SSS-Rank Skill Copy: I Can Steal Every Class

Chapter 109: The Weight of the void

The Weight of the Void

The cavern in Sector 99-Sub was silent, save for the ragged, desperate gasps of the gravity mage.

The spatial tear that had bridged the gap between the physical world and the absolute entropy of the void had snapped shut with a deafening, concussive crack. The sudden equalization of pressure left the air in the dungeon tasting of ozone, burnt copper, and the distinct, sterile chill of deep space. The toxic purple miasma that usually choked this B-Rank fracture was gone, completely eradicated by the sheer, overwhelming density of Glen’s S-Rank core.

Glen lay on his back against the cold, uneven stone floor. His chest heaved, his lungs burning as they pulled in the stale, damp air of the dungeon. His heavy leather trench coat was shredded, the dark material soaked through with a mixture of his own sweat and the viscous, black blood of the elite Trackers he had slaughtered to reach this point.

He didn’t move. He just stared up at the vaulted ceiling of the cavern, letting the reality of what he had just done wash over him.

He had torn open the fabric of reality. He had stepped into the domain of The Lost, fought a Noble on her own throne, and survived.

More importantly, he had brought Caleb back.

Glen rolled over, his muscles screaming in protest. The Apex Sovereign class had fundamentally altered his physiology, fusing the void fragment perfectly with his human core, but the physical toll of channeling that much anti-mana was still staggering. It felt as though his veins had been flushed with liquid nitrogen. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, his dark eyes searching the dim light of the cavern.

Caleb Sterling was lying a few feet away, curled into a tight, trembling ball.

The A-Rank gravity mage looked horrific. His usually pristine Academy uniform was reduced to bloody rags, the fabric scorched by the ambient decay of the void. His skin was deathly pale, drawn tight over his cheekbones, giving him a gaunt, haunted appearance that made him look ten years older. But it was his eyes that were the most terrifying. They were wide open, staring blankly at the stone floor, clouded with a dull, vacant haze that spoke of a mind pushed to the absolute brink of shattering.

"Caleb," Glen whispered, his voice rough and dry.

He crawled over to his friend, ignoring the sharp pain in his own ribs. He reached out, his hand hovering over Caleb’s shoulder. He hesitated. His core was saturated with anti-mana. He didn’t want to accidentally trigger Void Touch and hurt the boy he had just risked everything to save.

He pulled his S-Rank aura back, suppressing the Predator Domain until it was nothing more than a tight, invisible skin over his own body.

He gently placed his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. "Caleb. Look at me. We’re out. We’re back in Neo-Kyoto."

Caleb flinched violently at the contact, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from his throat. He scrambled backward, his boots scrabbling uselessly against the stone floor until his back hit the cavern wall. He pulled his knees to his chest, his hands coming up to grip his head, his fingers digging into his scalp as if trying to hold his skull together.

"They’re coming," Caleb muttered, his voice a frantic, broken whisper that echoed in the empty cavern. "They’re coming, Glen. I saw them. I saw them in the dark."

"Who?" Glen asked, keeping his voice low and steady. He didn’t move closer. He needed to ground Caleb, to pull him back from the edge of the abyss before the trauma permanently fractured his mind. "Who is coming?"

"The Monarchs," Caleb sobbed, tears finally spilling over his pale cheeks, cutting tracks through the grime and ash on his face. "The Wanderer... the Female Noble... they’re just the vanguard, Glen. They’re just the scouts. The rest of them... the Monarchs of the Lost... they’re coming for the Towers. They’re going to unmake everything. The shields won’t hold. The Champions won’t be enough."

Glen stared at his friend, the cold reality of Caleb’s words settling over him like a heavy shroud.

The war wasn’t over. The destruction of Johannesburg, the fall of the Ironclad, the sealing of the Wanderer—it was all just a prelude. A minor skirmish on the borders of a much larger, much older conflict. The entities that ruled the void were mobilizing, and humanity, with its corrupt Guilds and arrogant Champions, was completely unprepared for the slaughter that was coming.

But as Glen looked down at his own hands, feeling the absolute, terrifying power of his S-Rank core pulsing in his veins, he felt a strange, cold sense of calm.

