I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 48: The Ranger’s Oath

The air inside the massive, arched ice tunnel was entirely dead.

Lucifer’s Nightmare Steed hovered over a floor of smooth, glass-like blue ice.

The glacier walls seemed to swallow the light from Elara’s golden aura and the blue glow of the Aether-Steel Dragoons’ thrusters.

The silence was complete, broken only by the steady hum of the machines and the soft footsteps of the Star-Kissed Elves.

[System: Entering Dungeon - The Cryo-Sanctum]

[Recommended Level: 45-55]

[Warning: Environmental Curse - Absolute Zero (Active)]

Lucifer did not feel the cold. The Void Arcanist core inside his chest completely isolated his body from the freezing temperature.

He rode at the front of the group, his dark armor standing out against the pale blue tunnel walls.

"The architecture here is older than the human kingdoms," Elara noted quietly. She rode beside him, her silver spear resting across her saddle.

She looked at the smooth, perfect curve of the ice tunnel. "This was not carved by water or wind. It was melted and shaped by a massive, sustained heat source."

"Dragon fire," Lucifer confirmed.

He looked ahead into the dark. In his past life, the Cryo-Sanctum was considered a myth by most of the world.

The Royal Academy dismissed it as a fairy tale about a lost kingdom frozen in time. Only the highest-tier adventurers even knew it existed, and none of them had ever reached the center.

"They built this place to hide," Lucifer explained. "The Royal Dragons ruled the continent before the First Convergence.

When the magical density of the world began to drop, they went into hibernation. They sealed themselves inside this glacier, waiting for a new era of high mana to wake them up."

"And we are here to rob their tomb?" Sarah asked. The Star-Touched Oracle rode a white mare behind them, surrounded by the Radiant Arch-Seraphs.

"We are here to claim the Aether-Forge’s power core," Lucifer corrected her. "And if a dragon gets in my way, I will take its scales for my Titans."

A sudden, sharp sound echoed down the long ice tunnel.

It was the distinct clink of steel hitting solid ice. It was followed by the heavy, dragging footsteps of someone walking alone in the dark.

"Hold formation," Lucifer commanded.

The entire column of Dragoons, Arch-Seraphs, and Elves stopped instantly.

A lone figure emerged from the shadows ahead.

It was a human, a woman. She wore dented, scratched steel armor over thick furs.

Her long dark hair was stiff with dried blood and frost. She leaned heavily on a curved ranger’s bow, using it as a walking stick.

Her left arm hung at her side, the armor crushed inward.

She looked half-dead. But her eyes were sharp, and burning with a cold desperate intensity.

She stopped twenty yards away from Lucifer. She looked at the towering Aether-Steel Dragoons, the blinding Arch-Seraphs, and the Warlord.

She did not look terrified. She looked like she had finally found what she was looking for.

Lucifer recognized her immediately.

[System: Neutral Entity Detected.]

[Name: Lady Celeste (Formerly ’Pearl’)]

[Class: High Ranger (Level 35)]

[Status: Critically Wounded. Frostbite. Exhaustion.]

In his past life, Celeste was a legend among the mercenary guilds. She commanded the elite Phantom Ranger corps.

But she had been betrayed by Lord Vorian of Iron-Heart. Vorian had sent her entire corps into a death trap in the northern mountains, wiping them out to steal their lucrative monster-hunting contracts.

Celeste had survived, but she spent the rest of her life as a broken, solitary assassin hunting Iron-Heart nobles.

Lucifer rested his hand on the pommel of his longsword. "You are far from the capital, Ranger."

Celeste coughed. A spray of bloody mist froze in the air. She forced herself to stand up straighter, ignoring the obvious agony in her shattered arm.

"I tracked your army from the Scourgelands," Celeste rasped. Her voice was raw and hoarse from the freezing air.

"I saw the solar explosion. I saw the Bone Dragon fall. But more importantly... I saw Lord Vorian’s headless body lying in a crater."

"I executed him for treason," Lucifer stated coldly. "What is your business here?"

Celeste took a slow, agonizing step forward.

"My business is revenge," Celeste said.

She locked her eyes onto Lucifer’s eyes. "Vorian sent my rangers into an Abyssal nest three years ago. He locked the gates behind us.

Four hundred of my men and women died screaming in the dark so that fat pig could steal our gold mines. I swore an oath to mount his head on a spike."

She looked at the massive black machines hovering behind Lucifer.

"I tried for three years," Celeste continued, her voice carried bitter frustration. "I leveled up. I bought the best gear. I planned a dozen assassinations.

But he was always surrounded by five thousand elite knights. I couldn’t get close. And then... you just flattened his entire command squad in two seconds and chopped his head off like it was nothing."

"It was nothing," Lucifer agreed smoothly.

Celeste let out a short, hollow laugh. "To you, maybe. To me, it was justice. You killed the man I couldn’t kill. You destroyed House Iron-Heart. And you did it without breaking a sweat."

She dropped her curved bow onto the ice. The weapon clattered loudly.

Celeste fell to her knees. It was not a fall from exhaustion.

"I have no company left," Celeste declared, looking up at the Warlord. "I have no gold. I have no lands.

But I am a Level 35 High Ranger. I know every mountain pass, every hidden valley, and every bandit camp in the northern hemisphere.

I know how to track, and I know how to kill."

She reached to her belt with her good arm. She pulled out a small, jagged silver dagger. She held it up, presenting the hilt to Lucifer.

