Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 188: Dragon In Blessed Land [Bonus Chapter]

A hundred thousand Spirit Credits.

Silas paused.

That was a massive influx of capital however, his survival instincts demanded certainty.

"Mia," Silas whispered so low that Harper couldn’t hear "Scan her core. Does she have any attacking aura currently charging? Is she hiding a spell?"

Sitting on top of his head, Mia closed her glowing green eyes with her Grandmaster perception effortlessly penetrating Harper’s physical form.

"No," Mia whispered back directly into his mind. "Her core is completely dormant and you shouldn’t worry. The microsecond I sense her heart rate spike or her mana condense, I will snipe a high-pressure water bullet straight through her brainstem."

Armed with the assurance of a lethal fail-safe, Silas let out a long begrudging sigh.

"Fine," Silas agreed coldly. "A Hundred Thousand Spirit Credits and no funny business. Lay down."

Harper’s face lit up with a brilliant victorious smile.

’With this... I can find a way to seduce him.’

She quickly shifted forward, laying down completely flat on the cold ice floor of the antechamber, and gently placed her head directly onto Silas’s right thigh.

As she did, her purple eyes widened a bit in genuine shock.

She had expected him to be cold and uncomfortable but she immediately felt quite some overwhelming comfort.

Silas possessed an amazing body fueled by a strong Core.

The density of the mana thrumming within his veins radiated a steady warm heat that completely bypassed the freezing air of the cavern.

It was like resting her head on a sun-baked stone.

It was so incredibly warm that Harper couldn’t help herself.

"Mmnn~" Harper let out a soft, inappropriate moan of comfort. ’I can do the mission later...’

She turned her face inward, wrapping both of her pale arms securely around his muscular leg and hugging it tightly to her chest.

"Hey!" Silas complained sharply, trying to pull his leg back. "I said rest your head, not grapple me."

"S-sorry," Harper mumbled an apology, her voice already growing heavy and thick with exhaustion. "So warm..."

Her eyes fluttered shut.

The adrenaline of the Empress Thunder execution, combined with the brutal physical fatigue of surviving the desert, completely crashed down on her.

Before long, she fell fast asleep, her grip on his leg remaining iron-clad.

Silas looked down at the sleeping lightning mage, shaking his head.

"Ignore her," Mia whispered, hopping down from Silas’s head and landing nimbly on his left knee. "We have hours to kill before Valerius wakes up. I am going to teach you two more water spells so pay attention. Let’s get you to Adept properly then tomorrow, we do Lightning."

Silas shifted his focus entirely, his golden-ringed eyes locking onto the tiny Grandmaster.

"The first spell is an area-denial ward," Mia instructed. "It is called Aqueous Severance. You draw the moisture in the air into a microscopic razor wire. The chant is: ’Tears of the abyss, sharpen the tide, sever the flesh and part the sea.’"

Silas held his free left hand out. He closed his eyes, mapping the specific runic syllables directly into his core.

"Tears of the abyss, sharpen the tide..." Silas muttered, his voice a low rumble. "...sever the flesh and part the sea."

FWOOSH!

A hyper-pressurized, nearly invisible ring of spinning water violently erupted around his palm, vibrating with enough kinetic frequency to slice through solid steel.

"Good," Mia nodded approvingly. "The second is a crushing blow. Hydraulic Press. The chant is: ’Weight of the ocean, crush the stone, bury the light in depths unknown.’"

Silas practiced both spells relentlessly in the dark.

He muttered the chants over and over, his Gold Core flawlessly integrating the magical matrixes into his muscle memory, using the new spells to manipulate small spheres of water in the air while completely ignoring the sleeping noblewoman drooling slightly onto his trench coat.

Hours passed in the freezing dark.

The howling of the glass storm outside slowly began to die down as the Secret Realm’s weather cycle shifted.

Mia stood up on his knee, turning toward the interior of the cavern. She fired a tiny harmless bead of water directly at Valerius’s face.

Smack!

Valerius grunted, his eyes snapping open. He sat up, shaking the sleep from his head, and grabbed his mythril shield.

