Chapter 446: Spider’s Lair [II]

The last dying shudders of the cleaved Orc carcass finally stilled against the gravel clearing, its scorched halves hissing softly as the cauterized blood pooled into the dirt.

A few yards away, the remaining scouting spiders and Armorpiders lay completely butchered across the perimeter.

Their stone-like shells were smashed into jagged gravel, their multi-faceted eyes crushed, and their segmented legs scattered across the moss like discarded kindling.

Silas remained mounted atop Valkyrie, his hands resting easily on the leather reins as he watched the fifteen recruits finish clearing the field.

The squad worked with sharp natural coordination... two girls held their spears braced against the cavern mouth to maintain perimeter watch, while others moved from corpse to corpse, driving their arming swords into the skulls of twitching beasts and harvesting the glowing Tier-2 beast cores.

Silas’s gaze drifted toward Aurelia, who was calmly stepping past the fallen Orc.

’She really is something else,’ Silas thought, admiring the effortless grace with which she had severed the nine-foot brute’s tendons and split it from crown to groin in a fraction of a second.

His mind wandered back to the scene in Thora’s foundry earlier that morning.

When Thora had brought out that ancient, leather-bound chronicle documenting the Meolion Kingdom, Aurelia had looked at those yellowed parchment pages with an expression so heavy and so weighed down by unspoken grief, that she had kissed the very leather binding out of fragile gratitude.

’I really want to know what kind of life she lived before I summoned her to Blessed Land,’ Silas mused silently, his fingers idly tapping against Valkyrie’s saddle pommel. ’The book mentioned she was a Saintess who suffered unspeakable torture for six straight years... Should I ask her about it directly? Or would bringing up that past just tear open old wounds?’

He decided it was better to wait.

Once this morning expedition concluded and they were back within the tranquil walls of the Keep, he would find a quiet moment to sit down with her over tea and ask her about her history on her own terms.

Silas glanced down toward Helen, who was securing a beast heart into her leather pouch.

Around Helen’s wrist was a small brass-rimmed mechanical timer and the brass hands were ticking steadily, rapidly approaching the noon mark.

’It’s almost time for all the squads to rendezvous at the central clearing for the scheduled break,’ Silas noted, his mind calculating the operational window. ’We don’t have much time to waste... If we’re going to clear out this cavern and harvest whatever lies in the lower depths, we need to pick up the pace.’

"Lord Silas!" Sarah called out from the front line, wiping her arming sword clean on a patch of ferns before sheathing it with a crisp click. "Perimeter sweep is complete! All forward sentries and beasts are neutralized!"

"Good work, Sarah," Silas responded with a confident nod.

He urged Valkyrie forward with a gentle squeeze of his calves.

The Blessed wolf stepped smoothly through the clearing, the massive beast’s paws crushing broken chitin fragments into powder.

As Silas rode past the ranks, he observed his unit with sharp pride.

Several of the recruit maidens had sustained nasty lacerations, bruised ribs, and minor venom burns along their forearms from the Armorpiders’ acidic spray.

Aurelia was already moving among them, her slender hands glowing with gentle radiant white light as she touched their shoulders and foreheads, closing the shallow wounds and purifying the residual toxins in soothing waves of holy mana.

Silas watched the girls wince slightly as their skin knitted together, their breath coming in exhausted gasps from the physical exertion of the raid.

’They’ve fought hard, but their stamina is dipping,’ Silas thought. He wasn’t too surprised...

Most of the girls that had joined Blessed Land were part of the average women of the Unmovable Wall that felt like their strength were lacking.

’Fortunately that can’t be fixed...’

This was part of why he was doing all of this in the first place, these women needed confidence in themselves.

Silas raised his right hand.

Engraved across the back of his knuckles, the glowing emerald Genesis Rune that Eluned had intimately placed upon him this morning flared with brilliance.

VUUUUUUUUUM!

A boundless gentle wave of emerald life-force erupted from Silas’s hand, expanding across the entire clearing in a blinding, warm ripple of divine mana.

