Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner-Chapter 604: World keeps spinning

Back in the Eastern Cardinal, the world moved along like one SSS-ranked soldier wasn’t missing.

Reconstruction crews worked through rubble that used to be apartment complexes. Street vendors reopened their stalls in neighborhoods that still smelled like smoke and death. The government issued new regulations about structural integrity and emergency protocols. News networks cycled through the same footage of Kruel’s attack, analyzing it frame by frame like studying a particularly violent nature documentary.

Life continued because life had to continue. You couldn’t stop civilization just because three million people died in less than a day. That sounded callous when you said it out loud, but it was true. The survivors needed food, shelter, medical care. Buildings needed rebuilding. Bodies needed identifying and burying. The world kept spinning whether you were ready for it or not.

Two million empty seats at dinner tables across the Eastern Cardinal, and somehow people still had to show up for work the next morning.

The Eclipse Faction headquarters sat in the middle of it all, purple and black logo visible from three blocks away. Reconstruction drones buzzed around the building’s exterior, repairing damage from shockwaves that had cracked the facade during the attack. This discovery was made a month ago after government officials came to survey buildings for structural integrity and found areas that needed to be worked on.

Inside, the faction hummed with activity that felt wrong somehow, like a party continuing after the guest of honor left.

On the fifth floor, in what used to be the combat training wing before half the equipment got destroyed, Lucas Grey stood alone in an empty room and tried not to think about how quiet everything was.

He’d been back from Raiju Prime for three weeks now. Showed up expecting Noah to be there, ready to give him grief about taking so long, maybe challenge him to a sparring match to see what he’d learned in the shadow dimension. Instead, he’d found Sophie in the command center looking exhausted, Lila organizing relief efforts with volunteers, and no Noah anywhere.

"He’s on a system quest," Sophie had told him. "Said it might take a while."

That was it. No details, no timeline, just Noah doing what Noah did best, which was disappearing to handle cosmic bullshit while everyone else dealt with the aftermath of regular bullshit.

Lucas had wanted to be annoyed about it. Wanted to feel that familiar spike of competitive frustration that Noah got to do the interesting stuff while Lucas was stuck handling cleanup. But mostly he just felt tired.

And guilty. Two months since Kruel tore through their cardinal. Two months since Diana took a hit meant for Kelvin and ended up in a hospital bed with her skull held together by surgical pins. Two months of Lucas running solo contracts because the thought of bringing backup, of putting anyone else in danger, made his chest tight in ways that had nothing to do with physical exertion.

The training room’s door slid open. Marcus from the tech division stuck his head in.

"Uh, Lucas? You’ve got a contract. Category five in the industrial sector. Some kind of Razorback-class causing problems near the foundries."

Lucas nodded without turning around. "Send me the coordinates."

"Already did. Also, uh..." Marcus hesitated. "The drones are following you again. Livestream’s at about forty thousand viewers right now. Just thought you should know."

Lucas reached for the visor on the equipment table. Sleek black composite that Kelvin had built, integrated HUD that could display tactical data, contract information, and unfortunately, livestream chat.

He’d started wearing it a week ago. After he came back from Raiju Prime and discovered people had been commenting about how he seemed slower now, less sharp. For someone who prided himself on staying fit, on being the perfect soldier, on maintaining the discipline that had gotten him through the academy, those comments had stung more than he wanted to admit.

’Let them watch,’ Lucas thought, sliding the visor on. ’Let them see exactly what Eclipse does while Noah’s gone.’

"Thanks, Marcus."

The door slid shut. Lucas stood there for another moment, then activated his combat HUD. The contract details populated across his vision, coordinates locked in, threat assessment displaying Category 5 with civilian casualties already at three confirmed dead.

He left through the window.

***

The industrial sector looked like someone had played a very aggressive game of urban planning with explosives. Half the foundries were still operational, their smokestacks pumping out smog that mixed with the lingering haze from fires that still burned in collapsed sections. The other half were skeleton frames, their interiors gutted by either Harbinger attacks or structural failures during the chaos.

Lucas dropped from his flying car onto the roof of Foundry Seven, boots hitting metal with barely a sound. His HUD immediately picked up the target, highlighted it in red about three hundred meters east.

A camera drone buzzed into position maybe twenty feet away, its red recording light blinking. Lucas’s visor automatically connected to the livestream feed, and the chat started scrolling across the bottom of his vision.

[yooo Lucas is online!]

[finally some action, been waiting all day]

[where’s Noah tho? haven’t seen him in like a month]

[Eclipse without Noah hits different ngl]

[Lucas looking sharp today, that new visor is sick]

’Forty thousand people watching me hunt a category five like it’s entertainment,’ Lucas thought, moving across the rooftop toward the edge. ’Wonder how many are genuinely interested versus just waiting to see if I mess up.’

