Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 302: Elm’s Sacrifice [Bonus Chapter]

Even though the arrow looked completely ordinary, Sky’s veteran combat instincts screamed in terror.

’The hell...’

The single black arrow wasn’t just flying in a straight trajectory... it was subtly altering its flight path mid-air, locking onto her helmet’s signal with terrifying automated homing magic.

Sky wasn’t going to take a single chance with anything coming out of that territory.

HUMMM!

Sky raised her right hand, unleashing a powerful, high-yield stream of Water Magic.

A roaring high-pressure jet of compressed water shot out from her palm, striking the incoming arrow mid-air four hundred yards away.

The moment Sky’s water stream touched the tip of the black arrow—

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

An explosive detonation of mind-boggling magnitude erupted in the center of the battlefield.

A colossal, fifty-foot fireball exploded into the sky. The shockwave was so immense that it tore up thousands of pounds of dirt and grass, creating a massive, blinding wall of dark smoke and fire that completely obscured the entire field!

BOOM!

Sky stumbled back half a step, using her arm to shield her helmet from the flying dirt and heat!

Inside her disguise, Sky’s heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

She had been in terrifying overwhelming positions like this before... facing high-tier Lords, getting cornered in Zones, and dealing with absurd enemy abilities.

But Sky was a veteran Classic Lord! She knew how to survive, how to adapt, and most importantly... how to turn a dangerous situation into high-tier streaming content for her audience.

She was currently farming millions of viewers... The engagement metrics were going through the roof.

Sky lowered his arm, his eyes glinting behind his mask as he pointed his sword outward.

”SPREAD OUT!” Sky bellowed at the top of his lungs with his voice echoing through the smoke. ”DISPERSE ACROSS THE ENTIRE FIELD! DO NOT GIVE THEM A CLUSTERED TARGET! CHARGE!”

Sky’s forces... dozens of heavy infantry warriors, speed-type combatants, and mercenary knights let out a roaring battle cry.

”RAHHHHHHHH!”

They broke formation instantly, fanning out across the vast clearing in every direction, running toward the open gates of the Blessed Land.

Sky offered a sharp confident smirk behind the mask.

By spreading his troops across a two-thousand-yard width single-target homing arrows and area-of-effect spells would be completely rendered useless.

...However, as the thick smoke from the initial explosion slowly began to vanish in the wind...

Sky looked up into the sky... and his jaw dropped completely open.

The smoke cleared... revealing NOT a single arrow... but DOZENS AND DOZENS OF IDENTICAL BLACK ARROWS floating in the upper atmosphere!

Fenna, standing atop the high Watchtower, was holding her composite bow horizontally.

Behind her, a massive, glowing blue Multi-Shot Volley spell was active.

Hundreds of sleek, black homing arrows were suspended in the sky above the battlefield with their glowing tips pointing straight down at Sky’s spreading army like a rain of dark meteors.

Sky stared at the sky, her black eyes widening in horror behind her helmet, as a single helpless word escaped her lips.

”Fu----”

BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A deafening continuous cascade of apocalyptic explosions consumed the entire battlefield.

...

[A Bit Earlier...]

Deep beneath the massive, multi-tiered steel treads of The Unmovable Wall, far below the vibrating engine blocks and the deafening roar of the upper artillery decks, lay a hidden subterranean medical chamber.

The air down here was thick, frigid, and heavily saturated with the sharp chemical tang of distilled mana-salts, pressurized magic, and sterile life-support fluids.

The walls were lined with heavy iron plating, lit only by the soft sickly green luminescence of giant glass containment cylinders embedded directly into the foundational bedrock of the mobile fortress.

Submerged inside the largest, central glass cylinder was a woman.

She possessed long silky white hair that floated weightlessly around her shoulders in the thick, glowing green nutrient fluid like a halo of frost.

Her striking almond-shaped eyes were a pristine, crystalline silver, currently staring unblinkingly through the glass at the shadowy iron ceiling above.

Her slender, pale frame was clad in thin medical linen, and a flexible breathing apparatus was fitted tightly over her mouth and nose, venting a rhythmic steady stream of silver bubbles up toward the fluid’s surface.

Her name was Elm.