"Thank you Mia..."

He stood up, stretching his broad shoulders until they popped, and walked out into the entrance tunnel to relieve Silas.

As Valerius stepped into the dim light, he completely froze.

He looked down at the ground. Harper was curled up into a ball, deeply asleep, aggressively hugging Silas’s right leg like it was a stuffed animal.

Valerius stared at the scene for five solid seconds.

He slowly dragged his gauntleted hand down his face, letting out a long sigh of pure exhaustion.

"I don’t even want to know," Valerius sighed, shaking his head. "I will take the shift until the glass rain completely stops. Go get some sleep, Graves."

"Thanks," Silas replied softly.

He carefully reached down, prying Harper’s pale fingers off his leg one by one.

He took Harper up by the shoulders, dragging her forward a few inches. She was mumbling incoherently in her sleep about claiming his territory, which made Valerius physically cringe.

Silas gently placed her forward, laying her completely flat on the ice floor so she wouldn’t wake up.

Silas stood up, rolling his stiff neck, and walked deep into the main cavern to where Aeliana was sleeping peacefully on her bedroll.

Mia trotted after him, stopping in front of Valerius.

"Hey, blondie," Mia whispered, looking up at Valerius. "Permission to sleep over there too?"

Valerius looked at the tiny Grandmaster, then at Silas laying down next to the beautiful Elf.

He let out another deeper sigh, utterly defeated by the dynamics of this whole thing.

"Permission granted," Valerius muttered, turning his back to watch the storm.

Mia grinned, a flash of sharp teeth, and scurried over to the sleeping arrangements, seamlessly joining him.

Silas lay down on the cold ice.

He didn’t hesitate.

"I’m here..."

He pulled the sleeping Aeliana close, cuddling up directly against her back.

Aeliana groaned softly in her sleep, leaning back into his warmth.

Silas rested his chin softly against her shoulder, placing his face securely and intimately in her breasts as he wrapped his arm around her waist.

A second later, Mia arrived.

She climbed onto the bedroll and aggressively hugged Silas directly from behind, completely sandwiching him between the two white-haired elves.

Silas lay there in the freezing dark, staring at the far ice wall.

’I wonder how these people can actually fall asleep here... It’s not like I don’t trust Valerius but still... He can still slit my throat while I sleep, I really need to keep my eyes open and I’m a Gold core so it’s not like I feel exhaust—’

Silas’s eyes fluttered shut.

The warmth of Aeliana in front of him and Mia behind him, combined with the warmth of his Gold Core, hit him like a blow to the face.

Silas fell asleep instantly.

[Over In Blessed Land]

Thousands of miles away from the freezing death traps of the Secret Realm, the atmosphere was different.

The air was warm, filled with the rich savory smell of roasted meats, fresh bread, and the loud echoing chatter of dozens of voices.

They were currently gathered in the massive, heavily fortified stone mess hall of the Warlord’s Barracks, the central military structure of the Blessed Land territory.

"How is Lord Silas?" Brida asked loudly, leaning over the long wooden table with a tankard of alcohol in her hand.

Almost all the high-ranking girls of the territory were completely surrounding the new arrival.

Sitting in the center of the wooden bench, looking completely overwhelmed, was Talira.

The new red-haired dragon was blushing a brilliant vibrant shade of crimson from all the intense, unyielding attention.

She was no longer naked.

She was wearing a perfectly tailored, comfortable set of dark crimson combat robes, woven from highly durable magical silk that perfectly accommodated the small dragon wings protruding from her lower back.

Talira looked around the table.

Dozens of human women were staring at her, offering her fresh food, pouring her drinks, and asking her rapid-fire questions about the outside world.

Talira wanted to insult Silas.

She wanted to loudly declare that the Lord of this territory was a brutal thieving primate who had kidnapped her from her rightful domain but then she vividly remembered the terrifying warning that Aeli had given her back in the ash.

Talira gulped heavily with the phantom chill of the frozen spell making her wings twitch.

"He... he is very good looking," Talira admitted softly, taking a cautious bite of a roasted turkey leg. "And he was with that scary elf woman known as Aeliana."

