Chapter 634: There’s Hope For You [Bonus - ]

Chapter 634: There’s Hope For You [Bonus Chapter]

"Fuck that woman."

Silas had looked at the slate... He had looked at the endless burning horizon too and then, while Number 5 had turned her back to calibrate an orbital communication relay, Silas had simply initiated an emergency spatial blink, vanishing from the place before she could even turn her head after unsummoning his girls of course.

’It’s her own fault,’ Silas scoffed internally, blowing a raft of scented bubbles away from his nose. ’I didn’t sign up to be the World Council’s unpaid exterminator for more than a week while their bloated marshals sit in air-conditioned bunkers drinking iced tea.’

Besides, the trip hadn’t been a waste.

His internal UP balance was resting at an astronomical high, the notifications from the girls’ grinding having pushed his reserves into territory he hadn’t seen before.

As of right now, he had the fuel and he had the foundation too so now he just needed to fix the princess.

...

Out in the sunlit bedroom, Princess Aki was sitting on the edge of her king-sized bed with her bare feet dangling inches above the plush carpet.

Her slender uncalloused fingers rose, gently touching her lower lip where her skin still tingled.

’We kissed.’ The thought danced through her mind in an endless dizzying loop.

She pressed her knees together, burying her burning face in both hands, letting out a muffled squeaky squeal that was swallowed by the high ceiling.

"Mmph~ That was nice..."

She was completely inexperienced so she desperately hoped she hadn’t embarrassed herself. Did her teeth clack? Was she too stiff? Did she kiss like a dead fish?

’He took my first kiss.’ A soft, dreamy smile spread across her flushed lips as her hands dropped to her lap.

She didn’t mind, not in the slightest.

Even the smell of that awful sulfurous dust hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as she had pretended... beneath the grime, the scent of him was something she had secretly yearned for ever since the day she realized she had fallen for him.

’When he comes out,’ Aki thought, her posture straightening with sudden royal determination, ’I am going to give him his reward. A proper gift for all that brutal work in the desert.’

She had already prepared it days ago, locked inside the small star-iron safe beneath in her closet... It was something that an adventurous reckless lord like Silas would need.

Aki stood up, smoothing the wrinkles from her sea-foam gown, and turned toward the vanity as the frosted glass doors swung open behind her.

Silas stepped out into the bedroom, enveloped in a rolling cloud of sweet citrus-scented steam while Aki stopped mid-step, her breath hitching in her throat.

He wasn’t wearing his armor, and he wasn’t wearing his regular clothes either.

SIlas was wrapped in a plush heavy white terrycloth bathrobe embroidered with a sprawling golden sun-crest along the lapels, a garment that looked suspiciously identical to the luxury amenities provided exclusively in the VIP penthouse suites of the Grand Oasis Palace in Iunu.

"Aha," Silas grinned, running a hand through his damp, towel-dried hair as he strolled casually across the carpet. "I snagged this from one of the linen closets in the hotel before the whole thing started... Knew it would come in handy eventually."

Aki blinked, staring at him.

The steam clinging to his skin made his bare collarbones and neck gleam under the golden afternoon light.

His frame, while lean, carried the perfectly sculpted musculature of a high-tier martial artist, broad shoulders, tight lats, and a posture that radiated effortless balance even in an oversized bathrobe.

"You... you look good," Aki murmured softly with the words slipping past her lips before her brain could stop them.

She tilted her head, her sapphire eyes narrowing slightly as she studied his face.

"Is it just my imagination, or is your hair longer?"

Silas paused, reaching up to tug at the damp strands falling over his forehead.

He gave his head a small shake, letting the dark black locks fall loosely around his cheekbones, reaching nearly down to the nape of his neck.

"Yeah," he admitted, a wry slightly sheepish smile touching his mouth. "It grew out during the trench-clearing... I’m thinking about keeping it a bit longer this time. Sera mentioned the other day that she thought it looked better when it had some length to it."

Aki froze as the soft romantic atmosphere in the room shattered like brittle glass.

’Sera?’ The name echoed through Aki’s brain with the clarity of a church bell. ’Seraphina Bloom.’

The memory hit Aki like a splash of freezing seawater.

Barely two weeks ago, during the preliminary diplomatic sessions at the World Council summit, the legendary Heiress of the Bloom Clan, that gorgeous woman was casually dropping references to how Silas Graves was her ’prospective consort’ as well..

’He kissed me,’ Aki’s internal thoughts hissed, her eyes flaring with a bit of wrath, ’and thirty seconds later, he is standing in my bedroom talking about the aesthetic preferences of another woman?!’

Aki marched across the Persian rug like a miniature storm cloud.

"Hey, Silas?" she said, her voice dripping with deceptively sweet poison.

Silas turned his head with his hand still in his hair. "Hm?"

Aki’s small, unarmored fist jabbed him squarely in the center of his ribs.

"Oof!" Silas grunted, stumbling half a step backward, looking down at her with wide, bewildered eyes. "What was that for?!"

"You insensitive brute!" Aki scowled, crossing her arms beneath her chest, her lower lip pouting so fiercely it was a wonder it didn’t snap. "You kiss me until my knees give out, you steal my luxury bath, and then you come out here waxing poetic about Seraphina Bloom’s grooming advice?! Do you have a single grain of romantic tact inside that thick skull of yours?!"

Silas stared at her, utterly baffled, before the realization finally dawned on him.

A soft, breathless laugh escaped his lips as he reached up, rubbing the sore spot on his ribs, shaking his head with an amused grin.

