Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Chapter 392: Game Date [II / Bonus Chapter]

Harper’s violet eyes narrowed into sharp dangerous slits. "Watch how a real woman handles a live swarm, Princess."

Harper swiped her card and marched into the dome.

The moment the countdown ended, Harper did not employ delicate elegant palm strikes.

She treated the whole thing like a high-voltage close-quarters street brawl.

She spun into low sweeps to let blue orbs sail over her head, threw explosive spinning heel kicks that obliterated red orbs with sharp cracks, and aggressively snatched green orbs out of the air with violent lightning-fast claw grips.

Her sneakers squeaked furiously against the floor as she chained together massive combo streaks, her athletic frame moving with raw explosive power.

DING-DING-DING!

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[ROUND COMPLETE]

SCORE: 4,820 - MASTER VANGUARD

ACCURACY: 97.9%

=========================================

The dome hissed open as Harper stepped out, wiping a drop of sweat from her brow.

"Thirty points short!" Seraphina gloated instantly, crossing her arms beneath her bust and raising her chin in victory. "The superiority of House Bloom’s cognitive reflexes remains absolute and undisputed!"

"You got a lucky spawn pattern on the green orbs!" Harper snapped back, her competitive pride boiling over. "Silas! Get in there and humble this arrogant red-haired peacock! And you there, make it maximum!"

Silas let out a faint sigh, swiping his card at the terminal and stepping into the center of the glass sphere.

The attendant tapped her screen.

"Initiating maximum threshold calibration for Sir Silas..."

BEEP-BEEP-GO!

The machine engaged at maximum tier immediately.

Over fifty light-orbs erupted from the walls simultaneously, converging on Silas from every conceivable angle at terrifying velocities.

Yet, the moment the orbs launched, Silas’s perception engaged.

He didn’t even need to use Rip-Current perception, the high-speed photon orbs did not look fast at all.

In fact, compared to tracking the claw strikes of beasts in the Umbral Basin, the glowing orbs looked like they were drifting lazily through thick molasses.

Silas didn’t jump around. He didn’t break into an athletic sweat, and he certainly didn’t perform theatrical martial arts katas.

He planted his feet in the dead center of the platform and barely shifted his weight.

His large hands blurred in microscopic hyper-efficient movements... casually swatting red orbs with the back of his knuckles, tilting his head half an inch to let blue orbs whistle past his ears, and plucking green orbs out of the air with the bored effortless precision of a man catching falling autumn leaves.

DING-DING-DING-DING!

The machine chimed in a frantic unbroken sequence of perfect scores.

=========================================

[PERFECT CLEAR: ZERO FAULTS]

SCORE: 5,000 - MAXIMUM THRESHOLD CAP

ACCURACY: 100.0%

=========================================

CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK!

Another massive overflowing mountain of golden tickets began spewing from the collection tray, burying Silas’s boots once again.

’Haah... again? What are these tickets even for at this point?’

Harper and Seraphina both stared through the glass dome in utter, paralyzed silence.

Silas pushed the door open, stepping out into the aisle and casually rubbing the back of his neck. He looked at the attendant with a puzzled frown.

"Is this machine experiencing input lag?" Silas asked genuinely. "The projection speed felt kind of slow."

The female attendant stared at him with wide, unblinking eyes, her hands trembling as she clutched her tracking pad.

"S-Slow...? My Lord... you just achieved a perfect score on the military calibration speed..."

"Oh," Silas muttered, looking away. "Never mind, then."

Determined to find a game that Silas couldn’t instantly conquer through superiority, Harper dragged the group across the third floor toward the Sovereign Claw Pavilion.

The entire sector was lined with colossal two-story-tall transparent prize vaults constructed from reinforced mana-glass.

Inside rested mountains of giant enchanted plush rift beasts, rare core elixirs in velvet cases, and limited-edition holographic Lord figurines.

Standing beside the primary vault was a young floor attendant wearing white gloves and a gold-trimmed visor.

"Welcome to the Grand Master Crane Vault," the attendant bowed. "Our mechanical gantries utilize multi-axis hydraulic winches... The prizes within are authentic and high-grade. Test your alignment and claim your prize."

Harper stepped forward, pointing an eager finger toward the center of the vault.

Resting at the very top of a massive pile of toys was a colossal, five-foot-tall plush Shadow-Panther crafted from midnight-black velvet, featuring glowing ruby eyes and wearing an intricately stitched, miniature golden crown.

