Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Talira blinked, leaning back slightly from the pressure.

”I... yes. I am a crimson dragon.”

Morwenna’s grin widened too far.

She leaned even closer, her voice dropping into a loud shameless whisper that echoed across the silent mess hall.

”Can you turn into your massive dragon form?” Morwenna asked, her eyes darting to the small wings on Talira’s back. ”Because I really, really want to ride you... I want to know exactly what riding a dragon feels like when we drop out of the sky!”

Talira sat there, completely stunned into silence by the audacity of the request.

A human with divine power wanted to mount her and use her as a flying beast of burden on her very first day in the territory?

Talira slowly lowered the turkey leg, blinking her glowing red eyes in utter bewilderment.

”Oh?” Talira responded simply.

...

The sky above the Blessed Land territory was a suffocating bruised black, completely lacking any kind of stars or celestial bodies.

A bitter biting wind howled across the fortified courtyard, whipping fresh layers of pristine white snow across the stone flags.

Talira stood directly in the center of the training grounds, her dark crimson combat robes fluttering wildly against the chill.

She crossed her pale arms over her chest with her small draconic wings twitching defensively behind her back.

Despite the freezing ambient temperature... a temperature that instinctively made her fire-attuned biology sluggish, Talira had to admit something to herself.

She loved the attention.

Lining the elevated stone walkways and crowding around the perimeter of the courtyard were dozens of the territory’s women.

Combatants, mages, and Shieldmaidens alike had completely abandoned their duties just to stare at the newly arrived crimson dragon.

Their eyes were wide with genuine awe, whispering excitedly among themselves as they pointed at her wings and the glowing scales accenting her collarbone.

”By the anvil, would you look at the architecture on that lass?” a loud boisterous voice boomed over the howling wind.

It was Thora.

The dwarven blacksmith was leaning against a stone wall with a massive tankard of alcohol gripped in her calloused soot-stained hand.

Her eyes tracked the curve of Talira’s waist down to her hips with blatant shameless appreciation. Thora let out a raucous whistle, taking a long gulp from her tankard before shouting across the courtyard.

”I’ve forged a thousand breastplates in me time, but none of ’em could hold a candle to what the gods gave you, scaly!” Thora cheered, offering a perverted suggestive wink. ”If you ever need your armor fitted or completely removed, you just come down to the forge, aye? I’ll give you a proper thorough inspection!”

Talira’s entire face flushed a violent shade of crimson.

Her reptilian pupils narrowed to sharp vertical slits with her teeth grinding together as a spark of white-hot fire sputtered from her lips.

She glared at the dwarf, actively wondering in her mind if she could simply open her jaws and blast the perverted blacksmith’s head off her shoulders with a condensed fireball.

Before Talira could act on her draconic aggression, a heavy, familiar hand dropped onto her shoulder.

”You will get used to it,” Morwenna said casually.

The Pirate Queen was standing right beside her, wearing lightweight leather armor that completely defied the freezing weather.

Morwenna didn’t look at Talira; she was grinning wildly at the assembled crowd, completely reveling in the chaotic energy of the territory.

Around the perimeter, several other veteran women including Rowenna, Tasmin, Fenna, Brida and others knowingly nodded their heads in agreement with Morwenna’s assessment.

Living in Blessed Land meant dealing with Thora’s shameless tavern commentary on a daily basis.

Seeing the entire crowd casually dismiss her flirtations, Thora slammed her tankard against the stone railing.

”Hey! Don’t act like you lot weren’t thinking the exact same thing! Give a dwarf some credit!”

Standing a few paces away from the boisterous crowd, completely silent and isolated in her own aura, was Lady Eluned.

The Goddess of Nature stood with her pale hands clasped loosely in front of her emerald robes.

Unlike the excited soldiers, Eluned’s stunning face was pale, drawn, and deeply shadowed by exhaustion.

Her golden-green eyes stared blankly into the howling snowstorm, completely unfocused.

Morwenna caught sight of the melancholic deity and smirked.

She strolled over, slinging an arm over Eluned’s shoulder and roughly shaking her.

