SSS Ranked Awakening: My Summons Are All Calamity-Class Gods

Chapter 49: Chapter 49 | Commander Class

Not a spike this time. A full involuntary surge of combat intensity, everything Ishtar knew flooding his muscles at once, his body reading the thing in front of him and making a unilateral decision that reduced output was not adequate for this situation.

The large entity took one step forward.

The road cracked under its foot. Not shattered , cracked, a single fracture line running from the impact point to the road’s edge like a sentence being written in stone.

Corbyn’s body moved before he decided to move it.

He went left hard, fast, integration driving his speed well past what his body could produce alone and the large entity’s arm came down where he’d been standing. The impact when it hit the road wasn’t a sound so much as a pressure wave. He felt it in his chest. The stone where it struck simply ceased to exist as a flat surface, replaced by a crater the width of three men standing abreast.

He kept moving. The integration was burning through his reserves at combat intensity — he could feel the well dropping, the rate of draw extreme, the bottom becoming visible faster than any previous gate visit.

The commander moved.

It came from his right , fast, faster than the smaller entities, a different quality of speed that wasn’t just physical but tactical, it had read his trajectory and was cutting off his angle rather than chasing him. Its arm came across in a horizontal sweep aimed at forcing him toward the large entity.

Cole’s voice: They telegraph the sweep with the shoulder. Watch the shoulder drop first.

The shoulder dropped.

Corbyn dropped under the sweep, drove his own shoulder into the commander’s torso felt the impact through his bones, something that dense didn’t give the way a human body gave and redirected off it, using the commander’s mass as a pivot point rather than a target, spinning away from the angle it was trying to push him toward.

For three seconds he had open road.

He ran.

Not retreat , he needed distance and a second to read the formation. The large entity was slow in a straight line but its reach made proximity catastrophic. The commander was fast and tactical. The three smaller units were hanging back, which meant they had a specific role he hadn’t triggered yet.

He stopped at forty metres and turned.

The large entity was walking toward him. Not running. Walking, each step cracking the stone road, with the particular unhurried quality of something that had decided running wasn’t necessary.

The commander had moved to flank already twenty metres to his right, cutting off the treeline angle.

The three units were spreading. Left, centre, right. Covering the retreat angles. If he went for the gate they were between him and it. If he went into the treeline the commander had the angle. If he held the road the large entity arrived in approximately fifteen seconds.

Integration burning. Reserves dropping. The well visible now . not empty but the water level low enough that he could see the stone at the bottom.

Corbyn, Ishtar said. Two minutes maximum at current draw.

Fourteen seconds until the large entity reached him.

He made the calculation.

He ran directly at the large entity.

Not because it was the right tactical decision. Because it was the only direction nobody was covering, they’d all assumed he’d avoid the largest threat, so the gap in the formation was directly in front of it.

The large entity saw him coming and raised its arm for a downward strike . the same motion that had made the crater in the road. Corbyn watched the windup. Watched the angle. Calculated where the arm would land based on the motion’s arc.

He went right at the last possible second.

The arm came down. The pressure wave hit him even at two metres . he felt it push against him like a wall of air, nearly knocked his footing but he was already past the impact point, past the entity’s right side, through the gap between its body and the formation edge, onto open road on the far side of the entire group.

Gate at thirty metres. Open road. Nothing between him and it.

He ran.

The bond was screaming at him ,the integration pulling hard at reserves that were nearly gone, every step forward costing more than the last one. His body felt the weight of it the way exhausted muscles feel the weight of a tool that isn’t heavy but has been held too long.

Twenty metres to the gate.

Corbyn.

He heard it before Ishtar finished saying his name. A sound from behind not the large entity, not the commander, something else. Faster.

He glanced back.

One of the three small entities had broken formation. Not running , something closer to flowing, its movement low and ground-covering, covering distance in a way that looked unhurried and was terrifyingly fast. It was going to reach him before the gate.

Ten metres.

He drew the combat blade.

The entity reached him at five metres from the gate and its arm came across not the horizontal sweep the commander used but a diagonal, lower, aimed at the legs.

He jumped it.

Not cleanly. The tip of the entity’s arm caught his left calf, a raking contact rather than a full strike, and the force still sent him spinning. He hit the ground rolling , kept rolling, controlled the momentum rather than fighting it, came up facing the gate at three metres.

His calf was bleeding. He didn’t feel it yet. He would.

He stepped backward through the gate and the bruised purple sky blinked out and Valdenmere’s afternoon air hit him.

He kept moving backward, away from the gate, creating distance until he hit something solid.

He turned.

Cole.

Cole was standing on the road twenty metres from the gate with his arms crossed, looking at Corbyn with an expression that wasn’t anger exactly. More the look of a man who had made a prediction and was watching it come true in real time with no satisfaction whatsoever.

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