Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 194: Under The Spire [III]

"Harper," Silas interrupted. "Calm down. Stay exactly where you are."

He didn’t reach for his mythril longsword as he couldn’t effectively wield a heavy two-handed blade in a narrow corridor while actively carrying a woman piggyback since the rotational force would throw off his balance.

Instead, Silas simply widened his stance.

The Alpha Dire Wolf lunged first. It propelled its massive six-hundred-pound body through the air with its jaws unhinging to tear Silas’s throat out.

FWOOSH!

Silas didn’t flinch. He planted his left boot firmly into the stone, pivoting his entire torso with devastating precision as he channeled the astronomical physical power of his Gold Core directly into his right leg.

He executed a flawless fast roundhouse kick directly into the side of the leaping Alpha’s head.

KRA-CRUNCH!

The sound of the wolf’s skull completely shattering echoed like a cannon shot down the corridor.

The overwhelming physical strength packed into Silas’s kick was so monstrous that the massive Dire Wolf’s neck snapped instantly.

The beast’s trajectory was violently redirected, launching it sideways through the air to smash heavily into the stone wall as it crumpled to the floor, instantly dead.

Clinging to his back, Harper gasped with her purple eyes widening in absolute, unadulterated shock.

She had known Silas was a Blue Core which was probably purple or gold if her suspicions about the Lord of the Blessed Land having gold was true.

Harper had seen his elemental magic but she had never, ever witnessed brutal physical brawling like this.

He wasn’t even using spells... He was treating dungeon beasts like training dummies.

Two more wolves charged simultaneously from the left and right flanks.

Silas dropped his center of gravity, smoothly carrying Harper’s weight as he ducked under the snapping jaws of the left wolf.

He drove a devastating upward knee strike directly into the beast’s exposed ribcage.

THUD-CRACK!

The wolf’s ribs caved in instantly, piercing its internal organs.

As the beast collapsed, Silas spun on his heel. The right wolf lunged for his leg.

Silas violently stomped his heavy combat boot directly downward onto the back of the creature’s neck, pinning it to the stone floor and snapping its spine in a single, brutal motion.

The remaining three wolves hesitated with their primal instincts screaming at them to flee from the Apex predator standing before them.

Silas didn’t give them the chance.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

He exploded forward, closing the distance in a blur of motion.

He launched himself into the air, executing a devastating flying front kick that caved in the chest of the fourth wolf, before immediately pivoting upon landing to deliver a sweeping leg sweep that shattered the forelegs of the fifth.

The final wolf turned to run with its tail tucked however Silas grabbed a loose piece of jagged stone debris from the floor and hurled it with the speed of a bullet, striking the fleeing beast in the back of the skull and dropping it instantly.

The entire fight lasted less than ten seconds.

Silas stood in the center of the corridor, slowly lowering his leg and rolling his shoulders to loosen his muscles.

He hadn’t even broken a sweat as six massive Dire Wolves lay completely dead on the damp stone.

On his back, Harper was completely speechless.

Her heart was hammering against his spine with her cheeks flushed a violent crimson.

Her upbringing had taught her that magic was supreme and that physical brawling was for peasants but watching Silas dismantle a wolf pack with his bare legs was the most incredibly attractive thing she had ever witnessed.

"Are you alright back there?" Silas asked, casually adjusting his grip on her thighs.

"Y-yes," Harper stammered with her voice breathless.

She looked down at the massive, meaty carcasses of the wolves as her survival instincts slowly booted back up. "Silas... we should keep the Dire wolves to cook later. We don’t know how long we will be stuck in this labyrinth, and monster meat holds high nutritional mana."

Silas looked at the bodies, nodding pragmatically. "Sound logic but I have to ask... how exactly do you propose we cook it?"

He let out a heavy, tired sigh, shaking his head.

"Neither of us has fire magic. I use water, and you use lightning. If Seraphina were here, she could have roasted it in two seconds." Silas muttered.

’I genuinely would have learned some basic baseline ignition spells if you hadn’t come to our camp and dragged me into this mess.’

Harper leaned over his shoulder, looking at the side of his face as if he was completely stupid.

"Silas," Harper said. "I can use my Lightning magic to roast them."

Silas blinked, genuinely pausing. He turned his head slightly to look at her.

"You can do that? I thought your lightning just electrocutes and explodes things."

Harper laughed.

"You are such a cute dummy sometimes," Harper teased him, her purple eyes sparkling. "Lightning generates extreme thermal resistance. If I carefully dial down the voltage and sustain a continuous low-amperage current through the meat, it acts exactly like an internal roasting oven. It cooks it perfectly from the inside out."

Silas stared at her for a second, deeply impressed by the scientific application of magic.

"Fair enough. Bag them."

Harper reached out her pale hand.

A pulse of spatial blue light washed over the corridor. The six massive Dire Wolf carcasses instantly vanished, smoothly stored into the endless spatial container of her Lord Inventory.

With the path clear, Harper tightened her arms around his neck, playfully kicking her bare heels gently against his hips.

"Move, Horsy," Harper commanded playfully, giggling into his ear.

Silas let out a long suffering sigh, resuming his heavy stride down the damp corridor. "You are getting quite comfortable up there, aren’t you?"

Harper smiled, pressing her cheek firmly against his neck, inhaling his scent.

"It’s because I’m with the man I love," Harper whispered softly.

Silas sighed again, pointedly ignoring the confession, and kept running at a more comfortable ground-eating pace.

He didn’t exactly know where he was going.

The subterranean labyrinth was a chaotic web of identical, moss-covered tunnels.

However, his thoughts dictated that the Vault and the ultimate exit would have to be located on a higher elevation relative to the sprawling basement level.

