Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

With fingers that shook like dry birch leaves in a storm, Lilianel reached out.

Her tattered brass-colored fingernail pressed firmly against the glowing Y.

The instant her skin touched the light, the interface chimed again, shifting with blinding instantaneous speed.

[Your level will be forcefully reset from Level 999 —> Level 1. You will lose some of your Priority Skills; however, you will retain the remaining foundation of your Mythic Skill Tree.]

Lilianel looked at the text.

Level 999... The pinnacle of celestial divinity... The peak of power that had held a sun in the sky for three millennia.

She let out another dry cracked laugh, shaking her head until her few remaining strands of hair brushed her sunken cheeks.

What did she care about Level 999...? What good had an ancient mythic core done for Sela when the ironwood stake drove through her lungs? What good was this power when you were chained in the dark burning your own hair to remember the color of daylight?

She had nothing left to lose, no title, no throne, and not even an ounce of pride.

”Take it,” Lilianel rasped, her eyes burning with sudden fierce defiance. ”Take every last scrap of it... Just take me out of this dark!”

Her thumb slammed down on the Y and a concussive roar tore through the pocket realm.

BOOOOM!

From the dead center of Lilianel’s chest, a blinding incandescent geyser of pure liquid golden light exploded outward.

It roared out of her in a torrential pillar of raw solar fire, with all the fury of a reborn star, and slammed into the unseen chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles.

The black unholy enchantments the royal vampires had spent three centuries weaving burned to fine white ash in a fraction of a heartbeat...

The pocket realm itself began to scream, its borders fracturing like thin ice under an iron mallet.

The golden fire engulfed Lilianel’s gaunt frame, lifting her clean out of the void, wrapping her in a swirling cocoon of spatial ether that tore through the fabric of the dark, carrying her away from Nyxvaris forever.

In the physical world above, across the frozen expanse of Nyxvaris, the effect was instantaneous.

High above the frozen mountains, the blind gray scab that had hung motionless in the sky for centuries suddenly flickered and then, it went out.

The gray stone dissolved into the black clouds, leaving behind a sky of pitch-black starless void.

The very last residual trace of solar mana was completely severed from the realm as Nyxvaris fell into a suffocating midnight that blanketed every valley, every frozen river, and every needle spire in total darkness.

In the high slate towers of their own dark realm, the royal vampires erupted into wild uproarious celebration.

Screeches of unholy joy tore through the grand halls.

Ancient blood-nobles raised goblets of cold serf-blood and clinked them together beneath the dark chandeliers.

Every nocturnal race in both realms joined in... Beasts howled from the bogs, flesh-bats swarmed through the skies, and the legions of the night banged their iron shields together in deafening triumph.

Their ancient enemy was gone... The light was dead!

The Sun Mother was snuffed out for good, and the whole of Nyxvaris belonged to the children of the dark for all eternity then, the high heavens groaned and the celebration died in an instant.

High above the central spire of the vampire court, the starless black sky tore open in a silent jagged fissure that stretched for forty leagues.

...Something descended from the breach.

It was a nightmare born of the deep void, a vast undulating horror made of living predatory shadow, its form shifting between a wall of writhing black claws and a gaping starless maw that drank the very air. It gave off no heat at all.

Then a second one slid out of the fissure behind it... Then a third then dozens more, pouring down out of the torn sky like ink spilling from a cracked bottle, until the heavens over the vampire court were crawling with them.

The goblets slipped from the blood-nobles’ fingers and shattered on the marble.

Every vampire in the court knew those shapes.

Long ago, before they’d even begun building their trap, the royal vampires had gone to the edge of the void... and bargained with these very creatures.

The void beasts had carved the pocket realm out of their own dead emptiness and handed it over as a perfect prison for a sun.

In return, the vampires had promised them her warmth... For every year Lilianel hung in those chains, every drop of heat the chains drank out of her had flowed straight into the void to feed them.

The moment she broke free, the pocket realm shattered, and the feeding stopped.

The void beasts descended toward the realm.

They passed over the frozen villages huddled in the snow, the ruined abbey and the serfs shivering in their peat-smoke huts without so much as a glance.

