Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner Chapter 823: Scoring points with the alien princess

Munachi bowed her head slightly toward the woman on the stairway, murmured something too quiet for the translator to catch, and slipped away down a side path without another word, leaving Noah standing there with a stranger who had, in the span of about four seconds, made him forget he’d been in the middle of a sentence.

"Hi," Noah said. Brilliant. "I’m Noah. Noah Eclipse,"

"Hibanna," she said, and something about the way she said it made it sound less like an introduction and more like a fact he should already know.

She moved toward him without hurry, the kind of walk that didn’t ask a room for attention because it had never once had to. Tall, built with a kind of coiled strength that showed in her shoulders and the set of her stride rather than anything overt, and Noah’s brain, unhelpfully, reached straight for Lucy. Not the face. The posture. The sense that whatever she decided, the room would eventually agree with her whether it wanted to or not.

’Great,’ he thought. ’Exactly what I needed. An alien Lucy.’

"You are the one my soldiers found wrestling a beast in our jungle," Hibanna said, stopping a few feet away, arms loosely crossed. "That is his, I take it. The creature currently refusing to leave one of our transport bays."

Noah felt his face heat before he could stop it.

"That’s Storm," he said. "He’s, uh. He’s a lot. I promise he’s not actually dangerous unless you’re a tree or a rock formation that got in his way."

"He destroyed the better part of a kilometer of forest chasing something you threw for him," Hibanna said, one eyebrow lifting slightly. "I watched the footage on the way here."

"To be fair, that forest had it coming," Noah said, then immediately regretted it. "That’s not— I don’t know what I meant by that."

Something flickered at the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile. Close enough.

"We were not expecting visitors," she said. "Certainly not from Earth. My people picked up your entry signature and assumed the worst, given recent history. I happened to be passing through the outer district when I heard my soldiers were attempting to detain a creature hundred times their combined mass, and decided that warranted a personal look."

"Lucky me," Noah said.

"We will see."

She turned and started walking, and Noah fell into step beside her without really deciding to, the stairway opening onto a wide terrace overlooking the city, spires stretching out below in every direction, traffic threading between them in unhurried lines.

"So," Hibanna said, glancing sideways at him. "Why are you here, Noah Eclipse. On our world. In our forest. Eating our fruit, I am told."

"Sightseeing," Noah said.

"Sightseeing."

"That’s right."

"And are you enjoying the sights."

Noah looked at her, deliberately, and let a beat pass before he answered.

"At this moment?" he said. "Absolutely."

Her composure cracked, just slightly, color rising along her cheekbones before she caught it and smoothed her expression back into something more neutral, chin lifting a fraction like she could out-dignify the blush if she just held still long enough.

’Oh, she gets it,’ Noah thought, filing that away with more satisfaction than the situation probably called for. ’Good. Good, that’s good to know.’

"You are bold for a man who crash landed uninvited into a foreign world," Hibanna said.

"I prefer confident."

"I am sure you do."

They walked in something close to comfortable silence for a moment, the terrace curving along the edge of a spire tall enough that Noah could see clear across half the city from where they stood, light rippling faint and constant against some kind of barrier far overhead, distorting what should have been open sky into something closer to the surface of a lake seen from underneath.

"That’s the water," Noah said, half to himself, tipping his head back. "We’re really under an entire ocean right now."

"You sound surprised."

"I am surprised. This is, genuinely, one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve fought a four horn Harbinger and punched a hole in a moon, so that’s saying something."

Hibanna glanced at him properly this time, something more assessing in the look, like she was recalculating a number she’d assumed she already had.

"You are the one from Nebular," she said slowly. "The dragon rider. Munachi mentioned a name, years ago, after the attack there. I did not connect it until now."

"Guilty," Noah said. "Though I go by a few titles these days. Dragon rider’s not usually top of the list."

"What is top of the list."

Noah considered that. "Depends who’s asking."

"I am asking."

"Then I’ll say Eclipse," he said. "That’s the one that matters most, out of everything."

She studied him a moment longer, then resumed walking, and Noah followed, curiosity outpacing whatever leftover awkwardness the fruit comment had left behind.

