Chapter 485: Popping Up From The Ground [II]

Silas stood completely motionless in the center of the glittering geode, his right hand still clutching the handle of the runic pickaxe.

His dark eyebrows knit together, his piercing blue eyes slowly blinking once, then twice, as his mind processed the absurdity of the words that had just exploded out of the woman’s mouth.

Around them, the cavern was so silent that the distant drip-drip-drip of condensation off a limestone stalactite sounded like a hammer striking an anvil.

Brenda’s jaw was dropped so low it looked unhinged.

Sarah was frozen in mid-step with her void-iron blade dangling loosely by her knee and Aurelia’s serene smile had locked into an expression of paralyzed bewilderment, while the Princess’s face was rapidly cycling through three distinct shades of apocalyptic scarlet.

Even the Phase 1 Titan Golem resting outside in the goblin settlement seemed to emit a low confused mechanical hiss through the narrow entrance fissure.

However Brida didn’t care in the slightest.

She stood there, covered head-to-toe in chalky gray bedrock dust, pulverized shale, and streaks of half-congealed, foul-smelling black monster marrow with her hands planted firmly against her armored hips.

"Well, my Lord?!" Brida urged, leaning forward so aggressively that the battered steel plates of her cuirass clinked against her collar. "Are you listening to me?! Hurry up and say yes! I practically turned three miles of solid mountain roots into gravel just to bring you the news before anyone else could open their mouths!"

Before Silas could even part his lips to speak, the light in the eastern corner of the chamber warped.

SHSHSHK!

The deep ink-black shadow pooled beneath an overhanging crystalline shelf suddenly boiled.

It rose from the two-dimensional rock floor like a surging wave of pitch, twisting violently before snapping into three-dimensional reality with a sharp concussive pop of displaced air.

Out stepped Tasmin.

The commander hit the limestone on one knee with her hands slapping against the gravel to steady herself.

"Haah... Haah... Haah..." Her breath came in burning gasps that whistled through her clenched teeth.

Her tailored leather mining harness was drenched in cold sweat and black ichor, the dark fabric plastered tight against her heaving ribs.

Strands of ink-black hair clung to her flushed forehead, and her fingers trembled with the agonizing aftershocks of sheer spatial exhaustion.

Traversing nearly three miles of subterranean bedrock through the liquid void of the shadow-realm... sliding through microscopic stone pores, navigating tectonic fault lines, and matching the raw sprint of a Titan had pushed her internal mana circuits to the brink.

’Fuck, I won’t ever do that again...’

Her reserves were smoking, her legs felt like lead, and the lingering spiritual static made her teeth ache.

Yet, as the cold air filled her lungs, Tasmin felt a dark exhilarating thrill hum beneath the fatigue.

’...Or maybe I will.’

It had been a brutal punishing transit, but surviving that kind of high-velocity spatial tunneling was the kind of trial that hardened her far faster than any safe drill in the courtyard.

She forced herself upright, her boots skidding on the crystalline dust as her amber eyes locked onto Brida’s back with pure, unadulterated venom.

"SHE IS LYING!"

Tasmin’s voice tore through the geode.

"My Lord, do not listen to a single syllable that falls out of this treacherous woman’s mouth!" Tasmin rasped, pointing a shaking, gloved finger straight at Brida’s head. "She didn’t solo a damn thing! I was the one who located the nest! I pinned the vanguard and I burned the alpha’s limbs with my chains as I was the one who held it down! She’s taking credit for my blood!"

Under normal circumstances, Tasmin prided herself on being the professional... the cold collected shadow commander who spoke in calm reports and let her lethal results speak for themselves.

She never whined and she never engaged in petty squabbling in front of the ranks... well not everytime.

But right now?

After Brida had pulled that gentle sisterly act down in the ruins of the hive... after she had looked Tasmin in the eye, offered her the win with that soft emotional voice, and then immediately jumped through the ceiling screaming that she was going to get bred by dinnertime... any semblance of composure had been incinerated into ash.

Tasmin had felt genuine warmth in her chest for a fleeting second, only to have it violently ripped away by an overgrown black-haired ape.

It was a betrayal of the highest and most personal order.

Brida whirled around, her amber eyes flashing with defiant unrepentant fire.

"Oh, look who finally crawled out of the dirt! What took you so long, shadow?! If you wanted the credit, your little boots should have moved faster! First to the Keep gets the prize... that’s law!"

