Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!

Beside the masks were four hooded velvet cloaks dyed in pitch-black dye, intricately embroidered along the high collar and shoulders with a striking jagged silver crest depicting twin lightning bolts crossing over an anvil.

"Put these on," Harper instructed, tossing a mask and robe to Silas in the passenger seat and passing two sets to Seraphina and Reginald in the back. "Black-tier auctions like this one don’t care about your public identity, but the syndicates running the floor enforce visual anonymity to prevent direct clan retribution outside the venue."

Seraphina caught the crow mask, turning it over in her manicured hands with a deeply critical unimpressed scowl.

She held the mask up to her face, testing the fit.

"This apparatus is defective," Seraphina complained sharply, adjusting the silk ribbons behind her ears. "The bridge is loose, the perimeter lacks proper velvet padding, and the nasal curvature is excessively elongated and furthermore..."

Seraphina paused, looking through the tinted eyeholes into the rearview mirror with bewilderment.

"What is the logical purpose of wearing a disguise over my face," Seraphina questioned, her melodic voice dripping with incredulous sarcasm, "when my vibrant, cascading crimson hair... a physical hallmark possessed by precisely one noble lineage in the entire metropolitan district is exposed to every spectator in the room?!"

Harper’s hands froze on the steering wheel.

The sports coupe, which had just begun smoothly rolling down the driveway, came to an abrupt jerky halt.

Harper blinked.

She stared into the rearview mirror at Seraphina’s glaring reflection, her mouth opening and closing three times like a stranded fish as her brain frantically tried to process the obvious glaring flaw in her master plan.

An intensely awkward silence settled over the leather cabin.

Silas slowly turned his head toward Harper, his eyebrow raised to the absolute ceiling.

"Well, tactician? How does the LordTube guide handle crimson hair?"

Harper quickly cleared her throat, stomping on the accelerator pedal and violently launching the sports coupe forward onto the boulevard to cover her embarrassment.

"It’s for the aesthetics, alright?!" Harper shouted over the roar of the twin-turbo mana engine, her cheeks turning a bright, defensive pink. "It sets the mood! It builds tension! It makes us look like a terrifying shadowy syndicate squad! Just put the damn hood up over your hair, Seraphina!"

Seraphina sighed loudly, unfolding the heavy black cloak.

As the fabric fell open, her crimson eyes instantly locked onto the silver lightning-and-anvil crest embroidered across the breast.

"House Whitmore?" Seraphina read the glyph, her brow furrowing in sharp noble protest. "You expect an heiress of House Bloom to drape herself in the heraldry of House Whitmore?! Wearing another clan’s colors is an egregious violation of my ancestral pride!"

"It’s our corporate cover identity for the night, Princess!" Harper yelled through the mirror. "House Whitmore holds the official VIP box credentials! Wear the cloak or stay in the parking lot!"

Seraphina clicked her tongue in irritation, but recognizing the necessity of the cover, she aggressively pulled the black velvet robe over her phoenix-silk gown, aggressively yanking the deep hood down until every single strand of her vibrant red hair was completely concealed in darkness.

Reginald, ever the consummate professional, donned his cloak and mask without a word of complaint.

Silas slipped the black cloak over his broad shoulders, pulling the heavy fabric tight across his chest. He picked up the obsidian crow mask, securing the silk straps behind his dark hair.

’At least this is better than an Oni mask...’

The moment the mask settled against his face, the tinted crystal lenses hummed softly, automatically adjusting to his vision while casting his golden-ringed eyes in a shadowy ominous hue.

Combined with his imposing height and the dark flowing velvet duster beneath the cloak, Silas looked like a phantom stepping out of the abyssal void.

Harper glanced sideways at him, and her breath hitched softly in her throat.

’Holy hell...’ Harper thought, a sudden warm flutter racing through her chest. ’He looks hot in that mask.’

The sports coupe descended deep into the underbelly of Valoria City.

They bypassed the gleaming skyways and commercial boulevards, diving past the mid-tier transit rings and entering the sprawling fortified industrial foundations of the Outer Industrial Ward.

Here, the gleaming white marble of the upper city was entirely replaced by towering monoliths of reinforced dark-iron, colossal geothermal exhaust pipes hissing steam into the damp air, and massive automated blast doors.

Harper navigated the vehicle down an unmapped service tunnel that descended for nearly two kilometers beneath the bedrock.

’Why is it always underground...?’

Just like Shogitown too... did Valoria city have some sort of obsession with the underground?

