S-Rank Harem: I Became My Character with Extra Control Skill

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

The system messages with the level-up marker kept updating rapidly before his eyes.

The translucent screens flickered one after another, illuminating the dark, shattered hall with an almost blinding glow. The sound of notifications was like a constant bell ringing in his mind.

After seeing twenty notifications in a row fill his field of vision, Ryan simply stopped counting. The amount of pure experience gained by killing the absolute ruler of the north in combat was breaking the limits of his growth.

After a few long seconds more, the frantic blue blinking finally stopped. His overall status was updated all at once with a final, massive notification that covered his entire view.

[Ding!]

[You have reached level 165]

[Max level bonus applied]

[Updating Status...]

[Class evolved: Transcendent Templar Rank SSS]

[All class skills have been unlocked.]

[New Title acquired: Transcendent Sovereign of Dominion]

”Transcendent?” Ryan murmured with bated breath.

He raised both gloved hands, watching with pure fascination how small but dense arcs of electricity of a strange color blending purple and red seemed to hover and crackle all over his skin and muscles.

It was a strange, yet intoxicating feeling of absolute completeness.

Every cell in his body was adapting to the divine strength. His bones felt impenetrable, his senses expanded to cover the entire fortress, and the mana within him flowed with the fury of an unstoppable ocean.

The system was physically preparing him to be able to assimilate and withstand the immense weight of his new power.

”And I finally have a new class title...” Ryan added, clenching his fists and feeling like he could destroy the castle’s stone walls with a single touch.

Suddenly, Ryan’s body pitched forward heavily, losing his balance slightly upon feeling a sudden weight falling directly onto his back.

Helen, who had just jumped on him, clung tightly to his neck, crossing her arms over his chest. After releasing all the tension from the fight to the death, she let out a laugh full of evident and genuine joy, dropping a few words to him with pure enthusiasm.

”Ryan! I leveled up so much! I am now officially an SS-Rank swordswoman. Is that not incredible?” she said, tightening her grip and pressing her face against his.

”I even got a new title!” Helen yelled with far too much excitement, speaking very close to his ear and almost deafening him for a second.

Helen jumped down from his back, landing nimbly on the blood-stained floor, and stood in front of him wearing a huge smile of pride.

”Peerless Queen of Blades!” she added, crossing her arms and puffing out her chest. ”What do you think? Sounds very cool, does it not?”

Ryan turned to face her completely, storing the system notification in his mind. He looked her up and down, noticing the small scratches on her cheeks and the dust on her clothes, and gave her a slight, sincere smile.

He reached out his right hand and gently stroked the warrior’s head, ruffling her dark hair.

”You did very well today, Helen,” he said with an unusually soft and warm tone of voice. ”Not just your strength, you have grown mentally.”

Upon hearing that simple but profound praise from the person she respected the most in the world, Helen’s tough facade as a ruthless warrior completely crumbled.

Her bright blue eyes lit up suddenly, and slight treacherous tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, slipping down her dust-stained cheeks.

”I was very worried about you, you know?” she said with a slightly cracked voice, closing the distance and hugging him again with immense strength, hiding her tearful face in his chest.

Ryan hugged her back, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting her vent.

”I was getting very bored in the villa waiting for orders that never came, so I wanted to get a lot more information to kill time,” Helen explained, clinging much closer to his chest, feeling Ryan’s strong heartbeat to make sure he was alive.

”That cowardly holy knight woman finally spoke. She told me that her captain secretly told her that, due to a dirty special treaty, the church had provided strange, divine relics to the demon king Rigal to neutralize human weapons...”

Helen gripped the fabric of Ryan’s clothes with her fists. ”When I heard that, I came as soon as possible,” she added.

”I feared the worst the whole way. I thought I would not make it in time, and that all of you would already be dead...”

Ryan looked down, listening to the slight trembling voice of the woman who always appeared invincible. He lifted Helen’s face very gently with both hands, wiping away a tear running down her beautiful face with his thumb.

’If she had not arrived, I would have been in serious trouble, probably dead,’ Ryan thought, looking deeply into Helen’s wet blue eyes.

’I excluded her from the mission precisely so she would learn to be more responsible, although I did not expect her to show results in just a couple of days. Well, I suppose this is fine, for now.’

And then, without saying a single word, and under Helen’s inquisitive and expectant gaze, he leaned forward and kissed her.

It was a deep kiss.

Helen widened her eyes in initial surprise, but almost immediately returned the kiss with passion, wrapping her arms around Ryan’s neck while even more tears of pure relief fell from her eyes.

The chaos of blood, rubble, and death around them disappeared completely for them in that instant.

”By the gods... I cannot believe you two really managed to beat a demon king with your own hands...” an extremely trembling, high-pitched voice murmured, breaking the romantic bubble.

”Bu... but... are you sure you want to do that right here?” Chloe asked, approaching them with slow, clumsy steps.

The holy knight looked at the bloody scene in disgust, averting her eyes from the king’s decapitated body. ”I think it will be much better if I go home right now and not interrupt you two with your things anymore...” Chloe said, pointing to the door with a clear intention to escape.

”Oh no, you are not going anywhere,” Helen added immediately, after slowly parting her lips from Ryan’s.

The warrior wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at the holy knight with a lethal expression. ”You are still our prisoner of war, so you will stay exactly where you are.”

Chloe swallowed hard, shrugging her shoulders.

”B-but... that disgusting thing over there scares me a lot...” Chloe murmured, pointing at Rigal’s massive corpse lying on the floor. ”He is really not going to wake up suddenly, or something like that?” the girl asked with evident panic.

Ryan and Helen remained in complete silence for a second. They both exchanged glances, feeling slight but reasonable doubts in the face of the timid holy knight’s naive but logical question.

”...”

”Damn it. Now I have serious doubts about that...” Ryan murmured, looking at Rigal’s corpse. Although he was not moving, his body was still constantly leaking blood from all the wounds they had caused him.

”It does not matter, we just have to make definitively sure,” Helen said with total naturalness and a terrifying coldness.

The warrior separated from Ryan, walked with heavy steps toward the inert corpse, raised her immense half of the boomerang, and did not hesitate for a single second.

Helen unleashed a barrage of brutal, savage, and uncontrolled blows against the demon king’s body. The sound of tearing flesh and splintering bones filled the hall again.

She shattered the chest, crushed the arms, and completely mutilated Rigal’s remains until turning his anatomy into an unrecognizable mass of dark meat and white fur.

Her abrupt and violent action caused immense amounts of dark blood to splatter everywhere, staining Ryan’s clothes along with hers, and even the timid Chloe.

”How disgusting...” Chloe murmured, watching the blood run down her clothes.

Helen turned back to Ryan, resting the bloody weapon on her shoulder. She wore a huge, bright smile on her face, which was now completely marked with red stains from the fallen demon king’s blood.

”I think, with this, he is never going to wake up again,” Helen said, looking immensely satisfied with her own work.

”Although that was extremely excessive and inhumane,” Chloe added, covering her mouth with both hands, about to throw up from the grotesque scene.

”No, it seems very fine to me,” Ryan added with a serious tone, completely approving of his companion’s paranoia. ”With these slippery creatures, you never know what might happen if you leave a single organ intact.”

Ryan wiped a drop of blood from his own cheek and looked toward the back of the destroyed hall.

”Anyway, the work here is not over yet,” Ryan declared, adjusting his gloves and walking toward the stairs.

”Now we must go to the throne once and for all. We have to try to free Ophelia.”