The Golden Lord Has A Perverted Sss Rank Summoning System Chapter 388

[ … words ]

“Is this really necessary?”

A sweet, soft voice echoed through the bathroom, carrying a silent weight that reached far beyond the words themselves.

The owner of that voice was a woman whose face bore the faint marks of time, though no amount of aging could veil her beauty and sensuality.

A third-stage mage, one hundred and seventy years old, she was no longer so far from the end of her long life.

At that very moment, she found herself in a spacious, luxurious bathroom, refined yet far from the opulent extravagance seen in the chambers of the Fallen Emperor God’s palace in Goldenveil.

Candles all around cast a flickering amber light over the hot water, and steam rose slowly like a drifting veil.

Dressed in an elegant, conservative gown, she knelt beside the bathtub, washing the back of a man whose bearing was firm and dignified, a soft cloth gliding between her fingers.

That man was Lord Fallenwinter, Zael Fallenwinter.

And the woman running the cloth over his powerful back—marked by terrible scars from decades of war—was his wife, Maene Fallenwinter.

“You’ve seen those people, and you’ve met my father… You know we can’t entrust the protection of these lands to anyone else… enough with the tyrants. Isn’t that why we came here?”

Zael slowly turned his noble face, his eyes settling on his wife’s beautiful features.

“I’ve read the reports about that young man. He seems to be just like you, Zael. Someone who loves his people and truly wants to protect them.”

“And how long will he stay that way?” His voice hardened. “My father also loved our people… look what he did. Look at all the pain, all the death…”

Bitterness filled Zael’s face, and with it came a silent rage.

A rage that was not directed at his father, nor at Ethan.

It was rage at himself.

“The young man must die. Even the greenskins are stirring, shouting about prophecies from the god of war to exterminate him. If even the gods want him dead, he can only be an omen of destruction!”

Zael rose from the bathtub in a single motion, water cascading down his powerful body, tracing every scar carved into him by past battles.

“Only we can protect our people. Only my blade—our blade—can stop those damned tyrants from making them suffer!” he declared forcefully, his eyes locking onto his wife’s face.

She wore a bitter, pained expression, her lips trembling faintly.

“With each passing day, you look more and more like your father.”

The beautiful woman rose slowly, paying no heed to how deeply those words struck Zael.

She turned her back on him and walked toward the bathroom door, hiding the pain on her face and the tears in her eyes with all the strength she had left.

She crossed the room in silence, moving down the mansion’s cold corridors, and upon reaching her meditation room, locked herself inside. Leaning against the door, she breathed heavily.

It was painful to see her husband like this.

He was changing, and she was terrified.

Zael, for his part, stood motionless for a long moment, water dripping from his dark hair, until at last a voice broke through from outside the room.

“Lord Zael! We’ve received confirmation: Count Ethan has left Goldenveil with ten thousand soldiers! He appears to be marching directly toward us!”

The soldier pounded on the door, urgency pouring from every word.

Zael clenched his teeth, pushing his wife’s words to the back of his mind.

He couldn’t surrender without a fight. He couldn’t hand over the protection of his people to some arrogant brat.

With a wave of his hand, his armor emerged from the spatial ring, enveloping his body in steel and leather in an instant, each piece locking into place with perfect precision.

He strode out of the bathroom with heavy steps, the metal creaking under his weight as his fourth-stage aura exploded down the hallway, making the torches on the walls tremble in their brackets.

It was time for war.

The Eternal Forest was a region of free peoples, and he would secure that freedom through fire and blood, no matter how bitter the battle might prove.

While the allied forces were preparing in Fallenwinter, a few dozen kilometers away, a veritable orc horde had gathered.

More than thirty thousand individuals stood ready for battle, assembled under the leadership of a powerful fourth-stage orc shaman.

Normally, groups like that would hardly ever unite, especially since this one brought together orcs, goblins, kobolds, and even trolls under a single banner.

With so many aggressive and diverse races side by side, one would naturally expect endless conflict, and yet there they were, perfectly united.

More than twenty green-skinned tribes—essentially all the small tribes scattered throughout Goldenveil County—had now merged into one, forming the largest green-skinned tribe in the region, with a total of forty thousand members, including the females kept for breeding.

All these tribes had submitted to the Shaman, surrendering not only their weapons and manpower for war but also their food reserves.

In the center of the enormous camp, more than twenty thousand humans, elves, and dwarves were crammed together as a food reserve for the winter, their muffled moans and the bitter stench of fear hanging heavily in the air.

At that moment, still early in the morning, the green-skinned ones were beginning to wake.

The goblins had taken advantage of the orcs’ and trolls’ deep sleep to steal some food during the night, and now they prowled among the tents with full, satisfied bellies.

That was a necessity for them, since, as the weakest, they were also the primary targets of bullying and received little food.

The orcs couldn’t care less about the little thieves, focused entirely on sharpening their weapons and preparing for war.

“M-maaster… S-shouldn’t we kill the hoomans now? Soldiers impatient… soldiers want blood!”

A third-stage orc entered the Shaman’s tent, crouching under the low entrance, his hoarse, cold voice scraping against the thick air inside.

An orc of that level was already quite intelligent, though he still struggled somewhat to articulate his words, as if his tongue were too big for his mouth.

The orc shaman—hunchbacked and skeletal, wrapped in a brown robe stained with dried blood, with eyes as red as embers and leaning on a twisted mage’s staff—did not respond immediately.

His gaze remained fixed on the center of the tent, where a fire burned ceaselessly, the flames dancing in strange colors—now bluish, now greenish.

He watched the flames shift slightly, and his lips curled upward, baring rotten teeth and bloody gums in a smile that looked more like an open wound carved across his face.