"I swear a Blood Oath to the Lord of Obsidian," Celeste vowed. Her voice rang clear through the frozen tunnel.

"I offer you my bow, my life, and my absolute fealty. Make me your Vassal, and I will be the shadow that hunts your enemies before they even see you coming."

Lucifer sat silently on his Nightmare Steed.

He analyzed the woman kneeling in the ice. He remembered her lethal efficiency from his past life. She was not a heavy frontline fighter like Elara.

She was a ghost. A highly intelligent, ruthlessly pragmatic scout and assassin. She was exactly the kind of field commander he needed to manage his expanding territories while he focused on high-tier threats.

Elara watched Celeste closely. The Valkyrie’s golden eyes narrowed, assessing the ranger’s soul.

"Her intent is pure," Elara whispered to Lucifer. "She is not driven by greed or fear. She is driven by absolute loyalty to the man who avenged her."

Lucifer did not need Elara’s confirmation, but it validated his decision.

He dismounted the Nightmare Steed. His heavy boots hit the solid blue ice.

He walked forward, stopping directly in front of the kneeling ranger. The red light of his dormant Carnage Core reflected faintly off her dented steel breastplate.

Lucifer reached out and took the silver dagger from her trembling hand.

"A Blood Oath is absolute, Celeste," Lucifer said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. He looked down at her.

"If you swear it, you do not fight for revenge anymore. You fight for my empire. You obey my commands without question.

If I tell you to burn a city, you burn it. If I tell you to hold a line, you die holding it."

"I understand," Celeste replied without a second of hesitation.

Lucifer flipped the silver dagger. He dragged the sharp edge lightly across his own iron-gauntleted thumb.

A single drop of his Warlord blood, dark, and pulsing with Void magic welled up on the metal.

He pressed his bleeding thumb against the center of Celeste’s forehead.

[System: Vassal Contract Initiated.]

[Target: Lady Celeste (Level 35 High Ranger)]

[Status: Blood Oath Accepted. Loyalty: Absolute.]

The drop of blood sank instantly into her skin.

A shockwave of pure, dark energy erupted from the point of contact. The Warlord’s magic flooded into Celeste’s exhausted, freezing body. It was a brutal, overwhelming influx of power.

Celeste gasped, her eyes snapping wide open. The frost matting her dark hair instantly melted and evaporated.

The deep, agonizing ache of her shattered left arm vanished as the bones forcibly realigned and knit themselves back together in seconds under the intense regeneration of the Warlord’s pact.

[Vassal Bonus Applied: The Reaper’s Shadow.]

[Effect 1: +50% Movement Speed and Stealth while operating under Warlord’s direct command.]

[Effect 2: Complete immunity to environmental debuffs.]

Celeste stood up. She did not lean on her bow. She stood perfectly straight, her dark eyes wide with shock as she felt the massive, sudden surge of vitality and speed coursing through her veins.

The freezing cold of the ice tunnel was completely gone. She felt warm, powerful, and utterly lethal.

She looked at her fully healed arm, clenching her fist, then looked up at Lucifer.

"My Lord," Celeste whispered, bowing her head deeply. The bitter, broken ranger was gone. A cold, highly efficient military asset stood in her place.

"Pick up your bow, Commander Celeste," Lucifer ordered. He turned his back on her and walked toward his Nightmare Steed.

Celeste picked up her weapon. She did not question the sudden promotion. She simply accepted it.

"The Scourgelands are currently unoccupied by a mercenary company," Lucifer stated smoothly, vaulting back into the saddle.

"Lady Scarlett and the rest of the mercenaries had left for the capital.

You are now the Commander of the Obsidian Vanguard."

He looked at her, his void eyes swirling with cold authority.

"I need you to return to the surface," Lucifer instructed. "Take command of the Scourgelands perimeter.

Establish a permanent supply line back to the Citadel of Obsidian. When the King’s scouts eventually arrive to claim the purified land, you will ensure they do not take a single inch."

"I will turn the border into a graveyard, my Lord," Celeste promised. She gave a crisp, formal salute, slamming her fist against her healed breastplate.

"Good," Lucifer said. "Go."

Celeste turned and sprinted back up the ice tunnel toward the surface. The Warlord’s speed buff made her look like a blur of dark motion. She vanished into the shadows in seconds.

Elara rode her Nightmare Steed up beside Lucifer.

"She is cold," Elara noted, watching the empty tunnel. "She is a different kind of weapon than the Arch-Seraphs or the Dragoons."

"She is a scalpel," Lucifer agreed. "And she will manage the ground war while we take the sky."

Lucifer raised his right hand, signaling the massive column to resume its march.

The low hum of the magitech thrusters filled the tunnel once more. The Aether-Steel Dragoons hovered forward, their blue visors piercing the darkness.

The Arch-Seraphs followed, their golden light illuminating the perfect, glassy blue walls of the ancient glacier.

Lucifer rode deeper into the Cryo-Sanctum.

Now, he needed to focus entirely on the frozen kingdom ahead.

The tunnel began to slope steeply downward.

The walls widened, the smooth ice giving way to massive, jagged pillars of frozen rock.

The temperature dropped even further, pushing past normal atmospheric limits into a zone of pure, magical stasis.

"We are approaching the inner sanctum," Lucifer announced. He rested his hand on his longsword.

"Be ready. The true guardians of the ice do not sleep lightly."