Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner - Chapter 446

Chapter 446: Kill mission

The outer wall lay in ruins behind them, chunks of obsidian scattered like broken teeth. Noah flexed his fingers, void energy still crackling around his knuckles from the null strike that had punched through three feet of reinforced volcanic glass.

Before them stretched the Second Ring—a nightmare of architectural impossibility.

The corridors were carved from the same black volcanic glass as the outer walls, but here the material had been shaped into curves that hurt to follow with the eye. The floor sloped down at a fifteen-degree angle for twenty feet, then abruptly leveled out before rising again. Walls met at angles that weren’t quite ninety degrees, creating spaces that felt simultaneously too narrow and too wide.

Overhead, the ceiling varied from barely eight feet to over twenty in seemingly random intervals, with support beams that branched and merged like the skeleton of some massive creature. Bioluminescent strips provided the only lighting—dim blue lines that followed no logical pattern, creating pools of visibility separated by stretches of absolute darkness.

“Well, this is definitely not regulation construction,” Kelvin muttered, his cybernetic arms extending as green light flickered through the mechanical joints. His prosthetics hummed with power as they interfaced with sensor nodes embedded in the walls. “Whoever designed this place had serious psychological issues. Look at these measurements—corridor widths that change every twelve feet, ceiling heights that follow no structural logic, and the load-bearing calculations are completely insane.”

His eyes took on that familiar emerald glow as he dove deeper into the fortress’s network. “The ventilation system alone violates basic physics. Air ducts that loop back into themselves, pressure differentials that shouldn’t work, and don’t get me started on the electrical grid. It’s like someone took a normal building’s blueprints and fed them through a meat grinder.”

Sophie moved closer to Noah, her usual confidence replaced by visible unease. “Noah, I need to tell you something. Earlier, when we were planning the assault, I saw—”

“A spark,” Noah finished, having caught the brief electrical discharge between her fingers. “Your probability manipulation is active.”

She nodded, her expression grim. “I don’t know if it’s good luck or bad luck yet. But it’s definitely kicking in, which means something significant is about to happen.”

“We’ve dealt with your swings before,” Noah said, his voice steady. “Good or bad, we adapt and overcome.”

Sophie looked like she wanted to argue, but Kelvin’s excited chatter interrupted them.

“Oh, this is beautiful in a completely horrifying way,” he continued, his cybernetic fingers dancing over a wall panel the size of a dinner plate. The surface was covered in symbols that shifted and changed as he interfaced with them. “They’ve got motion detectors every eight feet, heat sensors that can track body temperature variations down to half a degree, atmospheric analyzers that identify people by their breathing patterns, and even electromagnetic field detectors that can sense electrical activity in human nervous systems.”

Green energy cascaded through his prosthetics as he commandeered the sensor network. “The whole maze is basically one giant trap designed to funnel attackers through predetermined kill zones. Standard military doctrine, except they’ve added architectural flourishes that would give a structural engineer nightmares and make a psychologist rich.”

Lucy cracked her knuckles, white-hot electricity dancing between her fingers in anticipation. “How many hostiles are we looking at?”

“Here’s where it gets interesting,” Kelvin replied, data streaming across his glowing eyes. “Standard shadow soldiers are positioned throughout the maze—I’m reading about sixty signatures. But there’s another group that’s barely registering on their own sensors. We’ve got elite personnel, and from the data patterns, they’re marked.”

The first checkpoint revealed itself as they rounded a corner that curved at an impossible angle—a circular chamber about forty feet across with five different entrances. The floor was polished black stone with grooves carved in concentric circles, and the walls rose in a gentle spiral that made it hard to determine the actual height.

Shadow soldiers emerged from concealed alcoves, their dark combat gear blending with the shadows between bioluminescent strips. But these weren’t the disorganized troops they’d fought outside—these moved with military discipline, establishing overlapping fields of fire and coordinating their shadow constructs with hand signals.

The first wave launched their attack simultaneously. Shadow tendrils erupted from multiple soldiers, twisting through the air like living things. The constructs weren’t random—they curved and looped to come at the team from unexpected angles, forcing them to divide their attention between multiple threat vectors.

