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

Noah stood in the center of the market, surrounded by settlers who’d stopped being settlers. Their eyes had gone dark, black veins crawling across exposed skin like invasive roots. They moved wrong—too fluid, too coordinated, like puppets operated by something that understood human movement but didn’t quite get the details right.

The boy’s mother was pulling her son away, screaming at others to run. Some listened. Most stood frozen, unable to process what they were seeing. Their neighbors, their friends, their family members turned into something else.

Noah’s hands flexed at his sides. No sword. No void abilities. Nothing that would erase matter or kill permanently.

Noah’s jaw tightened. This felt like Sirius all over again. Compromised civilians, couldn’t just kill everyone to solve it. Different method, same nightmare.

[MULTIPLE HOSTILES DETECTED: 23]

[WARNING: HOSTS ARE COMPROMISED CIVILIANS]

[RECOMMENDATION: NON-LETHAL CONTAINMENT ADVISED]

’Twenty-three I can see,’ Noah thought. ’How many more are hiding? How long has this thing been here?’

He raised his voice, letting it carry across the market. ”Everyone who’s not infected—RUN! Get as far from the settlement as you can! Avoid anyone acting suspicious, anyone with black veins, anyone whose eyes look wrong! GO!”

Some settlers bolted immediately. Others hesitated, still clinging to hope that this was fixable.

The first infected charged. A young man, maybe twenty, blacksmith’s apprentice based on the burn scars on his forearms. He moved fast, faster than he should have, covering ten meters in maybe three seconds.

Noah sidestepped, caught the apprentice’s outstretched arm, and twisted. He felt the joint strain, bordering on dislocation, then used the momentum to throw the young man into a vendor stall. Wood splintered. The apprentice crashed through, disappeared in a shower of broken planks and scattered merchandise.

Two more came at him from opposite sides. A woman who looked like she was in her forties and a teenage girl. Noah ducked under the woman’s wild swing, swept her legs out from under her. She hit the ground hard. He caught the girl’s wrist mid-grab, twisted it behind her back, shoved her face-first into the stone.

The apprentice was already climbing out of the wreckage, his dislocated shoulder resetting itself with wet popping sounds. No pain response, no hesitation, just that same blank expression and dark eyes.

’They regenerate. Fast. Probably using the host’s natural healing enhanced by whatever this parasite is.’

The woman he’d swept stood back up, her ankle clearly broken from how she’d landed. It straightened as he watched, bones realigning, flesh knitting together. Within ten seconds she was walking normally.

”Of course,” Noah muttered.

More infected emerged from buildings, from side streets, converging on the market. He counted thirty, then thirty-five, then stopped because the number kept climbing and it didn’t matter. Whatever this thing was, it had been here longer than anyone realized.

A man built like a bull charged at him. The blacksmith, had to be, based on sheer mass and the confident way he moved. An awakened too—Noah could tell from how the man’s muscles seemed to ripple with more than just natural strength.

Noah let white chi flow through his meridians, reinforcing bone and muscle and tendon from within. Internal energy, the kind Master Anng had spent months drilling into him. His stance shifted, weight distributing properly, and he met the charge.

His fist came up, connected with the blacksmith’s jaw.

The impact sounded like a sledgehammer hitting meat. The blacksmith’s head snapped back, momentum arrested. Noah followed with a knee to the midsection that folded the larger man over, then brought his elbow down on the back of his neck. The blacksmith crashed face-first into stone, cratering the ground.

’He’s awakened. Enhanced strength when working metal, but it carries over. The parasite is using his abilities.’

The blacksmith pushed himself up, black veins pulsing thicker across his neck and shoulders. He stood, shook his head once, and came at Noah again.

’Stronger hosts are more dangerous. The thing adapts to whatever physical capabilities they have.’

Noah let dark chi flow this time. Not the white internal energy, but the red-tinged external force he drew from his surroundings. It gathered around his arms, barely visible, pulled from ambient energy in the air itself. His next punch carried considerably more force.

The blacksmith flew backward, crashed through two vendor stalls, kept going until a wall stopped him. Stone cracked from impact.

A woman with enhanced speed hit Noah from his blind side. Her fist caught his ribs, the impact lifting him off his feet. He twisted mid-air, landed in a crouch, processed what just happened.

’She’s fast. But first gen speed maximum. The parasite is using her powers.’

The speedster came at him in bursts of acceleration, her body blurring between positions. Noah stopped trying to track with his eyes, started reading air pressure changes instead. The slight displacement that came before each burst.

She came from his left. He was already moving right, his palm strike catching her across the midsection. White chi channeled through the blow, internal energy adding force without adding lethality. She flew sideways, crashed into the ruined fountain.

More infected closed in. Forty at least, maybe more emerging from hiding. They moved as a mob, no individual tactics, just overwhelming numbers from every direction.

’I can’t fight forty people indefinitely. Even holding back, even with chi, they’ll wear me down while they regenerate.’

An older man with stone-like skin came at him. Defensive awakening that made him nearly impervious to physical damage. Noah caught his punch, twisted, drove his knee into the man’s midsection. The stone skin absorbed most of it, so Noah channeled dark chi into the strike, external energy adding force that cracked the defensive layer.

The man stumbled. Noah followed with an elbow to the temple, using the point of impact to transfer force through the stone exterior. The man dropped.

Got back up twenty seconds later, his stone skin reforming.

’This is exactly like Cannadah. Except there it was telepathy, one target to eliminate. Here? I don’t even know what I’m fighting.’

The blacksmith was back, charging with that bull-like strength. Noah considered his options in the split second before impact.

