SSS-Rank Skill Copy: I Can Steal Every Class

Chapter 110: The Cold Ascent

Glen crashed onto the cold, uneven stone floor of Sector 99-Sub.

The spatial tear snapped shut above him with a deafening, concussive crack, the sound echoing through the massive cavern like a gunshot. The sudden equalization of atmospheric pressure hit him like a physical blow, forcing the stale, damp air of the dungeon into his burning lungs.

He lay on his back, staring up at the vaulted ceiling.

He was alone.

The silence of the cavern was absolute, broken only by the ragged, uneven sound of his own breathing. The toxic purple miasma that usually choked this B-Rank fracture was slowly beginning to seep back into the room, curling around the piles of gray ash that were all that remained of the elite Association Trackers he had slaughtered earlier.

Glen didn’t move. He didn’t try to sit up. He just lay there, letting the cold reality of what had just happened wash over him.

He had broken his limits. He had slaughtered his way through the Eastern Spire, robbed an SSS-Rank Champion, and achieved the impossible rank of Apex Sovereign. He had torn open the fabric of reality and stepped into the domain of the gods, all for one singular purpose.

To save Caleb.

And Caleb hadn’t wanted to be saved.

The image of his best friend’s pitch-black eyes burned in Glen’s mind. Caleb wasn’t a prisoner in chains. He was a herald. He had merged his gravity magic with the entropy of the void, becoming a terrifying, S-Rank anomaly in his own right. Caleb had embraced the rot, convinced that the Monarchs of the Lost were the only way to cleanse a world built on lies and the corpses of mutated humans.

*I’ll see you in Johannesburg, Glen. When the Monarchs arrive.*

The words echoed in the empty cavern, a promise of inevitable, apocalyptic violence. Caleb was coming back to the physical world, and when he did, he would be leading an army of the damned.

Glen slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His right arm, the mana channels ruptured from the clash of S-Rank energies, throbbed with a dull, agonizing ache. His heavy leather trench coat was shredded, his body battered and bruised.

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the cold, hollow emptiness expanding in his chest.

The last tether to his humanity had just been severed.

He had fought to protect his mother, to protect Isla, to save Caleb. But the world didn’t reward protectors. The System punished them. The Guilds exploited them. And the void corrupted them.

If Caleb wanted to unmake the world, Glen couldn’t stop him with compassion. He couldn’t stop him with friendship. He could only stop him with absolute, overwhelming force.

Glen stood up.

He didn’t feel grief. He didn’t feel the crushing weight of sorrow that had paralyzed him when he thought Caleb was dead. The void fragment in his core—now perfectly fused with his human soul—absorbed the emotional trauma, converting the pain into a cold, terrifying clarity.

He was the Apex Sovereign. He was the monster of Neo-Kyoto. And he was going to wage a war that would make the Wanderer’s assault on Johannesburg look like a child’s game.

He reached down and picked up the Abyssal blade. The heavy black iron hummed in his grip, resonating with the dark, unyielding resolve in his heart. He slid the sword into the makeshift scabbard on his back, right next to the canvas bag containing the Abyssal Prism and the Purification Core.

He turned and walked toward the exit of the cavern.

The journey back to the surface was a masterclass in absolute, unadulterated violence.

Glen didn’t sneak through the shadows. He didn’t use Spatial Fold to bypass the monster packs. He walked straight down the center of the subterranean tunnels, his S-Rank Predator Domain fully unleashed.

The aura of entropic decay preceded him like a shockwave.

When a pack of cybernetic Kamaitachi dropped from the ceiling, they didn’t even reach the floor. The moment they entered his twenty-meter radius, their rusted cybernetics disintegrated, and their flesh turned to gray ash. They crumbled into dust mid-air, their corrupted cores shattering under the sheer pressure of his presence.

When a massive, mutated Oni charged him in a flooded subway tunnel, Glen didn’t draw his sword. He just looked at it. The oppressive weight of his S-Rank core slammed into the beast, suffocating the ambient mana in its body. The Oni collapsed to its knees, gasping for air, before its heart simply stopped beating.

Glen walked past the corpse without a second glance.

He was a walking extinction event. The monsters of the Outer Rings, creatures that terrified veteran Hunters, fled from him in absolute panic. The dungeon itself seemed to recoil from his presence, the glowing green sludge in the pipes dimming as he passed.

