Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Silas didn’t even need to look as phantom seawater flooded his senses.

’How the hell did she sneak up on me?’ Silas thought with his eyes widening slightly.

Morwenna chuckled, her breath hitting his neck.

The Astral Dread Queen had used the roaring noise of the forge’s bellows and the thick smoke to perfectly mask her own pressure and presence.

She had scaled the back wall of the foundry completely bare-handed, hauling her body up the stone without making a single sound.

”You didn’t rate the food properly this time,” Morwenna demanded, tightening her grip around his ribs.

Her physical strength was terrifying.

Even suppressing her aura, she had the raw muscle density to wrestle a sea-drake to the ocean floor. ”You’re going back down there, and you’re going to tell that stuck-up tree nymph that my food was better than her bland garbage.”

She started pulling him backward, fully intending to drag him off the roof by force.

Silas wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

He couldn’t use his Mythril broadsword and he couldn’t unleash a Gold Core shockwave without blowing the roof off Thora’s forge and pissing the dwarf off for a week... so he had to play dirty.

As Morwenna hauled him backward, Silas violently shifted his weight, dropping his center of gravity to throw her off balance.

Her grip slipped for a fraction of a second.

That was all he needed.

He twisted his torso, freeing his right arm, and immediately dug his fingers directly into the exposed sensitive ribs just beneath her coat.

He didn’t strike her... Silas ruthlessly tickled her.

The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic for a Dread Queen.

”Pfft... wait, what are you—” Morwenna’s tough facade completely shattered.

A violent uncontainable jolt shot through her spine.

She tried to maintain her crushing hold, but the aggressive assault on her ribs short-circuited her brain.

”Stop... hahaha! Captain, stop!” Morwenna shrieked, bursting into genuine laughter.

She squirmed violently with her arms flying open as she tried to defend her sides.

”Stealth fails when you leave your flanks open,” Silas smirked.

The second her grip broke, Silas didn’t hesitate.

He channeled a surge of kinetic energy into his legs with the stone tiles beneath his boots instantly spider-webbed, cracking under the immense pressure.

BOOM!

Silas launched himself horizontally off the roof of the foundry.

He shot through the freezing air like a fired ballista bolt, clearing the forty-foot gap across the courtyard.

The wind roared past his ears.

He aimed directly for the high scaffolding of the eastern palisade wall. If he could reach the shadow of the watchtower, he could pull up his interface and activate the Ascend Tab before either of them caught up.

’I could do it now but there’s no fun in that...’

He was halfway across the courtyard.

...He was going to make it.

SWISH!

A sharp whipping sound cut through the air directly below him.

Silas looked down.

Surging up from the stone tiles of the courtyard were three massive, glowing emerald vines.

They didn’t move like plants... they moved like heat-seeking whips. They tracked his mid-air trajectory with terrifying physics-defying speed.

’Oh, you have got to be kidding me...’ Silas thought, bracing for impact.

Before gravity could even begin to pull him down, the vines snapped around his ankles and waist.

They didn’t crush him, but the tensile strength was simply too much.

They acted like unbreakable bungee cords, instantly arresting his forward momentum mid-air with a heavy jerk.

”Got him!” Eluned’s triumphant voice rang out from the ground.

Silas hung suspended in the air, dangling upside down twenty feet above the courtyard like a caught fish.

He let out a long exhausted groan.

Above him, Morwenna leaped off the foundry roof.

The Dread Queen plummeted toward the ground with her heavy mythril boots slamming into the stone tiles with a booming impact that sent a shockwave of dust rolling across the courtyard.

She stood up, dusting off her leather coat with a scowl and still slightly breathless from laughing.

”You play dirty, Captain,” Morwenna grumbled, pointing an accusatory finger up at him.

”You ambushed me on a roof,” Silas shot back, crossing his arms despite hanging upside down. ”I call it adaptation in my book.”

Eluned strode forward, her green dress flowing elegantly around her ankles.

She looked up at him with her glowing emerald eyes narrowed in uncompromising victory.

She gripped her wood staff, giving it a sharp tug and the vines violently retracted.

Silas was unceremoniously yanked out of the sky, dragged through the air, and deposited squarely on his feet directly in front of the two SSS-Rank divinities.

Before he could even brush the ash off his shoulders, Eluned locked her arm aggressively around his left bicep, pressing her soft curves against him, while Morwenna immediately flanked his right side, grabbing his wrist.

”Back to the table,” Eluned ordered sweetly, though the threat of extreme violence lingered just beneath her tone.

”Let’s go,” Morwenna agreed, perfectly willing to enforce the truce until a winner was declared.

Silas didn’t fight it.

He knew when he was outmaneuvered.

They marched him back through the heavy oak doors of the Citadel, dragging him right back into the warm brightly lit dining hall.

Kaelia saw them coming and immediately scurried back into the kitchen, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.

They shoved Silas down into the heavy oak chair at the head of the table.

Directly in front of him sat the two remaining plates.

On the left was Eluned’s dish: a perfectly seared cut of Umbral Boar tenderloin, glazed in a rich glowing reduction of fruit and garnished with fresh aromatic herbs grown directly from her aura.

On the right was Morwenna’s dish as well.

”Eat,” Eluned commanded, leaning over his left shoulder.

”And actually taste it this time,” Morwenna added, leaning heavily on the table to his right.

Silas picked up his fork and knife.

The atmosphere in the room was oppressive.

The weight of two SSS-Rank auras pressing down on him, waiting for his validation was heavier than the killing intent of any boss monster he had ever faced.