He wasn’t the helpless F-Rank Mimic from the slums anymore. He wasn’t the desperate boy who had watched his mother cough up black blood while the Guilds looked the other way. He was the Apex Sovereign. He had weaponized the very entropy that the Monarchs commanded.

"Let them come," Glen said softly.

Caleb looked up, his clouded eyes finally focusing on Glen’s face. He saw the dark, unyielding resolve in his friend’s eyes, and for a moment, the terror in his chest receded, replaced by a profound sense of awe.

"You changed," Caleb whispered, his gaze dropping to the faint, dark veins that pulsed beneath the skin of Glen’s neck. "In the void... when you fought her. Your mana... it didn’t feel human. It felt like them."

"It isn’t human," Glen admitted, standing up. He offered his hand to Caleb. "But it’s enough to keep us alive. Come on. We can’t stay here. The Association Trackers I killed... they’ll have dead-man switches embedded in their armor. When their vitals flatlined, it sent an encrypted signal to the surface. The Astra Guild and the Imperial Vanguard will be swarming this sector in minutes."

Caleb hesitated, looking at Glen’s outstretched hand. Then, slowly, he reached up and took it.

Glen hauled the gravity mage to his feet. Caleb swayed unsteadily, his legs trembling under his own weight, but he managed to stay upright. He looked around the cavern, his eyes falling on the piles of gray ash that were all that remained of the elite Trackers.

"You killed them," Caleb said, his voice hollow. "Association elites. A-Ranks."

"They were in my way," Glen said simply. He walked over to where the Abyssal blade lay on the stone floor and picked it up. The heavy black iron hummed in his grip, eager for more. He slid the sword into the makeshift scabbard on his back, right next to the canvas bag containing the Abyssal Prism.

"Where are we going?" Caleb asked, leaning heavily against the cavern wall. "We can’t go back to the surface. You’re the most wanted man in the Eastern Spire. And I... I don’t even have my focus."

Caleb looked down at his empty hands. The geometric prism that he used to channel his gravity magic was gone, shattered during his captivity in the void. Without it, his A-Rank spells were unstable, dangerous to use. He was effectively disarmed.

"We’re not going to the surface," Glen said, turning toward the dark tunnel that led deeper into the subterranean labyrinth of the Outer Rings. "We’re going to the docks. Sector 77."

"The docks?" Caleb frowned, confusion cutting through his trauma. "Why the docks? There’s nothing out there but toxic runoff and scavengers."

"Because I paid a toll," Glen said, his dark eyes reflecting the faint, ambient light of the dungeon. "And it’s time to collect the ride."

Glen didn’t wait for Caleb to argue. He turned and began walking down the tunnel, his heavy boots echoing in the silence. Caleb pushed himself off the wall and hurried to catch up, his shredded uniform offering no protection against the sudden, biting chill of the dungeon air.

The journey through the unmapped fractures of the Outer Rings was a grueling test of endurance.

Glen didn’t use his S-Rank aura to suppress the monsters this time. He needed to conserve his energy for the surface, where the real threats would be waiting. Instead, he relied on his stolen skills, moving with a brutal, mechanical efficiency that left Caleb speechless.

When a pack of cybernetic Kamaitachi dropped from the ceiling of a flooded subway tunnel, Glen didn’t even draw his sword. He raised his left hand, triggering Shadow Thread. The razor-sharp lines of black mana whipped through the air, severing the creatures’ limbs with surgical precision before they even hit the ground.

When a massive, mutated Oni blocked their path in a rusted maintenance shaft, Glen used Spatial Fold. He vanished from Caleb’s side, materializing directly above the beast, and drove his boot into the creature’s skull with enough kinetic force to shatter its spine instantly.

He moved like a ghost, a phantom of pure violence that dismantled everything in its path without breaking a sweat.

Caleb watched him, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach. He had known Glen was strong. He had seen him fight the Wanderer in Johannesburg. But this was different. This wasn’t a Hunter fighting for survival. This was an apex predator casually clearing its territory.

"Glen," Caleb said quietly, as they paused in a ruined control room to catch their breath. "What happened to you while I was gone? How long was I in there?"

"Three weeks," Glen replied, not looking back. He was studying a rusted terminal, trying to map the quickest route to the surface.

