Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 288

Chapter 288: EX 288. Barricade
After Leon arrived, there was no time wasted, it was time to depart.

“Gather close,” Lancelot ordered, his tone firm but not unkind.

Leon, Rachel, and Adrian obeyed, stepping into a tight circle around the lieutenant. In the next instant, a faint pressure settled around them, a soft, invisible shell of force that clung to their skin. Rachel’s eyes flickered with unease; she recognized the sensation. It was the same kind of power Lancelot had used before, when he’d pulled her and Leon toward him after their battle.

Seeing her tension, Lancelot spoke calmly, “Don’t worry. It’ll be different this time.”

Rachel gave a small nod, her emerald eyes steady now, and before she could say anything else, the ground fell away beneath them.

They rose gently at first, weightless as feathers, then shot into the air with a sudden surge of speed. The base below shrank to a speck as the wind tore past, but there was no pressure, no biting cold. Instead, it felt strangely smooth, like drifting through the sky in an invisible aircraft.

Leon’s gaze swept across the endless stretch of clouds around them, the sun glinting off his pale hair. ‘So this is what it feels like to fly,’ he thought, a flicker of admiration in his eyes. ‘Even with all my arts and skills, I still can’t do this.’

Originus’s deep voice rumbled through his mind.

‘This is not a skill or an art’

Leon blinked. ‘It’s not?’

‘No. This is an ability that comes naturally when one reaches the 7th rank,’ the dragon explained. ‘It’s born from the unification of mind and core, and it is an instinctive expression of mastery.’

Leon thought back to Nikko, to the way she’d soared effortlessly above the battlefield, to the base commanders who could move through the air like walking across stone. ‘So that’s what it was,’ he realized. All professionals had cores, but trial takers didn’t, based on what Leon knew. But did that mean there was a difference between the two?

‘I’ll just have to reach that rank myself to find out,’ Leon decided quietly. His hands flexed against the wind. Every corrupted cluster he destroyed would bring him closer, and if absorbing the corruption in Shantel had boosted his rank, then the one in this new city would do the same.

His eyes narrowed. Harlot’s Paradise. Even the name was odd. He couldn’t help but ask aloud, “Lieutenant, why exactly is it called that?”

Lancelot turned his head slightly, caught off guard by the question, but he answered anyway. “The city earned its name from what it was known for,” he said flatly. “It used to be a haven for pleasure houses, a place where brothels and entertainers flourished. The name stuck, even after the empire tried to rename it.”

Leon’s mouth twitched. ‘So it was like that.’

In his mind, Originus made a disapproving sound.

‘You humans have strange practices… building entire cities around lust.’

Leon ignored the dragon’s muttering. He wasn’t interested in debating morality with a creature older than recorded history. Instead, he focused on the horizon where gray clouds began to swirl, a faint, sickly light bleeding through them.

Within moments, they broke through the last layer of clouds.

Below them stretched the remains of Harlot’s Paradise, a once-bustling city now swallowed by silence. The streets were empty, the air thick with faint violet haze, and at the very heart of the city pulsed a dark ripple of corruption that twisted the air itself.

Leon’s expression hardened. “Looks like we’ve arrived.”

****

Before any Imperial Guard was sent to seal a corrupted city, the first step was always evacuation. Every man, woman, and child had to be cleared out before the corruption began to spread too deep. Once the city was empty, a guard of considerable strength, someone like a lieutenant, would arrive to seal the corruption away, preventing it from leaking beyond the city’s borders.

But not every infected city received such immediate attention. When the corruption wasn’t yet deemed catastrophic or when the empire’s forces were stretched thin, oftentimes lesser guards were stationed nearby to keep watch. Their orders were simple: maintain the barrier and wait for higher command.

That was the case with Harlot’s Paradise.

The city was dangerously close to the capital, close enough that the mere whisper of corruption there had caused panic. In haste, the empire had erected a vast barricade, an overlapping field of holy inscriptions and runic walls designed to trap any corrupted beasts inside.

And for a while, it worked.

But the barricade that kept the monsters in wasn’t good in keeping people out. The guards stationed along the perimeter were reducing, their numbers dwindling every week, some vanished in the night without a trace, others were found torn apart by creatures born from the corruption itself.

Tonight, the situation reached its breaking point.

RING! RING! RING! RING!

The bell split through the midnight air, loud and shrill. A panicked voice shouted from the eastern watchtower, “Breach in the barrier! Abominations are breaking through!”

The camp erupted in chaos. Guards jolted awake, grabbing weapons and rushing from their tents. Those already on watch sprinted toward the wall, armor clattering, boots thudding against the cold earth.

And then they saw them.

The Haulers.

Massive brutes, easily twice the height of a man, their upper bodies grotesquely overdeveloped while their lower halves were twisted and thin. They moved on all fours, their enormous arms carrying most of their weight as they dragged themselves forward. Tusks jutted upward from maws that never seemed to close, and their eyes, black, bottomless pits—gleamed with raw hunger.

Thirty-one of them had broken through the eastern barricade, tearing through the shimmering wall of runes like paper.

“Hold the line!” a captain roared, raising his spear.

The first clash came a heartbeat later, metal met flesh, and the night was filled with the sounds of roaring monsters and screaming men. The corrupted city had finally spilled over its edge, and the guards, already stretched thin, were now fighting for their lives.