The massive blade was not only a weapon.

It was nearly five feet long, forged from sleek dark-purple mythril that actively drank the ambient light around it, leaving a distorted shadow in its wake.

A deep groove ran down the exact center of the broad metal, pulsing with raw magical energy.

It was absurdly heavy and designed for pure execution.

’That’s what I get for upgrading it to Tier 3 and letting Thora do refinements.’ Silas thought as he ignited his core and the greatsword responded instantly to its master.

FWOOSH!

The dark metal flared with a blinding golden heat.

The freezing morning air and the corrosive black blood that had splattered onto the blade immediately hissed and vaporized.

The intense reaction enveloped Silas in an intimidating, swirling shroud of white steam, masking his features behind a veil of fury as he tore forward.

Silas bypassed the stunned Shieldmaidens, moving with terrifying, explosive speed.

The physical metamorphosis of his Gold Core was on full display.

Every time his iron-plated boots struck the mud, the ground cracked with a sharp KRAK, launching him forward like a fired ballista bolt.

He covered ten feet of ground with every massive stride with his golden aura trailing behind him like a comet, closing the distance to the cratered center of the battlefield in mere seconds.

WHOOSH!

The Abyssal Gore-Fiend scrambled to its massive feet, shaking its heavy ugly head to clear the disorientation of Eluned’s strike.

It saw the golden blur rushing toward it and let out a furious, deafening roar that vibrated deep within Silas’s chest, spraying dark acidic saliva into the cold air.

"RAHHHHHHHHHH!!"

’Seriously the monsters that live in the basin sure are irritating.’ Silas thought.

The beast dug its clawed feet into the deep mud, leveraging its massive twenty-foot bulk, and swung its colossal leviathan-bone mace in a brutal, sweeping horizontal arc.

The strike was meant to sweep Silas off his feet, shatter his legs into a hundred pieces, and crush his ribs into splinters.

WHOOSH!

The massive bone club displaced the air, creating a violent vacuum that ripped at Silas’s dark combat robes.

The sheer mass of the weapon was enough to level a small building... however Silas didn’t dodge backward.

He didn’t even raise the mythril greatsword to block a strike that weighed over four tons.

He accelerated.

’There’s no need to block the strike when I can just dodge it...’

He dropped his broad shoulder, bending his knees, and slid smoothly over the slick, bloody mud, passing directly beneath the massive swinging mace.

The heavy bone passed mere inches above his dark hair as the concussive wind of the strike pulled aggressively at his collar, carrying the putrid suffocating stench of rot and blood.

Without losing a single fraction of his forward momentum, Silas planted his heavy iron boot firmly against the base of one of Eluned’s thick, newly sprouted spikes, using the divine timber as a rigid springboard.

CRACK!

The solid magical wood splintered loudly under the sheer force of his legs as he launched himself high into the air.

He soared upward, entirely bypassing the monster’s guard, flying directly toward the Gore-Fiend’s exposed rotting chest.

The beast realized its fatal mistake.

It let out a panicked grunt, dropping the heavy leviathan mace.

THUD! WHOOSH!

"Haargh..." Brida and the girls yelled out as they raised their shields to block the wind tearing at them.

The monster then tried to raise its thick armored arms to swat him out of the sky like a golden insect with its sickly yellow eyes going wide with sudden panic.

"Too slow," Silas said.

He raised the Tier 3 Greatsword high above his head, grasping the long leather-wrapped hilt with both hands.

He channeled every remaining drop of his sovereign energy directly from his pulsing core into the blade.

The golden fire roaring off the mythril burned with such blinding intensity that it cast long, dancing shadows across the entire blood-soaked battlefield, actively pushing back the dark, bruised clouds overhead.

The heat radiating from the weapon was so intense it began to singe the edges of Silas’s own sleeves.

’It’s crazy that this is just my Mana’s power at 40...’ He thought, apparently the higher core you were, the harder it was to level up... or that was what he could guess from here.

He could kill the same amount if not more beasts and still not level up that much despite being in a zone where most Lords wanted to be.

Silas brought the massive weapon down in a singular devastating vertical strike.

