SSS Awakening: I Can Devour Gods to Evolve My Goddesses

The top lines on Cassian’s panel finished updating.

The first thing he looked at was not Free Attribute.

It was the line above it.

[Life Essence absorption complete.]

[Aptitude: D → C]

[Physical Potential: D → C]

[Current Level: 7]

[Increased Aptitude will permanently alter future Level growth.]

[Detected growth difference from Level 1–7.]

[Compensation: Physique +24]

[Existing permanent bonus from Advanced Physique Tome: Physique +20 | Retained]

[Current permanent Physique gain relative to an ordinary Level 7 baseline: +44]

[Free Attribute: 70 | Unassigned]

Twenty-four points.

Not a temporary buff.

Not something that would disappear when today’s Regional Boundary ended.

The Advanced Physique Tome Cassian had obtained from Haldor had already given him twenty permanent Physique.

Now the Life Essence had retroactively filled in the growth he had missed across his first seven Levels because of the Aptitude gap.

More importantly, starting from his next Level, he would be growing on a C-grade curve.

That was what the Life Essence had really changed.

Veyra looked over from behind the second line.

"Twenty-four points."

Cassian pushed the panel toward her.

Veyra looked at the twenty-four, then at the forty-four beneath it.

"Add the twenty you already had, and that body of yours is finally starting to look decent."

"I think so too."

"Still not spending the seventy?"

"No." Cassian closed the panel. "What I need right now isn’t a little more Physique."

Veyra’s brow rose.

"You just gained twenty-four and you’ve already decided it isn’t the gap?"

"Not saying it’s bad."

Cassian walked toward the first line.

"I’m saying someone is about to test whether it’s enough."

Wave twenty-nine ended a few minutes later.

Cassian did not stop the battle just to test his new stats.

They used the full ten-minute recovery window.

Then wave thirty pushed out of the war fog.

At the front was a group of Level 30–31 Ashbone Vanguards.

Each stood over two meters tall, with charred-black bone armor covering its chest and shoulders.

The dangerous part was not the claws.

It was the full-body impact when they reached the shield line.

Veyra did not alter the formation just because Cassian stepped forward.

"Second group takes the first impact."

"Praetorians hold."

The first row of heavy shields slammed down.

BANG—!

More than a dozen Ashbone Vanguards hit at once.

Silver lines flashed through Aegis Fold and spread the force toward both sides.

On the right, one Vanguard stepped off the corpse of another, cleared the shield tops, and landed behind the first line.

It ignored the Legionnaires and charged straight for the second line.

Sigrid had already raised her spear.

Cassian lifted one hand first.

"I’ve got it."

He did not activate Ground Anchor.

He did not activate Dread Mantle.

Only Wraithplate.

The Ashbone Vanguard drove its armored shoulder straight into him.

Cassian shifted half a step sideways, pressed his left hand against the incoming shoulder plate, and slid less than a meter across the stone.

Heavy.

His chest shook too.

But not three meters.

And nothing like the time Dread Duke’s sweep had left his entire right arm numb.

Back then, the enemy had only been a Level 10 Epic while Cassian himself was Level 7.

One direct collision had been enough to show the difference.

This Ashbone Vanguard was only Elite, but it was already above Level 30.

Different monster.

Different attack.

But Cassian knew his own body well enough to tell whether it had changed.

The Vanguard tried to crash into him again.

Cassian was already inside its reach.

Predator Step flashed for an instant.

He cut around the outside of its shoulder armor and drove his short sword into the seam beneath its ribs.

The Demon froze.

Only then did Sigrid’s spear descend from above and nail it back to the ground.

Veyra glanced at the place Cassian had just been standing.

"No Ground Anchor?"

"No."

"Dread Mantle?"

"Didn’t use it."

She nodded once.

"Then those twenty-four points aren’t just panel decoration."

Cassian flicked black blood from his blade.

"That’s why I said the drink was worth it."

Veyra laughed.

"Didn’t you just call it free?"

"A free bonus can still be valuable."

"Fine."

She turned back to the line.

"Then keep that valuable free bonus on the second line."

"Don’t finish raising your Aptitude and immediately decide you’re a Praetorian."

Cassian did not argue.

Someone was already calling for him from the Fountain.

Halfway through wave thirty-two, a Rare Horned Ravager swept a bone blade through a gap in the shields.

One Legionnaire on the first line lost his left arm below the elbow.

Veyra gave only two orders.

"Second group, take his place."

"Get him back."

The gap stayed open for less than a breath.

The Legionnaire and his severed arm were both carried to the outer edge of the Fountain of Life.

He was still conscious.

His face was almost white.

Aurelia pressed down on the wound first.

Cassian had already opened the Fountain’s response.

[Target alive.]

[Life Reconstruction not required.]

[Severe limb loss detected.]

[Current Fountain of Life Life Energy can perform continuous life repair.]

