Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 357

Chapter 357: EX 357. Final Ceremony
A cool wind swept across the open arena as the goat man lifted his hand.

Above him, a broad stone stage hovered in the air, humming with a faint silver glow. In the next instant, light rained down across its surface. Figures took shape one after another, each landing with a brief shimmer of energy.

A hundred contestants now stood there, the final survivors after thousands had been eliminated. These were the ones chosen for the coming campaign against the Hallow.

Nikko and Malachi appeared last.

Their arrival hit like a small shockwave, a leftover surge from the forms they’d just released.

A few nearby contestants staggered back, but both Nikko and Malachi quickly suppressed their auras. Malachi shook off the lingering golden spark along his arms.

Nikko steadied her breath, her muscles returning to their normal shape as the last strand of white-green hair settled across her shoulder.

Malachi glanced her way, staff resting against his shoulder.

“We will finish our fight later,” he said with a soft.

Nikko watched him for a long heartbeat, expression unreadable, then gave a quiet nod. They separated without another word, each taking their place among the hundred.

High above, the goat man tapped a microphone, his voice rolling across the crucible.

“Great people of Pandora, here are your champions.”

The crowd erupted.

The sound swallowed the whole arena. Cheers shook the stands as civilians and professionals alike hailed the hundred divine-stage experts who would march against the Hallow.

The goat man raised a hand again, preparing to announce their preparations for the campaign.

“And now, our champions will begin their prepar—wait… who is that?”

His voice cracked off-beat. Something had shifted.

A man now stood on the stage.

No light had signaled his arrival. No ripple in the arena’s barrier. He was simply there, like he stepped through a curtain no one else could see. The goat man’s heart thudded once, hard. ‘Impossible. I hold absolute control of this space.’ Yet an intruder had slipped past everything.

Before he could speak, the stranger walked forward with a casual, familiar ease, heading straight toward Nikko.

Her body tensed. She dropped into a guarded stance, primal instinct curling beneath her skin. The man only smiled at her reaction, a slow, shameless grin that tugged at memory.

Recognition struck her like a stone.

“…Leon?” she breathed.

“I’m wounded,” he said, placing a hand on his chest. “You don’t remember the future father of your kids?”

The world stopped.

Nikko froze, mind blank for a heartbeat. Only one person spoke that recklessly.

Only one person would dare say something like that while surrounded by divine-stage experts. She closed the gap between them in a single leap, crashing into him with enough momentum to knock a lesser man flat.

Leon didn’t move an inch. His arms wrapped around her as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

Silence fell across the arena.

One contestant whispered, voice trembling with disbelief.

“Did… did she call him Leon?”

A chill rolled through the crucible. The name spread like a spark in dry grass. Every divine expert present, every spectator in the stands, felt their blood run cold.

****

A ripple of unease moved through the arena the moment his name spread on the wind.

For Cycles, Leon Kael had been a name sewn into every corner of Pandora. Stories of him traveled faster than merchants, carried by trembling officials and awestruck soldiers.

The rulers themselves had spoken his name with rare weight, praising the mysterious outsider who had torn apart the corruption. Others whispered about the way he had walked alone into Dragon Mountain and returned with the sky burning behind him.

Everyone knew the name.

No one had ever seen the face.

So when a young man appeared on the Champions’ stage as if the world simply allowed him to exist there, the crowd forgot how to breathe.

Ninety-nine Divine-stage experts, fresh from battle, stared at him like prey sensing a predator. Even the goat man, guardian of the crucible, felt his heart thud in a warning rhythm.

Only Nikko moved.

Well—moved was wrong. She launched.

Her arms wrapped around Leon, nearly knocking him backward, and for a heartbeat the entire arena didn’t know what shocked them more: that someone had slipped past the goat man’s authority, or that a supposed champion, was clinging to him like she’d found her lost half.

Up in the spectator stands, Elizabeth exhaled a long-suffering sigh.

She glanced at the empty seat beside her, then slouched back in her chair with a quiet grumble.

“He could have at least brought me along.”

Down on the stage, Nikko finally forced herself to pull away from Leon, though her hands lingered on his arms as if afraid he would vanish again. Her voice cracked around the first breath she managed.

“How did you even get here—?”

But she stopped.

Her gaze sharpened. The primal instincts she trained since childhood stirred, reading the pressure rolling off him like heat from a furnace. Her pupils tightened. Color drained from her cheeks.

“You’re at…” She swallowed, chest rising once, sharply.

“You’re at S-rank!”

****

Nikko froze as the truth sank in. Leon stood right in front of her, radiating a quiet pressure that didn’t belong to an ordinary fighter.

It wrapped around him like a second skin, familiar yet impossibly stronger than anything she remembered.

When she sensed the depth of it, her breath hitched.

She stared hard, trying to measure it again to be sure. She wasn’t wrong.

He had reached S rank.

A faint tremor slid through her fingers.

‘It hasn’t even been a year.’ The thought rolled through her like a shockwave.

Leon had climbed past her without warning.

She knew he was gifted.

She knew he worked harder than anyone she had ever met.

But this? She hadn’t been prepared for it.

For a heartbeat she wondered if she should feel embarrassed or discouraged, then she realized she didn’t feel either.

Heat bloomed under her skin, warm and strangely proud.

The corner of her mouth threatened to lift.

‘He really surpassed me when I wasn’t looking.’

Then another realization struck her.

This one sent a flush straight across her cheeks.

‘If he is stronger than me now… does that mean…’