Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 392

Chapter 392: EX 392. Confrontation
What Leon had done to the lunatic wasn’t something necromancy could patch over.

Death was supposed to mean the collapse of body, mind, and soul.

He had attacked far more than that. His strike had torn into the creature’s fate itself, cutting through the thread that anchored its existence.

That was why he hadn’t even considered using Elizabeth’s talent.

Her power could call a corpse back from the veil, but this thing hadn’t simply died.

It had been erased.

Nothing remained to resurrect.

So he had reached for something else.

He’d taken inspiration from Elizabeth’s talent, the idea of pulling a fallen being back, and fused that with Adrian’s authority to rebel against destiny. Concept layered on concept.

Possibility forced into a place where none existed.

On the lunatic, he’d applied that insight—countering its fatal fate, stitching the severed thread, forcing a future back into something that had none.

And it worked.

For a moment.

Then the flaw revealed itself.

There was nothing to receive the counterweight. Fate corrected itself by collapsing inward, rebounding directly onto the lunatic.

Each rebound killed it.

Each collapse wiped it out all over again. Leon could only bring it back, but he couldn’t stop the follow-through.

Its fate was already sealed, and there was nowhere else for the backlash to go.

He had repeated the revival too many times.

The strain formed a loop before he realized it, existence and nonexistence snapping back and forth like a flickering light he could no longer reach.

The energy fueling this wouldn’t last forever. When it drained out, the lunatic would be done permanently.

Its memory, its presence, even the echo of it in reality would disappear.

Below, the ruined steps trembled as another blast of gore scattered outward.

The lunatic re-formed again, red eyes trembling as it collapsed to its knees.

“Please—have mercy—” it choked out.

Then it detonated again.

Leon didn’t bother looking at it anymore.

He pushed off the shattered stone and lifted into the air, angling toward the squad.

Behind him, the lunatic came back screaming, tried to stand, blew apart again, returned, begged, and fell apart once more, its existence trapped in a loop with no exit.

He touched down near the others.

The Dowager’s gaze drifted past Leon, back toward the pitiful creature cycling through existence and non existence.

“Are you going to leave it like that?” she asked.

Leon didn’t hesitate.

“I don’t see an issue with that.”

The Dowager considered him for a moment, then nodded.

“Neither do I.”

He released the force domain he’d wrapped around the group, the field fading like a curtain drawn back.

He kept one thing active, though, the interference he’d woven to block the lunatic’s communication.

It didn’t deserve to scream to anyone for help.

A small, crooked smile tugged at his mouth as he felt the distortion hum at the edge of his senses. ‘Eden’s talent is pretty useful.’

The squad set off again without looking back.

Behind them, the lunatic kept flickering through existence, trapped in its collapsing fate.

It would suffer until the loop burnt itself out.

And when the energy finally died, it would vanish completely, memory, presence, and meaning wiped away as if it had never lived at all.

****

Deep in the core region of the hallow, the chained girl’s screams cut through the dark.

Eleanor hung between the pillars, her resonance pulled from her inch by inch.

The voice that ruled this place had been savoring the process, its attention fixed on how her cries sharpened whenever the extraction tightened.

Then it froze.

A ripple of confusion passed through the void as the voice drew back its focus.

“That is strange… my connection with Ragul has been severed.”

The hum of draining resonance faltered for a heartbeat, forcing a whimper out of Eleanor.

The voice ignored her.

“Let me have a look.”

It reached toward its vassal, toward the direction where it had sent Ragul to hunt the intruders. But all it touched was an empty, drifting silence. No mind. No presence. Nothing but the distant churn of void creatures roaming through the dark.

The voice hissed.

“Impossible.”

Then, just as suddenly—

“Ah… the connection has returned.”

It latched onto Ragul.

“Ragul. Report. What is happening? Where are the intruders?”

What came back was not a report.

It was broken muttering.

“Spare… please… m-mercy… have… spare…”

The voice faltered, genuinely confused. It tried to press for answers—

—but Ragul exploded.

A sharp burst of force rippled through the void, enough to disrupt every tentacle of influence the voice had anchored into the hallow.

It jerked back in shock.

Before it could gather its thoughts, Ragul reformed… only to start rambling again.

Then he blew apart again.

And again.

Each time the collapse hit, the voice reeled harder than before.

For the first time it forgot Eleanor entirely, leaving her hanging and shivering while it tried to understand the impossible cycle unfolding through its link.

It gathered itself to speak but a different voice cut across the void.

“Eleanor?”

The words drifted through the pillars, calm and young, almost out of place in the choking dark.

The core’s master stilled.

Its attention snapped to the source.

Leon stood there, framed between two jagged pillars, eyes fixed on the bleeding girl suspended above the ground.

“How did you get here?” The entity ask genuinely shocked.

But Leon didn’t spare the entity even a glance.

His expression didn’t settle into anger or pity… just a cold, unreadable stillness.

He didn’t know what to feel. She had betrayed them. Hurt them. Nearly killed them.

But this?

Even betrayal didn’t feel like enough to deserve this.

The voice finally found itself again. Its tone rumbled with a rising fury.

“You… dare ignore me?”

The void crackled. Thunder rolled like metal being torn apart.

Bolts of corrupted lightning forked through the dark as new shadows stirred.

Dozens of twisted creatures crawled out of the black, their forms bending and reforming with every step.

The voice finished its roar as they closed in.

“Are you courting death”

****

-Authors Note-

19 day challenge is still going on, I believe we can do this let’s go!