"Can I ask you something," Noah said.

"You may ask. I make no promise of an answer."

"Fair. How do you even do this." He gestured broadly at the city, the barrier overhead, the whole folded miracle of the place. "Ninety five percent underwater, Munachi said. But this isn’t just some dome stuck on the seafloor. This is a whole civilization built inside an ocean like it’s the most natural thing in the world."

Something in Hibanna’s posture shifted, not quite relaxing, more like settling into ground she was used to standing on.

"We call this place Athlantix," she said. "Our ancestors built the first spires nearly four thousand of your years ago, when the surface still held enough war and famine that the sea seemed the only place worth trusting. Over centuries, what began as shelter became home. What began as home became identity. We do not think of ourselves as living beneath the water. We think of the water as simply the shape our sky happens to take."

"Four thousand years," Noah repeated. "That’s insane. On Earth we can barely agree on how to build a subway system without it taking two decades and going over budget three times."

That almost got a real laugh out of her. Almost.

"Your Earth is young," she said. "Ours has had a great deal more time to decide what it wants to be."

Noah leaned against the terrace railing, looking out over the traffic below, the way it moved with a fluency that Earth’s own busiest cities had never managed even on their best day.

"So tell me about the Coalition," he said. "Munachi mentioned it. Said your people joined a while back."

Hibanna’s expression changed at that. Not dramatically. Just a tightening somewhere around her eyes, the easy confidence from a moment ago folding into something colder, more deliberate.

"My parents joined," she said. "A few years ago. After the harbingers found us for the first time in recorded memory, and after the Coalition, the EDF among them, arrived to help drive the attack back." She paused. "I have never been convinced it was the correct decision."

"Why not," Noah said, genuinely curious now, all the flirtatious ease from a minute ago quietly setting itself aside.

"Because before the Coalition, before any of this, Athlantix was untouched," Hibanna said. "Four thousand years, and not once did war find its way to our door. We built this world to be invisible to exactly the kind of conflict your Coalition now insists we owe our participation in. And the moment my parents signed our name to that alliance, the moment they agreed to stand with worlds like yours, the war that was never ours to fight found us anyway."

"That’s not really fair though, is it," Noah said carefully. "The Harbingers don’t exactly ask permission before they show up somewhere."

"Perhaps not," Hibanna said. "But we survived four millennia without their attention. One alliance, and within a handful of years, we have already lost more than we lost in the previous four thousand combined." Her jaw set, something old and tired moving behind her eyes despite how young she looked. "I do not believe that is coincidence."

Noah didn’t say anything right away. Let that sit.

’She’s not wrong to be angry,’ he thought. ’Doesn’t mean she’s right about the cause, but I get where the anger’s coming from. If Eclipse suddenly started losing people the second we allied with someone, I’d be asking the same questions.’

"The Coalition’s supposed to be a shield," Noah said eventually. "That’s the whole point of it. Nobody fights the Harbingers alone and wins, not long term. That’s the entire reason it exists."

"A shield that seems to attract more blows than it deflects," Hibanna said. "I have watched the reports. Worlds that stood alone for centuries, untouched, the moment they join, suddenly become priority targets. I do not think the Coalition protects its members so much as it advertises them."

"That’s a hell of an accusation."

"It is an observation," Hibanna said. "Whether the EDF, whether your Supreme General and his officers, are aware of the pattern or simply unwilling to address it, I could not tell you. I only know what has happened to my own people since the day my parents signed that treaty." She looked at him directly now, something sharp and unflinching in it. "You should understand, Noah Eclipse. My frustration is not with worlds like yours. Munachi speaks of Earth with something close to affection, and I do not begrudge her that. My frustration lies with the institution. With an alliance that asks small worlds to bleed for a war machine that never seems short on casualties to spare, and never short on excuses either."

Noah opened his mouth to respond, something half-formed about the General, about the Article 47 tribunal, about how he understood better than most what institutional rot inside the EDF actually looked like up close.

An alarm cut through the city before he got the chance.

Not loud in the way Earth alarms were loud. Deeper. A pulse that seemed to move through the crystalline spires themselves rather than just the air, resonating up through the terrace floor and into the soles of his boots.

