Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 186: Harper [Bonus Chapter]

Valerius watched the dark-haired Lord for a long moment.

Despite the theft of the artifacts and despite the constant bickering, Valerius felt a strange sense of respect for the man.

Valerius looked away with his cheeks blushing slightly again as he faced sideways toward the ice wall.

"Well," Valerius murmured quietly, picking at a speck of frost on his gauntlet. "If she actually decides to press formal charges with the Council... I will step in. I will try as much as possible to push the charges down as I have enough political capital in the world to delay an execution warrant."

Silas blinked in genuine surprise. He looked at the gold-armored Lord, a slow teasing smile creeping back onto his face.

"Oh?" Silas teased, raising a highly skeptical eyebrow. "And why would the great Lord Valerius Sterling risk his impeccable political standing to defend a slum-born commoner who just robbed him blind?"

Valerius’s face burned brighter. H

e scowled, refusing to look Silas in the eye.

"Because we’re frie—"

THUD!

The heavy, distinct sound of a body collapsing against the exterior ice wall right near the entrance instantly shattered the quiet atmosphere of the cavern.

Silas’s golden eyes snapped toward the tunnel entrance.

He didn’t hesitate.

He carefully shifted his legs, gently lifting Aeliana’s head and placing it softly onto the ice floor, then doing the exact same with Mia then he stood up silently, drawing his mythril longsword in a fluid noiseless motion.

Valerius was already on his feet, his green aura flaring to life.

Both Lords advanced forward down the short, curved entry tunnel with their backs pressed against the freezing walls as they approached the howling opening.

Standing just outside the entrance, completely exposed to the apocalyptic environment, was Harper.

She looked pathetic.

The lethal razor-sharp glass rain was actively bouncing off her leather armor and piercing the unprotected fabric of her clothes, drawing dozens of tiny bloody scratches across her pale skin.

She was shivering violently, using one trembling hand to cover a massive strategically placed rip in her shirt that exposed her cleavage to the biting wind.

"Please!" Harper cried out over the howling gale, her purple eyes wide and filled with desperate, brimming tears as she looked at the two Lords standing in the threshold. "Please, let me in! Allow me to stay inside with you!"

She fell to her knees in the sand, the glass actively cutting into her legs.

"I don’t have anywhere else to stay!" Harper begged, her voice cracking pitifully. "My shelter was destroyed! Please, I’m freezing!"

Silas stood in the entrance with his golden-ringed eyes looking down at her shivering, bleeding form.

He didn’t feel a single ounce of pity.

Silas analyzed the angle of her ripped shirt, the specific positioning of her posture, and the fact that someone with lightning magic could easily generate enough ambient thermal heat to keep herself warm.

It seemed like a fabricated performance.

"No," Silas flatly refused.

"Absolutely not," Valerius agreed immediately from Silas’s flank, his hand resting on his sword. "Find your own rock to hide under, Harper."

Silas didn’t waste time arguing with the shivering girl. He stepped fully into the threshold, raising his left hand toward the desert floor.

He tapped directly into his Gold Core, pushing his mana outward.

He utilized high-tier water magic, forcibly drawing massive volumes of ambient moisture directly from the deep water tables beneath the sand, bringing a torrential geyser of heavy water rushing up to the surface right at the cavern entrance.

"Ice Transformation," Silas commanded coldly.

KRKKKKKK!

The heavy water violently flash-froze.

A massive wall of thick, unbreakable blue ice immediately began to rapidly grow upward from the ground, actively sealing the entrance tunnel to completely shut her out in the storm.

Seeing the door actively closing, Harper panicked as she dropped the innocent maiden act for a fraction of a second.

"Wait!" Harper cried out properly, her voice echoing with a piercing shriek that completely cut through the acoustic dampening of the cavern.

The volume of her scream echoed down the tunnel.

Back in the main chamber, Aeliana’s silver eyes snapped wide open.

She sat up instantly with her starlight flaring as she looked toward the entrance.

