SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything

The spatial tear snapped shut behind Rosh with a implosive pop.

He tumbled out of the void, his boots skidding across a floor of burned wood. His breath came in ragged, heavy gasps, and his throat burned with the metallic taste of blood. Rosh immediately dropped into a low, defensive crouch, his fingers tensed into talons as his eyes frantically scanned the darkness around him.

There was no white mana. No suffocating, mountain-like atmospheric pressure. No auburn-haired human titan staring at him with cold, ancient eyes.

He had escaped.

’huh? What am i thinking? It was not impossible of course, why wouldn’t i be able to escape?’ His mind was a mess.

Rosh slowly stood upright, wiping the trail of dark blood from his chin. But as he looked around the ruined interior of the room, a sudden, icy shudder ran down his spine.

The room was completely gutted. The ceiling beams were charred black, hanging precariously from rusted iron supports. The wallpaper had burned away, along with some parts of the wall. Scorched furniture lay strewn across the floor in piles of brittle charcoal.

A cold, damp wind whistled through a shattered frame, bringing with it the stale smell of smog.

’Where am I...?’

When he opened the portal with danger in his mind and nothing else, his subconscious should have automatically tethered the exit to a location his soul perceives as a safe sanctuary.

Then why had he landed here?

Rosh took two slow steps forward, his boots crushing a fragment of a scorched picture frame.

In an instant, a wave of sickening recognition slammed into his brain.

This was the old residential apartment in Area 17. This was the home where his mother, Erin Volter, had raised his twin brother.

His mind violently short-circuited.

’My mother’s house...’ Rosh thought, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles in his face trembled. "Why did my spatial authority drag me to a burned human ruin?!"

A wave of profound humiliation washed over him, far more painful than the physical injury Maddox had inflicted on his chest. He still could not believe that he, when faced with a single human, had been paralyzed by terror. He had fled like a beaten dog, and his very instincts had guided him to the grave of his human mother’s past.

A feral, monstrous rage flared deep within his chest. He wanted to throw his head back and unleash an apocalyptic roar. He wanted to open a hundred dimensional gates, flood this place with high-tier Calamity Lords, and burn this entire city into ash.

"Damn it... DAMN IT!" He hissed through gritted teeth, his knuckles turning stark white as dark mana violently swirled around his boots.

He forced himself to take five deep, agonizing breaths, forcibly suppressing the chaotic mana before it could trigger any kind of cameras or sensors. Blowing up some random place would achieve nothing. It would only draw more exterminators to his location.

Rosh changed back into his normal cloths, removing and burning the cloths of that guard he had been wearing.

He began walking through the smog-filled streets of Area 17.

Despite his deep-seated hatred for humanity, a tiny, persistent curiosity had always lingered in the back of his mind. He wanted to understand them, because apparently he was part human too.

Following the flow of local traffic, Rosh eventually arrived before the sterile, towering glass structure of the Central Hospital.

He stepped toward the grand double doors of the main medical wing, intending to walk inside and observe the humans as he got treated, he would not be assessed as an exterminator , he knew. But as he reached the threshold, an automated security barrier hummed to life.

BEEP! A red scanning beam swept across his chest.

"Access Denied," a metallic, synthesized voice chimed from the security pillar. "Please present a valid ID or Municipal Civilian Registration to proceed."

Rosh frowned, clicking his tongue in irritation. He didn’t have a registration. He raised his index finger, preparing to manifest a microscopic spatial gate inside the scanner’s internal circuitry to short-circuit the lock, just as he had done at the laboratory.

Before his finger could tap the air, his enhanced perception flared up.

An intense, razor-sharp aura was approaching the exit doors from inside the building. It wasn’t S-Rank, but it was dense, aggressive, and refined—the signature of a high-tier human exterminator.

Even if the machines could not tell... other exterminators might, that he was not a human.

Rosh instantly aborted his spatial technique, melting backward into the heavy shadows of a decorative stone pillar near the entrance.

The glass doors slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss.

Stepping out onto the marble steps was a striking woman clad in a sleek, dark combat suit. She had long, brilliant golden-blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, and her piercing red eyes carried an sharp, unyielding authority. She held a communicator pressed firmly against her ear.

"You think I’m blind or something?" the blonde woman snapped into the receiver, her voice filled with a mixture of annoyance and awe. "It is Hide Volter, and he has really awakened! I’m looking at the gate readouts right now—he almost killed ten beasts on his own before the response squad even arrived!"

Behind the pillar, Rosh’s breath hitched.

