SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything

Chapter 175: The Grand Treasure

For a few fleeting seconds, there was only the gentle, persistent howl of the desert wind, the distant, muffled hum of the neon mega-city of Ufrifa, and the profound, desperate warmth of Sora’s lips pressed against his.

Then, just as suddenly as it had happened, the moment fractured.

Sora broke the kiss, pulling back with a ragged gasp. Her dark eyes were blown wide open, trembling with a chaotic mixture of panic, overwhelming embarrassment, and disbelief at what she had just done. Her face was flushed so deep a crimson it rivaled the glow of a high-tier fire crystal. She stumbled backward, her boots scraping clumsily.

She stood there for a microsecond, her chest heaving as she panted heavily, looking at Hide’s slightly widened, glowing blue eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, to apologize or explain, but no words came out. The weight of her own audacity finally crashed down on her shoulders.

Unable to bear the agonizing tension a single second longer, Sora spun on her heel. She practically sprinted toward the rooftop stairwell, her dark hair whipping wildly behind her, leaving Hide completely alone under the endless, starry desert sky.

Hide didn’t move. He stood completely frozen near the edge of the parapet, his silver hair brushing against his forehead.

His mind had completely and utterly went blank. He just stood there, staring blankly at the empty space where Sora had been standing just moments ago.

One minute passed. Then two. Then four.

For a solid five minutes, Hide Volter, simply blue-screened.

Finally, a particularly cold gust of wind swept across the rooftop, snapping him out of his paralyzed daze. Hide violently blinked, letting out a long, shuddering breath. He slowly reached up, fingertips brushing lightly against his own lips. They still felt warm. The sensation of her soft lips was permanently burned into his memory.

Hide violently shook his head, trying to physically dislodge the distracting thoughts from his brain. He turned around and walked back to the small metal table, slumping down into the cold chair. He placed both of his hands flat on the metallic surface, leaning his head forward and staring intensely at the grain of the metal.

’Stop it,’ Hide scolded himself internally, his jaw clenching. ’This is not what I need to be thinking about right now. I have more important things to focus on. Risa, yes. I need to reach level 50 soon.’

He took another deep, grounding breath, forcing his erratic heartbeat to slow down to its usual, terrifyingly calm rhythm. He needed a distraction. He needed data.

"Come out, Doomy," Hide called out softly into the quiet night, officially deciding on the somewhat ridiculous, patronizing name for the terrifying entity.

Immediately, the Dark Abyssal Core spinning deep within his chest reacted to the verbal command. But unlike the seamless, fluid materialization of Zenith or Aegis, manifesting an A-Rank core required a fundamentally different structural output.

A massive amount of pitch-black, corrupted dark mana violently escaped his chest, erupting in three distinct, thunderous pulses. BOOM. The first pulse materialized the colossal, skeletal framework of the beast, casting a long, terrifying shadow over the rooftop. BOOM. The second pulse wove dense, shadowy muscle fibers and raw magical sinew over the bones. BOOM. The third and final pulse generated the external layer, solidifying the phantom into its true, terrifying majesty.

The Phantom took its full shape, hovering effortlessly above the concrete. It was the exact same massive, feline-reptilian structure Hide had witnessed chained in the Sihue Clan’s underground torture chamber, but its aesthetic had been entirely overwritten by Hide’s authority. The teal fur was gone. The beast was now completely, unnervingly pitch-black, absorbing the ambient light of the city like a walking black hole. However, its majestic, ribbon-like antlers and its massive, slitted eyes burned with a blinding, deep blue light—a flawless reflection of Hide’s own glowing irises.

The colossal, terrifying monster didn’t roar or exert its dominating pressure. Instead, it immediately lowered its massive head, tucking its front legs as it formally prostrated itself before the metal table.

"You called, My Liege?" Doomy’s deep, ancient, and highly respectful telepathic voice vibrated directly into the center of Hide’s mind.

Hide leaned back in his chair, his expression returning to its usual, deadpan coldness. His analytical brain was finally back online.

"If he is dead," Hide began slowly, referencing the old S-Rank Clan Head of the Sihue family who had supposedly perished in Tarita, "then can you find another one like him, a human at S-Rank, his name is James Maddox."

Hide watched the beast intently. The Doom Overseer possessed the terrifying Overseer’s Vision. It could track the essence of anyone it had seen or possessed a memory of, bridging the gap between dimensions. If anyone could locate the elusive, wildly unpredictable Commander Maddox, it was this A-Rank Calamity Beast.

Doomy remained bowed, the deep blue light of its antlers pulsing rhythmically as the ancient entity sifted through its vast, boundless ocean of memories. The rooftop was completely silent for several seconds.

Then, the beast slowly lifted its massive head.

"I have never heard that name before, my Liege," the phantom replied smoothly.

Hide froze. "Huh?" he voiced aloud, his brow furrowing in genuine surprise.