He cut a small piece of Morwenna’s rib-meat and chewed it carefully. He had tasted the stuff last time, he wanted to chew the meat this time.

The heat was immediate.

It was a violent spice that kicked him right in the teeth. It was exactly like Morwenna herself but it was too good...

He cleared his palate with a sip of water, then cut a piece of Eluned’s glazed tenderloin.

The meat was impossibly tender, practically melting on his tongue.

He set the fork down. He leaned back in his chair, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Both women stared at him, holding their breath.

”Morwenna,” Silas started, looking directly at the pirate queen. ”Your food is very incredible for field rations ad even eating casually... If I’m freezing in the mud, I want that.”

Morwenna grinned, puffing her chest out triumphantly.

”However,” Silas continued smoothly, shifting his gaze to the Nature Goddess. ”As a culinary dish served in a dining hall... Eluned wins. The sear is perfect, and the berries are actually stabilizing my core.”

Eluned gasped.

A radiant smile broke across her flawless face.

The divine tension in the room instantly vanished as she practically threw herself onto him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck from behind.

”I knew it!” Eluned cheered, burying her face into his hair, completely ignoring the furious glare coming from across the table. ”My Lord recognizes true refinement! You hear that, you salty brute? Perfection!”

Morwenna’s jaw clenched. Her stormy gray eyes darkened, the air around her dropping ten degrees as phantom ocean mist began to curl around her mythril boots.

”You picked the salad over the real meat?” Morwenna growled, her pride violently wounded. ”She just dumped a bunch of magic fruit on it to hide the flavor!”

Silas saw the pressure rising and instantly intervened before the dining hall became a war zone.

”Morwenna, your technique is raw,” Silas stated firmly, locking eyes with her to command her attention. ”You treat cooking like you’re hacking through a monster’s spine which isn’t bad per se but we need to give it more time...”

Morwenna crossed her arms, looking away with an annoyed pout. ”I’m a pirate, Captain. I kill things. I don’t babysit frying pans.”

”Which is why you need to learn,” Silas countered effortlessly.

He picked up his knife, spinning it casually between his fingers. ”Your flavor profile has potential. If you actually learn how to control the sear, your dish would be devastating... Tell you what. Next time we have downtime, you and I are getting in the kitchen. I’ll personally teach you how to regulate the heat and lock in the juices.”

Morwenna blinked.

The anger instantly evaporated from her face.

She looked at him, realizing exactly what he had just offered.

Private, one-on-one time in the kitchen? Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her Captain? The thought of it sent a sudden uncharacteristic flush of red across her pale cheeks...

”Oh,” Morwenna muttered, coughing into her fist and trying desperately to maintain her hardened persona. ”Right. Well... if it’s an order from the Captain... I suppose I can lower myself to learning a few kitchen tricks. Just to be a better asset for the territory, obviously.”

She couldn’t hide the eager grin twitching at the corner of her lips and Eluned stopped cheering.

The Nature Goddess slowly raised her head from Silas’s shoulder.

Her glowing emerald eyes locked onto Morwenna with the intensity of a sniper scope.

The realization of what just happened clicked perfectly into place in her divine mind...

’He gave me the compliment... but he gave her the private lesson?!’ Eluned’s thoughts screamed in absolute outrage.

”Wait a minute,” Eluned objected immediately, her voice dropping a bit as the temperature in the room plummeted.

The green vines holding the table legs together visibly tightened, groaning under her sudden stress.

”If anyone is getting private lessons from our Lord, it should be the winner! I demand advanced culinary tutoring! I want to learn how to make Earth pastries!”

”You already won, tree nymph, don’t be greedy!” Morwenna barked back, slamming her hands on the table. ”The Captain made his decision! We have a scheduled engagement!”

”An engagement to burn more meat?!” Eluned sneered haughtily, her aura flaring. ”I refuse to let my Lord suffer through your smoke bombs again! I will teach him how to bake!”

”I don’t want to bake!”

”Because you lack the refinement to knead dough!”

Silas watched the two SSS-Rank mythic anomalies lean over the table, inches away from starting a literal turf war over who got to wear an apron next to him.

He let out a long sigh.

”Both of you, sit down,” Silas ordered, injecting a dense spike of Gold Core authority into his voice.

The heavy command snapped across the room.

Both women instantly fell silent. They reluctantly pulled back, dropping back into their chairs, though they continued to glare daggers at each other across the polished wood.

”No one is cooking anything right now,” Silas stated, pulling up his system interface.

The glowing blue panels reflected in his eyes. ”I am going back to Earth.”

That caught their attention.

”Earth?” Morwenna asked with her brow furrowing. ”To the world where Lords live? Why? Did someone issue a challenge to you, Captain?”

She immediately reached for the heavy iron boarding anchor chained to her hip.

”Say the word, Captain. I’ll sink their entire skyline.”

”Stand down, Morwenna,” Silas said dryly, waving a hand to dismiss her bloodlust. ”It’s an errand run. We have the timber and the refined stone necessary to build a Library...”

He pulled up the territory inventory logs on his blue screen, swiping through the rows of resources.

”We have the heavy materials,” Silas explained, analyzing everything. ”But the whole thing requires a catalyst to finalize the building of the Library I want to build.”

”A Library?” Both of them asked at the same time, even Kaelia. They were quite surprised...

We need Starlight Ink and Paper Rolls. Neither of those are native to the Umbral Basin, and I’m not waiting three weeks for a wandering merchant caravan to show up in some years. I’m going back to my Earth apartment to access it all and buy everything from the LAB.”