Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chancellor Montmirail choked on his own saliva, frantically dabbing his mouth with a linen kerchief.

”That is unequivocally not what was implied—” the King began, his voice tightening with the faintest edge of sharp frost.

”Save the lecture,” Kara cut him off with a long theatrical sigh, waving her hand dismissively.

She slumped back into the plush leather of her chair, rolling her shoulder.

”Look, I’ll be honest with you,” Kara said. ”I actually enjoy the human world. I like the food... I like the iced pear cider... I like sleeping in real beds and watching pompous nobles turn purple when their bank accounts get dinged... I definitely have zero burning desire to pack my bags, abandon Earth, and run off to Asgard or the deep zones of the Sovereign Realm.”

She paused, her half-lidded eyes sharpening into two cold black daggers that locked dead-center onto the King’s face.

”However...” she drawled, her voice dropping a bit and ringing with the terrifying promise of total abandonment, ”...if you old fossils insist on playing petty little border games, setting seniority caps, and trying to choke Blessed Land with red tape, then I’ll just pack my things... I’ll take my core, take my assets, cross the void gate, and leave you all to figure out how to stop the next breach or whatever with your pretty parade uniforms and shiny rapiers... Let’s see how well your royal lineage holds the front lines when the sky cracks open and there isn’t a Gold Core standing between your cities and the dark.”

A cold suffocating dread swept through the room.

It was the ultimate trump card, the unassailable nightmare of the World Council.

They could manage ambitious lords and they could assassinate rogue Lords but a rogue Gold Core who simply decided to abandon the terrestrial sphere... leaving humanity completely defenseless against the extinction-level horrors lurking in the higher realms, especially at a time where the Suppression Engines were growing weaker was a catastrophe they had no protocol to handle.

’Just like Odin...’

The King remained silent for three long heartbeats.

His gaze drifted downward with his analytical mind searching for leverage.

Every human being had an anchor.

Every mortal had a thread that tied them to the earth... a family line, an ancestral estate, a lover, a child however Kara White had materialized from the void with no recorded family, no bloodline records, and no historical footprint.

Except for one person.

”You speak of departure with remarkable ease, Lord White,” the King said softly. ”Yet if you were to sever your ties with this realm and ascend entirely to the Sovereign Realm... what would become of my daughter?”

The question hung in the air like a poisoned dart.

Up in the mezzanine, Etilga’s eyebrows twitched.

”Are you truly prepared to abandon the First Princess?” the King asked. ”Or rather... Aki, as you so boldly chose to name her in defiance of royal decree? She is an Unawakened and her meridians are inert clay... The raw atmospheric mana of the Sovereign Realm would tear her cellular structure to ribbons within minutes of transport. If you walk away from Earth, you leave her behind, and in this court, without your presence, her life would become remarkably short and remarkably unpleasant.”

It was a blatant shameless threat of hostiles-in-waiting.

He was using his own flesh and blood, the daughter he had discarded, stripped of a name, and treated like ornamental garbage for twenty-five years, as a geopolitical hostage to hold Kara’s leash...

Every head of state held their breath.

’Checkmate,’ Vanderbilt thought with a sick vindictive smile threatening to crack his pinstriped facade. ’No matter how strong she is, she cannot bypass the physiological laws of the Great Threshold, it’s quite true, an Unawakened cannot enter the Sovereign Realm and even if they can, not for an extended period of time.’

Kara didn’t flinch as instead a slow grin spread across her lips.

”Leave her behind?” Kara chuckled. ”What in the seven hells makes you think I’d ever leave her behind?”

She leaned forward, tapping the celestial marble with her knuckle.

TOC! TOC!

”Open your eyes, Your Majesty,” Kara said, her dark eyes flashing with cold ridicule. ”Blessed Land has already forged technology that completely shattered your so-called universal laws... Aki had inert channels since her sixteenth birthday, right? The entire world declared her a useless broken vessel and yet barely an hour ago, she walked out into Sector Forty-Four wearing a pair of gloves I threw together in an afternoon, channeled multi-elemental magic through her and single-handedly wiped several nobles off the tournament map.”

She paused, letting the words sink like lead sinkers into their stomachs.

