Chapter 959: Aether Worms

A passing group of warriors who had just finished eliminating some monsters noticed the commotion and wandered over."What’s going on? What’s got everyone so happy?"

Brenda turned to them, her grin threatening to split her face.

"Alan! You won’t believe—look who we brought back!"

She was just about to launch into an explanation when every single wristband in the vicinity began to beep simultaneously.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The warriors glanced down at their screens.

Then a voice crackled from the devices—calm, professional, utterly unhurried:

[S-Class anomaly detected. S-Class anomaly detected Multiple S-class anomalies detected.]

[All available units in Sector Seven, report to designated positions.]

Isabelle’s face went completely pale. She grabbed Cassius’s arm, her voice barely above a whisper.

"S-Class? Darling—there are S-Class monsters here?!"

Her shock was understandable. Every monster, demon, and non-sentient threat in this world was classified according to the Adventurer’s Guild ranking system.

Fom F-Class all the way up to SSS-Class.

F-class represented the weakest threats—small slimes that even children could handle with proper instruction.

SSS-class was the theoretical summit, a classification so rare that few could name a single confirmed example.

SS-Class was the realm of creatures like the Leviathan that Cassius had fought near Nala’s village—a monster that had grown from A-Class over decades, eluding every hunting party sent against it, until it had become something truly formidable.

S-Class itself meant a threat just below that level. Still terrifying. Still capable of devastating entire regions if left unchecked.

And now the wristbands were announcing multiple S-Class anomalies.

But to Isabelle’s utter disbelief, the soldiers around her didn’t seem to care at all.

"Another one?" A beastkin groaned, her tail drooping with annoyance. "You’ve got to be kidding me. Second time this week!"

"What is going on in these mines lately?" another warrior muttered. "Our commander’s not getting any breaks at this rate."

"I swear we just dealt with one a couple days ago."

"I hope the cleanup isn’t too bad. I’m on the cleanup crew today." A young mage shuddered. "I really don’t want to spend the afternoon scraping monster carcasses off the rocks."

They bickered and complained like office workers grumbling about paperwork. There was no fear. No tension. No sense that an S-Class threat was anything more than a minor inconvenience.

Isabelle stared at them in disbelief. "Are you...not worried about the threat? It’s an S-Class monster!"

Brenda waved her hand dismissively. "

Of course not, Lady Isabelle." She leaned closer, her voice taking on a secretive tone.

"In the outside world, an S-Class monster would have everyone panicking. Local forces would be mobilized. Civilians would be cowering in their homes, praying for salvation. But here?"

She grinned.

"Here, when an S-Class threat is announced, the civilians don’t hide. They open their windows, pour themselves a drink, and watch the battle like it’s a theater performance."

Isabelle was absolutely baffled. They were treating massive, life-threatening monsters like they were nothing more than dinner entertainment.

Meanwhile, Cassius had grown still. He could hear something—a distant rumbling, deep and resonant, as if the earth itself was being shaken apart.

Something was moving beneath the ground. Something enormous.

"Who’s fighting the S-Class threat right now?" He asked. "Do you have a special team for the higher-ranking monsters?"

Brenda’s mouth curved into a mysterious smile.

"Come along. It’ll be better if you see for yourself."

She snapped her horse forward, and the entire group surged after her—not away from the rumbling, but straight toward it.

Isabelle clung to Cassius as they rode. The sounds grew louder with every passing moment. Massive crashes. The groan of tortured earth. Something enormous moving just beneath the surface.

Anyone else would have been running in the opposite direction.

But these soldiers were racing toward the danger like children rushing to see a fireworks display.

It utterly shocked her.

---

They stopped atop a small hill overlooking what appeared to be an abandoned mining field. No workers. No soldiers. Just barren, scarred earth and a few crumbling structures in the distance.

"Is this really the place?" Isabelle asked, scanning the empty landscape. "I don’t see anything."