"Three weeks," Caleb breathed, leaning against a console. "It felt like years. The cold... the voices..." He shook his head, trying to dislodge the memories. "But you... you’re S-Rank now. I can feel the density of your core. It’s suffocating. How did you do it?"

Glen turned around. He looked at Caleb, his expression unreadable.

"I stopped trying to be a hero," Glen said softly. "I stopped trying to play by the rules of a System built by liars. I let the rot in, Caleb. I let it consume the parts of me that were holding me back."

"And what’s left?" Caleb asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"Enough to get us home," Glen said.

He turned back to the terminal, his fingers flying across the cracked keyboard. "The Astra Guild has locked down the primary transit hubs. The Imperial Vanguard is sweeping the upper levels. But the Outer Rings are too chaotic to police effectively. If we move fast, we can reach Sector 77 before they establish a hard perimeter."

"And then what?" Caleb asked. "We steal a ship?"

"We don’t have to steal one," Glen said, stepping away from the terminal. "I already bought one."

He led Caleb out of the control room and into a long, sloping tunnel that smelled of salt and chemical exhaust. They were getting close to the surface.

As they walked, Glen reached into his pocket and pulled out the rusted dog tag he had taken from the Kamaitachi weeks ago. He tossed it to Caleb.

Caleb caught it, looking down at the oxidized metal. Sgt. Miller, David.

"What is this?" Caleb asked, his brow furrowing.

"It’s the truth," Glen said, his voice hard. "The monsters we’ve been fighting our entire lives, Caleb. The things we slaughter for cores and credits. They aren’t beasts. They’re the people the Administrators left outside the shields when the world ended. They’re human."

Caleb stopped walking. He stared at the dog tag, the blood draining from his face. "No. That’s... that’s impossible. The System..."

"The System is a lie," Glen said, stopping and turning to face his friend. "The Guilds know it. The Astra researchers in this city have been experimenting on them, trying to reverse-engineer the rot. They’re using their own mutated ancestors as lab rats."

Caleb looked sick. He dropped the dog tag, his hands shaking. The foundation of his entire reality, the very purpose of his existence as a Hunter, was crumbling beneath his feet.

"Why are you telling me this?" Caleb whispered.

"Because when we get back to Eden, things are going to change," Glen said, his dark eyes burning with a cold, absolute resolve. "We aren’t just fighting the Monarchs of the Lost anymore, Caleb. We’re fighting the Association. We’re fighting the Guilds. We’re going to tear the whole damn thing down."

Glen turned and continued walking up the tunnel, leaving Caleb to process the horrifying truth.

They reached the surface twenty minutes later, emerging from a rusted drainage pipe into the torrential, acidic rain of the Outer Rings.

The neon lights of the slums flickered erratically, casting long, sinister shadows across the flooded streets. The air was thick with the sound of distant sirens and the low, rhythmic thrum of corporate patrol drones sweeping the airspace above.

They were in Sector 77. The docks.

Glen led Caleb through the maze of decaying cargo containers and rusted cranes, his Predator Domain keeping the desperate scavengers of the slums at bay. They reached the end of the wooden pier.

The massive, rusted trawler was still there, its engines humming with a low, powerful vibration. The heavy automated turrets on the deck tracked them as they approached, but they didn’t fire.

Glen walked up the gangplank, Caleb following closely behind.

He kicked open the door to the bridge.

The Ferryman was sitting in the captain’s chair, his cybernetic shades reflecting the glowing monitors. He looked up as Glen entered, his jaw dropping slightly when he saw Caleb.

"You went into the void," the Ferryman whispered, his smooth, cultured voice cracking with genuine disbelief. "And you brought someone back."

"I need another ride," Glen said, his voice flat, the Abyssal blade resting casually against his leg. "To Johannesburg."

The Ferryman laughed, a nervous, jagged sound that bordered on hysteria. "Kid, you’re an S-Rank anomaly now. The entire Celestial Tower is on high alert. Empress Ryun has mobilized the Imperial Vanguard. If I fly you out of here, she will shoot me out of the sky herself."

"Then fly low," Glen said, his eyes flashing pitch-black, the S-Rank aura bleeding into the confined space of the bridge. "Or I’ll tear this ship apart."