Pale-green Life Energy covered the severed stump.

The bleeding nearly stopped at once.

Then bone, muscle, blood vessels, and skin began growing outward from the cut surface layer by layer.

Not in a blink.

But this was not something that would take weeks of recovery either.

A little over two minutes later, the new hand had fully formed.

The Legionnaire stared at it and clenched his fingers once.

All five closed.

He opened them.

The second time, he reached directly for the grip inside his tower shield.

Veyra caught the shield edge with one hand.

"Don’t rush to prove anything."

The Legionnaire looked up.

"I can grip it."

"I can see that."

"I can put force through it."

"I can see that too."

Veyra pushed the shield slightly toward him.

"So go into the third rotation."

"Don’t fight for a spot on the first line today."

The Legionnaire froze for a moment.

She was not removing him from the battle.

She was putting him back into the rotation.

"Understood."

He refastened his bracer and followed the third group toward the recovery position.

Several Legionnaires who had been treating lighter injuries were all staring at the newly regrown arm.

No one said anything.

But the atmosphere around the Fountain had changed.

Before today, losing an arm meant this battle was over for that soldier.

Now, a little over two minutes later, he was back on the rotation sheet.

Cassian could see exactly what the Fountain had changed.

It was not simply making injured soldiers easier to manage.

It was returning people to the list of available fighters when they previously would have disappeared from it completely.

Veyra looked toward the spring too.

She added only one line.

"Being able to recover doesn’t mean you can take injuries carelessly."

Cassian nodded.

"But he can come back."

"Yes."

This time, Veyra did not press the warning any further.

"He can come back."

Before wave thirty-three, Cassian called all twenty Dwarf Rocketiers to the rear.

[Dwarf Rocketier ×20]

[Quality: Rare]

[Current Level: 10]

[Rocket Salvo / Mental Guidance / Overload]

The last time this unit had truly pushed Overload to the limit was when they used the Ghost Leviathan as bait and sealed off the rift valley.

The power had never been the problem.

The problem was what came after.

One Overload emptied all twenty Rocketiers at once and dropped the entire unit into Temporarily Combat-Incapacitated status.

In other words, this was not an ordinary skill.

It burned out the entire ranged unit in one shot.

Before the Fountain existed, every time Cassian used it he had to ask whether that single volley was worth losing twenty Rocketiers for the rest of the battle.

Now the Fountain was here.

The question had changed.

Cassian opened their growth panel.

[Dwarf Rocketier ×20]

[Level 10 → Level 20]

[Battle Essence ×400,000]

"Upgrade."

Twenty growth lights descended one after another.

Dark-red runes lit from the rear of each launcher all the way to the muzzle.

They gained no new skill after Level 10.

Their Quality did not change either.

But their Aether capacity, ability to withstand physical strain, and tolerance for Overload all rose together.

[Dwarf Rocketier ×20]

[Current Level: 20]

Veyra came over.

"Four hundred thousand just to make one volley bigger?"

Cassian looked toward the Fountain.

"Not one volley."

Veyra followed his gaze and understood immediately.

Wave thirty-three broke through the war fog at that moment.

At the front were thousands of Cinder Ravagers and Ashfire Casters around Level 30.

Large numbers of Rare Hellfire Brutes were mixed through the middle.

At the rear stood a Level 34 Epic Balor Warlord.

Cassian checked the Core Trait as always.

Nothing.

"Kill everything normally."

Veyra raised a hand.

"First line, pin them."

"Rocketiers, you have thirty seconds."

Twenty launchers rose together.

Runes lit all the way to the muzzles.

Thirty seconds later, Cassian gave one word.

"Overload."

Twenty Aether rockets, visibly larger than they had been at Level 10, left the racks at once.

Their exhaust merged into nearly one solid sheet over the canyon.

Mental Guidance took hold.

Instead of striking one point, the twenty trajectories split into four layers in midair and fell across the front, center, and both rear flanks.

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—!

The front half of Riftwind Canyon looked as if someone had ripped up the ground in one piece.

The densest Common Demons did not even have time to fall.

Whole sections simply vanished inside the explosions.

Ashfire Casters had barely raised their hands when both their bodies and flames disappeared.

Hellfire Brutes could still walk out of the blast zone, but their formation was already gone.

Twenty rockets.

One volley.

A black tide made up of thousands of Demons lost more than half its mass on the spot.

What could still reach the shield line were the high-grade targets and a few hundred creatures the blast had missed.

Silver-white wings lit behind Aurelia.

Sigrid was already grinning.

"Finally don’t have to clear trash for them."

Veyra pointed Crimson Oath forward.

"Then stop standing there."

Stormlance and Highblood pressed out together.

The Balor Warlord had barely broken out of the explosion zone when twelve Thunder Javelins fell.

It survived the first barrage.

It did not survive the Aegis Fold closing around it again and Aurelia’s Thunder Crown afterward.

