Rowena didn’t hesitate.

The Level 8 Rune Weaver slammed the butt of her staff against the dead earth as her blue eyes flared with intense arcane light. "Aegis!"

A massive interlocking dome of thick blue geometric runes expanded over the strike team just as three of the purple beams slammed into it.

The shockwave buckled the ground beneath their boots, but Rowena held the line, gritting her teeth as her expanded mana pool easily absorbed the devastating impact.

Before the dust could even settle, Fenna stepped out from behind the blue shield.

She drew the mythril string of her recurve bow back to her cheek, materializing three condensed mana-arrows simultaneously.

She didn’t aim; she simply blanketed the darkness of the cellar.

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!

The explosive arrows plunged into the black void of the ruined basement and violently detonated.

But the explosion didn’t kill the attacker... It only flushed it out.

From the billowing smoke and purple miasma of the cellar, a silhouette launched itself into the air, landing heavily in the center of the courtyard.

It wasn’t a beast...

Silas’s eyes narrowed as the dust cleared. Crouched on the shattered stone tiles was a humanoid figure.

It was clad in incredibly ancient, rusted plate armor that had literally fused to its body over decades of decay but what made Silas’s stomach turn was the aura.

The entity was completely wrapped in a thick, suffocating cocoon of viscous purple miasma. It dripped from the armor like liquid tar, and the entity’s eyes burned with a mindless violet rage.

"Target acquired..." Tamsin hissed.

The Level 8 Wilderness Huntress didn’t wait for a command. She exploded forward, her boots kicking up a cloud of ash.

She moved gracefully with her body dropping incredibly low to the ground as she attempted to flank the corrupted humanoid.

Her twin iron daggers caught the ambient light, aimed directly for the exposed joints behind the entity’s rusted kneecaps.

But the attacker was impossibly fast...

The corrupted entity didn’t even turn its head.

It simply reacted to the shift in air pressure.

The thick purple miasma churning around its right arm suddenly snapped, violently condensing and crystallizing into a jagged, three-foot-long dark blade extending directly from its forearm.

In a perfectly executed, brutal pivot, the entity brought the crystallized miasma sword down in a devastating, horizontal sweep.

’Too fast!’ Tamsin realized as her eyes widened in panic.

She violently aborted her flank, crossing her twin daggers in an X-guard over her head to block the strike.

KRA-BANG!

The impact was absolute overkill.

The overwhelming physical force of the blow instantly shattered Tamsin’s stance, driving her down to her knees.

The dead earth spider-webbed beneath her boots, and a sickening crack echoed from her left wrist as the iron of her daggers groaned under the pressure.

Her guard was blown completely open...

"EHHHHH!!"

The entity let out a guttural screech, pulling the dark blade back to thrust it directly through Tamsin’s exposed chest.

CLANG!

A shockwave of violence exploded outward, blowing the necrotic briars completely flat against the perimeter walls.

Silas stood directly in front of Tamsin with his boots carved two inches deep into the stone tiles.

He gripped the heavy leather hilt of his Umbral-Forged Mythril Blade with both hands as the dark purple-veined steel was locked in a brutal grinding parry against the entity’s crystallized miasma sword.

Sparks violently showered over the courtyard as the two blades ground against each other.

’Heavy...’ Silas thought, his teeth gritted as his muscles strained against the pressure. ’Incredibly heavy. This thing doesn’t have martial technique, it’s just fighting with raw physical power... The stat lines on this thing are absurd. It has to be Level 15, at the bare minimum.’

The corrupted entity snarled with the purple light in its eyes flaring as it pushed its entire body weight against Silas’s blade but Silas wasn’t a mortal.

"You’re out of your league," Silas commanded coldly.

He tapped into the sovereign authority of his Mythic Gold Core as a blinding aura of golden mana rushed through his spiritual pathways, flooding his muscles with raw, explosive power.

Silas forcefully parried the dark blade upward, throwing the entity off balance, and followed up with a devastating, spinning roundhouse kick directly to the center of its rusted breastplate.

BAM!

The impact sounded like a cannon firing.

The entity was launched backward, tumbling violently across the dirt before its claws dug into the earth, arresting its momentum.

It immediately crouched low, letting out another static-laced shriek as the miasma rapidly gathered around both of its arms, preparing for a lethal, all-out assault.

Silas gripped his sword with his golden aura flaring as he prepared to step forward and forcefully separate the entity’s head from its shoulders.

"Wait!"

A hand gently, but firmly, grasped his shoulder.

Silas stopped with the golden mana dimming slightly as he looked back. Eluned was standing right behind him.