At the end of the dark tunnel stood a fortified security checkpoint forged from solid adamantine plating.

Mounted along the reinforced bulkheads were four automated heavy-caliber mana-cannons glowing with charged azure energy.

Six elite, heavily armored mercenaries in unmarked black exosuits stood guard, holding high-power kinetic assault rifles equipped with suppression runes.

Harper slowed the vehicle to a halt, rolling down her window.

A tall mercenary commander with a scarred cybernetic eye stepped forward, raising a glowing sensor machine.

Without uttering a single word, Harper extended her hand, flashing a heavy, diamond-encrusted silver token bearing the crest of House Whitmore.

The mercenary tapped the token with his scanner.

BZZT-BEEP!

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

[IDENTITY VERIFIED: VIP SECTOR SECURED]

[CLEARANCE LEVEL: TIER-1 SOVEREIGN GUEST]

[WELCOME TO THE OBSIDIAN SANHEDRIN]

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

The mercenary stepped back, snapping a crisp respectful military salute.

He raised his hand, and with a deep groaning hydraulic rumble, the massive adamantine blast doors parted, revealing a sprawling lit pavilion beyond.

Harper accelerated through the threshold.

They pulled into a vast, private underground parking bay paved with polished black basalt.

Waiting at the base of the red carpet was a team of four impeccably dressed valets wearing matching crow masks and white silk gloves.

Harper brought the coupe to a smooth halt. The scissor-doors hissed open, and the four masked figures stepped out onto the basalt floor.

Silas adjusted his cloak, his sharp senses immediately expanding.

Even beneath the polished veneer of the valet bay, he could feel the overlapping mana signatures of high-tier Awakened Lords and hidden defense arrays humming within the thick stone walls.

This was The Obsidian Sanhedrin... the most notorious and exclusive black-tier auction house in the entire continental hemisphere.

A tall elderly head butler wearing a flawless black tailcoat, white gloves, and a polished silver crow mask stepped forward from the private elevator archway.

He bowed deeply, extending an arm toward the gilded lift.

"Welcome to The Obsidian Sanhedrin, honored delegates of House Whitmore," the butler spoke in a low magically altered baritone that masked his natural voice. "Your private suite has been fully prepared so please, allow me to escort you to the high tier."

Reginald, wearing his own crow mask and black cloak, stepped up beside Silas, maintaining his disciplined rigid posture as the group entered the private glass elevator.

The lift ascended silently, arriving at the highest VIP tier of the colossal amphitheater.

The butler led them down a private soundproofed corridor of black marble and gold trim, stopping before a set of towering double doors forged from lacquered dark-iron.

He tapped an authorization rune on the frame and the heavy doors swung smoothly open, revealing VIP Suite Seven.

The suite was vast, opulent, and breathtakingly luxurious.

The floor was paved with deep emerald quartz, covered in plush velvet rugs and furnished with massive, curved leather seating lounges, private banquet tables, and an expansive bar stocked with rare, glowing vintage mana-elixirs.

The entire front wall of the suite consisted of a colossal panoramic pane of enchanted, one-way transparent obsidian glass that looked out over the massive auction colosseum below.

From inside the suite, they had a crystal-clear, commanding view of the entire multi-tiered place yet from the outside, the glass appeared as a flat, impenetrable sheet of reflective black stone, completely concealing the occupants from the thousands of masked spectators gathered in the general admission floor below.

Reginald stopped precisely at the entrance of the suite. The veteran butler turned on his heel, folding his hands behind his back as he took up his guard post directly outside the threshold.

"I shall secure the exterior perimeter," Reginald stated with quiet professionalism. "Enjoy the proceedings."

"Thank you, Reginald," Seraphina replied, stepping into the suite.

The auction butler guided Silas, Harper, and Seraphina to the central leather lounge positioned directly before the observation glass.

Mounted on the low mahogany table in front of the lounge was an intricate, glowing console of polished brass and floating holographic glyphs.

"This is your dedicated bidding terminal," the butler explained smoothly, gesturing to the glowing interface. The array allows you to place bids of any magnitude using virtual credits... a purely numerical representation tethered to your registered identity in the auction. Should you successfully win a lot, the Sanhedrin will collect the full amount upon item delivery and failure to complete payment results in immediate termination of your bidding privileges and, depending on the severity, a retrieval team dispatched to your last known coordinates... All transmissions are encrypted through three independent Leyline relays to ensure bidder anonymity. "

He bowed low, stepping over to the banquet table.

