The first descendant: My SSS Rank Awakening

Chapter 3

“You're joking, right?” Damon asked.

Elijah was smiling, but the look in his eyes made it clear that he was serious. “Does it look like I am? The championship has always remained in my family. Do you think I will stand aside and watch it go to him?”

Two guards seized Ron's arms while another grabbed him around the waist. Ron struggled, but his new class was useless until he learned to control it.

“You cannot do this,” Damon said. “How do you even intend to take an awakened class from its owner?”

“You still think I can't?”

Elijah reached into his coat and pulled out a dark vial.

Damon's face lost its colour. “An extraction serum. What are you doing with that?”

The banned serum could force one awakened's class into another, usually killing its original owner.

“Put it away,” Damon warned. “Even you cannot use it without his agreement.”

“As a former champion, I can bend a few rules, and getting his agreement will not be a problem.”

Elijah turned towards Ron. “You heard the Chief. Agree to the extraction, and all of this will be over.”

“Why would I agree?” Ron asked as he fought against the guards. “This class chose me. It is mine.”

“Because this is a mistake, and I am correcting something that should never have happened.”

Ron shook his head. This was his first chance to change his life and his mother's, and he would rather die than hand it to Henry. Elijah read the answer on his face and turned towards Maria.

She immediately dropped to her knees and clasped her hands together. “Please, do not hurt him. He hasn't done anything to you.”

“I have no intention of hurting your son.”

Henry watched with a smile. “This is only a mistake being corrected. That power never belonged to him.”

The people who had begged to clean Ron's shoes only minutes ago immediately agreed with him.

“He never deserved it.”

“Someone from a powerless family cannot control that kind of class. Give it to Young Master Henry.”

They could accept Henry standing above them, but their faces twisted with hate at the thought of Ron doing the same.

Elijah walked towards Maria.

“What are you planning to do?” Ron shouted.

“Exactly what you think. Since you will not listen, your mother might convince you.”

His palm glowed red before he placed it on Maria's shoulder. Her scream ripped through the hall as smoke rose from the fabric beneath his hand.

Ron pulled against the guards. “Get your hands off her! She has nothing to do with this!”

“She has everything to do with it.”

Elijah pressed harder until Maria collapsed and the veins along her neck darkened. Damon stepped forward, but the hand against her shoulder burned brighter.

“One more step and she dies before you reach me,” Elijah warned, forcing Damon to stop.

“Please, let her go,” Ron begged as tears escaped his eyes.

“Do not give it to him, son,” Maria forced out through her pain. “Forget about me. You finally have a life of your own.”

Ron could never enjoy that life knowing his mother had died for it. She was the only person who had stayed when the entire city treated him like dirt, so he stopped struggling and lowered his head.

“You can have it, but leave my mother alone.”

Elijah pulled his hand away as two guards held Maria in place. “I knew you would be a good boy. Drink the serum and transfer the class to my son.”

A guard placed the vial in Ron's hand. Ron wished he could force it down Elijah's throat instead, but he gulped it down.

“Release her,” Ron demanded.

“She stays there until the transfer is complete.”

Henry stepped in front of him with a grin. “You thought you were going to become the next champion. Trash like you will always remain beneath people like me.”

“Just shut up, Henry.”

The serum burned through Ron's stomach and spread into his chest. His hands moved against his will and locked around Henry's shoulders as red light was dragged from his core and poured into Henry.

Damon rushed towards them. “Stop the extraction. The boy will die!”

Elijah looked unconcerned. “If this is finally his time to die, who am I to argue with fate?”

The last light left Ron's body, and he crashed to the floor. His skin had become cold, and he barely had enough strength to breathe.

Henry threw his head back as the stolen power settled inside him. “I can feel it. This class is incredible.”

Ron could barely keep his eyes open. “Now leave my mother alone.”

Elijah signalled the guards to release Maria before looking down at Ron. “I also need to be certain you will not cause trouble. Throw him out of the hall.”

The armed soldiers formed a wall between Damon and Ron before the Chief could reach him.

The guards dragged Ron away while Maria tried to follow.

“Please, Elijah, he will die outside!” she begged.

“As I said earlier, if he dies, then that is fate.”

They tossed Ron outside and shut the doors behind him.

The cold pierced through his clothes. Frost formed across his lips, and when his legs failed him, he dropped to his hands and knees. There was only one place he wanted to be if he was going to die: the Arcade family graveyard.

He wanted enough power to return and make every person in that hall pay, but nothing remained inside him except pain and hate.

His palms and knees were bleeding when he crawled past his father's grave and reached the oldest stone, belonging to Red Arcade, the man believed to have founded their clan.

Ron had always felt something near this grave, which he mistook for hatred because Red had left his descendants to become society's trash.

“I hate you,” Ron whispered. “You should have given us something better than this.”

He collapsed against the grave as his life slipped away, but the stone beneath him began glowing. Light entered the empty place where his class had been and grew until it swallowed everything around him.

When he opened his eyes, he stood in a dark space before a young man who looked almost exactly like him.

The stranger smiled. “You finally came, Ron.”

“Where am I?” Ron looked around. “Am I dead? At least I won't have to deal with those assholes anymore.”

“You are not dead. This place exists inside your mind, and you called me here.”

“When did I call you?”

“You crawled here crying, hugged my grave like your life depended on it, and started whispering to me. I decided not to judge.”

Ron stared at him. “You're the idiot who did this to my clan?”

“I did not destroy your clan. My name is Red Arcade, and I founded the Awakening Society.”

“That is impossible. History says the First Founder was an ancestor of Elijah's family.”

“History says whatever his family paid it to say.” Red's smile disappeared. “Our clan had the strongest bloodline, so they betrayed us, stole our history, and suppressed every descendant born after me. Why do you think your father and the men before him died young?”

Ron's hands clenched. “Elijah had that serum ready because he knew.”

“Every one of them knew,” Red replied. He touched Ron's forehead, and the darkness became a burning city beneath a split sky, with bodies covering every road.

“I created the awakening serum after the Guardian of Earth showed me this apocalypse. Ten thousand years ago, I used the First Descendant's power to seal the God of the Underworld because it could not be killed.”

“The seal will break in twenty-nine days,” Red said. “You inherited my power because you are the only descendant compatible with it. You are also the only one stubborn enough to survive what happened tonight.”

“And why would I save any of those assholes?”

“I once asked the same question. You may find your own answer, but first, you need enough power to remain alive.”

Red's body began fading, starting from his feet.

“Congratulations, Ron. You have awakened the First Descendant Class, the only God-ranked class ever created.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means you may one day have enough power to merge worlds or destroy them, but right now, you do not know how to throw a useful punch. Learn to control what you have, and when you reach the first stage, you will be able to speak with me again.”

“I am still not saving anyone.”

“Survive your first lesson before making promises.”

A slash tore through the darkness behind Red. Something enormous crawled out, covered in black scales with six burning eyes and claws longer than Ron's arms.

It was a Limbo Beast from the Underworld, a creature that normally required an SS-ranked warrior to defeat.