Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

The days in Pandora stretched unnaturally long, the sun dragging its light across the sky as though reluctant to set. Despite all that had unfolded, the abomination, the copy, Pascal, the citizens, this day still hadn't ended.

In the courtyard of the Lord's manor, Leon stood alone. The black robe was gone. Instead, he wore only a pair of black training trousers, bare chest gleaming faintly with sweat. His long white hair hung loose, unbound, brushing his shoulders with every movement. The look was unrefined, almost hermit-like. Leon liked it. It made him feel like some wandering sage, though he knew anyone else would probably laugh at the idea.

Exhaling, he summoned his status.

[Status Panel]

Name: Leon Kael

Race: Void Spawn

Age: 19

Class: Warrior

Rank: D-Rank

Talent: {Attack} — EX Rank

{Mark} — Overlord Rank

Status: Normal

Health: 100%

[STATS]

Vitality: 3500

Stamina: 3700

Strength: 3890

Senses: 3678

Speed: 3214

Aura: 3450

Affinity:

Force (IV)

Destruction (I)

[Skills]

[EXTREME ART]

[Inventory]

Leon's eyes lingered on one thing first: his race. Void Spawn.

He still looked human when he stared into the mirror, but subtle shifts betrayed the truth. His skin held a strange luster, almost too clear. His aura had taken on a sharper, heavier edge. And then there was the strangest part, his body simply wasn't hungry anymore.

Normally, after the amount of strength he'd spent today, he could have devoured an entire bear in one sitting. But now, he felt utterly full, satiated, like his body no longer required food. That was impossible. A body doesn't just make energy out of nothing.

"I think I know where it's coming from," Leon muttered, his voice carrying low in the courtyard.

He walked to a shaded corner beneath the wall, where the sunlight didn't reach. The moment he stepped into it, a cool rush swept over him, like plunging into a stream on a blistering day. He closed his eyes, sinking into the sensation.

Then he saw it.

Threads of black energy, so faint they would have been invisible to anyone else, seeped into his skin. His veins drank it in, feeding his core with quiet hunger.

Leon's lips curved in a slow, grim smile.

"My body… is absorbing the darkness."

****

Leon could feel it, every breath he took in the shade seemed to sharpen and strengthen his body. A hum of vigor pulsed through his muscles, quiet but undeniable.

'With this,' he thought, flexing his fingers slowly, 'I'll hardly get tired if I end up in a battle at night.'

Up until now, exhaustion was something Leon had only ever seen in others. His stamina stat had always been absurdly high, a natural wall that stopped him from ever truly draining himself. But this, this was different. With this strange "dark charge", fatigue wouldn't even be a concept anymore, so long as the shadows touched him. The only requirement was darkness, and Leon didn't see that as a weakness. No, he saw it as an edge.

He chose not to move into the sunlight. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the shaded corner, the cool air pressing softly against his bare skin. This new body of his, it held more secrets than the casual absorption of darkness.

The eyes were proof enough of that.

Leon exhaled, deep and slow, calming his breath until the courtyard itself seemed to fade. His heightened senses made inward focus easy. He slipped into it like water.

And what he saw was shocking.

Inside himself, there was no glow of veins, no warmth of blood, no familiar thrum of flesh. Only darkness.

It was not dead, though. No, this darkness was mimicking life.

Where his heart should have been, ripples pulsed outward, rising and falling, echoing a beat. Where his liver should have been, a steady warmth radiated, like coals hidden under ash. And where blood and vessels should have carried life, Leon instead saw shadows flowing through him, coiling and uncoiling like a living swarm.

Then his attention turned to his eyes.

Not eyes. Gateways.

Twin doorways that opened to the abyss within him. A path straight into the void itself, one he carried in his flesh. That was why people got lost in his gaze. They weren't looking at Leon. They were staring into the emptiness inside him.

Leon opened his eyes, violet irises catching what little light the shade offered.

He wasn't afraid. He wasn't even unsettled. He simply sat there in silence, a strange calm running through him.

And then he asked the only question that mattered.

"What have I really become?"

****

Melancholy settled on Leon like a cool cloak. Becoming something other than human was a truth he could wear; he had already moved past the initial shock. When he learned his race had changed, he didn't choose to ponder it. Instead, he checked on the city with Racheal, pulled a child from the sky and returned him to his mother, and did everything to distract himself from the truth. And that drive came from one simple thing: fear.

'I have been scared twice like this in my life,' he thought, the memory sharp. Facing the S-rank demon had not made him flinch. Facing Eleanor's master, the SS-rank demon lord, had not bent his spine. Even fighting a copy of himself had been a test he could meet with teeth and muscle. This was different. This was the fear of the unknown, and it thinned him to the bone.

He remembered the first time the world had opened wrong on him. When he got the memories of his past life as a baby and realized this was another world. Back then the terror had been raw and new, so he had trained until exhaustion was nothing more than a afterthought. He had vowed never to feel that helpless again. Now, with the void nested in his chest and eyes that swallowed people whole, the old vow met a fresh, stranger kind of dread.

'Am I still me?' The question hovered, honest and ugly.

For a moment he let the question sit, let the silence answer with nothing. The thought of being born from corruption, of carrying a void-blooded shape under his skin, could have unmade a lesser man. The impulse toward an existential collapse nudged at him, patient and smiling. He could have doubled over in it. Instead he laughed.

"Hahahahahaha." The sound burst from him low and rough, then loosened into a chuckle. 'What am I doing, acting all philosophical?' He shook his head and let a grin crease his face. 'What if my body is different? What if I am another race entirely? For all I care I can be a slime. That does not change me.'

He straightened, breath even, resolve folding neatly back into place.

'I still have my memories. I still have my beliefs. I still have my will.' The conclusion landed like an iron bar. 'No stupid race is going to change that.' Leon let the last laugh hang, softer now, then finished aloud as if cementing the idea into the world.

"I am Leon Kael."