Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 379: The Hell Known As Seraphina Bloom [Bonus Chapter]

His sharp instincts flared instantly, picking up the distinct focused mana signature of two individuals staring directly at the back of his neck from across the street.

Silas narrowed his eyes, slowly turning his head toward the park bench.

’Another stalker?’ Silas thought with a groan of pure, unadulterated exasperation. ’Seriously? First it was Harper sitting on that damn bench some time ago, and now there’s a new one? And who is the guy in the suit?’

Before he could take a step toward the gate, the figure on the bench abruptly lowered the newspaper.

The woman stood up in a single fluid motion, gracefully removing her wide-brimmed sunhat and sliding her dark sunglasses down the bridge of her nose.

Her vibrant cascading crimson hair caught the brilliant afternoon sunlight, framing a breathtakingly gorgeous aristocratic face with sharp captivating red eyes.

Her tailored crimson blazer and high-waisted pencil skirt perfectly accentuated an hour-glass figure that commanded immediate suffocating attention.

She stepped off the curb with her designer stiletto heels clicking sharply against the asphalt as she strode purposefully across the street directly toward him.

Reginald followed two paces behind, carrying himself with rigid subservient poise.

Silas’s heart instantly dropped straight into his stomach.

’Fuck...’ Silas swore internally, his face freezing into a completely deadpan expression. ’Of all the people on this entire damn planet... why her?’

Seraphina Bloom was the last person he wanted to deal with today.

His mind was still entirely exhausted from balancing dimensional politics, managing his people in an Unknown Zone, and navigating Evelyn’s family drama.

The last thing he had the mental bandwidth for was high-society noble entitlement.

Seraphina came to an abrupt halt exactly three feet in front of him.

The subtle incredibly expensive scent of night-blooming jasmine and vanilla rolled off her skin, mingling with the crisp neighborhood air.

Silas remained perfectly still, resting his hands casually in the pockets of his black slacks.

He raised an eyebrow, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

”Seraphina Bloom,” Silas greeted smoothly. ”To what do I owe the absolute pleasure of having the Bloom Clan’s heiress stake out my front porch?”

Seraphina eyed him from head to toe.

She took in his broad muscled frame, the golden rings lingering in his deep blue irises, and the effortless confidence radiating from his relaxed posture.

Despite herself, an involuntary visible rosy blush instantly crept up her neck, dusting her flawless pale cheeks with a warm crimson hue.

She quickly cleared her throat, crossing her arms beneath her voluptuous chest in a desperate attempt to maintain her haughty untouchable noble demeanor.

”You remember,” Seraphina stated, her voice tight with a mixture of burning indignation and poorly concealed embarrassment. ”Inside Ititius’s Secret Realm... you saw me naked.”

Silas didn’t even blink.

”Here we go...”

”No amount of apologies from Valerius, nor any diplomatic reparations made on House Sterling’s behalf,” Seraphina continued, stepping closer until she was looking directly up into his eyes, ”can ever fundamentally erase the indisputable fact that you... a commoner from the Lower Ward slums, no less laid your eyes upon my unblemished, sacred body!”

Silas stared down at her, unimpressed by the dramatic noble monologue.

”It was literally only from the waist down,” Silas corrected flatly. ”And you were squatting in the sand behind a dune taking a piss while the rest of us were fighting for our lives against a Sand Guardian... I was sent flying during the confrontation so forgive me for having functioning eyes.”

”WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THAT POSSIBLY MAKE?!” Seraphina shrieked, her aristocratic composure instantly shattering as her face turned completely beet-red. ”The exposure of a Bloom maiden’s flesh to an unrelated male carries unyielding societal weight! You saw everything!”

Silas let out a heavy soul-weary breath, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He didn’t want this nonsense escalating into a full-blown clan conflict.

The Bloom Clan was an ancient terrifyingly wealthy lineage of high-tier Lords with immense political leverage in the World Council.

