Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 407

Chapter 407: EX 407. Backup Generator
Leon sat alone in the hollowed-out shelter, the quiet creak of broken metal and wind-swept dust his only company.

Two days trapped in this abandoned corner of the trial world, and still no path out.

He leaned back in the chair that barely held together and muttered,

“I’ve been here two days and I still have no clue how to escape.”

A distant explosion rolled through the empty streets outside. He didn’t bother looking up.

“I can’t fly out either,” he said to himself. “The whole place is basically empty space.”

Another blast hit, heavier than the last, rattling the loose ceiling panels. Dust drifted down across his shoulders. He sighed.

“Which leaves that as the only path for me.”

The third explosion wasn’t just louder. It ripped the wall off its hinges. Concrete folded inward like wet paper, swallowing his table and most of the café in a dull crash.

That finally got him to stand.

He stepped through the new opening, brushing dust from his hair.

“Can you guys destroy things more silently?”

Everything outside froze.

Thousands of corrupt creatures hung motionless mid-movement, their claws and misshapen limbs half-buried in the torn ground. Above them, the violet cloud wrapped around the shelter and the surrounding region shivered like a startled animal.

Leon stared at it.

“Get your goons to work more quietly. I don’t like my thoughts being interrupted.”

The cloud answered at once, its voice rolling like soft thunder.

“Sorry, Master Leon. It won’t happen again.”

A bolt of lightning snapped down, vaporizing one of the creatures. It reformed a breath later, trembling as the cloud barked,

“You heard Master Leon. Dig quietly.”

The creatures instantly began their work, albeit this time they did it silently.

Leon nodded.

“Good.”

He activated Racheal’s talent, and his awareness spread across the entire trial world in a sweeping flash. At every cardinal point, his corrupt legions were doing the same thing: tearing open the ground, widening massive craters as if trying to reach the core of the abandoned world.

Trial beasts scattered in panic or died the moment they wandered too close.

He let the talent fade, the world shrinking back to its ordinary size around him.

“This has to work,” he said under his breath.

****

As Leon oversaw the endless sea of corrupted creatures clawing and tearing through the broken land, his mind drifted elsewhere, to the faces he’d left behind: Elizabeth, Rachael, and Nikko, as well as Adrian and Eden.

A faint, almost wistful smile tugged at his lips. ‘They’re probably furious right now,’ he thought. But leaving them hadn’t been cowardice; it was a necessity. He couldn’t drag them into a fight the Primordials themselves had abandoned.

This burden—this defiance—was his to carry alone.

“It’s better they stay safe in the new timeline,” he muttered, the words fading into the wind.

“I’ll bear this cross myself.”

Just then, the violet cloud hovering above stirred, its voice resonating like a thousand whispers in unison.

“Master Leon,”

Leon tilted his head up, his violet eyes reflecting the swirling mists.

“We are through with the preparations.”

He gave a slow nod.

“You did good.”

“Thank you, Master.”

At once, the corrupted legion ceased their digging and retreated toward his domain, melting back into the darkness that had birthed them.

Silence fell across the desolate trial world.

Leon took a deep breath and stepped into the massive crater that scarred the planet’s heart.

He descended slowly, the air around him vibrating as he reached the core.

“Here goes nothing,” he murmured.

He reached into himself, into the pulsing brilliance of his Origin Core, and drew out its energy. It roared through him like a tidal wave, bursting from his body in radiant waves that flooded through the massive tunnels the legion had carved.

The energy seeped into the hollow veins of the dying world, spreading like light through cracked glass.

The Trial World had once been a hollow fragment of Pandora, sustained by the remnant Origin Energy of that fallen realm. That energy had powered the trials, rewarded the takers, and upheld the balance. But when the new timeline was born, all that energy had shifted, leaving this world nothing more than a corpse drifting in the void.

Leon’s goal was simple: to breathe life into that corpse, even for a moment.

The ground trembled violently as Origin Energy surged through the crust. The planet itself began to glow, a dim ember at first, then a blinding flame visible even from the cold silence of space. Leon gritted his teeth, forcing more power into it. “Come on,” he growled, a guttural scream tearing from his throat as light engulfed the world.

And then, finally—

“Enough,” he exhaled, collapsing onto one knee. He’d done it. The Trial World pulsed with temporary life, its teleportation system flickering awake like a dying heartbeat.

He flew upward, landing on the nearest teleportation pad.

Already, cracks split across the planet’s surface; the fragile world couldn’t contain the raw energy for long.

The trial world, the bastion that the trial races had relied on for the last three centuries, was crumbling.

The world was falling, but the races were still fighting. Leon looked at the dying world one last time.

“This is it,” Leon whispered, as his clone activated the terminal. Runes blazed beneath his feet, swallowing him in pure light.

His body vanished just as the energy began to collapse inward.

The clone he’d left behind stood where he had been, watching the surface fracture and fall apart.

The last thing it saw was the glow fading from the dying world before it exploded in silence, dust, light, and finality consuming the Trial World once and for all.

****

-Authors Note-

19-Day Challenge: If we stay in the Top 50 of the Golden Ticket rankings until the 19th of this month, I will do a mass release on that day.

To make the conditions easier: If the book receives one thousand or more power stones before the 19th, the mass release is guaranteed. I believe we can pull this off, let’s go!