Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 793: No excuses : An original effort

Back on a distant world far from the Amazon, in a glittering landscape of blue, Raiju, some of the key members of Eclipse were in an entirely different affair.

Sophie caught up with Seraleth near the eastern colonnade, the wind carrying that faint mineral sweetness Raiju’s air always had, something in the atmosphere the terraformers had never fully explained to anyone outside their own guild.

"You’re back already," Sophie said. Not accusing. Just surprised, and something underneath the surprise that sounded almost like worry. "It’s been a day, Sera. One day. You could’ve stayed longer with them."

Seraleth kept walking for a beat before she answered, her eyes on the horizon rather than on Sophie.

"I could have," she said. "I thought about it. Sat with a family for two hours last night, just listening to them talk about nothing, about the weather, about a garden they’re trying to grow that isn’t taking to the soil properly." A small, worn smile. "It felt good. Ordinary. I haven’t had ordinary in longer than I can count."

"So why leave."

"Because Lucy kept her word," Seraleth said, and now she did look at Sophie, something settled and certain in her face. "There’s real shelter. Food. My people have a place to stand where nobody’s coming to take it from them. I walked every row of it myself before I let myself believe it. It’s true, Sophie. They’re safe."

"Then that’s exactly why you should have stayed."

"No," Seraleth said, gently but without hesitation. "That’s exactly why I could leave. They don’t need me standing over them anymore, watching every shadow. They need me doing something about the thing that made shadows worth watching for in the first place." Her jaw set. "That’s where I need to be right now."

Sophie opened her mouth to argue and found, somewhere in the middle of forming the words, that she didn’t actually have a counter for that. She let it go.

A guard fell into step beside them before she could find something else to say, offering a small bow.

"Their majesties request your presence," the guard said. "Breakfast is served."

---

The morning meal sprawled the length of a stone table set out under open sky, the sun still climbing, and for a stretch of nearly an hour the whole gathering felt like it belonged to a different, gentler story entirely.

"So the boy," Damien was saying, gesturing with a piece of bread like it carried the full weight of royal decree, "seven years old, mind you, seven, marches up to the tallest guard on the entire palace roster and demands satisfaction. A wooden spoon. That was his weapon of choice."

"Dad," Lucas said into his coffee, not looking up.

"The guard salutes him. Full salute. Doesn’t even crack a smile."

"You’ve told this exact story four times since I arrived."

"And it has improved with every telling," Damien said, entirely unrepentant, and Lucy laughed hard enough that she had to set her cup down before it went everywhere, one hand pressed flat to her chest.

Angel found herself laughing along too, caught up in it despite everything sitting quietly underneath the morning, the ultimatum, the search, the days ticking away somewhere past the horizon line. For a few minutes none of that mattered at all, and she understood, watching Lucas actually relax for once, why he talked about this place the way he did back on Earth.

The doors at the terrace’s far end opened.

Matthias and Evangeline crossed toward the table still dressed for travel, dust on their boots, and something in the set of Evangeline’s shoulders reached the group before either of them spoke a word, the easy morning folding itself away all at once.

"We have confirmation," Matthias said. No greeting. "Positive intelligence on One’s location."

Damien’s fork went still against his plate.

"He’s on the world where Kruel fell," Matthias said. It was no surprise that they got word of Kruel’s demise. The sterlings were notorious for their knowledge around things of interest and even things that didn’t concern them.

Sophie’s hand tightened around her cup without her quite deciding to make it do that. Across from her, Angel felt the name settle low in her chest, the memory of that battlefield rising unbidden.

"You’re certain," Lucy said. Not a question really. A demand dressed as one.

"As certain as intelligence gets," Evangeline said. "More than one source, independently confirmed."

"Then we move," Damien said, already half out of his chair. "Every family—"

"Not every family." Matthias said it quietly, and this time his eyes went to the table rather than to Lucy. "That’s the rest of why we came. The remaining originals voted to abstain. All of them."

"Abstain." Lucy repeated the word like she was testing whether it would still sound as absurd the second time.

"If it’s true he’s Arthur’s son," Evangeline said, "they want no part of it whatsoever. Said as much plainly. Generations spent under that man’s shadow, and none of them are willing to bleed for anything carrying his name, direct heir or not."

Lucy’s palm hit the table.

Lightning tore across the wood beneath it, a black scorched print spreading outward from her hand, and the terrace fell into a silence so complete that even the birds somewhere past the balustrade seemed to feel it and hold their breath along with everyone else.

"Cowards," she said, and her voice had dropped into something low, controlled, far more frightening for the control than for any volume it might have carried instead. "We went to that world. Every one of us who could carry a weapon. Bled to pull our own families free of him, my father sitting right here included, and now his son is loose, killing people, and they’d rather fold their arms and wait to see if it comes for them personally before they’ll care."

