SSS-RANK: Super Extraction System-Chapter 17: [] The Sunken Cathedral

The drop was silent.

Leon plummeted feet-first through the freezing air, his limbs tucked tight. Below him, the Shadow Barrier loomed like a colossal dome of black oil, pulsating with a sickly energy that distorted the very air around it.

"Impact in five," Justin’s voice crackled in his ear, calm and professional.

Rhino and Jinx flared their gravity-chutes beside him, slowing their descent abruptly. But Leon didn’t slow down. He needed velocity. He needed to be the needle that pierced the skin.

He hit the barrier at terminal speed.

To anyone else, striking that field of condensed dark mana would have been like hitting a solid wall of concrete. But to Leon, it felt like plunging into deep, cold water.

There was no explosion. No alarm. The darkness embraced him, recognizing the frequency of his core. It swallowed him whole.

He broke through.

Leon tucked into a roll as he hit the cracked obsidian pavement of the courtyard. He skid to a halt, the barrier sealing shut above him with a sound like a heavy vault door slamming.

"I’m in," Leon whispered.

A moment later, the rest of Wraith Squad dropped beside him, weapons raised and scanning the perimeter.

They were inside.

The Sunken Cathedral was a monument to madness. It wasn’t built; it was grown. The architecture was Gothic but twisted, inverted as if the earth had tried to swallow a church whole and choked on it. The spire pointed down into a bottomless chasm, while the "ground" floor tilted at a sickening angle.

The air here was thick, tasting of copper and ancient dust. It suppressed all natural light. The only illumination came from bioluminescent moss clinging to the gargoyles—a sick, pale green glow.

"Sound dampening active," Justin murmured.

He raised a hand, and the air around them shimmered.

[ ANALYSIS: ACTIVE ]

[ TARGET: JUSTIN ]

[ ABILITY: SOUND NULLIFICATION FIELD ]

[ DESCRIPTION: Creates a 10m bubble where sound waves are absorbed. Steps are silent; gunshots are muffled. ]

Inside the bubble, Leon could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. Outside, they were ghosts.

"Move," Justin signaled.

They advanced toward the massive double doors. They stood open, revealing a nave that stretched into suffocating darkness.

Leon took point. He activated his primary scouting tool.

[ EYES OF THE NIGHT (PASSIVE): ACTIVE ]

[ DESCRIPTION: Grants superior night vision and the ability to see traces of dark energy residue. ]

The gloom turned into a high-contrast grayscale world. Leon saw the layout instantly: rows of crumbling pews, statues of forgotten gods with their faces clawed off, and vast, vaulted ceilings where shadows clung like sleeping bats.

He raised a hand, fist clenched. Stop.

"Movement," Leon whispered. "Ahead. In the pews."

Rhino squinted into the dark. "I don’t see anything."

"They’re hiding," Leon said.

He pointed to a cluster of shadows near the altar.

The shadows shifted.

Figures emerged from the gloom. They wore tattered rags remnants of civilian clothes. A janitor’s uniform. A business suit. A child’s pajamas.

But they weren’t people anymore.

Their skin was grey and stretched tight over their bones. Their eyes were gone, replaced by empty, bleeding sockets. Their jaws hung open, unhinged to reveal rows of needle-like teeth.

[ HOSTILES DETECTED ]

[ TYPE: BLOOD THRALLS (CIVILIAN VARIANT) ]

[ THREAT: SWARM TACTICS ]

"Civilians," Jinx breathed, her cybernetic eyes whirring as she zoomed in. "Oh god... they’re the missing people from the sector."

"Not anymore," Justin said, his voice flat. "They’re husks. Weapons. Drop them."

The silence broke.

With a collective shriek that sounded like tearing metal, the Thralls charged.

They moved with terrifying, jerky speed, scuttling over the pews and crawling up the walls like insects.

"Open fire!"

Rhino unleashed hell. His combat shotgun boomed, the sound dampened by Justin’s field but still vibrating in Leon’s chest. The lead Thrall, the man in the suit, exploded in a spray of black ichor.

"Too many!" Jinx shouted. She threw a handful of discs.

[ ABILITY: RAZOR-WEB ]

[ DESCRIPTION: Deploys a network of monofilament wires capable of slicing through soft tissue. ]

The discs deployed mid-air, creating a deadly grid. The first wave of Thralls ran right into it, falling apart in chunks of meat.

But more came. They poured from the ceiling, dropping onto the squad.

One landed on Rhino’s back, clawing at his armor. Rhino roared, grabbing it by the neck and slamming it into the stone floor, crushing its skull.

Leon didn’t shoot. He drew his shadow-steel daggers.

A Thrall in a mechanic’s jumpsuit lunged at him, screeching.

Leon sidestepped. Minimal movement. Maximum efficiency.

He severed the creature’s spine at the neck. It dropped instantly.

Another attacked from the left. Leon ducked, spinning low, and drove his dagger up through its chin into the brain.

