Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Silas looked around the chaotic dining room.

He looked at the accusing glare of his little sister, the terrified embarrassment of Penelope, the gossip-hungry eyes of Kaede, and the deeply judgmental hand signals of his own maid.

He let out a long exhausted sigh.

There was only one way to shut this entire circus down before it spiraled out of control.

Silas turned his head, locking his golden-ringed eyes directly onto Harper.

”Fine,” Silas told her bluntly with his deep voice easily cutting through the noise of the cheering girls. ”I will accept your date, okay? Just stop telling my sister about the Secret Realm stuff.”

Harper blinked.

Her jaw dropped slightly, and her glowing purple eyes widened in unexpected shock.

She stared at him as he calmly picked his fork back up and resumed eating his steak as though he were a mechanical machine, methodically taking down the massive mountain of food on his plate.

’I... uh...’ Harper thought frantically, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. ’I didn’t think it would happen this quickly!’

She had expected him to reject her, to push her away, or to cite his busy schedule as an excuse to delay.

The sudden unceremonious acceptance caught her off guard.

’Is he in a rush or something?’ Harper wondered, her brilliant strategic mind analyzing his rapid machine-like eating behavior.

He had mentioned out in the hallway that he had someone to meet this afternoon.

That specific detail suddenly made her intensely interested in exactly who this mystery person was.

Who was so important that Silas was trying to clear his schedule this rapidly?

But regardless of his hidden motives, she had won the primary battle.

Harper smiled, a genuine radiant expression of pure happiness illuminating her face.

”Thank you, Silas,” Harper said softly, her voice trembling slightly with excitement.

She leaned slightly closer to him. ”When should we go? I can clear my entire corporate schedule for the rest of the week.”

’A stalker like you has a schedule?’

Silas didn’t look up from his plate, slicing a piece of garlic bread.

”You decide on a time and text the details to my network number,” Silas instructed cleanly.

He didn’t tell her out loud, but his sensory perception was currently flaring.

He could feel a very familiar, distinctly nicotine-laced mana signature rapidly approaching the front of his apartment building.

Evelyn was finally here.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

The sharp heavy sound of knuckles rapping against the front door echoed down the hallway.

’That’s probably her,’ Silas thought, putting his fork down and wiping his mouth with a white napkin.

They needed to get to the Valoria City bank immediately to process the seventy-five million credit transfer, and then head over to the undercity to meet Evelyn’s information broker, Jax.

The faster he met with the underground contact and secured a bulletproof identity for Vespera, the faster the suffocating anxiety building in his chest would dissipate.

He couldn’t risk the World Council uncovering his deception.

Silas stood up from the oak table, pushing his chair back.

”If you girls have any more questions about the logistics project, ask Harper,” Silas told the study group. ”She actually runs a territory in the Known Zones I think.”

He looked over at the kitchen archway, intending to ask Martha to grab him a fresh clean shirt from his bedroom upstairs.

But his eyes fell on the dark trench coat resting on the back of his chair.

”Whatever...”

Silas grabbed the heavy coat and smoothly slid his muscular arms into the sleeves.

He pulled the lapels tight over his bare chest. Sure, the fabric smelled distinctly like Harper’s expensive lavender perfume but she smelled genuinely great, so he didn’t mind the scent in the slightest.

”Thanks for fixing the coat,” Silas complimented her casually, adjusting the reinforced collar around his neck. ”It feels sturdier than before.”

He turned and walked purposefully out of the dining room, heading straight for the front entrance.

Harper watched his broad shoulders disappear down the hallway with her heart fluttering wildly at the casual compliment.

She was captivated by his presence.

Silas reached the front door and pulled the heavy brass handle open.

Standing on the porch was Evelyn.

The Lord of The Unmovable Wall was wearing a fresh clean oversized black hoodie and dark cargo pants.

”Do you only wear hoodies?”

Her black hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and she looked thoroughly exhausted from the events of the day.

”No.”

She took a long deep drag from the slim silver cigarette resting between her lips.

FWOOSH.

Evelyn unceremoniously puffed a thick cloud of gray toxic smoke directly into Silas’s face as he opened the door.

”You live in a pretty nice place for a teenager,” Evelyn noted dryly, her dark eyes scanning the pristine exterior of the Silverleaf apartment complex.

Silas stepped out onto the porch, waving a hand to clear the toxic smoke away from his face.

He reached back and pulled the heavy front door firmly shut behind him.

”Stop smoking on my property,” Silas ordered cleanly. ”And thanks for the compliment, though you obviously can’t relate since you live in a rusty metal box.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed into a fierce irritated glare at the flawless roast.

”Fucker,” Evelyn cursed bluntly, flipping him off as she turned around and started walking down the porch steps.

Inside the apartment, just as the heavy wooden door was closing, Harper had rushed out into the hallway.

The purple-haired Lord blinked in surprise when she heard the distinct, voice of another woman interacting with Silas.

She quickly ran over to the front door, grabbing the handle and pulling it open just a crack to peer outside.

She looked through the narrow gap, watching Silas and the strange hoodie-wearing girl walking off toward the sidewalk together.

Harper desperately wanted to open the door fully.

She wanted to step out onto the porch, announce her presence with a flare of lightning, and demand to know exactly who this woman was.

However, just before they reached the end of the front walkway, Evelyn paused.

The black-haired Lord turned her head slightly, looking back over her shoulder directly at the cracked front door.

Evelyn’s dark eyes locked flawlessly onto Harper’s glowing purple ones hiding in the shadows.

Harper could swear, upon her life as a Lord, that she saw the strange woman’s lips twitch upward into an arrogant mocking smirk, as though she were playing a hilariously funny prank on a rival.

Then, Evelyn faced forward again, and the heavy front door swung completely shut.