”If Blessed Land has already mastered the science of bypassing mana-saturation to let an Unawakened cast magic, what makes you arrogant fools think I haven’t already refined the technology to shield a regular human from the atmospheric pressure of the Sovereign Realm...?”

A chorus of sharp terrified intakes of breath whistled through the chamber.

King Zhao Xian’s eyes widened until the whites showed clearly while Sir Arthur Pendelton dropped his gaze to the table, his mind spinning into mathematical calculations.

’She can transport regular humans across the threshold?!’ Chancellor Montmirail thought, his hands shaking so violently his holographic ledgers flickered. ’If Blessed Land possesses atmospheric bio-containment conduits that can insulate fragile human cellular walls from the Sovereign Realm’s power... that means she doesn’t need Earth at all! She could relocate entire populations! She could establish a colony outside the World Council’s jurisdiction entirely!’

The staggering implication hit the King like a physical blow.

For the first time since the summit convened, the King’s throat subtly hitched.

A cold microscopic drop of sweat formed beneath the pristine royal-blue hair at the nape of his neck.

The leverage hadn’t merely evaporated, it had reversed too...

He was not holding Aki over Kara’s head, Kara was threatening to rob the throne of its ultimate prize while rendering the Council’s border defenses obsolete...

Kara watched the panic ripple through their ranks while being thoroughly satisfied.

’Idiots,’ Silas thought in the warm dark privacy of his soul. ’We haven’t even started any of that but they don’t know that. Bluffing high-born royals is practically free real estate...’

Kara gave a careless dismissive wave of her hand.

”Look, I’m a reasonable woman,” Kara drawled, leaning back with an easy sigh. ”I understand the World Council is slow and hopelessly out of touch with modern efficiency. It’s fine if you can’t fulfill every single item on my shopping list this very second. I won’t hold it against you... today. I can always come back and nag you about the luxury hotels and the commercial royalties later.”

Her tone sharpened, the laziness vanishing into crisp intent.

”However, there are certain foundational assets that must be settled right now... Today. Before I leave this Citadel...”

’I need to ensure the territory expands,’ Silas calculated with cold mechanical precision.

Blessed Land was safe for now, tucked behind its natural mountain barriers but a territory without a proper army was just a golden pig waiting for the slaughter.

If he was going to turn that mountain sanctuary into an impenetrable empire capable of defying both the World Council and the horrors of Sovereign Realm, he needed raw manpower and he needed more elite units.

He needed soldiers who wouldn’t question orders and heroes who could perform miracles.

’This is the World Council,’ Silas thought, almost shaking his head in disbelief. ’They’ve been hoarding the continental tribute of nine superpowers for centuries... How could they possibly have a shortage of summoning stock? What are these ancient fossils even using Hero Summoning Tickets for anyway, paperweights?!’

Kara raised her dark eyes, pinning the silent assembly to their seats.

”The Troop Summoning Tickets,” Kara demanded flatly. ”The Hero Summoning Tickets... The immunity and access to your private vault. Those are non-negotiable. Deliver them, or I walk.”

The silence stretched over the chamber for ten agonizing seconds as the King sat on his elevated throne, the Destruction mana around his hands completely withdrawn, replaced by a heavy suffocating defeat.

He swallowed.

The movement of his throat was tiny and imperceptible to the common delegates in the upper tiers, but to the monarchs seated around the Grand Table, it was a thunderous concession.

”The World Council...” the King spoke. ”...agrees to your essential terms.”

Kara’s face broke into a broad insufferable smile.

”Now was that so hard?” she laughed, giving the assembly a casual one-handed wave. ”See? We can all be civilized when we put our minds to it! I promise I’ll be a wonderful shining beacon of hope for humanity. A real hero... The kind they put on lunchboxes!”

She leaned forward, tapping her chin with her thumb with her expression turning into a mock scowl.

”Though, while we’re on the subject of etiquette... why in the seven hells did you people call that initial billion-credit money a ’bounty’?” Kara asked, her voice rich with petty grievance. ”A bounty is what you put on a horse thief or an escaped convict in the border... You weren’t hunting for my head, were you? I’m a distinguished guest! Calling it a bounty was remarkably rude.”

