Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 384

Chapter 384: EX 384. Wake Up To Reality
The battlefield had fallen silent by the time the last corpse hit the steps.

Elizabeth released a quiet breath as the glow of her pseudo-draconic form slipped away.

The sigils faded, the horns receded, and the oppressive aura vanished like a pulled tide.

All across the wide white staircase, her undead collapsed one after another, freed from the command that bound them.

Only a select few shuddered before dissolving into motes of pale energy, slipping into the space she reserved for her legion.

She kept the rest of that space untouched.

A necromancer lived by numbers, yes, but Elizabeth wasn’t planning to be a simple necromancer.

She wanted to be adaptable, efficient and deadly in more ways than one.

Leon and the others descended toward her, their steps mixing with the fading echoes of slaughter.

The Dowager followed last, her gaze fixed on the blood-soaked stretch of steps with a wordless, tight-lipped stare.

For someone of her age and power, she looked almost… rattled.

When Leon reached Elizabeth, his arms were around her before she could react.

He tugged her in by the waist and pressed a quick peck against her cheek.

“That was magnificent, Lizzie.”

Her earlier sadistic grin vanished as her cheeks warmed.

She angled her face down, voice soft and small in a way only Leon ever heard.

“As long as I did well.”

That was all it took for jealousy to flare.

“I’m handling the next obstruction.”

“No. I am”

Nikko had spoken immediately but Rachel countered without missing a beat.

“I said it first. And according to Leon’s Law, section sixty-seven: first come, first serve.”

Rachel stared at her as if she’d grown a second head.

“There is no law like that.”

Their argument broke out properly after that, sharp whispers and pointed jabs echoing across the steps.

The Dowager finally tore her eyes away from the devastation Elizabeth had caused, watching the two girls bicker as if they were the strangest creatures she had seen yet.

Behind her, Adrian, Eden, and Malachi stood very still, unwilling, unprepared, and entirely uninterested in entering that storm.

Far above, through the viewing orb, the rulers could only watch in stunned silence.

The carnage, the casual banter and Elizabeth clinging to Leon like a koala, her earlier bloodlust nowhere to be seen.

“What an amusing bunch,” the Dowager finally murmured.

Leon gently pried Elizabeth off him, earning a faint pout, then placed himself between Nikko and Rachel before their bickering escalated into something worse.

“When the time comes,” he said, calm and firm, “I’ll decide who handles the next obstacle.”

Nikko crossed her arms.

“Okay, Leo.”

Rachel’s expression softened instantly.

“Anything you say.”

Leon nodded once, stepping ahead, ready to move on.

Originus’ voice drifted through his mind with a dry rumble.

‘Way to take charge.’

Leon didn’t bother responding. He simply kept walking as the Dowager resumed her quiet, steady lead down the Steps of Liberation, the group following her deeper into the hollowed abyss.

****

The scream tore through the core region like metal scraping bone.

Eleanor writhed against the two pillars that held her in place, her voice breaking as the presence inside the void pushed deeper into her being.

It clawed at her trial resonance, prying at it with a hunger that bordered on madness.

The voice had studied her for a long time, long enough to understand two chilling truths.

First, she was broken.

Far more broken than anything it had ever encountered.

Her spirit looked as if the universe had singled her out for one purpose: to suffer, endlessly and without mercy.

A vessel like that would make a perfect and powerful cluster guardian.

Second, something was latched onto her soul.

Not a parasite. Not a blessing.

Something hibernating, and eerily similar to the voice itself.

Its strength was pitiful, yet its nature… its nature was more refined, like a perfected version of what the voice was meant to be.

So it dug deeper, sifting through the sleeping being’s existence, and there it discovered the truth that shook it to its core.

Its own existence had been a lie.

That was why it needed the girl’s resonance.

That was why it didn’t care what breaking her would cost.

Freedom was worth any price.

Eleanor’s screams spiked again, echoing across the hollowed expanse.

The voice’s attention suddenly twitched.

A ripple brushed against its senses, it was cold, heavy and unmistakably tied to the dominion of death.

It had missed the intruders earlier, too focused on peeling the girl apart.

But that power, sharp enough to cut through the void; it was impossible to ignore.

A massive shape suddenly descended in front of Eleanor, shaking the ground on impact.

At first glance, it looked like a towering behemoth, but the edges flickered wrong, too flat, too dark. It was a shadow.

And standing at the center of that shadow was the real creature.

He looked human, if one ignored the chains locked around his limbs and the iron collar biting into his neck. His white hair hung in ragged clumps, and his body was so thin he seemed carved from starvation itself.

His eyes, blood red and vacant held the lifeless madness of a creature long stripped of thought.

The voice spoke with a command that rolled like sludge.

“Go. Bring our guests to me.”

The chained figure didn’t hesitate.

He turned, shuffling at first, each step slow and almost lazy.

Yet his behemoth-sized shadow crashed into the void beneath him, making it tremble with every movement.

Then, without warning, the creature crouched low and launched itself forward.

BOOM!

The air cracked around him.

A blur shot into the void, straight toward Leon and his squad.

The voice watched him vanish into the dark and murmured, almost amused, almost eager,

“Early Divine Stage experts dare intrude in my territory… and that woman is with them. She eluded me all these years because of that mist. Now I can finally erase a pest.”

There was no worry in its tone. No caution.

After all, the thing it had just unleashed hovered one step away from surpassing the peak.