SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything

Chapter 183: Frost battle

The sheer, suffocating drop in temperature was instantaneous.

Julian’s blinding white eyes locked onto the hollow core inside Zenith’s chest, and the B-Rank Calamity Lord completely lost whatever fractured remnants of sanity it had left. The realization that Hide had dared to mock it—had dared to bluff its supreme authority with a cheap, artificial construct—shattered its restraint.

"YOU DARE MOCK A RULER?!" Julian roared, the dual-layered voice tearing through the air with enough concussive force to vibrate the icy dome.

Hide immediately dismissed Zenith. The massive phantom broke into a cloud of violet smoke and retreated into his core. Against a B-Rank powerhouse in an enclosed space, Zenith would be shredded into useless ambient mana in seconds, Hide didn’t want to loose his precious Phantom.

Julian didn’t just stand there to fight. The monstrous, demonic entity took one step back and simply melted into the ice wall behind him, his physical body seamlessly merging with the frozen dome.

Hide’s glowing blue eyes darted around the cavernous space. Through his True Sight, he could see Julian’s blinding white mana signature rapidly expanding, wrapping around the entire circumference of the dome. He wasn’t just hiding in the ice. He had become the ice.

SWOOSH!

Hide threw himself violently to the right, his Agility pushing his muscles to the absolute brink. A jagged spear of black ice the size of a telephone pole erupted from the spot where he had just been standing. Before his boots even touched the ground, the dome’s ceiling groaned. Three colossal, frozen hammers, each weighing tons, plummeted down toward him.

Hide triggered his Phantom Step, dissolving into a streak of inky darkness to evade the crushing blows. The hammers pulverized the icy floor, sending a storm of razor-sharp shrapnel exploding outward. The shrapnel pelted Hide’s Abyssal Scale Carapace, the impacts ringing out like rapid gunfire against the dark metal.

Hide gritted his teeth, sliding to a halt as the entire environment shifted around him. This was bad. Really bad.

His initial plan, formulated before Julian had revealed his true, demonic form, had been simple and flawless. Hide had intended to corner the arrogant S-Rank Commander inside an enclosed space, just like this one, with his dark Ice that was created from dark mana. Once trapped, Hide was going to push the commander to forcefully absorb the ice created from dark mana. It was a well-established law of the world that the human body could not process corrupted mana. Even an S-Rank human would have eventually suffocated, their veins rotting from the inside out from severe mana poisoning.

But that entire strategy was now blown to bits. Julian wasn’t just a human; he was possessed by a Calamity Lord. His initial plan had backfired now, the B-Rank beast inside Julian was simply using his ice and gorging itself on the energy, treating it like a five-star buffet and growing even stronger.

"Where are you running, little insect?!" Julian’s overlapping, monstrous voice echoed from every single wall of the dome simultaneously.

CRACK!

Hide’s combat instincts flared, but the attack came from a blind spot. A massive, six-fingered hand forged entirely of hyper-dense black ice violently erupted from the floor directly beneath him. The icy fingers clamped shut around Hide’s right leg like a hydraulic vice.

Hide grunted, summoning and swinging one of his swords, down to sever the wrist, but the moment his blade moved, the walls of the dome unleashed a hailstorm. Hundreds of condensed ice shards, moving at the speed of sniper bullets, converged on him from all sides.

Ping! Ping! CRACK!

His Abyssal Scale Carapace absorbed the initial barrage, the A-Rank defensive skill holding the line. But Julian’s mana density was simply too high. Under the relentless, localized bombardment, the overlapping dark-steel scales on Hide’s right thigh finally began to splinter and give way.

"Got you," Julian hissed from the ice.

A single, perfectly compressed shard of jagged ice bypassed the fractured armor and drove itself viciously straight through Hide’s thigh.

"GAAH!" Hide roared, his vision flashing white as the agonizing, absolute-zero temperature of the B-Rank ice violently injected itself into his bloodstream, freezing his muscle tissue instantly.

He didn’t panic. Through the blinding pain, Hide thrust his left palm straight down toward the massive icy hand crushing his leg. "Abyssal Flame!"

A roaring torrent of deep orange-blue fire erupted from his hand. The flames washed over the frozen appendage, instantly clashing with the B-Rank ice. A thick, suffocating cloud of steam exploded into the air. From the walls of the dome, Julian let out a sharp, guttural hiss of pain as the extreme heat burned through his extended nervous system.

The ice hand began to melt, the grip loosening slightly. But it was far too slow. Hide’s Abyssal Flame was a B-Rank skill, and he was trying to melt the highly compressed, domain-enhanced ice of a B-Rank Calamity Lord. They were stalemated, and Julian wasn’t about to give him the time to finish the job.

