Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner - Chapter 450

Chapter 450: Fight of the century

The white lines were everywhere.

Noah stared at the faint, spider-web traces of light that surrounded Arthur Kaine, his enhanced vision picking up dozens of potential death trajectories. Each line represented an attack that could kill him—not wound, not disable, but end his life completely.

‘I haven’t seen these since Kruel.’ The four-horned Harbinger whose casual missed punch had shattered an entire mountainside. The same creature that had held its own against Nyx himself.

Arthur Kaine was operating at the same threat level as humanity’s greatest nightmare made flesh.

“I can tell you’re scared,” Arthur said, his voice carrying across the chamber with casual confidence. “Those innate senses of yours are probably screaming warnings right now, aren’t they?”

Arthur began walking closer, his movements fluid despite the death sentences written in light around him.

“You know what I’m thinking? I could make excellent use of someone with your abilities. You could serve a far better purpose than wasting your potential in the EDF, fighting Harbingers—humanity’s actual existential threat—or getting dragged into ancient family politics you don’t understand.”

Noah felt something cold settle in his stomach.

“You’ve been here this entire time,” Noah said, his voice cutting through the chamber’s silence. “While humanity fought for survival against the Harbingers. While entire worlds were consumed. While billions died… you were here building an army to kill other humans.”

Arthur’s expression hardened. “Building an army? No, child. I’m correcting centuries of mistakes. The bloodlines have grown weak, complacent. They squander gifts that could reshape reality itself.”

“So your solution is murder?”

“My solution is evolution. The families have proven they cannot govern themselves responsibly. They need… guidance. Proper leadership.” Arthur’s voice carried the tone of someone explaining basic concepts to a slow student.

“Leadership? You mean tyranny.”

“I mean order. Structure. A system where power flows to those who understand its true potential, not spoiled children who inherited abilities they never earned.” Arthur’s eyes gleamed with conviction.

Noah felt his stomach turn. “You’re talking about people like they’re resources.”

“Because that’s what they are,” Arthur replied without hesitation. “Resources that have been catastrophically mismanaged. I’m simply… optimizing the system.”

“And you’re just another megalomaniac who thinks mass murder is justified if you call it evolution.”

Lightning erupted around Arthur’s legs as he drew in a sigh “I have grown tired of trying to make you see my vision. It’s simply beyond you.”

**CRACK!**

The sound wasn’t thunder—it was the air being split apart by electrical energy that made Lucas’s attacks look like static electricity. Spider-web cracks spread across the polished floor from Arthur’s position as he launched himself forward at speeds that turned sound barriers into nothing, moving like a lightning bolt given human form.

Noah’s enhanced reflexes kicked in. The white lines converged on his position like laser sights—death coming from twelve different angles simultaneously. He read the pattern in milliseconds: feint left, real strike center, follow-up from above.

[Void Blink – Activated]

Purple energy swirled as Noah phased out of normal space, reappearing behind Arthur’s predicted trajectory. Excaliburn swept in a perfect arc aimed at the older man’s exposed neck, void energy crackling along the blade’s edge.

But Arthur was already a step ahead.

Without turning around, Arthur’s hand shot upward, fingers gesturing into a closed fist and metal screamed as a massive chunk of the throne platform tore free, accelerating toward Noah’s head with rifle-bullet velocity. The improvised projectile moved with precision that defied normal telekinetic control.

Noah raised his left hand, void energy meeting steel in a violent collision. The metal chunk dissolved on contact, molecules unmaking themselves where void touched matter. But Arthur was already moving again.

They separated, circling each other across the vast chamber. Arthur’s movements were fluid, achingly slow, almost like a hunter who had been perfecting his craft for centuries.

“Impressive reflexes,” Arthur said, not even breathing hard. “But you’re still reacting instead of anticipating.”

Noah’s mind raced as he processed what he’d witnessed. “How are you doing this? Lightning beyond what Lucas can manage, metal manipulation ontop of that. Those aren’t normal Grey family abilities. And you are even wielding two!”

Arthur’s smile was cold. “You’re cataloguing abilities, trying to understand what you’re facing. Let me educate you, child. The original family heads don’t conform to your military’s neat little rankings. Each one operates at what you’d call guaranteed alpha territory—S-rank minimum, most pushing SS or SSS levels naturally.”

Arthur raised both hands toward the chamber’s ceiling. Lightning began building around him, but this wasn’t the wild electrical discharge Noah expected. This was controlled, architectural—lightning that formed – precise three dimensional lattice crystal lattice patterns in the air above them.