He reached the roof’s edge and looked down. The Razorback-class was exactly where the contract said it would be, tearing through a warehouse that probably had workers inside based on the screaming he could hear even from up here.

’Category five,’ Lucas thought, watching the creature move. ’Which means it’s dangerous enough to kill trained soldiers but not dangerous enough to require special deployment protocols. Just another day in the Eastern Cardinal.’

The beast was maybe twelve feet tall, quadrupedal, with chitinous plating that looked like organic razor wire twisted into armor. Its mandibles clicked as it moved, each click producing sparks that set fire to anything flammable nearby.

[titlove345: that thing is HUGE]

[Armadaglory: Lucas going solo again? where’s his backup?]

[dragontameR: he’s been running solo since he got back, someone said it’s PTSD]

[7daysaweek: after what happened to Diana I don’t blame him]

Lucas ignored the chat and jumped.

No dramatic entrance, no theatrical flourish for the cameras. Just a straight drop from the roof, gravity pulling him down, wind resistance minimal because he was built for speed and speed didn’t care about looking cool.

He hit the ground in a crouch, concrete cracking beneath his boots from impact force. The Razorback’s head swiveled toward him immediately, compound eyes tracking movement with predatory focus.

Blue lightning began crackling around Lucas’s arms, dancing between his fingers, illuminating the dimly lit warehouse interior with electric light that cast sharp shadows against rusted equipment and concrete support pillars.

[greyhonor: OH SHIT HERE WE GO]

[stormcell: Lucas’s lightning is so cool, way better than fire users]

[voidwatcher: bet Noah could one-shot this thing]

[emberline: can we NOT compare them? they’re both good]

The beast charged. Twelve feet of armored killing machine covering the distance between them in maybe two seconds, mandibles spreading wide enough to bite a man in half.

Lucas moved faster.

His body blurred across the warehouse floor, leaving afterimages that the camera drone struggled to track. He appeared at the Razorback’s flank before it could adjust trajectory, his fist already coming around in a punch that channeled every volt of lightning he could generate into a single point.

CRACK!

The impact created a thunderclap that shattered every window in the warehouse. The Razorback’s chitinous armor splintered where Lucas’s fist connected, pieces flying off like shrapnel. The creature stumbled sideways, off-balance, its rear legs giving out from the force transferred through its body.

[neonparser: YOOOOO DID YOU SEE THAT SPEED]

[volt_theory: Lucas is actually insane]

[frameperfect42: okay that was clean af]

[oldpatchnotes: still not as fast as he used to be tho, remember the academy tournament?]

Lucas saw that last comment scroll past and felt something twist in his chest. His jaw tightened behind the visor.

’Not as fast as I used to be,’ he thought, electricity surging brighter around his hands. ’Let’s test that theory.’

He didn’t give the Razorback time to recover. His body blurred again, appearing on the opposite side, his other fist driving into where ribs would be on a normal creature. More lightning, more thunder, more armor breaking apart under electrical discharge that made the air smell like ozone and burnt chitin.

The camera drone repositioned to get a better angle, its stabilizers working overtime to keep the feed smooth despite the shockwaves.

[TapStrafeKid: he’s DEMOLISHING it]

[AimAssistOff: Lucas really said fuck around and find out]

[NoTeamQueue: where’s the backup tho? he always used to run with a team]

[PatchDayTrauma: I heard he won’t take anyone with him anymore, not since Diana got hurt]

’They’re right,’ Lucas thought, ducking under a retaliatory swipe from the Razorback’s bladed tail. ’I won’t bring backup. Can’t risk it. Can’t put anyone else in a position where they might take a hit meant for me or anyone else. Not again.’

He caught the tail on its return swing, electricity surging through his grip into the appendage. The Razorback convulsed, its entire body seizing as voltage overloaded its nervous system.

Lucas pulled. Hard.

The tail ripped free with a sound like tearing metal. Black ichor sprayed across the warehouse floor, and the Razorback’s scream was this awful chittering noise that hurt to hear even through the visor’s audio filters.

[UltraWidePanic: OH MY GOD HE JUST RIPPED ITS TAIL OFF]

[BuiltDiffed: Lucas is built different I swear]

[ViolenceEnjoyer: this is brutal, I love it]

[EclipsePRTeam: chat he’s literally carrying Eclipse rn]

[MissingMainChar: yeah but where’s Noah? it’s been a month]

[SSSRankCopium: Noah’s probably off doing SSS-rank stuff, he’ll be back]

Lucas tossed the severed tail aside and watched the Razorback try to stand on legs that weren’t cooperating anymore. Blood loss and electrical damage were shutting down its system piece by piece.