The SSS-Rank Goddess wasn’t looking at the entity with the same casual, bored dismissal she usually reserved for the monsters of the Umbral Basin. Her emerald eyes were wide as her pupils trembled with a sudden sorrow.

She had noticed something Silas, in the heat of combat, had entirely missed.

Through the thick, churning tar of the purple miasma, and beneath the rusted, shattered helm... were the faint, unmistakable outlines of pointed ears.

"An Elf..." Eluned breathed out.

Silas’s eyes widened.

’Elf? Is she a Hero?’

"Please, my Lord. Step back," Eluned requested then she didn’t wait for his permission.

The Goddess walked past Silas, stepping directly into the path of the snarling, corrupted humanoid.

The entity shrieked, launching itself forward with its twin miasma blades aimed directly for Eluned’s neck.

Eluned didn’t raise a shield. She didn’t summon her supersonic wind blades... She simply planted her feet, opened her arms wide, and closed her eyes...

[Aura of Genesis: Absolute Purge]

A massive concentrated tsunami of blinding, pure emerald light erupted from the Goddess’s body.

It didn’t just wash over the courtyard like a spell... it completely consumed it. The sheer density of the SSS-Rank nature magic was so overwhelming that Silas and the Vanguard had to shield their eyes.

The entity slammed directly into the wall of emerald light.

The reaction was agonizing.

The divine nature magic violently and aggressively reacted with the Umbral corruption that had infected the entity.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

The humanoid let out a horrific dual-layered scream... one voice sounding like a feral beast, and the other sounding like a terrified, weeping woman.

The purple miasma was literally burned away. It peeled off the entity’s body like boiling tar, hissing and evaporating into the night air.

The rusted corrupted plate armor that had been fused to her skin violently shattered into millions of flakes of gray dust, completely destroyed by the cleansing light.

The horrific screeching slowly died down, replaced by the sound of ragged desperate gasping as the blinding emerald light faded.

The corrupted entity collapsed heavily into the dead dirt of the courtyard.

The viscous purple glow had entirely vanished from her eyes, replaced by a terrified brilliant silver.

Silas slowly lowered his mythril blade, his breath catching in his throat.

It was an Elven Hero.

She was incredibly beautiful, but her body was a canvas of deep, jagged, horrific scars. She lay in the dirt, wearing nothing but the torn, ragged remnants of a simple tunic.

She was clutching her chest, taking massive, shuddering breaths as her mind violently snapped back to reality after what was clearly a terrifying, agonizing eternity of feral madness.

"Lord Kal?"

The Elf’s voice was hoarse, cracking as she scrambled backward in the dirt.

Her silver eyes darted frantically around the shattered overgrown stone walls, completely ignoring Silas and the Vanguard.

"Lord Kal?!" She screamed as she looked at the cracked, dead territory core sitting on the moss-covered pedestal.

Tears violently spilled down her cheeks. "Where is Lord Kal? We have to defend the core! The wave... it’s too big! The walls are failing!"

Behind Silas, the Vanguard girls slowly lowered their weapons.

The combat adrenaline instantly drained from their systems, replaced by a cold horrifying realization.

Fenna lowered her bow, looking absolutely sick to her stomach while Tamsin clutched her bruised wrist as her eyes went wide with shock.

They were looking at a mirror... They were looking at exactly what they were... a summoned Vassal.

Silas sheathed his Umbral-Forged Mythril blade. The heavy click of the metal locking into the scabbard sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet clearing.

He remembered the historical timelines the augmented instructors had projected on the glass boards back at Valoria Academy and he remembered the cold way they spoke about the failure rates of the Sovereign Realm.

Silas stepped forward.

He walked slowly, carefully, until he reached the sobbing Elven Hero and then he knelt down in the dead dirt, bringing himself perfectly to her eye level.

The Elf flinched, looking at him with wide, terrified silver eyes.

"Who... who are you? Where is my Lord? We need to hold the line! He promised... he promised we would build an empire..."

"Kal fell," Silas said quietly.

The Elf froze, her breath hitching.

She shook her head wildly with her long tangled blonde hair whipping across her scarred face.

"No! No, that’s impossible! We just deployed! It’s Age 214... That’s what Kal said."

Silas looked at the cracked, dead core on the pedestal, and then looked back at her.

"The year is currently Age 330," Silas replied steadily, ensuring his voice didn’t waver. "This territory has been dead for over a century."

The words hung in the air like an executioner’s blade.

The Elf stared at him, her silver eyes trembling violently as the horrifying reality of his words crashed into her fractured mind.