From appearance to total clear, wave thirty-three lasted less than four minutes.

[You have successfully defended against invasion wave 33.]

[Next wave arrives in 10 minutes.]

The twenty Rocketiers, meanwhile, ended Overload exactly as they always had.

All twenty sat down.

Their system statuses matched like copied text.

[Temporarily Combat-Incapacitated]

Without the Fountain, their part in the battle would have ended here.

Veyra turned around.

"Fountain."

No one had to carry them.

The twenty Dwarves walked there themselves.

The moment they entered the Fountain’s coverage, Aether Mist and Life Energy began working together.

Their breathing stabilized first.

Then their emptied Aether circulation started coming back.

Three minutes.

Their status began rising.

Five minutes.

The first Rocketier stood and checked his launcher.

At six minutes, all twenty had returned to Combat Available.

At seven minutes, reloading began.

Three minutes still remained on the countdown to wave thirty-four.

Sigrid looked at the twenty launchers lighting up again and finally turned her head.

"You can do it again next wave?"

The Rocketier captain laughed himself.

"Yes."

Veyra did not stop them.

She only asked,

"People good?"

"Yes."

"Launchers good?"

"Yes."

"Then fire."

Second Overload.

Wave thirty-four’s war fog had barely opened when twenty exhaust trails shot into the sky again.

BOOM—!

This time, Cassian did not even need to ask whether the Fountain was worth ten million.

The answer had already exploded across the canyon.

The Shattered Marches Ranking updated at the same time.

[Current Region Score: 1,952,300]

Cassian glanced once and closed it.

Nearly two million was good.

What pleased him more was that the twenty Rocketiers were already walking back toward the Fountain again.

That meant the next wave could get another one.

Wave thirty-five.

Thirty-six.

Thirty-seven.

From that point on, Riftwind Canyon was fought differently.

Before, the Demons crashed into Veyra’s shield rotations, while Stormlance, the high-grade Heroes, and Highbloods dismantled the truly dangerous targets one by one.

Now every wave began with twenty Overload rockets.

The Rocketiers stripped away roughly seventy percent of the numbers first.

The Eclipse line caught the remaining high-grade targets.

And the ten-minute recovery interval was no longer simply time spent waiting for everyone to recover naturally.

Rocketiers went to the Fountain.

Stormlance went to the Fountain.

Injured Legionnaires went to the Fountain.

After Aurelia used a high-consumption skill, she returned for a round of recovery too.

When the next wave opened, the people who had emptied themselves in the last one were standing on the field again.

After wave thirty-six, the Legionnaire who had lost his arm appeared in the third rotation.

His newly regrown left hand was locked around the inside grip of his tower shield.

On his first impact, his hand did not slip.

Veyra saw it.

She did not pull him out.

She only called,

"Don’t fight for first line."

"Understood!"

His voice was much louder than before.

Wave thirty-eight.

Rocketiers washed the field first.

Wave thirty-nine.

Rocketiers again.

Wave forty brought two Epic targets.

The rockets did not kill them outright, but thousands of ordinary Demons around them were reduced to scattered survivors.

For the first time, Aurelia and Stormlance did not have to search for high-grade enemies through a wall of lesser bodies.

Wave forty-one.

Forty-two.

Forty-three.

The deeper the battle went, the higher the Demons’ Levels climbed.

Yet fewer and fewer people on Forgotten Shrine’s side were permanently dropping out of rotation.

Wounds recovered.

Aether recovered.

The temporary incapacitation caused by Overload wore off.

The costs that used to remain after every wave were being erased piece by piece before the next wave began.

The enemy kept getting smaller.

Cassian’s people kept coming back.

By the end of wave forty-four, Riftwind Canyon had been bombarded so heavily that its original terrain was almost unrecognizable.

Black craters covered both cliff walls.

The first line had gone through more than a dozen heavy shields.

And the twenty Rocketiers were once again sitting inside the Fountain’s recovery range, preparing for another cycle.

The system announcement descended.

[You have successfully defended against invasion wave 44.]

[Next wave arrives in 10 minutes.]

Then the entire war fog turned dark red.

The Beacon Watchtower’s observation ring released a piercing alarm.

[Warning]

[Your continued resistance within the Regional Boundary has drawn the attention of a high-ranking Demon commander.]

[Demon Lord Varkos is entering Riftwind Canyon.]

[Quality: Legendary]

[Estimated Level: 35]

Cassian looked up.

Finally.

Not Epic.

Legendary.

Veyra saw his expression change.

"Thousands of Demons disappeared under one Rocketier volley and you didn’t look like that."

"There’ll be more of those next wave."

Cassian watched the dark-red war fog.

"Legendary isn’t guaranteed."

The countdown appeared.

[00:10:00]

Cassian had already opened his warehouse.

The Legendary Hero Sigil that had dropped from Haldor and remained unused ever since was now at the top of the list.