Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

The stagnant air in the upper canopy violently ruptured.

A series of whipping sounds tore down from the high branches, echoing through the dense timber like cracking leather.

Massive boughs groaned and violently rattled under sudden shifting weight, dislodging thick showers of black pine needles, decaying bark, and heavy clumps of rotting moss that rained onto the forest floor below.

The fifteen recruit maidens reacted in a single fluid heartbeat.

Without waiting for a direct command, their rigorous drills took over... boots snapped into the wet loam, shoulder to shoulder, locking their iron-rimmed bucklers edge-to-edge into an unbroken outward-facing defensive perimeter while angling their void-iron spear tips skyward into the shuddering gloom.

”...Others, on the other hand,” Silas continued smoothly, his composure remained unshaken as he held Valkyrie’s reins with a relaxed hand. ”are inedible, repulsive, and exponentially more dangerous when they coordinate in swarms... That is why individual bravado gets you slaughtered out here. True strength lies in unison!”

THUD! SPLAT! SQUELCH!

Dozens of mucus-slicked bodies dropped from the fifty-foot boughs, crashing violently against the mossy earth in an encircling perimeter.

Silas narrowed his eyes, his gaze coolly sweeping over the writhing ring of monstrosities that had surrounded his girls.

They were grotesque aberrations.

From the neck up, each beast bore the broad armored head of an apex Komodo dragon... lined with thick calcified cranial plates, glowing yellow slit-pupils, rows of serrated fangs dripping emerald venom, and a thick bifurcated black tongue that hissed with corrosive steaming bile.

But from the base of their throats down, all reptilian limbs vanished.

Their forms extended into thirty-foot-long, bloated worm trunks covered in rubbery, slime-coated hide that writhed, squirmed, and churned the damp forest soil into a foul morass.

’Oh? A new species...’ Silas thought, raising an eyebrow in analytical assessment. ’Are these abominations migrating from the deeper trenches of the basin?’

A golden interface chime chimed softly in his peripheral vision.

[Target Analyzed: Komado Wryworms (Tier 2)]

Silas let out a dry resigned sigh.

’Right... Komodo dragon heads grafted onto bloated mucus-dripping worm bodies... Truly the most repulsive combination possible.’

”Squad One!” Silas barked, his voice sounding sharp and commanding. ”Engage!”

”Front rank, lock shields!” shouted Helen, the tall freckle-faced recruit anchoring the forward line. ”Spears at forty-five degrees! Don’t let them close the pocket!”

”Brace! Dig your heels into the roots!” Sarah called out from the right flank, slamming the bottom rim of her iron buckler into the damp earth to secure her footing.

Three massive wryworms lunged simultaneously, their scaly jaws unhinging wide as pressurized streams of greenish acidic venom sprayed through the air.

”Shields up! Deflect the bile!” Helen yelled.

The front rank angled their bucklers in unison, letting the corrosive spray hiss and splash harmlessly off the reinforced metal faces onto the damp moss.

”Now! Thrust in three... two... ONE!”

Four ash-wood spears punched forward in synchronized harmony.

The void-iron points pierced through the softer fleshy underbellies right beneath the leading wryworm’s scaly throat with a wet bone-crunching crunch.

The thrashing, thirty-foot beast shrieked, green bile spraying from its maw as the four maidens leaned their full body weight into their shafts, pinning the monster’s thrashing mass firmly to the loam.

”Step in and sever the neck!” another maiden shouted, drawing her arming sword.

Stepping smoothly past the braced spear line, she brought her blade down in a heavy two-handed overhead arc.

The sharpened steel cleaved cleanly through the rubbery vertebrae, severing the horned reptilian head from its segmented worm trunk in a single stroke.

Black sulfurous ichor erupted from the stump, splashing across the ferns.

”Watch the right flank! Two more sliding through the brush!”

”I have the flank! Sarah, hold your brace!”

The recruit maidens moved with fluid vocal coordination, calling out enemy movements, covering exposed angles, and dismantling the Tier-2 swarm with disciplined teamwork.

Seeing the recruits holding the line so cleanly, Lupina’s anxious need to prove herself flared to a boiling point.

Her silver wolf ears pinned flat against her silver hair, and her bushy tail bristled with fierce restless agitation.

”I’m not standing behind the fledglings! I’ll prove my worth on this field!” Lupina growled fiercely, her three-inch retractable steel claw gauntlets snapping outward with a metallic shik.

Dropping low onto all fours, the silver-haired demi-human surged forward in a blinding burst of gray speed.

She tore directly into a cluster of five charging wryworms, her steel claws blurring into a whirlwind of silver arcs that ripped through scaly hide, muscle fibers, and thick mucus with frantic, high-velocity savagery.

”DIE! SQUISH! BLEED! AHAHAHA... GACK! CHOKE!”