“But even SSS-rank has limitations when you’re working with a single bloodline’s natural constraints,” Arthur continued, his tone taking on that of a professor delivering a lecture.

The electrical grid pulsed once, then activated.

Lightning erupted from every metal fixture in the chamber simultaneously. Not random bolts, but a three-dimensional web of destruction that filled the entire space with crackling death. The attack was almost too perfect—every possible escape route calculated and sealed.

Noah’s white lines went insane, showing overlapping death trajectories that turned the entire chamber into a maze of annihilation.

[Void Rifts – Activated]

Noah tore holes in reality, creating portals to absorb the incoming electrical death. Dark purple tears in space swallowed bolt after bolt, the void energy consuming the lightning like a hungry mouth.

But Arthur had anticipated this response.

Metal fragments throughout the chamber—decorative elements, chunks of columns, pieces of Arthur’s own throne—suddenly accelerated to hypersonic speeds. Not aimed at Noah, but at his void rifts themselves.

‘He’s attacking my defenses.’

The strategy was brilliant. Noah was forced to choose: maintain his defensive portals and let the metal projectiles through, or close the rifts and face the lightning grid directly.

Noah chose a third option.

[Phase Step – Activated]

He moved at maximum speed between lightning strikes, his enhanced agility carrying him through gaps in the electrical web that existed for mere microseconds. With the void striders equipped, this feat nearing the territory of impossible became absolutely doable.

Metal projectiles whistled past his head as he wove between death. However, he couldn’t dodge them all.

A twisted piece of iron grazed his shoulder, the impact spinning him around despite his enhanced durability. The fragment had been moving fast enough to slam against his armor’s outer layer. The speed and force of flight alone was what did the most damage as the metal itself couldn’t bypass his defense.

“Even with Knight’s grace on, I’m taking huge damages!”

[Health Points: 3,470/3,520 (-50)]

Noah landed in a crouch near the chamber’s far wall, breathing hard. Arthur stood calm in the center of his electrical storm, completely unaffected by the lightning that would have killed any normal human instantly.

“What are you?” Noah demanded, watching Arthur manipulate multiple elements with impossible precision.

“I’m what the bloodlines were always meant to become,” Arthur replied, slamming his hand against the chamber floor. Shadows erupted outward like spilled ink, but these weren’t normal darkness—they moved with purpose, flowing around obstacles and reforming when damaged.

‘Three abilities. How does one human have access to three? Two makes sense if it’s a subsidiary of a primary ability. Most Third generation can do this. Water and ice, fire and smoke. But lightning and shadows or metal manipulation do not have anything in common,’ Noah had the wheeels in his head turning for this one. Except the wheels were unable to turn him in the right direction this time.

What he didn’t know was that Arthur wasn’t simply using multiple bloodline abilities in sequence. The eighth bloodline’s true power was far more insidious than mere copying. His ability was to copy, transfer and use other abilities as in … many at once.

The burning shadows raced toward Noah in patterns that seemed almost alive, splitting and merging like a liquid predator.

[Entropy Touch – Activated]

Noah pressed his palm against the nearest shadow construct, channeling decay energy through his fingertips. The power that could age steel to rust in seconds should have unmade the construct instantly.

Instead, the shadow absorbed his entropy effect and grew larger.

“What the—”

Noah rolled sideways as the enhanced shadow construct lashed out with tendrils that left smoking gouges in the stone floor. Whatever these things were, they didn’t follow normal rules.

He kept his distance while trying to make sense of what he was against. Arthur was powerful, that much he already knew. What he didn’t understand was how. And the first step to beating someone when a straight jab to the face didn’t work was out thinking them.

Just then a pillar exploded behind Noah as another shadow struck it. The stone didn’t just crack—it aged centuries in seconds, crumbling to dust as if time itself had been weaponized.

Noah was forced into constant motion, using Void Blink to stay ahead of the intelligent shadow constructs. But they were learning from each teleportation, predicting his emergence points and converging faster than should be possible.

Arthur pressed his advantage, moving with lightning-enhanced speed while his shadow constructs herded Noah like prey. Each step Arthur took left crackling footprints in the stone, his body wreathed in electrical energy that made the air itself burn.

“You want to lecture me about using my gifts for the greater good?” Arthur called out, appearing beside Noah with impossible speed. His fist, wreathed in electrical energy, aimed for Noah’s head. “Tell me, what have the families accomplished with all their supposed noble intentions?”

