SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will

Chapter 207  River of ???

Moon had completely forgotten about everything. His goals, his ambitions, his companions, the world outside, all of it dissolved into irrelevance. At some point, even his sense of self began to fragment and fade.

Who was Moon? Why was he here? What was he trying to achieve?

The questions had no answers anymore. Or rather, the answers no longer mattered.

All that remained moving forward.

A cycle repeated endlessly, mindlessly, reduced to pure instinct divorced from thought.

The pressure and weight bearing down on him were no longer something he could quantify or even properly perceive. They’d transcended measurement, becoming an absolute truth of this space.

Any normal awakener would have given up within the first fifty meters. The pain alone would have driven them to stop, to curl up and wait for mercy or death.

Even most awakeners—hardened warriors who’d survived nightmares and conquered powerful gates, would have surrendered within the first hundred meters. The combined physical and mental torture would have shattered their will, convinced them that continuing was pointless masochism.

After an unknown amount of time in the void, hours, days, years compressed into moments or moments stretched into decades, Moon lost consciousness entirely.

His mind finally gave out, unable to sustain even the minimal awareness required to guide his limbs.

He collapsed completely, his body lying on the river’s flowing surface.

And yet…

Despite the total shutdown of his conscious mind. Despite the complete exhaustion of his mental faculties. Despite every logical reason for his body to simply stop, to rest, to surrender to the overwhelming forces crushing down on him…His body moved.

Unconsciously.

As if something deeper than mind, deeper than will, deeper than even instinct had taken control. Something buried deep within him.

His right hand extended forward through the flowing energy, fingers digging into the substance for purchase. Pulled. Dragged his limp form another few inches along the path.

His left hand repeated the motion. Then his right again. Then his left.

Moon’s unconscious body crawled through the river, pulled forward by forces he could not understand or resist.

His muscles operated beyond the limits of what should have been possible, adapting to pressures that should have pulverized bone and liquefied flesh.

His mind, though dormant, was being rewritten. Each moment of unconscious progress carved new pathways through his consciousness, expanding the very structure of his awareness beyond what human cognition was meant to encompass.

—

In an unknown, never-visited part of the river, far beyond where Moon had ever reached, in a section of the path where the flowing energies burned with colors that had no names, a figure sat in meditation.

Cloaked in light that wasn’t quite light, existing in a state that wasn’t quite existence, the figure had remained motionless for an unknown span of time.

The figure’s eyes opened slowly, twin orbs of brilliance that pierced through the void’s darkness with effortless clarity.

It observed the unconscious body of Moon still crawling forward, still moving despite having transcended the boundaries of what mind and will should allow. Still refusing to stop even when stopping was the only rational choice remaining.

For a moment, the figure watched.

Then, after that instant, its eyes closed once more.

And the river responded.

—

At that same moment, Moon—who had almost died from the immense pressure grinding his bones to powder, pulverizing his entire body into something barely recognizable as human—was suddenly ejected from the path.

Reality changed around him.

One moment: the river, the crushing weight, the endless forward crawl through impossible pressure.

Next moment, he returned back to the pavilion, the normal air filling his lungs, the absence of that terrible burden that had been compressing his existence into nothingness.

Transported back to normal space just before the pressure outright killed him.

For several long moments, Moon’s body simply lay there, breathing but unaware, alive but absent.

Then the notifications began.

They appeared in his dormant vision one after another, relentless in their cascade:

[You have reached a milestone in the River of ???]

[You have achieved an impossible feat.]

—

[You have gained +10 Strength]

[You have gained +10 Agility]

[You have gained +10 Mana]

[You have gained +10 Constitution]

—

[You have gained the Epic Skill: Rune Inscription]

[You have gained the Epic Skill: Appraisal]

[You have gained the Epic Skill: Lightning Raiju]

[Your Uncommon Skill Silver Skin, has evolved to the Rare Skill Golden Skin]

—

[Inheritance successfully transferred.]

[New Title acquired: Inheritor of Flaws]

[Title will remain dormant until ??? is unlocked.]

[Current benefits while dormant: None]

[Warning: This legacy, even when dormant, comes with consequences. The world does not appreciate those who bend its rules. Established powers will recognize you as a threat. Powerful entities will take notice of your existence. You have been marked as something that should not be.]

[Proceed with caution.]

—

The cascade of notifications finally ceased, leaving Moon’s unconscious mind to process the fundamental changes that had been wrought upon his being.

His body had been broken down and rebuilt stronger. His mind had been expanded beyond its previous limitations. His soul had been tempered by pressures that most beings would never experience, even across lifetimes.

He’d entered the River of ??? as an awakener who’d survived impossible odds. Moon’s unconscious body lay still on the pavilion’s floor, breathing steadily, alive against all reasonable odds.

Outside the pavilion, Selene and Yara had been sitting in tense vigil, waiting for any sign of Moon’s emergence.

Several days had passed since he’d entered, days spent in anxious speculation about what might be happening inside that impenetrable darkness. Days of forced patience while their companion faced unknown trials alone.

His life and death unknown.

Until—

“Selene! Look, the darkness is gone!” Yara’s voice cracked with sudden urgency as she shot to her feet, her eyes locked on the pavilion’s entrance.

The absolute blackness that had blocked all perception of the interior had simply… vanished. And through the now-clear doorway, they could see a figure lying motionless on the white stone floor.

Selene’s head snapped toward the entrance, her heart seizing in her chest as she recognized the prone form.

“Moon!” they both shouted in unison, their voices overlapping in shared panic and relief.

***