Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 806: The Strongest human

Kelvin led Noah a short way down the tunnel, far enough that the others’ voices faded behind them, and pulled up a thin holographic panel from his forearm.

"I’ve been keeping half an eye on the stream feed this whole time," he said. "Background process, didn’t want to say anything while we were still in danger. But you should probably know what you’re walking back into."

A panel flickered to life in a holographic manner from kelvin’s arms.

It showed the Dreamers’ camp, footage from a drone that had apparently never lost its feed, and layered over it, chat scrolling faster than either of them could fully read.

[Xoxo124]: so the dreamers KNEW about man eaters this whole time and said nothing

[GreyStormFan]: this is genuinely so shady

[PithonElite_07]: I keep coming back to zahir and mira’s conversation. they said their plan was to be seen adapting FASTER than eclipse

[nova_watcher]: wait what

[user_Jace91]: yeah go back and watch it, matthias said it plain as day, they wanted the optics of handling the expedition better than eclipse could

[VoidKingFan12]: so this whole partnership was them trying to upstage the faction that agreed to help them???

[StreamUser_847]: while people are missing. while people might be DEAD

Noah stared at the panel for a long moment.

"They knew," he said quietly. "Before we even landed. They knew there was something out here dangerous enough to warn hunters away from, and they brought us in anyway."

"Looks that way," Kelvin said.

Noah’s jaw tightened.

"For what," he said. "So they’d look good next to us."

"I don’t have the full context," Kelvin said carefully. "I’m just showing you what’s already public."

Noah didn’t answer.

He blinked.

"Well," Kelvin said, to the empty tunnel where Noah had been standing a half second earlier. "There he goes."

---

Noah appeared inside the Dreamers’ camp without warning, the sudden displacement of air enough to knock a stack of supply crates sideways, and Zahir spun toward the sound with his hand already halfway to a weapon before he registered who it was.

Mira stood a few feet away, going pale.

"How dare you," Noah said, and his voice came out low, controlled, which somehow made it worse than shouting would have.

"Noah—"

"How dare you," he said again, cutting Zahir off completely, crossing the distance in two steps. "I had my team paralyzed in an underground chamber for hours. Kelvin awake the whole time, unable to move a single finger while they dragged him toward something that was going to change him into whatever those things out there used to be. Diana unconscious, defenseless. A member of your own team dead, Corran, do you even remember his name, because I do, I watched what was left of him."

"We didn’t know it would go this far," Mira said, voice shaking.

"You knew there was something out here," Noah said. "Something bad enough that locals warned you off it on your first scouting trip. And you brought us in anyway, and you never said a word, because you wanted the footage of your faction handling this basin better than mine."

Neither of them answered.

"That’s what this was," Noah said. "Wasn’t it. This whole partnership. You needed a win against Eclipse specifically, needed the world watching while your people looked more capable than mine, and you were willing to let us walk in blind to get it."

"We’re sorry," Zahir said, finally, quietly. "That’s the truth of it. Our plan was to be the ones adapting fastest, the ones the streams talked about, proving we belonged next to a faction like yours instead of just under its shadow. It was never supposed to cost anyone their life."

"So your plan," Noah said, "was to make Eclipse look bad."

Zahir didn’t answer that.

Noah looked between them, disgust plain across his face.

"Unbelievable," he said.

He turned and walked away without another word, not bothering to blink this time, letting them watch him go the whole distance back toward the tree line, the silence behind him saying everything he’d decided not to.

---

A ship descended through Raiju Prime’s blue radiant sky slow and heavy, the EDF insignia stamped along its hull catching the ambient light as it settled onto the landing pad, and Grey forces fell into a loose assembly around it before the ramp had even finished lowering.

Lucy came down first, one arm wrapped around Lucas, half carrying him rather than walking beside him, and the sight of him made every soldier on that pad go very still.

He looked close to sixty now. His hair had gone gray at the temples and spread further with every hour, deep lines carved into a face that had belonged to a twenty-something-year-old just two days ago, and his hands, gripping Lucy’s arm for balance, shook with a fine constant tremor that hadn’t been there before the war against One started.

Behind them, Seraleth, Diana, and Sophie came down the ramp together, all three of them covered in dried blood and dirt, none of it cleaned, wings folded tight, faces set in the particular blankness of people who hadn’t had a moment yet to feel anything properly.

Damien came running across the landing pad before Lucy had crossed half the distance to him.

"Oh," he said, stopping in front of his son, both hands hovering like he didn’t know where it was safe to touch him. "Son. What happened."

Lucy looked at her father.

"I’m sorry," she said, simply, and nothing else.

Lucas looked up at him, and for one second something like his old self broke through, the corner of his mouth tugging into a tired smile.

"Hey," he said, voice thinner than it should have been. "I’d need your skincare routine, Dad. I’m just around your age now."

He laughed, short and hoarse.

Nobody else did.

He stopped, looking around at the faces watching him, and the smile faded on its own.

Damien and two Grey medics took him from there, moving fast but careful, guiding him toward the palace’s medical wing, and the rest of them watched him go until the doors closed behind him and there was nothing left to look at.

---

An hour later, Lucy came back out to the courtyard and found Seraleth, Sophie, and Angel sitting together on the low stone bench near the fountain, none of them cleaned up, none of them speaking.

"Why haven’t my guests been taken to have a bath and fed yet," she said to guards standing around, sharper than she meant it, the exhaustion in her voice doing nothing to soften it.

"No," Sophie said, before Lucy could say anything else.

Lucy stopped.

"It’s not going to work that way," Seraleth said. "You haven’t cleaned up either. Go do that first."