Beside her, Mia who had already been awake and actively faking her sleep for the past ten minutes just to use Silas as a pillow let out a highly exaggerated yawn and sat up, rubbing her green eyes.

"Who is screaming?" Aeliana demanded, rushing toward the tunnel.

Outside, Harper pressed her bleeding hands against the rising wall of ice, desperately negotiating.

"I will pay you!" Harper offered, shivering as she looked at Silas through the narrowing gap. "I will give you the treasures I have won today! Please, I am really wounded! I can’t survive the night in this glass storm!"

She reached into her Lord inventory, her hand flashing with blue light.

"I got today’s high-tier treasure drop!" Harper yelled, holding up a heavy, glowing artifact.

It was a magnificent, ornate piece of armor... a Valkyrie’s Helmet, forged from pristine silver and adorned with sweeping feathered wings of polished steel.

It radiated the aura of a treasure.

Silas paused his spell, keeping the ice door halfway open as he scanned the artifact. It was a genuine Tier 2 defensive item.

Valerius stepped forward, his greed instantly overriding his suspicion.

"Hand over the helmet first," Valerius demanded sharply. "Then we talk."

Harper paused for a brief bit.

’Okay so they’re crazy about treasures...’ Harper thought, ’If you wanted treasure, you just had to come with me Silas... I have the map.’

She looked at the helmet, then at the freezing glass bouncing off her shoulders. With a dramatic shiver, she tossed the heavy silver helmet directly over the rising wall of ice.

It sailed through the air. Silas, reacting with reflexes, snatched it out of the air before Valerius could even raise his gauntlet.

"Hey!" Valerius protested loudly, glaring at Silas.

Silas ignored him, inspecting the artifact before tossing it smoothly into his own spatial inventory. He looked back down at Harper, who was still kneeling in the freezing glass.

Silas sighed. He was ruthless, but he wasn’t going to let an allied Lord actively bleed to death on his doorstep when she had just paid an exorbitant entry fee.

He didn’t lower the ice wall to let her inside their secure sleeping quarters. Instead, Silas manipulated his mana.

He used the water rushing from the ground to violently expand outward, pushing the heavy liquid over Harper’s head before hitting it with another rapid Ice Transformation.

KRKKKK!

The ice aggressively expanded, creating a crude, ten-foot extended roof and a smooth frozen floor directly outside the main door, effectively giving Harper a sheltered, enclosed antechamber.

It blocked the lethal glass rain and the howling wind, giving her a safe space to stay, but completely segregated her from the main inner cavern.

"You stay out here," Silas instructed her coldly.

Mia trotted down the tunnel, completely ignoring the tension.

She nimbly hopped up, scaling Silas’s trench coat like a tree, and climbed securely onto his broad back, wrapping her small arms loosely around his neck.

"Not bad, boy," Mia commended him, patting his cheek. "You are getting the hang of Ice Transformation. Your crystallization speed is improving."

"Just don’t die today Harper, or your sister would be sad."

Harper nodded as she bowed and climbed over the fence to the cover.

"Thank you for giving me a place to stay, Lord Silas and Lord Valerius... I will remember your mercy."

Silas glanced over his shoulder at the Grandmaster clinging to him like a backpack and Valerius who was standing nearby, rolled his eyes so hard he nearly pulled a muscle.

"You seem to know literally all the women in the Sovereign Realm, Graves," Valerius commented, crossing his arms and shaking his head in disbelief. "First Seraphina, now Harper... is there anybody you don’t know?"

Aeliana, standing at Silas’s flank, pouted slightly with her green eyes narrowing as she agreed with Valerius’s assessment.

"Lord Sy does possess a rather... extensive social network."

Silas chuckled.

"That wasn’t true at all. I just pay attention to stuff."

Harper, sitting on the cold ice floor of the newly constructed antechamber, hugged her knees to her chest.

"Once again thank you," Harper said softly, looking up through her wet purple eyelashes, playing the grateful victim flawlessly. "Thank you for the shelter."

Valerius completely dropped his casual banter.

He stepped up to the ice threshold, his green eyes burning with uncompromising lethality as he looked down at the lightning mage.