Brenda opened her mouth to reply, but Cassius had already figured it out.

His gaze dropped to the ground beneath them.

"The battle isn’t above ground." He said quietly. "It’s happening underneath."

As if on cue—

BOOM!

The earth exploded.

Isabelle screamed as a massive, monstrous shape burst from the ground in a shower of rock and debris.

For a horrifying moment, she thought it was a snake. Some massive serpent with scales the color of rotten flesh.

But then she saw it clearly, and the truth was somehow worse.

It was a worm.

An absolutely gargantuan, nightmarish worm, its body as thick as a house and its length stretching across the abandoned mining field like a living catastrophe.

It had no eyes—just a massive, circular mouth filled with row upon row of horrendous, razor-sharp teeth that spiraled inward toward a dark, pulsating gullet.

Its pale, segmented body glistened with a foul secretion, and when it opened its maw to roar, the sound was like metal being torn apart.

Isabelle couldn’t breathe. "What...What is that?!"

"An Aether Devourer." Brenda answered calmly. "They’re a mutated species of earthworms. The smaller ones are snake-sized—they tunnel through the mines eating raw Aether ore and excreting waste that’s not fully absorbed, which creates corrupted mana and spawns mana fiends."

"But the big ones..." She gestured at the nightmare before them. "...the big ones sleep deep, deep beneath the earth. When they wake up, they come straight for the mines."

"They want to swallow everything. The ore. The tunnels. The workers. Everything."

Isabelle watched in horror as the creature burst from the ground again, its massive body arching through the air before slamming down and burrowing once more, leaving a crater the size of a small pond in its wake.

"How are these monsters not more of a threat?!" She demanded. "What if they collide with the mines? The tunnels are fragile—if that thing burrows into an active shaft—"

"The mines are protected." Brenda interrupted calmly. "Mages have established defensive formations beneath all major mining sectors."

"Even if one of these creatures slams directly into a tunnel, it’ll hit a barrier first. The shields won’t hold forever, of course—"

"But before that happens." Another warrior finished with a grin. "We deal with the threat. Just like we’re dealing with it right now."

Isabelle stared at the thrashing monster, then back at Brenda. "What do you mean, you’re dealing with it? The monster is just...roaming around!"

"Look closer, Lady Isabelle."

Isabelle squinted. The worm’s pale, segmented body was slick with some kind of mucous secretion.

But there, against the sickly white flesh, she could see movement. Dark shapes. Humanoid shapes.

Warriors!

They were riding the monster. Swords and spears lodged deep into its flesh, they clung to its back like parasites, stabbing and cutting and holding on through every violent thrash.

Every time the worm surfaced, they attacked. Every time it dove, they held on. Blue blood poured from dozens of wounds.

"Who are they?!" Isabelle demanded.

"The Worm Riders." Brenda said proudly. "A specialized unit trained specifically to handle Aether Devourers. They’re the ones who led that thing away from the main mining sectors."

She pointed toward the empty field around them.

"You might think the monster was just rampaging wherever it wanted. But every movement it made was deliberate...or we made it deliberate."

"Basically, the Riders attacked it from specific angles to drive it in specific directions. They pushed it all the way here, to this abandoned sector, where it can’t damage anything important."

Isabelle’s mind reeled. Once again, what she had assumed was chaos was actually meticulous planning.

The monster hadn’t been destroying valuable mining operations—it had been herded into a sacrificial zone where it could be dealt with safely.

"Meanwhile, our earth mages—"

She pointed toward a cluster of robed figures standing at the edge of the field, their hands raised as glowing sigils rotated around them.

"—are constantly casting reinforcement spells on the ground ahead, making sure the creature can’t burrow back toward the active mines."

Isabelle watched as the worm attempted to dive underground again.

But it slammed into the earth—and bounced.

Bood leaked from its mouth. The ground beneath it had been transformed into something harder than bedrock.

