Chapter 758: Nearing Classic?

Aki’s cheeks flushed a soft petal pink.

Her gaze darted down toward his chest, then back up to his dark blue eyes with her lips parting and closing twice before she found her voice.

"I... well, maybe a little," Aki mumbled, her tone soft and sweet enough to melt butter.

She looked up at him through her dark lashes, trying to maintain some semblance of regal composure, but the fond curve of her mouth gave her away completely.

Before Silas could tease her about the delay, she reached up with a slender forefinger and poked him right in the center of his cheek.

POKE!

"You don’t have to be so embarrassing about it, you know," Aki grumbled with a small pout, though her eyes were shining. "You walk in through the front door, drop my chief guard onto the boards like firewood, ignore poor Elowynn who was clearly trying her best with dinner, and then immediately demand to know if I pined away while you were roaming the grand avenues of Central City... You’re terribly unfair, Silas."

Silas chuckled as he caught her wrist with two fingers, holding it gently before letting her hand drift back down.

"Fairness is overrated when I’m checking on my favorite neighbor..." Silas said with a relaxed grin. "Besides, if I didn’t ask, how would I know whether you spent the last few days worrying over me or just redesigning your garden gazebos?"

A few feet away on the polished hardwood, Ther’Abella remained propped on her hands and knees.

Her silver hair spilled around her shoulders in a wild unbrushed curtain, half-obscuring the glowing constellation marks across her cheeks.

She stared up at the two of them, her cheeks puffing out until she looked like a deeply offended silver-haired chipmunk.

’Scandalous...’ Ther’Abella fumed in the quiet of her mind, her small jaw clenching so hard her teeth creaked. ’Utterly scandalous... He stands in the reception hall of an allied realm and flirts with my Lady as if they were lounging in a tavern alcove.’

She pushed herself up onto her knees, her sky-blue eyes narrowing into two frigid daggers aimed squarely at Silas’s back.

Then, a sudden horrifying train of logic derailed her indignation entirely.

’Wait,’ Ther’Abella thought, the color abruptly draining from her face before rushing back with double the heat. ’If this is how casually he behaves out in the open... if this is how he sweet-talks Lady Aki in front of the entire household... how in the heavens is he treating Lady Eluned when the bedroom doors are bolted?’

A cold dizzying shiver ran straight down the elf’s spine, raising goosebumps along her arms.

’They’re married,’ she reasoned, her pulse jumping into her throat. ’Lawfully wed beneath the eyes of the realm. Which means... which means they do things. Private, nocturnal things... Adults in a marriage do not merely sit across from each other discussing stuff until dawn.’

Her mind, usually disciplined by ages of strict astral martial arts and ascetic temple guard training, took a catastrophic leap off a cliff.

’Is he the kind of man who does unspeakable things to his lovers...?’ Ther’Abella wondered, her eyes widening in mounting dread.

An involuntary, vivid image flashed behind her eyelids... Silas standing over a massive four-poster bed in the heart of Blessed Land’s Keep, holding heavy velvet cords with that same smug lopsided grin on his face, while Lady Eluned, the serene sacred Goddess of the World Tree whom Ther’Abella had sworn her life to protect, was tied helplessly to the carved headboard with her divine robes in disarray as she was flushed and trembling while this dark-haired brute did whatever strange, depraved things human lords did to conquer their wives!

A wave of visceral disgust washed over the elf’s face, her upper lip curling back in horror as she stared at Silas’s boots.

’I need to confirm it...’ Ther’Abella thought, her hands curling into tight fists against her thighs with her breathing turning shallow and erratic. ’I have to know. Even if my soul was cast out of Yggdrasil... even if I was banished from the sacred boughs and ended up sworn to Aki’s banner... at heart, I am still Lady Eluned’s guard. If this usurper is mistreating her, if he is forcing her into degrading, unmentionable games in the dark, I cannot simply sit here and do nothing... I have to find out what’s going on behind those closed doors.’

