Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Lancelot didn't rise immediately. He remained half-buried in the crater, the shattered earth swallowing him as he stared upward in silence. His mind wasn't clouded with rage, no, it was confusion. A single thought pulsed again and again: 'How many abilities does that boy have?'

There was a reason behind his disbelief.

Professionals gained their abilities through mastery of their Arts. One rank, one form. Rank 1 had a single Art Form, Rank 2 had two, Rank 3 had three, and so forth. That was the rule, the law that every practitioner in Pandora had lived by since the dawn of cultivation.

Yes, one could supplement their arsenal through spells or techniques, but such paths demanded years of dedicated study. Juggling multiple techniques was rare even among the most talented. Yet this boy—this rank 3—was wielding attacks as though his Arts had no limits.

Lancelot's jaw tightened. "Three… he should only have three. The aura cross strike. The cleaving slash. The lightning blade. That much, I can handle." He exhaled through his nose, cold and certain. "I'll drain the lightning with Absorption. As for the others… I'll tank them and disrupt them with my spear. Simple."

He had already built his counter-strategy, dismissive as always. To him, making any kind of plan against a rank 3 was already being generous—excessive, even. A rank 7 powerhouse like himself should have no need for such thoughts.

But plans rarely survived contact with Leon Kael.

The air cracked. Sonic booms shattered across the forest canopy as Leon streaked through the sky, his advance like a blade splitting the night itself.

Lancelot straightened from the crater, eyes narrowed, spear at the ready. 'Which form will you use this time?' he thought coldly, ready to crush it.

Then his eyes widened.

Towering above Leon, shimmering in golden brilliance, a colossal warrior of pure aura took shape. An avatar, its titanic sword gleaming as if forged from the boy's very will. Without hesitation, it swung down, the strike screaming with devastating force.

"Impossible—!" Lancelot barely had time to curse before the blade connected. The impact tore him from his footing, hurling him through the forest in a maelstrom of splintering trees, carving a trench through earth and timber until another crater yawned open in his wake.

He lay there for only a moment, stunned, wide-eyed. All thoughts of restraint, all subconscious leniency, burned away in an instant. His composure snapped, replaced by raw fury.

"You… brat!!!"

The forest quaked. The full, unrestrained pressure of a Rank 7 Professional exploded outward, drowning the air in suffocating weight. A black aura erupted around him, wrapping his frame like a second skin, armor wrought of starless void.

"Black Star Art—Form Five: Star Requiem!"

In a blur, he appeared before Leon's towering avatar, faster than sight. His fist pulled back, black aura surging, before slamming forward with cosmic force.

The golden warrior shattered on impact, the colossal blade disintegrating as the construct crumbled apart. Leon was ripped from its heart like a ragdoll, his body flung downward until he smashed into the forest floor with a deafening boom, earth exploding in a wave of shattered stone and dirt.

The ground swallowed him, dust clouds billowing high into the night sky.

****

Lancelot had been shocked more than once today.

First, by the fact that corruption, the plague that had spread across Pandora like a curse for three years, undying and impossible to eradicate, had simply vanished here, in this run-down and impoverished city. A feat that had claimed the lives of countless warriors, even Rank 8 and Rank 9, undone in Shantel of all places.

Second, by the boy suspected to be responsible.

A rank 3 warrior professional. That in itself wasn't unusual, but what rattled Lancelot was the impossible details: a tier IV affinity awakened at rank 3, when affinities were only ever meant to emerge at rank 4; and more disturbingly, the sheer endless stream of abilities Leon Kael seemed to wield.

It went against everything he knew.

Normally, professionals fought with caution. Their Arts were limited, so they used the most suitable forms and hid the rest as trump cards, cards to be revealed only at the right moment. That was the rhythm of combat. One move, over and over, until the battlefield shifted.

But Leon was different. He fought like a madman or perhaps a genius, with no sense of restraint, cycling through his arsenal as if his Arts were bottomless. Either he was too reckless to care that every ability of his could be read and countered… or what he had shown so far was only a sliver of something much larger.

Lancelot suspected the latter.

"That construct he struck me with…" Lancelot muttered as he approached, boots crunching into the fractured ground, "…it seemed to be another form of his Art."

He stopped at the rim of the crater, his aura still flaring like a storm. His blue eyes gleamed, narrowing as a thought twisted through his mind, sharp and unwelcome. 'Could this Art… be as powerful as the Emperor's Imperial Art?'

The mere idea chilled his spine. For a heartbeat, he felt the weight of a possibility too dangerous to imagine. But he dismissed it with a low growl, refusing to entertain such treasonous doubt.

His gaze swept the shattered forest floor. And then,

The body in the crater shimmered, flickering, before dissolving into motes of light.

Lancelot's lips pressed into a thin line. A clone.

The Rank 7 aura around him pulsed heavier, pressing down on the trees, warping the air with its weight as his voice thundered through the night:

"Where could he be?"

****

Leon silently watched Lancelot from the shadows.

He wasn't breathing hard, void spawns didn't tire like normal beings in the dark, but his body hummed with the aftershocks of the power he'd burned through. He'd slipped into the dark the moment his clone dissolved, using a Beast Art he had only recently acquired after a failed experiment with his Overlord talent, Mark. The art was called Conceal.

It didn't just make him less visible. It bent the shadows themselves around him, muffling his scent, his aura, his very presence. And with his race being a void spawn, the synergy was perfect. He wasn't simply hiding. He was gone.

Leon wasn't the kind of person to lurk or skulk. He had always been straightforward, walking into fights head-on. But that blow from Lancelot had changed something. The impact alone had rattled him enough to know the truth: if he took another direct hit like that, it would be over. No domain, no technique, no trick would save him.

Last time, he'd had the Avatar of Astral Ascent to shoulder the strike. This time, it would be his body.

He narrowed his eyes, still as the night. 'The points I burned are a lot,' he thought, measuring the strange warmth of borrowed power coursing through his veins. 'Their Enough to last longer than usual… but they're still limited. I can't drag this out.'

He shifted slightly, unseen, his gaze fixed on the crater where Lancelot stood like a statue carved from starlight and iron. The man's aura was a living storm, oppressive and absolute.

Leon's fingers tightened on the hilt of his black blade. He could feel the force inside him, the domain coiling like a predator waiting to strike. He had to use everything perfectly, no wasted movement, no wasted energy.

'I need to find a way to end this now,' he told himself.

In the shadows, his mind began to work. Calculating. Weighing everything Lancelot had shown, everything he might still be holding back. Every flicker of power Leon still had left.

And slowly, a plan began to take shape.