"You threw me a fake apology, you deceitful muscle-bound hyena!" Tasmin hissed, taking a threatening step forward, her twin void-black daggers slipping from her belt with a wicked metallic hiss. "You pretended to be my sister!"

"I am your sister!" Brida roared back, not yielding an inch of ground. "And sisters don’t let sisters hog the Lord’s private chambers when there’s a reward on the table! All’s fair in love and war!"

"I will sever your vocal cords and hang them from the palisade—"

"Enough. Both of you..."

Silas raised both hands, waving them downward in a firm sweeping motion.

He didn’t shout, but the authority vibrating within his voice cut through the screaming match like a heated blade through tallow.

"Stand down... Take a breath and stop yelling before you bring down the ceiling stalactites on our heads."

The two S-Rank women froze.

Brida’s mouth snapped shut, though a defiant puff of air blew past her lips, while Tasmin lowered her daggers an inch, her jaw remaining clenched tight as she forced her trembling shoulders to settle.

Silas let out a massive soul-deep sigh with the tension finally bleeding out of his broad shoulders.

He rested the blunt head of the runic pickaxe casually against his right shoulder, wiping a streak of sweat from his temple with the back of his bare forearm.

Brida’s eyes instantly tracked the motion.

Her fiery gaze drifted down from his face, sweeping across the broad, sculpted expanse of his chest, taking in the way the dark dwarven leather harness pulled the thin linen tight against his dense abdominals and the hard corded ridges of his lats.

A low appreciative whistle caught in her throat with her brows raising in mock outrage.

"Hold on a bloody minute..." Brida murmured, looking from Silas to the blushing women standing behind him. "What is this outfit? Why is the harness so tight? My Lord, you’re standing in a damp hole in the ground looking like a piece of high-grade imperial eye candy... It is completely unfair that these girls got to stand around staring at your chest all morning while Tasmin and I were swimming through rotting monster guts!"

Behind them, Thora let out a sharp indignant squeak, stepping around an alloy storage crate with her hands planted on her hips.

"Oi! Watch your mouth!" Thora barked, her clean-shaven face smudged with soot and chalk dust. "You’re interrupting sacred dwarven labor with your screeching! This is a high-yield industrial site, not a tavern brawl! We have thousands of pounds of Mana Diamonds to harvest before sunset, and your little domestic dispute is slowing down my quota!"

Brida blinked, glancing down at the four-foot-tall dwarf, and then a wide, disarming grin broke across her battered face.

"Ah, Thora!" Brida boomed, stepping forward and clapping a heavy hand against her breastplate. "Don’t be like that! I have to say, though... that tailored steel-mesh suit looks magnificent on you! It hugs your waist so well I almost didn’t recognize our fierce forge master! You look downright radiant without that forge apron covering your curves!"

Thora froze.

The dwarf’s pale cheeks instantly erupted into a brilliant, incandescent shade of volcanic crimson.

She sputtered, her blunt fingers frantically tugging at the leather straps around her ribs as her amber eyes darted wildly across the limestone floor.

"I... what... shut up!" Thora stammered, coughing violently into her fist as she turned her back on them, aggressively kicking a loose pebble into the darkness. "Shameless! Absolutely shameless flattery! Don’t think sweet words will get you a discount on your next weapon refinement, you lunatic!"

Silas pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. "Alright, that’s enough clowning around. Brida... Tasmin... Look at me..."

Both commanders instantly snapped their attention back to their Lord, standing straight as iron rods.

Silas’s blue eyes narrowed, his tone dropping into a cool penetrating voice that brooked zero room for deception.

"I can smell the ichor on both of you from ten paces away," Silas said calmly, his gaze shifting between their battered armor and exhausted expressions. "I know you were in a clash with monsters but you know me, and you know how I run this territory. I do not tolerate lies, and I do not tolerate false reports so now... what actually happened out there? Give me the truth."

Brida’s boisterous posture softened slightly. She scratched the back of her neck, shifting her weight from one boot to the other with a sheepish crooked grin.

"Well..." Brida muttered, glancing sideways at Tasmin. "The truth is... Tasmin and I butchered the whole nest together. Every last one of them."