"The ultimate test of precision and patience," Harper declared, crossing her arms with a challenging grin. "I’ve tried to win that exact crowned panther three times this month. The crane’s hydraulic grip strength is completely rigged to drop anything over ten pounds the second it lifts off the pile..."

Seraphina marched straight up to the control console, swiping her card with absolute noble confidence.

"A mere mechanical crane cannot resist calculated alignment," Seraphina stated haughtily. "Watch closely."

Seraphina gripped the joystick with intense focus.

She nudged the controls, maneuvering the giant, four-pronged steel claw across the top of the vault until it hovered precisely over the plush panther’s torso.

She lined it up to the exact millimeter, took a breath, and slammed the glowing drop button.

The heavy claw descended smoothly, opened wide, and clamped firmly around the panther’s midsection.

"Hah!"

The cables tightened, lifting the massive five-foot beast three feet into the air.

Seraphina’s crimson eyes widened with triumphant excitement—

CLICK-FLUMP!

Right at the apex of the lift, the mechanical claw gave a violent deliberate shudder.

The hydraulic fingers loosened by an inch, and the heavy plush panther slipped free, tumbling back onto the pile with a soft, mocking thud.

"WHAT?!" Seraphina gasped in outrage.

She slammed both of her hands against the reinforced glass of the machine, her face flushing with pure fury.

"It intentionally disengaged its hydraulic pressure at the peak of the ascent!" Seraphina shrieked, pointing an accusatory finger at the terrified attendant. "This apparatus is a fraudulent criminal enterprise designed to swindle noble patrons! I demand an immediate judicial audit of this machine’s internal mechanisms!"

"M-My Lady, the crane’s grip variance is part of the challenge parameters—" the attendant stammered, raising his hands defensively.

"Let me show you how it’s done, Princess!" Harper laughed, shoving Seraphina aside and swiping her card.

Harper gripped the joystick, carefully guiding the crane over the plush panther.

Instead of aiming for the body, she attempted to hook one of the steel prongs directly beneath the panther’s golden crown.

The claw dropped, clamped, and began hauling the toy upward by its head.

But as the crane swung across the track, the momentum caused the claw to tilt, the smooth fabric of the crown slipped free, and the panther crashed back onto the pile once again.

"Dammit!" Harper groaned loudly, kicking the base of the machine with the toe of her sneaker. "I swear the operator in the back room is manually pressing a sabotage button!"

Silas stepped up to the console, pulling his card from his pocket and swiping it through the slot.

He didn’t aim for the panther’s center of mass, nor did he attempt to hook the crown.

Silas’s sharp eyes tracked the weight distribution of the entire prize pile.

’It seems the ones in the lower sectors and here are the same...’

He noticed that the shadow-panther’s heavy rear paw was lightly wedged beneath a smaller, three-foot plush bear sitting near the edge of the downward drop chute.

Silas deftly guided the joystick, ignoring the panther entirely. He positioned the claw directly over the smaller bear, aligned the winch, and pressed the drop button.

The claw descended, clamped securely around the lightweight bear, and hoisted it effortlessly into the air.

As the crane swung toward the chute, the sudden removal of the bear’s weight disrupted the balance of the pile.

The massive five-foot shadow-panther shifted, lost its footing, and rolled down the smooth velvet incline... tumbling straight into the wide open drop chute.

CHUNK-FLUMP!

The massive soft plush panther dropped out of the retrieval door at the bottom of the machine, landing squarely at Silas’s feet with its golden crown resting proudly on its head.

Silas bent down, scooping the colossal plush beast into his arms.

He turned around, holding the massive fluffy panther under one arm. He looked between the two stunned women, paused for a brief second, and then extended the giant toy directly toward Seraphina.

"Here," Silas said casually, his tone calm and unbothered. "You looked like you wanted it."

Seraphina froze.

Her crimson eyes widened into massive trembling saucers as she stared at the giant plush panther being offered to her.

Her breath hitched in her throat.

Her heart did a violent, erratic somersault against her ribs. The realization that Silas had just won the prize specifically to hand it to her completely shattered her noble defenses...

A nuclear radiant crimson blush exploded across her porcelain cheeks, rushing up to the tips of her delicate ears and down her slender neck.

She tentatively reached out, wrapping both of her slender arms around the massive, incredibly fluffy panther, pulling it tightly against her chest.

