The Tier 3 monster had been completely split entirely in half from the crotch directly to the top of its head in a singular unstoppable upward slash.

The two massive symmetrical halves of the monster completely fell away from each other, crashing heavily into the mud with a deafening sound.

THUD!

Black blood and viscera spilled violently across the clearing as Silas slowly lowered his glowing sword.

He walked casually over to the severed, right half of the monster’s massive head lying in the dirt and he looked down at the dead glazed crimson eye.

’Fucking pathetic... but I guess it’s more pathetic that I almost lost Tasmin over this whole thing.’ Silas thought, he had been holding off but it was about time he started using Upgrade Points to up the ranks of the girls. ’So they can have some variety in moves.’

Silas leaned forward and disrespectfully spat directly onto the monster’s severed face.

It was a cold display of dominance as he had completely avenged his captain.

The Vanguard girls stared in staggering awe.

The overwhelming power of their Sovereign casually one-shotting a Tier 3 monster was terrifyingly magnificent.

"My Lord!" Tasmin shouted excitedly from the back of the formation, running forward through the mud.

Silas turned around, expecting a deeply grateful hug from his woman; however Tasmin stopped a few feet away, looking down at the two halves of the massive, obsidian-skinned Orc lying in the mud.

She frowned slightly as her dark eyes narrowed in genuine confusion.

"That was an incredible strike, my Lord!" Tasmin praised loudly.

She paused, scratching the back of her head.

"But... that wasn’t the one."

Silas froze.

His brain stalled as he looked at Tasmin.

He looked back down at the massive twelve-foot-tall, mythril-plated, obsidian-skinned Tier 3 Orc he had just violently cleaved in half.

"What do you mean, that wasn’t the one?" Silas asked with his voice sounding flat. "You described a massive obsidian-skinned Orc with mythril plating wielding an iron pillar."

"Yes," Tasmin agreed, pointing her dagger at the corpse. "But the one that broke my spine had a massive durning gash straight through its left eye... I blinded it with my flaming dagger."

Silas looked down at the severed head.

Both of its massive crimson eyes were completely intact.

There were no burn marks.

The realization hit Silas like a physical, highly kinetic blow to the chest.

’If this massive, heavily armored, twelve-foot-tall Tier 3 behemoth wasn’t the actual Boss...’ Silas thought with a sigh. ’Then what the hell did I just kill?’

"O-oh..." Silas muttered out loud.

The blood-soaked clearing outside the cavern entrance was finally growing quiet.

The deafening high-frequency mechanical ringing from Thora’s specialized sonic-aggro grenade had finally faded into a dull echo, completely running out of internal mana.

The massive horde of Corrupted Orcs and Umbral Wolves that had poured out of the depths had been entirely reduced to a sprawling carpet of butchered burning meat.

There were no more monsters rushing out of the pitch-black maw of the cave.

Tasmin was currently finishing the job.

She stood over a massive armored Tier 2 Orc that was desperately trying to crawl back toward the safety of the tunnel with its legs entirely paralyzed by a gravity crush from Rowena.

Tasmin didn’t waste any energy.

She smoothly stepped onto the center of the monster’s broad, mythril-plated back, pinning it to the mud.

With a sharp fluid flick of her wrist, she drove her dark iron dagger directly into the narrow, unarmored gap at the base of the Orc’s thick neck.

SQUELCH!

The super-heated dark crimson tip of the blade effortlessly severed the brain stem.

The massive monster instantly went limp with its corrupted yellow eyes rolling completely back into its skull.

Tasmin retracted her chain, the burning flames instantly extinguishing as she cut the mana flow.

She wiped a streak of black corrosive blood from her pale cheek and turned around to face the formation.

"Target rich environment completely cleared, my Lord," Tasmin reported sharply, seamlessly falling back into her professional stance.

She walked over to where Silas was standing, wiping her blades on a piece of ruined canvas.

"However," Tasmin added with her dark eyes narrowing as she looked back at the carnage. "I can confirm with certainty that these specific Orcs were significantly weaker and more disorganized than the ones my group originally faced."

