Re-Awakened :I Ascend as an SSS-Ranked Dragon Summoner

She could've tightened the noose already, squeezed until his bones creaked under the force, but she was still managing the weight—adjusting, reacting. It was a decision, not a failure. That meant she wasn't just relying on brute force. She was reading him, just as he was reading her.

A contest of control.

Noah exhaled slowly, his mind shifting from endurance to action. He needed to break out of his own reasoning. He had spent time analyzing, feeling out her technique, but now it was time to test it.

He adjusted his stance slightly—not to resist, but to probe.

The response was immediate.

The pressure doubled down on his left side, tightening against his ribs, forcing his spine into a locked position. The shift was too fast, too efficient to be anything other than conscious reinforcement.

'She's watching my weight distribution.'

That confirmed something. She wasn't just applying an even force across his entire body. She was actively adapting to every movement, treating the dead zone as something flexible, not rigid.

That meant weaknesses existed.

He pushed a little further, this time angling his right knee forward while subtly shifting his left shoulder. Another reaction. The weight crushed down on his right thigh before slamming into his collarbone.

Noah gritted his teeth. The force wasn't just strong—it was intelligent.

Diana was predicting where his pressure points would be, where his balance might tip, and adjusting in real time to keep him trapped.

'Then I need to make her reinforce it even more.' he began by guiding chi around his body to allow subtle enhancements, aiding his body to move against her pressure just enough for her to crush him again.

He pushed in quick succession—small, measured movements, each one forcing a correction in her control. The weight pressed tighter, harder, stretching to compensate. But the more it stretched, the more he felt its edges.

The boundaries.

That was what he needed.

His muscles burned as he kept shifting, forcing her to respond, mapping out the differences in resistance.

His upper chest? Like iron bands coiling around his lungs, impossible to flex.

His lower spine? Heavy, but stable—meant to lock him down rather than crush.

His right arm? Completely immobilized. No space to leverage.@@novelbin@@

His left leg? Pressed, but not as dense as the rest.

And then—

There.

A single point. A sliver of space near his left hip where the pressure wasn't as suffocating. Not weak, but relatively weaker compared to the rest. The weight there wasn't a priority—it was an afterthought, likely because it wasn't a natural escape route.

'She wouldn't expect me to go through it.'

Which made it the best possible option.

Noah's breathing stayed even, masking his discovery. If he reacted too soon, she might sense the shift in intent and close the gap before he could move.

He had to make her focus elsewhere.

Something big. Something desperate.

And then strike where she least expected.

Noah's mind remained sharp despite the pressure grinding against his body. Chi flowed through him in delicate streams, guided rather than forced—an instinctual process still beyond his full control. He knew his limits. He wasn't at the stage where he could direct chi with absolute precision. That was the next level of his training—one he hadn't yet reached.

But survival came first.

His earlier probing had mapped out the dead zone's boundaries, the weaker points against the ironclad grip Diana had on him. He had one viable escape route. A narrow chance. But one wasn't enough.

He needed more.

'She adjusts too fast. If I only have a single opening, she'll compensate before I can take full advantage.'

Noah continued shifting, subtly, methodically. He wasn't just moving for the sake of it—he was feeding her misleading data. Making her reinforce areas he had no intention of using. Each time he applied pressure, she reacted, locking him further in the way she thought he wanted to escape.

It was a gamble. If she caught on too soon, she'd collapse the entire field on him before he could act. But the advantage of intelligence was that it could be used against itself.

Diana exhaled, voice sharp.

"You're persistent, I'll give you that," she said, though there was no praise in her tone—only irritation.

Noah smirked slightly. "Persistence and intelligence aren't the same thing."

Her eyes narrowed. "You think I don't see what you're doing?"

Oh, she saw. That was the point.

He kept pressing in different places, drawing her focus, making her defenses more elaborate, more intricate—spreading her control too thin. The pressure on his body shifted minutely. Not a true opening, not yet, but a sign that she was being forced to multitask.

Then he felt it.

Another leak.

This one wasn't a structural weakness like the first. It was a momentary gap—a flicker in the control field where the pressure dipped just slightly out of sync with the rest. An overlap in adjustments.

That was all he needed.

His chi, still unpredictable, still free-flowing, coiled instinctively. He didn't force it—he couldn't. Instead, he wove it into the natural movement of his body, aligning the surge of energy with his next motion.

Now.

Noah twisted sharply—not against the dead zone, but with it, riding the force instead of opposing it. He used the weaker point at his hip as the fulcrum, slipping through the momentary flicker before she could reinforce it.

The way he'd done this was quite simple. His body was frozen within Diana's nullification field. Every instinct screamed at him to push, to break free—but force meant nothing here. Momentum was devoured the moment it formed. Struggle was useless.

Instead, he shifted inward.

His chi pulsed, not in raw bursts, but in controlled currents, cycling through his limbs in a self-contained loop. Movement didn't have to be external—it could exist within. Muscles trembled, vibrating at frequencies too subtle to trigger the suppression, energy coiling beneath the surface.

Diana's field adjusted in real-time, pressing down, nullifying. But that suppression had rhythm, an ebb and flow as it recalibrated. Noah synchronized his chi to it, letting the pressure guide him rather than resisting it. The dead zone wasn't impenetrable—it was predictable.

Then, in the space of a breath, he shifted. Not forward, not back, but through. His chi flickered out of sync with the suppression's pulse for the briefest instant, a ghost between beats. The dead zone didn't register his movement—it had nothing to suppress. All this of course wouldn't have been possible if Diana was at full strength but for whatever reason best known to her, she'd overextended herself and that cost her.

One step.

And he was free.

Diana's eyes widened.

"You—"

She reacted instantly, the dead zone snapping back, but it was too late. Noah had already broken free.

His breath hitched from the exertion, but his focus remained razor-sharp. There was no time to celebrate. Diana's power was instant in its activation. If he didn't act within the next second, she would lock him down again.

His hand lifted. Fingers splayed.

"Nyx… Awaken"

[Summoning complete : Red Death Dragon]

The air split. A swirling portal tore open, dark and unstable, with red mist spilling outward in thick waves, consuming the space in moments.

Diana's reflexes were fast. She moved to reassert her control, but the sensation behind her made her hesitate.

Something was coming.

Her dead zone required absolute control—an unshaken focus. But right now, she had something else to focus on.

Noah, despite his exhaustion, saw the gap. He exhaled sharply and pushed through, his voice steady.

"Nyx… Speak."