He constantly kept his eyes peeled for any architectural inclines.

As he ran, Silas closed his eyes for brief intervals, actively expanding his senses.

He tried to push his Gold Core perception outward, desperately looking for the familiar starlight signature of Aeliana, the water hum of Mia, or even the arrogant wind aura of Valerius but all he could feel was absolute nothingness.

The dark stone walls of the Treasury Dungeon were lined with high-density suppression runes.

This place completely dampened even his Gold Core senses, restricting his spatial awareness to a mere twenty-foot radius.

It felt like a heavy wet blanket had been thrown over his mind.

Silas gritted his teeth, hating the dead god Ititus even more.

Suddenly, as he rounded a wide, sweeping corner where the cavern aggressively diverged, his boots skidded to a halt.

Directly up front, carved into the solid bedrock, was a massive sweeping staircase leading upwards into the gloom but they were not alone at the base of the stairs.

Standing in the center of the intersection, panting and leaning against the stone wall, was a blond-haired Lord.

Both Harper and Silas turned to see the man clearly.

It was Julian.

The arrogant Valoria noble was holding a chipped, blood-stained sword in his right hand. He was running, looking completely exhausted.

Thick, black soot covered his usually immaculate face, his expensive noble armor was scorched and dented, and he looked like he had barely survived a warzone.

Silas and Julian stopped dead, staring at each other from thirty feet away. Clinging to Silas’s back, Harper’s purple eyes widened in shock.

"What?" Harper blurted out, her voice echoing in the quiet cavern. "Didn’t I kill you? I literally put a Thunder Lance directly through your forehead on the surface! I watched you turn into ash!"

Julian flinched at the sound of her voice, his eyes snapping to the woman on Silas’s back.

He recognized her instantly.

A cruel arrogant grin slowly spread across Julian’s soot-covered face as he straightened his posture, leaning his sword against his shoulder.

"Oh, the lightning bitch," Julian sneered. "You actually thought you managed to execute a Lord of the Valoria elite that easily? You didn’t kill me... You actually killed my summoned Hero."

Julian laughed darkly, wiping soot from his brow. "My Hero possessed the rare passive ability to flawlessly morph her physical appearance and magical signature into an exact duplicate of my own. I swapped places with her the moment you charged the Lords."

Julian spat on the stone floor, his face twisting into an ugly mask of disdain as he casually insulted the very Hero who had died to save him.

"She was only a weak pathetic shapeshifter," Julian mocked, waving his hand dismissively. "She had zero combat utility. With a completely useless class like that, she was destined to be cannon fodder anyway. She served her purpose and died so I could live. That is the natural order."

Silas stood perfectly still.

A dark cold sneer slowly etched itself across Silas’s face. His golden-ringed eyes locked onto Julian, his pupils dilating with pure murderous intent.

"Harper," Silas said quietly. "Climb down."

Harper felt the sudden shift in the temperature of his body and she didn’t argue.

She carefully unwrapped her legs from his waist, her bare feet hitting the damp stone floor.

Her legs were still visibly shaking from the residual trauma of her near-death experience, forcing her to lean heavily against the cavern wall for support, clutching his trench coat tightly around her shoulders.

Julian watched the exchange, raising an arrogant eyebrow. He twirled his chipped sword, stepping away from the wall.

"What are you doing, rat?" Julian asked, his tone mocking as he looked at Silas. "What do you want to do about it? Are you... going to tell me how to properly treat my own subordinates as a Lord? Are you going to give me a moral lecture down here in the dark?"

Silas let out a long slow sigh.

His eyes began to physically glow with brilliant liquid gold light.

Silas raised his right hand.

He didn’t draw his mythril blade from its scabbard.

He forcefully pulled the ambient condensation and stagnant water from the damp cavern walls, gathering it into a swirling hyper-pressurized sphere over his palm.

"Ice Transformation." Silas whispered.

KRKKKKKK!

The swirling water violently flash-froze, aggressively elongating and condensing until Silas was holding a flawless four-foot-long longsword forged from solid blue ice.

Cold vapor poured off the crystalline blade, chilling the immediate air.

"I couldn’t care less about how you treat your people," Silas told Julian as he took a slow step forward. "Right now, I just want to brutally kill you and I am glad that you haven’t died yet, so I can do it myself."

Julian’s arrogant grin faltered for a fraction of a second as the suffocating pressure of Silas’s presence slammed into him but his noble pride refused to back down.

Julian took a formal combat stance, raising his sword.

"Did I do something specific to you, peasant?" Julian sneered, trying to mask his rising anxiety with bravado. "Like steal your girl back in the city? Why the vendetta?"

Silas continued walking forward, his icy blade trailing vapor.

"No," Silas replied coldly. "My name is Silas Graves. Do you remember me now?"

Julian squinted, his mind racing through the thousands of faces he had dismissed over the years.

Suddenly, a spark of recognition hit him.

He remembered the filthy boy from Sector 4, the slums which had attended Valoria academy with his sister.

Julian threw his head back and burst out laughing.

"Ah!" Julian laughed, pointing his sword at Silas. "You’re that miserable little fucker from the slum—"

Julian didn’t get to finish his sentence.

Silas closed the thirty-foot distance in a single imperceptible second.

He broke the sound barrier with the stone floor shattering beneath his boots as he executed a flawless blitz.

Before Julian could even twitch his sword arm, Silas’s left hand shot out like a striking viper.

He drove his stiffened index and middle fingers directly into Julian’s left eye socket!

SQUELCH!

The horrific wet sound of the eyeball physically puncturing and violently bursting echoed through the cavern.