Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner - Chapter 484

484: Area 52 : Skin walker 2 484: Area 52 : Skin walker 2 A younger settler, maybe mid-twenties, pushed through the crowd.

“Mrs.

Amera never awakened!

She’s been tested three times, she has no abilities!

How is she healing?!” [BEAST DETECTED] [TYPE: SKINWALKER] [CAUTION: ENTITY CAPABLE OF MIMICRY AND REGENERATION] Noah stared at the system notification, then at the thing wearing Mrs.

Amera’s face.

“What kind of beast even is that?” he muttered.

The woman tilted her head, studying him with eyes that had gone flat and lifeless.

Then she moved.

Fast.

Too fast for someone her apparent age, closing ten meters in maybe two seconds.

Her fist came up in a wild swing that Noah barely dodged, the air displacement from her punch suggesting strength that was approaching his own capabilities but not quite matching them.

Noah countered with a jab to her ribs.

His fist connected with impact that should have broken bones, sending her stumbling sideways.

She recovered immediately, lunging again with both hands reaching for his throat.

They clashed in the middle of the market, people scrambling to get away.

Noah’s combat training showed immediately-his strikes were clean, targeting joints and vital areas, while hers were unrefined attacks that relied on raw power and regeneration to compensate for lack of skill.

He hit her with a combination, left jab to the face followed by a right hook to the temple.

Her head snapped sideways from the first impact, then whipped back from the second.

She stumbled, dropped to one knee.

Got back up.

Noah grabbed her outstretched arm and twisted, feeling bones break under the pressure.

She didn’t scream, didn’t react to pain that should have been overwhelming.

Just yanked her arm free, leaving it hanging at an unnatural angle as the bones started fusing back together.

‘These people know her,’ Noah thought, watching the arm straighten itself.

‘The system says beast, but she looks human.

If they know her, if she’s lived here for years…

what the hell is controlling her?’ She launched herself at him again, moving with that disturbing combination of inhuman strength and complete disregard for self-preservation.

Noah ducked under her wild swing and drove his fist into her solar plexus with enough force to crack pavement.

She went flying, hitting the ground hard enough to create spiderweb cracks in the stone beneath her.

The impact should have knocked the wind out of her, maybe broken ribs, definitely caused enough pain to stop most fights.

She bounced back up like the hit had been nothing.

The settlers were shouting now, confused and terrified in equal measure.

Some recognized the inhuman movement, the impossible healing, the wrongness of watching someone they’d known for decades move like something else entirely.

Others were still trying to rationalize what they were seeing, clinging to the familiar face despite everything screaming that this wasn’t Mrs.

Amera anymore.

Noah couldn’t use lethal force.

Not yet.

Not when these people knew her, when there was a chance-however slim-that she was still in there somewhere.

But fighting her non-lethally was getting harder with every exchange.

She jumped, clearing maybe eight feet vertically to land on a stall roof.

The structure groaned under her weight but held.

She crouched there like an animal, then launched herself at Noah from above.

He moved aside, letting her crash into the space he’d occupied.

She hit the ground running, pivoted without pause, came at him again.

They traded blows across the market.

Noah’s double axe handle caught her as she lunged, both fists coming down on her back with force that drove her face-first into the ground.

Stone cracked beneath the impact.

She pushed herself up, face bloody again, wounds already closing.

‘She’s not getting tired,’ Noah realized.

‘Not slowing down, not showing any signs of accumulated damage.

Whatever’s healing her is keeping her at peak condition.’ The woman jumped onto a building wall, somehow finding purchase on the vertical surface, then launched herself sideways at an angle that defied physics.

Noah caught her mid-air, using her momentum against her to slam her into the ground.

More cracks spread from the impact point.

People were backing away now, giving them more space, the initial shock wearing off enough for survival instincts to kick in.

She rolled backward, came up on her feet, and this time when she moved, she feinted left.

Noah read the attack, shifted to counter- Her fist caught him square in the jaw.