The wall directly in front of Hide rippled violently.

Julian’s physical, demonic form lunged out of the frozen barrier like a breaching leviathan. The monster didn’t bother using magic. He closed the distance in a fraction of a millisecond, his massive, razor-sharp talons shooting forward and wrapping entirely around Hide’s armored throat.

The force of the impact lifted Hide clean off the floor, tearing his wounded leg free from the melting hand.

"You die here, fraud!" Julian roared, his breath a freezing hurricane against Hide’s face.

With an apocalyptic surge of physical strength, Julian drove Hide backward. He didn’t stop. He slammed Hide’s body directly into the thick, outer wall of the ice dome with the force of a derailed bullet train. The impact was catastrophic. The entire dome shuddered violently before the wall completely shattered outward.

Hide was thrown like a discarded ragdoll. He flew out of the freezing dome, crashing violently into the sweltering, sun-scorched sand of the Ufrifan desert. He tumbled across the dunes, his dark armor smoking as the extreme transition from absolute zero to forty-degree desert heat shocked his system.

Hide finally ground to a halt, lying flat on his back. He coughed violently, a spray of dark blood staining the inside of his helm. His right leg was completely numb, the jagged piece of black ice still lodged deep in his thigh, slowly radiating a necrotic frost into his veins.

But as he lay there, staring up at the bruised, bleeding sky, the edges of his vision did not fade to black. Instead, they flared with a blinding, transcendent golden light.

Hide’s lips, stained with his own blood, slowly curved into a vicious, predatory smirk. He had sustained the hit. He had absorbed the B-Rank Calamity Lord’s absolute maximum damage output.

His greatest weapon wasn’t his blades. It was his Universal Adaptation System.

[Adaptive Override — Analysis Active]

Location: Right leg & Whole Body

Source: B-Rank Calamity Lord

Severity: Critical - Frost Necrosis & Structural Compromise Detected.

System Query: Initiate adaptation sequence for this specific damage type?

[Awaiting command.]

’Evolve,’ Hide commanded mentally, his voice echoing with cold, unyielding absolute authority in his own mind.

[Adapting — 10%] [Adapting — 45%] [Adapting — 80%]

Thirty yards away, Julian slowly stepped out of the shattered crater of his dome. The Ufrifan heat immediately warped the air around him, but his freezing aura easily pushed the desert away. He raised his massive talons, and the shattered walls of the black ice dome rapidly began to heal, crawling forward across the sand to enclose them once again.

"You thought a little fire could stop a Higher Lord?" Julian mocked, his dual-voice dripping with sadistic arrogance as he stalked toward Hide’s prone form. "I will freeze your core, crush it into dust, and scatter it across this miserable wasteland."

[Adapting — 100%]

[Adaptive Override — Adaptation Complete]

Counter Skill Generated.

[Abyssal Flame — Level Max Reached. Commencing Skill Evolution.]

[Skill Evolution Complete: Abyssal HellFlame — Rank S (Active)]

Summons a primordial flame of absolute void and destruction.

Ignites and consumes physical matter, magical constructs, and ambient mana.

A profound, terrifying silence fell over the desert.

Hide placed his hands on the scorching sand and slowly pushed himself up. His Abyssal Healing flared quietly beneath his armor, sealing the ruptured veins in his thigh as he forcefully pulled the shard of ice from his leg and tossed it away. It hit the sand and instantly evaporated.

"Fire?" Hide echoed softly, his voice dangerously flat. He stood up straight, rolling his shoulders as his blue eyes, ringed with burning violet, locked onto the approaching monster. "You think what I use is just fire?"

Hide raised his right hand. He didn’t take a stance. He didn’t channel his mana into a complex spell matrix. He simply opened his palm.

"Abyssal HellFlame."

The world didn’t heat up. It didn’t glow orange or blue. Instead, a terrifying, pitch-black void erupted from Hide’s palm, edged with a blinding, violent crimson light. It didn’t burn like a normal fire; it looked like a tear in the fabric of reality itself, hungering for absolute consumption.

Julian stopped dead in his tracks. The arrogant smirk on the beast’s frozen face vanished instantly. For the first time since the fight began, the B-Rank Calamity Lord took a step backward. His advanced instincts weren’t just warning him of danger—they were screaming at him of total, unmitigated erasure.

"What... what is that?!" Julian gasped, his human voice briefly overpowering the monster’s as terror flooded his system.

Hide didn’t answer. He simply swept his arm forward.

The Abyssal HellFlame surged. It didn’t shoot out like a projectile; it expanded like a tidal wave of the apocalypse. The black-crimson fire crashed into the rapidly regenerating walls of Julian’s ice dome.

And it ate all the Ice there was without even leaving steam behind.