I Ascend Alone-Chapter 137: The Birth of National Level Part XVI

Somewhere in City-A, across a collapsed highway outpost...

A small café—one of the few left unscathed in the outer zones—hummed faintly with emergency generators. Inside, tucked into a corner booth near the back, Christa Vaughn sat alone.

Curious, tired, and annoyed, she glanced at her cellphone as notification suddenly popped up.

Then her eyes widened.

"...What the hell...?"

The scene unfolded in glitching high-definition—the crater, the smoke, the drone zoom-ins. Pyraethrax kneeling. Speaking. And then that moment when everything shifted.

The crowd's stunned silence. Ryzen's command. The sheer presence of it all.

Christa exhaled sharply, the heat of her coffee long forgotten. Her grip tightened on the cup until the ceramic cracked slightly in her palm. Her eyes didn't blink, even as her expression hardened.

"...You're getting stronger again," she whispered to herself, voice low but laced with conviction. "Faster than I expected."

She leaned back, brushing a strand of hair from her face. The faintest smirk tugged at the corner of her lips—not of envy, but challenge.

"Then I can't sit here."

The feed looped again.

And Christa stood.

-

Back in the Weapon District

The air was still thick with smoke and awe. Every eye was fixed on me and the being now standing beside me—Umbraezar in his new form, a figure of dark perfection.

Then I gave the command.

"Umbraezar," I said, voice quiet but resonating with a gravity that cut through the murmurs.

"Return to shadow."

Without hesitation, he turned, bowed once, and vanished.

His body dissolved into a mass of coiling shadow, curling around me like a cloak of sentient smoke before sinking into the floor, merging with the abyss beneath my feet. It was silent—utterly silent—as if the world had just paused.

The onlookers gasped.

"What—?!"

"Where did he go?"

"Did he just—?!"

"He vanished..."

Celestine staggered a step back, blinking. "That was... not teleportation," she murmured. "That was integration."

Cain Voss tensed, hand near his belt. "That dragon's in his shadow. "

Even Vaughn's aides stumbled at their stations. The President himself, still pale, let out a slow breath, but said nothing—just watching.

I stood still for a heartbeat longer.

Then I walked slowly toward the barriers where they are current at.

The crowd parted in silence, the Hunters and soldiers behind the shielding hesitating. They didn't raise their weapons. They didn't run. They simply watched.

Some of them had expressions of wonder. Hope. Eyes wide, breath held, as if witnessing a legend born in real time.

Others... weren't so sure.

I saw it in their eyes—the anxiety. The tension. The fear.

A few of the younger Hunters stepped back, clutching their gear tighter.

"He's... like one of them."

"But he's not."

"Then what is he?"

I stopped just at the edge of the barricade. The energy field shimmered faintly, casting ripples in the dust around my boots.

A young technician stared at me, lips parted, tablet forgotten in her hand.

Orion, finally regaining his composure, turned to face me.

His voice was low. Respectful. Cautious.

"...Who are you now, Ryzen?"

My gaze flicked to him, and for a moment, I didn't answer.

Then I stepped past the barrier, and the field didn't resist. It let me through, like it knew.

"I am what I must be," I said quietly.

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The silence still held as I crossed fully into the secured zone.

Every camera, every drone, every lens—even the ones half-cracked or hanging from broken scaffolds—remained trained on me.

The world watched.

And then, a new voice cut through the tension.

Authoritative. Public. Projected through national systems, across all major frequencies.

President Darius Vaughn had stepped forward.

The broadcast cameras shifted, split-screening between my calm stride and his weathered face—grim, resolute, and far older than he'd looked just an hour ago.

He stood before a mobile podium hastily erected near the barricade, flanked by Agents and global delegates still catching their breath.

Vaughn's voice came slow, deliberate. Every word carved with precision.

"This is President Vaughn of Hunter's Association."

"To all citizens—here in City-A, and abroad watching across every continent and satellite—what you have witnessed is not a broadcast glitch. This is not simulation. This is real."

He paused, letting that truth land.

The silence behind him said more than speeches ever could.

-

"An individual under our jurisdiction—Ryzen—has subdued a Calamity-Class threat, not by annihilation, but by submission. And has demonstrated an affinity and control over power beyond our known S-Rank thresholds."

"This is... unprecedented."

A brief shot flickered across the screen—a still frame of Umbraezar kneeling.

Then another, of Ryzen, eyes glowing violet-black, walking through the ash like a monarch returning from war.

-

"Effective immediately," Vaughn continued, "a Reawakening Evaluation will be conducted."

He let that hang in the air for a heartbeat.

"All Hunters classified S-Rank or above are subject to mandatory system recalibration tests within the week."

A low ripple of shock swept through the gathered Hunters.

Whispers.

Reawakening?

-

"Too long," Vaughn said, continuing, "we've assumed our classifications were final. That our limits were defined. But if there are threats like Pyraethrax still hidden—and powers like Ryzen walking among us—then the world must evolve with them."

He stepped away from the podium now, looking not at the crowd, but directly into the nearest camera.

"This is not a demotion. Nor is it punishment."

"This is recognition."

"Of a new frontier."

As the President finished, the tension that had built in the air broke—not with cheers, but with a shared, heavy understanding.

The world was changing.

Again.

And fast.

Celestine Ardent looked down at her gauntlet, the display flickering faintly. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

Cain Voss didn't speak—just adjusted his stance, eyes narrowing toward the horizon.

And Orion?

He exhaled deeply and looked at me—not as a rival anymore, but as something else.

"I guess you're the benchmark now," he said under his breath.

I said nothing.

But the shadow behind me flickered faintly—Umbraezar, listening, waiting, always watching from the veil of darkness.

Let them test. Let them measure.

They wouldn't find the bottom.

Because I hadn't reached it yet either.