"I don’t have time for that," Lucy said. "My brother is aging by the second, surrounded by the best healers on this planet, and not one of them has any idea how to reverse it. I’m talking SSS ranked tier healers, and they’re standing around a bed doing nothing because nothing they know applies to whatever was done to him."

Her voice cracked on the last few words, and she pressed her lips together hard, forcing it back down.

"I’m sorry," she said, quieter now. "For yelling. That wasn’t fair to any of you."

"You don’t have to apologize," Angel said.

Lucy sat down heavily on the edge of the fountain, the fight going out of her all at once.

"I’m the ruler," she said. "Of three worlds. If I can’t protect my own little brother, sitting right here on the planet I supposedly command, how am I supposed to convince myself I’m fit to protect anyone else under my rule."

"Hey hey hey, don’t worry. You’ve got us and we’re not leaving," Sophie said. "Not until Lucas is back to normal. Whatever that takes."

"She’s right," Seraleth said. "We’re here. We’re staying here."

Lucy didn’t answer, just looked at the water in the fountain for a long moment, and the quiet that settled over the courtyard wasn’t uncomfortable so much as heavy, four people sitting with something none of them could fix by talking about it.

Two figures crossed into the courtyard from the eastern archway.

Matthias and Evangeline, still in travel gear, still carrying the particular tension of people who hadn’t stopped moving in hours.

"We need to plan our next move," Matthias said, without preamble.

Lucy looked up. "Why are you here and not in Aurigon."

"Our parents wanted us to be careful about next steps," Evangeline said.

"So the prince and princess of House Sterling don’t buy into being careful," Lucy said, something dry creeping into her voice despite everything.

Matthias’s jaw tightened. "We had him," he said. "We had One in our grasp, everything we needed to actually pin him down for good, and then two people showed up out of nowhere calling themselves Rowes and claiming they were Purge, and took the only leverage we’d managed to secure in all that bloodshed."

Sophie went very still.

"Wait," she said. "Rowes. A man and a woman?"

Evangeline looked at her, surprised. "Yes. How would you know that. We hadn’t even said their if they were man and woman yet."

"Oh no," Lucy said quietly, closing her eyes. "When I heard that name before we left, something felt wrong. I couldn’t place it. These Rowes are apparently the ones who fed us One’s location in the first place." She looked at Sophie. "Is there something you know that we don’t."

Seraleth scoffed, arms crossed. "The Rowes are Lila’s parents. Top members of a terrorist organization called the Purge, which we found out was founded and run by Arthur himself."

Sophie sat down slowly, rubbing her temple with two fingers.

"That’s where I knew the name," Lucy said. "It all makes sense now," she muttered in a frustrated tone.

"If I hadn’t rushed into that field the way I did, if I’d thought it through instead of charging straight at One, maybe we’d have actually had a real shot at him together. Instead I put my own brother in more danger than he was already in."

"There’s no way you could have known any of that," Angel said immediately.

"She’s right," Seraleth said. "None of us knew what we were walking into out there."

Angel looked between the Sterlings. "If the Purge works for Arthur, and Arthur is One’s father, why would the Rowes hand you One’s exact location just to turn around and steal his organic batteries right out from under you. That doesn’t track. That’s not helping their own boss."

Sophie let out a short, humorless laugh.

"I might have an idea," she said. "One killed Arthur. I mean, that’s the general consensus anyway. Which means the Endless and the Purge both lost their leader in the same stroke. If that’s true, whoever gets to Arthur’s whole network first, his resources, his people, his infrastructure, effectively inherits everything he built. It sounds like the Rowes just made their move."

"Why though," Seraleth said. "Why would they risk provoking One directly just to grab a handful of prisoners."

Lucy sat with that for a moment, something working behind her eyes.

"That event with Arthur," she said slowly. "The one where One turned on him. It’s a little blurred, honestly, in every account I remember. We were all there in one way or another when One betrayed his own father and Arthur sank into the shadows and simply disappeared. No body. No confirmed death. Just an assumption." She looked around at the group. "What if the Rowes are working under Arthur’s own directives right now."

Matthias’s eyes narrowed. "You’re saying Arthur’s been alive this whole time. For three years, since One supposedly killed him."

"It’s possible," Sophie said. "Could be."

The courtyard went quiet.

"Well," Angel said finally, dragging a hand down her face. "That’s great. Finally, some good news."

Nobody laughed.

"So what about One," Evangeline said. "That’s still the immediate problem. What actually happened when we lost contact."

Lucy cleared her throat.

"The Grey family owes the Supreme General and the EDF a significant debt," she said. "He engaged One directly. Held his own, drove him off, and gave us transport home when we had nothing left to fly with."

"He handled him," Matthias said. "Alone."

"Albeit One escaped," Lucy said. "But yes. Alone."

The weight of that sat over the courtyard for a long moment, nobody quite ready to say the actual thought out loud until Sophie finally did.

"So the only person who’s actually stood up to One and survived," she said, "happens to be the single strongest human alive."

"Not exactly comforting," Angel said.

"No," Lucy agreed.

"So One’s out there somewhere right now," Seraleth said. "Recovering. Plotting his next move. And now he knows something he didn’t know before all this started."

"That he’s not the strongest thing out there," Sophie said.

Nobody had anything reassuring to add to that.

"I think," Lucy said, after a long silence, "it’s time we all took a step back. Actually rest. Actually plan properly, instead of reacting to whatever hits us next the way we have been since this whole thing started."

"What about Lucas," Sophie said. "Time’s still moving for him. Every hour we spend resting is an hour he doesn’t have."

Lucy looked toward the medical wing, toward the doors that had closed behind her brother an hour ago, and something settled into her expression, tired but certain.

"We only have one option right now," she said.