The impact snapped his head to the side.

Noah staggered, tasting blood, his vision briefly filled with stars.

The hit carried serious power, enough to drop an unawakened human instantly.

She pressed the advantage, following up with a wild haymaker that Noah managed to deflect, then a knee aimed at his midsection that he barely twisted away from.

For a few seconds, she had him on the defensive, forcing him to block and evade rather than counter.

Then Noah’s head cleared.

He caught her next punch, twisted her arm, and drove his knee into her ribs with force that sent a visible shockwave through her body.

She flew sideways, crashed through a wooden stall, scattered vegetables and broken wood everywhere.

When she emerged from the wreckage, Noah was already moving.

He hit her with a straight right that lifted her off her feet.

Before she could fall, he was there, driving another punch into her midsection that folded her over his fist.

She gasped-maybe the first sound of pain she’d made-then took an uppercut that sent her spiraling upward.

Noah didn’t let up.

As she came down, he caught her with a spinning back fist that redirected her trajectory, sending her skipping across the ground like a stone on water.

She bounced once, twice, three times before momentum finally died.

The settlers had gone quiet, watching this brutal exchange with a mixture of horror and awe.

She stood up.

Slower this time, but still she stood.

Blood covered her face, her left arm hung wrong, her ribs were clearly broken.

But the wounds were healing, bones resetting, flesh knitting back together.

He rushed at her and took her down in a judo throw before he pinned her down, one knee on her chest, both hands holding her arms.

“What are you?!” he demanded.

She smiled.

Blood on her teeth, those flat dead eyes, and she smiled like this was all a game.

Then she bucked with strength that nearly matched his, throwing him off, rolling to her feet with impossible speed.

They circled each other, both breathing hard now, both covered in dust and blood.

Noah charged, throwing a combination of strikes that would have overwhelmed most opponents.

She blocked some, took others, gave ground but kept fighting.

They crashed through another stall, scattered merchandise everywhere, their fight leaving destruction in its wake.

He grabbed her by the throat and drove her backward into a wall.

The impact cratered the stone, dust and debris raining down around them.

She clawed at his arm, her fingers finding purchase, drawing blood through his sleeve.

Noah headbutted her.

Once.

Twice.

On the third impact, something in her face crunched, but she was still smiling that horrible smile.

He threw her away, sending her tumbling across the market square.

She hit a stone fountain, the impact cracking the structure, water beginning to leak from new fissures.

This time when she stood, Noah saw it-the slight hesitation, the way she swayed just a bit.

however she was healing, it was working slower now.

The damage was accumulating faster than it could repair.

Noah pressed forward, not giving her time to recover.

He hit her with a liver shot that would have hospitalized a normal person, followed by a hook to the temple that made her eyes unfocus.

She swung back wildly, missed by a mile, left herself completely open.

His fist drove into her chest with force that sent her flying backward fifteen meters.

She crashed through the fountain entirely this time, stone and water exploding outward from the impact.

When the debris settled, she was on her back in the wreckage, water pooling around her.

For a moment, Noah thought it was over.

Then she sat up.

Slower, jerkier, but still moving.

Still healing.

Still getting back up.

Noah took a step toward her, ready to continue the fight, ready to beat her down as many times as it took.

Then a child’s voice cut through everything.

“Grandma Amera?” Noah’s head snapped around.

A boy, maybe ten years old, had pushed through the crowd.

He was staring at the woman with confused hope, like maybe this was all a misunderstanding, like maybe his grandma was okay.

“Jai, no!” someone shouted, but the boy was already moving, running toward the figure in the fountain wreckage.

The woman’s head turned toward the child.

Her expression shifted, something hungry and terrible sliding across her features.

The boy didn’t see it.

Didn’t understand.

He just ran toward his grandmother, arms outstretched, seeking comfort in the familiar face.

Noah moved, trying to intercept, but she was closer.