Noah twisted, Arthur’s strike grazing past his head for a second and he felt the jolt.

[Health Points: 3,420/3,520 (-50)]

“They’ve protected people. They may not actively participate in the war against the Harbingers but I have come to learn that they lend their resources and man power. Hell, my friend is a royal blood serving as an EDF soldier!” Noah shot back, recovering into an Enhanced Null Strike. His void-coated fist aimed for Arthur’s exposed ribs, the attack designed to unmake whatever it touched.

Arthur sank partially into his own shadow, Noah’s devastating punch passing through empty darkness while Arthur emerged from a shadow cast by debris across the chamber.

“Protected people?” Arthur’s laugh was bitter. “Protected them so well that dozens of inhabited worlds turned to ash while the families squabbled over territory and refused to unite under proper leadership.”

The words hit Noah like a physical blow. “Dozens of worlds? What are you talking about?”

“The Harbinger expansion, child. Worlds that could have been saved if the bloodlines had worked together instead of fragmenting into petty kingdoms. Entire civilizations that died because your friend’s precious family and those alike couldn’t see past their own narrow interests.”

Fire erupted from Arthur’s hands, plasma roaring forward in a concentrated blast. Noah barely had time to react—he dove behind a pillar just as the beam hit.

BOOM!

The stone disintegrated on impact, blowing apart in a shower of molten fragments. Shards hissed against Noah’s armor.

“The families had their chance to prove they deserved their gifts,” Arthur continued, his voice carrying centuries of accumulated disappointment. “Instead, they let lesser beings suffer for their incompetence.”

‘Lesser beings. He’s talking about normal humans like they’re insects.’

Noah emerged from cover with a void Barrage. “So your solution is to enslave them?”

Arthur danced between the projectiles like he was performing ballet, his movements were too quick and sharp to be caught by the speeding void bullets. But it wasn’t just evasion—metal fragments in the air were repositioning themselves, creating a defensive grid that intercepted void bullets while Arthur flowed between them.

The rest of the barrage were being intercepted by his shadow constructs. Getting caught in dark structures resembling a thick syrup.

“Enslave?” Arthur’s tone suggested Noah had missed something fundamental. “I’m offering them what they’ve never had—competent leadership. A proper hierarchy where power flows according to merit, not accident of birth.”

The few void bullets that got through struck Arthur’s shadow constructs, but instead of destroying them, the attacks seemed to make them more solid, more real.

“You’re feeding them,” Noah realized with growing horror. “The shadows are getting stronger from my attacks.”

“Your ability appears to unmake things. It is basically entropy given form. Your entropy and shadow energy are just different forms of destructive force,” Arthur replied, never slowing his advance. “And I’ve had centuries to learn how to turn destruction into construction.”

Arthur’s fist erupted in white-hot flames as he swung. Noah ducked under the punch and drove his elbow up into Arthur’s ribs. The fire seared across Noah’s shoulder, but his strike connected—Arthur grunted and staggered back.

Arthur shook his head, refocusing instantly. His eyes blazed as lightning began crackling between his fingers. He thrust his hand forward, but Noah was already moving, grabbing Arthur’s wrist and twisting. The bolt went wide, carving a smoking scar across the wall as Noah drove his knee toward Arthur’s stomach.

Arthur caught the knee with his free hand, flames roaring to life around his palm. Noah hissed as the heat bit into his leg, but instead of pulling away, he pressed closer. His free hand found Arthur’s throat.

“Too close for your tricks now,” Noah growled.

Suddenly, the shadows at their feet suddenly writhed upward like living things, wrapping around Noah’s ankles and yanking him off balance. As Noah stumbled, Arthur’s lightning-charged fist hammered into his ribs.

Noah cursed and tore rifts into the air, jagged holes of darkness snapping open in quick succession.

Noah drew Excaliburn and kicked it through a rift above Arthur’s head. The portal snapped shut, swallowing the blade.

Arthur looked up, then spun as another rift tore open beside him. Excaliburn burst through, driving for his shoulder. Arthur tried to deflect it with flame, but the blade vanished again into another closing void-space.

Behind him—the sword swept low at his legs. Arthur jumped, shadows lashing out, striking nothing.

Left side—the blade materialized at throat level through another rift. Arthur twisted away, fire erupting defensively.

Right—low—high—the weapon kept emerging from impossible angles, forcing Arthur into a deadly dance as he tried to track attacks that came from everywhere and nowhere.