"Lucy," Damien said, gentle.

"No." She stood, and her chair scraped hard against the stone, the sound of it sharp enough to make Angel flinch. "This is exactly how his influence lasted as long as it did, Father. Generation after generation of everyone waiting until it reached their own doorstep before lifting a hand. I refuse to make that same mistake sitting in this seat."

She turned toward the terrace doors.

"Send word to the war general," she said. "Prepare the fleet. We go to him before he decides to bring this to us instead."

The table came apart fast after that, chairs scraping in every direction, Matthias and Evangeline already moving off toward the coordination office. Damien caught his daughter’s wrist gently before she could follow them out, his grip light but insistent.

"Are you certain," he said. "War means loss, Lucy. Real loss. The kind no decree undoes afterward, no matter how righteous the reason for making it."

She looked at him for a long moment, something in her expression softening just slightly, the ruler and the daughter both present at once.

"I’m certain," she said. "Waiting for it to touch us directly, that’s exactly how afflictions like his survive as long as they do. Passed down, generation after generation, because everyone kept deciding it wasn’t quite their fight yet." She held his gaze. "It doesn’t get to rise again. Not while I hold this seat, Father."

Something moved behind Damien’s eyes, pride and grief tangled together in a way that made him look, for just a moment, far older than he had all morning. He nodded once, slow, and let her wrist go.

She walked out without looking back.

---

Sophie, Seraleth, and Angel found themselves alone together in the corridor beyond the terrace a few minutes later, none of them in any hurry to be the first to say what they were all clearly thinking.

"That’s disgusting," Angel said finally, the word coming out sharper than she’d meant it to. "All of them. Hiding behind a dead man’s name like it excuses whatever his son decides to do next."

"They’ve suffered under him," Sophie said, quiet, careful. "I understand the instinct behind it. I don’t excuse it. Those are two different things."

"If they don’t stand together," Seraleth said, "he picks them apart. One at a time. Arthur too, if he’s still out there somewhere, still pulling strings behind all of this." She shook her head slowly. "That’s exactly what they’re inviting by sitting this out."

They walked without speaking for a while, the corridor’s tall windows throwing long bars of gold light across the floor ahead of them, dust drifting slow through each one.

"At least the Greys and Sterlings are still standing," Angel said eventually.

"For now," Sophie said.

---

Lucy found Matthias and Evangeline near the fleet coordination office, already deep into preparations, star charts and deployment schedules spread across a console between them.

"By the way. We couldn’t find any credible evidence pointing to the kid’s location. I mean, it is after all in conclave territory. So who confirmed this," she said, "The intelligence. I want the actual source."

Matthias glanced at his sister first, some silent question passing between them, before he answered.

"It came through an EDF contact," he said. "Reached out to our people directly. Unsolicited. Called themselves Rowe."

Lucy went still.

"Rowe," she said, quiet, turning the sound of it over slowly in her mouth like she was checking it against something she might have vaguely recollected. But it all just felt like a haze. First time she was hearing the name yet it somehow stood out.

She didn’t know the name. Not personally, not from any council roster or diplomatic file she could immediately place. But something about the way it had arrived, unprompted, precise, landing at exactly the moment it would matter most, sat wrong in a way she couldn’t quite name yet.

She filed it away with everything that didn’t add up cleanly, for later.

"Go," she said. "Deliver the message yourselves. Tell your people the Greys stand with the Sterlings, fully, without condition. We move together."

**

[TIME: 90 HOURS AFTER INTELLIGENCE]

[LOCATION: CONCLAVE SPACE]

Lucas stood at the observation deck’s edge with Valor resting easy in his grip, staring down at a planet he hadn’t expected to see again this soon.

Beside him, Lucy stood in blue-plated armor that caught the ambient light of the bridge in slow shifting waves, her hair pulled back tight, her posture carrying none of the warmth from breakfast three days ago. She looked like something carved rather than dressed, every line of her deliberate, every angle of the armor serving a purpose beyond ceremony.

"Feels strange," Lucas said quietly. "Coming back here."

"Feels overdue," Lucy said, not looking away from the planet below.

Sophie stood on his other side, arms crossed, jaw tight, and Angel stood just past her, one hand resting on a weapon she hadn’t yet drawn, watching the surface with the particular stillness of someone who’d fought here before and remembered exactly what it cost.

Seraleth hovered nearby, wings already half-spread, restless energy running through her like a current with nowhere to discharge yet.