’Noah would have made this look easy,’ Lucas thought, blue lightning still crackling around his hands. ’Would have smiled for the cameras, said something clever, made everyone feel safe. Made them forget that three people died before I got here.’

The thought made him angry. Not at Noah, but at himself. For not being faster. For not being there when it mattered. For coming back from Raiju Prime stronger than ever and still feeling like it wasn’t enough.

The Razorback was dying now, its movements getting sluggish. Lucas ended it with a lightning bolt straight through its skull, the crack of thunder echoing through the warehouse one final time.

The beast collapsed. Twitched once. Went still.

[SpeedrunVerified: contract complete, that was like 90 seconds total]

[HiddenMetaPick: Lucas is low-key underrated]

[MainCharacterBias: he’s good but he’s no Noah Eclipse]

[FactionMediator: can y’all stop comparing them? they’re BOTH carrying the faction]

[PostNoahEra: real talk tho, Eclipse hasn’t been the same since Noah left]

[BringBackSSS: facts, we need our SSS-rank boy back]

Lucas stood there for a moment, breathing steady despite the exertion, blue lightning still crackling faintly around his hands while he stared at the chat scrolling across his visor.

’They miss him,’ Lucas thought. ’Can’t even watch me complete a contract without asking where Noah is. And honestly? I miss him too. Guy’s annoying as hell but he’s got this way of making everything feel manageable, like no matter how bad things get, we’ll figure it out.’

He looked at the camera drone.

"Contract complete," Lucas said, his voice flat. "Industrial sector clear. Eclipse out."

He left before the chat could ask more questions about Noah’s whereabouts.

***

Somewhere else in the faction headquarters, in a workshop that smelled like burnt wiring, Kelvin was facing a different kind of problem.

KROME lay in pieces across his workshop floor like the world’s most expensive jigsaw puzzle. The mech’s chassis was intact, mostly, but everything else had been torn apart in varying degrees of catastrophic failure. Hydraulic systems fried from overload. Targeting arrays destroyed from proximity to Kruel’s missed punches. The entire left arm assembly just gone, ripped clean off during the fight two months ago.

Kelvin sat on the floor in the middle of it all, a holographic schematic rotating slowly in the air above his head while he stared at a servo actuator that absolutely should not have been bent at that angle.

"This is fine," Kelvin said to nobody. "Everything’s fine. My girlfriend’s in a coma with her brain trying to rebuild itself from getting punched by a four-horn Harbinger, my mech looks like it got chewed up by a garbage disposal, and I’m trying to rebuild a weapons platform using parts that don’t exist anymore because the manufacturer went bankrupt in 2067. But sure. Fine. Totally fine."

He threw the servo actuator across the room. It bounced off a wall and clattered to the floor with a sound that was deeply unsatisfying.

The workshop door slid open. Seraleth ducked through, her seven-foot frame making the doorway look comically small.

"Kelvin," she said carefully, "I heard shouting."

"I wasn’t shouting. I was expressing frustration at an appropriate volume for the situation."

"You threw something." She said.

"Mechanical failures deserve physical consequences."

Seraleth walked over and sat down on the floor next to him, which looked absurd because she was tall enough that sitting put her at some normal human standing height.

"How bad is it?" she asked, gesturing at KROME’s scattered remains.

Kelvin laughed. It came out wrong, too sharp, with edges that cut on the way out.

"Well, let’s see. The hydraulic systems need complete replacement. The targeting arrays are slag. The left arm is literally gone, torn off when Kruel decided KROME looked better as abstract art. The power core is cracked, which means I need to source a new one from somewhere that isn’t the black market because I’m pretty sure buying unauthorized military hardware while running a faction would get us shut down. Oh, and the neural interface that lets me actually pilot this thing? Fried. Completely fried. Diana helped me build that, and I don’t remember half of what she did because she was the engineering genius and I just made the tech work."

He picked up another piece of debris, turned it over in his hands.

"So yeah. It’s bad. Real bad. The kind of bad where I’m seriously considering just scrapping the whole thing and starting over, except I don’t have time to start over because Eclipse is barely holding together and Lucas is running himself into the ground trying to cover category five contracts solo."

Seraleth was quiet for a moment.

"You know," she said eventually, "on my homeworld, we had a saying. ’The broken blade teaches the smith.’ It means that failure is where you learn to build better."

"That’s beautiful," Kelvin said. "Poetic, even. Doesn’t help me fix a mech with parts that don’t exist anymore, but it’s beautiful."

