SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 561: Moving Forward

Seraphine advanced through the dark.

The dungeon had taken almost everything from her. She was back at level one, her skills were gone, and none of the techniques connected to the system would respond. Only the katana in her grip still felt natural.

Months of progress had been peeled away, leaving the foundation underneath.

she told herself.

The enemy ahead moved too quickly. Nothing at this level should have possessed that kind of speed, but the dungeon clearly had no interest in fair scaling.

Seraphine reacted before thought could slow her down. Her basic comprehension of lightning, drilled into her until it had become instinct, answered without help from the system. Her body followed lessons it had truly learned rather than commands supplied from somewhere else.

She made it through the clash alive.

she thought as she checked for injuries.

Then she continued.

There was no way to know where the others had been sent or how far into the dungeon she had already traveled. She had darkness, a katana, and the difference between knowledge she genuinely possessed and power the system had once provided.

Her grip tightened.

Ira’s progress was considerably louder.

"COME AND TRY!"

The dungeon had taken her spear along with the rest of her equipment. It had reduced her to level one and left her with nothing except her body, her understanding of fire, and an unavoidable test of how much of that power belonged to her rather than the system.

Apparently, more of it belonged to her than she had realized.

The flames she summoned were technically level one, but they didn’t behave that way. Her comprehension ran far deeper than the dungeon’s limits seemed prepared for. The fire formed quickly, answered without hesitation, and burned with heat the surrounding environment had clearly failed to predict.

Three enemies moved around her inside the tight chamber where she’d appeared.

Ira grinned at them.

She knew exactly what that implied about her.

Then she charged.

There was nothing elegant about the attack. Ira drove forward with brute physical aggression and allowed the flames to act according to their nature under the control of someone who understood them and had no desire to hold back.

Two enemies abruptly chose retreat over continuing the fight.

"Yeah," Ira called after them. "That’s what I figured."

Vyra remained composed.

She had been that way since entering the dungeon. Judging by the number of enemies she had already killed, several hours had likely passed. Her level, skills, and access to the system were gone, leaving her in a condition that would have ruined an ordinary person.

Vyra had never been ordinary.

Centuries of accumulated understanding could not be removed by lowering a number. The dungeon had taken her power, but it couldn’t reach the experience behind it.

She regarded the enemies gathered before her.

There was no cruelty in the thought. It was merely correct.

Vyra passed through them with minimal movement. She fought like someone who had repeated the same work across lifetimes longer than entire civilizations and no longer considered the process difficult.

The floor ahead gave her more reason for interest.

Difficulty had risen sharply during the previous section. There had been no gradual increase. One moment the dungeon had tested her at one level, and the next it had adjusted as though it had studied her performance and concluded that ordinary resistance would not be enough.

The faintest trace of approval touched her thoughts.

She walked on to meet the next challenge.

Loriel was close to dying.

There was no softer way to describe it. Her survival depended on seconds, not careful choices. The dungeon had placed her in a fight she couldn’t win directly, which suited the limits of her role far too well.

She had prepared to support the others.

There was nobody here to support.

Three enemies surrounded her. She had no weapon, and at level one, the life element offered only weak, slow healing. Nearly all of what she could produce was already being spent on keeping her body functional.

The thought came with the clean certainty of an honest calculation.

A second thought followed.

Loriel couldn’t say where the refusal came from. It didn’t arrive as courage or sudden confidence. It simply settled inside her, solid and immovable, because accepting death was no longer an option she was willing to consider.

She studied the three enemies and remembered Leon’s instruction.

Foundation.

What did she actually know about the life element once every system-built technique had been stripped away?

Healing, certainly.

Life force.

The clear boundary separating living things from dead ones.

At first, no answer came.

Then several pieces connected at once.

Loriel stopped directing the element toward her injuries.

Instead, she attempted something she had never tried before.

Leon reached the tower entrance.

He stopped outside the gate for one second.

His awareness drifted toward the mansion Xyra had constructed beyond the far side of the tower. He didn’t choose to sense it. The place had become a constant pressure at the edge of his perception, the world spirit’s home sitting comfortably within the range of his spatial awareness.

He entered through the gate.

The familiar hall spread out before him, unchanged in its broad shape. Steady light filled the space, and the circular reception desk remained at its center.

The elf sat behind it.

Her attention appeared to be on a book. Golden eyes moved across the open page with the concentration of someone fully absorbed in what she was reading.

Leon glanced at her.

Then at the book.

The bookmark stuck out from the top of the page instead of the bottom. From where he stood, the cover made the problem even clearer. The writing faced the wrong direction, and the spine was reversed.

She had turned the book upside down and was pretending to read it with complete dedication.

"Weirdo," Leon murmured, barely making a sound.

Without slowing, he turned toward the path leading to the third-floor portal.

The tower had added signs since his previous visit. Directions now marked the hall, apparently created in response to his clearance of the first two floors. Rather than existing from the beginning, the guidance seemed to appear whenever it became relevant.

He located the third-floor portal without trouble.

Then he stood before it.

His thoughts went to Seraphine, Ira, Vyra, and Loriel.

All four were somewhere inside the Class Reawakening Dungeon. He couldn’t see what they faced, couldn’t reach them, and had no way to change what happened now.

Before they entered, he had done everything available to him. He’d given them resources, equipment, training, and whatever guidance he could offer.

There was nothing left except waiting for their return.

His gaze remained on the portal.

Leon allowed himself to hold on to the thought for another second.

Then he drew a breath, stepped into the portal, and disappeared through it.