SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

The standoff stretched for several long seconds. Seraphine continued to hold her position, lightning crackling around her form, ready to intercept the smaller creatures when they inevitably charged. But they didn’t move, seemingly taking their cues from the larger one.

The giant monster’s vertical mouth opened slightly, and for a moment Leon thought it might speak. But no words came – just a low rumbling grrmmhhh that might have been a growl or might have been something else entirely. Its grip on the white sword shifted, adjusting its stance in a way that was decidedly martial rather than bestial.

It knows how to use that sword properly, Leon observed with growing interest. This isn’t just a monster that picked up a weapon. It’s trained with it, or at least has fighting instincts sophisticated enough to wield it effectively.

The creature’s many eyes continued their systematic observation, and Leon realized it was doing precisely what he would do in its position – looking for weaknesses, measuring distances, calculating angles of attack. The smaller creatures maintained their positions like disciplined soldiers awaiting orders.

”It’s not attacking,” Seraphine said quietly, not breaking her combat stance but clearly puzzled by the delay. ”Why isn’t it attacking?”

”It’s thinking,” Leon replied, keeping his voice equally low. ”This one’s definitely Smarter.”

The large creature took a single step forward, not an attack but almost a test, seeing how they would react. When neither Leon nor Seraphine retreated or advanced, it stopped again, those eyes narrowing slightly in what might have been consideration.

The white sword in its grasp caught the filtered light in a way that made Leon want it even more. He could practically feel the power radiating from the weapon, could imagine how it would feel in his hands once he claimed it from the creature’s corpse.

Leon’s patience evaporated as the standoff stretched on. The creature’s intelligence, while interesting, presented a problem. If it realized the true disparity in its strength, it might attempt to flee. And while Leon knew he could easily catch it, he saw no reason to turn this into a chase when he could end it right now.

No more waiting, he decided. That sword is mine.

Leon moved.

The ground beneath his feet didn’t just crack – it exploded with a thunderous BOOM. The blast echoed like cannon fire, the shockwave slamming into the twisted trees and rattling Seraphine’s bones.

CRACK-CRUNCH! Chunks of the spongy forest floor flew in all directions from the sheer force of his launch. His Epic-ranked sword gleamed with dangerous intent as his Level One Lightning Aura wrapped around the blade, crack-crackle, barely contained power snapping at the air. He could feel the aura straining at its limits, approaching the threshold of Level Two. It wouldn’t be long now before it transformed, evolved into something even more deadly.

The mist itself parted before him like water before a ship’s bow, but more violently – SHHHHHK! – as if sliced by an invisible blade. His passage created a clear corridor through the white vapor, a testament to the raw physical force of his movement. No mana enhancement, no magical acceleration – just pure, overwhelming physical strength that turned him into a living projectile.

The large creature’s dozens of eyes widened simultaneously, panic replacing calculation in an instant. It had been measuring him, evaluating him, trying to understand what kind of threat he represented. Now it knew – he was death incarnate, moving at speeds its mind could barely process.

In desperation, the creature raised one hand, and the mist around them suddenly solidified into white spikes, jutting up from the ground between them with a SHNK-SHNK-SHNK! Like spears of ice forming. They looked solid enough to impale a normal warrior, arranged in overlapping patterns that would force any attacker to slow down, dodge, and reconsider their approach.

Leon didn’t even slow down.

His lightning-wrapped blade moved in a casual arc, and the mist spikes shattered like glass with a violent KRSSHHHH. The shards burst into stinging vapor that hissed tsssssss against his skin before dissolving, obliterated so completely they didn’t even have time to return to vapor. The creature’s last-ditch defense might as well have been made of paper.

The distance between them vanished in less than a heartbeat. One moment, Leon was across the clearing; the next, he stood directly in front of the four-meter giant, his sword already in motion. The creature’s panic intensified – it tried to raise its white sword, attempted to mount some defense, but it was far too slow.

Leon noticed the layer of white mist that suddenly condensed around the creature’s body with a whummp, a desperate attempt at armor formed from pure panic. It was actually impressive, the speed at which it had manifested this defense, suggesting the creature had significant control over the mist itself.

It didn’t matter.

Leon’s Epic-ranked sword, charged with Lightning Aura and driven by his monstrous physical strength, met the mist armor and passed through it as if it didn’t exist. The blade continued its path, meeting the creature’s flesh with the same lack of resistance.

The strike was so clean, so perfect, that for a moment nothing seemed to happen. The creature’s eyes remained wide with shock, its mouth still open in that silent scream of panic.

Then it separated into two halves, split perfectly down the middle from crown to groin. Both pieces toppled sideways, hitting the spongy forest floor with THUD-THUD, the sound echoing in the sudden silence.

The entire exchange – from Leon’s first movement to the creature’s bisection – had taken less than two seconds.

Immediately, the corpse began to dissolve into mist, that same frustrating disappearance that had plagued them throughout their journey.

