SSS Rank Skill: MILF Domination Unlocked-Chapter 51: Dungeon Break, The Ash Warden War (11)
Hana’s shawl freaked out—threads twitching, light going cold. She wrestled it down like it owed her money.
"Eyes up," she hissed. "Stay sharp. It’s trying to crawl inside your head."
"Noted," I said, and didn’t look, and felt it anyway.
The System nudged my vision with a line of calm text like this was an email:
[Warning: Illusion-Class Hostile — The Grief-Singer (A+ → S- Threat)]
[Recommendation: Anchor stability, auditory dampeners, emotional tether]
"Emotional tether?" I said. "Wow, System, maybe buy me dinner first."
Jax spat blood into the canal, which hissed, because of course it did. "We going across?"
"In a minute," I said. "We just killed a general. I’m taking my level-up like a responsible adult."
I opened the panel because pretending to be normal about these things helps keep you that way.
[Status — Ethan Cross]
Level: 23
HP: 200 / 200
MP: 0 / 0
Strength: 80
Agility: 77
Endurance: 43
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 7
Luck: ???
Stat Points Available: +25
I stared at the numbers for a long second. Twenty-five points.
"Alright," I muttered. "Let’s stop pretending I’m balanced."
[Allocate: Strength +10 • Agility +8 • Endurance +5 • Intelligence +1 • Wisdom +1]
"Confirm."
[Points Assigned.]
[Updated Status — Strength 90 • Agility 85 • Endurance 48 • Intelligence 9 • Wisdom 8]
[Remaining Stat Points: 0]
The canal sighed again, and for a second—maybe because I wanted it—I smelled clean rain. Not the metal kind. The real one. The kind that remembers plants.
"Ethan," Hana said, softer. "You okay?"
"No," I said. "But I’m accurate."
She almost smiled. The shawl’s pulse steadied, lotuses blooming slow and calm.
We stood with the corpse a moment longer. The city didn’t clap. It rarely does. But the pylons along the rail found enough power to hold—green arcs flickered steady, running from breakwater to bridge for the first time since the day went wrong.
"Darius will feel that in Command," Jax said.
"Good," I said. "He deserves good news that doesn’t taste like blood."
I crouched by the Butcher’s chest, pried the Brass Aortum loose with both hands.It came away heavy as debt.
Darkharness drank some of the heat even cold, happy physics hissing as it did. The Canal Sigil chimed. My inventory swallowed both with a flicker that felt like approval and theft.
"Move," Hana said suddenly. "Something in the water—left."
We moved without thinking. A brass chain snapped out of the canal where the Butcher fell, a late reflex from dead muscles or the river’s rudeness insisting on a last joke. It hit stone and skittered, then went still.
I didn’t exhale until my ribs told me we might be allowed.
"Okay," Jax said, flexing his shoulders. "That’s one."
"Two to go," I said, and made it sound like ordering breakfast would sound if breakfast wanted you dead.
The not-music across the canal swelled and dipped, like someone remembering a song’s shape in an empty room. It didn’t cross the water—not fully. But it sniffed. It felt.
"It knows we’re here," Hana said.
"Let it," I said. "I’m tired of introductions."
We swept the dockside for anything not nailed down and a few things that were, then cut inland along the canal path—keeping the water to our left and the city’s bones to our right. The pylons hummed better now. The defense grid didn’t love us, but it’d stop pretending we weren’t worth its time.
We made it three blocks before the city remembered it was Arcadia and tossed a complication at our heads.
Two human silhouettes stepped out from a busted freight office: black coats, masks neutral as invoices, rifles slung, movement wrong in a trained way.
Not hunters.
Hunters don’t move like they expect everyone to be furniture.
The insignia on the shoulder was a simple mark burned into leather: a small square inside a larger one, overlapping edges, negative space that read like a door you shouldn’t open.
Jax lifted his blade. "Deathspace."
"Recruiters," Hana whispered. "Or worse."
The closer one put his palm up, friendly as poison. "Stand down," he said from behind a voice flattener. "We’re here to help."
"Help who?" I asked.
"Whoever survives," he said, and meant it.
"You’re poaching," Jax said. "City’s still burning."
"That’s when talent is born," the man said. "And cheap."
"Hard pass," I said.
He tilted his head. "You’re the one from the feeds. Cross, yes? The rumor with the artifact."
"Never met him," I said.
"We can take you to people who won’t waste a gift like yours."
"People like Deathspace?" I said. "Matter Manipulation at dinner, mind control for dessert?"
A silence like interest. The second one shifted weight—watching angles, not words. The first smiled under the mask; I could hear it in his consonants. "We prefer to think of it as... will applied to matter."
"Cute," I said. "Here’s mine."
[Lightning Transit — Recall to Anchor (2)]
[Global Pulse: 2 m stun (emitted on arrival)]
I didn’t recall to the crane. I recalled to the first anchor—the maintenance shed roof. The pulse rolled across them before they processed the geometry. Hana’s threads hissed and pinned wrists to walls. Jax didn’t swing. He pulled. Gravity introduced the two to the concept of the floor in a permanent way.
The first managed one trick—blade from sleeve, poison sheen catching streetlight.
I shook my head. "Bad day to sell."
"Bad day to buy," he said, and bit down.
Foam. The body went slack. The other tried to swallow a capsule too. Jax taught his jaw about force multipliers instead. The capsule clattered to the bricks. I kicked it into the canal; the water boiled for a second then pretended it hadn’t.
We stripped the coats, marked the insignia, took the notes they carried, left the rest for whatever picks bones in emergency nights. I don’t like killing humans. I like them less when they come shopping while my city bleeds.
"Think Darius will want the notes?" Hana said.
"He’ll want the recruiters," Jax muttered.
"He’ll get the notes," I said. "The recruiters made a choice."
We moved again. The cathedral rose jagged ahead, black teeth chewing wrong light. The not-song played softer now, closer, like it wanted attention but not witnesses.
Hana’s hand touched my arm. That rare thing: her fingers warm through Darkharness. "Ethan."
"Yeah?"
Her eyes looked older than the hour. "Thank you for not letting him talk you in to anything." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
"I’ve had enough sales pitches for one decade," I said, and tried on a smile that fit for once. "Besides—"
"Consistency," Jax said, and rolled his eyes.
"Exactly," I said.
We took position across the canal from the cathedral ruin—behind a truck that had decided to be a sculpture. I set my last half-decent plan on the ground between us and watched it flicker into something that almost looked like confidence.
"Alright," I said. "I’m tapped for jumps for a minute, so no heroics until I say so. Jax, your knee’s still lying to you; sit when I say sit. Hana, if that song gets inside my head, you drag me back out—use Mara’s voice if you have to."
Hana’s mouth tipped in a ghost of a smile. "She’ll be delighted to haunt you."
"She already does," I said. "Ready?"
"Always," Jax lied.
The cathedral’s rose window blinked like an eye that wanted a reason.
The Grief-Singer began to breathe in, and the city’s old dust breathed with him.
I tightened my grip on Fangpiercer. Darkharness crept into gauntlet lines along my fingers, obedient as a feral thing that had decided I might be interesting for a week. Hana’s shawl climbed her throat like a collar cut from someone’s oath. Jax’s blade dragged little pebbles toward him until they went polite.
"one down. Two to go. Then a shaman who wants to be a god."
"Then pancakes," I said.
"Then pancakes," Jax agreed,
And i didn’t mention that I could still taste syrup in the part of my memory that wasn’t sure if we’d live to be hungry.