Mid-cackle, a severed arterial segment of a wryworm ruptured beneath her right claw gauntlet, blasting a pressurized geyser of black, sulfurous monster blood straight into Lupina’s wide-open mouth.

Her manic laughter choked off into violent frantic coughing.

”BLAAARGH! PTOOEY! ACK! COUGH! IT TASTES LIKE RANCID MUD AND ROTTEN WATER!” Lupina shrieked in tearful revulsion, stumbling back onto two feet and clutching her throat with clawed gauntlets.

Her tongue stuck out as she gagged violently. ”WATER! SOMEBODY GET ME WATER! I’VE BEEN POISONED! MY TONGUE IS DYING!”

Standing a few paces back with quiet, imposing poise, Morrighan watched the display.

The tall demonic caster stood unbothered, her pale ashen skin contrasting against the long crimson hair cascading down her back.

Her twin obsidian-black horns curved gracefully from her temples, and her deep molten gold eyes glowed with dignified authority.

Her scale-armored spade-tipped tail swayed in a slow arc behind her dark mythril coat.

Morrighan’s lips curved into a reserved smirk, her deep contralto voice cutting smoothly through the din.

”You brought that indignity upon yourself, Lupina,” Morrighan murmured. ”Perhaps next time you might maintain the discipline to keep your jaws shut while tearing through rancid viscera.”

”IT’S NOT FUNNY, YOU HORNED WITCH! COUGH! HACK! WATEEEER!” Lupina wheezed, frantically wiping her tongue against the clean forearm of her tunic.

HISS!

Three more thirty-foot wryworms burst through the dense ferns, lunging with gaping venomous maws at the distracted, gagging wolf-girl.

Lupina’s frantic coughing ceased for a split second as her feral combat reflexes kicked in.

Dropping low, she kicked off the earth in a fluid backward somersault, letting the snapping jaws slam together in the empty air where she had stood a microsecond prior.

Landing lightly on her boots, Lupina’s amber eyes flared with wounded pride and irritation.

”You slimy bastards ruined my momentum!” she snarled, snapping her claws forward.

Morrighan stepped forward, her obsidian horns glowing with dark abyssal light as she calmly took control of the engagement.

”[Demon’s Resolve].” Morrighan incanted.

A dark crimson aura surged across her frame, instantly doubling her physical output.

With a sharp flick of her palm, four shadow-forged abyssal chains erupted from the damp loam, wrapping tightly around the segmented bodies of the three lunging wryworms and pinning them firmly to the earth.

Morrighan closed the distance in a single heavy stride. Her right fist ignited with a swirling superheated vortex of dark demonic fire.

”[Brimstone Punch]!”

KRA-BOOM!

Morrighan drove her fist into the armored skull of the central monster.

The shockwave blasted dirt, roots, and dead pine needles forty feet into the surrounding air as the cranium of the beast caved inward under the dark flames, its segmented body incinerating from within.

Before the remaining two chained wryworms could thrash, Morrighan pivoted smoothly, whipping her heavy spade-tipped tail in a thunderous horizontal cleave.

The armored tail struck with the force of an iron mace, shattering the neck vertebrae of the second beast before she released a point-blank [Brimstone Bolt] from her palm, detonating the third into smoldering ash.

As the dark smoke cleared, Lupina turned her gaze toward the center of the clearing where Aurelia was moving.

The former Saintess advanced with an ethereal musical grace.

Aurelia did not bother drawing the mithril rapier at her hip. Instead, she raised her slender pale hands, extending her fingers toward a cluster of six charging wryworms that were slithering aggressively toward Silas’s mount.

VUUUUUUM!

Thin brilliant threads of incandescent, sacred holy light shot forth from the tips of Aurelia’s fingers.

The beams did not fire as blunt destructive blasts... rather, they wove through the humid air with microscopic precision.

The glowing threads crisscrossed between the obsidian tree trunks, forming an intricate glowing web of pure holy energy that hung suspended across the clearing.

The moment the six wryworms surged into the radius of the sanctified web, the microscopic threads tightened.

SHING! SHING! SHING!

With effortless ease, the holy light sliced through thick scale plates, bone marrow, and segmented worm hides simultaneously.

The six beasts were cleanly carved into dozens of neat, cauterized cubes, collapsing to the mossy earth without a single drop of vile black ichor staining the Saintess’s pristine white cuirass.

Lupina crossed her arms, still wiping phantom tastes of monster blood from her lips.

”Show-off...” she muttered under her breath, her tail twitching in mild annoyance.

Across the clearing, the battle was practically over.

The recruit maidens had wiped out their assigned targets, leaning on their spears as they caught their breath and surveyed the carnage with proud smiles.

Only one solitary wounded wryworm remained.

