Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 380

Chapter 380: EX 380. Last Member
The Dowager was still staring at the ruined field when Eden and Adrian walked past her, the air around them settling slowly after their display.

Leon watched her eyes track the devastation like she was trying to convince herself it had all been an illusion.

She barely seemed to notice the two young men until they were already beside him.

Leon let a small smile tug at his mouth.

“How was the warm up?”

A faint twitch ran across her cheek.

Even from where he stood, Leon felt the flicker of restrained disbelief, almost like her composure cracked for half a breath.

And far away, across the Arman Empire, the rulers watching through the orb nearly toppled off their platform.

Warm up? If that was warm up, no one dared imagine the main event.

Adrian answered first.

“It was a good workout. Now I’m pumped for the real action.”

Leon’s smile widened.

Eden, though, had a different expression, something thoughtful narrowing his eyes.

“It was alright,” Eden said, “but there’s a slight problem.”

Leon raised a brow.

“What problem?”

Eden flicked a glance at Blessing, still perched on his shoulder.

“The corruption. With how many rank nines we just took out, me and Blessing should’ve gotten a heavy amount. Instead… it was smaller than expected.”

For a heartbeat, Leon went blank.

‘Right,.that problem.’

He coughed lightly, pretending to think.

“It’s fine. You just hit the Divine Stage. Your perception probably shifted. Compared to the Ascendant Stage, the difference in scale at the Divine Stage messes with expectations.”

Eeden paused, then nodded.

“You’re right, captain.”

Leon exhaled inwardly.

‘Thank the stars he bought that.’

“You two did good,” he said simply.

Adrian and Eden both nodded before stepping behind him with the others, quiet and disciplined now that the warmup was done.

And that was when Originus rumbled in the back of Leon’s mind, voice dry as dust.

‘You really know how to bullshit people. Are you sure you weren’t a scammer in your past life?’

Leon kept his face straight.

‘What am I supposed to say? That because he became my lord, any corruption he absorbs gets funneled straight to me and I take ninety percent?’

The primordial dragon went silent, and Leon felt the quiet agreement settle between them.

‘Exactly,’ Leon thought.

‘It makes me look like an extortionist.’

But the truth was simple.

By making Adrian, Eden, Nikko, Elizabeth, and Racheal his lords, they were technically linked to him, thus becoming extensions of his existence.

That was why Adrian, who wasn’t a corrupt being, could still kill corrupt creatures.

And why every bit of corruption any of them harvested flowed directly to Leon.

One hundred percent for the normal ones.

Ten percent left behind for Eden because of his unique nature.

Leon sighed inwardly.

‘I’ll make it up to him somehow.’

He let all that fall away and stepped toward the Dowager, who still looked half-stuck between awe and uncertainty. Her eyes drifted from the scorched earth to the young man walking toward her.

Leon stopped a few paces away.

“So,” he asked calmly, “can we go in now?”

****

Luna studied Leon for a quiet moment.

Her gaze held the sort of caution that came from centuries of rule and three years of corruption-born solitude.

When she finally spoke, her voice carried steady resolve.

“You may enter. But only if you answer a question.”

Leon lifted a brow, curious rather than tense.

“Are you from the stars?”

The question stopped him for a heartbeat.

Even the rulers watching through the viewing orb leaned in, sensing the weight behind her words. Luna was not asking about his birthplace.

She was asking if he stood among the first beings.

If he was one of the Primordials.

Leon felt the meaning settle over him.

He knew this moment would come eventually. He inhaled softly.

“Initially,” he said, “but now I’m not.”

Silence followed.

Luna blinked once. The rulers beyond the orb exchanged looks but said nothing.

Leon could feel Originus shift faintly in the back of his mind.

He remembered what the dragon had told him. After bonding with him, Leon had learned of his nature as a primordial, but that nature had not lasted.

He was no longer one of the stars.

What he had become was something else entirely, a being shaped by the void rather than the origin light.

Luna held his gaze, trying to understand the edges of that truth.

She did not fully grasp it, but she accepted enough.

‘Previously.’

The single word carried her confusion.

A primordial who no longer was one.

A paradox.

But it explained much. The strength of the two boys who fought for him. The unshaken loyalty. The strange way corruption bent around his presence.

Primordials had their own rules, and those rules often ignored the boundaries ordinary beings lived under.

Luna let out a controlled breath.

“Very well,” she said. “I will take you to the core region.”

She turned and stepped into the mist ahead, her silhouette gliding between the pale streamers of drifting light.

Leon followed beside his squad, the ground beneath them dimming under the pressure of the barrier’s outer law.

The air shifted as they walked, the periphery thinning with every step.

The rulers watching from afar stayed silent. Leon could feel their tension even across the distance. Pandora’s fate waited somewhere ahead, wrapped in the heart of the Hallow.

And Leon walked toward it without slowing.

****

Deep within the core region, far below the drifting mists that marked the periphery, the Hallow finally showed its true nature.

The air was heavier here.

It was thick and alive.

Corrupt creatures prowled through the gloom in slow, deliberate patterns, each footfall cracking the ground as if the stone itself recoiled from them.

Their bodies pulsed with power that had long surpassed Rank 9.

Their existence alone felt intrusive, as if they were mistakes carved into reality.

And yet, despite their monstrous strength, they didn’t move far.

They circled something as if Guarding it.

At the center of their patrol stood two massive obsidian pillars driven deep into the earth like spears stabbed by a vengeful god.

Chains hung from them, glowing a sickly purple, alive with corruption that writhed like worms under skin.

Bound between the pillars was a woman.

Eleanor.

If Leon or any member of his squad had been here, they would have recognized her instantly, despite the state she’d been reduced to.

Her hair, once a lustrous blond hung in matted clumps.

Her once-bright eyes were dulled, half-lidded, flickering with threads of consciousness. Corruption bled across her skin like black roots, crawling over her arms and down her neck as if claiming her inch by inch.

Her breaths were shallow. Her body had grown gaunt, but not with starvation.

It was the corruption feeding on her, hollowing her out from within.

A low vibration suddenly rolled through the core region too soft to be a quake, too sharp to be wind.

It wasn’t a physical sound.

It was a presence shaping itself into a voice.

A whisper that didn’t come from any single direction.

It came from everywhere.

“A being whose origin is not of this world…”

The corrupt creatures froze in place, bowing their heads as the voice continued.

“What a pleasant gift.”

The chains binding Eleanor tightened, drawing a weak cry from her lips.

Corruption crawled faster across her skin, responding to the owner of the voice.

“I will enjoy corrupting that world as well.”