”Cheer up, weed,” Morwenna teased mercilessly, poking Eluned’s cheek. ”Why the long face? You look like you just watched a forest burn down. We got a literal dragon in the barracks today so celebrate a little!”

Eluned did not even react to the insulting nickname or the physical nudging.

Her divine aura remained completely flat, vibrating with an aching anxiety. That was exactly how worried she was about Silas.

”I miss him,” Eluned sighed exhaustedly, her voice barely louder than the falling snow.

She closed her eyes, clutching the fabric of her robes over her heart. ”The Hero tether is fluctuating due to the spatial distance. If something happens to his core in the dark... if he does not return...”

Talira watched the grieving goddess.

According to the ancient history her rotting mother had drilled into her skull, Eluned was a divine entity... one of the very gods Talira was inherently supposed to hate with every fiber of her being.

Gods were the oppressors yet, looking at Eluned’s trembling shoulders and the genuine sorrow destroying her divine composure, Talira felt her inherited hatred completely melt away.

She didn’t see a tyrannical deity; she just saw a woman deeply, hopelessly in love with the same human who had spared Talira’s life hours ago.

Talira didn’t want Eluned to feel sad at all.

Talira took two tentative steps forward, clearing her throat to catch the goddess’s attention.

”You do not need to grieve, Miss Eluned,” Talira said softly, her dual-harmonic voice cutting clearly through the wind. ”Lord Silas... he is doing alright. When I departed the labyrinth, his core was exceptionally dense. He had already claimed several high-tier artifacts, and he had that terrifying elf guarding his flank.”

Talira offered a stiff but genuinely reassuring nod. ”He is far too stubborn to die in a place like that as he will be back soon.”

She was just saying anything at this point.

Eluned’s golden-green eyes snapped wide open.

The stagnant aura surrounding her instantly vanished, replaced by a radiant blooming warmth that melted the snow falling around her boots.

She perked up immediately, stepping forward and taking both of Talira’s pale hands in her own.

”Truly?” Eluned breathed out, a breathtaking relieved smile illuminating her face. ”His core was steady? Oh, thank you, Talira. Thank you for telling me.”

”Bah! Enough of the emotional weeping!” Morwenna interrupted loudly, clapping her hands together with a deafening sound.

She pointed a finger at Talira, her eyes flaring with anticipation.

”We didn’t come out into the freezing snow to talk about the Boss’s health! Get on with it, dragon! Show us what you look like with all your scales on!”

Talira looked around the courtyard.

The dozens of women were staring at her expectantly, cheering and stamping their boots against the frozen stone to build a rhythm.

Talira’s heart hammered against her ribs. Her draconic pride flared, completely overriding the ambient chill.

”Step back,” Talira commanded.

The women rapidly cleared a massive fifty-foot circle in the center of the courtyard.

Talira closed her eyes.

She reached deep into the center of her being, forcibly unlocking the power of her primordial bloodline.

She tapped into the sovereign energy Silas had injected into her core during her tethering.

FWOOSH!

A catastrophic wave of crimson pressure erupted from her skin, instantly vaporizing the snow in the courtyard into a massive hissing cloud of steam.

CRACK! SNAP! KRA-THOOM!

The terrifying symphony of breaking bones and expanding cartilage echoed off the barracks walls.

Talira’s spine violently elongated, tearing through her humanoid silhouette as her body aggressively expanded outward.

Her pale skin hardened, erupting into thick, overlapping layers of burning crimson scales that glowed like molten iron.

Her jaw unhinged, extending into a massive, jagged reptilian snout filled with sword-sized fangs, while two massive leathery wings unfurled with a concussive sound that blew the loose snow off the barracks roofs.

WHOOSH!

Within four seconds, the curvaceous woman was entirely gone.

Standing in the center of the Blessed Land courtyard was a massive, fifty-foot-tall primordial crimson dragon.

”ROOOOOOOOOAAAR!”

Talira reared back on her massive hind legs and unleashed an earth-shattering roar toward the black sky.

