Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 364

Chapter 364: EX 364. Request
Malachi, on the other hand, still felt as if pieces of himself were settling back into place.

A low laugh escaped him. It wasn’t mocking. It was the kind someone released after brushing against something impossible. He pushed himself upright, still feeling the remnants of that warm current knitting him whole from the inside.

He looked at Leon with the kind of pride only a warrior could carry after crossing a threshold.

“I have finally reached rank nine,” Malachi said. There was no hesitation. Only certainty. Only triumph.

Leon nodded, arms relaxed at his sides, as if they hadn’t just traded blows that could have split the hall in half. “Good for you,” he said, simple and genuine.

Then he added, without even blinking, “Unfortunately, I’m still at rank seven.”

Malachi stared at him.

Before shaking his head, a faint, tired smile drifted across his face.

He had never been delusional.

He knew from the start that matching Leon was impossible.

But hearing Leon say he was still rank 7 so plainly still stung somewhere deep in his chest.

In Leon’s mind, Originus let out a low hum.

‘I wonder how he’d react if he knew it took less than a year to get to this point.’

Leon ignored him.

Malachi exhaled slowly, steadying himself. Then he said something Leon didn’t expect.

“Can I become your student?”

Leon blinked.

“…What?”

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t shocked. Just a calm, puzzled question.

Malachi pressed on, eyes steady even in his exhausted state.

“There is a reason for this. I feel I can achieve more with you as my master than I can achieve on my own.” His voice shook, but his conviction didn’t.

“Just look at now. With only a small spar with you, I was able to break my bottleneck and ascend. Something I couldn’t do alone, not for years, was done in an instant.”

Leon watched him closely as Malachi took his knees, bowing his head to the ground. The gesture looked strangely natural coming from the beast man.

“So please… take me as your student. I will not disappoint you.”

Leon remained silent for a long moment. The answer was already formed in his mind, but the sight of a proud warrior kneeling like that made it harder to say.

“Unfortunately,” Leon said quietly,

“I can’t.”

Malachi’s shoulders trembled. He looked up, his eyes meeting Leon’s stoic, unchanging expression.

The disappointment hit him hard, but he simply bowed his head once more, accepting it.

He let out a slow sigh.

“If I can’t be your student… then can I at least accompany you personally to the Hallow?”

Malachi was a champion, but he didn’t want to be placed among the rest; rather, he wanted to be by Leon’s side.

Leon didn’t respond right away. A long breath later, he gave a single nod.

“There is no issue with that.”

Malachi’s relief was immediate.

“Thank you.”

After that Leon took him to the imperial palace healers afterward.

The potion had fixed the surface wounds, but Malachi still carried deep internal injuries from the clash. Once he was handed over, Leon headed back toward his quarters, the halls quiet around him.

Originus spoke up again.

‘Why didn’t you accept his offer?’

“Because,” Leon said, “I’m not of this world.”

Originus fell silent for a few seconds.

This world was Leon’s trial, one he would either clear or die in. If he succeeded, he would return to the real world. In both outcomes, nothing he built here could last.

‘That’s a lie,’ Originus suddenly said.

Leon stopped walking, taken aback.

‘Don’t forget,’ the primordial dragon continued, ‘you have me. Wherever you go, I go. Wherever you fall, I fall. And when you rise… I will be there to witness it to the end.’

Leon didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

He reached his chambers a moment later.

The quiet click of the door unlocking felt louder than usual.

When he pushed it open, his eyes widened in shock and Originus’ senses were severed instantly, blocked from seeing anything outside Leon’s mind.

The dragon might follow him everywhere, but even then, there were things he wasn’t allowed to witness.

Inside the room, Nikko and Elizabeth sat on the bed.

Elizabeth knelt behind Nikko, hands on her shoulders, a mischievous spark in her eyes. Nikko sat at the edge of the bed, a faint blush warming her cheeks. They had both already taken their baths, their hair still damp, their skin wrapped only in towels.

Leon closed the door behind him without a word and stepped inside.

****

As the five Pandorian days slipped by, they felt like nothing more than a handful of heartbeats.

In the real world, it would be similar to five months passing due to Pandora’s longer days. Yet here, in the Arman Empire—the closest domain to the Hallow—the air grew heavier by the hour as every ruler gathered for the coming assault.

Armies moved. Commanders argued over strategies. The edges of the continent itself seemed to hold its breath.

But while the rulers prepared their forces, Leon focused on something else entirely.

Inside a quiet meeting room deep within the imperial palace, he sat at the head of a long obsidian table.

His squadmates filled the seats around him, each radiating power that felt almost foreign when he compared it to who they had been when they first stepped into Pandora.

They’d come far. Farther than most in the empire would ever believe.

Eden was seated at Leon’s right. The change in him was impossible to miss. Corruption clung to him like a thin veil of heat, shimmering softly around his shoulders.

Blessing perched there as usual, her small wings tucked slightly while watching the Leon with adoring eyes.

Over the past five days, Eden had taken full advantage of the support Leon and Emperor Alexander offered.

He sought out corruption clusters with a hunger that bordered on obsession.

Each one he claimed poured new strength into his body until he stood solidly at Rank 6—A-rank level by Trial taker standards.

Across the table, Adrian sat upright, the black band of discipline in his posture tighter than ever. His training with Lancelot had reshaped him.

The first form of the Black Star Art had been a wall, brutal and unforgiving.

But once he broke through it, the forms that followed had flowed as if they’d been waiting for him all along.

That compatibility between the art and his extraordinary talent wasn’t something he had imagined.

His aura told the story clearly. He, too, now sat at Rank 6.

Still, neither of them could compare to the presence at Leon’s immediate right.

Elizabeth rested her hands loosely on the table, her expression calm but her aura anything but. What she had undergone these past days had pushed her far beyond the threshold of ordinary trial-taker progression.

She was now a Rank 7—divine stage. The air around her carried a quiet pressure, the kind that made even seasoned warriors instinctively straighten their backs.

It felt like standing too close to a sacred monument.