Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 370

Chapter 370: EX 370. Supreme Authority
Everywhere around them, the air stilled as the next aura settled into place.

Leon turned toward the source, and his focus narrowed on Nikko.

Light pulsed around her like a living heartbeat, each wave rising higher than the last until the entire hall felt as if it were breathing with her.

She stood at the center of it all, calm, steady and frighteningly radiant.

Leon didn’t need to probe with his senses to know what had changed.

Her presence alone told the story.

She was no longer just an S-rank divine stage expert; she had torn through that barrier stepping into SS-rank power.

The force of it pressed against the thick walls of the hall, causing even Malachi to straighten without realizing it.

Leon felt a slow smile touch his face.

Primal energy didn’t simply circle her.

It was her.

Every cell in her body carried that ancient, untamed power, dense enough to distort the air. Even with his experience, he found himself studying how it clung to her like a mantle.

Malachi finally exhaled, a short, incredulous sound.

He’d always taken pride in his mastery of primal energy.

Aside from Leon, no one in Pandora had ever outmatched him in that field.

But now, standing before Nikko, he could only stare.

“She pushed me down to third,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

“For something that belongs to the beasts, it’s strange that the two strongest users of it turned out to be human.”

Leon didn’t disagree.

The sight was unusual, almost unnatural.

But it fit her.

Nikko had always carried the weight of her lineage with impossible ease.

A Yamamoto born with a supreme talent and capable of meeting every expectation set before her.

And now that talent, once a symbol of that lineage had fallen away, replaced by something far greater.

Her aura sharpened as the evolution completed. The new power settled into her like a crown.

The Lord talent:

[Throne of the Wild Tyrant].

It suited her perfectly.

Primal, unrestrained and royal in the way storms are royal, it was beautiful, dangerous, and free.

Leon let his arms fall on the armrest, watching the last threads of her awakened power fold into her form.

“Not bad,” he said quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting as she opened her eyes.

There was pride in his voice, but also a knowing acceptance. With this power, she had stepped into a whole realm.

****

Every breath in the hall shifted when Nikko’s aura settled.

Leon faced her fully now, and for a moment he just watched the waves of power rising off her skin like heat off sun-baked stone.

She had always stood apart as the Supreme Heir, but this… this was something else entirely.

Her previous gift, the Supreme-tier Primal Hunter, had been impressive enough.

It let her take on the form of an elite beast-woman hybrid, a perfect balance of speed, ferocity, and instinct.

But elite no longer described her.

The moment her talent shed its old skin and reshaped itself into the Lord-rank [Throne of the Wild Tyrant], she crossed a threshold that no beastborn had ever touched.

She wasn’t a hybrid now.

She wasn’t a peak specimen. She was what the beast clans once claimed their ancestors looked like before dilution stole their purity.

Royalty in the truest sense and flawless with no blemish.

Primal energy didn’t just circulate around her—it lived inside her, saturating every cell until it felt like the hall itself pulsed to her heartbeat.

Nikko’s evolution had done something unprecedented.

Because her primal energy had reached its absolute pinnacle, the height no beast, no matter how old or mighty, had ever climbed—she brushed against the two original primal authorities.

These weren’t abilities or techniques.

They were the roots from which the entire beast-man race had grown. Coravora, the law of devouring flesh. Herbavora, the law of devouring plant.

Even those who reached Rank 9 had never mastered these laws.

They didn’t have the purity required.

But Nikko, for all her overwhelming aura, still hadn’t reached that final rank. So mastery remained out of reach.

Authority, however, did not.

From Coravora came the authority [Flesh-Tyrant God Body] a form blessed with monstrous physical resistance and raw power that made the impossible seem small. Strength. Speed. Impact. She surpassed the limits that warriors and scholars agreed no living being could break.

From Herbavora came [Herbal Emperor’s Blessing] a serene counterpart that washed away affliction. Debuffs, poisons, curses, mental corrosion… all useless.

On top of that, she radiated a steady influence that lifted morale and sharpened clarity, bolstering anyone standing by her side.

As Leon watched her, a quiet certainty settled in his mind. The battlefield would never look the same again.

****

Everywhere around him settled into a quiet hum as the last surge of power calmed.

Leon sat with his right hand propped on his cheek, watching the final strands of Nikko’s aura ease into stillness.

Satisfaction tugged at the corner of his mouth. Her new Lord talent fit perfectly. With it, their squad wasn’t just strong. They were far beyond anything that should reasonably exist.

He ran a slow gaze over the group, arranging them in his mind the way a commander would arrange pieces on a board.

Adrian for defense.

Eden for control.

Racheal for scouting.

Nikko for raw force and support.

The thought almost made him laugh.

If anyone else heard the roles he had casually assigned, they might start coughing blood on the spot.

Who in their right mind would put a man who could counter fate itself into a simple defensive slot? Who would call someone who could slow time a mere controller? Who would take a woman who could read the tapestry of fate and tuck her into the scouting position? And Nikko, blessed with two primal authorities no beast man had ever mastered, labeled as a berserker and healer?

It looked ridiculous.

To Leon, it was perfect.

He felt a warm flicker of pride.

This was his squad. Monsters, every one of them. And somehow, they fit together.

Leon drew in a steady breath, then turned toward the last person whose aura still churned like a storm finding its center.

Wisps of mana twisted around Elizabeth, shifting colors as her body adjusted to the change.

Her eyes were still closed.

Her breathing had deepened. Power curled from her like mist rising off dawn-lit water.

Leon studied the fluctuations with a curious spark in his eyes.

“All right,” he murmured to himself, his tone calm but edged with expectation. “Let’s see what improvement you got.”