Behind them, the bridge hummed with quiet activity, Grey and Sterling crew working side by side, a first for either family in living memory, coordinating flight paths and weapon systems with the kind of clipped efficiency that came from genuine urgency rather than rehearsed drill.

Matthias’s voice came through the comm from his own vessel, holding formation a hundred meters off their flank. "Confirmed positions. Fleet’s spread wide, full coverage of the primary landmass. Nothing’s slipping past this net."

"Good," Lucy said.

She turned from the viewport and looked out across the bridge, at every face turned toward her, waiting.

"We do not know what we’re facing down there beyond what intelligence has told us," she said, her voice carrying easily across the space without needing to be raised. "We know what he did to Sterling. We know what he did to his own siblings. We know he walked in alone and left nothing standing." She paused, letting that settle. "So we do not treat this as a rescue mission, and we do not treat it as a punitive strike against a child who lost his way. We treat it exactly as seriously as the evidence demands, and we do not apologize to anyone for that seriousness."

Nobody spoke.

"Deploy," she said.

---

Below, on the surface, in a structure built from salvaged Vel’kai stone and reinforced Sek plating, One sat in something that had, over the past weeks, become a throne in every sense but formal declaration.

Women lounged around him in loose arrangement, some Sek, pale and watchful, some Vel’kai, their single eyes carefully neutral. A low table sat within reach, scattered with small dark nuts he’d taken a habit to since arriving here, some local delicacy his enforcers had brought him after learning he found the taste tolerable.

A Sek administrator entered the chamber at a pace just short of running, tablet clutched against his chest.

"Sire," he said. "Orbital sensors have detected multiple vessels entering the system. Numbers still confirming, but the formation reads as a coordinated fleet, not a scouting party."

One tossed one of the small dark nuts into his mouth, chewed once, unhurried, and swallowed before he bothered answering.

"About time," he said.

**

[TIME: 90 HOURS AFTER INTELLIGENCE]

[LOCATION: CONCLAVE SPACE]

Lucas stood at the observation deck’s edge with Valor resting easy in his grip, staring down at a planet he hadn’t expected to see again this soon.

Beside him, Lucy stood in blue-plated armor that caught the ambient light of the bridge in slow shifting waves, her hair pulled back tight, her posture carrying none of the warmth from breakfast three days ago. She looked like something carved rather than dressed, every line of her deliberate, every angle of the armor serving a purpose beyond ceremony.

"Feels strange," Lucas said quietly. "Coming back here."

"Feels overdue," Lucy said, not looking away from the planet below.

Sophie stood on his other side, arms crossed, jaw tight, and Angel stood just past her, one hand resting on a weapon she hadn’t yet drawn, watching the surface with the stillness of someone who’d fought here before and remembered exactly what it cost.

Seraleth hovered nearby, wings already half-spread, restless energy running through her like a current with nowhere to discharge yet.

Behind them, the bridge hummed with quiet activity, Grey and Sterling crew working side by side, a first for either family in living memory, coordinating flight paths and weapon systems with the kind of clipped efficiency that came from genuine urgency rather than rehearsed drill.

Matthias’s voice came through the comm from his own vessel, holding formation a hundred meters off their flank. "Confirmed positions. Fleet’s spread wide, full coverage of the primary landmass. Nothing’s slipping past this net."

"Good," Lucy said.

She turned from the viewport and looked out across the bridge, at every face turned toward her, waiting.

"We do not know what we’re facing down there beyond what intelligence has told us," she said, her voice carrying easily across the space without needing to be raised. "We know what he did to Sterling. I know what he did to his own siblings. We know he walked in alone and left nothing standing." She paused, letting that settle. "So we do not treat this as a rescue mission, and we do not treat it as a punitive strike against a child who lost his way. We treat it exactly as seriously as the evidence demands, and we do not apologize to anyone for that seriousness."

Nobody spoke.

"Deploy," she said.

---

Below, on the surface, in a structure built from salvaged Vel’kai stone and reinforced Sek plating, One sat in something that had, over the past weeks, become a throne in every sense but formal declaration.

Women lounged around him in loose arrangement, some Sek, pale and watchful, some Vel’kai, their single eyes carefully neutral. A low table sat within reach, scattered with small dark nuts he’d taken a habit to since arriving here, some local delicacy his enforcers had brought him after learning he found the taste tolerable.

A Sek administrator entered the chamber at a pace just short of running, tablet clutched against his chest.

"Sire," he said. "Orbital sensors have detected multiple vessels entering the system. Numbers still confirming, but the formation reads as a coordinated fleet, not a scouting party."

One tossed one of the small dark nuts into his mouth, chewed once, unhurried, and swallowed before he bothered answering.

"About time," he said.