Chapter 454: Mine KB-22 [Bonus - ]

Chapter 454: Mine KB-22 [Bonus Chapter]

Around the clearing, the fifty-plus warrior maidens were finishing the last of their rations, stowing away their lunchboxes, and stretching their limbs.

Silas stood up from the mat, gently letting Eluned slide down onto her feet, and rolled his shoulders until his spine gave a crisp satisfying pop.

He stepped to the front of the Lord’s mat, his presence commanding immediate effortless silence across the fifty-yard clearing.

All four squads instantly snapped to attention, their eyes turning toward him with bright devotion.

Silas looked out over his assembled army, a proud radiant smile breaking across his handsome face.

"Listen up, girls!" Silas called out, his voice carrying effortlessly on the mountain breeze. "You’ve fought exceptionally well all morning... You held your formations, adapted to unexpected ambush tactics, and cleared out multiple high-threat anomaly pockets without a single casualty. I am immensely proud of every single one of you."

A collective murmur of joyous pride rippled through the ranks, several recruits clasping their hands over their chests as their cheeks flushed with happy color.

"And for our recruits," Silas continued, his gaze sweeping over the fifteen maidens who had followed him into the spider den, "if you maintain this level of discipline, focus, and execution through the rest of the afternoon march... the recruit tag comes off today. When we cross the threshold back into Blessed Land tonight, you will officially be inducted as recognized Warriors of our territory!"

"YEAAAAAH!"

A thunderous, unified cheer erupted from the recruit maidens, their ash-wood spears thrusting into the sky with triumphant vigor.

For these women, their past service within the rigid suffocating ranks of the Unmovable Wall had been defined by cold dismissals, disposable assignments, and riding on the borrowed glory of haughty commanders.

Not that it was bad because Lord Evelyn or rather Lord Sky treated them very well but in Blessed Land, their sweat was acknowledged, their meals were lavish, and their Lord personally watched over their growth.

The thought of earning their full warrior crest filled their hearts with a burning fire.

Across the clearing, the Blessed Wolves were brought forward.

Each squad mounted up with crisp synchronization.

Even Eluned strode over to the Blessed wolf that had quietly been padding behind her squad all morning, hopping onto the leather saddle with an effortless, graceful vault.

"We shall see you at the territory, my darling!" Eluned called out, blowing Silas a radiant kiss from atop her mount.

Tasmin, now fully awake and visibly refreshed, stood beside her dire wolf, stretching her toned arms over her head with a long feline arch of her back.

She adjusted the leather harnesses of her singlet, casting a lingering affectionate look back toward Silas.

"Stay safe, my Lord," Tasmin murmured, a soft smirk gracing her lips before she vaulted into her saddle. "Don’t let the recruits steal all your attention."

"Move out!" Brida bellowed, now fully clad in clean trousers and leading the vanguard detachment forward in a thunderous gallop.

Silas turned toward Helen, who was securing the brass-rimmed chronomancy timer to her wrist armor.

"Helen, what’s our operational window before the afternoon recall?" Silas asked.

Helen tapped the glass face of the device, checking the alignment of the enchanted brass gears.

"We have a little over two hours, Lord Silas, before we have to begin making our return march!"

Silas turned toward Valkyrie, who was already waiting at his side with an eager tail-thumping pant.

He swung his leg smoothly over the saddle, reached down with both hands, and scooped the Princess up by her waist, settling the royal maiden securely between his arms.

Silas drew his golden-runed longsword from its scabbard with a sharp ringing chime that echoed across the clearing.

"Two hours is plenty of time," Silas grinned, his blue eyes flashing with sovereign excitement. "Squad One! Why don’t we raid another cavern?!"

"HOO-AH!" the squad roared in unison.

With a powerful kick from Valkyrie’s hind legs, the wolf exploded into a full gallop, leading the column northeast across the undulating black grass.

Roughly twenty-five minutes later, the squad arrived at the foot of a towering limestone ridge.

The terrain here was barren and rugged, choked with gray shale, calcified stalagmites, and twisted deadwood shrubs.

Carved directly into the face of the limestone cliff was a wide, yawning cavern entrance spanning nearly thirty feet across as chiseled into a weather-worn survey marker near the entrance was the territorial designation... KB-22.

’I think the scouts said that it had monsters or something.’

Silas pulled Valkyrie to a halt, leaning forward against the saddle pommel as he looked at the dark opening.

Beside the map marker, Thora had etched a distinct dwarven rune representing Mana Diamonds... an exceptionally rare crystalline mineral that naturally formed under immense underground mana pressure.