She buried her burning face into the soft black fur, inhaling the sweet clean scent of the fabric as her voice came out in a tiny overwhelmingly shy squeak.

"Silas..." Seraphina whispered, her melodic voice completely trembling with joy. "I... I shall treasure this ancestral tribute forever... It shall occupy the prime position upon my bed..."

Beside them, Harper’s jaw dropped in pure, incandescent jealousy.

"HEY!" Harper whined loudly, stomping her foot on the tiles like a petulant child whose dessert had just been stolen. "Where’s mine?! Silas, that’s blatant favoritism! Win me one too! Win me the giant electric fox right now or I’m going to cause a scene!"

Silas let out a quiet, amused chuckle.

He stepped back up to the console, swiped his card once more, and within forty-five seconds of calculated maneuvering, easily fished a giant, four-foot plush lightning fox from the secondary vault, dropping it straight into Harper’s eager arms.

Harper instantly beamed, hugging the fluffy yellow fox tightly against her chest, her cheeks flushed with a bright ridiculously happy pink glow.

"Alright," Harper declared twenty minutes later, having safely deposited their massive plushies into a secure VIP storage locker near the concourse.

Her violet eyes flashed with ultimate, high-stakes determination as she adjusted her jacket. "This is the true main event of Phase Four... The pinnacle of The Grand Nexus."

She led them to the heavily fortified, soundproofed fourth floor of the pavilion.

The floor opened into a vast circular amphitheater constructed from polished black basalt and illuminated by soft pulsing azure runic lines.

Resting in the center of the hall were three massive, egg-shaped Hyper-Immersive VR Sensory Pods.

The pods were forged from sleek obsidian alloy and reinforced silver conduits, their transparent canopies glowing with complex telemetry.

Standing beside the main console was a senior VR technician in a starched white lab coat, flanked by two assistants holding diagnostic clipboards.

The technician bowed respectfully as the three Lords approached.

"Welcome to Project... Dead Horizon," the lead technician introduced with a formal tone. "Our full-dive neural synchronization pods will perform a comprehensive biometric scan of your physical physiology and project your exact capabilities into a hyper-realistic and post-apocalyptic urban combat simulation... In this scenario, your elemental mana cores are suppressed... you will operate as elite black-ops operatives utilizing firearms and weaponry to survive waves of mutated undead. Pain receptors are calibrated to a standard five-percent feedback threshold for authentic feedback though nothing higher."

"A virtual war simulation?" Seraphina asked, her brow furrowing with refined curiosity as she examined the glowing pod. "Utilizing projectile combustion firearms rather than elemental spellcraft?"

"It’s pure gunplay, tactical positioning, and squad survival, Princess," Harper smirked, stepping up to the first open pod. "Let’s see how well your proud noble bloodline holds up when a hundred mutated corpses are sprinting down your throat in the dark..."

"House Bloom does not falter under pressure, regardless of the weaponry," Seraphina countered coldly, stepping gracefully into the second pod. "I will achieve the highest kill count in this engagement."

Silas climbed into the third pod, leaning his broad frame back against the ergonomic gel cushions.

HUMMMMM!

The heavy pressurized glass canopies of all three pods smoothly lowered, sealing shut with a pressurized mechanical hiss.

=====================================================

[SYSTEM INITIATING: FULL-DIVE NEURAL SYNCHRONIZATION]

[BIOMETRIC SCAN IN PROGRESS...]

[SCANNING SKELETAL STRUCTURE... 100%]

[SCANNING MUSCLE DENSITY... 100%]

[SCANNING SECONDARY PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS... 100%]

[CALIBRATING LOADOUTS...]

[ENTERING SERVER: LEVEL 1 - SECTOR ZERO OUTSKIRTS]

=====================================================

FLASH!

Silas opened his eyes.

The transition was instantaneous and utterly seamless.

The hum of the arcade pavilion was entirely gone, replaced by the choking stench of burning asphalt, rain-soaked concrete, and rotting organic decay.

They were standing in the middle of a shattered rain-slicked city intersection.

Crumbling skyscrapers towered into dark, storm-heavy skies, broken glass littered the streets, and overturned emergency vehicles burned with flickering orange flames.

Rain poured down in heavy, atmospheric sheets, drumming rhythmically against the ruined asphalt.

Silas looked down at himself.

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