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

Lucy tore the puppet’s arm off at the shoulder joint, wrenched hard, and hurled the rest of it clear across the field. It hit the scorched ground forty meters off and didn’t get up again.

She turned in time to see One closing on Lucas, still on his knees where the last strike had put him, unhurried, that same casual finality carried in every step.

He never saw her coming.

She hit him full force from the side, lightning wrapped tight around both fists, catching him square in the ribs before he’d registered her at all, and the impact didn’t just knock him sideways. It sent him.

He tore across the sky in a straight, screaming line, a full mile out before he finally crashed down somewhere past the ridge, the distant boom of the impact rolling back across the scorched field a full second after the sight of it.

Lucy stood there a moment, breathing hard, staring at where he’d gone.

Then she dropped down beside Lucas.

”Hey. Hey, look at me, what happened, what did he do to you.”

Lucas blinked up at her slow, like the question had to travel somewhere far to reach him before he could answer it.

”I don’t know,” he said. ”I don’t— my legs won’t move, Lucy. Not like they’re hurt, I know what hurt feels like, I’ve had worse than this. It’s like nothing’s arriving anymore. Like I’m telling them to move and the message just isn’t getting where it’s supposed to go.”

”Okay. Okay, that’s—we’re pulling back, right now, I’ll carry you—”

”I feel old,” he said, and he actually laughed at that, short and confused, like the word had surprised him coming out of his own mouth. ”That’s the only way I know how to say it. Tired in a way that doesn’t match anything I did today. Like I ran somewhere I don’t remember running.”

Lucy’s hands were already under his arm, trying to lift him. He caught her wrist, weak, but enough to stop her.

”Lucy. Listen to me.”

”There’s no time—”

”There’s exactly enough time for this,” he said. ”It can’t be more than today. Whatever’s happening to me isn’t going to wait around while we find somewhere safe to figure it out. I don’t know how long I have. I need you to actually hear me instead of just trying to move me.”

She stopped.

He pushed Valor into her hands.

”Finish him,” he said. ”I saw something in his eyes when he touched me. I can’t explain it right, but whatever’s still a person in there, it’s smaller than what’s left in Arthur. He’s worse. I need you to believe that.”

”I hear you,” Lucy said, closing her hand around the grip. ”I hear you.”

The comm crackled.

”Lucy.” Matthias, fast, tight. ”We’d love to back you up directly, but we’ve got another plan, and it might matter more.”

”Talk fast.”

”Our source says he’s got people,” Evangeline cut in. ”Down there, near the statue. Prisoners, a reserve he’s been drawing from. That’s how his abilities keep working just like Arthur’s. Cut that off—”

”And he is useless when he runs dry,” Lucy said.

”That’s the hope,” Matthias said. ”Is there any way you can—”

”What do you need from me,” Lucy said.

”Just keep him on you,” Matthias said. ”Keep his attention up here while we go in and cut it off down there.”

Lucy looked at the ridge, at the dark statue rising out of the churned earth.

”Go,” she said. ”I’ve got him.”

She rose into the sky and found him already climbing to meet her, a mile out and closing fast, shadow curling off his boots in dark ribbons that dissolved and reformed with every stride through open air. His eyes ran bright with the same blue-white lightning her own family had carried for generations, and his right hand glowed dull orange, heat rolling off it visible even at distance, the way air bent over a forge.

He didn’t slow as he came.

She didn’t either.

They met somewhere above the scorched field in a collision that split the sky.

BOOM.

The shockwave rolled outward in a visible ring, flattening cloud cover for a hundred meters, and from the ground it looked, for one suspended second, like something had briefly ignited in the upper atmosphere and burned out again just as fast.

Lucy struck first, a straight jab wrapped in lightning aimed at his jaw, and he tilted his head a fraction and let it pass, answering with an open palm to her ribs that she barely twisted away from in time, his burning fingers grazing her armor and leaving a scorched black streak across the plating.

She spun with the momentum instead of fighting it, using the rotation to bring Valor around in a full arc, the axe’s edge trailing lightning in a long bright line, and this time he didn’t dodge, he caught the haft with his cool hand, using her own force to redirect the swing wide and drive a knee up into her stomach.

The air left her in one violent burst.

She fell back, caught herself on a burst of lightning beneath her boots, and came right back at him, low this time, a sweeping kick aimed at his legs that he simply stepped over, unbothered, before retaliating with a rapid three-hit combination, fist, fist, elbow, each one landing somewhere she couldn’t fully block in time.

Lucy took the hits and answered with something faster, feinting high before dropping low, driving Valor’s blunt end into his sternum with everything she had, and this time he actually staggered, a real half-step back through open air.

”That one hurt,” he said, almost approving.

”Good,” she said, and pressed the advantage, chaining strikes now, lightning cracking off every contact, a strike to the shoulder, a follow-up to the ribs, forcing him backward through a wide loop across the sky, contrails of scorched air trailing behind both of them.

He caught her third strike mid-swing and shadow bled up his arm to swallow the lightning whole, the energy simply vanishing into the dark the way sound vanished into deep water, and he twisted her own momentum against her, flinging her twenty meters clear before she managed to arrest the spin.

”What did you do to him,” she said, breathing hard now, circling. ”Tell me exactly what you did to my brother.”

”I sapped his cells,” One said, matching her circle, unbothered, like the fight so far had cost him nothing at all. ”The ability to generate their own energy. That’s all. Nothing more complicated than that.”

”That’s not an answer.”

”It’s the whole answer,” he said. ”Every cell needs to produce something to keep functioning. I removed that. Now his body is spending down whatever it already had stored, the way anything does once the tap runs dry.” He tilted his head. ”Hours, maybe a day. I’ve genuinely never timed it before, I’ve never had a reason to care.”

