S Ranked Reincarnation: My Infinite Leveling System
Chapter 19: The Sovereign Gate

Chapter 19: The Sovereign Gate

The mountain screamed.

It wasn’t a sound the human ear could catch. But every bird within fifty miles vanished. The wind changed direction. The Rift surged.

And the Sovereign Gate bloomed.

From the split in the mountain’s side, light poured like blood through a cracked bone. The stone peeled away, not naturally, but like petals. Glowing glyphs spiraled from the rocks. The very fabric of space twisted around it — not inward, but sideways, folding like wet cloth.

The Guild’s scouting team didn’t survive.

Only their final comms echoed back into the central relay station:

> "It’s not a tunnel. It’s a mouth. It’s speaking—"

Then static.

Ning Que stood in the Guild’s war room, watching footage from the drone. Lyra sat behind him, bandaged but alert. Aeris was stone-faced. Linx hovered near the corner, arms crossed, ever restless.

Grandmaster Li paced slowly, his robe whispering along the polished floor.

The Sovereign Gate filled the holo-screen. Alive. Breathing. Trembling with Riftlight.

"It’s not like the others," Tao Cheng muttered. "This one... it pulses. It’s sentient."

"And it’s tuned to him," Aeris added. Her eyes flicked to Ning. "Same frequency spike as Jiayuan. Same resonance pattern."

Linx spat. "Then throw him into it. Isn’t that what he’s for?"

Lyra stiffened.

"Enough," Li said, voice calm but final.

Tao folded his arms. "You knew this would happen. The moment he came back from Jiayuan, this Gate opened. The question is: are you willing to let him walk into it alone?"

"I’m not letting anyone make me do anything," Ning said quietly.

They all looked at him.

"If I go," he continued, "it’s because I choose to. Not because you think I’m a tool."

Silence. Then Li gave a slow nod. "Good. Then you leave tonight."

Before departure, Lyra met him on the high balcony above the Guild Hall. The sky was bruised purple, the stars barely peeking through.

She stood there, arms wrapped around herself.

"You don’t have to do this," she said softly.

"Then who does?" Ning replied, stepping beside her.

They stood in silence for a moment.

"I heard the Gate is... alive," she said. "That it calls to you."

"I think it remembers me."

She looked at him. "If you remember her... don’t forget me."

Ning swallowed. He reached for her hand—then stopped. His fingers hovered just inches from hers.

She stepped back.

"Goodbye, Ning," she said.

He didn’t say it back.

The approach to the Sovereign Gate was silent.

No birds. No insects. Just the hum of Riftlight peeling through the valley. The gate itself stood nearly a hundred feet tall, carved out of the mountain’s hollow chest. Glyphs ran in slow pulses across its surface.

The air tasted like metal and memory.

Aeris led the team as far as the outer perimeter. She didn’t follow beyond it.

"This is your show," she said. "Whatever happens in there... don’t die stupid."

"Noted."

Viera offered a silent nod. Linx didn’t say anything.

Ning stepped forward.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the system screamed.

{WARNING: Sovereign Gate recognized.} {Memory-Walker Sequence initializing...} {Do you accept?}

"Yes," Ning whispered.

Light swallowed him.

When he opened his eyes, the world had changed.

He stood on a battlefield.

The sky was ash. The earth, fractured glass and scorched bones. All around him, fallen warriors lay like discarded armor — their bodies glowing with faint Rift signatures.

It was a memory.

Not his.

Not yet.

"You’re late," a voice said.

He turned.

A woman stood atop a broken ridge, one hand resting on a double-bladed spear. Her armor was black and silver, carved with runes. Her hair was long and pinned back in silver rings. Her eyes... they knew him.

Even if he didn’t know her.

"Mireya," he said, without meaning to.

She smiled, bitter. "So you remember something. That’s a start."

Ning took a step forward. "Where are we?"

"The place you sealed us in. The final stand. You remember that?"

"...No."

Mireya’s smile vanished.

"I died because of you, Commander. We all did."

Ning’s grip tightened on the katana that had appeared in his hand. "I didn’t ask for any of this."

"And I didn’t ask to be left behind. But here we are."

She launched at him.

Their blades clashed in a shower of sparks.

Ning moved instinctively — like his body remembered her even if his mind didn’t. Each swing was echoed by a pulse from the Sovereign Gate.

Their battle cut across the dreamscape.

Ruin to ruin. Fire to fire.

Every clash triggered flashes —

Her laughter around a war table

Their voices raised in argument

Her hand on his chest before a battle

A bond. Then betrayal.

Mireya screamed as she struck.

"You made us trust you. Then sealed us with the beasts."

"I was trying to save the world," Ning snapped.

"You chose one world over the other. That’s not saving. That’s betrayal."

He disarmed her — barely. She fell to her knees, panting, blood trickling from her lip.

But she smiled.

"Still soft... even now. That’s why they’ll break you first."

He lowered his katana.

"I’m sorry."

"You should be."

She laughed — not cruelly, just... tired.

Then her body began to dissolve.

The memory cracked like a mirror struck by fate.

{Sovereign Gate Accepted. Node Unlock: 1 of 7} {Memory Fragment Unsealed.}

Ning gasped as another vision flooded him.

He saw himself, standing at the edge of the Sovereign Gate in another life. Mireya was beside him. So were others — all marked with Sovereign glyphs.

He heard his own voice:

"We lock the gate. Even if it kills us all."

He turned to Mireya in the vision.

"I’m sorry."

She nodded. "Then remember us."

And the gates closed.

---

Back in the present, Ning collapsed just outside the Gate’s perimeter.

Aeris and Lyra were there. Viera knelt beside him, scanning his vitals.

"He’s back," she whispered.

Lyra reached for his hand.

Ning stared past all of them, into the Gate’s fading light.

"They remember me," he said.

"Who?" Aeris asked.

He looked down at his hand — glowing faintly with a new mark.

"Everyone I left behind."