Lucy moved first, her body becoming a blur as electricity propelled her forward. Lightning erupted from her right hand in a concentrated spear—not a wild bolt, but a controlled beam about as thick as her wrist. The electrical attack punched through a shadow soldier’s barrier construct, the lightning burning through the darkness like a hot knife through butter.

But the soldier was already rolling aside, his barrier’s destruction triggering a coordinated response from his teammates. Two more shadow tendrils lashed out at Lucy’s new position while a third soldier created a shadow spear and hurled it at her exposed back.

Lucy spun, electricity crackling around her left hand as she formed a defensive net. The lightning spread between her fingers like a spider web, intercepting the shadow spear and causing it to dissolve on contact. The electrical discharge lit up the chamber for a split second, revealing more soldiers moving to flank positions.

Lucas engaged the soldiers trying to circle around their left side. His approach wasn’t the calculated movements of formal training—it was street fighting enhanced by electrical energy, every technique learned through actual combat.

A shadow soldier swung a crystallized darkness blade at Lucas’s head. Lucas stepped inside the attack, his left hand catching the soldier’s wrist while his right drove an uppercut into the man’s solar plexus. Electricity surged through both contact points—the hand on the wrist disrupted the soldier’s grip while the punch sent enough electrical current through his torso to stop his heart for half a second.

The soldier’s blade dissolved as his concentration shattered, but he wasn’t finished. Even as he gasped for breath, he used his free hand to form a shadow spike and drive it toward Lucas’s ribs.

Lucas twisted, the spike grazing his side and tearing his gear, then brought his knee up into the soldier’s stomach. The impact lifted the man off his feet, electricity coursing through the strike and leaving him unconscious before he hit the ground.

But three more soldiers were already moving to replace him, their shadow constructs forming coordinated attack patterns.

Diana stepped forward, her hand extending toward a cluster of shadow projectiles racing toward Noah’s position. The moment her ability touched them, the attacks simply stopped—not slowing down or deflecting, but freezing in mid-air as if time itself had paused around them.

The soldiers who’d launched the projectiles adapted quickly, abandoning ranged attacks and rushing forward with shadow-enhanced melee weapons. They moved in a V-formation, designed to split the team’s attention and create openings for individual kills.

Sophie rolled under Diana’s frozen projectiles, her body flowing like water as she closed distance with the advancing soldiers. Her first target never saw her coming—a knife-hand strike to the throat that collapsed his windpipe and sent him to his knees.

The second soldier tried to catch her with a shadow tendril around the ankle, but Sophie was already moving. She grabbed the dark construct with her bare hand, using it like a rope to swing herself toward her attacker. Her boots connected with his chest in a devastating kick that sent him flying backward into the chamber wall.

Noah could sense their movements through shared awareness, sensing each teammate’s position and intent. When Lucy’s electrical discharge built to critical levels, he was already moving out of the blast radius. When Lucas stepped into close combat range, Noah was positioned to cover his flank.

A shadow soldier tried to flank Noah from behind, crystallized darkness blade aimed at his spine. Noah sensed the attack through Lucy’s awareness and activated null strike as he spun to meet it.

Void energy flowed through his forearm as he blocked the blade. Where the weapon met his void-enhanced defense, it didn’t just stop—it ceased to exist, the shadow construct unmaking itself at the molecular level. The soldier’s eyes widened in shock, but Noah was already following up with a void-enhanced palm strike to the man’s chest.

The impact sent the soldier flying across the chamber, his armor cracking where Noah’s attack had landed.

“Standard troops down,” Kelvin announced, his cybernetic arms sparking as he maintained his connection to multiple systems. “But I’m detecting movement from checkpoint two. The shadow personnel are repositioning to intercept.”

They pushed deeper into the maze, navigating corridors that seemed designed to induce madness. The floor tiles were cut into irregular hexagons that created optical illusions when viewed in peripheral vision. Wall panels displayed shifting patterns that might have been decorative or might have been some form of psychological warfare.

“Seriously, this place makes my prosthetics ache just looking at it,” Kelvin continued, his running commentary helping to break the oppressive atmosphere. “The structural load distribution is completely insane—walls that should be load-bearing aren’t, support beams that carry no weight, and architectural elements that exist purely to mess with people’s heads. It’s like they hired an architect, a psychologist, and a professional torturer, then told them to design the world’s most hostile interior.”