She looked at her scarred hands and she looked at the moss growing over the ruined walls then she realized the truth.

For over a hundred and sixteen years, she had been a corrupted, mindless beast, trapped in a cage of purple miasma, aimlessly wandering the ruins of her failed Lord’s broken dream.

She let out a single, devastating wail that tore through the quiet night.

She collapsed forward into the dirt, curling into a tight ball as she broke down into soul-tearing sobs as the grief of a century of isolation and failure poured out of her in violent gasps.

Silas didn’t move.

A moment later, a warm, radiant light bathed Silas’s shoulders. Eluned knelt down in the dirt right beside him.

The Goddess didn’t care about the mud or the ash staining her flawless dress. She reached out, gently wrapping her arms around the broken Elven hero.

Eluned pulled the sobbing woman against her chest, holding her in a deeply maternal, glowing embrace.

She gently stroked the Elf’s matted blonde hair, letting a soft, comforting pulse of her [Aura of Genesis] ease the violent trembling of the woman’s body.

"You are safe now, little leaf," Eluned whispered softly, her own emerald eyes shining with unshed tears. "The nightmare is over so you do not have to fight the dark anymore."

The Elf buried her face in Eluned’s dress, weeping until her voice went completely hoarse.

Silas stood up with his jaw set in a hard unyielding line.

He looked back at his strike team. Tamsin, Fenna, and Rowena were completely silent with their eyes locked on the weeping Elf.

The reality of the Sovereign Realm had just been violently stripped of its gamified UI and Upgrade Points... This was the absolute truth of their existence.

"We are done here," Silas commanded softly. "Pack it up. We are going home."

The march back up the two-mile trench was entirely different from the march out.

There was no excitement for the hunt... There was no banter... There was only a heavy silence.

Fenna and Tamsin flanked the rear, keeping their eyes glued to the dark treeline, while Eluned walked in the center, physically supporting the exhausted, traumatized Elven Hero, who leaned heavily against the Goddess for support.

When the heavy Ironwood gates of the Blessed Land finally groaned open to receive them, Brida and the garrison were waiting in the courtyard.

The Shieldmaiden captain saw the state of the strike team, saw the weeping, half-naked Elf and immediately opened her mouth to ask for a report.

Silas simply met Brida’s gaze and gave a microscopic shake of his head. Brida instantly snapped her mouth shut, stepping aside to let them pass.

Once they were safely inside the warm, golden aura of the territory, Eluned stopped in front of the massive Reinforced Stone Keep. She looked over at Silas, her expression deeply solemn.

"My Lord," Eluned asked softly. "May I take her inside? Her mind is completely shattered. She needs the quiet, and she needs the roots of the World Tree to find true peace. I wish to tend to her."

"Take whatever room you need, Eluned," Silas nodded immediately. "Use whatever resources we have in the Vault or the Conservatory. She is under the protection of the Blessed Land now."

"Thank you, Silas," Eluned smiled faintly, using his actual name for the first time.

She gently guided the trembling Elf up the stone steps and disappeared behind the heavy wooden doors of the Keep.

"Dismissed," Silas told the strike team. "Get to the Barracks..."

Tamsin, Rowena, and Fenna bowed their heads silently and walked away, needing the comfort of their cots to process the morning’s revelation.

Silas didn’t go to the Keep, and he didn’t go to the Barracks.

He was left completely alone in the freezing open courtyard.

The morning wind howled over the Ironwood Palisade, snapping at his long black combat robes.

He walked over to a stack of leftover refined Ironwood blocks near the bonfire and sat heavily onto a wooden crate.

He rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together in front of his face, and looked up at the terrifying, bruised-purple sky of the Umbral Basin.

He looked at the towering stone Keep where Eluned was comforting the broken survivor.

He looked at the heavy doors of the Armored Barracks where Brida, Tamsin, and twenty-eight other women were, completely trusting him with their lives.

Silas closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

’This isn’t a game,’ Silas thought, the absolute, horrifying reality of his position settling squarely onto his shoulders.

If he failed... if he made one wrong calculation with his Upgrade Points, if he pushed too hard into the Unknown Zone, or if he failed to properly fortify the Blessed Land before a massive wave hit... his girls wouldn’t just die.

They would be trapped here.

They would be corrupted by the suffocating miasma... They would be violently warped into mindless, feral monsters, forced to aimlessly wander the frozen ruins of his failure for centuries, screaming his name into the void...

But as Silas sat there in the dark, his hands stopped trembling.

’I will not fail,’ Silas swore to himself with his grip tightening on his mythril blade. ’I will burn this entire basin to ash before I let the dark touch a single one of them.’