Chapter 665: Sign These Papers [Bonus Chapter]
Silas broke through the steam like a phantom and Seraphina met him head-on.
They collided in the center of the crater, and the ground gave up.
WHAM!
Her fist met his palm and the shockwave blew the steam apart in a perfect ring.
CRACK!
His elbow met her forearm.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Three more in a single blink as she hooked high and he slipped low.
’So fast and annoying... Let me win this already!’
She drove a knee at his ribs and he checked it with his shin.
"HUAAAA!"
She spat a lance of fire at his face as an explosion occured mid-air however Silas parted it with a sweep of wind with the flames splitting around his head and scorching the glass behind him black.
Every clash cracked the floor wider, and the cracks raced out to the walls and climbed them.
’More! More! MORE!’ Seraphina thought while laughing as her blood sang.
’She’s still speeding up...’ Silas thought, his jaw tightening. ’How is she still speeding up?!’
She caught his sleeve and yanked.
He went with it and hooked a leg around hers, and the two of them crashed to the floor and rolled with fire and water hissing between them, until he planted a foot in her stomach and kicked her off him like a stone from a catapult.
WHAM!
She hit the wall thirty yards out and the wall caved in around her shoulders.
"HAHAHAHA!" came a voice from the dust. "AGAIN!"
She came back at him with the rubble still falling off her.
’...’
She threw a vicious solar-infused uppercut meant to shear his jaw from his skull with her knuckles trailing a tail of silver lightning.
’...She’s like a masochist.’
Silas tilted his head back half an inch, felt the heat lick his eyelashes, and slipped his left forearm over her bicep.
Catch! Trap! Twist!
He deflected her arm upward, stepped deep into her stance with his right foot hooked behind her heel, and drove his right palm into her collarbone with a concussive burst of wind.
THUD!
The force rattled her teeth.
Her knees buckled, but the spirit state refused to let her fall as she turned the rebound into a spinning back-elbow with the flames along her arm flaring into a jagged blade of compressed plasma.
Silas dropped under the arc with his dark hair brushing her burning sleeve.
’I need to end this quickly...’
Sera was a good opponent but this heat was getting annoying and also, she was burning his pajamas and he liked them...
Silas brought his right fist up from his hip in a short devastating hook and caught her squarely in the side of the ribs which was the exact point where her spirit circulation looped through her core.
CRACK-BANG!
It sounded like a timber splintering under an axe.
"Guh—!"
The breath ripped out of her lungs as the silver-white runes along her ribs flickered like a dying lamp.
Her momentum stalled completely, and her vision narrowed to a pinprick of dark gray and Silas didn’t hesitate.
He finished the pivot with his left hand coming down like an iron guillotine toward the base of her neck.
In one last feral surge of pride, Seraphina gathered every remaining drop of the spirit’s unbound energy into her right palm and thrust it at his chest in a point-blank volcanic lance meant to trade blows at the cost of her own consciousness.
"DIE—!"
WHOOSH!
Before the lance could leave her hand, Silas was simply no longer there.
’Cyclone Slipstream!’
He moved faster than her perception could follow, creating an instant high-velocity displacement that left a swirling vacuum of cool air where his torso had been.
Her blast tore through empty space, soared into the basalt dome, and carved a smoking molten trench through the ceiling.
A fraction of a second later and a solid heavy palm pressed against the small of her back.
Tap!
It was a gentle pulse of soul magic, slipping between the seams of her active meridians and finding the place where her soul and the Primordial Spirit’s were fused together.
’Spirit Tap.’
SHATTER!
The silver-white flames covering her body snapped out like a blown candle.
Her starlit silver hair collapsed back into its natural unruly deep crimson and tumbled limp across her bare shoulders as the plasma in her eyes dissolved, leaving wide dazed red eyes that couldn’t find their focus.
The runes vanished from her skin, leaving only pale flushed porcelain covered in a light sheen of sweat.
Seraphina’s knees gave way.
She hit the shattered floor with a dull clumsy thud with her palms sliding against the cooling glass.
"...Huh?"
Her chest heaved in shallow gasps, and her fingers trembled as she tried to find purchase on the smooth stone.
The cavern fell into ringing silence as Silas stood two paces away with his hands resting easily at his sides with his violet pajama shirt stained with soot and steam, breathing slowly as if he had just finished an unhurried morning jog around the garden.
"He stopped it...?"