The moment the green light washed over the fifteen maidens, a collective gasp of pure ecstatic relief tore from their lips.

SZZZZT... SNAP!

The remaining scratches, micro-tears in their muscle fibers, and bruised bones completely vanished at light-speed.

Even more remarkably, their lungs filled with an invigorating surge of pure vitality that washed away every ounce of lactic acid and mental fatigue, filling their spiritual meridians with an overwhelming sensation of boundless energy and drive.

"Whoa...!" Helen gasped, flexing her fingers and rolling her shoulders in pure astonishment. "The heaviness in my arms... it’s completely gone!"

"It feels like I just slept for twelve straight hours after a hot bath!" another recruit exclaimed, her cheeks flushing with bright happy color.

Aurelia paused mid-cast, her golden-amber eyes snapping wide as she looked up at Silas with genuine breathless amazement.

’He can heal too...?’ Aurelia thought, her heart skipping a beat as she felt the overwhelming life-force lingering in the air. ’Not only does he possess combat strength and a huge reserve of mana mana... but his authority extends to primordial restoration as well? How many divine blessings does this man hold within his soul?’

Silas brought Valkyrie to a halt just five paces away from the yawning, web-veiled cavern entrance.

Sitting between his arms, the blue-haired Princess blinked, looking around at the dark cavern opening before looking up at Silas with a puzzled expression.

"Lord Silas? Why have we stopped here? If we are to purge this subterranean nest, shouldn’t we ride in and trample them from the saddle?"

Silas’s eyes darkened with a dry deadpan smirk as he looked down at the wolf beneath them.

"As much as I’d love to do that, Princess..." Silas chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Valkyrie can’t fit into those narrow cavern tunnels with both of us sitting on her back. Look at the ceiling clearance... it drops to barely a few feet inside the first choke point."

He leaned forward, reaching down to pat the thick, silver fur along the dire wolf’s neck, letting out an affectionate tease.

"Besides... you’ve been eating far too many roasted meat ribs from the territory kitchens lately, girl. You’re definitely getting a little fatter around the middle."

"Cha...."

Valkyrie let out a loud indignant snort, her ears pinning backward against her head.

The Princess blinked her azure eyes in stunned wonder.

’Wait... was that an actual visible pout on the wolf’s face?! Can mana-beasts truly express feminine offense?!’

Silas laughed warmly, steering Valkyrie over to a flat, shaded patch of moss beside the cavern entrance.

"Alright, girl. Settle down and guard the perimeter while we clear the interior."

He swung his leg over the saddle, dismounting effortlessly before reaching up with both hands to catch the Princess by her waist, lifting her gently down onto the gravel.

Once on her feet, Valkyrie lowered her massive eight-foot frame onto the moss, curling her paws beneath her chest with a grumble.

Silas reached into his inventory, pulling out a succulent golden-brown roasted chicken wing... still steaming hot and dripping with sweet sauce.

"Here," Silas smiled, holding the massive meat piece right before her snout. "Why don’t you have some of this while you wait?"

Valkyrie’s golden eyes instantly lit up like two suns.

The pout vanished completely as she gently, greedily took the roasted meat from his hand, crunching through the tender meat and bone with joyful tail-thumping crunches.

Silas patted her massive head, rubbing the soft fur behind her ears before turning back toward the squad.

Standing a few paces back, the Princess watched the interaction with quiet admiration softening her expression.

’In my brother’s territory,’ the Princess thought, her fingers tracing the leather hilt of the void-iron dagger at her thigh, ’war beasts are treated as disposable weapons of state, whipped and starved to cultivate artificial ferocity... Yet Lord Silas treats every single being under his banner... from Heroes to mortal recruits, and even his personal mounts with genuine warmth and dignity. It is impossible not to feel safe beside him.’

She tightened her small fist, looking toward the dark cavern maw with a sudden burning resolve.

’I am a princess of the realm. I cannot spend this entire morning tumbling onto my rear like a helpless ornament! I swear... before we leave this cavern, I will claim my very first monster kill with my own hands!’