Their millions of hollow dead eyes locked onto the high slate towers of the vampires’ realm.

...They came specifically for the vampires.

The lead blood-noble staggered to the edge of his balcony, his velvet cloak whipping around him in the freezing gale, and screamed up at the sky.

”Why are you attacking us?!” he shrieked, his voice cracking with raw disbelief. ”We had a deal! We gave you the sun! We fed you for centuries! WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING US?!”

The void beasts didn’t answer as a cold paralyzing terror gripped the court.

The blood-nobles drew their black velvet cloaks, hissed, and unleashed their ancient blood-arts, hurling spears of coagulated crimson and swarms of flesh-eating vermin into the sky.

The blood-magic sank into the shadows like raindrops falling into the sea.

The vampires looked around their lightless world in shrieking panic.

There were no golden rays to break the beasts’ hides and no high-noon daylight to burn them back into the void... The vampires had spent centuries feeding the only power in the universe that could have saved them to the very monsters now descending on their heads.

...They had no way to survive it.

The first of the void beasts wrapped its massive black claws around the highest slate spire and crushed the stone to dust like brittle chalk.

KRRRSSSHHH!

As the beasts’ jaws opened to swallow the court whole, the ancient aristocratic vampires dropped to their knees on their marble balconies, raising their clawed hands toward the empty sky with their shrill desperate voices shrieking in raw weeping terror.

”LILIANEL!” they wailed into the blackness. ”SUN MOTHER! LADY OF THE GOLDEN SUN! SAVE US! BRING THE DAYLIGHT! SAVE US FROM THE DARK!”

Across the dimensional void, ten thousand leagues beyond their dying sky, Lilianel couldn’t hear them.

The prayers of the leeches fell on empty air and even if their shrieks had managed to breach the stars, even if their desperate cries had reached her ears... she’d have smiled, closed her eyes, and let them drown in the dark they’d built.

In the central courtyard of Blessed Land, the towering alabaster spires of the Tier 4 Dawnspire Gateway hummed with deep resonance.

The huge shaft of golden light that had pierced the cloud layer began to twist, spiraling inward as the three concentric marble rings on the platform ground to a slow smooth halt.

The blinding pillar of celestial ether parted like a pair of heavy velvet curtains.

A figure stepped through the threshold.

She walked with slow unsteady steps with her bare feet touching the cool polished white marble of the dais.

For one heartbeat, everyone in the courtyard saw what the dark had left of her.

She was petite and hollow, her shoulders hunched forward as if she were still trying to protect her ribs from an unseen blow.

She wore only the threadbare rags of an old white tunic that hung loosely from her sharp collarbones.

Her hair clung to her scalp in a few thin, greasy strands the color of tarnished brass, her skin was gray and stretched tight over her bones, and she was shaking so hard that her teeth rattled then the golden light still pouring down from the sky washed over her.

...It soaked into her like rain into parched earth.

Her skin warmed first... The gray drained out of it, and her sunken cheeks filled out, smooth and soft and flushed with color, as if the centuries in the dark had never touched her.

The light pooled on her head, and her hair began to grow.

It poured down past her shoulders and past her waist in thick wild waves, brightening from brass to straw to pure molten gold until it tumbled around her like a lion’s mane.

The two dying embers in her eyes caught fire and blazed up into shining gold, like two small suns and a warm wind blew outward from the dais.

FWOOOOOSH!

All across the courtyard, the snowflakes drifting down out of the glowing clouds turned to soft drops of warm water in midair.

The thin white frost on the flagstones hissed and steamed and melted away from her bare feet in a widening ring, and the cold mountain night turned as warm as a summer afternoon.

Behind Silas, Lupina’s mouth fell open.

Aurelia’s hands slowly lowered from her medallion, Rowenna’s notebook slipped down against her skirts, and Solenne’s nine tails curled tightly around her ankles.

Every single woman in the courtyard stood in breathless silence, staring at the golden-haired girl standing beneath the archway.

The girl slowly lifted her head and looked around.

