Supreme Hunter of Beautiful Souls-Chapter 150: Eva and Erika.

The silence that followed the recognition was almost sacred.

"Sword King Erika..." murmured another of the mages, his voice tinged with respect and relief. "We thought..."

"You thought we were dead?" Erika interrupted with a slight smile, her gaze firm. "Yeah, we started to think that too at one point."

The mages, still kneeling, looked reverently at her and the young man beside her. Kael remained silent, his gaze attentive, almost predatory. His presence - now even denser, sharper - seemed to press down on the air around them, and the most sensitive of the mages felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end. He had changed. And a lot.

"By all the gods... you scared us! You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself in that forgotten dungeon, you know." One of the older mages came forward, still on his knees. "We've been tracking unstable magical signals for days... We were close to giving up, thinking they had been consumed by the dimensional distortion..."

"How long has it been since we entered?" Kael asked, his voice low but firm.

Silence fell again, until the same wizard answered:

"...Eight. Eight whole days."

Kael and Erika exchanged a quick glance.

"Impossible..." Kael whispered. "Inside... it wasn't more than six, maybe seven hours."

"Temporal disturbance," muttered Erika. "The dungeon was distorted... perhaps connected to some veil or partial domain. That would explain why the mana flow was... broken."

"You were lucky to get out alive," said the older mage, getting up cautiously. "The place has been classified as an Extreme Risk Zone. No one who went in has come back... so far."

Erika crossed her arms, her gaze more serious now. "And no one warned us about this before the mission?"

The man hesitated, then shook his head. "There were no recent records. And... the seal wasn't expected to be active again. It looks like someone or something reactivated the dungeon from the inside."

Kael narrowed his eyes. "Or tried to trap us there."

Ahri, still invisible to the mages, yawned from atop a nearby wooden beam. "Tsk. There's always a time veil, a crazy entity and an inter-dimensional conspiracy involved. It can never just be a dungeon with traps and stupid goblins, can it?"

Umbra laughed, his wyvern form hovering above Kael's shoulders. "É... But if there had been goblins, you probably would have hidden."

"You'd have hidden like a coward, you strange beast."

Kael ignored them - at least on the surface. His heart was still beating faster than he would have liked. The memory of the fountain, the kiss, the unspoken words... and now this. The world wouldn't stop. There was no time to breathe. To feel.

"Let's go outside," she said. "We need some fresh air. And a detailed report on what's happened outside in the last eight days. If anything has changed... we need to know now."

The mages nodded and began to lead the way, guiding them through fortified corridors, now illuminated with natural light. Kael could smell the surface - the grass, the living earth, the freedom. But something told him that the surface was far from safe.

The natural light that penetrated through the fortress' openings partially illuminated the path ahead, casting long shadows on the stone walls. Erika and Kael followed the mages in silence until she finally broke the heavy air with a dry question, her voice as firm as tempered steel:

"I want a report. Why has the expedition been resumed? Who authorized this operation?"

The mages looked at each other with obvious hesitation, until the oldest among them stepped forward, clearing his throat before answering.

"We were... contacted directly by Eva Sparda. She activated ancient seals, summoning high-ranking mages. She said that if we didn't start the excavation and rescue immediately, we would witness the end of the world at the hands of a mad woman."

The silence after that statement seemed to swallow up the sound of the wind coming from outside. Erika's eyes widened for a brief moment.

"A woman... mad?"

"We don't understand the exact meaning," explained the wizard, his voice tense, "but the look in her eyes... there was no doubt. Eva was serious. And she looked... desperate."

It was then that Kael spoke up.

"My mother."

All eyes immediately turned to him. The way he said the words - firmly, like a sentence - caused the mages to fall completely silent. The youngest among them took an involuntary step backwards, as if he had heard something forbidden.

Kael raised his chin slightly, his gaze as sharp as a blade.

"Elion Scarlet."

The name fell like a curse in the air.

Some of the mages visibly paled. Others fell to their knees again, as if their bodies had been crushed by an invisible weight.

"The Witch of Chaos..." muttered one of the elders, his voice almost cracking. "That... that's impossible... she was... missing..."

"Well... she was busy raising me," said Kael with a smile. "But she won't do anything if she doesn't find out," he said, scratching his head...

'Hope she didn't find out about this nuisance...' He muttered internally.

"Eva... always making a fuss..." Erika muttered, rubbing her temples. And turned to find out more about the incident, "Any victims apart from me and the boy?" she asked, referring to Kael.