’Mana Diamonds...’ Silas mused, his merchant-like greed stirring pleasantly within his chest. ’Those things are ridiculously valuable. In the LAB markets, a single raw carat sells for enough gold to buy a whole lot of things but more importantly, when refined through Thora’s forge, Mana Diamonds serve as the ultimate conductivity cores for high-tier magical weapons and defensive jewelry.’

Not to mention he could upgrade them too before selling, there were too many gains in mining for Silas to not love it.

The cavern entrance was dark and barely illuminated by the ambient light filtering through the limestone fissures.

Aurelia stepped forward on foot, her slender hand raised before her.

"Allow me, Lord Silas," Aurelia murmured softly.

VUUUUUM!

A small perfectly spherical orb of pure white Argent Flame ignited above Aurelia’s open palm.

With a gentle flick of her wrist, she pushed the floating orb forward. The radiant sphere drifted twenty paces into the yawning cavern mouth, casting a daylight glow across the damp stone walls, illuminating smooth limestone tunnels, cascading mineral stalactites, and dead silence.

There were no webbing traps, no acidic pools, and not a single visible mana signature lingering within the immediate fifty-yard threshold.

"The entrance appears completely clear of hostiles, my Lord," Aurelia reported, glancing back.

"Dismount and form standard search-and-clear lines," Silas commanded, lifting the Princess down onto the gravel before vaulting off Valkyrie’s back. "Spears in the front rank, blades on the flanks, mages holding the center."

The fifteen recruit maidens moved with disciplined speed.

Ash-wood spears were brought to low-ready, void-iron arming swords cleared their sheaths with crisp metallic clicks, and the squad crossed the threshold into Cavern KB-22 in a tight overlapping wedge formation.

For the first forty paces, the only sound was the synchronized crunch of leather boots against gravel.

Then, from the deep, pitch-black labyrinthine tunnels branching off the main cavern hall—

SKITTER! RATTLE! CHATTER!

A chorus of high-pitched guttural shrieks erupted from the darkness!

"GAK-GAK-GAK!"

Surging out from five separate subterranean side tunnels came an entire chaotic horde of over sixty Cavern Goblins.

These were not the frail, starving green runts of the surface forests.

These beasts stood nearly four feet tall, their leathery slate-gray skin covered in thick warts and scar tissue.

Their bloodshot yellow eyes blazed with feral hunger, and they brandished rusted iron cleavers, jagged bone clubs, and crude flint-tipped short spears.

And towering behind them, leading the charge with earth-shaking, heavy footsteps, were four massive Hobgoblins.

Standing nearly eight feet tall with broad, slab-like torsos of dense, corded muscle, the Hobgoblins wore crude chestplates hammered from scrap iron.

In their clawed hands, they wielded six-foot spiked morningstars and jagged broadswords that scraped violently against the stone floor.

They looked poorly made though.

’How do they even get weapons?’

CLANG! SCRAPE! KRRRR-SH!

"Hostiles inbound!" Helen barked. "Front rank, BRACE! Lock your spear butts into the stone!"

"Shields up! Overlap edges!" Sarah shouted from the right flank.

BOOM!

The fifteen recruits dropped into a rock-solid phalanx formation.

The front six spear-maidens planted the iron butts of their ash-wood shafts deep into the gravel fissures, angling their glowing void-iron tips outward at forty-five degrees to form an impenetrable wall of steel points.

CRUNCH! SQUELCH!

The forward wave of manic goblins slammed directly into the spear wall at reckless mindless speed.

Three goblins were instantly impaled through their chests, their leathery green-gray bodies lifting off their feet under their own forward momentum dark blood spraying across the limestone floorboards.

"GAK—!"

"HOLD THE LINE!" Helen grunted, planting her shoulder against the spear shaft and absorbing the kinetic with a sharp flex of her core mana. "Thrust and rotate! DON’T LET THEM GATHER AT THE BASE!"

THWACK-SHIK!

The recruit maidens worked with textbook efficiency.

As the front rank held the brace, the second rank drove their void-iron blades over the spear shoulders, stabbing downward in rapid piston strikes that severed goblin necks and split craniums with sickening wet crunches.

SPLAT! CRACK! THUD!

"Two trying to flank around the left stalagmite!" a young sword-maiden called out, parrying a jagged bone club with a sharp upward deflection.

CLANG!

"I see them!" another recruit shouted, pivoting smoothly on her left heel and driving her blade straight through the flanking goblin’s eye socket with frictionless velocity.

SQUELCH.

Standing ten paces back in the center of the cavern, Silas leaned casually against a massive limestone pillar, his golden sword resting loosely across his shoulder.

He raised his left hand to his mouth, letting out a long, relaxed, and thoroughly bored yawn:

’Haaaaaaan...’