[ CRITICAL HIT! ]

[ TARGET ELIMINATED ]

He moved fast. While Rhino battered them with brute force and Jinx panicked, trying to reload, Leon flowed through the melee. He was the calm center of the storm.

He didn’t waste a single motion.

"Kid’s a freak," Rhino grunted, bashing a Thrall away with his gun stock. "A useful freak, but a freak."

"Watch your six!" Justin barked, firing his silenced pistol with rhythmic precision.

A group of three Thralls rushed Jinx. She fumbled with her wire spool.

Leon vanished.

[ SHADOW GLIDE: ACTIVE ]

[ DESCRIPTION: Become semi-ethereal while in shadows, moving at +50% speed and ignoring collision with minor obstacles. ]

He materialized out of the shadow cast by a pew, directly in front of Jinx.

In one fluid motion, he cross-slashed. Two heads rolled. He kicked the third Thrall in the chest, knocking it back, then threw his dagger. It took the creature in the eye.

Jinx stared at him, wide-eyed. Leon didn’t acknowledge her. He retrieved his dagger and turned to the next threat.

The nave was a slaughterhouse. Black blood slicked the floor.

Finally, the screeching stopped. The last Thrall, a creature that used to be a large man, twitched on the end of Rhino’s bayonet.

"Clear," Justin announced, scanning the room.

Rhino slumped against a pillar, breathing hard. "Messy. I hate the turned ones. They smell like rot and cheap cologne."

Leon stood over a body near the altar. It was a young woman. She lay twisted, her spine severed by his blade.

Unlike the others, her transformation hadn’t been complete. One of her eyes still held a speck of blue amidst the black.

As Leon looked down, her lips moved. A faint, gurgling whisper escaped.

...help... me...

The moment lingered. The human part of Leon flinched.

But the System didn’t care about tragedy.

[ EXTRACT SHADOW? ]

Leon reached out, his hand hovering over the corpse. The shadow beneath her rippled, eager to be claimed.

"Extract," he whispered.

The shadow tore free. But it wasn’t clean. It was jagged, screaming, filled with a chaotic, maddening noise.

[ WARNING: CORRUPTED ESSENCE DETECTED ]

[ TARGET SOUL TOO FRAGMENTED ]

A spike of pain drove into Leon’s skull. He staggered back, clutching his head. He felt her fear. Her agony. The overwhelming, mindless hunger Kain had forced upon her. It tried to claw into his mind, to make him one with the hive.

Get out.

Leon’s will slammed down like a hammer.

[ PURGING NEGATIVE PSYCHIC RESIDUE... ]

[ PURGE COMPLETE ]

[ MENTAL RESISTANCE INCREASED SLIGHTLY ]

The shadow dissolved into nothingness. Leon gasped, sweat dripping from his nose.

"You alright, Leon?" Jinx asked, stepping closer. She looked at the body, then at him. "You look like you saw a ghost."

"Just... interference," Leon lied, straightening up. He wiped the black blood from his blade. "I’m fine."

"Don’t linger on them," Justin said, his voice hard but not unkind. "They died the moment Kain touched them. We’re just cleaning up the mess."

He gestured to the far wall behind the shattered altar. "Focus on the mission. Look at this." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

The squad gathered around the back of the nave.

The entire wall was a mural. It wasn’t painted; it was carved into the obsidian and inlaid with veins of glowing red crystal.

It depicted a war that spanned the heavens.

On one side stood an army of golden light, faceless and terrible. On the other, seven colossal figures cloaked in living darkness. The Monarch’s Generals. They stood beneath a crimson moon.

[ SYSTEM ALERT ]

[ ANCIENT DATA FRAGMENT DETECTED ]

[ RESONANCE ESTABLISHED ]

Leon stepped closer, drawn to the central figure of the seven.

The figure wore a crown of jagged shadows. It didn’t hold a weapon. It held its hand out, palm open, as if offering something to the viewer.

[ DOWNLOADING ENCRYPTED DATA... ]

Images flashed in his mind. A throne of black stars. A sword of light piercing his back. The sensation of falling... falling... and waiting.

Leon pulled his hand back, gasping as the connection broke.

"What’s wrong?" Justin asked, looking at him sharply.

"Nothing," Leon said, steadying himself. "Just... it feels old. Older than Kain."

"This place is a tomb," Rhino grunted. "Let’s find the leech and burn it down."

Justin nodded. He pointed to a dark archway to the right of the mural. A set of spiraling stairs led downward, into the throat of the inverted spire.

"The Crypts," Justin said. "Kain will be at the bottom. The heart of the corruption."

Leon looked at the dark stairwell.

His Eyes of the Night ability showed him something else.

Traces of dark energy residue on the steps. Footprints.

Heavy ones.

"We’re not alone down there," Leon warned, pointing at the glowing footprints only he could see. "Something big went down. Recently."

"An elite?" Jinx asked nervously.

"Bigger," Leon said, gripping his daggers. "Ready up."

Wraith Squad moved into the dark, leaving the silent, weeping dead behind them.