The concussive soundwave physically shook the stone foundations of the fortress, rattling the weapons in the armory and vibrating the chest cavities of everyone present.

The assembled women trembled violently with their survival instincts screaming at the sight of an apex predator but a second later, their fear dissolved into joy.

”HELL YES!” Thora roared, raising her tankard high. ”LOOK AT THAT BEAST!”

The entire courtyard erupted into deafening cheers.

The combatants and mages screamed her name, whistling and applauding the majestic perfection of her draconic form.

Hearing the overwhelming adoration, Talira let out a low, rumbling growl of satisfaction.

Even in her massive, terrifying reptilian form, she could feel her face heating up, blushing deeply beneath her crimson scales.

Before she could even lower her forelegs to the ground, a blur of movement shot through the steam.

THUD!

Morwenna leaped twenty feet into the air, landing heavily and securely directly between Talira’s massive shoulder blades.

The Pirate Queen grabbed onto two protruding dorsal spikes, her face plastered with a joyous grin.

”I claimed the front seat!” Morwenna yelled down at the courtyard.

Down below, Eluned stepped forward to the edge of the melted circle. She looked up at the massive dragon’s reptilian eye with her emerald robes fluttering.

”Talira,” Eluned asked politely, her voice carrying divine grace. ”May I have your permission to board as well?”

Talira lowered her massive snout, blinking her glowing red eye, and gave a gentle rumbling nod of consent.

Once the permission was given, Eluned didn’t use stairs or wind magic.

She simply took a single, graceful step forward, her body dissolving into a flurry of glowing green leaves that swirled upward and rematerialized securely on Talira’s broad back, seating herself right behind Morwenna.

”Hold on!” Talira’s booming dual-harmonic voice resonated from deep within her chest.

FLAP! KRA-THOOM!

Talira aggressively brought her massive wings down.

The downward stroke generated a localized hurricane that slammed into the courtyard floor, launching her massive multi-ton body vertically into the freezing black sky with terrifying acceleration.

She soared upward, breaking completely past the cloud layer in seconds.

Feeling the boundless freedom of the open air after years of imprisonment, Talira let loose.

She banked sharply to the left, carving a glowing crimson arc through the dark sky, before diving into a series of breathtaking high-speed vertical loops.

The cold wind howled across her scales as she executed a flawless barrel roll, before suddenly throwing her massive wings completely open, aggressively catching the air currents to come to a dead stop hovering high above the territory.

Down below in the illuminated courtyard, the entire territory went wild.

”TALIRA! TALIRA! TALIRA!”

Everyone cheered for her at the top of their lungs, waving their weapons at her.

Up on her back, Morwenna was throwing her fists in the air, howling with laughter while Eluned clapped her hands together with a brilliant smile lighting up her divine face.

Hovering peacefully in the cool night air, listening to the laughter of a goddess and a Pirate on her back, Talira looked down at the glowing warm lights of the Blessed Land territory.

’This is... amazing!’ Talira thought, her ancient heart swelling with a warmth that had nothing to do with her fire core.

She closed her eyes, letting the wind wash over her scales. ’To be free... to be welcomed instead of hunted... I wonder what that ”saintly” human is doing right now.’

Thousands of miles away, inside the Secret Realm, that same saintly human was currently having a very bad morning.

”Die Fuckers!”

A loud aggressive shout echoed across the open desert dunes, instantly accompanied by the feeling of a high-tier wind incantation.

FWOOSH!

A violent pressurized gale of slicing wind blasted across the sand, carrying a dense cloud of abrasive dust and freezing desert air that slammed directly into Silas Graves’s face.

Silas physically flinched with his head jerking back as the grit hit his eyelids.

His Gold Core was still sluggish from the deep sleep with his instincts desperately trying to boot up as he groaned, raising a calloused hand to shield his face.

”Give me five more minutes, Elu...” Silas mumbled sleepily, his mind completely disoriented as he mistook the cold wind for Eluned opening a window back in their bedroom at the territory. ”The administrative reports can wait...”

”Lord Sy! Wake up immediately!”