Aeliana swallowed hard, giving a sharp disciplined nod.
The cold reality of her recent failure still burned in her chest, but she understood the tactical deploynt perfectly.
She knew Silas was deliberately keeping her close to his side.
He didn’t fully trust her to lead a squad independently yet after her reckless breakdown in the bat cavern, nor did she bla him.
He was keeping her on a tight leash until she proved she could control her magic under the crushing pressure of the Umbral Basin.
’I’ll do my best, my Lord.’
Before Silas could give the final order to open the heavy steel gates and release the Vanguard into the monsoon, Eluned stepped forward from the edge of the wooden map table.
The Goddess moved with an elegant silent grace, her erald silk dress unbothered by the damp air and the heavy rain drumming against the canopy above.
She stepped directly in front of Brida and Tamsin, her glowing eyes locking onto the two mortal commanders.
"Lord Graves is correct. He is a Sovereign of imnse power, but he cannot be everywhere at once..." Eluned spoke. "And my overarching magic from the Watchtower will take precious seconds to reach you if you are deep within the thickets or pinned in a flooded ravine. I will not allow you to march out into the cold without my direct blessing."
Eluned reached out, her pale, flawless hands gently taking Brida’s heavy, deeply scarred, rain-slicked right gauntlet.
The SSS-Rank Goddess didn’t care about the cold iron or the residual monster blood trapped in the rivets from previous hunts.
She bowed her head, her silver-green hair falling forward, and pressed her soft lips directly against the cold tal covering the Shieldmaiden’s knuckles.
A blazing, incredibly vibrant warmth erupted at the exact point of contact.
A complex, glowing erald rune instantly etched itself directly into the cold iron.
The magical sigil bled deeply through the tal and directly into the flesh of Brida’s hand beneath the thick armor padding.
Brida gasped loudly, her eyes going wide as the overwhelming divine presence of the [Genesis Rune] settled into her spiritual pathways.
It felt like swallowing a miniature sun as her entire body humd with vitality that chased away the biting chill of the rain.
Eluned stepped smoothly over to Tamsin and repeated the solemn, intimate gesture.
She gently held the Huntress’s leather-wrapped hand and pressed her lips to the knuckles.
A second erald rune flared to life, casting a soft green glow in the gray morning light beneath the canopy.
"These are direct tethers to my own mythic core..." Eluned instructed, looking intensely at the two mortal commanders.
The Goddess was not smiling; she was dead serious, her usual jealousy completely replaced by the protective instincts of a patron deity.
"If you are ambushed, if your armor shatters, or if your squad faces undeniable, lethal damage in the dark... do not hesitate. Slam your palm directly against that mark and channel a fraction of your mana into the rune. It will instantly emulate my [Aura of Genesis], violently nding your wounds and flooding your troops with unyielding, localized stamina."
Tamsin stared down at her glowing hand, her jaw completely unhinged in profound awe.
She looked over at Silas, imdiately realizing that he possessed the exact sa glowing mark on his forearm.
"Thank you, Lady Eluned," Brida whispered fiercely, dropping to one knee in the damp stone and bowing her head in overwhelming reverence.
The heavy infantry captain was a woman forged in mud, sweat, and blood; to carry the direct protective blessing of a Goddess into battle was an honor no mortal soldier could ever dream of holding.
It ant their lives were valued beyond asure.
Silas reached over his shoulder and drew his Umbral-Forged Mythril Blade.
The heavy, dark-purple veins running through the tal pulsed eagerly, emitting a hum as the blade tasted the damp, ozone-laced air of the basin.
The weapon was a catalyst for violence, and today, it was going to feast on the corrupted wildlife.
He walked to the front of the formation, his black robes whipping wildly in the cold wind as the heavy rain continued to hamr down relentlessly against the paved stones of the territory.
"Open the gates!" Silas roared, his deep voice easily echoing like thunder across the massive courtyard.
The heavy, towering black steel plates of the main entrance violently groaned in response.
The massive, iron-wrought chains ground heavily against their winches, hauling the massive barricades slowly upward.
The biting, necrotic wind of the Umbral Basin imdiately rushed into the Blessed Land, tearing aggressively at the Vanguard’s canvas cloaks and stinging their faces with freezing mist.
"Stay sharp. Do not break formation under any circumstances..." Silas commanded, looking back at his three distinct Strike Teams. "Bring two hundred points."
With a synchronized, highly disciplined clash of heavy iron boots stepping against the stone tiles, the forty-woman army marched out from under the green canopy.
They stepped directly into the pouring monsoon to conquer the Unknown Zone.
...
The heavy, rune-carved black steel plates of the Blessed Land groaned heavily as the thick iron chains hauled them completely back down, locking the gates securely into place behind the departing army.
Beyond the threshold of their sanctuary, the Umbral Basin was actively drowning.
The torrential monsoon had transford the dead, ash-covered earth into a treacherous highly unstable mire.
The freezing rain fell in thick, heavy sheets, drumming relentlessly against the dark iron armor of the Vanguard.
It washed away the permanent, foul stench of rotting sulfur that usually choked the basin, replacing it entirely with the biting scent of cold mud and wet petrified bark.
"Move out!" Silas commanded.
The forty-woman army instantly fractured into their designated strike forces, seamlessly breaking their unified formation to fan out into the flooded, gray nightmare of the Unknown Zone.
Silas led Vanguard Command directly west, pushing into the deepest section of the dead forest.
He marched at the forefront of the formation, his heavy boots sinking several inches deep into the slop with every step.
He didn’t bother raising a shield or pulling a cloak over his head to guard against the severe weather.
Instead, he allowed a perfectly steady trickle of his Mythic Gold Core to flood his spiritual pathways.