"No, just the two of you. Fortunately, everyone got out alive. A few injured, it's true... but nothing serious." replied one of the mages with relief visible in his voice.

Kael let out a light sigh, the tension in his shoulders easing for a brief moment.

"That's a relief," he muttered.

But before he could add anything else, the sound of determined footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. He turned slowly - already recognizing the powerful aura that was approaching - and saw the unmistakable silhouette of Eva Sparda coming towards him.

"Eva-" he began, but didn't even have time to complete the sentence.

In the blink of an eye, the woman wrapped him in a brutal embrace, pressing his face against her breasts with an absurd force that almost lifted him off the ground.

"YOU INSOLENT DISGRACEFUL!" Eva's voice exploded, mixing relief, anger and pure emotion. "How dare you sacrifice yourself in an unstable dungeon without even knowing if you'd make it out alive!"

Kael tried to say something, but all he could manage was a muffled sound against the swordswoman's cleavage.

"Do you have any idea what would happen if you died, huh?" She pushed him away with a sharp jerk and stared at him, eyes sparking with raw magic. "O. END. OF. WORLD!"

Erika watched the scene with her arms crossed, an arched eyebrow and a smile that was becoming increasingly... tense.

"Hm. Interesting," she muttered to herself, her sharp eyes following Eva's gestures as if analyzing an opponent.

Eva still held Kael by the shoulders, shaking him slightly as if trying to imprint the scolding deep into his soul.

"You have no idea how much work it was to contain the damage while you disappeared! Your mother is the devil! If she knew that, we wouldn't live, okay?" Eva yelled at Kael

"That sounds like... well... a pretty big problem..." muttered Kael, still a little dazed.

That's when Erika stepped forward, her gaze sharp as a newly-forged blade.

"Very nice drama, Eva. Very moving. I almost cried," she said with a sweet, fake smile. "But now it's my turn."

"Your turn...?" Eva started to say, confused, but Erika had already wrapped her arms around Kael's waist and, with a precise and surprisingly strong movement, pulled him back.

Before Kael could even take a breath, his face was sunk into Erika's cleavage - which, despite the light armor, left nothing to be desired in... generosity.

"You've got to stop fighting with him, you idiot. It's my fault," she said in a low voice to Eva, "I'm the one who tried to sacrifice myself, and he came along with it."

Kael tried to protest, a muffled "it's not like that", but only managed to mumble against the tight fabric of Erika's clothes.

Eva narrowed her eyes, arms crossed, now clearly irritated - or was it competitive?

"Tsk. Good. Now it's a question of who drowns him first?"

"I'm just making sure he understands what an idiot he's been. My way," replied Erika, holding Kael steady as if he were a newly won prize.

"You two... aren't helping..." Kael managed to say between stifled sighs.

Ahri, high up in the rafters, watched the scene with a bored look. "Humans are weird. If they like it, they punch it. If they love, they drown them in their breasts. Go figure."

Umbra laughed mentally, her voice echoing only to Kael: "Man... you're going to die of love. Literally."

In the end, Kael just raised his arms slowly, without resistance, surrendering to the inevitable with a long sigh. "One day... I just wanted a normal hug. Just one... even though I like those breasts..." He murmured.

Eva and Erika heard the whisper and both blushed and quickly, Erika pulled him off her breasts.

The words escaped Kael's lips in a slurred whisper, more out of tiredness than real intent. But unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on your point of view - both women had senses too acute to let it go unnoticed.

"Although I like those breasts..." they repeated in unison, in their own minds, as if the phrase had exploded with echoes in the air.

There was a second of absolute silence.

Then, as if struck by a paralyzing spell, Eva and Erika froze, eyes wide and faces turning redder than the Scarlet family crest.

"WHAT?!" Erika was the first to react, pushing Kael away with a half-hearted gesture, her face on fire as her hand went unconsciously to her own bust, as if she had only just realized how much she had crushed it against him.

"EU-! I WAS JUST CASTING YOU, YOU IMBECILE!" she exclaimed, turning away in an almost theatrical gesture, trying to hide her completely flushed face.

Eva, for her part, took a step back, her expression somewhere between shock, embarrassment and... pride? pride?

"Huh... so he likes it, huh?" she muttered, running her hand down her own cleavage with an arched eyebrow. "Not bad for a swordsman."

"DON'T START!" shouted Erika, still not having the courage to turn around.

Kael, for his part, rubbed his face, trying to pull himself together - and also to erase the slight smile that threatened to appear. But it was difficult. Very difficult.