A vein pulsed violently on the King’s temple as he took a slow deep breath, willing his royal bloodline not to incinerate the table into ash.

”The Council apologizes for the administrative nomenclature,” the King managed to say with his words tasting like vinegar.

With a stiff sharp gesture of his right hand, the King swiped his finger across the glowing runic interface embedded into his royal armrest.

PING!

Kara’s sleek mobile phone, still resting on the celestial marble in its pastel-pink cartoon-kitten glory, let out a cheerful high-pitched chime.

Kara snatched the phone up with her thumb swiping across the screen as a glowing golden banner lit up her display.

[WORLD BANK PRIME VAULT: +10,000,000,000 SPIRIT CREDITS DEPOSITED.]

[SENDER: WORLD COUNCIL TREASURY.]

[CURRENT PRIME BALANCE: 50,000,000,000 SPIRIT CREDITS.]

Kara’s dark eyes drank in the numbers.

Fifty billion Spirit credits...

A nice round fifty billion sitting in an untraceable zero-limit black account backed by the highest monetary authority on Earth.

’Fifty billion...’ Silas thought with a small nostalgic chuckle echoing in the silence of his soul. ’Even with this astronomical mountain of digital gold, converted back into old-world currency, I’m still not quite as absurdly rich as Elon Musk was before I died... The man had hundreds of billions tied up in rockets.’

He gave an internal shrug.

’Well, there’s still plenty of time to grow but regardless, this is more liquid capital than a single human could spend in ten lifetimes. I am gloriously rich.’

Now, of course, came the practical complication.

How was he supposed to siphon twenty or thirty billion credits out of this World Bank executive account and route it into his actual personal account under the name of Silas, without alerting the Council’s intelligence hounds?

’Well, whatever,’ he decided, pocketing the pink phone with a satisfying click. ’I’ll just go meet Evelyn when I get back.’

Kara tapped the table again, looking up at the dais with bright greedy eyes.

”So,” Kara remarked, her voice dripping with casual entitlement, ”since we’re establishing such a wonderful working relationship... what about a small monthly sovereign allowance? Say, a modest billion credits every thirty days just to cover incidental expenses, high-grade snacks, and general administrative upkeep?”

”No.”

The King’s response was instantaneous.

”You have received fifty billion credits within the span of thirty minutes, Kara White,” the King stated, his oceanic eyes narrowing dangerously. ”The Council’s treasury is not an open tap for your personal luxuries... When you begin executing missions that actively defend the sovereignty of humanity, perhaps then we may revisit the prospect of operational stipends but until then, you will not receive another copper.”

Kara held up her hands in mock surrender, offering an easy careless shrug.

”Fair enough, fair enough,” she chuckled. ”A girl can try. Now... what about the immunity?”

The King folded his hands neatly over his lap.

”As the recognized Lord of Blessed Land, you are hereby granted full immunity within the political and administrative spheres of the terrestrial realm,” the King declared. ”You are recognized as an independent power under the direct sponsorship of the World Council and no regional magistrate or even a President may levy criminal charges or summon you for judicial arbitration.”

Kara raised an eyebrow. ”And Princess Aki?”

The atmosphere on the dais grew profoundly cold as the King’s jaw tightened, his oceanic eyes flickering toward the empty chair on the lower terrace.

”She is my daughter,” the King replied stiffly. ”She carries the blood of the Castellian line... She is a royal of the supreme house, and I will not tolerate any insolence or disrespect levied against her name.”

Around the Grand Table, nearly half the ministers and rulers had to physically bite their tongues to keep from letting out an audible mocking ’Pfft!’

It was a display of hypocrisy so breathtaking it bordered on comedy.

Barely two hours ago, this exact same King had watched in cold uncaring silence while Julian Vanderbilt Senior publicly degraded Aki as an unawakened cripple in the Grand Rotunda.

He had denied her a name, stripped her of her birthright, and blamed her for the death of the Queen for twenty-five years, and now, the second Blessed Land threw its immense weight behind her, he was suddenly acting the part of the fiercely protective patriarch defending the family honor.

Kara let out a quiet mocking snort through her nose, shaking her head.