Then, the full absurdity of what she was imagining caught up to her conscious mind.

...Ther’Abella froze.

The heat in her cheeks went from a sunburn to an active volcanic eruption.

She had just spent thirty seconds actively visualizing the sacred Goddess of the World Tree bound in silk cords being ravaged by a human lord, all while kneeling in the middle of a drafty front hall smelling of burned meat.

’What am I thinking?!’ she screamed at herself internally. ’Get it out! Cleanse the mind! Purge the thought! Astral clarity, celestial calm, banish the filth!’

Ther’Abella dropped her head straight forward, slamming her forehead down into the hard oak floorboards with everything she had.

THUNK!

Silas stopped talking.

Aki blinked with her mouth half-open and over by the kitchen archway, Elowynn paused in the middle of kicking her dropped platter under a cabinet, her amethyst eyes turning wide.

Ther’Abella lifted her head an inch and slammed it down again.

THUNK!

"Ther’Abella?" Aki asked, her voice laced with deep genuine concern. "Are you... are you having a spasm? Did you hit your head when Silas set you down?"

THUNK!

"I am fine, my Lady," Ther’Abella croaked from the floorboards, her voice muffled against the wood as she kept her face buried firmly in the polish. "I am merely... centering my core. The floor has exceptional stability today so please disregard my presence."

Silas stared down at the trembling silver-haired elf with his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.

"Right," Silas murmured, looking back at Aki with a baffled smirk. "Remind me to check the mental stability debuffs on your summoning pool later... She’s getting weirder every time I visit."

"She’s just very dedicated to her training," Aki defended weakly, though she looked equally puzzled as she tapped the elf’s shoulder with the toe of her slipper. "Ther’Abella, please stop... You’re going to crack the varnish."

Ther’Abella gave one last muffled groan, pushed herself upright, and sat back on her heels with a bright red knot already swelling right in the center of her forehead.

Silas shook his head with an amused sigh, turning his focus back to business.

"Anyway, before your guard gives herself a permanent concussion, we should handle the delivery," Silas said.

He closed his eyes for a split second and reached into the vast organized grid of his inventory.

The Mythic Gold Core in his chest pulsed with a steady effortless warmth as he selected the shipment he had brought back with him.

Morwenna and Aeliana had packed all of it the morning before though Morwenna had insisted on heavy iron strapping so nothing shifted, while Aeliana had penned neat labels in script on every single box.

’They’re very cute and helpful...’

Silas flicked his right wrist outward.

VUUUM!

The air in the front hall distorted with a deep hum, and dozens of heavy wooden supply crates materialized out of thin air, settling onto the floor in neat, stacked rows that took up nearly half the open floor space.

"Every single item on the scroll you gave me," Silas announced, gesturing toward the towering stacks with a broad sweep of his arm. "It’s all there, double-checked and sealed."

Aki’s azure eyes lit up like stars.

"Silas, this is amazing," Aki breathed. "I was worried we’d have to wait another week to reinforce the outer palisades."

Before Silas could offer to help her unpack or sort through the manifests, Aki triggered her own inventory.

SHING!

A soft blue light washed over the entire pile of crates... The towering stacks of timber and metal dissolved into sparkling blue data streams, vanishing directly into Aki’s own spatial Inventory.

The foyer was suddenly clear again, leaving only the scent of pine wood behind.

"I’ll handle sorting through all of them tomorrow morning," Aki said briskly, dusting her palms together with a determined little nod. "Right now, I’m in the middle of trying to do something very important..."

Silas blinked, his arms folding across his chest as he studied her eager expression.

"What are you working on that’s more urgent than securing your outer gates?"

Aki’s confident posture faltered.

She looked away shyly, her fingers twisting together in front of her dress as a fresh dusting of pink colored her cheeks.

"Well..." Aki began softly, her voice dropping into a hesitant self-conscious murmur. "It sounds a bit silly when you say it out loud, but... I’ve been working really hard on my territory rating. I want to reach Top 2 on the Leaderboards."