Aurelia stepped gracefully up to Silas’s side, her hand resting calmly on the pommel of her mithril rapier.

"Lord Silas," Aurelia spoke softly, her golden-amber eyes fixed on the dense silk curtains swaying within the dark tunnel. "Should the vanguard prepare standard defensive formations before we cross the threshold?"

Silas looked toward the dark opening, his sharp senses extending outward.

"There are bound to be countless traps inside," Silas noted, his tone turning serious and analytical. "Given that they set up a tension-loaded web net right at the entrance, the interior tunnels will be filled with tripwires, false floors, and ceiling ambush pockets... Let me check the mana signatures."

Silas closed his eyes for a brief moment, channeling his perception through the damp air.

His consciousness rippled into the subterranean fissures, picking up dozens of faint scuttling mana signatures clinging along the high granite walls and hidden crevasses.

"There are still quite a few arachnid signatures lurking along the upper cavern walls," Silas murmured. "If we advance blindly on foot, they’ll drop down on the recruits’ rear line."

Aurelia stepped forward, placing herself between Silas and the dark cavern entrance.

"Please do not worry yourself with such vermin, my Lord," Aurelia said calmly, her voice carrying a serene confidence that made Silas blink in mild surprise.

Aurelia stepped to the absolute threshold of the cave, looking deep into the yawning blackness.

Deep within her soul, a quiet resolute thought took root.

’The primary value I can offer to this world... is Immortality,’ Aurelia reflected, the weight of her past washing over her like a distant tide.

While she was in the prison of that world, she had staked everything on that singular promise.

If she had simply been able to grant absolute immortality to the people of her savior, perhaps none of the horrors that happened before would have unfolded.

All that pain... All that death...

’...And yet,’ Aurelia thought, her heart swelling with an emotion so pure and bright it made her chest ache. ’I do not harbor a single shred of regret for that suffering. Because it brought me here.’

She had spent barely a single day within the Blessed Land, yet this brief handful of hours was infinitely more precious, warm, and fulfilling than all the hollow centuries she had endured in her former life.

From the moment she was born, sold as an orphan slave to the High Church, she had known only suffering.

When she was crowned Saintess, the burden of suffering had merely grown heavier beneath golden silk.

And when she had awakened the sacred Argent Flame, her agony had reached its suffocating zenith as she became a living battery for other people’s ambitions.

’In the Meolion Kingdom, every knight, every noble, and every hero sought only to ride upon the coattails of another’s glory,’ Aurelia observed, glancing back at the fifteen recruits who were eagerly tightening their armor straps and checking their spears. ’They were parasites who demanded salvation without paying the price in blood. But here... in Blessed Land... everything is different.’

Every woman in this territory wanted to stand on her own two feet.

They trained until their muscles bled, they threw themselves into battle with fearless laughter, and they fought with everything they possessed not to leech off their Lord, but to become strong enough to stand proudly beside him.

They wanted to create their own glory, to forge their own legends, and to earn Silas’s approving smile through their own sweat and steel.

’I, too, wish to do the same,’ Aurelia resolved, her jaw setting with fierce devoted determination. ’I do not wish to merely be a fragile Saintess protected from the shadows. I want to be a blade worthy of my Lord’s command...’

VUUUUUUUUUUUM.

A brilliant flash of pure celestial white flame ignited within the depths of Aurelia’s golden-amber eyes.

’Argent Flame...’ Aurelia called out into the deepest sanctum of her spiritual core. ’If you hold even the slightest affection for me after all these centuries of shared agony... then hear my plea. Lend me your immaculate fury. Help me impress my Master!’

During her years alongside the older former Saintess who had wanted to be saved, Aurelia had cultivated her holy mana affinity to absurd heights.

Though she had relied primarily on healing and restorative arts, the true destructive nature of the Argent Flame had remained dormant, sealed beneath her gentle nature.

Now, she released the floodgates.

Aurelia thrust her right palm straight into the dark cavern maw.

"[Argent Inferno]!"

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!