The entire table of faction girls burst out laughing.

"Oh, Aeliana is a sweetheart!" Brida chuckled, waving her hand dismissively. "She just gets a little protective of the Boss!"

Talira didn’t have anything to laugh about.

"She is a psychopath," the dragon muttered darkly, taking another bite of meat.

She proceeded to vividly describe the way Aeli had completely beaten the bricks off of her, flash-freezing her massive dragon form in three seconds flat.

As Talira spoke, her red eyes scanned the bustling room.

Through the crowd, Talira then noticed some dark-haired woman sitting a few tables away, quietly eating her meal.

The dark-haired woman glanced at her for a brief second before smoothly removing her gaze and staring back down at her plate.

Talira shivered slightly.

’This territory is full of dangerous people,’ she thought.

But as she chewed the delicious, perfectly seasoned meat, Talira’s internal hostility began to waver.

Her rotting mother had spent her dying centuries advising her to avoid humans at all costs.

Humans were deceitful and they were cruel but looking around this bustling mess hall, hearing the genuine laughter and seeing the camaraderie among Silas’s subordinates... Talira felt a strange deep sense of belonging.

Aeliana had spoken of a saintly human who built libraries and protected his people.

Talira had wanted to meet him just to prove he was a fraud but sitting here, completely safe, warm, and fed in his sanctuary... she realized she wanted to stay.

"Watch this!" a loud voice cheered from the back of the mess hall.

The crowd shifted, parting slightly to reveal Rowenna and a mage that had arrived just now.

"I want to show you all something... Please use Fire magic," Rowenna said. "Slowly. I want to see the circle."

The young mage nodded rapidly. She held out her hands, closing her eyes.

In the Sovereign Realm, magic wasn’t just raw energy.

Spells contained intricate Magic Circles that dictated their elemental properties, trajectory, and heat.

Even the most basic fundamental spells like a standard fireball were formed with complex, glowing magic circles rotating violently in the dead center of the spell’s core.

The mage said a small chant and summoned flames. A sphere of orange fire sputtered into existence between her palms.

Rowenna leaned forward with her blue eyes narrowing.

She looked directly at it, using her new spell that she had been learning to identify the exact microscopic rotating magic circle hidden inside the flames.

"Disrupt," Rowenna whispered.

She applied a microscopic point of crushing gravity directly onto the center of the magic circle.

SNAP!

The force violently crushed the magic circle and it broke apart like shattered glass.

Instantly, the fireball violently destabilized, completely breaking the spell apart and fizzling out into a harmless wisp of grey smoke before it could even generate heat.

Rowenna pumped her fist in the air.

"Yes!" she cheered loudly.

The entire mess hall erupted.

All the other girls cheered for her too, clapping their hands and whistling at the incredible display of anti-magic combat.

Breaking a spell from the inside out was something they hadn’t seen before however, the joyous, celebratory noise died completely the very next moment.

The heavy oak doors of the mess hall were violently pushed open.

Morwenna entered the room.

The air in the barracks instantly grew heavier.

Morwenna’s dominant aura flooded the space.

She strode into the hall, her heavy boots clicking against the stone as a wild unhinged grin was plastered across her face.

The girls quickly parted, clearing a wide path for her.

Talira sat frozen on the bench, a piece of meat halfway to her mouth.

Even though she had only been in the Blessed Land for a few hours, Talira knew the two bosses who ran the territory while Silas was away.

First was Eluned, the Goddess of Nature.

Eluned was gentle, terrifyingly powerful, and had personally woven the magical clothes Talira was wearing right now to cover her modesty upon arrival and then there was Morwenna.

Morwenna didn’t stop to greet the cheering girls.

She walked in a perfectly straight line, completely ignoring the broken fireball demonstration, and marched directly over to Talira’s table.

Morwenna slammed both of her hands flat onto the wooden table, leaning forward until her face was inches away from the crimson dragon’s.

"So," Morwenna started, her eyes practically sparkling with excitement as she looked at the new arrival. "Are you really a dragon?"