Hide stared at the deep blue eyes of the phantom, his mind rapidly processing the impossibility of that statement. It didn’t make any sense. Hide was absolutely certain that Commander James Maddox knew about the A-Ranked beast kept hidden beneath the Sihue Clan’s main branch. And Maddox wasn’t just tangentially aware of it; he was directly involved.

The primary reason for Hide’s certainty was the chains. Hide remembered the thick, rune-carved iron chains that had bound the Doom Overseer to the stone floor of that basement. With his True Sight, Hide had analyzed the lingering mana residue embedded in the metal. The chains were undoubtedly infused with James Maddox’s specific, suffocating white mana.

Earlier, when Hide was just a rookie struggling to understand the upper echelons of power, he hadn’t fully grasped the mechanics of it. But now, with a deeper understanding of mana structures, he realized exactly why Maddox was so terrifying. The old Commander’s mana possessed a highly unique, absolute quality: it isolated Calamity Beasts from the ambient mana of the environment. It acted as a perfect, impenetrable vacuum. Without ambient mana to draw upon, Calamity Beasts were essentially rendered useless, stripped of their magical regeneration and elemental authority.

That was precisely how the Doom Overseer—a devastatingly powerful A-Rank anomaly—was kept trapped in that basement all those years without being able to escape, fight back, or use its reality-bending powers. Maddox’s mana had kept it starved and suppressed.

Furthermore, the old man—James Maddox—was, as Hide had recently discovered, at least a hundred years old, if not significantly older. He was a living relic of the Exterminator world, he had been around longer than almost anyone.

So how could the Doom Overseer, an ancient, highly intelligent entity with a flawless memory, say it had never even heard the name James Maddox?

Did Maddox use a different name in the past? Was he known by a completely different moniker or title among the beasts of Rilth?

Hide rubbed his temples, a dull ache beginning to form behind his eyes. The web of secrets surrounding the S-Rank Commander was maddening. But Hide quickly pushed the frustration aside. He didn’t have enough data points to force a conclusion right now, and overthinking it without evidence was a tactical waste of time. He would table the Maddox anomaly for later.

He looked back up at the pitch-black phantom. "Fine. We will leave that for now," Hide said, resting his chin on his steepled fingers. "Let’s move to the other thing I wanted to know. When I found you, that old bastard from the Sihue Clan was torturing you. He was ripping you apart to extract information." Hide’s blue eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "What was the old man making you look for?"

Doomy didn’t hesitate. The absolute loyalty enforced by the Dark Liege talent compelled it to share the deepest secrets of its existence without resistance.

"It is an artifact that can increase the maximum potential of a Core," the phantom answered, its telepathic voice ringing with absolute clarity.

Hide’s breath hitched. His eyes widened to a fraction of their normal size, his heart giving a violent, singular thump against his ribs.

Something that can increase the maximum potential of a Core! Hide’s mind raced through the fundamental, unbreakable laws of the awakened world. When a human awakened at the AAA facilities, they were assigned a Class Potential and a Talent Potential. Those metrics were absolute. They were the genetic lottery dictated by the universe. If you awakened with a C-Rank potential, you could grind, bleed, and fight for fifty years, but you would never surpass C-Rank. Your core simply couldn’t hold the density of a higher rank without violently rupturing. It was the tragic, cruel ceiling of humanity.

But an artifact that could artificially increase that maximum potential?

It was a world-breaking concept. It shattered the very foundation of the Exterminator hierarchy. If an S-Rank monster like the Sihue patriarch got his hands on it, could he transcend S-Rank? Could he reach the mythical, unrecorded realms of power? Could an S-Rank become a god?

No wonder the old man was willing to commit high treason, harboring an A-Rank Calamity Beast in the middle of a populated city, just to find it. The value of such an item was beyond measure. It was priceless.

Hide leaned forward, his voice dropping into a low, intense whisper. "Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, My Liege," the Doom Overseer answered, bowing its deep blue antlers lower toward the concrete. "It is the treasure of my lord before you, and I dare not betray him to those filthy humans. But now... you are its rightful owner. I belong to you."

Hide’s eyes narrowed at the phrasing. My lord before you. It implied that the Doom Overseer hadn’t just been a wild beast wandering through the dimensions. It had served a master. A master capable of ruling over A-Rank anomalies.

"Where is it?" Hide repeated, his tone demanding.

"It is located in the grand castle in Hubin," Doomy revealed, the ancient name carrying a heavy, mythical weight in Hide’s mind. "The Flying Continent in Rilth."

-------------

Hello, Author here. Thanks for reading and supporting the story till now. I am glad that you like it. As you know the Chapters have been less frequent lately, its because of my College, but worry not. I will have a month Holiday starting July.

Anyways, if you are free for a bit, do leave a review it helps boost the book. Thanks.

---------------