SSS Awakening: I Can Create Skills By Will-Chapter 24: The Throne That Should Not Exist

Dark veins pulsed faintly in the stone ahead.

The dungeon walls almost seemed alive, rising and falling as if they were breathing. With every slow pulse, corrupted mana seeped into the air in heavy waves.

Arthur felt it.

The pressure.

The wrongness.

It pressed against his skin and crawled into his lungs. It tasted bitter, like something rotten hiding under the surface.

Around him, others flinched.

Some slowed. And a few even hesitated.

Arthur only frowned.

"So we’re close now," he said quietly.

Whatever was causing this... it wasn’t far anymore. The dungeon couldn’t hide it now. Not when it was leaking this much corruption.

He rolled his shoulders once and stepped forward.

"Let’s finish this," he muttered, mostly to himself.

The dungeon trembled.

The fighting didn’t slow.

If anything, it grew sharper.

As the awakeners pushed deeper, their breathing turned ragged. Muscles burned. Armor hung heavier with sweat and blood. But the monsters answered with renewed aggression.

Steel clashed against bone. Spells cracked through the air. Screams rose and vanished just as quickly. And in the middle of it all, Arthur moved.

Some awakeners stole glances at him when they thought they could afford it. They tried not to stare as distraction meant death in a place like this.

But it was hard not to look.

He didn’t fight like a mage. At least, not like any mage they knew.

One second he was there. And the next, he wasn’t.

No blur. No flash of light. No obvious trick.

Just gone.

Then a heartbeat later, a kobold that had been closing in on a wounded spearman collapsed, throat crushed. Arthur was already gone again before the body hit the ground.

"Behind you!" someone shouted.

Too late.

Arthur appeared beside the monster mid-swing. His dagger moved once. Clean and direct. As Execution Intent carried the strike through bone like the creature had agreed to die.

Then he vanished again.

To the others, it didn’t feel like watching a man fight.

It felt like watching cause and effect unfold.

When a flank bent too far, he was there.

When pressure built too quickly, he stepped in.

If blades and shields weren’t enough, Arthur didn’t circle around carefully. He didn’t wait for a perfect opening.

He dove straight through.

No hesitation, or wasted motion.

Intent Step carried him through narrow gaps, between claw and steel, slipping inside formations that should have swallowed him whole.

CRACK.

A skeleton shattered as he passed.

THUD.

A kobold slammed into the wall, chest crushed inward.

And when the pressure climbed beyond what the group could handle, his hand rose.

BOOM.

Manifest Intent exploded outward.

Not wild, But controlled and precise.

Monsters were torn away from overwhelmed awakeners, space opening instantly where there had been none.

Every time it happened, heads turned.

"What class is he...?"

"He’s not just a mage."

"Did you see that?"

Some stared in awe.

Others felt something sharper.

Envy.

A few watched him carefully, eyes narrowed, trying to measure him. Trying to guess where his limit might be.

Rare class, some thought.

It had to be.

Those existed. Everyone knew that. But few ever saw one in action.

Others whispered guesses.

"B rank?"

"No way. Higher."

Arthur heard none of it.

He was smiling.

Not controlled. Not subtle.

A wide, almost boyish grin as he tore through monsters like he’d been waiting for this.

To him, this was perfect.

The pressure.

The chaos.

The clash of intent from every direction.

And most importantly, the intent points.

He could feel them building. Every kill fed the system. Every clean strike pushed him forward.

He moved just a little faster when he saw an opening.

Struck just a little sooner than someone else.

A monster dropped at his feet before a warrior could finish it.

"Sorry," Arthur muttered lightly.

Then he laughed and kept moving.

As they advanced, something changed.

The fear that had ruled them earlier began to shift.

People stopped thinking only about surviving the next second.

They started thinking ahead.

About clearing the dungeon.

About getting out.

About what came after.

If they survived, their lives would change.

That was the promise of awakening.

No more slums.

No more constant hunger.

No more debt choking every day.

It would still be brutal.

But it would be upward.

That thought hardened them.

Step by step, they pushed deeper.

And then, they saw it.

The seal.

It was embedded in the dungeon floor like a wound carved into stone. A massive ring of blackened rock, covered in twisted patterns that hurt to look at for too long.

It pulsed slowly.

Like a heartbeat.

With every pulse, tainted mana leaked into the air.

The closer they got, the worse it felt.

Someone gagged and dropped to one knee.

"My stomach... gods..."

Another clutched his head, teeth grinding together.

"Make it stop..."

The mana pressed against their skin. Slid into their lungs. Scraped against their thoughts.

Every instinct screamed.

This was wrong.

They all knew what it was.

The dungeon core.

The seal.

Break it, and the spawns would stop.

Break it, and the dungeon would collapse.

But this one didn’t feel normal.

It was too dark.

As if something else was using it.

Fear crept back in.

Then the air shifted again.

Not from the seal.

From ahead.

A presence settled over the battlefield like something heavy dropping onto their chests.

The remaining monsters faltered.

Some even backed away.

As if they understood something worse had arrived.

The awakeners followed their movement.

And froze.

It sat before the seal. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Still.

A throne made of bones rose from the stone floor. Not stacked, but fused together, twisted into a grotesque shape meant to resemble royalty.

On it sat a skeletal knight.

It was far larger than the skeletons they had been fighting.

Its frame was thick and heavy, bone layered like armor across its body. Even as they watched, cracks along its surface sealed themselves. Fragments knit back together like living flesh.

Empty eye sockets stared outward.

Black mist leaked from them in slow streams.

Across its lap rested a corrupted halberd.

The blade was dark and heavy, thick with taint.

It wasn’t raised.

It didn’t need to be.

It was waiting.

Silence spread across the chamber.

Someone whispered, barely audible.

"A boss..."

Another voice shook.

"That thing’s guarding the seal."

They could feel it.

This wasn’t just another monster.

It wasn’t a random spawn.

It was bound to the seal.

Born from it.

Fed by whatever abyssal force was twisting the dungeon into something it should never have been.