SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 572: The Path Below

Chapter 572: The Path Below

Leon had saved one last source of light.

During an earlier exchange, he’d hidden a dormant knot of holy energy behind one of the cracked statues. The Warden committed to the killing thrust, and Leon activated it.

Holy light erupted at the guardian’s back.

Its shadow tore apart from behind.

The new light broke the connected darkness into pieces, opening thin strips of illuminated stone around the Warden’s feet. Leon felt his void return immediately.

There wasn’t enough time for a full teleport.

The spear was already driving at his heart. Leon reached through one of the bright gaps and folded the space running along the weapon’s path. He only managed to shift the thrust by a small amount.

It was enough.

The spearpoint missed his ribs and scraped a line across his armor.

His body moved before thought could slow it.

The Warden had extended too far. Leon stepped past the spear’s effective reach and drove his sword into the hairline fracture on its chest plate.

The black metal refused to give.

The guardian dragged itself backward as the broken patches of shadow stretched toward each other. If they reconnected, the absence field would catch Leon’s blade before he could force it through.

He put his full physical force behind the opening.

Holy energy rushed along the sword. His right arm drove forward, backed by the full strength of his armored body. The point sank deeper into the existing crack.

The plate split just before the shadows joined.

Leon’s blade punched through the core around the fragment, and the holy energy inside it exploded.

A violent tremor ran through the Warden.

Its spear slipped free and hit the dusty floor.

Then the armor lost its shape.

It didn’t fall like a dead body. The entire suit crumbled in place, breaking down into fine black dust. The remains sifted through the pale light and spread across the chamber floor.

Leon stayed braced behind his sword until the Warden’s final hand dissolved.

Only then did he lower the blade.

As the final shadow disappeared, his conscious armor woke across its entire surface. Bronze-gold material flowed over the remaining cracks and sealed them within seconds. The bruising left by the Warden’s blows faded under his regeneration almost as quickly. Around the room, the lights he’d created began going dark one after another as he stopped supplying them.

The chamber faded back into its original pale gloom.

No victory message appeared.

The Tower remained silent.

Where the Warden’s chest plate had been, the third fragment hung in the air for a moment. Then it began to fall.

Leon caught it before it disappeared into the settling dust.

The piece was cold, weightless, and made from the same material that swallowed light as the first two. The Tower gave no response. Neither did the Cosmic System.

He took the other fragments from storage and placed all three together in his palm.

Their broken sides pulled toward one another. The edges shifted, aligned, and locked into place, revealing more of the design than Leon had seen before. Three pieces met along their torn borders, and the pattern spread across them as if it had always been one drawing.

They still did not truly fuse.

When Leon tested them, they separated again into three individual slivers.

But the joined image was large enough to change his earlier assumption.

This wasn’t merely a key.

The pattern had become too detailed for anything so simple. It looked ancient and unusually complicated, something between a key and a seal without being entirely either. Its real function remained hidden in the missing pieces.

Leon still couldn’t tell how many fragments existed or what completing them would accomplish.

He only knew they were meant for more than opening an ordinary lock.

For a brief moment, the unfinished lines seemed to extend beyond the black pieces. Missing sections appeared in the way the surrounding light curved away from empty space.

Leon shifted his palm, and the impression disappeared.

It hadn’t shown him the complete design or how many pieces remained. It had only made one thing clear.

Three fragments were not enough.

The newest piece had something the other two lacked.

A thin groove ran along its reverse side, a shallow channel carved into the black surface. When Leon aligned all three fragments again, that groove joined faint marks on the first two.

He’d assumed those marks were scratches.

Together, they formed part of a directional symbol.

The arrow was incomplete, but the angle was obvious.

It pointed downward.

Leon studied it in silence.

The route wasn’t behind some hidden door in this chamber.

It continued beneath the floor.

This place had only been a stop along the way. Whatever the fragments led toward was deeper still.

Before leaving, Leon searched the chamber.

The remaining carvings on the walls showed challengers taking treasures downward. Several of their names had been deliberately carved away, just as the faces had been erased from the statues.

Another wall held a damaged relief. It showed a maze viewed from above, with a huge sealed doorway beneath it.

The section beyond that door had been destroyed.

The carvings confirmed that the hidden route was old and far larger than Leon had first thought.

They explained nothing else.

Once he claimed the fragment, the exit opened.

Stone pulled back along the far wall where Leon had sensed the sealed passage earlier. Beyond it lay a corridor climbing upward.

The slope continued for a long distance.

Eventually, it returned him to the maintained labyrinth, opening at an unfamiliar junction somewhere else on Floor Three.

The change was immediate.

The walls were seamless once more. The air felt cleaner, and the subtle pressure of the Tower’s authority settled across his senses again.

Behind him, the hidden entrance closed.

When the stone finished moving, it left no crack or seam behind.

Without the three fragments in storage, Leon might have questioned whether the buried hall had existed at all.

The instant he stepped onto the clean, swept floor, the Tower became active again.

Its interface responded all at once. The familiar attention of the trial settled over him as though it had only now noticed his return.

Leon checked his progress.

[Tower Keys Collected: 1/3]

[Optional Treasures Claimed: 2]

[Gatekeeper Enhancements: Spatial Resistance, Technique Mimicry]

There was no record of the black corridor.

Nothing mentioned the buried chamber, the Warden, or the third fragment.

As far as the Tower’s official trial was concerned, the hidden fight had never happened. The Gatekeeper had received no enhancement from it either.

That was useful.

It was also dangerous.

The secret path didn’t make the Gatekeeper stronger, but the Tower provided no guidance there. No instructions, no warnings, and no rating for whatever waited ahead.

If something below killed Leon, he would still be dead.

His body made the cost clear enough.

His body was whole, and his conscious armor had already repaired every crack once the absence field released it.

His spatial control had never been damaged. His mana reserve was lower because the field had erased the energy inside each destroyed light, but passive recovery had already begun replacing what he spent.

He had exchanged mana and risk for another fragment and a direction.

The trade had been worth making.

It hadn’t been free.

Four routes opened from the junction.

One bronze archway carried the carving of a key.

A silver archway bore an open chest.

The remaining two corridors had no markings at all. They were plain black openings leading away from the intersection into darkness.

At first, the fragments remained motionless in storage.

Leon brought them out and connected them again.

The groove across their reverse sides found its direction.

It didn’t point toward either of the unmarked corridors.

The unfinished arrow angled past both passages, through the walls, and directly downward toward the stone beneath Leon’s boots.

He examined the two dark corridors, then lowered his gaze to the floor.

Those passages weren’t the final destination.

They were entrances, separate ways of reaching whatever lay below the maintained labyrinth.

The real path didn’t cross Floor Three.

It descended toward the sealed doorway shown in the broken relief.

Leon stood alone at the junction with one key, two unabsorbed treasures, three black fragments, and a mana reserve still climbing toward full.

He kept his eyes on the stone under his feet.