Novel Full Chapter 387 387: Half SSS!
The kingdom Bruce teleported to next was Solara.
The moment his feet touched the ground he spread his awareness outward, and the terrain registered as almost identical to Valkrin, unsurprising, given that Solara was one of the closest kingdoms to it.
The resemblance went deeper than geography. Technology was booming here too, and for the same reason: Solara was one of Valkrin’s closest allies, bound not only to the monarchy but openly aligned with the Thorne family. That alliance gave the Thornes a clear pipeline to push their advanced products into Solaran markets, and the result was visible everywhere. Among the twelve kingdoms of Velmora, Solara sat second only to Valkrin in technological development.
He had been deposited directly inside the Adventurer Guild, Duke’s deliberate choice. Duke had wanted to delay until every adventurer of note was present in the building, and he had wanted Bruce to start here.
Bruce took a moment to read the room, then activated Life Glance.
The souls of the Invaders lit up like lanterns in a dark room, and what he saw made his expression still. It wasn’t a handful of low-rankers tucked into the corners. The older upper-rank adventurers, the trusted ones, the ones whose names carried weight on the guild’s roster, almost all of them were possessed.
He didn’t waste a second on the shock. He went to work.
Soul Shatter moved through the guild like a quiet wind. One after another, the possessed dropped where they stood, their bodies still and the foreign presences inside them simply gone. From there he expanded outward, sweeping Solara kingdom by district, scanning and culling as he went.
Thirty minutes later, Solara was clean.
And then a chime sounded in his mind, subtle, but carrying an unmistakable weight. A translucent interface flickered into existence in front of him, glowing more brightly than usual, as though the system itself was acknowledging the scale of what he’d just done.
[Milestone Achieved]
[You have slain over 200 World Invaders]
[Evaluation in Progress…]
[Evaluation Complete]
[You have been granted a Distinguished Title]
[Bane of Invaders, Harbinger of Foreign Ruin]
[One who stands as an unyielding wall against those who trespass from beyond their rightful world. A name whispered in dread across dimensions.]
[Title Effects:]
[Aura of Suppression, Invaders instinctively perceive you as a lethal anomaly. All Invader-type entities suffer a 10% reduction in Attack Power in your presence.]
[Dread Imprint, Your repeated slaughter has etched fear into the collective memory of foreign beings. Invaders experience hesitation during initial engagement, and low-will Invaders may suffer brief fear paralysis upon eye contact.]
[Marked Adversary, Your existence is now recognized beyond your world. You are more easily identified by high-ranking Invaders and commanders, and hostile attention toward you is slightly elevated.]
[Dimensional Hostility: (Passive Growth Effect)*, The more Invaders you slay, the stronger this title becomes. Every additional 100 Invaders grants incremental enhancement to suppression effects.]
For a brief moment the air around Bruce seemed to grow heavier. It wasn’t visible, not to ordinary eyes. But if any Invader had been present in that instant, they would have felt it. A suffocating pressure. A primal warning etched into the deepest layer of instinct. This one is death to our kind.
Bruce’s eyes lingered on the final line a moment longer, not because he didn’t understand it, but because he understood it perfectly.
“…Recognized beyond my world,” he murmured, a faint, almost amused edge in the words.
So it wasn’t just a title. It was a mark. A declaration.
A quiet exhale left him, his gaze hardening as the glow of the interface dimmed in his pupils. “Good.”
No hesitation. No second thoughts. If anything, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly. Fear, hesitation, suppression, to others, those might have been advantages to weigh carefully. To Bruce, they were simply confirmation. Confirmation that every Invader he had crushed, every battlefield he had walked through, meant something.
His fingers flexed at his side, faint traces of Soul Shatter coiling around them like invisible threads answering his will.
“A wall, huh,” he said, quieter now. “Then let them come.”
The air shifted around him, not killing intent, but something colder and sharper. Purpose. Because if this title truly reached beyond worlds, if there were beings out there now aware of him, watching, waiting, then he would give them something worth remembering.
“Time,” he said, his tone almost indifferent, “send something stronger.”
And as the last of the interface faded, the battlefield seemed just a little quieter, as though even the world itself had acknowledged it. A new predator had been named.
