrassed mumble. "I suppose your territory is acceptable."

"Good. Stay still," Silas commanded.

Silas knew he couldn’t just leave her here in the deepest layer of a collapsing dungeon.

He had to formally make her a Hero of his faction right now to secure her existence before another Lord decided to.

He stepped closer and brought his calloused right hand up toward her face.

Talira flinched instinctively with her crimson wings flaring out.

"What are you doing to me?!" she questioned sharply.

Silas didn’t answer. He simply reached out and firmly tapped his index finger directly against the center of her forehead.

FWOOSH!

A blinding warm golden light instantly flooded from Silas’s fingertip, washing entirely over Talira.

The energy penetrated her pale skin, aggressively flooding her damaged core and mapping her draconic mana pathways directly into the Blessed Land territory.

A translucent blue tab immediately materialized in front of Silas’s face.

[The Ancient Crimson Dragon ’Talira’ has been successfully tethered.]

[Talira has been officially registered as a Hero of the ’Blessed Land’ Territory.]

[Initiating automated spatial recall to Blessed Land...]

Before anybody could even react to the notification, the golden light completely enveloped the dragon girl.

VWOOP!

Talira vanished into thin air, instantly teleported completely out of the collapsing dungeon and sent safely over to the fortified territory.

Aeliana blinked, staring at the empty space where the dragon had just been standing. She turned to Silas with a flicker of concern crossing her flawless features.

"Lord Sy... is she—?"

"She’s safe," Silas assured Aeli, dismissing the system tab with a wave of his hand. "She is in the territory so it’s up to Elu and the others."

Before they could share a moment of relief, the very fabric of the dungeon violently protested.

KRA-KRA-KRA-THOOM!

Massive cracks violently spread across the black obsidian floor of the Lower Dungeon, urging them to move immediately.

The structural integrity of the Abyss, severely compromised by Silas shattering the Tier 4 artifact and the mother dragon bursting through the ceiling, was finally giving out.

The ancient groaning sound of billions of tons of bedrock shifting echoed through the dark.

"We need to move. Now," Silas commanded.

Above them, a massive section of the cavern wall violently broke apart, sending car-sized boulders of solid black stone plummeting down toward their position.

Silas and Aeliana looked at each other and they didn’t need to speak.

Silas closed the distance instantly. He swept Aeliana directly into his muscular arms, lifting her off her feet in a tight, secure bridal carry.

"Promise me you won’t dive into unidentified Mythic artifacts by yourself again," Silas said with his voice sounding serious as he looked down at her. "No more reckless stuff."

Aeliana’s pale cheeks immediately flushed a brilliant vibrant shade of pink.

Being held so securely against his broad chest completely scrambled her usually perfect composure.

"I... I promise, My Lord," Aeliana stuttered softly, nodding her head against his shoulder.

Then, despite the chaos of the collapsing cavern around them, Aeliana looked up with a completely adorable shy smile crossing her lips.

"Earlier," Silas whispered with his voice barely audible over the roaring destruction. "You told me that I hadn’t held you to sleep before... right?"

She blushed deeper, burying her face into his trench coat.

CRASH! BOOM!

Massive rocks came raining down around them, completely pulverizing the black sand floor.

The entire cavern ceiling began violently caving in, preparing to crush everything in the Abyss into paste.

Silas let out a genuine breathless laugh, tightening his grip on her waist.

"I’ll hold you tonight," Silas promised her.

He didn’t hesitate for another second.

He channeled a massive explosive burst of his remaining Gold Core mana directly into his boots and violently shot upward out of the collapsing entrance, riding the shockwave of the falling debris toward the upper layers.

Over in the completely separated Right Tunnel, chaos reigned.

Seraphina was fighting for her literal survival.

She was violently swinging her curved dagger in wide desperate arcs, the steel blade blooming in roaring condensed bursts of superheated flames.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH

The tunnel that Silas had sworn was a "safe empty corridor" was currently swarming with dozens of massive eight-foot-tall scorpions forged entirely from compressed abrasive black desert glass.

’You lying, commoner rat!’ Seraphina screamed internally, her vocal cords still completely paralyzed by the metallic spider clamp digging into her carotid artery.

She parried a heavy glass stinger, slicing the appendage off with a burst of fire.

Her chest heaved, her lungs burning as she fought through the brutal 50% physical and magical stat suppression of the cursed artifact.

But despite the imminent danger surrounding her, she couldn’t seem to get the arrogant frustratingly handsome face of Silas Graves out of her head at all.

’He set me up!’ she thought frantically, ducking under a snapping claw. ’He saw me naked behind that dune, humiliated me, and then sent me down this death trap to die so I couldn’t report him to my father!’

A massive glass scorpion lunged from the shadows of the cavern ceiling, pinning her against the stone wall. The beast raised its dripping stinger, aiming directly for her heart.

Seraphina’s eyes went wide. Pure survival instinct overrode her aristocratic training as she gritted her teeth and violently pushed her suppressed Lord core far beyond its safety limits, drawing upon every single drop of latent fire mana in her blood.

FWOOSH!

A catastrophic explosion of white-hot thermal energy erupted from her entire body with the heat was so intense that the stone wall behind her melted into slag.

Clamped tightly to her neck, the metallic spider artifact absorbed the astronomical temperature spike.

The runic structure of the collar overloaded as the metal glowed bright white, hissed violently, and was instantly incinerated into a harmless shower of falling grey ash!

Her vocal cords were instantly liberated from the suppression effect.

"I AM GOING TO FLAY YOU ALIVE, SILAS GRAVES!" Seraphina screamed at the top of her lungs with her voice echoing down the entire length of the dark tunnel with murderous rage.

She violently complained, swinging her flaming dagger like a spinning buzzsaw.

SHWK! SHWK! SHWK!

The superheated steel sliced cleanly through the armored carapaces of three advancing scorpions, melting the black glass into bubbling pools of molten slag.

A fourth beast lunged with its pincers snapping for her waist.

Seraphina pivoted on her heel, driving the burning dagger straight through the center of its head with a sickening sound.

CRUNCH!

She ripped the blade free, kicking the shattered carcass aside as she gasped for air.

"Fu... Fuck..."

More monsters poured from the cracks in the walls.

They were endless. Scorpions with glowing violet eyes scrambled over the melted remains of their brethren with their pincers clicking in a terrifying crescendo.

Seraphina did not back down.

Her crimson aura flared like a dying star, illuminating the pitch-black tunnel in blinding shades of orange and gold.

"Come on then!" she roared, leaping forward.