Seraphina stared down at her trembling hands.
The heat was gone... The tenfold multiplier was gone and her body felt heavier than lead as every muscle was aching with the dull hollow ache of spirit backlash.
She let out a long shuddering breath and let her head hang so her red hair hid her face.
"...I lost," she mumbled, the words tasting like copper and ash on her tongue. "Completely."
A loud piercing whistle shattered the quiet.
"YES! That’s what I’m talking about!" Harper cheered from the railing, leaning over the brass bar with a bright triumphant grin.
She pushed her glasses up with a sharp finger and tossed her long violet hair over her shoulder. "Did you see that footwork?! Silas, you dismantled her like a cheap grandfather clock! Absolutely immaculate!"
Beside her, Valerius let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for ten minutes with his shoulders dropping in relief.
He leaned against the railing, staring down at the ruined glass-slick crater with wide reverent golden eyes.
’Holy hell...’ Valerius thought, his hands still trembling slightly from the mana pressure that had leaked past the dampers. ’He didn’t even use the Gold Core’s true reserve... He took her down with basic water arts and wind against a tenfold spirit multiplier... I really need to learn that technique if I ever want to keep up with these monsters, even Harper has gotten noticeably sharper since the Secret Realm expedition... if I keep slacking off on father’s business, I’m going to be left so far behind I won’t even see their dust.’
He glanced at Harper, who was still grinning down at the pit, then shook his head with an appreciative chuckle.
"Remind me never to get on Silas’s bad side. He’d kill me..."
Down on the platform, Seraphina hadn’t moved.
She stayed on her hands and knees with her face burning hotter than her flames ever could.
Under the thin fabric of her clothes, a different and mortifying sensation was registering through her dazed nerves.
’I’m... I’m completely soaked,’ she realized, her jaw clenching as a hot shameful shiver ran up her spine.
It wasn’t just the residual steam from Silas’s water arts clinging to her skin.
Her core felt molten, and her thighs trembled with a heavy ache that made her cheeks burn like live coals.
’Perhaps... this is the difference between Mother and me,’ the thought wandered through her scattered mind which was already half-delirious from exhaustion.
According to everything Etilga had drilled into her during the clan’s private matriarchal lectures, a true daughter of House Bloom was meant to dominate.
Her mother reveled in looking down on men, breaking their pride across negotiation tables, and keeping consorts on short leash-length lines of deference.
Etilga commanded the room, commanded the clan, and commanded the bed too.
Seraphina, on the other hand...
She liked this.
She liked the overwhelming certainty of a man who could look at her apex flames, casually step inside her reach, and fold her pride over his knee without raising his voice.
Having him stand over her looking victorious and unmovable... it made her feel deliciously... shamefully weak.
’It makes me completely degenerate,’ she thought, burying her burning face in her hands with her shoulders shaking slightly. ’I’m a total pervert... but gods, it feels good.’
Before she could finish wallowing in her own scandalous thoughts, a shadow fell over her.
Silas walked up, paused, and bent at the waist.
Without a word of warning or a single request for permission, he slid his right arm beneath her knees and his left arm behind her back and scooped her off the shattered granite in a smooth effortless princess carry.
"W-What—?!" Seraphina gasped, her arms flying up to knot around his neck.
"You’re done for the morning," Silas said, turning toward the perimeter exit with an easy, unbothered stride. "The spirit backlash is going to lock your meridians in five minutes so I’m taking you outside before you pass out on the rubble."
Seraphina’s mouth opened and closed like a stranded carp.
Her face was pressed against the curve of his collarbone with the scent of rainwater filling her nose.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to sink into the fabric of his shirt to hide how red she was, then Silas’s left hand shifted with his fingers adjusting their grip beneath her lower back and thighs.
His brow furrowed.
He paused mid-step and looked down at her with a remarkably puzzled expression.
"Hey, Sera," Silas asked curiously. "Did you... pee yourself or something? Your shorts are completely soaked."
The artificial cavern seemed to freeze solid.
Seraphina’s eyes snapped open. Her pupils shook with an mix of mortification and violent panic.
"I DID NOT PEE MYSELF, YOU OBTUSE, INSENSITIVE BRUTE!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.
Her fists flew out, raining furious smacks against his chest, his shoulder and the side of his face.
Smack! Thwack! Pat!
There was zero mana behind them.
