Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 391

Chapter 391: EX 391. Uncontrollable
Deep within the swirling quiet of the ruined staircase, Leon watched the creature buckle.

The lunatic dropped to both knees, chains dragging, its whole frame trembling as sweat and corruption bled together across its warped skin. The void around them flickered with the afterglow of yet another forced death.

“P-please… let me die…” its voice cracked, raw with a kind of agony even corrupt beings weren’t meant to endure.

Leon said nothing yet.

He simply studied it, the faint violet shimmer still lingering in his eyes.

The lunatic’s body kept shivering.

Every few breaths, its limbs twitched as if remembering the sensation of being torn apart. Leon hadn’t physically touched it, not really.

He didn’t need to. Each time he willed it, its form ruptured again into mist, scattered across the void, then reassembled moments later… only to repeat the cycle.

Dozens of times. Hundreds, maybe. Even Leon had lost count.

For a corrupt creature, existence was already built on torment.

Their immortality came with constant internal suffering, a gnawing pain woven into their being. But what Leon did surpassed anything the lunatic had endured since the day it lost its sanity and devoured its first victim.

It had lived a long, ugly life even before corruption claimed it, a mass murderer who sacrificed sanity to strengthen his progression to Rank 9 of the divine stage.

He was a wielder of the Law of Negation. A monster long before he became an inmate of the Hallow.

He remembered, if remembering was the right word, the day the old Dragon Lord found him.

The man’s rampage through the Dragon Mountains ended only after twenty straight days of battle.

The Dragon Lord had been driven mad with grief. His son was supposed to inherit his throne.

Yet the lunatic took that heir’s life instead.

The dragon’s vengeance was absolute. He didn’t kill the madman.

He sealed him away.

The Hallow had been a memorial to the Beast God’s fall, but it doubled as a cage for the worst Pandora had ever produced.

And the lunatic had rotted there for centuries, his mind decaying further with every passing year.

When corruption finally broke into Pandora and seeped into the Hallow, transforming every prisoner within, he had tasted a new type of agony, different, deeper, endless.

And yet even that paled in comparison to what Leon was doing to him now.

The creature lifted its head slowly.

Its jaw trembled. Its red eyes were no longer manic, only terrified.

Truly terrified.

Because nothing in all the suffering of his existence… felt like this.

And standing before him was a boy too calm, too quiet, too deliberate.

A boy who could see every flaw in his being and strike those flaws directly as if swatting dust from the air.

A devil in human skin.

Leon rested Voidblade casually against his shoulder.

“I didn’t expect you to try and kill yourself so soon… You haven’t even given me the answer yet.”

The lunatic’s breath hitched.

There was no defiance left, no laughter, no arrogance, no threats.

Only a creature that realized, finally, that it was in the hands of something far worse than the corruption that once consumed it.

Leon tilted his head slightly, watching the fear settle into the creature’s bones.

There would be no mercy here.

Not for something that threatened his people.

And especially not for something that dared lay claim to one of his.

****

High above the shattered battlefield, Eden cut through the air beside the others.

The wind tugged at his coat as he glanced down at the chaos unfolding below and let out a low breath.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him act like this.”

Elizabeth nodded without taking her eyes off Leon. Adrian did the same.

All three had undergone the one-year training together, and they knew this side of Leon well enough, the one that came out only when someone crossed a line so badly that even his patience snapped.

It wasn’t common, but it was unforgettable every time.

Nikko watched with a thoughtful frown, having only caught glimpses of this side of him before. Rachel, on the other hand, was seeing it for the first time.

Her heartbeat thudded faster, a rush of heat rising through her chest as Leon’s shadowed smile lingered in her mind.

Malachi floated beside the dowager, both silent observers.

The dowager’s earlier excitement, watching the arrogant lunatic get humbled had faded the moment the creature dropped to its knees and started begging.

Crushing pride was entertaining. Watching a groveling dog… less so.

Now she only wanted Leon to finish it and spare everyone the pathetic display.

Even so, curiosity still lingered.

How was he killing the lunatic again and again? And how was he bringing it back?

Down on the broken steps, the lunatic trembled on his knees, arms raised, voice cracking as he begged for mercy.

The pleas barely lasted a moment before his body burst apart, erased from existence in a bloom of gore and light.

A heartbeat later, he reformed, breath shuddering, eyes empty with terror and immediately dropped to his knees again.

Somewhere deep in Leon’s mind, Originus’ amused tone rolled through like distant thunder. ‘Boy, haven’t you had your fun yet?’

Leon didn’t answer.

His expression stayed the same, calm, cutting and almost bored.

Originus was silent for a stretch before the dragon’s voice returned, heavier this time.

‘Wait… don’t tell me you don’t know how to stop it.’

Leon coughed lightly, as if dust had caught in his throat. It didn’t fool the primordial being for a second.

‘How is that possible?’ Originus pressed.

Leon let out a quiet sigh and answered in his mind.

‘It’ll stop on its own. Eventually.’

He felt Originus waiting, so he explained what he had done.

As an Overlord-talent bearer, he carried the talents of those beneath him, and Rachel’s talent, in particular, had laid everything bare. Through her eyes, he’d seen the flaw in the lunatic’s existence itself, a fracture in its very concept.

His strike hadn’t stopped at the physical. It sank deeper, slicing into what the creature was, erasing the idea of it for an instant.

That kind of pain wasn’t meant for any living thing to comprehend.

The body, mind, and soul weren’t built to endure it.

Their only instinct was to survive, to adapt—to develop a primal terror strong enough to avoid that sensation forever.

That was why the lunatic groveled as if its life depended on it.

Because it did.

But that part… the fear, the dread—that was easy.

The real problem was the other half of what Leon had done.

Bringing the lunatic back.

And unfortunately… that part wasn’t stopping anytime soon.

****

-Authors Note-

Will be busy later in the day so early chapters today.