Then, as if the world refused to let the moment settle, another chime rang out. Sharper. Heavier. The kind that didn’t just inform, it demanded.
[Detected Titles have reached Criteria]
[Progression Threshold Reached]
[You have stepped into Half SSS-Rank]
[Proceed with your SSS Trial to awaken your Domain and ascend to Full SSS-Rank.]
[Do you wish to begin your Trial?]
[ Y / N]
Bruce didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His eyes rested on the prompt, unreadable but not unfocused.
“…Half,” he murmured.
So this was it. The wall before the peak. The step that separated monsters from something else entirely.
His last trial surfaced unbidden, seven days of isolation and pressure, and something far worse than battle. A place where time lost meaning, where the system didn’t guide so much as judge. And this one was tied to his Domain. That wasn’t a simple power-up. That was territory. Authority. A manifestation of self imposed onto reality itself, something only those at the very top could wield.
Not something you rushed into.
His finger didn’t move toward the prompt. Not yet. Because his reality pulled at him just as strongly. Lily, for one. A promise, simple and ordinary, yet heavier than most things he carried. He could already picture her waiting at the academy gates, pretending she wasn’t watching the road every few seconds, clicking her tongue, acting annoyed. ‘You’re late.
And Sophie. His expression softened for half a second. A week. Everything had already been arranged, a rare moment where the chaos of his life had been forced into something peaceful. Stable. Something human.
He exhaled quietly. He could decline; the system was allowing it now, and that alone told him something. The trial wasn’t going anywhere. It would wait.
But his fingers curled slightly, because the feeling hadn’t left. That faint crawling sensation at the back of his mind. Not fear, never fear, but something older and sharper. A warning that didn’t come from instinct alone, but from experience.
The last time he had felt it, the sky had torn open. The Cthulhu incident. Two dungeons breaking simultaneously near Lily’s academy. Chaos, screams, blood.
His jaw tightened. ‘Not a coincidence.’
It never was. And now, right as he stood on the edge of awakening something as significant as a Domain, that same premonition had returned, stronger, heavier, as though something unseen was watching him again. Waiting.
“…You want me to start it now.”
It wasn’t a question. The system never forced. But it nudged. Arranged. Cornered.
His gaze lifted slightly, as though looking past the fading battlefield, past the sky itself. If he stepped into the trial now, time would distort again. Days outside could pass. Or worse, something could happen while he was gone. Lily. Sophie. The academy. All of it left behind, unprotected.
And yet, a different thought surfaced. Cold. Logical. ‘If something was coming, would staying weaker help?’
His grip tightened. A Domain wasn’t just strength. It was control. Influence. The ability to dominate a battlefield entirely.
“If it’s coming again,” he said, almost inaudibly, “then I need to be ready before it arrives.”
The silence that followed was heavy and decisive. Bruce stared at the prompt one last time. The letters didn’t flicker. Didn’t rush him. They simply waited.
[Y / N]
“…Damn system.” There was no irritation in his voice. Only clarity. Only resolve.
His finger moved, then stopped, an inch away. “One week,” he breathed. “Just one.”
His eyes closed briefly. Lily’s face. Sophie’s smile. Promises.
Then the premonition again, stronger this time, like something already in motion. Ticking. Counting down.
His eyes snapped open, sharp and decisive. A faint smirk tugged at his lips, cold, but certain.
“Fine.”
Whether it was defiance or acceptance, even he didn’t care. Because one thing was clear: if something was coming, he would meet it head-on. At his strongest. Not halfway there. Not unprepared.
But first, he needed to talk to Sophie and Lucy.
Bruce raised his wrist and tapped his smart bracelet. The interface unfolded into a small floating projection, and he selected Sophie’s contact first.
She answered almost immediately. The faint background of her residence framed her, soft light, the suggestion of the garden through a window behind her.
“Bruce.”
“I need to talk to you about something.”
Something in his tone made her sit forward slightly. “What is it?”
He told her plainly. The Solara purge. The title. The threshold. The trial waiting on the other side of a single prompt, and what stepping into it would mean; the time distortion, the isolation, the days that might pass on the outside while he was inside it. He didn’t dress any of it up.