Harper stood alone in the quiet hallway with her hands clenched into tight fists.

”Fuu...”

Her mind was racing a mile a minute.

It was painfully obvious that this mystery person was incredibly important to Silas, given how quickly he had left his own welcome-home meal to meet her.

But it didn’t seem like they were going on a romantic date, especially since Silas and Harper were supposed to be going on an official date very soon.

Harper let out a long conflicted sigh.

’That woman seems to be a massive smoking addict,’ Harper analyzed the brief encounter, remembering the thick cloud of gray smoke lingering on the porch.

Silas was a health-conscious Lord who relied on peak physical performance to survive.

From everything Harper had researched and observed about him, he definitely didn’t like women who poisoned their own bodies with terrible habits.

He preferred strength, vitality, and purity of core.

’It won’t work out between them,’ Harper thought, a fierce undeniable wave of possessiveness washing over her soul.

She unclenched her fists, her purple eyes glowing with the raw untamed power of a woman genuinely in love.

She had fought her own family, survived a god, and claimed a billionaire’s empire.

She wasn’t going to lose the man she loved to some random sleep-deprived girl in a dirty hoodie.

’At the end of the day, Silas belongs to me...’ Harper declared in her heart, sealing her own romantic resolve.

She turned around and walked back toward the kitchen archway. She offered Martha a bright impeccably polite smile.

”Excuse me, Martha,” Harper requested sweetly, her eyes gleaming with sudden strange intensity. ”Does Silas happen to have any more of his coats or shirts in his closet? I want to... see all of them.”

Martha stared at the beautiful billionaire CEO, clutching her white towel in deadpan disbelief.

’This woman is really, really weird,’ Martha thought, silently judging the elite class of Valoria City.

Silas and Evelyn walked silently down the pristine concrete sidewalk, leaving the manicured lawns of the Silverleaf apartment complex behind them.

The late afternoon sun was beginning to dip below the towering skyscrapers of Valoria City, casting long golden shadows across the quiet residential street.

The noise of distant traffic and passing transport shuttles filled the air which was a stark contrast to the magical silence of the Umbral Basin.

As they approached the main intersection, Evelyn’s dark eyes locked onto a vehicle parked illegally right against the curb.

It was a midnight-black luxury supercar.

The chassis was plated in refined mythril-alloy, the windows were tinted with privacy wards, and the tires hummed with subtle gravitational magic.

It was the exact gift that Elora had bought for Silas to secure his favor.

Evelyn stopped walking.

She stared at the breathtakingly expensive machine with her mind immediately calculating its market value.

”You really splurged a massive amount of money on a ride, didn’t you?” Evelyn noted, crossing her arms over her hoodie and looking at him skeptically.

Silas shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his dark trench coat.

”I wasn’t the one who bought it,” Silas corrected her smoothly. ”It was a gift from an associate.”

Evelyn tilted her head, her brilliant mind instantly connecting the dots.

She was a tactician so she could easily get a read on Silas’s operational methods.

She had just seen that beautiful incredibly wealthy woman back in the hallway... the infamous Harper Whitmore, the brand-new billionaire owner of four Lord Association Buildings.

And now, she was staring at an eight-million-credit supercar that Silas claimed was a ”gift.”

’He is exactly the kind of man that makes wealthy women spend fortunes on his stuff,’ Evelyn concluded in her mind, completely misinterpreting the situation.

In her eyes, Silas was ruthlessly exploiting that poor lovesick billionaire woman for her vast corporate wealth in order to fund his rapid territory expansion.

He had no formal backing, no noble family, and no corporate sponsors.

Seducing one of the richest heiresses in Valoria City was the perfect strategy to secure endless capital.

’As expected of this ruthless fucker,’ Evelyn thought, feeling a strange, twisted sense of professional respect for his audacious grift.

She stepped closer to him and aggressively elbowed him hard in the ribs.

”Smooth operator,” Evelyn muttered sarcastically, taking another long drag from her cigarette and puffing the smoke into the air.

”Hm?” Silas grunted, rubbing his side and looking down at her in complete confusion.

He had no idea what she was talking about or why she was suddenly praising him.

He let out a tired sigh, deciding not to question the complex inner workings of her nicotine-addled brain.

”So,” Silas asked, looking up and down the empty residential street. ”How exactly are we getting around the city today to meet your underground contact? Are we taking the supercar?”

Evelyn shook her head, flicking a bit of gray ash onto the pristine sidewalk.

”No,” Evelyn replied bluntly. ”We need to stay under the radar if we are going deep into the undercity to meet Jax. Driving an eight-million-credit mythril beacon is a terrible idea. It draws too much attention so I already called us a ride.”

Silas raised a skeptical eyebrow. ”You called a ride?”

Right on cue, a beat-up aggressively yellow, standard Valoria City public transit cab rattled around the street corner.

The combustion engine sputtered loudly, emitting a thick cloud of dark terrible-smelling exhaust as it screeched to a halt right in front of them.

The back door featured a massive, peeling advertisement for a cheap healing potion brand, and one of the hubcaps was entirely missing.

Silas stared at the depressing broken-down public cab.

He looked at Evelyn, who was standing there with her hands securely in her pockets, waiting for him to open the dented door.

”Pfft.”

A sharp laugh escaped Silas’s lips.

He tried to cover his mouth with his hand, but he couldn’t hold it back.

He began laughing out loud at the pathetic contrast between the luxury he had just left and the broke-Lord reality standing in front of him.

’And she’s a multi-millionaire too...’

Evelyn’s pale face instantly flushed a violent furious shade of crimson. Her dark eyes flared with rage at his mockery.

”I’ll kill you, fucker!” Evelyn screamed, throwing her cigarette onto the ground and lunging aggressively at him.