I Ascend Alone-Chapter 131: The Birth of National Level Part X

"I do not sense your mana," Pyraethrax growled, eyes narrowing. "Your essence—where is it?"

I didn't stop walking.

His voice rumbled like a faultline splitting, trying to pin me down, to make sense of what I was. But he couldn't. He should've felt something—an aura, a surge of power, anything to explain why the battlefield had turned on its head the moment I stepped in.

But there was nothing. I didn't glow. I didn't crackle. I didn't radiate.

And that terrified him more than anything else.

I came to a slow stop, dust curling away from my feet like it feared contact.

Then I looked up at him—at those molten eyes, wide and searching—and I answered him.

"If you want to know where it is..."

I raised my hand slightly, palm relaxed, fingers loose.

"...then look below."

He did, and he felt it.

Not with his sight, but with something deeper. An instinct buried in whatever ancient mind still lingered behind that monstrous frame.

His wings shifted, scraping the air with a sharpness that sounded like panic. His breath hitched and he took a step back.

His voice, when it came again, wasn't laced with arrogance anymore.

"What are you?!" he asked—not as a tyrant, not as a monster, but as something less. Something grasping for answers in the face of a truth it couldn't understand.

I didn't answer Pyraethrax's question. Didn't need to.

His voice hung in the air—uncertain, exposed. That alone told me everything I needed to know.

I turned my gaze inward, focusing past the battlefield, past the heat and noise and cracked stone... and looked instead where no one else could see.

Where the System waited.

A flicker of light shimmered just behind my eyes—cool, detached, patient.

***

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[ System Notice ]

Calamity-Class Threat Detected: Ancient Flame Dragon

Name: Pyraethrax the Ember Tyrant

WARNING: Target exceeds conventional summoning class limits.

Unique Dungeon Convergence Detected. Parameters Overwritten.

[Abyssal Monarch's Right of Dominion] has been activated.

Upon defeating this entity, you may claim its soul.

Success Rate: 1.4% (Base). Conditions may improve upon target's weakening state.

Do you wish to engage?

[Yes] / [No]

***

A low breath escaped my lips. I didn't speak it aloud, not this time. I just thought the word, clean and final. "Yes."

The System responded instantly.

***

[ System Notice ] 

Urgent Quest : "Claim the Flame Tyrant."

Objective: Defeat Pyraethrax the Ember Tyrant.

Optional Objective: Bind Pyraethrax's Soul to the Abyss.

Rewards: Unique Calamity-Class Shadow Summon.

Note: Binding success rate will increase as target's strength diminishes.

This soul bears anomalous density. Integration may require deeper levels of Dominion.

Proceed with caution.

***

Cracks spiraled out from where I stood, as if something beneath the surface had heard a command it could not refuse. A heartbeat later, six columns of shadow erupted in a circle—jet black and silent, like spears of midnight punching through the crust of the world.

From those pillars stepped six elite abyssal orcs, each towering over men, each cloaked in brutal authority and abyssal might.

"Carry them out of here." I commanded

The elite orcs didn't question me. They turned, eyes locking onto their targets, and with a soundless flash of movement, began moving.

2 abyssal orcs knelt to pick up Celestine and Cain with surprising care. Another abyssal orcmoved to Mirae, catching her just as she faltered on her feet, murmuring something low and almost maternal in her ancient tongue. The buff abyssal orc hoisted Leon with a single arm, while the other 2 abyssal orcs worked in tandem to clear a path and carry orion.

From the media behind the drones, to Agent Hale whose hand hovered near his comm, to President Vaughn—lips parted, eyes narrow, watching every shadow-laced movement.

Even Mirae...

Her eyes, bloodied and narrowed in pain, locked on mine as Uzhna helped her to the barrier.

Not fear. But something close.

Something caught between awe and dread.

They didn't know where this power came from. Not yet.

Behind me, the air began to distort again—Pyraethrax stirring, the battlefield reacting to his rising aggression.

The distortion behind me deepened. I didn't need to turn to know what it was.

The heat sharpened—wild, erratic. Pyraethrax was stirring again, rage flaring under his scales like magma struggling to contain itself. I could hear it in the way the air crackled, in the unstable rhythm of his claws grinding against the crater walls. The flames in his throat hadn't ignited yet, but they were there—threatening, ready.

He was cornered, humiliated. And that made him dangerous.

I took one slow step to the side—just enough to glance over my shoulder at the still-moving orcs. At Mirae, almost to the barrier. At Leon, unconscious but carried gently by hands more loyal than most kings would ever know. At Celestine, Cain, Orion—all being pulled to safety.

Almost out. Almost.

I turned back toward Pyraethrax. My voice dropped, not louder—but deeper. Steadier. The kind of sound that doesn't rise, but drags everything down to meet it.

"Don't," I said.

Pyraethrax froze.

I watched his core pulse—wildly, chaotically—mana surging to the edges of release.

"I see you charging it. One more twitch of that flame," I continued, stepping forward, "one flicker of intent before they're clear..."

My head tilted, just enough for the shadows to ripple unnaturally around me.

"...and you die."

The words weren't shouted. They didn't need to be.

They were a fact.

And facts didn't beg for belief.

The pressure that followed wasn't just magical—it was something deeper. Like the Abyss itself had stared back at him for a heartbeat. Like some buried truth beneath the world had leaned in too close.

Pyraethrax staggered.

His wings jerked back in recoil, and for the first time, he truly recoiled—not out of strategy, not even out of fury.

Out of fear.

"You—" he hissed, voice rough, clipped. "You threaten me?!"

I stared at him flatly, the heat of his core now second to the cold clarity in my chest.

"I promised you nothing," I said. "You brought this on yourself."

The dragon snarled low, but the breath died in his throat.

Because he knew that not just that I could follow through, but that I would.

And that, for all his fire and fury—he might not survive the attempt.

So, he held still, and waited.

And I let the stillness stretch, until the last of my abyssal orcs crossed the barrier and those behind it were finally safe.

Then, and only then, did I let the silence break.

I stepped once more, drawing the shadows back in, centering everything on me alone.

"...Good," I muttered, eyes locking onto Pyraethrax again. "Now it's just us."

And the battlefield, finally clear of distractions, shifted.

Not in favor of the dragon.

But toward the one thing he feared most:

Me.