Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 400

Chapter 400: EX 400. Immortal Talent
Leon floated in the quiet between stars, listening as the woman wearing his mother’s face finally decided he wasn’t going to figure it out on his own.

Her confused stare softened into something closer to resigned patience, and she raised a hand as if guiding a particularly slow student through their first steps.

“Let’s try this a different way,” she said. “What do you know about a parallel line?”

He blinked.

Of all the things he expected, elementary geometry wasn’t on the list. Still, he answered.

“Lines that never meet.”

Her face brightened instantly. She even clapped, like a pre-grade teacher proud that a child managed to add without counting on their fingers.

“Good. Exactly. Now hold onto that.”

Leon stared.

She continued before he could complain.

“I told you the altars act as time machines. They send trial takers into Pandora’s past. Every time someone clears a trial, they affect that past, yet the Trial world, the future of Pandora you know, never changes. Why?”

Leon’s breath stalled as the answer finally clicked.

Parallel worlds.

Of course. It had been in front of him from the start. The trials weren’t replays. They weren’t illusions.

They weren’t rewriting history.

They were creating entire new branches of it.

She nodded as if she could hear his thoughts.

“Exactly. Every trial creates a parallel reality. Every cleared altar births a new version of Pandora, one where the trial takers’ actions became part of that world’s history.”

Her gaze shifted, a faint note of sadness slipping into her voice.

“But every one of those branches still led to the same ending. Corruption swallowed them all.”

Leon felt the weight behind those words. Hundreds of years of trials.

Countless worlds, doomed to the same fate.

“But your trial was different.”

She smiled.

“Your parallel is the only one where the fate of Pandora was changed. The only one where corruption’s cycle was broken.”

Leon’s pulse kicked.

Despite the surreal setting, despite her borrowed appearance, the enormity of it hit him all at once.

He hadn’t just cleared a trial.

He’d rewritten destiny, across worlds.

****

Leon finally saw the pattern, the structure, the truth hidden beneath centuries of confusion.

The woman wearing his mother’s face watched him with an expression that almost looked fond, though the weight behind her eyes marked her as something far older and far stranger than the image she borrowed.

For the first time since arriving in this star-filled void, the pieces aligned. The endless trials.

He drew a slow breath as realization settled.

‘So that was why she had called my trial the final one.’

It wasn’t just another challenge. It was the culmination of every trial that had ever existed.

He thought deeper, the vast constellations around them dimming as his focus narrowed.

“So the countless trials… all of them were meant to prepare trial takers for the one who could change Pandora’s fate,” Leon said quietly.

“For this one.”

The primordial nodded with the soft, approving look of an elder finally watching someone catch up.

“Exactly. Every altar, every confinement zone, every limited scenario, those were stepping stones. Training wheels, if you want to call them that. Small stages for the world to strengthen their chosen. But none ever reached the SSS-VII tier. That trial is the true one. The one that allows a taker to rewrite destiny.”

Her voice became gentle.

“And your case is… unprecedented.”

Leon frowned.

“Because I didn’t refine myself through dozens of trials like others?”

“Because,” she said, “you didn’t need to. You advanced too quickly. Far too quickly. And that made you noticeable.”

Leon’s gaze sharpened.

“You’re the one who sent my squadmates and me into the trial,” he said.

She didn’t blink, or deny it.

“Yes. We monitored all the worlds linked to the Trial Realm. We were searching for the being with the highest development potential, an immortal talent bearer whose growth hadn’t stagnated. When we found you, it shocked even us. You hadn’t even been a trial taker for a year. Yet your strength was brushing the peak of the Ascendant stage.”

She tilted her head slightly.

“You were the only one who qualified for the final trial.”

Leon’s breath stilled.

Then something else she’d said snagged at him, sharp as a hook.

“Wait,” he said. “Immortal talent?”

“Oh, that.” She waved a hand, almost cheerfully.

“Your Overlord talent. It’s one of the immortal-class talents. Only two types exist, Overlord talents and Lord talents. Meanwhile, Saint, Supreme, Extraordinary, and Ordinary talents are all spiritual talents.”

Leon processed that in silence.

EX-rank still hadn’t been mentioned.

He kept that question tucked away for later.

“Then… what’s the difference?” he asked.

The primordial smiled, a soft curve of his mother’s lips that didn’t belong to her at all.

“A spiritual talent loses its potency once the wielder reaches the Divine Stage,” she explained.

“It cannot carry its influence past that point. But an immortal talent…” Her gaze deepened, glowing faintly with an ancient light.

“An immortal talent doesn’t weaken. It remains just as potent, no matter how far you rise. Even beyond the divine.”

Leon swallowed.

“And beyond the divine stage is…?”

Her expression grew solemn, almost reverent.

“The Origin Stage,” she said. “The realm where true primordials walk.”

The word echoed through the void around them, rippling through constellations like a stone dropped into an endless sea.

Leon stood very still as the magnitude of it sank in.

His entire journey, the trials, the Hallow, the corruption, the impossible battles, had been nothing more than a doorway.

A threshold meant to lead to something far greater.

And now that door was finally opening.

****

-Authors Notes-

We finally reached four hundred chapters! Thank you guys for the support so far; this wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Also, the 19-Day challenge is still on! If we stay in the top 50 golden ticket ranking, there will be a mass release. I will need your support so I can focus on it to give you the best experience. Thank you for reading!