Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger - Chapter 413

Chapter 413: EX 413. The Weak Have No Right To Get Angry
The governor’s face tightened the moment he looked at Leon. Fear crept into his eyes, raw and unguarded, as his thoughts spiraled down every dark path he had tried not to imagine. Sakura. Nikko.

The word daughter echoed in his mind like a curse. For the first time since the incident with Sakura, Akira Yamamoto looked like a father who was about to lose everything again.

Luke wore a similar expression, though he kept it restrained. He had wanted to ask about Eden from the moment Leon appeared, but now that the governor had spoken first, Luke knew the answer would decide more than one fate.

Leon didn’t let the silence stretch.

“She’s okay.”

Akira froze.

Leon turned his head slightly, meeting Luke’s gaze as well. He had noticed the tension there, the barely contained fear. “So is Eden. They’re all okay.”

Relief washed over both men at once. Akira’s shoulders slumped, as if a weight he had been carrying for months finally loosened its grip. Luke let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

Akira swallowed, then asked quietly, “Then… where are they?”

Leon’s answer was simple. Too simple.

“They’re in another timeline.”

“…..”

Silence fell hard and heavy.

Luke stared at Leon. Akira stared at Leon. Even Selena and Dayton turned toward him, confusion written plainly across their faces.

Another timeline was not a phrase one could just accept and move past.

Akira was the first to find his voice.

“Boy,” he said slowly, “what do you mean by that?”

Leon exhaled. It was a long breath, the kind taken before opening a door that could never be closed again.

“This is going to be a lot to digest,” he said. “So brace yourselves.”

Then he began.

He explained how their trial was never bound to a single place. How its true purpose was to contain the corruption, the origin of demons themselves.

He spoke of awakening a second talent, of changing his race, of gaining control over that corruption instead of being consumed by it.

He told them how that power allowed him to evolve the talents of his squadmates, pushing them beyond what the system had intended.

When they were ready, they went to the main source of the corruption. There, Leon found an answer no one else could.

He turned the empress of an empire into a lesser version of his new race, bending the rules of existence itself to seal the problem rather than destroy the world.

But it didn’t end there.

He spoke of being dragged into a higher plane, where he was told this was the final trial. A higher being then revealed the true history of the world, how it had been destroyed by corruption time and time again, and the ultimate goal they sought to achieve: its salvation.

The goal was simple and cruel. Create a new timeline free from corruption, and use their current world as a sacrifice.

Leon told them he refused.

He told them how he left his squad behind, not because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t risk their lives. He would carry that burden alone. He would stop it, no matter the cost.

When Leon finally fell silent, the world seemed to hold its breath.

No one spoke.

They all stood there, trying to fit an impossible truth into their minds.

Akira was the one who finally broke the silence.

“You’ve been through a lot, boy.”

The words were simple, almost plain, but they carried a weight that pressed down on the ruined ground between them.

The governor did not shout. He did not rage. Strangely, the revelation Leon had laid bare did not ignite anger in him at all.

Perhaps because, deep down, Akira had always known.

Only the powerful had the luxury of anger when treated unjustly. Only the powerful could scream at fate and force it to bend.

The weak could do nothing but watch. And for months now, that was exactly what he and the rest of the trial races had been doing.

Fighting a losing war.

The Lords alone were nightmares made flesh. Beings that even SSS-rank existences struggled to restrain, let alone defeat.

Their greatest source of power had been seized. Their systems crippled. Their future, reduced to a slow, inevitable collapse.

It was never a question of if they would fall, only when.

Yet as Akira looked at Leon, standing there calm and intact, something unfamiliar stirred in his chest.

Hope.

Not the fragile kind that cracked under pressure, but something sturdier. Something dangerous. As long as Leon stood here, alive and breathing, there was a chance. A real one.

Leon felt it. The shift in the air. The unspoken expectations beginning to form around him.

And guilt crept in.

The truth was uglier than the story he had told. The trial, especially toward the end, had not been the desperate, impossible ordeal they likely imagined.

Difficult at first, yes. But by the time he was pushing for extra rewards for his squadmates, it had stopped feeling like a threat at all.

More like an obstacle. One he could step over.

He could not tell them that.

He did not know how they would react if they realized just how far apart their worlds now were. And he did not want to find out.

Leon exhaled slowly, grounding himself.

“It’s fine, Governor,” he said. His voice was steady, almost gentle.

“Enough about me. What happened here?”

His gaze shifted, finally turning fully to his parents. To the place where relief and fear still warred behind their eyes.

“And Valeria,” Leon asked quietly. “What about Valeria?”

The hope that had just begun to bloom hesitated, trembling on the edge of something far more fragile.

***

-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!

Thank you For Reading ^^