"Stonefolk, too." Brenda added, pointing toward several massive figures standing alongside the mages.

They looked humanoid but were composed entirely of living rock—their bodies like walking statues, their hands pressed flat against the ground.

"They’re working with the mages—creating barriers, redirecting the creature’s movements, making sure it can’t escape."

Isabelle watched as spikes of rock suddenly erupted from the ground, forcing the monster to change direction.

Walls of stone rose to block its path. The entire battlefield was being shaped and reshaped in real time, a cage being constantly adjusted around the thrashing beast.

"This unit is entirely composed of people trained to deal with this specific threat." Brenda continued.

"After all, Aether Devourers are the biggest problem in the entire mining ecosystem. They’re not just dangerous—they’re abundant. We see creatures like this one and its smaller variants all the time."

"So we built an entire specialized force around hunting them."

Cassius, who had been observing the battle with keen tactical analysis, finally spoke up.

"They’re stalling."

Brenda turned toward him.

He pointed at the rock formations, the barriers, the Riders harrying the creature’s flanks.

"The attacks they’re landing are superficial. Annoying, certainly—but not lethal. They’re not trying to kill the monster. They’re trying to keep it contained. They’re stalling for something."

His eyes met Brenda’s. "What are they waiting for?"

Brenda’s grin widened. She opened her mouth to answer—

"COMMANDER RAGNORA!"

The shout came from one of the nearby warriors. Then another. Then the entire group was buzzing with excitement.

"She’s here! Commander Ragnora has arrived!"

"Oh, she looks so cool! She looks so amazing!"

"How does she manage to look so incredible even when she’s just walking?!"

"Commander Ragnora! Over here!"

Cassius and Isabelle turned sharply. Brenda chuckled and gestured toward the battlefield.

"Her." She said simply. "We’re waiting for our dear commander to deal with it."

Cassius’s heart leaped.

The time had finally come. He had imagined what his aunt would look like, how she would carry herself, what kind of presence she would command.

And now, finally, he would see her with his own eyes.

He scanned the battlefield eagerly, searching—

And found her.

—

There was one particular figure walking toward the monster, who stood out like a crimson sun blazing against the grey sky.

She was an imposing woman, towering over most of the soldiers around her.

Her powerful physique gave her the unmistakable presence of someone who had spent a lifetime fighting at the front lines.

Her crimson skin seemed almost luminous beneath the harsh light of the mining field, contrasting sharply with her long, wild black hair that cascaded around her shoulders like a mane of darkness.

Curved horns rose from either side of her head—magnificent, deadly things that framed a face of remarkable composure.

Her armor was heavy and battle-worn, formed from overlapping plates of polished metal that covered her shoulders, arms, and vital areas without restricting her movement.

Beneath it, the definition of her muscular physique was unmistakable.

Her arms were thick with developed muscle.

Her abdomen was sculpted into a powerful six-pack that was visible even beneath the armor’s coverage.

Every movement revealed the strength built through countless years of combat—the fluid grace of a predator who had long ago mastered her body and now used it as the ultimate weapon.

Yet what made her truly intimidating wasn’t her physique.

It was the way she walked.

The enormous worm was thrashing violently, as the Wormriders struggled to keep it contained.

Warriors attacked from every angle. Mages bombarded it with spells. Stone-kin continued their desperate work below.

But...she didn’t appear impressed.

Her piercing gaze fixed upon the creature as though she were looking at nothing more threatening than an inconvenient obstacle that had wandered into her path.

Cassius watched from the hill and it finally clicked.

This wasn’t merely another warrior participating in the battle.

This was the commander of the Blood and Iron Brigade.

The woman overseeing the entire operation at the Holyfield Mines.

The ogre who had transformed this chaotic mining territory into one of the most heavily defended and strategically important regions on the continent.

The woman whose name had become known even among the most powerful beings in the world.

His Aunt.

Ragnora Vindictus Titanborne.