"I’m trying to help, Kelvin."

"I know. Sorry." Kelvin rubbed his face with both hands. "I’m just... I’m so tired, Sera. Diana’s lying in a hospital bed with her skull held together by pins, and the doctors keep saying her brain is healing but it’s so slow. And I can’t help her. Can’t build something to fix her. Can’t engineer my way out of this problem like I usually do. So I’m trying to rebuild KROME because at least that’s something I can control, except I can’t control it either because I don’t have the parts or the time."

He looked at her, and his expression cracked just slightly.

"Do you know what void sickness is?"

Seraleth’s expression shifted. "I’ve heard of it. Exposure to void energy for non-awakened humans. It’s like poison."

"The doctors think Mrs. Harper has it. Noah’s guardian. She collapsed three days ago, and they ran every test they could think of. Found void energy saturation in her cells at levels that shouldn’t be possible for someone who’s not awakened. They want to put her in an induced coma because there’s no treatment, Sera. No cure. Just hope her body eventually filters it out on its own, which it might not do because she’s human and humans aren’t built to process void energy."

Kelvin’s hands were shaking now.

"So that’s two people I care about in medical facilities with conditions I can’t fix. Diana with a fractured skull that’s healing too slowly, Mrs. Harper with void energy poisoning her from the inside out. And I’m sitting here in a workshop surrounded by broken technology trying to rebuild a mech like that somehow makes up for being completely useless when it actually matters."

Seraleth reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. Carefully, because her strength could hurt humans if she wasn’t cautious.

"You’re not useless, Kelvin."

"Tell that to Diana. Tell that to Mrs. Harper. Hell, tell that to everyone who died during Kruel’s attack while I sat in KROME and watched my girlfriend sacrifice herself to save me because my brilliant plan failed by one point five seconds."

"Kelvin."

Something in Seraleth’s voice made him look up.

"You’re a good person trying to help people you love," she said firmly. "That’s not useless. That’s what makes you worth knowing. Diana knows that. Mrs. Harper knows that. Everyone in Eclipse knows that."

She squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Now, let’s fix your mech. You tell me what to do, and I’ll do the lifting. We’ll figure out the parts situation together. And then maybe we can work on finding that void stone you keep talking about."

Kelvin was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded.

"Okay," he said quietly. "Yeah. Okay."

They got to work, Kelvin directing while Seraleth lifted components that would have required industrial equipment for anyone else. The workshop slowly transformed from chaos into organized reconstruction, piece by piece, bolt by bolt.

***

In Sophie office on the third floor, the faction’s operational heart beat on despite everything trying to stop it.

Sophie had been here since sunrise. The holographic displays floating around her desk showed contract status, budget allocations, personnel rosters, supply requisitions, all of it color-coded and cross-referenced because organization was the only thing keeping Eclipse from falling apart completely.

She was currently staring at a contract offer from a private military contractor. Big money, enough to cover three months of operating expenses. The kind of offer that would solve a lot of problems if she just said yes.

It was also blood money disguised in corporate language, and Sophie knew exactly what Noah would say about it.

The door opened. Lila walked in without knocking, carrying two cups of coffee.

"You need to eat something," Lila said, setting one cup on Sophie’s desk.

"I’ll eat when I finish this budget reconciliation."

"Sophie."

Sophie looked up. Lila was watching her with an expression that was hard to read.

"You can’t keep doing this," Lila said. "Working eighteen-hour days, sleeping four hours, eating one meal if we’re lucky. You’re going to collapse."

"I’m fine."

"You’re burning out. Everyone can see it."

Sophie wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. Because Lila was right, and they both knew it.

"What else am I supposed to do?" Sophie asked quietly. "Noah trusted me to keep Eclipse running while he’s gone. People are counting on us. The city needs us."

"So delegate," Lila said. "Let me help. Let Lucas help when he’s not running himself into the ground with solo contracts because he’s got PTSD about putting anyone in danger after what happened to Diana. Let the others carry some of this instead of trying to do everything yourself."

She pulled a chair over and sat down.

"I know we didn’t start off well. I know you didn’t like me when we first met because I was competition for Noah’s attention. And I didn’t like you because you had what I wanted. But we’re past that now, right?"

Sophie almost smiled. "Are we?"

"I’d like to think so. We’re both here. We’re both running Eclipse while Noah’s off doing system quest stuff. We’re both in love with the same guy who keeps taking on impossible tasks because he doesn’t know how to do things halfway."

This time Sophie did smile, just a little.

"So let me help," Lila said again. "Please."

Sophie was quiet for a moment. Then she pulled up the contract file and slid it across the desk holographically.