The second checkpoint was a corridor that stretched about a hundred feet, with the walls gradually closing in from twelve feet wide at the entrance to barely six feet at the far end. Elevated alcoves were carved into both walls at irregular intervals, creating perfect sniper positions.

And occupying those positions were the marked soldiers.

Noah counted eight of them, each wearing the distinctive slash marks carved into their chest plates. These weren’t random cuts—they were deliberate markings that indicated some kind of hierarchy the team had never fully deciphered. Most had single slashes, but the soldier in the centermost alcove bore three parallel marks.

“Enhanced marked personnel,” Sophie whispered, “We’ve tangled with these before. They’re not going to be pushovers.”

The three-slash soldier opened fire first, his projectile wasn’t a standard shadow construct but crystallized darkness moving at rifle bullet velocity. The attack was aimed not at center mass but at Lucy’s right shoulder—a disabling shot designed to limit her electrical output.

Lucy saw it coming and formed a lightning barrier, but the enhanced soldier had anticipated this. His shot curved mid-flight, the crystallized darkness following a path that took it around her electrical defense.

She threw herself sideways, the projectile searing past her ear close enough to singe her hair. Before she could recover, two more marked soldiers opened fire from different angles, their attacks timed to catch her while she was off-balance.

Lightning erupted from both her hands in defensive nets, the electricity forming geometric patterns that intercepted the incoming attacks. But the marked soldiers weren’t fighting individually—they were coordinating their fire to overwhelm her defenses through sheer volume and timing. And all of this was being done in the dark.

Lucas stepped forward to support her, electricity building around his fists as he prepared to engage. But the marked soldiers had studied their previous encounters—a shadow construct formed beneath his feet, not to attack but to shift the floor’s friction and send him stumbling.

He rolled with the fall, coming up with lightning crackling around his entire body. His next attack was a concentrated bolt aimed at the three-slash soldier’s position, but the shadow soldier was already moving. The soldier leaped from his alcove, shadow constructs forming around his hands as he landed in the center of their formation.

This wasn’t like fighting the standard troops. The three-slash soldier moved like he’d been fighting for years, his shadow abilities flowing seamlessly with his combat techniques. He formed a shadow blade and swung at Lucas’s head while simultaneously creating a tendril that lashed out at Diana’s legs.

Lucas ducked the blade and grabbed the soldier’s wrist, electricity surging through the contact. But the shadow soldier layered his body with shadows that seemed to be resistant to electrical attacks—he gritted his teeth and powered through the pain, using his free hand to drive a shadow-enhanced punch toward Lucas’s ribs.

The punch connected, shadow energy adding force to the impact and sending Lucas sliding backward across the polished floor. But even as he moved, Lucas maintained his electrical grip on the soldier’s wrist, the connection allowing him to channel more power through the contact.

The three-slash soldier’s shadow constructs began to flicker and destabilize as electricity interfered with his concentration. But he wasn’t fighting alone—the other marked soldiers provided covering fire that forced the team to constantly reposition.

Diana tried to freeze incoming projectiles with her momentum nullification, but these soldiers had adapted to her ability. Instead of discrete attacks she could stop, they used continuous shadow beams that maintained constant contact with their targets.

Noah opened void rifts to redirect the beams, purple tears in reality catching the attacks and sending them back at their sources. But the marked soldiers scattered immediately, their synchronization allowing them to recognize and counter void abilities.

The battle became a flowing melee as enhanced humans clashed with enhanced humans. Sophie moved through the chaos like a dancer, her close-quarters training allowing her to slip between attacks that would have caught slower fighters. But even she was pressed as multiple marked soldiers tried to coordinate attacks against her.

A two-slash soldier created a shadow net, trying to entangle her legs. Sophie leaped over it, but the soldier had anticipated the move—his follow-up was a shadow spear aimed at where she would land.

She twisted in mid-air, the spear burning past her ribs close enough to char her gear, and came down with a strike aimed at the soldier’s throat. But he was already moving, rolling aside with the kind of fluid motion that spoke of years of combat experience.

