I Ascend Alone-Chapter 129: The Birth of National Level Part VIII

I took a breath.

The air reeked of ash and broken pride, thick with smoke and mana too scorched to pull in. Every instinct in me screamed to move—to act—to end this. But I still turned, just for a second, just to glance at the one man who held any authority over what I was about to do.

President Vaughn stood behind the barrier with others, flanked by agents and recording drones.

I stepped toward him. "Sir," I said, my voice level, low. "I'll now step in."

He turned to me, slowly.

His expression was unreadable at first—calculating, weary. For the first time since I'd met him, the weight of everything he carried was visible in his face. A thousand decisions, a thousand lives, all balanced on the edge of a cliff that had just started to crumble.

He glanced past me—at Leon, dragging himself upright.

At Mirae, arm dislocated, breathing ragged.

At Celestine, unconscious.

At Orion, weaponless.

At Cain, scorched and bleeding.

And I saw it in his eyes: that sliver of hesitation.

The weight of what I was asking. No—what I was offering.

Because if I stepped onto that field, there'd be no going back. The world would see what I was. Who I was. And there would be no more hiding behind clean titles and unassuming ranks. No more holding back. Just the truth, and the consequences that would follow.

President Vaughn stared at me. His jaw clenched once.

"...Are you sure?" he asked.

I didn't blink. "I've never been more sure of anything."

A beat passed. Then he nodded—barely.

But that was all I needed. I stepped forward, and looked up.

Pyraethrax had turned his head, finally taking notice. He tilted it, and for the first time, I saw something beneath that smug arrogance.

"Permission granted," Vaughn muttered behind me.

I didn't look back.

"I wasn't asking," I said quietly, as the air began to fracture around me—shadow bleeding upward like smoke from a dying star.

The ground cracked beneath my feet—not from weight, but from pressure. The sheer density of my presence folding into the world as the Abyss stirred in full.

The fractured air around me collapsed inward for a breathless moment—then burst outward in a silent shockwave. Dust, ash, and mana were pushed back in a perfect circle, revealing untouched ground beneath me.

The battlefield paused. Even Pyraethrax hesitated.

His wings, half-torn, flared in defiance. His molten eyes narrowed, pupil-slit and ancient, studying me like I was some relic clawing its way out of time.

"...You," the dragon rumbled, voice no longer taunting. It vibrated through the stone and into the marrow. "your scent is familiar.."

I raised a hand.

Shadow coiled around my fingers like silk set on fire. Not darkness, not void—but the substance of the Abyss itself. Weightless and crushing. Soft and absolute.

And still I hadn't drawn my weapon.

"Your fire burned them," I said softly, stepping forward, each footfall met with a faint tremor. "But it won't burn me."

Pyraethrax's core flared. That cursed light surged down his throat again.

But I was already gone.

I moved—not with speed, not with blink, not with magic. I stepped, and the world let me. From behind the barrier to the heart of the crater, I arrived with the sound of cracking glass and folding time.

One instant, I stood among Vaughn and the drones. The next—I was in front of the dragon's face.

Its breath choked mid-charge. "Impossible—" it hissed.

I looked into its molten eyes. "You declared war," I whispered. "Now you meet the other side of it."

Shadow surged forward—not in a beam, not in a blast, but as a devouring truth. The breath Pyraethrax had been forming stuttered and collapsed in his throat, swallowed whole by a singularity of unbeing. Heat died. Mana vanished. And for a heartbeat, even time slowed.

Pyraethrax reeled, roaring—not in rage, but in confusion. He flung his body back, wings dragging sparks as they scraped the ceiling of the dungeon sky, claws digging trenches to keep balance.

"You... you dare face me?!"

I tilted my head slightly, the weight of the Abyss still radiating around me.

"You talk too much," I said.

He lunged.

Faster than a creature his size should've been able to move, maw open wide with rows of obsidian fangs, molten breath still clinging to his throat. The very air warped with the motion of his strike, but I didn't flinch.

I raised one hand—and stepped through his assault.

I emerged on the other side of his snapping jaws, already mid-motion.

My fist met his face.

No technique. No flourish. Just raw, condensed authority behind a strike wrapped in Abyssal intent. My knuckles met the ridge of his massive jaw—and the sound that followed was not that of impact.

It was shattering.

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A ripple of force screamed across the field. Pyraethrax's head jerked sideways, violently, like a mountain getting slapped off balance by a god.

And then—he skidded.

The ancient dragon was driven backward. His claws tore trenches through the stone, body dragged like a broken comet across the battlefield. He slammed through a pillar, broke through it, and kept skidding—horns sparking against the ground as he struggled to right himself.

Debris exploded in his wake. A wave of silence followed, as the very world struggled to process what had just happened.

And I stood there—arm still extended, smoke rising off my fingertips like ink peeling off parchment. I rolled my wrist once. Flexed my fingers.

"...Not bad," I murmured.

Across the field, Pyraethrax finally stopped.

He let out a low, guttural snarl—less pain, more disbelief.

A crack now lined the edge of his right jaw, glowing with thin trails of internal magma. One of his fangs had broken—shattered completely—and his eye twitched with uncertainty.

I took a step forward, "You're not fighting insects anymore," I said, voice echoing with layered resonance, like something ancient whispering beneath my words. "You're fighting a predator."

He reared back, wings flaring. "You... what are you?!"

I smiled.

And from behind me, the drones caught it all.

The world was watching. And the tide had just turned.