He reached the surface an hour later, emerging from a rusted drainage pipe into the torrential, acidic rain of Sector 77.

The neon lights of the slums flickered erratically, casting long, sinister shadows across the flooded docks. The air was thick with the sound of distant sirens and the low, rhythmic thrum of corporate patrol drones sweeping the airspace above. The Astra Guild and the Imperial Vanguard were tearing the Outer Rings apart looking for him.

Glen didn’t care. He walked down the rotting wooden pier, his boots splashing through the puddles of chemical runoff.

The massive, rusted trawler was still moored at the end of the dock, its engines humming with a low, powerful vibration. The heavy automated turrets on the deck tracked him as he approached, their targeting lasers painting his chest, but they didn’t fire.

Glen walked up the gangplank and 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 tightening slightly when he saw the boy was alone.

"You went into the void," the Ferryman said, his smooth, cultured voice betraying a hint of genuine unease. "And you came back by yourself."

"The toll is paid," Glen said, his voice a flat, dual-layered resonance that made the temperature on the bridge plummet. He unslung the canvas bag from his shoulder and set it gently on the metal console.

He reached inside, his fingers carefully bypassing the freezing aura of the Abyssal Prism, and pulled out the glowing white sphere of the Purification Core.

The moment the core was exposed, the dim, grimy bridge of the trawler was bathed in a pristine, stabilizing light. The Ferryman took a step back, his cybernetic eyes widening as his internal sensors tried to process the sheer density of the inverted mana.

"What in the hell is that?" the Ferryman asked, his usual composure slipping.

"It’s the cure," Glen said. He found a heavy, lead-lined lockbox sitting on a nearby shelf, dumped out a handful of spare thermal clips, and placed the Purification Core inside. He sealed the box, cutting off the blinding light.

He pushed the lockbox across the console toward the smuggler.

"Sector Nine. Johannesburg," Glen said, his dark eyes locking onto the Ferryman’s face. "You drop this exactly where I tell you. You don’t open it. You don’t sell it. If this doesn’t reach Eden, I will find you, and I will rot you from the inside out."

The Ferryman looked at the lockbox, and then at the boy standing in front of him. He had dealt with warlords, corporate assassins, and rogue S-Ranks. But looking into Glen’s eyes, he saw something entirely different. He saw a predator that had completely detached itself from the rules of humanity.

"I’m a professional, Wraith," the Ferryman said, his voice steadying as he slipped his shades back on. "You paid the toll. The package will be delivered."

"When?" Glen demanded.

"I’m prepping the launch sequence now," the Ferryman said, turning back to his console. "The lockdown in the Inner Sectors is pulling all the patrol drones toward the Tower. The airspace over the Outer Rings is wide open. I’ll be in the stratosphere in ten minutes, and over Johannesburg in three hours."

Glen nodded slowly.

"What about you, kid?" the Ferryman asked, glancing over his shoulder as the ship’s massive engines began to roar to life, vibrating the deck plates. "You can’t stay in Neo-Kyoto. You just robbed the Empress, blew up an Astra black-site, and slaughtered an Association Tracker squad. By tomorrow morning, your face is going to be on every bounty board in Asia. You want a ride out of here?"

Glen looked at the heavy canvas bag resting on the console. The Abyssal Prism was still inside, waiting.

"No," Glen said softly.

He picked up the bag and slung it over his good shoulder. He turned and walked toward the door of the bridge.

"I’m not done here," Glen said, pausing in the doorway. He looked out at the neon-lit, rain-slicked slums of the Outer Rings, and the towering black monolith of the Celestial Tower piercing the clouds in the distance.

"The Astra Guild built their empire on the bones of the people they abandoned," Glen whispered, his voice carrying a promise of absolute, unyielding violence. "They experimented on the rot. They thought they could control it."

He stepped out into the rain, leaving the smuggler’s ship behind.

"I’m going to show them what the rot really looks like."

The Wraith of Neo-Kyoto disappeared into the shadows. He wasn’t running from the Guilds anymore. He was going to hunt them. He was going to tear the Eastern Spire apart, piece by bloody piece, until he was strong enough to face the Monarchs of the Lost.

And when Caleb finally returned to the physical world, Glen would be waiting for him.