"Private military contractor," Sophie said. "Offering Eclipse a lot of money to handle security consultation in a conflict zone. Basically mercenary work."

Lila read through it, her expression darkening. "That’s blood money."

"That’s our budget shortfall covered." Sophie said.

"Noah wouldn’t take it." Lila said while considering it from the angle Sophie was coming from.

The words hung between them. Sophie closed the file.

"You’re right," she said. "He wouldn’t. Which means we don’t either."

She looked at Lila.

"Help me find another way to cover the shortfall. Because I’m out of ideas."

They worked in silence for a while, going through numbers, running scenarios. Eventually, Lila spoke up.

"Can I ask you something personal?"

Sophie glanced at her. "Should I be worried?"

"When you started dating Noah, did you know I liked him?"

Sophie’s hands stilled on the holographic interface.

"Yes." She finally answered.

"And you did it anyway."

"I did."

Lila nodded slowly. "That’s kind of a jerk move, not gonna lie."

"It was," Sophie agreed. "I’m competitive. Probably too competitive. Back then Noah was getting quite popular and Micah, I don’t know if you remember him, one of the top 25 wouldn’t stop talking about how he hated Noah. And in my opinion, Micah had a shitty taste. So I looked Noah up, we met at the Rave, I saw something I wanted, and I went for it without considering how it would affect you."

"And now we’re dating the same guy."

"And now we’re dating the same guy," Sophie confirmed. "Which is weird, and complicated, and probably shouldn’t work. But it does work, somehow. Because he’s got enough emotional bandwidth for all of us, and we all care about him enough to make it work."

Lila was quiet for a moment.

"I’m glad you didn’t give up on him," Sophie said. "On being here. Eclipse is better with you in it."

"That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me." Lila said.

"Don’t get used to it."

But they were both smiling now.

Sophie’s phone rang. Unknown number. She almost didn’t answer, but something made her pick up.

The voice on the other end was professional, detached. It was a hospital staff.

Mrs. Harper had been admitted. Collapsed at home. They’d found Noah listed as emergency contact, but he wasn’t answering. They were calling Sophie because Eclipse’s information was in Mrs. Harper’s phone.

Sophie felt the blood drain from her face.

"What’s wrong?" Lila asked.

"It’s Noah’s guardian," Sophie said, already standing. "She’s in the hospital."

They were in Sophie’s car three minutes later, Lila driving because Sophie’s hands were shaking too badly. The city blurred past them through the windshield, reconstruction drones and damaged buildings and people going about their lives like the world wasn’t ending.

The hospital was chaos. Too many patients, not enough staff, everyone still dealing with casualties from Kruel’s attack two months ago. A nurse directed them to the ICU, third floor, room 307.

Mrs. Harper lay in the bed unconscious but breathing. Machines beeped steadily, monitoring vitals that looked stable on the displays.

A doctor met them outside the room. Young, looked exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that came from working sixty-hour shifts during an ongoing crisis.

"Are you family?" the doctor asked.

"Close enough," Sophie said. "What happened again. Is she getting worse??"

"Miss, it’s void sickness. She’s got void energy saturation in her cells at levels we’ve never seen in non-awakened humans. We don’t know how she was exposed, but the damage is extensive."

"Can you treat it or not?" Lila asked.

The doctor’s expression said everything before his words did.

"There is no treatment. Void energy is toxic to non-awakened humans. All we can do is manage symptoms and hope her body filters it out naturally. But given her age and the saturation levels..." He trailed off, the implication clear.

"How long does she have?" Lila asked quietly.

"We don’t know. Could be days, could be months. We’re going to induce a coma to reduce stress on her system. Give her body the best chance to heal itself."

Sophie nodded, her throat too tight to speak.

They signed the consent forms. Sat in the waiting room while doctors prepared Mrs. Harper for the induced coma. Hours passed, marked only by the movement of medical staff and the occasional announcement over the intercom.

Eventually, Lila spoke.

"We need to tell Noah."

"He’s on a system quest," Sophie said. "We don’t even know where he is."

"So we wait for him to come back?"

"What else can we do?"

Lila pulled out her phone, typed a message to Noah’s number.

||Your guardian’s in the hospital. Void sickness. They’re putting her in an induced coma. Come home||

She hit send. The message showed delivered but no read receipt.

Sophie stared at her own phone, at Noah’s last text from a month ago.

*System quest. Might take a while. I’ll be fine.*

She typed a new message, her fingers moving slowly.

*Where are you?*

Sent.

No response.

Unknown to the both of them, Noah left his phone back at the the headquarters. And it hadn’t occurred to anyone to check his room soon after Sophie got the text from him the night he left.