"I have provided chilled celestial nectars and light seasonal delicacies for your comfort. The formal proceedings shall commence in precisely three minutes. Should you require further service, simply depress the silver chime on your armrest."

"That will be all. Dismissed," Harper commanded with crisp authority.

The butler bowed once more and backed out of the room, the heavy iron doors sealing shut behind him with a pressurized click.

Harper let out a long satisfied breath, pulling down the lower half of her crow mask to expose her radiant smiling lips.

She walked over to the observation glass, looking down at the bustling multi-tiered amphitheater below with glowing violet eyes.

’Finally...’ Harper thought, a fierce triumphant thrill coursing through her veins. ’We made it right on time.’

Harper hadn’t picked this auction out of a random hat.

Behind her playful exterior, Harper Whitmore was an elite Lord who had recently been appointed as the Executive Director overseeing the four primary Lord Association Building Facilities in Valoria City.

House Whitmore and the High Council of the other four were currently in the delicate, high-stakes process of acquiring a fifth major administrative bastion in the northern sector.

’We will get it...’

Two days ago, her private intelligence network had flagged an encrypted classified manifest... an ancient foreign artifact weapon, smuggled across the continental borders from the shattered ruins of the Western Empires, was scheduled to be auctioned off as the grand finale of tonight’s auction.

Securing that weapon wasn’t just a personal luxury... it was a massive strategic power play that would solidify her undisputed military authority over the new sector.

Harper turned her head, looking at Silas, who had just sat down in the center of the plush leather lounge, his broad frame leaning comfortably against the cushions as he adjusted his crow mask.

Harper’s lips curved into a soft and intensely affectionate smile.

She walked over, sliding onto the leather sofa right beside him, boldly wrapping both of her arms around his left bicep and leaning her head against his shoulder.

’And the best part,’ Harper thought with a happy conspiratorial flutter in her chest, ’is that my handsome hubby gets to sit here in total luxury, watch the highest-stakes show in the city, and buy whatever crazy rare materials he needs to upgrade that mysterious territory of his... It’s the ultimate win-win date!’

Beside them, Seraphina sat down on the right side of the lounge, her crimson eyes scanning the crowd below through her mask.

"The security wards in this facility are remarkably nice," Seraphina noted with her sharp senses picking up the latent magical arrays. "There are at least twelve suppression spells embedded within the ceiling architecture."

"Black-tier syndicates don’t take chances, Princess," Harper replied, resting her chin on Silas’s shoulder. "There’s too much money moving through one room."

Silas looked down through the one-way observation glass, taking in the grand spectacle of the subterranean arena.

The general floor below was packed with hundreds of masked figures seated in tiered rows of dark stone benches... wealthy merchants, rogue Lords, syndicate bosses, and foreign envoys, all draped in dark cloaks and identity-concealing visors.

Above them, circling the perimeter of the cavernous dome, hung forty private VIP suites identical to their own, their black-glass windows gleaming under the ambient light like the cold unblinking eyes of predators.

’An underground auction...’ Silas thought, a genuine electric spark of excitement igniting in his chest.

Back in his past life on Earth, he had read dozens of serialized cultivation and urban fantasy web novels featuring shadowy underground auction arcs where ancient treasures were unearthed and arrogant young masters threw fortunes around like pocket change.

But reading words on a glowing phone screen and actually sitting inside a real-world auction suite... surrounded by real mana-beasts, genuine spatial artifacts, and stakes were two different realms of reality.

The novelty of it made his blood pump with eager anticipation.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Three deep strikes of a heavy bronze bell echoed through the amphitheater, cutting straight through the murmurs of the crowd.

The lights across the general floor slowly dimmed, plunging the lower tiers into pitch-black shadow.

FWOOSH.

A massive blinding column of pure, white mana-light erupted from the center of the arena floor, illuminating a colossal circular stage forged from polished, blood-red obsidian.

Stepping into the center of the spotlight was the Chief Auctioneer of the Obsidian Sanhedrin.

The man was tall, slender, and immaculately dressed in a dark-crimson tailcoat trimmed with gold scales.

He wore an elaborate half-face porcelain mask depicting a laughing demon, his voice amplified by speakers that carried his booming voice directly into every corner of the colosseum.

"Honored Lords, sovereign delegates, esteemed syndicates, and distinguished guests of the shadows!" the auctioneer projected with grand sweeping gestures, bowing deeply to both the general floor and the elevated VIP suites. "Welcome to the grand midnight conclave of The Obsidian Sanhedrin!"

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