SSS-Grade Acceleration Talent made me Fastest Lord of Apocalypse-Chapter 55: Faster than sound

Mountains stretched endlessly into the horizon, their twisted peaks slicing the clouds and vanishing into the pale blue sky. The sheer scale of the range made the world feel small—insignificant. These craggy giants stood like ancient sentinels, silent and unmoving, forming a natural fortress where shadows thrived and secrets endured.

The Eastern Highlands.

A place so wild and unyielding that even Gold-rank experts found themselves humbled here. These highlands had long served as a sanctuary for the region’s most dangerous criminals—a refuge carved into the bones of the world itself.

Over the years, gangs and fugitives had etched their existence into the very rock, crafting an intricate web of tunnels and hidden escape routes. Only they knew the true map of these depths. That alone made it nearly impossible to wipe them out. Even elite search parties found themselves circling endlessly, chasing echoes through stone.

Damien paused atop a ridge, letting the wind brush past his cloak as he took in the landscape. He was no stranger to geography—his instincts sharpened by years of study and experience—but even he would be hard-pressed to track prey through this maze without help.

Thankfully, the kingdom’s guards hadn’t been entirely useless this time.

They’d done their job.

Damien’s eyes narrowed.

"Iron Dungeon stronghold..." he muttered under his breath.

The name alone carried weight. A notorious hideout that had long eluded the reach of justice. According to the intel, it lay roughly a hundred kilometers east.

One might wonder: if it was so far, why hadn’t Damien brought a horse?

At that thought, a lopsided grin crept onto his face.

Because no beast could match the speed of his own legs.

Without another word, he moved.

It started with a single step. Then another. And then his entire body blurred into motion. An almost invisible silvery film shimmered across his frame, wrapping around him like a second skin.

With each passing second, his pace surged.

The world seemed to slow—not in the way of lazy afternoons, but as though time itself held its breath. Every detail around him sharpened into painful clarity. A bird’s wing slicing through the air above. The crisp crunch of gravel underfoot. Even the rhythmic thud of his own heartbeat echoed unnaturally loud in his ears.

Badum. Badum.

He wasn’t even trying to focus—his senses simply were that heightened.

This was the raw power of his talent.

The thrill hit him like a wave. Goosebumps rose along his arms as an exhilaration more primal than anything he’d ever felt coursed through him. It was dangerous—deadly even—but intoxicating.

Damien had done the math. Rough estimates, of course. With five hundred times acceleration, he could theoretically hit speeds of over 2200 kilometers per hour. But that kind of velocity came with consequences. The gravitational forces alone would crush him—compressing his body with pressures that would liquefy his organs and ignite his flesh.

No, he wasn’t suicidal.

Four hundred times acceleration would suffice.

With that decision made, his feet struck the ground—hard.

BOOM!

A shockwave exploded outward, a concussive blast that hurled dust, pebbles, and fractured stone into the air. A crater bloomed beneath him, nearly a meter wide, marking the point of ignition.

Then came the sound.

A deafening sonic boom cracked through the highland silence, echoing off cliffs and ravines like a dragon’s roar. He’d broken the sound barrier—and he was only just beginning.

In the blink of an eye, Damien was gone.

A blur.

A streak of silver darting across the rugged terrain, faster than the eye could follow. Each stride tore through the wind, each heartbeat carried him kilometers further. The mountains, the rocks, the wind—they all vanished behind him.

And far ahead, beyond jagged spires and winding ravines, the Iron Dungeon stronghold awaited.

"Holy cow, am I running or flying..."

Damien gritted his teeth, his voice barely audible over the roar of the wind tearing past him. Heat rippled around his body, and the friction alone had already set his cloak ablaze. Flames licked at the edges of his sleeves, dancing wildly before burning out into ash. His skin—stripped raw by the sheer air pressure—peeled in layers, only to be repaired almost instantly as glowing veins of energy pulsed beneath the surface.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

A strange equilibrium settled over him, a paradoxical state where destruction and restoration coexisted in perfect rhythm. Flesh tore—flesh regrew. Pain surged—pain vanished. All of it happening so quickly, so seamlessly, that Damien began to lose track of which moment was agony and which was relief.

Deep within his body, two spiritual marbles hummed like twin engines, their low vibrations resonating through his bones. They poured mana into his bloodstream without rest, feeding the hungry skills that allowed him to perform this mad dash through the mountains.

Accelerated Recovery.

Accelerated Healing.

Accelerated Cognition.

Accelerated Movement.

Each skill wove together, synchronized like gears in a divine machine. The result was speed so overwhelming it bordered on lunacy.