If they decided to launch a blood feud over a compromised maiden’s honor, they would deploy high-ranking squads to scour the city.

Push came to shove, Silas knew he could easily protect himself.

He could shatter the masquerade, reveal his Mythic Gold Core, invoke the sovereign authority of his Lord Vespera persona, and use the weight of his #1 Newbie Leaderboard status to force the World Council to grant him total legal immunity.

But doing so would completely destroy his family’s peace... His little sister, Lia, was only eleven years old.

She deserved to grow up in a normal home, attend Valoria Academy with her friends, and eat dinner without having to look over her shoulder for noble assassins or corporate paparazzi.

Silas dropped his hand, his blue eyes hardening into a serious protective gaze.

”Look, Seraphina,” Silas said, his voice dropping into a low, uncompromising tone. ”I understand that your family traditions are strict. If the Bloom Clan feels insulted, and you want to extract some sort of personal punishment from me to settle your pride, fine. Challenge me to a duel in the Association arena, demand a fine, do whatever you need to do. But leave my sister and my household out of this.”

Seraphina blinked, completely caught off guard by his ferocious protective declaration.

”Punish...?” Seraphina stammered, her voice suddenly losing all of its venom. ”No... I am not here to... punish you, Silas...”

Silas furrowed his brow, looking down at her in genuine confusion. ”You’re not?”

Seraphina’s blush exploded into an inferno.

The heat rushed all the way to the tips of her delicate ears, and she felt as though steam was literally about to whistle out of her scalp.

Unable to maintain eye contact with his piercing blue gaze for another second, she violently shoved the thick gold-embossed leather folder she had been clutching directly against his chest.

”Just read them!” Seraphina squeaked, her voice pitching up in pure mortification.

Silas caught the heavy leather binder against his ribs.

He cast a suspicious glance at the blushing noblewoman, slowly unclasped the brass lock, and flipped the heavy paper open.

He focused his eyes on the bold, elegant calligraphy stamped across the very first page, backed by the official notarized magical seal of the Valoria City High Registry.

[OFFICIAL BINDING ACCORD: CONJUGAL ALLIANCE & MATRIMONIAL CONTRACT]

[Parties Involved: Lady Seraphina Bloom of House Bloom & Lord Silas Graves]

Silas completely froze.

He stared at the page. He closed his eyes, rubbed them with his thumb, and opened them again to ensure the text hadn’t shifted.

”A... marriage contract?” Silas asked, his voice cracking in flabbergasted disbelief. ”Are you out of your mind?!”

”YES!” Seraphina declared fiercely, throwing her hands up in dramatic, blushing defiance. ”The fact that you laid your eyes upon my naked form is an unforgivable sin against my family’s sacred heritage! And the only way to cleanly extinguish that sin, preserve my honor, and prevent a catastrophic clan scandal is for you to take responsibility and marry me!”

”Uh...” Silas stood completely paralyzed on his own sidewalk, holding the multi-million-credit marriage accord in his hands.

His mind violently snapped backward to a specific memory.

A while ago, while he had been livestreaming his territorial expansion in the Umbral Basin alongside Evelyn, the global chat had exploded when a verified high-tier noble handle belonging to Lady Etilga Bloom... Seraphina’s notoriously unhinged mother had aggressively asked for him who had been in his Vespera form to marry Seraphina on the broadcast.

’If I remember...’

Etilga had publicly announced to millions of viewers that her daughter had mysteriously fallen in love with an unknown commoner, and that she was preparing to kill him.

Silas’s eyes widened into massive saucers as the horrifying realization hit him like a lightning strike.

’THAT WAS ME?!’ Silas screamed in the silent caverns of his own mind, a cold terrifying dread gripping his spine. ’Eleonora wants to butcher the guy Seraphina is trying to marry... and Seraphina is trying to marry ME?!’

Marrying Seraphina didn’t just mean dealing with a haughty blushing noblewoman... it meant putting a permanent, glowing red crosshair directly between his shoulder blades from the most violent matriarch in the entire Eastern Hemisphere!