The casual cruelty of it hit harder than his burning hand had.

She surged at him again, Valor coming up in a full overhead swing, and he caught the haft with his cool palm this time, shoving the strike wide, and she let go of the weapon on purpose, using the opening to drive a bare fist into his exposed jaw.

His head snapped sideways.

He recovered fast, faster than she expected, and caught her wrist before she could pull back, twisting hard enough that she cried out, and drove his burning hand toward her side. She managed to angle just enough that it caught her armor instead of skin, heat scorching through the plating anyway, and she wrenched free, putting distance between them with three rapid bursts of lightning-driven momentum.

Valor spun through open air behind her, completing its arc, and returned to her open hand exactly when she needed it.

”You’re better with the weapon,” One said. ”I noticed that about your brother too.”

”I was taught by people who wanted me to survive,” Lucy said, circling, chest heaving, blood on her lip now. ”Not people who wanted me to conquer.”

”Same thing, from where I’m standing.”

She tried something different, a low feint that pulled his attention down before she reversed the axe’s grip and drove the blunt end up into his chin, lightning discharging at the point of contact in a controlled burst rather than a wild one, and it actually worked, staggering him a real step backward through the air.

”Clever,” he said, almost pleased. ”That threading, the way you held the charge until contact instead of running it continuously. Someone taught you that specifically.”

”Everyone in my family learns it eventually.”

”Pity there won’t be a next generation to teach it to,” he said, and closed the distance again before she could process the threat properly.

He hit her twice in the exchange that followed. Once across the jaw, hard enough that her vision swam white for a full second. Once with the burning hand, finding skin this time along her forearm, and she bit down a scream and kept moving through it, refusing to let the pain slow her hands.

”You could stop this,” she said, breathing hard, circling wide now to buy herself a second to think. ”All of it. Right now, this instant.”

”Why would I stop,” One said, and it wasn’t rhetorical, it was genuine curiosity, like the question had simply never occurred to him as worth asking himself before.

”Because you don’t have to be this,” Lucy said. ”I’m the head of House Grey. Ruler of three worlds. My bloodline predates your father’s imprisonment. If I go to the other originals and tell them you were misled, that Arthur built you for a war that was never yours to choose, I can get you a pardon. You could have a seat. Build a dynasty. Build a name not this vague thing everyone calls you. You don’t have to be known as the EIGHTH, not some threat nobody names properly at their own tables. A real house. A real crown.”

Something in his posture shifted.

He stopped circling.

”A seat,” he said slowly, turning the word over like he was testing its weight for the first time in his life. ”Like a king.”

”Yes,” Lucy said, seizing the opening, pressing forward with her voice now instead of her fists. ”Exactly. Not like a king but THE KING. Your own people, your own territory, a name that means something beyond fear. You could undo what you did to Lucas, walk away from everything your father built, become something that actually outlasts him instead of just repeating him.” She held his gaze, steady despite the blood running down her chin. ”You could have all of it. All you’d need to do is stop.”

One considered that for a long, suspended moment, floating there against the pale sky, and for one full breath Lucy actually believed it was working.

Then his expression settled into something close to disappointment.

”But I already have it all,” he said.

”You don’t have—”

”I have entire worlds,” he said. ”Soldiers who die at a single word and expect nothing back for it. Power that answers to no one, no council, no seven families voting on whether I’m permitted to exist the way I’ve chosen to exist.” He shook his head slowly. ”Why would I trade that for a seat at a table I could simply take instead?”

”That’s not the same as—”

”You’re offering me a crown,” One said, and his voice went flat and final. ”Why would I want to be a king. When I can be a god.”

He blasted toward her.

Lucy barely got Valor up in time, the impact driving her backward across the sky in a long scraping arc, lightning and shadow colliding in a wash of light bright enough to be visible from the ground far below, a false star burning for one long second before it faded again.

She caught herself, breathing hard, blood and sweat both running freely now, and let out a sound that was half groan, half something closer to grief.

For one full minute she’d actually believed she was reaching something in him. Some fragment of ambition, some sliver of a person who wanted more than what he already had.

But madness ran in Arthur’s blood the same way lightning ran in hers, and it seemed his son had inherited every last drop of it.

She raised Valor again, lightning gathering along its edge, and went back at him.

---

Deep underground, the passage smelled of old stone and something else underneath it, something sharp and mineral that Evangeline recognized instantly, the same scent that clung place they’d tracked One through. The scent she was perceiving was that of the Seks.

Sek bodies lay scattered across the floor behind them, Vel’kai ones beside them, and Evangeline’s puppet, no longer piloted remotely from orbit but worn now, manned directly, her own presence folded into its frame for the first time since this campaign began, flexed one gold-plated hand and looked back at the destruction they’d already cut through to get this far.

”Faster,” Matthias said, his unit moving ahead of hers down the passage. ”Whatever’s happening up there is fierce. I can feel it through the ground under us. We take this away before that fight decides itself without us.”

”I’m moving,” Evangeline said, stepping over a fallen Sek without slowing.

The passage opened into a smaller chamber than either of them expected, hewn stone giving way to a space lit low by beast cores embedded in the walls, amber light pulsing slow and steady, and at its center, five cages.

Only five.

Matthias stopped in the entrance.

”There,” he said quietly. ”That’s it.”

Evangeline looked at the cages, close together, each one occupied, and something cold settled behind her ribs.

”Only five,” she said. ”After everything he’s done. Everything he’s taken. He only needs five.”

”Then let’s take them away from him,” Matthias said. ”Before there’s nothing left of my family’s pride to salvage after today.”