Silas burst out laughing and leaned his head back to dodge the wild fists as he kept walking.
They didn’t hurt in the slightest... After the iron-splitting solar hooks she’d been throwing two minutes ago, this felt like being pelted with wet cotton balls.
"Alright, alright! Calm down!" Silas chuckled, shaking his head. "I was just asking! You don’t have to break my jaw over it!"
"DIE! DROWN IN A DITCH AND DIE!" she wailed, burying her face into his pajama collar again, though her arms refused to loosen their iron grip around his neck.
They reached the perimeter platform where Harper and Valerius were waiting by the archway.
Harper leaned against the railing with her arms crossed, looking down at Seraphina with a smug satisfied smirk that radiated petty triumph.
"Well, well," Harper purred, her violet eyes gleaming with mocking delight. "Look who got her teeth handed to her before breakfast was even digested... Congratulations, Silas. It’s always a public service when someone reminds the Bloom clan that shouting loudly doesn’t substitute for actual skill, Weak!"
Seraphina’s head whipped around with her red hair flying wild.
Even carried like a sack of flour, her pride flared like an open gas line.
"Who are you calling weak, you oversized corporate vulture?!" Seraphina snarled.
Without warning, she snapped her right foot out in a vicious spiteful kick aimed squarely at Harper’s smug face but Harper didn’t even flinch.
With the effortless grace of someone who had seen the childish retaliation coming five seconds in advance, she simply tilted her upper body three inches to the left.
The kick whistled through empty air and stirred a lock of Harper’s violet hair.
Harper’s smirk only widened.
"Missed... How typical."
"Agh! Let me down! Silas, put me down right now so I can strangle her!" Seraphina complained, squirming in his arms like a petulant toddler and kicking her legs at the air. "She’s insufferable! She’s a menace to society!"
"Stop moving before I drop you on your head," Silas grunted, tightening his grip around her waist as he stepped past Harper toward the shimmering gray mist of the archway.
Valerius followed close behind, laughing under his breath.
As they crossed the threshold back into the warmth of Silas’s living room, he reached out and tapped the silver runes along the arch’s frame.
With a series of sharp pressurized hisses, the obsidian archway folded inward, collapsing like an origami box until the matte-black cube clicked shut on the hardwood.
Valerius scooped it up with one hand, tossed it lightly in the air, and slid it back into the interior pocket of his charcoal vest.
"Man," Valerius sighed, running a hand through his slightly charred golden hair. "Remind me to charge my old man double for the stress-testing data... That was wild."
Silas walked over to the leather sectional, turned around, and deposited Seraphina onto the cushions.
"Oof," she grunted as she sank into the deep leather, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her oversized white sleeves around her shins.
She looked thoroughly rumpled with her red hair a tangled mess, but the arrogant satisfied curve of her lips was slowly returning now that she was off the cold stone.
Silas collapsed into the armchair across from her and let his head fall back against the headrest.
He took a long deep breath through his nose and let his shoulders drop completely.
"Alright," he said, opening one eye and looking straight at her with a slow teasing smirk. "I won... Decisively, if I recall... Where’s my reward?"
Seraphina’s posture went rigid.
The pale length of her throat flushed bright pink again. She tugged the oversized cuffs of her shirt down over her knuckles and avoided his eyes as she shifted against the cushions.
"I... I haven’t finalized the exact details yet," she stammered with her voice dropping to a quietembarrassed mumble. "A reward of that caliber requires proper aristocratic preparation... You can’t just demand it on the spot like a street urchin."
"Right," Silas chuckled, rolling his eyes. "Classic stall tactic."
"I am not stalling!" Seraphina fired back, her chin snapping up.
She reached into her spatial inventory.
Fwip!
With a crisp flick of her wrist, she pulled out a thick sheaf of parchment bound with a dark crimson silk ribbon and sealed with the wax crest of House Bloom, a blooming lotus entwined with twin curved daggers.
She leaned across the low table and thrust the parchment into his chest.
"Sign it," she commanded, trying desperately to sound authoritative.
Silas took the heavy papers and glanced at the ornate calligraphy stamped across the cover.
His eyebrows climbed toward his hairline.
"These are..." Silas slowly turned the first page, his blue eyes scanning the dense legal clauses, the mutual property annexes, and the ancestral seal at the bottom. "...the formal engagement registries for House Bloom? The papers that officially make me your betrothed consort?"