Below, the smooth traffic patterns broke apart instantly, vessels scattering toward docking points, soldiers pouring into the plaza where children had been playing with holographic crystals minutes earlier, the whole rhythm of the city collapsing into something far more urgent.

"What’s happening," Noah said, already straightening off the railing.

Hibanna’s face had gone hard, all the softness from their walk gone in an instant, replaced with something that looked, uncomfortably, like vindication.

"It seems," she said, voice flat, "that you and your EDF friends have brought the harbingers straight to our doorstep. Again."

Noah felt the weight settle in his hand before he’d fully decided to summon it, deep purple energy folding into shape, Excaliburn solidifying against his palm, the blade humming faint and low.

"Don’t worry," he said. "I’ll protect your people."

"That is precisely the problem," Hibanna said, turning to face the chaos spreading below them, jaw tight. "I do not want help from the EDF."

Noah looked at her.

"Good thing," he said. "Because I’m not EDF."

He stepped up onto the railing, sword catching the ambient light of the city in a slow purple burn.

"I’m Eclipse."

"Alright." Noah’s grip tightened on Excaliburn, the blade’s hum steadying under his palm. "So who do I talk to for this. Entry paths, likely approach vectors, wherever they’re going to try coming through first."

"Me," Hibanna said.

Crystal folded around her body before Noah had time to ask what that meant, plates of it forming seam by seam across her shoulders, her forearms, down the length of her legs, catching the ambient light of the city and throwing it back in sharp fractured lines. A weapon took shape in her hands next, long, trident-headed, three prongs curving out from a shaft that ran nearly her full height, and along its length sat six stones, glowing faint and steady, spaced evenly like something built rather than grown.

"We are in our own waters," she said, testing the trident’s balance with one easy turn of her wrist. "They will not get past our bridge. But we take no chances letting anything get close enough to try figuring out how."

’The jump,’ Noah thought, the pieces clicking into place. ’That’s what that was. Not just transport. A bridge. A choke point they control on purpose.’

"So we go make sure they never reach it," Noah said.

"Yes."

She was already moving, one hand lifting to something at her collar, calling for transport in that same fluid layered language the translator hadn’t quite caught up to yet.

"Don’t worry, Princess," Noah said. "I’ve got a faster ride."

He stepped backward off the railing.

Hibanna’s transport call died mid-sentence as she caught sight of him falling.

Noah fell, back to the ground, city lights and crystalline spires sliding past above him in reverse, and through the widening gap he caught one last look at her leaning over the rail, trident forgotten at her side, an expression on her face that had nothing composed left in it all. The look of panick on her face was picture perfect.

"Storm," Noah said. "Fall."

Lightning cracked somewhere close, blue-white and immediate, and Storm was simply there, closing the distance in a single heartbeat, wings snapping wide beneath Noah in time to catch him flat against his back.

Noah landed. Didn’t even feel it, not really, just the impact absorbed into scale and muscle, and then they were climbing, city falling away below in a smear of light.

He looked back once. Hibanna still stood at the railing, both hands braced against it now, watching him rise with something caught between fury and disbelief.

"Nice one, buddy," Noah said, patting Storm’s neck. "You just helped me score one with the princess."

Storm didn’t dignify that with anything beyond a low rumble in his chest, already banking back toward the terrace.

They came around in a wide arc and dropped level with the railing, and Noah reached a hand down toward her.

"Well," he said. "You coming or not."

Hibanna looked at the offered hand, then at Storm’s wings beating slow and steady to hold position, then back at Noah with an expression that suggested she was recalculating that number about him again, and not necessarily in his favor.

She took his hand.

He hauled her up and settled her in front of him, crystal armor cold where it brushed his forearm, trident braced across her lap, and she went rigid the second her weight left solid ground, spine locking straight, both hands finding a grip along Storm’s foreleg spikes without being told to.

"Hold on," Noah said, leaning close enough for her to hear over the wind already picking up.

Then, quieter, to Storm alone. "Slowww."

Storm growled, low and put out, the lightning crackling around his tail dimming several shades, sulking audibly at being denied his favorite part.

Speed.