"Listen to me carefully, Harper," Valerius continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "If you cast a single spell... if you output even a fraction of an attacking aura while we rest... we will not hesitate. We will kill you where you sit."

Harper widened her eyes, nodding frantically.

"I assure you, I would not! I just want to rest!"

Valerius stared at her for two more seconds, ensuring the threat had landed. He then turned back to Silas, rolling his shoulders to loosen his tired muscles.

"I am retiring for a few hours," Valerius announced, stifling a yawn. "My core is practically empty. Silas, you take the first watch. We will figure out how exactly we are going to share that Valkyrie helmet later."

Without waiting for an argument, Valerius turned and walked deep into the inner cavern, finding a smooth patch of ice to lay his bedroll down.

Aeliana stepped up to Silas. She gently reached out, straightening the collar of his dusty trench coat.

"By the next watch," Aeli murmured softly, her green eyes looking deeply into his golden ones, "you better come inside and keep your promise, My Lord."

She offered a devastating beautiful smile, then turned and gracefully walked back into the cavern to claim her own spot on the ice floor.

Silas was left completely alone in the threshold.

He sat down heavily on a protruding block of ice at the entrance, leaning his back against the wall.

Mia remained securely draped over his shoulders, her small chin resting comfortably on the top of his head.

In the antechamber directly in front of him, Harper sat down facing forward, looking out into the howling darkness which was still aggressively raining in shattered glass.

The glass shards were incredibly sharp, bouncing violently off the magical boundaries of the ice roof.

Harper ran her pale fingers over the ripped fabric of her leather shirt. She had purposefully ripped up her clothes prior to her arrival, ensuring her pale skin and cleavage were highly visible in the dim light.

Now, she had to proceed to the next critical part of her twisted agenda.

She needed to seduce Silas Graves...

She desperately needed to have his kid to trigger the next stage of the plan in taking Blessed Land from him and to have his kid, she needed them to have sex tonight.

’I’m only working with a little amount of time now,’ Harper thought frantically with her pulse racing as she mentally calculated the watch schedule. ’Valerius is asleep an the Elf is asleep. It’s just him and his tiny summon. Let’s start the conversation.’

Harper slowly turned around on the ice floor, shifting her legs to ensure her ripped shirt fell perfectly, and looked directly at Silas.

Silas wasn’t even looking at her.

He was holding his right hand out, palm facing upward.

Hovering perfectly two inches above his calloused skin was a sphere of pure crystal-clear water.

Silas was actively manipulating the fluid, smoothly morphing the sphere into a spinning ring, then a complex multi-layered geometric cube.

It looked quite beautiful, the water refracting the dim light of the cavern with flawless control.

"Your mana control is incredible, Lord Silas," Harper complimented him softly, her voice dripping with sweetness.

She genuinely loved it though.

Silas and the tiny elf on his head completely, utterly ignored her. Silas didn’t even blink, keeping his golden-ringed eyes locked onto the spinning water.

Mia, resting her chin on his hair, observed the geometric cube.

"You are quite close to adept mastery," Mia noted approvingly, entirely dismissing Harper’s existence. "If not already there... Your elemental transition speed is phenomenal."

Mia then leaned down, placing her small lips directly next to Silas’s ear.

"I would teach you far more advanced techniques right now," Mia whispered, her voice carrying a terrifying, ancient lethality, "if this pathetic bitch wasn’t sitting right there watching us. Do not worry. The moment I sense even a fraction of an attacking aura from her core, I will spike a pressurized icicle directly through her chest cavity."

Silas didn’t react to the threat, keeping his face perfectly stoic.

"For now, Use Ice Transformation," Mia instructed him, shifting back to teacher mode.

Silas sighed softly. He channeled his intent, instantly freezing the complex water geometric cube into solid unbreakable blue ice.

"Good," Mia nodded. "Now, I am going to teach you the chant for Water Transformation. It is the exact inverse. It focuses on forcefully injecting raw aqua mana directly into the crystalline lattice of the ice in order to violently revert it back to its liquid state."