Silas didn’t move a single muscle.

He didn’t draw upon his Gold Core, nor did he cast a single spark of flame.

He simply watched the skirmish unfold with the relaxed, critical eye of an instructor watching an elementary sparring drill.

’Good footwork on the left flank,’ Silas evaluated in his mind, his blue eyes tracking the recruits’ micro-movements. ’Sarah adjusted her weight perfectly during that parry... Helen’s commands are sharp, she could be a Captain too... These simple gray-skin goblins can’t even scratch their armor plates.’

BOOM! BOOM!

The ground shook as the lead eight-foot Hobgoblin shoved past its smaller kin, raising a massive two-hundred-pound spiked iron morningstar high above its head!

"CRAAAAA!" the Hobgoblin roared, bringing the spiked weapon down in a violent whistling arc aimed straight at Helen’s shield.

WHOOOOOOSH!

"Argent Barrier." Aurelia’s serene voice whispered from the backline.

VUUUUUUM... CLANG!

A pristine glowing shield of translucent white holy fire manifested half an inch above Helen’s iron pauldron.

The Hobgoblin’s massive iron morningstar struck the celestial barrier with the deafening force of a siege catapult yet the holy shield didn’t even ripple.

Instead, the concussive force violently rebounded straight back into the Hobgoblin’s thick wrists, fracturing its carpals with a loud sickening snap.

"GRAAAAAAH!" the giant brute howled in agonizing shock, dropping the morningstar to the floor.

"NOW! TAKE ITS LEGS!" Helen screamed, seizing the opening.

SLASH-CRUNCH!

Two recruit sword-maidens blurred forward beneath the beast’s guard, their void-iron blades executing synchronized hamstring slices that severed the Hobgoblin’s Achilles tendons like snapping ropes.

The eight-foot titan crashed heavily onto its knees with a booming thud, where Helen stepped forward and drove her spear straight through its throat, ending its life in a single pressurized geyser of black blood!

While the main phalanx systematically butchered the remaining three Hobgoblins and their chaotic retinue, a lone cowardly Cavern Goblin broke away from the main skirmish.

Crouching low on all fours, the three-foot-tall gray runt scrambled around the shadows of a limestone stalagmite, clutching a jagged bone dagger between its filthy claws.

Its yellow eyes locked onto the blue-haired royal maiden standing near Silas.

"Squeeee!" the goblin hissed, lunging out from the shadows directly toward the Princess.

The Princess gasped, her azure eyes widening as the snarling, wart-covered face leaped through the air.

Her instincts screamed at her to retreat, but her mind instantly recalled Silas’s steady words as he guided her to fight while they rode here.

’Plant your foot... Find your balance and drive through the core.’

SHIK!

The Princess drew her six-inch void-iron dagger from its thigh sheath with a crisp trembling ring of steel.

’Haah... Calm down...’

She did not tumble backward onto her rear.

She gritted her teeth, stepped firmly into the gravel with her left boot, and lowered her center of gravity.

As the goblin lunged with its bone dagger, the Princess pivoted her torso to the right, letting the rusted bone weapon scrape harmlessly past her white blouse.

SWISH.

"Begone, foul creature of the dark!" the Princess shouted, channeling every ounce of her royal resolve.

She drove the void-iron dagger upward with both hands, plunging the sharp blade straight beneath the goblin’s chin, driving the steel through its palate and clean into its brain.

CRUNCH-SQUELCH!

The goblin’s yellow eyes rolled back into its skull, its body stiffening mid-air before collapsing limply onto the limestone floor at her feet.

"Haaah... Haah... Hahh..."

The Princess stood over the slain beast, her chest heaving as she pulled the dagger free and wiped the dark fluid clean against a patch of dry moss.

A breathless, radiant smile broke across her face. "I... I did it! Another clean strike!"

She turned around to look for Silas and Aurelia and instantly froze.

The entire cavern was dead silent.

The chaotic horde of sixty Cavern Goblins and four massive Hobgoblins had ceased to exist.

Across the wide limestone chamber, every single beast had been thoroughly slaughtered.

Severed green-gray limbs, shattered iron clubs, and neatly decapitated monster corpses lay scattered across the gravel in neat piles.

The fifteen recruits were already wiping their blades clean with dry cloths, chatting and laughing among themselves like normal young women finishing an afternoon chore, while Aurelia calmly extinguished her floating orb of holy fire.

Standing against the pillar, Silas looked over at the wide-eyed Princess, his blue eyes crinkling with warm effortless amusement as he gave her a thumbs-up.

"Not bad, Princess," Silas chuckled, pushing off the limestone wall. "Not bad at all."