The roaring thermal heat radiating from his skin actively vaporized the freezing raindrops re inches before they could soak into his black combat robes.
The rain hissed as it hit his invisible aura, leaving him entirely enveloped in a faint, intimidating shroud of rising steam.
Following closely behind him were Rowena, Aeliana, and a squad of five wide-eyed, heavily shivering new recruits who had never seen combat outside the walls.
The rookies gripped their iron shortswords so tightly their knuckles were turning white under their leather gloves.
They marched aggressively for twenty minutes, hacking their way through dense thickets of wet, rotting thorns.
Eventually, the terrain violently sloped downward, leading them directly into a massive unstable crater.
The wide quarry was entirely flooded by the heavy rains, the jagged black stone spires jutting out of the rising, murky brown water like the rotting broken teeth of a buried leviathan.
"Stay out of the deep water," Silas warned, lifting his dark-purple mythril blade.
The tal hissed sharply as the heavy rain struck the superheated edge. "Anchor your boots firmly on the rocks and do not let the mud dictate your footing."
The flooded quarry did not wait for them to fully establish their periter.
The murky, churning water directly in front of their formation violently, explosively erupted.
A massive pack of heavily mutated aggressive amphibious beasts launched themselves directly out of the slop.
They resembled massive, overgrown hounds, standing nearly five feet tall at the shoulder.
But their bodies were entirely covered in thick, slippery, mud-caked reptilian scales, and their jaws unhinged with a sickening crack to reveal endless rows of serrated fangs designed to shred heavy armor.
The five newbies scread in terror, their grips trembling wildly on their iron weapons.
They had trained heavily on wooden dummies in the safety of the courtyard, but facing down a rushing wall of snarling mutated muscle in the pouring rain was an entirely paralyzing reality.
"Do not break the line!" Silas roared, stepping directly forward into the path of the leaping beasts to draw their aggression. "Don’t worry about it... We’ll protect you!"
But he didn’t strike first.
From his left flank, a blinding, hyper-compressed beam of bluish-white starlight tore violently through the gray monsoon.
WHOOSH!
Aeliana had not panicked.
Unlike her reckless charge in the bat cavern the previous day, the Royal Elven Arcanist was a perfect picture of terrifying disciplined restraint.
She stood perfectly balanced atop a slippery black rock and she waited for the exact, perfect fraction of a second when the lead beast opened its massive maw to roar, and she fired her [Arcane Piercer].
The magical beam didn’t just hit the beast; it acted like a drill, boring cleanly through the monster’s skull.
It instantly vaporized the creature’s entire brain cavity, leaving the heavily cauterized, lifeless corpse to splash harmlessly into the mud, skipping across the water like a skipped stone.
"Hold them down!" Aeliana shouted over the rain and Rowena stepped forward smoothly, slamming the heavy wooden butt of her staff directly into the flooded earth.
Her Level 8 mana pool surged aggressively into the mud beneath the rushing pack.
[Active Skill: Gravity Well]
A massive, glowing purple rune expanded rapidly beneath the churning, murky water, illuminating the quarry.
The gravitational pull within the fifty-foot circle multiplied exponentially.
Four of the leaping Mud-Hounds, caught mid-air, were violently slamd down, crashing into the shallow mud with bone-shattering force.
They thrashed wildly, their internal organs groaning painfully under the crushing, weight, entirely unable to lift themselves from the slop.
Silas stepped heavily into the execution zone.
He didn’t waste a single swing or expend unnecessary energy.
Silas brought his dark mythril blade down in a heavy, brutal vertical arc.
The superheated edge effortlessly cleaved cleanly through the thick, mud-caked scales and the heavy spine of the first pinned beast, splitting it in two.
WHOOSH!
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
He didn’t pull the blade back.
He pivoted seamlessly on his heel, his boot anchoring deeply into the flooded rock.
Using the heavy montum of his weapon, Silas violently dragged the glowing blade horizontally through the exposed necks of the remaining three beasts trapped in the gravity well.
The blade t resistance for a fraction of a second before shearing completely through muscle and bone.
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
Black, corrosive blood geysered violently into the air, instantly washing away in the heavy, cleansing rain.
Two more Mud-Hounds managed to bypass the edge of the Gravity Well, launching themselves over the corpses of their packmates and aiming directly for Aeliana’s exposed flank.
The Elf didn’t flinch. She raised both hands, her silver hair plastered to her neck by the rain.
[Active Skill: Starfall Barrage]
BOOM! BOOM!
Twin orbs of highly volatile astral fire rained down from the bruising gray clouds.
They slamd directly into the charging beasts, completely blowing them apart in a spectacular explosion of light and gore. The concussive wave sent muddy water spraying in all directions.
Silas didn’t stop moving.
Another hound lunged for his chest, its jaws snapping wide.
Silas dropped his center of gravity, sliding under the beast’s trajectory, and thrust his mythril blade straight upward, piercing directly through the monster’s lower jaw and out the top of its skull.
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
He kicked the dead beast off his sword and spun, bringing the poml of his weapon down on the snout of another crawler trying to bite his leg.
The bone shattered, and Silas finished the job with a ruthless downward stab.
[Target Eliminated: Tier 1 Mud-Hound. 0.5 UP]
The five rookies stood entirely frozen, staring in overwhelming awe.
They were watching a masterclass in highly destructive warfare.
Silas and the casters didn’t just fight; they orchestrated a beautiful, terrifying symphony of slaughter.
’Amazing...’ One thought.
"Don’t just stand there!" Silas barked, flicking the heavy gore from his mythril blade.
He pointed to a massive straggler beast struggling to pull itself out of the deep mud near the edge of the quarry. "Close the distance! Thrust for the gills! Earn your keep!"
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