Seraphina interrupted his frantic internal panic, stepping forward and aggressively tapping her manicured index finger against the contract.

”You do not have a choice in this matter, Silas Graves!” Seraphina insisted, puffing out her chest and trying desperately to look intimidating. ”You will sign the registry, you will become my lawful husband, and if you dare reject this gracious proposal, I will personally—”

VROOOOOOOM!

The deep roar of a high-performance twin-turbo mana engine aggressively tore through the quiet boulevard, cutting Seraphina off mid-sentence.

A custom-built midnight-purple luxury sports coupe glided violently around the corner.

Its low-slung aerodynamic frame hummed with raw power as it drifted smoothly along the curb, coming to a sharp flawless halt directly behind Reginald’s obsidian limousine.

Silas, Seraphina, and Reginald all snapped their heads toward the vehicle.

The heavily tinted driver’s side window smoothly slid down with a soft, mechanical purr.

Resting her elbow comfortably against the window frame was Harper.

The energetic, purple-haired Lightning Lord wore oversized designer sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose, her lips curving into a sharp competitive smirk as her glowing violet eyes locked onto the scene.

”Sorry for interrupting whatever little street drama is going on out here,” Harper called out, her voice dripping with pure sarcasm. ”But as you can see, I just drove all the way from the Central District for my official date with Silas.”

Seraphina’s head snapped toward the sports coupe.

Her crimson eyes flared with incandescent, territorial fury as she recognized the woman who had answered Silas’s door earlier.

”Date?!... What’s that?! Whatever...” Seraphina snarled, taking two aggressive steps toward the car. ”He is not going on a date with you! He is my prospective husband! He is the property of House Bloom! You don’t get any dates, you purple-haired vulture!”

CLICK-CHUNK!

The vertical scissor-door of the sports coupe smoothly swung upward.

Harper gracefully stepped out of the luxury vehicle onto the pavement.

She stood to her full height, her tailored trousers accentuating her long athletic legs as she reached up and dramatically slid her sunglasses off her face, letting them hang from the collar of her shirt.

She walked toward them with an amused dangerous swagger, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter as she looked Seraphina up and down.

”You want to force him into a marriage contract just because he saw you naked from the waist down behind a dune?” Harper asked, her violet eyes flashing with crackling static electricity as she stopped right beside Silas and crossed her arms.

Harper leaned her shoulder casually against Silas’s muscular arm, looking directly into Seraphina’s furious, widening eyes with a triumphant grin.

”Well, guess what, sweetheart?” Harper dropped the bombshell with ruthless glee. ”He saw me completely naked, too! All over! From head to toe! And to make it even better, he literally grabbed both of my hips with his bare hands! So by your exact, flawless noble logic... I should be the one marrying him, shouldn’t I?”

Seraphina’s sharp jaw clenched until the pale skin across her cheeks turned bloodless.

Her vibrant crimson eyes, framed by perfectly curled lashes that had never once witnessed the grime of the lower wards, dilated into narrow furious pinpricks.

’You...’

She knew about the incident inside the Secret Realm.

She remembered every agonizing humiliating second of it... how the whole tower had collapsed when she had been about to kill her and how Harper had been caught in the crossfire alongside Silas though she still didn’t understand why that happened.

’Did she have to scream it out in the middle of a public street?!’ Seraphina raged internally, her manicured nails digging into the soft leather of her family’s marriage accord until the seals groaned under the friction. ’Did this insolent unrefined common Lord actually just announce to my butler and the entire neighborhood that Silas saw her naked and held her hips?!’

The indecency of it bypassed Seraphina’s practiced noble composure entirely.

Decades of high-society etiquette, private tutoring under Imperial etiquette masters, and strict lessons on aristocratic detachment shattered into absolute dust.

”You shameless wretched gutter rat,” Seraphina spat. ”Back off before I incinerate every single hair on your empty skull once again.”