Once upon a time... long before The Unmovable Wall had ever acquired its giant, land-flattening steel treads, before it became a famous moving territory across the global networks, and long before Lord Sky had amassed hundreds of millions of followers on LordTube... Elm had been one of Lord Sky’s very first and most cherished Hero combatants.

She and Hiro had been summoned together into the Sovereign Realm during the territory’s earliest and most perilous days.

Side by side, the three of them had bled in the dirt, repelled wild monster swarms in the unforgiving wilderness, and carved out their tiny sanctuary in the Umbral Basin through pure grit and survival instinct.

She had been Lord Sky’s ultimate sword, her light and support magic turning hopeless battles into miraculous victories...

RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

A colossal violent shockwave rattled the chamber.

Dust and iron shavings rained down from the ceiling girders, and the luminescent green liquid inside her glass cylinder sloshed violently, sending a cascade of bubbles turbulence around her body.

High above, the muffled thunderous impacts of heavy artillery and exploding spellcraft echoed through the iron foundations.

Deep within her chest, Elm’s spiritual core throbbed with a sharp agonizing ache.

Ever since she had suffered a catastrophic, near-fatal spatial core rupture during a desperate dungeon boss raid a long time ago, she had been confined to this nutrient tank.

Lord Sky had poured astronomical fortunes into her life support... buying rare high-grade medical catalysts, hiring alchemists, and diverting precious territory mana reserves just to keep her vital signs from fading into nothingness.

Yet, despite all those efforts, her damaged mana pathways had refused to mend.

There had been zero advancement in her physical recovery.

She was trapped in a agonizing state of static limbo... conscious, fully aware, yet utterly incapable of stepping onto the battlefield to swing her blade or cast a spell.

’Lord Sky...’ Elm thought, her silver eyes trembling behind the thick glass as she felt another heavy explosion shake the foundations. ’Lord Sky is out there right now... fighting for the very survival of our territory... fighting against a terrifying, unknown enemy... and here I am. Floating in a glass jar like a fragile, pathetic ornament.’

Tears of pure frustration welled in the corners of her silver eyes, dissolving instantly into the surrounding green liquid.

What made her a Hero if she couldn’t stand beside her Lord when everything was on the line?

What was the worth of holding a Hero title if she could only sit in the dark while her comrades and standard soldiers spilled their blood on the grass outside?

Elm’s lips pursed tightly beneath her breathing mask.

A sudden blinding spark of white-and-silver mana ignited deep within her shattered core, burning through the numbness of her body like liquid fire.

She remembered the private conversation she had shared with Lord Sky right before the broadcast signal went live this morning.

She remembered Lord Sky’s voice echoing through her chamber’s comm-speaker, sounding tired yet resolute.

’All’s fair in love and war, Elm...’

Those words meant everything to her.

Elm knew that Lord Sky, Hiro, and all the territory medics had repeatedly begged her to take it easy, warning her that unlocking her core before her pathways healed would permanently destroy her spiritual foundation.

However they had forgotten one thing...

She was The Unmovable Wall’s ultimate, hidden secret weapon and what good was a secret weapon if it sat rusting in the dark when its Lord needed it most?!

Elm opened her mouth beneath the breathing apparatus, blowing a cloud of silver bubbles into the green fluid, and channeled every single drop of her remaining life force directly into the base of her glass cylinder.

Through the thick pressurized liquid, her voice echoed out into the subterranean silence like a solemn divine command.

”Go...”

HUMMMMMMMMM!

The exact second the word left her lips, a colossal glowing white Four-Leaf Clover magical circle flared into existence at the bottom of her glass cylinder.

The brilliant silver-and-white light didn’t just illuminate the green fluid... it erupted outward, expanding through the bedrock and steel plating of The Unmovable Wall like an unstoppable blinding tidal wave.

The white clover spell shot through the iron hull, expanding across the entire two-thousand-yard width of the mobile fortress, and swept directly onto the open battlefield outside.

Out on the open, smoke-filled clearing...

Hundreds of Lord Sky’s vanguard soldiers, heavy armored knights, and speed-type combatants were sprinting across the trampled grass with their hearts gripped by paralyzing terror as they looked up at the sky.

