SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 456: Danger ahead.

Leon could feel her reading the changes through the hug itself—her arms picking up on something different in how he felt, the quality of him shifted in ways her body recognized before her mind could name them.

She pulled back far enough to actually look at him.

The questions were already lined up in her expression. His trial, how long it took, the changes she was already sensing in him, the unfamiliar object floating beside him, why he felt like the same person yet somehow fundamentally different from the man who’d walked through that tower entrance with her.

She had no doubt the answers would confirm exactly what she believed about him.

Leon kissed her forehead.

Brief and clean. The hug broke before it reached the half-minute she always needed to properly reacquaint herself with his scent—a habit she’d never once acknowledged out loud, but he’d noticed enough times that it had become one of those quiet things he understood about her without either of them ever discussing it.

The small deflation in her expression was easy to read.

"Seraphine." His voice was quiet and direct. "My clone is gone. Something happened out there while I was inside. I need to go right now."

He leaned in and said the rest in her ear, low enough that it went no further than her.

Her face warmed immediately.

"Once I’m back," he said, straightening, "all the time you need. I promise. My lovely wife."

She held his gaze for a moment, weighing things, then spotted a small opening and took it without hesitation.

Muah.

Her lips found his cheek before he could account for how fast she moved, and the quiet, satisfied sound she made afterward was wildly disproportionate to what she’d actually gotten away with.

Leon turned and opened the portal to the outside world.

The mana cost hit and was already recovering before he’d fully registered spending it—a thousand units gone in a fraction of a second, already flooding back at a rate that would have him fully restored in under thirty seconds. His recovery had changed noticeably.

The portal held open.

A hand closed around his.

He looked.

Seraphine stood beside him, her fingers laced through his, carrying the expression she wore when she’d already decided something and the discussion was effectively over.

"It’s going to be genuinely dangerous," Leon said. "Whatever’s out there killed my clone."

"I know."

"That means it handled archon-level threats without much trouble."

"I know." Her grip didn’t shift at all. "I’m still coming."

She had loved being the one who protected him once, back when that was still possible. Those days were long behind them now—she understood exactly what kind of monster he was, and she had no illusion about closing that gap. But she wasn’t interested in being the woman waiting safely behind him while he handled everything. The only place she felt complete was fighting beside him. That was her pride, and it wasn’t something she was willing to give up.

Besides, she hadn’t come out of the tower empty-handed either.

He held her gaze for a long moment.

Then nodded.

"Stay close. Be careful."

The look she gave him said she found the reminder completely unnecessary, accepted it as the affectionate habit it was, and was ready whenever he moved.

Leon stepped back from the portal.

A practical thought had occurred to him.

He reached into his storage and removed his light armor—undoing it with a directed thread of wind element that stripped it off in a single clean motion and left him standing with nothing on at all.

He’d been rebuilt from nothing in over three hours. His clothing hadn’t made it through that process. He needed to get dressed before going anywhere, which meant putting the armor back on properly, which meant there was a moment—several moments—where he was completely naked.

Seraphine noticed.

One moment, she was thinking about the portal, the clone, the danger on the other side, how sharp she needed to be.

Then Leon wasn’t wearing anything.

Every other thought left her head immediately and completely, like something had opened a window and the wind took it all.

She knew his body. She loved it. She craved it in a way that had never settled into anything comfortable or manageable. She knew every part of him well enough to navigate it in complete darkness, and she had done exactly that on more than one occasion.

The version of him standing in front of her right now needed every single thing she thought she knew revised from scratch.

He was taller—she hadn’t noticed until this moment, when there was nothing in the way. His body, which had always been genuinely and unfairly beautiful in a way she’d been quietly grateful for since the day she first saw it, had become something else entirely. Not just fit—perfect in proportions that didn’t feel like a natural result of training, but more like someone had described the ideal and then built it exactly to spec. Every line. Every ratio. Nothing out of place by even a fraction.

And his cock.

Just there. Not hard. Not doing anything special.

She stared at it for two full seconds before realizing she was doing it, then looked for another second because she’d already started, and stopping mid-stare somehow felt worse.

He had always been on the generous end of what she’d encountered in her life, which had been one of the early revelations of their relationship that she’d filed carefully under good news and returned to often. That previous size already filled her completely, had been borderline lethal in the best possible way for body and mind both.

Whatever had happened to him in that tower had apparently revised that category along with everything else.

A drop collected at the corner of her lips before she noticed it, which represented her worst response time to that particular situation by a significant margin.

Her legs pressed together on pure instinct.

The reasonable part of her mind was making a case—there was something urgent happening, the clone was gone, something dangerous was waiting on the other side of that portal, this was genuinely and clearly not the moment.

The much louder part of her mind was making a completely different case—specifically that walking into real danger without first doing something about what was currently happening to her body was not actually the strategically sound choice it might appear to be on the surface.

He said when he comes back, Seraphine, you don’t have to think too much about the reasonable part offered, with noticeably less conviction than it had thirty seconds ago.

Her hand moved toward the front clasp of her clothing with complete commitment, two fingers already closing around it before the reasonable part caught up, seized the hand, and held it firmly at her side with the grip of someone who knew precisely how badly this argument was going and was not letting go under any circumstances.

The conflict in her head was loud, extremely one-sided, and she was absolutely losing it.

She stood very still.

Picked a spot slightly to the left of him and fixed her gaze there.

Held her own hand against her side like a person actively preventing a very determined part of themselves from doing something that wouldn’t technically be regrettable but would result in them not going through that portal for quite a bit longer than the situation allowed.

It would seem like she was horny all the time.

She stood still, controlling herself, leg squirming a little with drool on her face, which appeared again after she had just wiped it with her hand.