Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 293

Chapter 293: EX 293. Nature
Leon’s gaze lingered on the blue screen floating before him, the faint hum of data syncing with the rhythm of his heartbeat.

[Status Panel]

Name: Leon Kael

Race: Void Spawn

Age: 19

Class: Warrior

Rank: D-Rank

Talent: {Attack} — EX Rank

{Mark} — Overlord Rank

Status: Normal

Health: 100%

[STATS]

Vitality: 6500 ▶ 7050

Stamina: 6100 ▶ 7001

Strength: 6490 ▶ 7090

Senses: 6678 ▶ 7100

Speed: 6350 ▶ 7000

Aura: 6500 ▶ 7005

Affinity: Force (IV)

Destruction (I)

[Skills]

[EXTREME ART]

[Inventory]

———

The numbers had become meaningless to him at this point. Each battle, each strike, every creature he cut down fed the bottomless engine within him. Since arriving in Pandora, his growth had become absurd, his stats rising so rapidly that even the system seemed unsure how to display it. A simple attack could generate a surge of points. It was as if he’d broken through the world’s own limiters.

But his eyes weren’t on the numbers.

They were fixed on a single line.

Affinity: Destruction (I)

Leon exhaled slowly, feeling the faint hum of Originus in his grip. “I didn’t have the chance to use it last time,” he murmured. His mind flashed back to his fight with Lancelot the chance wasted because the charge time was too long. But now…

He lifted his head, gaze flicking across the battlefield.

Lancelot was already clashing with the golden abomination, their impacts shaking the streets below. Adrian, Rachel, and his four clones were holding the grey brutes at bay, weaving through the chaos in perfect rhythm.

Leon smiled faintly. “Now, nothing can interrupt me.”

He raised the Void Blade high above his head.

A deep, guttural voice stirred in his mind—Originus.

“What you’re planning, boy… is reckless.”

Leon didn’t answer. The air around him began to distort faintly.

“Destruction is not an affinity you use carelessly ,” the dragon continued, his tone heavy. “You need years of control, discipline and constant training, to even hold a fragment of its power without it consuming you. What you’re trying to do now will tear your body apart.”

Leon’s grin widened, quiet and sure. “The best way to learn,” he said, voice calm, “is through combat.”

And then, he activated it.

The air trembled. A flicker of something darker than shadow formed above his right hand, a translucent, black flame that gave off no heat, no light, only silence. It clung to his skin like liquid night, swirling in faint, impossible patterns.

Originus’s voice caught in his throat. The dragon had seen destruction before, seen what it did to worlds, to gods.

Yet the boy stood there, unflinching.

The black flame pulsed once. Then twice.

And like a tide drawn by unseen gravity, it began to crawl up the length of the Void Blade. Slow at first, then faster, until the entire weapon was engulfed in it.

There was no explosion. No roar. Just an unnatural stillness, like the world itself had stopped breathing.

Originus’s vast, ancient consciousness went blank. For the second time in centuries, the dragon felt something he thought long forgotten—fear.

Only one word formed in his mind, echoing in disbelief.

‘How?’

Leon stared at the weapon now veiled in black fire, his reflection caught in the endless void of its edge. His heartbeat slowed, his expression unreadable.

“Let’s test it,” he whispered.

And the ground beneath him began to crack.

****

The rooftop trembled beneath his boots. Cracks spread like lightning through the stone as Leon activated both his Tier IV Force and Destruction affinities at once. The pressure rippled outward in concentric waves, warping the air. A deep hum followed, the kind that made even the sky seem to hold its breath.

Originus, bound to his core, said nothing. He didn’t dare. The slightest disturbance could upset the delicate balance forming around Leon. Yet, in his silence, his mind reeled. What the boy was attempting was insanity, an uncontrolled convergence of two volatile powers. But there it was, unfolding with impossible precision before his eyes.

Leon wasn’t analyzing it. He wasn’t even thinking about how to do it. This was instinct. Ever since becoming a Void Spawn, he had felt something shifting inside him, a quiet alignment between himself and the void. It wasn’t instant understanding; it was gradual, like learning to breathe in a new world. The more he existed as what he’d become, the more the void revealed to him.

And Destruction, that affinity was a mirror of his nature. It was chaos given shape, ruin given purpose. It was him.

The harmless black flames around his hand pulsed softly, no longer wild and unpredictable. They breathed in rhythm with his heartbeat. Then the Force energy, dense, visible in its distortion of light, coiled around the flames like an invisible storm, weaving through it until both elements stabilized.

Tier VI Force, rippling and alive, encased the flames of Destruction.

Originus could only be in awe,

Leon didn’t notice this. His eyes were locked on the battlefield below, the Lieutenant and the golden-haired man locked in a furious clash, while Adrian, Rachel, and his clones battled the grey brutes relentlessly. Timing was everything now.

His grip tightened on the Void Blade, the twin forces thrumming through him, begging to be unleashed.

“Just a little longer,” Leon muttered, voice low and calm despite the chaos roaring beneath his skin. “Just a little longer… and I’ll unleash hell.”

****

The air shuddered with every clash.

Lancelot and the golden brute tore through the abandoned city, their movements a blur, one streak of obsidian light against a storm of molten gold. Each impact left shockwaves that split stone and shattered glass, the already ruined streets now sinking deeper into ruin.

The Lieutenant’s spear flickered through the air like a streak of lightning, precise and relentless. “Haa!” he roared, thrusting again and again, the polished shaft whistling as it pierced the creature’s chest, shoulders, and throat in rapid succession.

Each strike landed cleanly. Each time, the golden man didn’t flinch. He didn’t even try to dodge. His body absorbed the blows with dull, heavy thuds, flesh rupturing, light spilling from the wounds like molten metal, only for the damage to heal an instant later.

Lancelot’s grip tightened on his weapon, his jaw clenching.

He no longer hesitated. “Black Star Art—Form Six!”

Dark energy gathered at the spear’s tip, swirling like liquid shadow before vanishing into the weapon’s core. The ground under his feet fractured from the sudden pull of power. Then, with a step forward that cracked the earth, Lancelot pressed the spearhead against the creature’s chest, right as the last of its wounds sealed shut.

“Oblivion.”

The word came out like a command. The compressed energy erupted inward, flooding into the golden man’s body. Cracks spiderwebbed across its skin, faint lines glowing black as if its very existence was tearing apart from within. The creature froze, its mouth twitching open in what should have been agony.

But instead, it smiled.

As the cracks sealed and the glow faded.

Lancelot’s eyes widened, disbelief freezing his breath. “You’re—”

He didn’t finish. As the golden brute’s arm blurred forward, faster than sight.

Boom!

The fist connected squarely with Lancelot’s face, the impact bending air itself. The lieutenant’s body flew backward like a cannonball, tearing through the street before crashing into the city floor with a thunderous explosion of dust and debris.

The ground quaked from the impact, leaving a crater where he landed.

Above, the golden brute straightened, the faint smile still carved on its flawless face.