The surrounding vapor trembled faintly, as if bowing toward the pulsing core before swallowing the rest of the body.

But this time, something remained.

A mana core materialized as the flesh dissolved around it, white and slightly translucent, pulsing thumm-thumm with inner light. It was blurry, unfocused, as if not quite solid, but it was undeniably there. And beside it, the white sword fell to the ground with a satisfying CLANG, freed from its former owner’s grasp.

Finally, Leon thought with deep satisfaction, actual loot.

The smaller creatures had frozen in place during the brief exchange, their simple minds trying to process what had just happened. Their leader, the intelligent giant that commanded them, had been destroyed so quickly they hadn’t even registered the attack beginning before it was over.

Then, as one, they turned to flee.

It was an almost comical sight – a dozen white humanoid creatures suddenly scrambling in different directions, SCRAAAPE-SCRRRK claws against bark, all pretense of coordination abandoned in favor of pure survival instinct. They had seen what the strange human was capable of, had witnessed their leader eliminated with casual ease, and wanted no part of him.

Leon’s blade flickered once.

The lightning-wrapped sword carved through the air in a single sweeping arc with a WHOOM, the reach of his aura extending the effective range far beyond the physical blade. Five of the fleeing creatures were bisected simultaneously, their bodies falling apart even as they tried to run. They dissolved into mist with a faint sssshhhh before hitting the ground, leaving nothing behind – these lesser creatures apparently still lacked whatever quality allowed the giant to maintain a mana core.

The remaining creatures scattered into the mist, vanishing beyond even Leon’s spatial awareness range in their desperation to escape. He could have pursued them, could have hunted down every last one, but he was more interested in examining his prizes.

”Sorry,” he said to Seraphine, his tone dismissive rather than truly apologetic. ”I know they were supposed to be yours, but they were running away. Couldn’t help myself.”

Seraphine stood frozen, her lightning aura still bzzzt-crackle around her form, her katana still raised in the guard position she’d assumed at the start of the confrontation. Her purple eyes were wide with shock, her mind trying to process what she’d just witnessed.

She had thought she understood Leon’s strength. She had seen him fight before, had witnessed him dispatch numerous creatures with ease. But this... this was different. The speed he’d just displayed was beyond anything she’d observed previously, a level of pure physical might that defied comprehension.

He wasn’t using any mana enhancement, she realized with dawning astonishment. That was just his body, his natural strength and speed. How is that even possible?

The way he’d obliterated the mist spikes, the casual ease with which he’d bisected a creature that radiated danger, the afterthought elimination of the fleeing monsters – it all painted a picture of power so vast that Seraphine had to recalibrate everything she thought she knew about him.

How strong is he actually? she wondered, a mix of awe and something approaching fear coursing through her. If this is him without mana enhancement, then what would he be like at full power?

Leon, oblivious to her internal crisis, walked over to collect his prizes. The mana core felt strange in his hand – substantial enough to pick up but somehow not entirely solid.

It pulsed with a rhythm like a heartbeat – thumm-thumm – and he could feel the concentrated mana within, different from any core he’d handled before.

The sword was even more impressive up close. Despite being sized for a four-meter-tall giant, it felt perfectly balanced when he lifted it. The white material was unlike anything he’d encountered – not metal, not bone, not crystal, but something unique to this mist-shrouded realm. It hummed with potential, and Leon could already imagine the possibilities if he could get it resized or reforged for human use.

”Look at this,” he said to Seraphine, holding up the blurry mana core. ”Different from normal cores. Probably because these creatures are native to the mist, this might have unique properties when absorbed.”

Seraphine managed to shake off her shock enough to approach, though she found herself overwhelmed by his previous strength. His casual display of overwhelming force had shifted something in their dynamic. She’d known he was stronger, but now she understood the true gulf between them.

”The sword?” she asked, gesturing at the oversized weapon.

Leon said with satisfaction. ”First real treasure we’ve found in here. Worth more than a hundred of those dissolving creatures.”

He stored both items in his spatial storage with a faint shhhhp, already planning to examine them more thoroughly once they were out of the mist. The core especially intrigued him – its unusual properties might provide insights into how the creature controlled the fog inside the forbidden mist.

”Should we continue?” Seraphine asked, her voice steady despite her inner turmoil. ”There might be more of these larger ones.”

Leon considered for a moment, then nodded. ”Let’s hunt a bit more. If these things carry loot, then this trip might actually be worthwhile after all.”

They moved deeper into the mist, but the dynamic had changed. Seraphine found herself stealing glances at Leon, trying to reconcile the person walking beside her with the force of nature she’d just witnessed. She’d thought she was growing stronger, closing the gap between them even slightly.

Now she realized the gap wasn’t closing at all. If anything, it was widening, because Leon clearly had depths of power he hadn’t even begun to reveal.

How strong are you really? She wondered, watching him scan the mist with casual alertness.

One thing she knew for sure was that he was not that strong before whatever happened to him inside the slum with the golden energy, as she had trained beside him for years.