"She didn’t find it first, either," Tasmin chimed in, crossing her arms over her chest, though her tone was significantly calmer now. "I was conducting an internal perimeter sweep through the eastern fault lines of Mine BVR Star... I used my shadow perception, found an artificial stone plug, and slipped through. I found an observation blind, eliminated a sentry heading for our workers, and tracked the tunnel down to the staging grounds."

"And then I showed up!" Brida interjected proudly, puffing out her chest. "Because one of the ugly bastards was peeking through a crack near my squad’s sector three miles away! I punched through the wall, took its head off, and decided to take the straight line! I barreled through the bedrock until I broke through the hive’s flank!"

"You didn’t ’barrel through,’ you detonated a ten-foot granite wall and landed in the middle of their hollow like an unguided siege shell!" Tasmin snapped.

"And it worked!" Brida shouted back. "It broke their formation!"

"It alerted three hundred monsters to our exact coordinates!"

"And they’re all dead, aren’t they?!"

"Only because I locked down their limbs before they tore your throat out!"

"Alright, peace!" Silas commanded, his voice cutting off the rising bickering once more.

He looked at the two of them, taking in the frayed edges of their gear, the dried venom clinging to their greaves, and the undeniable fact that despite the shouting, neither woman possessed a single serious wound.

A slow smile spread across Silas’s face. He stepped forward, reaching out and clapping a firm, warm hand on each of their shoulders.

"First of all," Silas said and his voice made both women’s breath hitch, "thank you. Both of you..."

Brida blinked, the cocky smirk vanishing from her face. Tasmin looked up, her amber eyes softening as the lingering anger melted into quiet vulnerable shock.

"Those shapeshifting abominations are one of the most dangerous threats in the Umbral Basin," Silas continued, his grip tightening reassuringly against their pauldrons. "A monster that can steal a face and mimic a voice is a cancer to a closed territory... The fact that you two located an entire territory of them and eradicated the entire population before they could launch a coordinated strike on our mining lines... that is a massive strategic victory for Blessed Land and you saved lives today... You protected your sisters too so I am proud of you."

A deep rosy flush crept up the back of Brida’s neck, the fierce woman suddenly finding the limestone floor fascinating.

Tasmin’s lips parted slightly, her chest swelling with a warmth so sweet and intoxicating it made her knees feel weak.

"However," Silas added, his tone sharpening slightly, "tell me about their combat capabilities. The reports from yesterday indicated they were primarily infiltration units... sight-and-sound mimics that lacked physical shadows but did they show anything else down there?"

Brida nodded eagerly, glad for the chance to deliver vital intelligence.

"They’re worse than we thought, my Lord," Brida explained, her expression turning grave. "The regular runts just wear stolen skin but the stronger ones... they aren’t limited to human disguises. When we cornered them, their flesh began to boil and expand. They transformed into massive, ten-foot armored dreadnoughts and quad-pedal beasts as they gained external bone carapaces, pressurized venom, and completely different anatomical structures."

"And the Alpha, I guess there was one?" Silas asked, his brows furrowing.

"That one was a nightmare," Tasmin took over, her mind engaging smoothly. "Initially, it manifested as a twelve-foot bipedal horror with four arms, wielding petrified drake-bone clubs and bone scythes... Brida and I coordinated a joint assault and severed all four of its limbs at the joints but instead of dying, it ascended to Tier 4 instantaneously."

"It turned into a colossal octopus," Brida said, waving her hands in wide circles to emphasize the scale. "I’m not joking, my Lord! Massive, twenty-foot rubbery tentacles lined with bone-suckers! It had an impenetrable mucus coating that absorbed impacts! My cleaver was practically bouncing off its hide! If Tasmin hadn’t channeled her chains to burn through the slime and cook its nervous system, we would have been in a brutal war of attrition."

Silas listened intently, mentally archiving every single detail into his strategic ledger.

’Genetic fluidity,’ Silas analyzed grimly. ’They aren’t just mimics, they possess unstable mutagenic cores from what I can see... If an Alpha can shift from a bipedal bruiser to an impact-absorbing cephalopod mid-combat to counter bladed weapons, what else is lurking in the deeper northern trenches? Other Tier 4 variants could be capable of adapting to elemental fire or holy mana on the fly.’

"Excellent work," Silas said aloud, nodding slowly. "That information is invaluable... We’ll adjust the guard rotations at the palisades and have Thora prepare special armor-piercing incendiary rounds for the ballistas."