Just then Arthur’s movements stuttered for half a second, then he was simply gone. The shadows beneath his boots rippled like water, and his body sank into them as though swallowed whole.

Noah’s eyes snapped around the chamber.

Where—

The answer came immediately. Every wall, every surface, every shadow began vomiting out Arthur’s presence. He wasn’t stepping through portals one at a time—he was multiplying. His figure split and folded into half a dozen silhouettes at once, each crackling with lightning, each dragging jagged ribbons of molten steel.

Noah barely brought up a rift in time as the first copy hurled a spear of metal through it, only for another Arthur to bend the exit space and fire the projectile back out at him with double the velocity. Sparks erupted against Noah’s armor as he staggered under the impact. Noah stopped his own rifts and grabbed hold of excaliburn

Then the nightmare truly began.

The chamber filled with a lattice of flickering holes, hundreds—no, thousands—of shadow-gates all snapping open at once. From each aperture poured violence: lightning forks that screamed like banshees, shards of steel sharp enough to cut through reinforced plating, even phantom fists swinging in from impossible directions.

It was Noah’s own technique reflected back at him, but swollen to monstrous scale, as if Arthur had studied his method in an instant and asked: why stop at ten when you could have a thousand?

The void became a storm. Noah was in the center.

“How are you channeling multiple bloodlines simultaneously?” Noah demanded.

Arthur’s smile was genuinely pleased, as if Noah had finally asked the right question. “My ability allows me to take abilities. You are just wondering what I do with them now? What do you think I do with the kings? Better question…What happens when you take seven SS-rank power outputs and funnel them all into a single technique?”

What made Arthur genuinely terrifying wasn’t just the way he fought—it was what he fought with.

The white arcs of Grey lightning which Noah had seen already.

The endless sea of shadows belonging to the fourth family, the Veyras. The shards of metals that almost decapitated Noah, that was the 7th family’s bloodline, the Leviticus’s metallurgy.

Each one belonged to a family bloodline that had shaped history in its own right. Noah had seen some in action before, had fought against some before. But never had he seen them all in the hands of a single man, never woven together so seamlessly that you almost forgot they weren’t his to begin with.

And the worst part? Those were only the ones Arthur had chosen to show.

But that wasn’t where things. got bad.

It was the principle behind it all.

Bloodline talents were never meant to overlap. A Grey’s lightning was devastating in its own right, enough to turn battlefields into ash. A Veyra’s shadows could dominate an army without ever touching a blade. A Leviticus’s control of metal could decide the outcome of wars. But no matter how fearsome, each bloodline had a ceiling. A Grey would always be lightning. A Veyra would always be shadows. A Leviticus would always be steel.

Arthur Kaine? He didn’t respect ceilings.

To understand why, you had to think about the way the Earth Defense Force measured power. First-generation talents were weak sparks, barely enough to light a torch or move a nail. Second-generation talents could tear through squads, level structures, and make governments take notice. Third-gens were monsters in their own right—forces of nature that could end campaigns singlehandedly.

And above even them were the Alphas.

The EDF broke its own charts for them. They didn’t fit neatly into first, second, or third gen. They existed outside the curve—graded S, SS, SSS. Lucas was an S-ranked Grey, his lightning enough to split cities apart. Noah himself sat at the top of that curve: SSS, the kind of existence that bent the rules of combat just by showing up.

But Arthur wasn’t Alpha-ranked. He was something else entirely.

Because he wasn’t just borrowing powers. He wasn’t stealing them. He was stacking them.

Think of it like this: if he copied a first-gen fire user, the ability was pitiful on its own, barely enough to burn a branch. But then he layered onto it the raw output he’d copied from a second-gen ice wielder and a third-gen wind wielder. That first-gen spark didn’t stay weak. In Arthur’s hands, it scaled into something beyond even Alpha-tier—flames powered by strength it was never meant to hold.

That was his secret. That was his terror.

Where the EDF measured people by their birthright, Arthur had rewritten the math. He could take crumbs and forge them into storms. He wasn’t bound by gen or rank. He was all of them at once, stacked and refined until no scale could measure him.

He wasn’t Grey. He wasn’t Veyra. He wasn’t Leviticus. He was the culmination of every bloodline, a nightmare stitched together over centuries.

For the first time since Kruel, Noah felt the terrifying certainty that survival wasn’t possible if he played Arthur’s game. He could dodge for a second, maybe two, but not forever—not against this.

His grip on Excaliburn tightened until his knuckles went white.

“Domain,” Noah muttered.

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