Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 324

Chapter 324: 324. Grief
The clone raised its hand, void shadows rippling across its arm. Its concealment would have to drop here. The pulse from the pearl was too strong meaning Elizabeth was not that far.

A tiny flame burned in its palm, it was faint yet dangerous. It didn’t give off heat or light; it just existed, eating at the space around it. The Flame of Destruction, a fragment of the power Leon had shared before the clone departed.

only to be used when necessary.

Now was necessary.

The clone pressed its palm to the wall. Instantly, the flame winked out, snuffed by its own purpose. Silence followed for half a breath… then a low hiss began to crawl through the wall as destruction spread like ink in water, consuming everything in its path.

The clone retreated, its body blending into shadow behind a collapsed column.

Then—

BOOM.

The explosion tore through the hall, shaking the palace. Fragments of molten stone rained across the corridor, and smoke filled the air. Through the drifting haze, a jagged hole gaped where the wall had once stood—beyond it, faint light flickered.

****

A large boom rolled through the palace.

As the hall shuddered like a sleeping giant. The Rank-9s and rank-8s who had stayed behind felt the shock in their bones. An elderly rank-9 rose first. volunteering to check the source of the explosion. Two more rank 9s volunteered and vanished in a ripple.

****

At the mountain border, Eragon’s detectors screamed in the dragon lord’s mind due to the the explosion.

‘It can’t be, the boy played me’ Eragon thought as he felt the place where he kept Elizabeth getting breached.

But as he turned to face Leon.

His legs suddenly, jerked back of its own accord. It felt like his body was trying to tell him to get away at all costs, it was as if his body had predicted a future the dragon lord failed to see. Eragon just stared at the limb, then back at Leon.

‘Am I afraid of the boy?’ The thought tasted like an insult.

But the person in question didn’t move.

Eragon pushed the moment into words as he steadied himself. “Now that you found out, what do you plan to do?”

Silence rounded the question. But Leon did not fill it. He let the quiet do the work. The dragon’s impatience grew like a storm. As the Dragon lord spat out anger and threats. “Say something, boy. So you think I am afraid? If not for your usefulness, I would have killed you ten thousand times over.”

A smirk, that was Small and thin but had no humor found itself on Leon’s face as he finally responded to the soon to be dead dragon.

“Get your affairs in order, because next time we meet, I’ll be taking your head.”

The words landed with cold finality.

Eragon’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks. As rage flared, but before he could act. Leon’s hand moved.

A Simple paper talisman blinked into existence between his fingers. Alexander had given Leon many of such talismans incase of emergencies. It glowed pale and steady and in the next moment motes of light braided up from it like dust caught in a sunbeam. The glow spread, as Leon felt the pull and let it take him.

The Light closed around him and just like that he was gone in a clean blink. Eragon stood among the smoking ruins and watched the empty air where the boy had been. “Have my head?” Eragon muttered, teeth bare. “We will see whose head is taken.”

****

Back in the palace, Leon’s clone stood before Elizabeth. The wall behind her had been blown open, destroying every trap and ward that once sealed the room. Yet the clone hesitated, Elizabeth’s condition made it freeze, afraid that its master might see her like this.

The clone knew Leon had sensed its signal, it had informed him that she was nearby, but not what it had discovered. That was something its master would have to see for himself. Shaking off the distraction, the clone stepped forward.

Elizabeth lay on the cold stone, still unconscious after the loud explosion. Her clothes were torn in several places. Dark lash marks cut through fabric and skin. And yet she did not wake. The sight said how bad it was.

A voice bellowed through the chamber. “How dare you invade the palace of the dragons.” The rank-nine dragon that had volunteered to investigate arrived from the hall. But the clone reacted fast. It pressed a talisman against Elizabeth’s chest. The token flared and the attack that followed struck the clone, then the talisman burned white and Elizabeth vanished.

The rank-nine dragon clicked his tongue realizing that he might have let a prisoner of their Lord escape.

In the next moment red flames filled the room. Eragon had arrived. The two other rank-nines and the first bowed as one. “My lordship,” they intoned.

Eragon did not look at them. He stared at the empty cell, silent for a long beat. Then he turned and stepped through the hole in the wall. The dragons followed, stunned by his restraint.

As he left, his thought hung in the smoke like a blade.

‘If it is war you want,’ he thought, ‘I will be most obliged to give you war.’

****

In the imperial palace, Leon stood motionless, his gaze still cold. He had escaped the Dragon Lord, but now, all that mattered was Elizabeth. His clone should have already used the talisman on her.

And right on cue, the air in front of him rippled. As a figure began to materialize. Leon’s lips curved slightly, relief flickering across his face, but then he froze.

For a moment, the world stilled. His void heart thundered, each beat heavier than the last, and that strange, hollow pulse within him quickened as his breath caught.

“…Lizzie?” he whispered.

In the next moment gravity took hold as the unconscious Elizabeth fell. Leon seeing this moved before any proper thought could form, catching her in his arms before she touched the floor. Her body was cold and her heartbeat was faint.

Holding her close, Leon’s eyes traced the marks that covered her. Torn fabric. Whip lines. Dried blood. And then, the stitches. His expression hardened, trembling between rage and disbelief.

Leon rested her head against his shoulder. Her pulse was there, it was weak but steady enough to give him something to cling to. His throat tightened and his hands shook.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, voice breaking.

He stayed that way for a long time, unmoving. The silence around him was heavy, almost sacred. Even Originus, the ancient being who never hesitated to speak, said nothing. There were no words that could reach him now.