SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 - Chapter 371

Chapter 371: Dark Past—3
Leon was in genuine trouble. He understood that clearly now, and the degree of it was absurd.

Leon already instinctively knew this woman was stronger than him, sitting close to her for so long—even with his Holy energy unlocked. But what is the true magnitude of that gap? He didn’t yet understand.

Whether it is small or big, only time would tell.

Three individuals as powerful as her, fighting together alongside two deities, barely survived against one opponent. If I faced him alone? I’m completely cooked.

Leon forced himself to ask a few more critical questions before moving to addressing the main issue:

“How strong were the great Phoenix and great Red Dragon compared to you? Were you essentially equals in power?”

Archon Vyrra suddenly started laughing—genuinely laughing hard, the sound echoing through the cave.

HAHAHA! HAHA!

Then she replied with brutal honesty:

“Two hundred years ago, at the time of that final catastrophic battle, both of them were at minimum ten times stronger than me individually. I was absolutely no match for either deity in direct combat.”

She added matter-of-factly:

“My specific role during that battle was simply to ensure that the massive shockwaves from their clash wouldn’t inadvertently kill the rest of our species and the outsiders who were simultaneously sacrificing themselves to seal their worlds’ portals.”

Leon felt chills run down his entire spine.

Ten times stronger than her. Each of them.

He wasn’t alone in that reaction—both Korvek and Ira visibly shuddered. This information was entirely new to them as well, and absolutely terrifying.

Ira was physically shaking in her seat, her voice trembling as she asked:

“Then what about that evil man you were all fighting against at that time? How strong was he?!”

Leon leaned forward, desperate to hear the answer:

“I was wanting to ask exactly the same thing.”

He listened with complete, intense focus.

Archon Vyrra replied with a dead, flat voice completely devoid of emotion—which somehow made it more horrifying:

“Him? I genuinely don’t even know how to quantify his strength accurately.”

She paused, then continued:

“But I can say with absolute certainty: all of us would have been killed that day, sooner or later, if the battle had continued on its current trajectory. Just from the undeniable fact that the great Phoenix sacrificed her divine life at the very start of the engagement—catching him by complete surprise with a suicide attack—and even that only managed to injure him badly rather than kill him?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“I can’t even begin to guess his true maximum strength.”

Silence filled the cave like a physical presence.

Leon asked the question he desperately didn’t want answered, his own voice shaking noticeably:

“Will… will he be coming back eventually?”

The silence stretched for several agonizing seconds.

Then the reply came—the answer Leon had desperately hoped would be different, but deep down had known was inevitable.

I’m so fucked.

Vyrra said quietly but clearly:

“His final message before vanishing was explicit: he would be returning. And when he does, every single living creature in this ‘little realm’ will become his puppet.”

He couldn’t even form a coherent thought anymore—just static and screaming inside his skull.

Leon was visibly shaking now, his hands trembling.

He asked anxiously, desperation clear in his voice:

“Where—where exactly are those portals located? The rifts to other worlds?”

Archon Vyrra’s voice became sharp and suspicious:

“Why should I tell you that specific information?”

Leon stammered, trying to sound cooperative rather than panicked:

“We’re—we’re in this together now, aren’t we? So you should at least tell me that much! I need to know!”

The Archon was laughing internally, her thoughts coldly amused.

I can see him already planning to escape at the very first chance he gets. How predictable.

But she played along with his transparent attempt, because she knew with absolute certainty that escape was simply impossible.

Let him hope. It changes nothing.

She answered with deliberate cruelty:

“I don’t know precisely how the Red Dragon accomplished this feat, but somehow, all four of those portals are now directly guarded by him. They’re located on or within that descending sun where he’s potentially attempting to break through to true Archon realm using the great Phoenix’s absorbed divine core to fuel his advancement.”

She added, just to ensure Leon fully understood his hopeless situation:

“With your current meager strength, you will never be able to reach those portals. The heat alone would incinerate you long before you got close.”

Her voice became almost mocking.

“…This is worse than I ever imagined,” Korvek muttered, voice strained with disbelief.

“And considering you somehow angered the Dragon—who is already enraged beyond measure from losing his eternal companion—he will not rest until he personally erases you from existence entirely. You’ve made the worst possible enemy.”

Leon felt like he might actually wet himself from pure terror.

The stone seat beneath him felt colder now—like it had absorbed the despair leaking from his body.

No. No, no, no!

But Vyrra wasn’t finished destroying his hopes.

“And even if, by some impossible miracle, you managed to reach one of the portals and survive the Dragon’s wrath, I genuinely don’t think you would be able to break through the seal placed on your world’s specific portal.”

She delivered the final blow.

“That seal was created through the collective willing sacrifice of thousands of powerful individuals, many of whom were at minimum as strong as your current level. Their combined death-magic and our racial fire techniques created something nearly unbreakable.”

Ira looked ready to cry. “Are we… are we all doomed?”

Her lips trembled, hands clenched tightly in her lap as if trying to hold something together.

Shit. Shit. SHIT!

Leon’s mind was screaming internally.

When will I be free from being trapped by fate?! I HATE YOU! I hate this cursed Mark!

His vision tunnelled. The flickering torchlight blurred. His lungs felt like paper, barely able to draw breath.

He was having a complete mental breakdown, his breathing becoming rapid and shallow.

The numbers Vyrra had cited weren’t even fully accurate, Leon realized with growing horror. That sacrificial event had likely completely erased the entire population of that abandoned stone city in the outside world—they’d been collateral damage, their souls used as fuel for that desperate ceremony to defend their respective worlds from an existential threat.

Thousands had died to seal just one portal—now he had to break it. And even reaching that portal seemed impossible. The weight of that horror made his vision blur.

The fake, sanitized history he’d absorbed from those lower-shelf books seemed like a pleasant fairy tale compared to this absolute death sentence he’d just heard directly from someone who’d lived through it.

All three of them sitting at that table—leaving aside only Archon Vyrra, who remained calm since she’d been carrying this terrible burden for two hundred years—looked absolutely dead by their expressions.

Pale. Shaking. Hollow-eyed.

The weight of extinction hung over them all.