Its scaly snout was fractured, its segmented tail oozed black fluids, and it dragged its broken body weakly across the moss, coming to a halt directly in front of Valkyrie’s forelegs.

The Princess’s azure eyes widened with sudden electrifying realization.

’A wounded beast... right before my feet!’ she thought, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs with pure adrenaline. ’This is my chance to secure my first sovereign combat kill!’

Without waiting for Silas to stop her, the Princess scrambled down from the saddle, landing on her leather-clad boots with a soft thud.

She drew the small utility dagger from her thigh sheath, gripping the hilt with both hands and setting her feet in a fierce dramatic stance.

”Yield before the might of the High Throne, foul aberration!” the Princess proclaimed with sweeping courtly flair.

She charged forward two determined steps, raising the dagger high and driving it downward with all her mortal strength directly into the center of the beast’s scaly forehead.

CLANG!

The sharp void-iron tip struck the thick calcified bone plate of the Komodo snout.

Lacking mana or enhanced physical strength, the strike did zero damage.

Instead, the monumental kinetic recoil traveled straight back up the blade, violently jarring the Princess’s wrists and elbows.

Her center of gravity was thrown entirely out of alignment.

WHOOSH...THUD!

Her slick boots lost all traction on the wet moss, and for the second time that morning, the Princess went crashing down onto her rear.

She sprawled flat on the damp ground, her skirts bunched and her legs kicking the air as her dagger tumbled harmlessly into the ferns.

”Ow...” the Princess groaned softly, rubbing her aching tailbone with a flustered pout.

The wounded wryworm hissed weakly, its yellow slit-pupils focusing on the fallen royal maiden as it opened its fanged maw.

SCHLICK!

Before the monster could even hiss a second time, Helen lunged from the left flank.

Her arming sword descended in a clean, diagonal cleave, cleanly severing the monster’s head and ending its life instantly.

Helen stepped over the carcass, wiping the black gore from her blade before extending a strong calloused hand down to the Princess. ”You alright there, miss?”

The Princess blinked, staring at the severed monster head, then down at her scuffed leather leggings and trembling hands.

Instead of feeling humiliated, an overwhelming rush of intoxicating exhilaration flooded her chest.

Her porcelain cheeks flushed a brilliant radiant pink, and her azure eyes sparkled with genuine adventurous delight as she grasped Helen’s hand and pulled herself up.

”That was... completely terrifying!” the Princess laughed out loud. ”The impact! The deafening hiss! Is this truly what combat feels like?!”

Sitting atop Valkyrie, Silas watched the entire display with a wide approving grin.

”Outstanding work, Squad One!” Silas announced, his sovereign voice ringing out over the clearing. ”Your defensive formation held firm, your callouts were sharp, and your coordination in neutralizing Tier-2 swarms was executed with commendable unison.”

The fifteen recruits stood at attention, their chests swelling with immense pride. Silas raised his golden-runed sword, pointing the shining blade toward the deeper path of the forest.

”Catch your breath and keep your perimeter tight... There are countless more monsters waiting in these woods for us to clear out. Let’s move!”

”YEAH! FOR BLESSED LAND!” the recruit maidens cheered in thunderous, synchronized unison with their morale soaring as the expedition resumed its march through the Black Forest.

...

Roughly an hour later, nearly five miles to the southeast in an entirely separate sector of the Umbral Basin...

Squad Three was making its way through a narrow canyon flanked by towering cliffs of obsidian stone.

The rocky floor of the ravine was already littered with the slain corpses of dozens of jagged-horned cliff-stalkers and armored basalt-beetles, all cleanly dispatched by the fifteen scout maidens under Tasmin’s command.

Tasmin walked at the head of the formation, her twin curved scouting daggers twirling smoothly around her fingers.

Despite having scouted and mapped this exact rocky ravine three times over the past week, a prickling unnatural tension hung heavy in the atmosphere.

The usual sounds of the basin... the whistling wind through the jagged crags and the distant scuttling of rock-lizards were completely absent.

The silence was eerie.

”Commander Tasmin,” a scout recruit whispered from behind, pointing a trembling finger ahead. ”Look... at the canyon mouth.”

Tasmin halted, raising her clenched fist to bring the entire squad to an immediate stop.

”I see it,” Tasmin muttered, her eyes narrowing into razor slits.

Rolling through the mouth of the ravine was a thick milky-white fog.

It did not drift like ordinary morning mist... it crept along the cold stone floor like a living, sentient entity.

”Weapons ready and tighten the wedge,” Tasmin commanded in a low hiss.

The fifteen maidens instantly shifted into a tight interlocking defensive wedge with their spear tips glinting coldly in the pale light.

Through the swirling white mist, the frantic uneven sound of running footsteps echoed against the canyon walls.

”H-Help! Please! Somebody help me!”