Silas raised an eyebrow, genuinely intrigued. "Top 2?"

"Yes," Aki nodded, gaining a little more courage as she lifted her chin. "Here, let me show you."

She raised her right hand, swiping two fingers through the empty air in front of her.

PING!

A shimmering, semi-translucent golden interface flared into existence between them, humming with a soft glow.

...The Lord Leaderboard.

With a flick of her wrist, Aki spun the frame around to face Silas. Silas leaned forward, his dark blue eyes scanning the top of the board out of habit.

As usual, sitting right at the pinnacle, uncontested and blazing with an imposing golden crown icon, was Blessed Land.

[Rank 1: Blessed Land]

[Territory Score: 10,482 Points]

Below his name, the gap was nothing short of hilarious.

The territory sitting in second place had managed to scrape together barely twenty-four hundred points.

Blessed Land didn’t just hold the lead... it was sitting on top of the rankings like a mountain looking down on a handful of anthills.

Silas couldn’t help the warm quiet swell of pride that expanded in his chest, a faint gold ring flickering briefly within his irises.

’The girls are working hard,’ Silas thought, a fond smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he pictured the valley back home.

He thought of Thora hammering away at the Titan’s until her apron was black with soot, Solenne tinkering with kinetic cannon arrays until her nine tails were bristling with static, Reina tending to the newborn royal spiders down in the paddocks, and Eluned nurturing the soil with her divine roots while Morwenna drilled the girls on the bluffs.

He provided the Upgrade Points and the heavy materials, but the rest had come from them.

"You’re completely ridiculous, you know that?" Aki sighed, looking at his score with an envious, adorable pout. "Look at that number... Over ten thousand points, It’s absurd."

"I just have good people," Silas chuckled, waving a hand dismissively. "Where are you on this thing?"

"Hold on, I have to scroll down quite a way to find myself," Aki admitted, her cheeks turning slightly red again as she dragged her finger downward along the interface.

After five or six long swipes, she tapped the screen to halt the scroll.

[Rank 14: Aki’s Wonderland]

[Territory Score: 1,120 Points]

"See?" Aki pointed with a proud little grin, tapping the glass right beside her territory’s pastel flower crest. "Fourteen! I broke into the top twenty yesterday after we finished paving another building and then killing a lot of monsters... I was ranked forty-second a few days ago, so we’re moving up really fast!"

"Fourteen is great for a solo Lord in her first trial," Silas said sincerely. "You’re only a few hundred points behind the top ten..."

"It’s better than that, actually," Aki explained. "Most of the Newbie Lords currently sitting above me will soon leave... Their grace periods are almost up, and they’re moving on to the Classic Leaderboards."

She gestured toward several names scattered throughout the top ten, whose text didn’t display in standard white or silver script.

Instead, their territorial titles were pulsing with a radiant golden outline.

"You can see them right there," Aki said. "Whenever a Lord’s novice time is concluding, their names start glowing gold."

Silas listened with a curious hum, his eyes tracing the glowing golden borders on the names then, on a sudden hunch, he reached out with his forefinger and swiped the list straight back to the very top.

SWOOSH!

The board snapped back to Rank 1.

Silas blinked.

Right there, boldly blazing at the head of the entire Newbie bracket, the name [Blessed Land] was not sitting in standard bold font.

Every single letter of his name was wrapped in a brilliant unmistakable aura of pulsating gold.

Silas froze, his hand hovering in mid-air as he stared at his own entry.

"Ah, already?" Silas muttered, genuine surprise lacing his tone as he tapped his own glowing name.

’When did I even become a Lord here...?’ he wondered.

It felt like barely a handful of weeks ago that he had planted the walls in the soil of Blessed Land.

Between the fights, the upgrades, the trips to the Human World and a household full of eccentric overpowered women, time had simply evaporated.

’I’m already heading to Classic.’