Her arm reached out, fingers extending toward the child.

“Stop!” Noah shouted.

The boy crashed into her, small arms wrapping around her waist in a hug.

“Grandma, what’s happening?

Why is everyone scared?” She looked down at the child.

Her hand came up, resting on his head.

For just a second, Noah thought maybe there was something human left in there, some fragment of Mrs.

Amera responding to her grandson.

Then her expression went completely blank.

Her leg came up in a kick that caught Noah in the chest before he could reach them.

The impact sent him flying backward, his body crashing through a vendor stall, then through the wall of a building beyond it.

Wood and stone exploded around him as his momentum carried him through the structure entirely, depositing him in an alley on the other side in a cloud of debris.

Noah struggled to his feet, dust and broken masonry falling off him.

Through the human-shaped hole in the wall, he could see the market square.

The boy was still hugging her.

She was still standing there, one hand on his head.

Then she started to move, turning to leave, taking the child with her.

‘No.’ [BLINK ACTIVATED] Space folded.

Noah vanished from the alley and reappeared five feet from her, moving before reality fully caught up with his position.

The boy was right there, directly between them, still clinging to what he thought was his grandmother.

Noah’s hand shot out, purple energy already blazing around his fist.

[NULL STRIKE ACTIVATED] The woman saw him coming.

Her eyes widened-the first real reaction he’d seen from her.

She started to move, started to pull the boy between them as a shield.

Noah adjusted mid-strike, angling his fist away from the child, targeting her extended arm instead.

His Enhanced Null Strike hit her at the wrist.

The effect was instant and absolute.

Her hand and forearm simply ceased to exist, erased at the molecular level, leaving nothing but a clean stump that ended mid-forearm.

No blood, no torn flesh, just the absence of matter where matter had been.

The woman stopped moving.

Stared at her missing arm.

The boy stumbled back, finally seeing something was wrong, his child’s mind not able to process what he’d just witnessed.

Then black tendrils burst from the stump.

They writhed in the air like living things, searching, reaching, fundamentally wrong in a way that made everyone who saw them take an involuntary step back.

The tendrils weren’t flesh, weren’t anything that belonged in a human body.

They were something else, something alien, something that had been hiding inside Mrs.

Amera.

Noah’s system updated.

[ENTITY ANALYSIS COMPLETE] [TYPE: PARASITIC MIMIC ORGANISM] [HOST: COMPROMISED HUMAN (DECEASED)] [THREAT LEVEL: CATEGORY 4] [WARNING: ENTITY SEEKS NEW HOST] The black mass started pulling itself free of the woman’s body, abandoning the damaged vessel.

Mrs.

Amera’s corpse collapsed, empty now, whatever had been controlling her no longer bothering to maintain the illusion.

Settlers screamed, finally understanding that this hadn’t been their neighbor at all.

The black tendrils shot toward the nearest person, a man in his thirties who’d been trying to help.

He didn’t have time to react, didn’t have time to run.

The mass entered his mouth, his nose, his eyes, forcing its way inside while he thrashed and screamed.

Black veins spread across his skin from the entry points, racing up his neck, across his face, covering his exposed arms.

His eyes went dark.

When he stood up, he moved with the same inhuman quality the woman had shown.

But faster now, stronger, the host body younger and more capable.

More screaming erupted from different parts of the market.

Noah spun around, trying to track all the movement, and saw it happening everywhere.

People collapsing, black veins spreading, eyes going dark.

Rising with that wrongness that marked them as compromised.

The parasite wasn’t singular.

It was spreading.

How many?

How long had it been here?

Noah stood in the center of the market, surrounded by infected settlers, his system flashing warnings about multiple hostile entities, and understood with perfect clarity that he was in over his head.

The boy he’d saved was crying, being pulled away by his mother who didn’t understand what was happening but knew they needed to run.

And Noah, standing alone against a threat he didn’t fully understand, thought: ‘I really should be the one calling for back up,’