’Can’t kill them. Can’t permanently disable them. Can’t knock them out because the parasite doesn’t care about consciousness. What does that leave?’

The answer came as the blacksmith’s fist nearly connected.

[VOID BLINK ACTIVATED]

Space folded. Noah wasn’t there anymore, reappearing five feet left. The blacksmith’s punch hit empty air, momentum carrying him forward into nothing.

’Mobility. Stay ahead of them, keep moving, look for whatever’s controlling them.’

Noah started using Void Blink in short bursts, repositioning between opponents. An infected woman swung at where he’d been, found him behind her instead. He grabbed her arm, used her momentum to throw her into two others. Bodies tangled, fell.

The speedster came at him again. Noah blinked sideways, let her rush past, delivered a chi-enhanced kick to her back that sent her sprawling. He was already gone before she hit the ground, blinking to a different position.

But there were too many. Even with enhanced speed and Void Blink, he was taking hits. A fist caught his shoulder, another his ribs, a third glanced off his jaw hard enough to taste copper.

’Need to change approach.’

[PHASE STEP ACTIVATED]

Noah moved, his body leaving afterimages. Three phantom copies spread out in different directions, substantial enough to seem real, enough presence to draw attention.

The mob split, attacking the afterimages, confused by multiple targets. It bought him maybe ten seconds.

Ten seconds he used to scan the market, looking for patterns.

’They came from everywhere but they’re staying here. Not spreading out, not attacking other areas. They’re guarding something. But what?’

The infected recovered, refocused on the real Noah. But now he knew what to look for.

’Where aren’t they going? What areas are they avoiding?’

His eyes tracked movement, noted how the mob maintained a loose perimeter around certain sections. Not obvious, not deliberate, just there. Like an unconscious tendency.

The blacksmith charged again. Noah met him head-on, channeling both white and dark chi simultaneously. Internal energy strengthening his body, external energy amplifying his strikes. His fist drove into the blacksmith’s chest with force that sent visible ripples through the larger man’s torso.

The blacksmith’s feet left the ground. He flew backward, crashed through a building wall, disappeared into the structure beyond.

An infected man with electricity-based power tried to grab him. Arcs of current leaped from his hands, blue-white and crackling. Noah’s hand shot out, dark chi disrupting the electrical field just enough to deflect the worst of it. He still felt the shock, his muscles spasming, but he powered through it.

His palm strike caught the electric-awakened in the solar plexus, his chi disrupting the man’s power. The electricity discharged wildly into the ground. Noah swept his legs, dropped him, moved on.

’They’re not thinking individually. They’re receiving instructions. Which means there’s a source, a core, something directing them.’

More infected pressed in. Noah blinked through their formation, appearing behind their line, hitting three with rapid strikes before they could turn. A woman, a teenage boy, an elderly man—all dropped from chi-enhanced blows that would have hospitalized normal people.

All got back up within seconds.

’This is unsustainable. I’m burning energy, they’re regenerating damage. Eventually I’ll slip, and then—’

Movement in his peripheral vision. The speedster, coming from an impossible angle. Noah blinked, but she adjusted mid-rush, her awakening letting her track his reappearance. Her fist caught his ribs again, same spot as before. He felt something crack this time.

[-15 HP]

He grabbed her wrist as she pulled back, yanked her forward, drove his knee into her midsection. She folded over the impact. He threw her into the mob, bowling over four infected.

’Stronger hosts are adapting. The speedster just tracked a Void Blink. That shouldn’t be possible unless—’

The blacksmith emerged from the building he’d been thrown through. Dust and debris covered him, but he was moving normally. More than normally. He was moving faster than before, his enhanced strength now paired with increased speed.

’It’s learning. The parasite is learning from each exchange, adapting its tactics.’

[-12 HP]

Noah’s own regeneration was working overtime, knitting his cracked rib, healing the bruises and contusions from accumulated hits. But it wasn’t instant, and he was taking damage faster than he could fully recover.

[HEALTH: 3,493/3,520]

Three infected rushed him simultaneously—coordinated assault from different angles. Noah blinked above them, using his ability to reposition vertically. He came down on one with both feet, the impact enhanced by dark chi, driving the man into the ground hard enough to crater stone.

Landed, rolled forward, came up striking. His fist caught another infected under the jaw, white chi channeling through the blow. The man’s head snapped back, his body followed, crashed into a wall.

[-14 HP]

The third infected got through his guard, hands wrapping around his throat. A woman, older, her grip impossibly strong for her frame. Noah grabbed her wrists, tried to pull them away, but more infected were closing in. The apprentice, the stone-skinned man, three others converging on his position.

They piled on him.

Weight, pressure, hands grabbing his arms, his legs, his torso. Noah tried to blink but couldn’t focus through the overwhelming contact. Someone’s elbow caught his temple.

[-10 HP]

[-13 HP]

[HEALTH: 3,456/3,520]

The woman’s grip on his throat tightened, cutting off air. Noah channeled white chi through his body, reinforcing his muscles, and managed to throw two infected off. But more took their place immediately.

Then the woman’s mouth opened. Wider than it should have, jaw distending with wet cracking sounds.

Black tendrils emerged from her throat.

They writhed in the air like living things, seeking, searching, moving with purpose that had nothing to do with biology. The woman’s grip kept Noah pinned while the tendrils reached for his face, for any exposed skin they could find.

One tendril touched his neck. The sensation was wrong, alien, like something trying to burrow under his skin. He felt it probing, searching for entry.

[-8 HP]

’Oh shit—it’s trying to infect me directly!’