All Chapters of TORTURED ME, TO AWAKEN AS AN SSS DRAGON : Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
15 chapters
Chapter 1
"Moretti. Dante Moretti."The examiner called his name without looking up. Dante walked to the front of the hall, past rows of students who didn't bother turning their heads. The Awakening Stone sat on the altar, pale and smooth, glowing faint blue from the last student who'd touched it. That student, a girl named Chiara, had scored a B-rank affinity. The whole room had clapped for her.Dante placed his palm flat against the stone.Nothing happened.The glow didn't change. Didn't flicker. The stone sat under his hand like a dead thing, cold and ordinary, and the silence that followed was the kind that crawled under your skin and stayed there."Unranked," the examiner read from the display. He finally looked up. "No measurable affinity. No latent core. You may step down."Laughter started somewhere near the back. Not loud. Not yet."Move it, Moretti. You're holding up the line."That was Renzo Cavalli, leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed and a grin splitting his face like he
Chapter 2
The claw was still inside him.Dante could feel it, the thing's bone hooked through his chest and scraping against his spine, and the world was going sideways in slow, ugly lurches. Blood filled the back of his throat. He tried to breathe and got copper instead of air."Dante!" Lucia's voice was somewhere above him, cracked down the middle. "No, no, no, don't close your eyes. Look at me. Dante, look at me!"He tried. He really did. But his vision was draining like water through a cracked glass and everything was turning into shapes without edges, sounds without sources. The sky above him was still torn open, still bleeding that wrong red, and somewhere in the distance more of them were coming. More teeth. More hunger.So this is how it ends. On the side of a road, with nothing to show for any of it.Then his blood stopped falling.He felt it before he saw it. The warmth leaving his chest just stopped, like someone had pressed pause on his dying. The drops that had been running down hi
Chapter 3
The ceiling was white and the light was wrong.Not golden. Not red. Just flat, institutional fluorescence buzzing above him like a trapped insect, and the sound of machines counting his heartbeats in small, patient numbers. Dante blinked until the room stopped swimming. Hospital. The smell confirmed it, antiseptic layered over something older and sadder, the smell of bodies fighting to stay alive in rooms designed for the ones that didn't.He remembered blood. His own, floating. Gold behind his eyes. Creatures that stopped existing.His right hand moved on instinct, two fingers pressing together the way he'd seen Awakened do a thousand times on screens and in training halls, and a translucent panel flickered to life in front of his face. Blue light, white text, numbers that didn't make sense.Name: Dante Moretti Rank: SSS Class: Fallen Priest Spiritual Power: 44 Intelligence: 134 Endurance: 99 Skills: Fallen Will (SSS) | Crimson Judgment (SSS)His breath caught somewhere between his t
Chapter 4
"Do you have any idea what you put me through?"Gianna's voice cracked on the last word. She was sitting in the plastic chair beside his bed, gripping both of his hands like she could keep him alive through pressure alone, and her eyes were swollen from a night of crying that clearly hadn't stopped just because he'd woken up. Morning light came through the hospital window in pale strips, catching the gray in her hair that Dante didn't remember seeing before."Mamma, I'm okay.""You are not okay. You were dead. The doctors told me your heart stopped twice on the operating table. Twice, Dante. I sat in that hallway for six hours and nobody could tell me if my son was going to open his eyes again." Her grip tightened until his knuckles ached. "And then I find out you ran toward those things? You ran toward D-rank Blightbearers with no power, no weapon, no nothing?""I had a reason.""Your reason is sitting on that couch and she's just as stupid as you are." Gianna shot a look at Lucia, w
Chapter 5
"Are you sure about this?"Gianna's fingers moved through Dante's hair, slow and careful, the way she used to do when he was small and running fevers in the middle of the night. The hospital lobby was quiet around them, soft sunlight coming through the tall windows, and her thumb traced the faint scar on the side of his neck where the doctors had placed the emergency line three days ago."Mamma, I'm fine.""You're not fine. You're standing because you're stubborn, not because you're ready." She smoothed the collar of the shirt Lucia had brought from home and her eyes stayed on the scar. "We could stay another day. The doctors said observation was recommended.""They said it was optional.""Optional means they think you might still need it but they're too polite to force you."Dante smiled. It was the kind of smile mothers recognize instantly, a mask stretched over exhaustion, held in place by willpower and nothing else. "I'm a priest, remember? Healing class. I can take care of myself