The mythril met the incredibly thick, gray bone-plating protecting the monster’s neck and there was no resistance.

...None at all.

SHLLLLLK!

The superheated metal effortlessly sheared through the heavy skin as if it were paper.

The raw energy instantly melted the dense rotting muscle fibers, cauterizing the massive wound before the dark blood could even spray, and cleanly severed the beast’s massive, tree-trunk-sized spinal column.

The Tier 3 Greatsword ripped entirely through the other side in a flawless unobstructed arc.

The Boss’s colossal, horned head detached completely from its broad shoulders.

It hung suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, its yellow eyes frozen in dull shock, before plummeting downward.

THUDDDDDD!

It landed in the bloody mud with a sickening sound that echoed across the dead forest and silenced the wind as the massive headless torso stood rigidly in place for a long agonizing moment.

A geyser of corrosive, boiling black blood erupted from the cleanly severed stump, spraying wildly twenty feet into the air like a macabre grotesque fountain.

The blood rained down, sizzling against the chilled mud.

Then, the massive bulk collapsed backward, crashing into the earth and shaking the bedrock one final time.

BOOM!

Silas landed heavily in the mud a few feet away. His iron boots sank deep into the sludge, cracking the bedrock hidden below the surface.

He kept his greatsword angled downward with his breathing steady as the roaring golden fire slowly retracted from the sharp edges of the blade back into the dark-purple metal with.

The battlefield fell completely silent.

Strangely rain began to fall with the cold drops hissing sharply against the hot metal of his mythril blade.

HSSSSS!

’One strange thing I’ve noticed about this place is that ever since that rain fell... the rain sure has been falling erratically’ Silas thought, it could just start randomly for no reason.

There didn’t have to be clouds too, it was quite strange... was it possible that some god was probably pissing from up above? Or maybe Blessed Land was situated right below Asgard?

’Yeah right...’ Silas thought.

The remaining beasts of the Tide... the few dozen broken scavengers, limping crawlers, and terrified Shadow Stalkers that had somehow survived the mythril artillery strikes, Tamsin’s spinning chains, and Eluned’s massive timber trap stared at the massive decapitated corpse of their invincible leader.

The suicidal madness infecting their primitive brains instantly shattered, replaced entirely by raw terror.

They didn’t roar nor did they charge the open gates.

Instead the beasts turned their tails and fled.

They scrambled blindly over the slippery corpses of their own kind, slipping in the deep mud, desperate to escape the golden monster that had just slaughtered their predator in a single strike.

They vanished back into the dark treeline of the Umbral Basin, abandoning the siege completely.

Silas stood in the rain, slowly rolling his broad aching shoulders.

He exhaled a long breath of hot air, letting the massive intoxicating surge of combat adrenaline slowly bleed out of his system.

He dragged a hand through his damp dark hair, wiping away the sweat and ash.

"What a morning..."

If they weren’t being controlled by the realm then they wouldn’t have come... Before he could even click the greatsword back into his scabbard, his vision was completely consumed.

A massive waterfall of pristine blue holographic text erupted in front of his eyes.

[Target Eliminated: Abyssal Gore-Fiend (Peak Tier 3 Boss). +100 UP]

[You have completed your Trial!]

The blue screens kept coming, stacking on top of one another with loud, chiming alerts that echoed pleasantly in his skull.

PING!

PING!

PING!

[Notice: Territory has absorbed massive combat experience.]

[The Blessed Land has reached Level 10!]

[High-Tier Architectural Blueprints Unlocked in Lord Inventory.]

[Lord Silas has reached Level 15!]

The blue tabs shifted, swirling together and forming a final, massive golden banner that hovered directly in the center of his vision, bathing the muddy battlefield in a warm victorious light.

[Novice Trial Evaluation Complete.]

[Territory Integrity: 100%]

[Enemies Routed: 1,420]

[Final Grade: SSS-Rank.]

[You can now Ascend]

Silas stared at the golden text with a smirk spreading across his scarred face.

’Fuck yeah.’

He had done it.

He swiped the golden notifications away with a flick of his wrist, revealing the devastated, blood-soaked landscape around him.