Hide Volter.

Hearing the name of his brother sent a wave of uncontrollable frustration surging through Rosh’s core. For a fraction of a microsecond, his emotional composure slipped, and a faint wisp of dark, corrupted mana leaked from his body.

The blonde woman instantly froze mid-sentence. Her red eyes narrowed into lethal slits, and her head snapped violently toward the shadowed pillar where Rosh was hiding.

"Tsk!" Rosh didn’t wait. Pushing his Agility to its limit without opening a gate, he dissolved into the deeper shadows of the street, vanishing before her gaze could lock onto his physical form.

Miles away, inside his office in the laboratory, Maddox frowned.

"You alright, Claire?" He asked softly over the line, noticing the sudden, tense pause on her end.

On the other end of the frequency, Claire let out a slow, controlled breath, her red eyes sweeping over the empty shadows of the hospital courtyard one last time.

"Ah, yes I am," Claire answered smoothly, adjusting the collar of her blazer. "I thought there was someone around the corner, but it was nothing. Just a stray wind current, I suppose."

Maddox chuckled softly. "Don’t let your guard down. Well, I will be coming back tomorrow to meet Hide Volter myself. He is my responsibility after all."

"Understood, Sir," Claire replied flatly. "I’ll have his physical evaluation files ready for your arrival."

"Good."

Maddox tapped his communicator, severing the link. The cheerful, relaxed expression on his youthful face instantly vanished, replaced by an exhausted, grim line.

He turned around and walked over to his massive mahogany desk. With a flick of his wrist, a holographic projector flared to life, displaying high-definition security footage recorded from the subterranean incubation facility just twenty minutes ago.

The footage replayed the infiltration.

Maddox watched as a plain-looking teenager effortlessly bypassed the runic bulkhead. The recording showed one of the facility’s internal guards—a veteran C-ranked Exterminator being killed instantly, his neck snapped before he could say anything or do anything.

Maddox’s eyes narrowed as the video reached its climax.

On the screen, Maddox saw himself driving a compressed white mana bullet directly at the boy’s head. But an instant before the lethal projectile connected, the boy threw his body backward, vanishing seamlessly into the dark.

A heavy, uneasy feeling settled deep in Maddox’s chest.

"It looks like he had a talent related to shadows..." Maddox muttered aloud to the empty office, his voice echoing off the glass walls. "...that would explain why he was able to open the locks of the main hall and slip past the physical security grid."

Yet, even as he voiced the theory, his analytical mind rejected the simple conclusion.

Something about that escape felt wrong. How could anyone find that subterranean laboratory in the first place? The facility was buried miles beneath the bedrock, constructed under absolute classification. Not even the research staff working inside were permitted to leave the perimeter or place unmonitored communications. Furthermore, Maddox’s intelligence networks had already definitively confirmed that the intruder had zero affiliation with the International Corporation.

So who was he?

Maddox let out a long, weary sigh, rubbing his temples as a dull ache throbbed behind his eyes. The web of secrets surrounding the experiments being done by world’s other authorities, the artificial cloning projects, and the shifting balance of power was growing more chaotic by the day.

He closed the holographic display with a wave of his hand.

"Assistant," Maddox called out firmly.

A side door opened, and his personal secretary stepped into the office, holding a datapad. "Yes, Commander?"

"Ready the Teleportation Artifact," Maddox ordered, leaning back against his desk. "I am departing for Varisus, Area 17 tomorrow morning."

"Right away, Sir," she replied, bowing before stepping back out to execute the command.

Left alone once more, Maddox turned his gaze back to the desk.

Tomorrow, he was going to meet Hide Volter.

The boy was the son of Erin Volter—a woman who remained one of the greatest, most tragic mysteries of Maddox’s long life. Years ago, Erin had been the brilliant Captain of Gate Research, working directly under Maddox’s supervision. But after going missing for almost two years, she had formally resigned, severing all contracts with the NEA and desperately pleading with Maddox never to pursue or monitor her again. Maddox had honored her wish, stepping back to let her live as a normal civilian in Area 17.

And then, she had been murdered.

Maddox’s jaw tightened. His private, off-the-record investigation had pointed toward the shadow operatives of the International Corporation, though the exact details of her death showed it was due to a gate opening. He had failed to protect her. And now, he was about to stand face-to-face with her orphaned son.

Maddox closed his eyes, a heavy, rare shadow of hesitation passing over his youthful face.

He honestly did not know how he was going to face Hide Volter, or what he could possibly say to him.

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