Her eyes drifted across the courtyard... She saw the dark stone of the Keep... She saw the snow on the high mountain peaks in the distance... She saw the glowing ring of Eluned’s moon-lilies around the platform, and she breathed in the crisp clean scent of mountain pine and cold river water.

And then, her gaze shifted.

Her golden eyes landed squarely on the tall, broad-shouldered man standing at the foot of the dais.

She saw the dark hair ruffled by the wind and she saw the dark blue eyes, burning with that steady unmistakable ring of pure gold.

The girl froze.

Her knees buckled beneath her tattered hem, and she barely caught herself against the edge of the quartz pedestal, her trembling fingers leaving small smudges on the polished stone.

Her chest heaved in a sharp ragged gasp that sounded like all the air had been torn from her lungs.

Her lips parted, trembling so violently that she could barely force the syllables past her teeth, her voice rising in a fragile whisper that cut through the air.

”S-Silas... Graves...?”

The whole courtyard went dead silent.

Lupina’s ears shot straight up, Aurelia’s golden-amber eyes went wide, and even Morrighan’s tail froze in the middle of a swish.

’She knows his name...?’ Solenne thought, her nine tails puffing up behind her. ’How does she know Lord Silas’s name?’

Silas stared at the golden-haired girl clinging to his pedestal.

’Huh?’ he thought, blinking at her. ’How does she know my name? Did the System tell her? It’s never done that before...’

”Uh... yes?” Silas said slowly. ”That’s me. Have we met before?”

The girl didn’t answer.

She was staring at him with her golden eyes wide open, and her chest had started heaving.

Her breaths came short and fast, faster and faster, until her whole body was shaking with them.

Her fingers dug into the edge of the pedestal so hard her knuckles went white.

”You’re real...” she gasped between breaths. ”You’re... you’re real... you’re actually... real...”

”Hey, hey, hey,” Silas said quickly, stepping up the marble tiers toward her. ”Easy... Easy now.”

”I-I can’t... I can’t breathe right... it’s too bright... it’s too warm... I...”

Silas crouched down in front of her so his eyes were level with hers, keeping his voice low and calm the way he would with a frightened animal.

”Look at me,” he said gently. ”Just look at me, okay? You don’t have to say anything. Just breathe with me. In...”

She stared at him and dragged in a shaky breath.

”And out...”

She let it out in a long trembling rush.

”There you go. One more time. In... and out...”

Her breathing slowed, just a little. Her eyes never left his face, not even for a second, as if she was terrified he’d vanish the moment she blinked.

Silas gave her a warm smile.

”You’re safe,” he said. ”Whatever happened to you before, wherever you were, it’s over. Nobody here is going to hurt you... Welcome to Blessed Land.”

The girl’s lower lip trembled.

”Blessed... Land...” she whispered, like she was tasting the words.

”That’s right. What’s your name?”

”L-Lilianel,” she said. ”My name is Lilianel.”

”Lilianel,” Silas repeated, and the way he said it made her breath catch all over again. ”That’s a pretty name... It’s nice to meet you, Lilianel.”

Then he reached out and placed his hand on top of her head.

PAT!

Lilianel froze.

His palm was big and warm and a little rough, and it settled into her wild golden hair like it belonged there.

He gave her head a slow gentle pat, then another, his fingers sinking into the thick tangles of her mane.

’It’s...’ Lilianel thought, her mind going blissfully blank. ’It’s exactly like the glimpse... no... it’s better... it’s so much better... it’s warm... it’s so warm... it’s... perfect...’

Every glimpse she’d ever had in the wheat fields, every daydream she’d spun in the dark, every lonely night she’d spent whispering his name into nothing... none of it had come close to the real thing.

Her face turned bright red from her chin to the tips of her ears.

Her golden eyes rolled back and Lilianel, Goddess of the Golden Sun, fainted dead away with a dreamy little smile on her face.

THUMP!

”Whoa!” Silas yelped, catching her against his chest before her head could hit the marble.

He knelt there with an unconscious goddess in his arms with her golden hair spilling over his lap, and blinked down at her then he looked back over his shoulder at the girls.

Every single one of them was staring at him.

”...Did she just faint from a head pat?” Lupina asked.