SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 579: Everything It Learned Was Wrong

Dark stone formed a wide circular arena beyond the gate. The Gatekeeper waited in the middle.

Its shape was humanoid, though far larger than any ordinary man, and seamless gray armor covered it from head to foot. One hand gripped a heavy blade. The helm had no eyes or face, only a smooth metal surface that turned toward Leon when he stepped inside.

The doors shut behind him as soon as he crossed the entrance. At the same time, the presence he had sensed through the gate stopped feeling distant and became a firm pressure in the arena.

Adaptive calibration had pushed the Gatekeeper’s physical output into the lower range of Ethereal Lord territory. It still fell short of the fully anchored Hollow King, but it stood well above the Ethereal Initiates Leon could defeat without much trouble. Raw rank was not the only concern, either. Spatial Resistance and Technique Mimicry made the gap far more dangerous.

Leon began with a test.

He formed one compact spear of white fire and sent it forward. The technique was clean, tightly controlled, and deliberately simple. He wanted to see exactly how the mimicry worked.

The Gatekeeper raised its sword and caught the fire against the blade.

Leon felt the instant it absorbed the technique. Somewhere behind the blank helm, its structure registered.

A moment later, the construct lifted its free hand. White flame appeared over its palm in the same shape and with the same formation Leon had used. The Tower supplied the power behind it.

The spear came back faster and harder than his own.

Leon folded aside. The attack passed him and exploded against the arena wall.

So the copies aren’t weak.

The Covetous Reflection had returned reduced imitations. The Gatekeeper did something else. It recreated the full structure and fueled it with Tower power instead of Leon’s affinity.

It had copied the shape of the technique, though not the understanding behind it. It did not know why Leon had chosen that attack or when it should be used.

At this level of output, the shape alone could still kill him.

Next, Leon attempted a displacement. He folded across the arena, aiming to appear on the Gatekeeper’s flank.

The construct did not mimic it.

His working began to unravel as soon as the fold formed near its body. Space around the Gatekeeper refused Leon’s distortion. The passage broke apart and dropped him short of his target.

Spatial Resistance.

He could not displace the construct or complete a fold cleanly against its body. Teleporting straight into a finishing blow would not work. Void Dominion still obeyed him elsewhere in the arena, but the region immediately surrounding the Gatekeeper rejected his control.

Leon measured the protected area and discarded the idea of ending the fight through direct spatial manipulation.

Anything he showed in complete form could be copied and turned against him. Throwing larger attacks at the Gatekeeper would merely give it larger attacks to return.

Its ability still had limits.

Technique Mimicry could not duplicate Leon’s affinities, his dual-heart constitution, his conscious armor, the combat experience he had integrated, or the judgment that connected one move to another. Leximancy offered no answer either. The Tower construct contained no living will for Leon to bind.

So he decided what it was allowed to learn.

Leon used the same compact fire spear again, always with one fixed release. He added a straight lightning cut and a high sword opening, making each technique genuine and complete enough for the Gatekeeper to copy. Between them, he repeatedly retreated to the right and used one short fold that began well beyond the edge of the construct’s Spatial Resistance.

Those pieces were real. Together, they were still nowhere close to the full way Leon fought.

Technique Mimicry collected the active techniques. The Gatekeeper’s combat judgment studied everything around them.

It returned the fire spear using the Tower’s power. At midrange, lightning gathered over its blade whenever Leon approached. Each time he opened high, the construct readied the same rising counter. With every exchange, it grew more certain, building its responses around the narrow version of Leon it had been shown.

None of that made the battle safe.

The Gatekeeper’s sword carried Ethereal Lord-class force. During one clash, it smashed through a shoulder plate and cut into the flesh below.

The injury sealed within seconds. Before the next exchange finished, Leon’s armor had flowed back over the damaged section.

That did not mean he could ignore the hit. A clean thrust through either heart or his core could kill him before regeneration had time to help.

Leon refused to rush.

Mirrorheart awareness showed him each small change as recognition hardened into expectation. The Gatekeeper reproduced single techniques without error, but it had started preparing for the sequence and timing Leon kept placing around them.

Once that expectation settled firmly into place, Leon began the familiar pattern again.

White fire collected above his hand.

The Gatekeeper lifted its blade, already prepared to catch the spear and send it back.

Leon never released one.

He charged through the flare instead. Its brightness concealed his first physical step, letting him enter before the construct adjusted.

The Gatekeeper shifted into the rising sword counter it had learned from him.

Leon delayed himself by half a beat.

The heavy blade swept past before he reached its path. Lightning crawled along Leon’s sword, advertising the straight cut he had used earlier. In answer, the Gatekeeper brought its copied lightning around to intercept.

Just before contact, Leon dismissed the element.

Ordinary steel struck instead.

The Gatekeeper still recovered quickly enough to block him. It forced Leon backward, then pursued with the rightward retreat and fire-spear combination it had learned from his example.

Leon finally brought space into the exchange, though he made no attempt to affect the resistant body.

Beyond the boundary protecting the Gatekeeper, he folded the path of the copied flame. The spear bent around him and drove into the construct’s sword arm.

Tower-fed fire burst across the gray armor, disrupting its follow-up.

Spatial Resistance had never stopped working. It simply did not matter. Leon had not tried to teleport through the defense at all.

He covered the remaining distance with physical speed, breaking the rhythm of his steps as he approached. The Gatekeeper prepared for another high opening.

Leon went low.

He slipped inside the reach of the heavy blade and thrust his sword beneath the smooth helm.

His earlier spatial examination had already marked the location of the core. The point struck that exact place. Holy energy and a concentrated Elemental Surge poured down the weapon and into the single target.

The core shattered.

The Gatekeeper’s enormous body froze. Whatever presence had occupied the space behind its helm vanished in an instant.

It fell backward, crashed against the dark stone, and remained still.

Before it hit the floor, Leon’s latest wounds had already healed, and his armor had finished restoring itself.

Then the Tower spoke.

[ASCENSION TOWER — FLOOR THREE CLEARED]

[Mandatory Objectives Completed: 3/3]

[Optional Treasures Claimed: 2]

[Enhanced Gatekeeper Defeated]

[Hidden Condition Completed]

[Final Evaluation: SSS]