“These aren’t like the others we’ve fought,” Lucy called out, lightning crackling around her as she dueled with a one-slash soldier. “They’ve studied our abilities.”

The marked soldier she was fighting proved her point by creating a shadow barrier that curved to redirect her lightning rather than absorb it. Her electrical attacks followed the barrier’s surface, the energy dissipating harmlessly into the walls instead of finding their target.

Kelvin’s cybernetic arms blazed brighter as he fought to maintain his connection to the fortress systems while the battle raged around him. “I’m trying to crack their tactical network, but they’re using some kind of encrypted communication system I’ve never seen before. The data structure is completely alien—it’s like they’re transmitting information through some dark web… no pun intended.”

A one-slash soldier broke through their defensive perimeter, shadow-enhanced blade aimed at Kelvin’s exposed back. Noah intercepted with a void blink, appearing between them just as the strike landed.

The blade met Noah’s void-enhanced forearm and simply ceased to exist, but the soldier adapted instantly. Without missing a beat, he abandoned his weapon and switched to hand-to-hand combat, his enhanced reflexes allowing him to trade strikes with Noah on nearly equal terms.

The fight turned when Kelvin finally penetrated their communication network.

“Got it!” he announced, his prosthetics sparking with triumphant energy. “Their shadow-based comms use quantum entanglement principles I didn’t even know were possible. But I’m jamming the carrier frequency and feeding them false tactical data. They can’t coordinate anymore!”

Without their synchronized tactics, the marked soldiers were still dangerous but manageable. Lucy’s lightning found its targets as the enemies’ coordinated evasion patterns fell apart. Lucas pressed his attack as his opponent lost the supporting fire that had been keeping him competitive.

The three-slash soldier fought to the end, his shadow abilities creating increasingly desperate attacks as his tactical situation collapsed. But isolated and overwhelmed, even his training wasn’t enough. Lucas’s final lightning strike caught him as he tried to retreat, electrical energy overloading his nervous system and leaving him unconscious on the polished floor.

“Checkpoint two secured,” Noah announced, surveying the aftermath. Eight marked soldiers lay unconscious but alive, their distinctive slash markings clearly visible in the dim lighting.

“I’ve got control of their security grid now,” Kelvin reported, his cybernetic arms still glowing as he maintained his connection. “The central spire’s directly ahead, but I’m getting seriously weird readings from the lower levels. Whatever’s down there is creating electromagnetic interference patterns that shouldn’t be physically possible.”

They moved toward the final checkpoint, the oppressive architecture of the maze continuing to press in around them. But Noah noticed Lucas hanging back, his expression troubled despite their tactical success.

“Kelvin,” Lucas said quietly, “while you’re in their systems—have you seen any sign of the Eighth? Any indication he’s actually in this fortress?”

Kelvin’s glowing eyes flickered as he searched through data streams, his prosthetics processing terabytes of information. “Negative on high-value targets. Just standard prisoner manifests for the draining chambers and routine operational protocols. If he’s here, he’s not showing up on any system I can penetrate.”

Lucas’s jaw tightened, electricity sparking around his clenched fists in unconscious response to his frustration. He moved closer to Noah, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Lucas said, the intensity in his voice cutting through the post-battle calm. “Noah, we need to talk. This rescue mission—it’s not the only reason I came here.”

Noah studied Lucas’s expression, recognizing something that went far deeper than concern for imprisoned allies. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that saving my dad and the others is just the beginning,” Lucas replied. “The Eighth has been systematically hunting down the descendants of the original seven families. Taking them one by one, and we still don’t know his endgame.”

He paused, his eyes reflecting the same dangerous intensity as his electrical abilities. “I want to find him, Noah. Not just complete the rescue mission—I want to hunt down the bastard who’s been orchestrating all of this and end him permanently.”

The weight of Lucas’s words settled over Noah like a physical force. This wasn’t about extraction anymore—this was about revenge, about turning their carefully planned rescue into something far more dangerous.

“That’s not a rescue mission anymore,” Noah said carefully, understanding the implications. “That’s a kill mission.”

“Exactly,” Lucas confirmed, his voice carrying deadly certainty. “The question is—are you with me?”

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