Fifteen kilometers vanished behind him in a single minute.

The jagged terrain of the Eastern Highlands blurred into a smear of grey and brown. A swirling trail of dust stretched across the mountains, so dense and long it looked as if the highlands themselves had been cleaved apart by some divine blade.

A few minutes more—and then he saw it.

An outline emerged in the distance: massive stone walls carved into the mountainside, half-hidden by mist and shadow. The Iron Dungeon stronghold. It sat like a tumor nestled in the rock—broad, ugly, and ancient.

Damien’s lips curled into a cocky grin.

"Iron Dungeon stronghold, your Daddy is here..."

He tried to slow down—but then froze mid-thought.

His expression faltered.

Something wasn’t right.

---

Inside the Iron Dungeon stronghold.

A dark hall sat in uneasy silence, lit only by the faint flicker of mana lanterns embedded in the stone walls. Cold air lingered in the chamber, unmoving, as though even the wind hesitated to enter.

A man in a black robe stood at the center, drenched in sweat. It streamed down his face in drops, soaking into his collar, as if his very soul was trying to escape through his pores. His eyes were wide and unfocused, glued to the skeletal figure seated atop a lavish throne at the far end of the room.

The throne was carved from obsidian, veins of silver and blue mana crystal laced into its frame. It looked out of place—too grand for such a forsaken hole.

Seated upon it was a man so thin he barely seemed alive. His cheeks were sunken, his skin clinging tightly to bone, like a corpse forced to sit upright through sheer spite.

Cough!

A hacking fit wracked the man’s body. His chest caved inward with each violent convulsion, and for a moment, it seemed as if his ribs might collapse entirely. The sound echoed through the chamber—wet, brittle, and unsettling.

The black-robed man’s face turned ghostly pale.

Then, unexpectedly, the skeletal man let out a shrill, rasping laugh. It grated like bone scraping bone—sharp, unnatural, and wrong.

"Leader of Iron Dungeon stronghold," he rasped, each word stretched and thin like smoke, "I, the envoy of Blood Fang Gang, accept your tribute of one thousand gold coins and two hundred mana stones. From now on, you are part of Blood Fang Gang, and as such, entitled to all the privileges enjoyed by its members."

Relief flooded the stronghold leader’s face. Joy overtook fear. He moved forward, lowering himself into a deep bow, ready to offer his gratitude—

But then he stopped.

The envoy’s expression had changed.

The mirth vanished, replaced by something sharp and cold.

His head slowly turned. His withered eyes fixed on a point in the distance, as if peering beyond walls, beyond stone, beyond the limits of ordinary perception.

A hush fell over the hall.

Then, in a voice that cracked like a whip, the envoy shouted:

"GET DOWN!"

BOOOOM!

A thunderous explosion shattered the silence as a blurred figure tore through the outer defenses of the Iron Dungeon stronghold like a falling star.

A large human shape hurtled in at blinding speed, trailing smoke and dust, before crashing violently into a thick stone wall.

CRACK!

The wall buckled, spiderweb cracks rippling outward as pieces of stone exploded into the air. The entire room trembled under the impact.

From the pile of debris, a low groan echoed out.

"Damn... I should’ve thought about stopping before," Damien muttered, his voice raspy with annoyance as he stirred amidst the rubble.

Chunks of shattered brick and dust fell off him as he slowly pushed himself upright. His once-elegant clothes were torn and scorched, bits of fabric fluttering like burned parchment. A faint trail of smoke still curled from his back, and there was a bloody scrape across his cheek already starting to close.

He stood up, brushing the dust from his charred sleeves with an exaggerated calm, as if crashing into fortified walls at supersonic speed was a regular Tuesday for him.

His sharp gaze swept the room, adjusting quickly to the dim lighting.

The chamber resembled a crude prison cell—thick iron bars lined one side, the stone floor cracked and uneven, and the air thick with mildew and stale blood. Chains clinked gently from above, swaying in the aftermath of his explosive entry.

Two unfamiliar men stood at the edge of the cell, their faces frozen in solemn disbelief. Both were dressed in simple robes. One had a scar across his eye, the other a jagged tattoo curling down his neck.

Damien tilted his head slightly, his tone casual despite the chaos. "Hmmm. And who might you gentlemen be?"

His voice echoed against the stone walls, steady and laced with just the right touch of mockery.

The two men remained frozen, their eyes flicking between the smoking crater in the wall and the intruder who’d just barreled in like a meteor. Neither answered immediately.

Damien chuckled, cracking his neck as mana shimmered faintly around him.

He was just getting started.