She pointed one of her daggers directly toward the dark yawning cavern entrance.

"They fought like terrified, mindless grunts," Tasmin concluded. "The one that actually attacked me... the massive behemoth with the missing eye. It is still inside and it didn’t take the bait."

Silas didn’t argue with her assessment as he thinned his lips into a tight line.

He reached down and smoothly sheathed The Azure Guillotine.

The terrifying cosmic blue hum of the Tier 3 blade vanished the exact second the steel slid into the dark leather scabbard at his hip.

"Understood," Silas stated coldly with his golden-ringed eyes completely locked onto the dark tunnel. "Girls... Reform the perimeter. We are going inside."

The heavily armed girls of the squad didn’t hesitate.

Brida hoisted the violently pulsing axe onto her shoulder, Fenna knocked a fresh arrow to her bow, and the entire group seamlessly shifted into a tight flawless diamond formation.

As they began marching across the muddy clearing, a heavy weight suddenly dropped directly onto Silas’s right shoulder.

"Let’s go spelunking, Boss!" a loud, abrasive voice cheered right next to his ear.

Silas didn’t even break his stride.

He let out a long exhausted sigh.

Thora, the half-naked Dwarven blacksmith, had casually climbed up his massive, armored frame like he was a designated jungle gym.

She was currently sitting completely behind his neck with her thick bare legs aggressively wrapped entirely around his shoulders.

"Do you absolutely have to ride me like a bipedal tactical mount?" Silas asked deadpan. "Why did you also have to come out half-naked? You exhibitionist..."

"It’s the safest spot on the entire battlefield!" Thora laughed unapologetically, pulling another highly mechanical gadget out of her heavy canvas duffel bag. "Besides, your new Tier 3 armor has excellent lumbar support."

They breached the threshold of the cavern.

The transition was instant and jarring like when Tasmin had entered.

The gray, ash-choked daylight of the Umbral Basin completely vanished, swallowed entirely by the oppressive blackness of the deep-earth mining tunnel.

The sound of the freezing monsoon rain faded into a dull distant hum. In the center of the formation, Rowena stepped forward.

The elegant human mage raised her violently glowing Sapphire-Core World Weaver high into the air.

"Visibility is currently compromised," Rowena stated smoothly with her melodic voice echoing off the stone walls. "My Lord, Allow me to cast a sustained fire rune to illuminate the—"

"Absolutely the fuck not!" Thora instantly interrupted from her perch on Silas’s shoulder.

The Dwarven blacksmith aggressively pointed a soot-stained finger down at the academic mage.

"Do not cast raw magic in an unventilated high-density mining tunnel, you amateur!" Thora scolded her. "If there are pocketed veins of volatile mana-gas or highly pressurized deep-earth dust hanging in the ambient air, your little fire rune will completely ignite the entire cavern! You’ll turn us all into a meat geyser before we even see the main thing!"

Rowena immediately froze mid-incantation.

Her pale face flushed a deep explosive shade of crimson at the harsh professional reprimand.

She quickly lowered her staff as she was humiliated.

’I’ll get back at you for this... fucking dwarf.’

"I have the exact ttool for this," Thora bragged loudly.

She held up the mechanical gadget she had just pulled from her bag.

It looked like a heavy brass torch, heavily modified with intricate Dwarven gears and glowing blue runes etched directly into the metal casing.

Thora didn’t just light it.

She tapped a specific runic sequence on the side of the handle and casually tossed the heavy brass torch directly into the empty air above the Vanguard.

The torch didn’t fall to the ground.

It buzzed violently and began to perfectly float exactly three feet above the formation.

FWOOSH.

The internal runes ignited, generating a brilliant bright white light that instantly flooded the entire cavern tunnel.

It completely pushed the heavy darkness away, revealing every single microscopic detail of the surrounding stone walls.

"An anti-gravitational cold-light emitter," Thora explained proudly, crossing her arms over her chest. "It’s completely non-thermal and hands-free which is perfect lighting for deep-vein operations."