Behind him, the Warlord’s Garrison erupted.

The seventy women of the Vanguard screamed in deafening victory.

They slammed their heavy iron against their battered shields with the sounds of steel hitting still ringing out across the basin.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

They raised their weapons to the bruised gray sky, tears of pure relief and adrenaline streaming down their dirt-caked faces.

Silas turned around, walking slowly back toward the heavy steel gates.

He sheathed his greatsword, the dark metal clicking securely into the thick leather scabbard resting against his back.

"Secure the perimeter!" Silas called out. "Drag the wounded beasts out of the mud and finish them. We’ll have enough rations to last us a very long time"

Brida stepped out of the heavy infantry formation, her iron armor completely painted in thick, foul-smelling black gore.

Her massive chest heaved with exhausted pride as her beautiful face split into a feral grin, but she immediately snapped to attention and slammed her fist to her breastplate in a crisp salute.

"My Lord, what about the corpses?" Brida asked, gesturing with her blood-stained shortsword to the sprawling, apocalyptic ocean of dead monsters stretching all the way toward the distant treeline. "If we leave them out here to rot, the miasma will poison the soil for miles, and the stench will draw every scavenger in the basin."

"Are you kidding me? You know what to do... Bring them inside the walls, Brida" Silas instructed.

He pointed a gauntleted finger directly toward the massive, decapitated bulk of the Tier 3 Boss lying in the mud.

"That one specifically and gather exactly ninety-nine intact Tier 2 beasts. Ignore the hounds and pile them separately near the center of the courtyard. I will store them directly into my Lord Inventory."

Brida blinked, thoroughly confused by the highly specific number.

Why not a hundred? Why ninety-nine plus the boss? But she was a soldier, and she didn’t question her Lord’s logistics.

"At once, Lord Graves," Brida acknowledged, turning back to her troops. "Infantry! Form up into hauling teams! Grab the heavy chains!"

The cleanup operation commenced immediately.

Empowered by the lingering, divine effects of Eluned’s Genesis Aura, heavy infantry didn’t collapse from exhaustion.

They rapidly deployed thick iron chains, wrapping them around the massive carcasses and dragging them forcefully through the steel gates.

The mud in the courtyard was quickly stained a deep foul black, but the immediate threat was completely neutralized.

While the courtyard was being cleared of the monstrous remains, Silas directed the rest of his army... the Bow-Splitters and the spellcasters into the Warlord’s Garrison to begin recovery.

The massive ground floor of the Garrison was designed for exactly this kind of post-siege relief.

The sprawling stone mess hall was incredibly warm, heated perfectly by the two colossal enchanted fireplaces roaring at opposite ends of the cavernous room.

Long, heavy oak dining tables were arranged in neat, disciplined rows across the heated rune-etched floor, providing a luxurious sanctuary against the freezing, biting cold of the basin.

Kaelia didn’t waste a single second.

The S-Rank Chef, assisted by a few of the newer logistical recruits, hauled massive, heavy iron pots and steaming, oversized wooden platters from the Culinary Haven directly into the Garrison.

’Phew... Thank the gods we’re alright.’ Kaelia thought, after her little show of bravery... She had spent the entire time preparing a massive victory feast while being confident that her Lord would break the siege without failure.

Slow-roasted, tender cuts of heavily spiced boar meat, completely stripped of their toughness by her alchemy, were piled high.

Thick, hearty stews rich with aether-wheat and marrow broth bubbled in massive iron cauldrons.

Baskets of glowing sweet spirit-fruits that Eluned grew as centerpieces.

The rich, savory scent of the food alone was enough to make the exhausted soldiers groan in pure appreciation as they stripped off their heavy, blood-soaked breastplates and tossed them onto the armory racks.

The women descended on the feast like a pack of starving wolves.

The clinking of heavy iron tankards filled with purified water and the loud, joyous, unfiltered laughter of surviving soldiers echoed beautifully off the vaulted stone ceilings.

Silas sat at the head of the heavy center table, flanked by the girls that were now quite attached to him: Eluned, Aeliana, Brida, Tamsin, and Fenna.