"Aki, come on," Silas chuckled, his voice gentle and placating. "I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking but it’s not like Sera and I are engaged or anything. She just talks like that because she enjoys watching everyone around her squirm..."

Aki’s pout did not diminish by a single millimeter. She tilted her chin upward, her eyes narrowing into sharp suspicious slits as she took a half-step into his personal space.

"Did you kiss her?" Aki demanded, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet tone.

Silas stopped with his eyes darted slightly to the ceiling but he didn’t answer immediately.

He seemed to genuinely ponder the question, his brow furrowing as his brain rapidly sifted through the chaotic memories of their time together.

Aki’s lower lip dropped even further with her eyebrows drawing into a knot of agonizing jealousy.

’He’s thinking about it?! WHY DOES HE HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT?!’

Finally, Silas looked back down at her, offering an innocent, lopsided shrug.

"None of the times I know of. Unless she slipped something into my tea while I was unconscious, we haven’t locked lips."

Behind Aki’s back, her small right hand discreetly clenched into a tiny, victorious fist, pumping downward once in triumph.

Her composure slammed smoothly back into place, though the bright pink hue on her cheeks refused to fade.

"Hmph," she huffed, turning on her heel with a theatrical swish of her silk gown. "Well... At least you have some standards."

Silas let out an amused sigh, walking past her toward the massive bed.

He sank heavily onto the edge of the mattress with the down pillows indenting beneath his frame as he rested his forearms on his knees, his eyes tracing the intricate floral carvings on the cedar headboard.

Aki followed him, her movements hesitant, before she gently lowered herself onto the mattress beside him, leaving a respectful six-inch gap between their thighs.

She looked at his profile with the damp hair curling slightly at his collar, the sharp stubborn line of his nose, and the quiet stillness that seemed to permanently anchor his presence.

"Silas," she asked softly, her tone shifting, the playful jealousy completely gone. "What was the purpose of that kiss?"

Silas didn’t turn his head immediately. "What do you mean?"

"You’re not a frivolous man," Aki murmured, her fingers resting lightly against the silk of her lap. "You don’t do things without an objective I think. Unless you’ve been secretly harboring intense, scandalous romantic feelings for me, you didn’t kiss me just because the afternoon sun looked pretty..."

She paused, looking at his hands.

"There was a strange sensation during the kiss. A heavy burning heat that settled behind my ribs. It felt foreign, like an electric current entering my marrow..."

Silas turned his head, his dark eyes meeting hers with an expression of quiet approval.

"You really are sharp," he murmured. "You’re right. I was transferring mana into you. My Gold Core essence, calibrated through my breath so your nervous system wouldn’t reject the frequency."

Aki’s eyes widened slightly. "Mana? But why through a kiss?"

"Because your meridians are a bit calcified," Silas explained. "If I tried to force mana into your core through your palms or your spinal acupoints, the feedback would shatter your vascular walls like brittle glass... The oral threshold, the breath, is the only conduit where pure spiritual intent can enter the pulmonary cavities without triggering an automatic immune response."

’I learned that from the System, heh.’

He totally wasn’t reading the tab...

He paused, his expression growing grim.

"Aki, I spent the last three days analyzing your case... The fact that you never awakened, it’s not an accident of nature."

Aki’s breath hitched.

"Someone influenced your vessel," Silas said, the words cold and absolute. "From birth I believe, a microscopic spiritual seal was placed over your soul or something before your infant pathways could even begin to circulate mana. I think it was designed to keep you permanently dormant."

A heavy silence descended over the sunlit bedchamber.

Aki didn’t gasp, and she didn’t cry out in shock. Instead, a slow weary sigh escaped her lips.

She reached across the small distance between them, her slender, trembling fingers sliding gently into Silas’s calloused palm.

Her skin was cool and fragile against his rough knuckles.

"Silas," she whispered, her gaze dropping to their joined hands. "When I was of age, my father summoned the grand alchemists of the High Directorate... They spent three months running diagnostic arrays across my spine... They fed me crushed star-lotus nectar, distilled marrow, and alchemical elixirs that cost more than a merchant fleet. My body burned with fever for six weeks and even then, not a single drop of mana ever circulated."

A sad fragile smile touched her lips as she looked up into his eyes.

"I’ve spent so many years coming to terms with it," she murmured. "I accepted that I would never stand upon the battlefield... I accepted that my place was here so you don’t have to carry this burden for me, Silas. I don’t want you to torture yourself over something that cannot be undone."

Silas looked down at her.

He didn’t look defeated, and he didn’t look pitying. Instead, the corners of his mouth slowly curved into a warm confident smirk.

"Is that so?" Silas asked softly.

"Yes," Aki nodded earnestly.

"Then tell me, Princess," Silas murmured, his free hand slowly rising, "if your core is dead, where did my mana just go?"

Aki blinked. "What?"

Silas’s index finger reached out, gently pressing against the center of her chest, right over her sternum.

Aki looked down and her breath froze in her throat.

Beneath the sea-foam silk of her gown, directly behind the porcelain skin of her thoracic center, a tiny breathtakingly radiant golden glow was pulsing.

It was faint, no larger than a grain of sand, but it beat with a slow heartbeat that vibrated directly against her ribs.

THUMP! THUMP!

It did not fade at all...

It was drinking the air, slowly circulating Silas’s transferred essence through the dormant pathways of her chest, illuminating her collarbones in a soft ethereal halo of light.