Chapter 6
The glass doors slid open and the floor beneath his feet was transparent, thick glass over streams of blue and violet energy that rippled and pulsed like something alive was running through the veins of the building itself. Holographic panels bloomed across the walls, floating directories and welcome messages in white text rotating slowly in the air.Dante followed the signs to New Awakened Registration.The hall was massive. Hundreds of people stood in neat lines stretching from numbered booths at the far wall all the way back to where he was standing. Some of them looked dazed, blinking too much, touching their own hands like they weren't sure their bodies still belonged to them. Fresh awakenings. Others moved with the polished confidence of people who'd been preparing for this their whole lives, flanked by coaches and managers in expensive suits who spoke into phones and carried tablets like this was a business deal, not a registration.Dante joined a line and let his mind work.Ho
Chapter 7
Home tasted like fresh bread and fried herbs.Moonlight came through the small kitchen windows in silver strips, and the apartment smelled the way it always did on nights when Gianna cooked like she was trying to hold the world together with food. Dante sat at the table and let the warmth of it settle into him, into the places that had been cold since the hospital, since the road, since the golden light behind his eyes went dark."Dante, wash your hands before you sit down. I can see the city on your fingers from here.""They're clean, Mamma.""They're clean when I say they're clean. Go."He went. When he came back, Lucia was emerging from her room in an oversized shirt and shorts, her hair still damp from a shower. Her smile was genuine when she saw him, wide and easy, but worry still lived in her eyes like a tenant who refused to leave."Look who survived the bureaucracy," she said, dropping into the chair across from him. "How was registration?""Long. Boring. Someone tried to bull
Chapter 8
The quiet in his room felt wrong.Not peaceful. Not restful. The kind of quiet that sits on your chest and waits for you to close your eyes so it can fill your head with every thought you've been avoiding. Downstairs, Lucia was washing dishes, the faint clinking of plates and running water coming through the floor like a lullaby meant for someone who could actually sleep. Gianna had the television on in the living room, volume barely above a whisper, probably already half asleep in the armchair with her tea going cold on the side table.Dante lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for exhaustion to do its job. It didn't. His body was tired in ways he couldn't name, but his mind was a dog that wouldn't stop pacing. The Tower. Ten impossible floors. A Celestial Domain where humans were hated. Limits that were supposed to be permanent. A class that didn't exist in any known system. Two skills designed to kill, both locked for three months.He sat up and pulled his old laptop
Chapter 9
Rain tapped against the kitchen window in steady rhythm.Lucia sat hunched over her cereal like the bowl had insulted her entire bloodline. Her hair was still damp from her morning shower, sticking to her neck in dark strands, and her eyes were half closed in the way that said she'd been up too late training again."You look like death warmed over." Dante grabbed a piece of bread from the counter and tore off a bite."I feel like death warmed over." She didn't lift her head. "Why is morning a thing? Who invented it? I want to fight them.""You went to bed at three again, didn't you?""Two forty-five, actually. I was practicing blade transitions.""Lu, you're going to collapse.""I'll sleep when I'm dead." She finally looked up, squinting at him through the kitchen light. "Where are you going?""Association. Following up on something."Gianna appeared in the doorway wearing her thick jacket, the one she saved for rain and bad news. Her eyes were on the street outside, watching water ru
Chapter 10
Rain whispered against the car windows. Streetlights flickered past in rhythm, casting shadows across their faces before erasing them just as quickly.Dante sat with his hands buried in his pockets. The velvet seat beneath him felt wrong, too soft, too expensive, like sitting on something that didn't belong to people who lived in apartments with cracked tiles and second-hand furniture.Gia rested her elbow on the window, fingers touching cold glass. Her expression was flat, unreadable, the kind of face that gave away nothing and asked for everything. The driver said nothing. The engine hummed so quietly it barely existed.She broke the silence without turning her head."When did you awaken?""Two days ago.""Two days." Her fingers tapped once against the glass. "And you're already looking into the Tower. Most people spend their first week celebrating. Posting pictures. Telling everyone they know. You went straight to work.""I don't have time to celebrate.""Nobody your age says that.