Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

The door groaned open, and Leon stepped into Pius's chambers.

Nothing.

The room was bare, empty down to the dustless floorboards. Leon raised a brow, his voice flat. "There's nothing here?"

But the prickle at the back of his neck said otherwise. His senses were still stirring, sharp as ever, whispering that something lay hidden.

'No… I'm not wrong. Something's here.'

He took his time, scanning the chamber piece by piece, walls, shelves, floor. His steps carried him to a tall mirror propped against the far wall. The glass reflected him cleanly, but the moment his gaze settled on it, unease coiled in his gut.

"This mirror feels… wrong," he muttered. His reflection stared back, unwavering. "I just can't wrap my head around it."

Then it happened.

The surface of the mirror pulsed with a faint glow, like light rippling through water. Behind him, the floor split open with a grinding hiss, stone sliding aside to reveal a hidden passage.

Leon didn't speak. He only turned, eyes narrowing as he studied the stairwell yawning below. Waiting would solve nothing. Praying for answers even less. He had no one to lean on but himself, and hesitation wasn't in his nature.

He stepped forward and descended.

The staircase spiraled endlessly downward, its stone steps echoing under his boots. One by one, torches lining the walls burst to life with purple flame. Shadows danced, strange and soft. The light should have unsettled him, but instead… it was steadying.

'Feels like purple's my favorite color,' Leon thought idly, dismissing the notion as quickly as it came.

The spiral ended at last. Leon stepped into a cavernous chamber where a massive stone jutted from the earth, its surface slick with a deep, writhing aura. The corruption it radiated hit him like a wave, sharp and suffocating.

He froze, eyes narrowing, breath caught.

"...Shit."

****

The air around the monolith tasted of old iron and cold ash. A chill crawled up Leon's spine the longer he stared at the stone. He wanted to spit Pius's name and curse him for dying without telling him about this, but the words caught in his throat. Respect for the dead held him back.

'No. I shouldn't blame him. Maybe the corruption ate his memory.'

He pushed the thought away. Practicality came first.

'What should I do now?'

Leaving Shantel to rot was an option. It was only a trial, a contested pocket of corruption, not some living enemy. He could walk away and let someone else deal with it. But he was not a coward, and abandoning people when retreat was a choice felt like something worse than fear. Strategic withdrawal was one thing; shirking duty entirely was another.

'If I can't handle it, I'll take the people somewhere else,' he thought.

He looked back at the monolith. Destruction seared through his mind first, strike it and shatter it to dust. The idea tasted wrong. Breaking it might tear open whatever lay inside and spread the corruption wider. That left only one painfully obvious option: move it.

But to move it, he had to touch it.

A cold, irritation slid down his spine at the thought.

'I have to touch that thing. I have to feel what it is.'

****

Leon resolved himself. Enough waiting, enough circling the thought. His steps carried him forward, and he raised his hand without hesitation.

'If this stone was truly dangerous, my senses would've screamed at me by now.' But they hadn't. Not once. That was all the assurance he needed.

His palm pressed against the black surface.

The cold sting he braced for never came. Instead, warmth pulsed beneath his hand, it was alive, steady and rhythmic. The longer he held on, the more it aligned with him, each throb syncing perfectly with the beat of his own heart.

Leon froze, a flicker of doubt running through him.

'This… isn't what I expected.' He had come here thinking of leverage and brute strength, of dragging the stone away if need be. But now? It didn't feel hostile. It felt… scared. Alone. Like something waiting and aching, for someone to stand watch over it.

His grip tightened.

'Do I even need to move it?' The thought slid in unbidden, worming its way deeper the longer he felt its pulse.

That was when the stone answered.

A hiss like tearing cloth filled the chamber as black mist bled from the monolith, thick and choking. It wrapped around Leon's arm, then his shoulders, then his entire body. He had no time to react before the darkness sealed shut, encasing him in a chrysalis of swirling smoke and hardening shadow.

The world outside vanished.

Inside his own mind, Leon plummeted. The ground, the torches, the stone, they were all gone. He fell through a depthless abyss, weightless and sightless, until only the beat of his own heart remained.

His eyes, blank at first, suddenly flared with life, a spark reigniting in the void. He ground his teeth, voice echoing against nothing.

"Fuck… did I just fall for a trap?"

And then the abyss closed around him. Leon Kael was sealed, not in stone, but in his own mind.

****

In the depths of the Tyrant Forest, just beyond the battered city of Shantel, a lone figure walked with silent steps. their robes brushed lightly against the undergrowth, their presence almost swallowed by the night.

But then a sudden glint flashed from the bushes.

The ground shuddered as a massive serpent burst forth, scales rippling with dark light as it lunged at the traveler. Its fangs gleamed, dripping venom meant to kill in a single strike.

But the traveler was already gone.

In the next instant, they stood atop a tree branch not far from where they'd been, robes swaying gently. Their movement was swift, and graceful, like the wind itself had carried them away.

The serpent hissed, coiling, then surged after them with lethal speed. Strike after strike tore through bark and splintered branches, but the figure moved with impossible nimbleness, each dodge light and deliberate, like a fairy dancing just out of reach.

The beast grew furious. Being toyed with by something so small stoked its rage into a frenzy. Its scales glowed with a dangerous purple light, the unmistakable build of a beast skill forming across its body.

And then a voice cut through the forest.

"Crimson Shot."

A streak of red aura tore through the night. As an arrow pierced the serpent's skull before the skill could be unleashed, its body collapsing with a heavy thud that shook the forest floor.

The hood of the traveler slipped back in the wake of the shot, revealing snow-white hair that fell to her shoulders and eyes of clear, cutting emerald. But more striking than either was the pair of long, elegant ears that framed her face.

She lowered her bow with a faint sigh. "Ended up wasting an arrow." For a moment, her lips tightened, but she quickly dismissed it with a shake of her head. "Doesn't matter. I'm almost there."

The hood came up once more, shadowing her features, and she moved on, steps steady, unhurried, toward the city of Shantel.