Above them, Fenna’s Multi-Shot Volley had just released its apocalyptic payload.

Dozens upon dozens of sleek, black homing arrows were screaming down from the clouds like a rain of dark explosive meteors, their tips glowing with volatile destruction!

Lord Sky stood in the center of the field with his disguise helmet locked onto the incoming rain of black arrows and his teeth clenching as she braced for devastation.

”Fu—”

SWOOOOSH!

Before the black arrows could strike the dirt, a blinding ethereal wave of white-and-silver clover light swept across the entire battlefield from behind.

The glowing white light washed over every single soldier, hero, and knight in Sky’s army.

The second the silver clover magic touched their bodies, their physical forms underwent an instantaneous miraculous transformation.

Their muscles bulged beneath their plate armor, their skin hardened into adamantine density, and a blinding ten-fold aura of supercharged mana erupted from their bodies like pillars of light.

In front of the army, Lord Sky froze as the white light washed over the disguise armor.

[TERRITORY-WIDE SACRIFICIAL HERO SKILL ACTIVATED: FOUR-LEAF CLOVE]

[SOURCE: HERO UNIT ’ELM’]

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+ ALLIED COMBAT POWER MULTIPLIER: 1000% (10x)

+ PHYSICAL DURABILITY & ARMOR HARDNESS: +900%

+ MOVEMENT SPEED & NEURAL REFLEXES: +900%

+ MANA OUTPUT & SPELL RESISTANCE: +900%

--------------------------------------------------

[WARNING: UNIT ’ELM’ IS CONSUMING VITAL LIFE ESSENCE TO MAINTAIN SPELL]

Behind his full-face disguise helmet, Sky’s eyes widened in heartbreaking shock.

’Elm...’ Sky thought with his heart clenching painfully in his chest. ’So... you actually did it, you stubborn fool...’

BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOOOM!

At that exact second, Fenna’s dark homing arrows slammed into the battlefield.

A continuous, apocalyptic cascade of fifty-foot fireballs and shockwaves consumed the terrain, tearing up thousands of pounds of earth and obscuring the entire clearing in a blinding sea of fire and dark smoke.

On the global stream, over three hundred and fifty million viewers held their breath, expecting Lord Sky’s entire vanguard army to be wiped out in a single salvo!

...However, as the roaring flames raged—

”RAHHHHHH!”

”IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT, BLESSED LAND?!”

”WE ARE UNMOVABLE! CHARGE!”

A chorus of bloodthirsty, roaring battle cries erupted directly from the center of the inferno.

Through the blinding wall of fire and smoke, Sky’s soldiers didn’t fall...

Reinforced by Elm’s 10x stat multiplier, their armor held firm against the kinetic blasts.

They surged forward out of the burning craters like an unstoppable, golden-white tide of supercharged juggernauts with their physical speed doubling as they tore across the grass toward the open gates of the Blessed Land.

Sky’s face twitched beneath the mask. The overwhelming grief for Elm’s sacrifice turned into cold razor-sharp battle focus.

’I respect your sacrifice, Elm...’ Sky resolved in her mind, raising her steel sword high into the air. ’I won’t let your willingness to die be in vain!’

”KEEP MOVING!” Sky bellowed at the top of his lungs with his voice echoing across the battlefield! ”PUSH THEM ALL THE WAY BACK TO THEIR TERRITORY!”

However, as her supercharged army roared forward, Sky’s veteran instincts remained sharply on guard.

She looked up at the Steel-Weave perimeter walls of the Blessed Land.

Something was deeply wrong.

Aside from the small vanguard squad that had stepped through the main gates earlier, Blessed Land had deployed zero additional reinforcements.

There were no secondary armies marching out, no grand elemental spell circles forming over the battlements, and the archers atop the Watchtower had suddenly stopped firing their homing salvos...

Why had they stopped? Had they run out of composite bows? Were their arrow quivers depleted? Or... did the Lord of the Blessed Land have something far more sinister waiting in the box?

’No...’ Sky analyzed rapidly with her mind racing. ’Blessed Land is a brand-new territory. Their total population and unit roster are significantly smaller than The Unmovable Wall. They’re trying to bide their time and conserve their high-tier units because they can’t afford a prolonged war of attrition!’