The bright white light revealed a staggering mind-numbing fortune.

The jagged obsidian walls of the tunnel were literally bursting with raw valuable unmined mythic ores.

Massive veins of glowing blue star-iron, dark deep-earth alloy, and highly condensed mana crystals glittered brilliantly under the cold light but Thora wasn’t looking at the basic mythril.

Her keen Master Smith eyes instantly locked onto a very specific rare anomaly protruding from the stone wall exactly ten feet ahead.

"By the Ancestors!" Thora gasped loudly, her eyes going completely wide with scientific obsession.

She didn’t ask for permission as she violently launched herself entirely off Silas’s shoulders.

Thora sailed through the air and landed heavily against the rough stone wall.

She grabbed onto a massive, jagged, violently pulsing, deep-crimson crystal that was protruding thickly from the rock face.

The crystal was incredibly dense.

It looked like a chunk of frozen blood.

"I need to extract this immediately for metallurgical testing!" Thora babbled with her face pressed against the glowing rock.

She planted her heavy, iron-plated boots firmly against the obsidian wall for leverage.

She gripped the massive crimson crystal with both of her leather-gloved hands and violently, aggressively yanked backward with all of her raw Dwarven might.

The crystal didn’t budge.

It was firmly rooted deep within the bedrock.

Thora didn’t give up.

She aggressively threw her entire body weight backward as she repeatedly yanked on the crystal frantically.

"Come on... you... stubborn... piece of... junk!" Thora grunted loudly.

With every single violent pull, her bare Dwarven ass shook excessively, jiggling wildly in the bright white light of the floating lantern.

The Vanguard girls completely froze.

They stared at the ridiculous undignified spectacle of the territory’s Master Smith aggressively twerking against a rock wall while grunting like a degenerate but then again... That behavior was not above her

"Is she serious right now?" Brida whispered, aggressively rubbing her temples beneath her helmet.

"It’s completely stuck!" Thora complained loudly while panting heavily.

She turned her head to look back at the formation with a shameless expression.

"Boss! A little assistance over here? I need to study the internal matrix of this crystal!"

Silas stood in the center of the tunnel.

’I am running an army of lunatics man...’ Silas thought as he accepted his fate with a deep sense of exhaustion.

Silas smoothly drew The Azure Guillotine from its scabbard.

With a single and precise flick of his wrist, Silas casually whipped the Tier 3 cosmic blade in a downward arc.

A wave of golden sovereign mana shot across the tunnel as the mythic edge cleanly severed the base of the crimson crystal directly where it connected to the obsidian wall.

Thora, who was still actively pulling backward with all of her body weight, instantly lost all structural leverage.

"Whoa!" Thora yelped.

She violently flew backward through the empty air, entirely out of control.

She hit the hard stone floorboards with a splat, landing squarely on her bare ass.

The massive, severed crimson crystal landed perfectly into her lap.

"Ow," Thora grumbled, rubbing her bruised tailbone but her annoyance vanished instantly the second she looked down at the pulsing gemstone resting against her thighs.

"I have absolutely never seen this specific crystalline structure before in my entire life," Thora muttered with her eyes completely glazed over. "The internal mana density is incredibly unstable... I will be sure to research the exact properties of this one back at the Foundry."

She quickly stuffed the massive crystal entirely into her heavy duffel bag, zipped it shut, and scrambled back up to her feet.

She didn’t stay on the ground.

She immediately climbed right back up Silas’s armored frame, seamlessly resuming her bipedal mount position on his shoulders.

As Silas sheathed his sword and continued walking deeper into the tunnel, the two SSS-Rank entities of his squad smoothly stepped up to flank him.

Morwenna matched his pace on the right with her hand resting casually on the hilt of the Astral Corsair.

Eluned floated silently on his left with her glowing green eyes completely focused on the dark path ahead.

In perfect coincidental unison, both women turned their heads to look directly at him.

"Captain, I have a guess about—" Morwenna started smoothly.

"My Lord, I have a very strong suspicion regarding—" Eluned started at the exact same microsecond.