Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Chapter 417: EX 417. Twisted Memories

Leon held Gordon by the face, fingers locked like iron clamps around his skull, Valeria’s corpse still cradled in his other hand. He dragged Gordon forward until the Lord was forced to stare at her.

"You did this to her," Leon said, his voice flat and hollow, as if all warmth had been scraped out of it.

His grip tightened. Bone creaked. Gordon’s eyes bulged, bloodshot and frantic.

"You could’ve done anything else in this world," Leon continued, each word measured.

"But you chose my sister. You chose to kill her just to get back at me."

Gordon’s eyeball threatened to burst from its socket as Leon squeezed harder.

"How did it feel?" Leon asked as his voice trembled with the kind of restraint that only made the air heavier.

"When you broke her bones... when you watched her scream for help you knew would never come?"

He didn’t wait for an answer. With a flicker in his eyes, Leon activated Rachel’s talent. A surge of energy rippled through his mind as his senses tore into Gordon’s consciousness.

The Lord’s thoughts splintered apart, and his body convulsed violently as Leon forced his way through layers of memory and emotion.

Leon tore into Gordon’s mind, ripping past surface thoughts, shredding through the subconscious, diving straight into buried memories.

Gordon’s body convulsed as a scream tore out of his throat, raw and animalistic. The conscious mind resisted violently. It always did.

Being invaded like this sent it into overdrive, neurons screaming, awareness flooding itself until pain became existence.

One of the worst pains imaginable.

Leon didn’t care.

He pushed deeper.

And images surfaced. Fragments at first. Then clarity.

And what Leon saw nearly shattered him.

Valeria was tied upright in a dark room, her hands bound above her head.

Blood matted her hair and soaked what little remained of her clothes.

Her eyes were swollen shut, her limbs twisted and broken past recognition.

Each breath came as a shallow gasp, ragged and wet, yet Leon could still hear it. Even like this, even after everything, she found the strength to speak.

"Leon..."

The sound hit him like a blade to the chest.

It felt as if he was standing there with her. Not watching. Not remembering. Living it. Valeria’s head sagged forward, then lifted with effort that should have been impossible.

"I’m sorry, Leon," she whispered, coughing blood that ran down her chin.

"I won’t get to watch you grow into the man you were meant to be."

Her body trembled violently.

"I tried... I really did. But I couldn’t protect you."

Her ruined eyes, long past seeing anything, slowly tilted upward. For a single impossible moment, it looked like she was staring straight at him. Like she could see him.

"But at least," she murmured, voice fading, "I’ll be joining you soon—"

The blow came without warning. A fist slammed into her stomach, snapping the rope loose as her body flew across the room and struck the wall with a sickening crack.

Leon felt it. Every impact. Every sound. The memory did not look away. It forced him to watch as fists fell again and again, methodical and silent, nothing but raw brutality.

No taunts. No words. Just violence.

That was enough.

Leon ripped himself out of the memory, his presence tearing free from Gordon’s mind like a blade dragged from flesh.

The world snapped back into place, but the image stayed burned behind his eyes. Valeria’s voice still echoed in his ears, soft and apologetic.

Leon did not scream.

He did not cry.

But something inside him broke all the same.

Leon finally spoke.

"I’ve thought of a trillion ways to make you suffer for what you did."

Gordon writhed in his grasp, fingers clawing at Leon’s wrist as if flesh could argue with inevitability. Leon’s grip tightened, knuckles sinking into bone.

There was no smile on his face. No heat in his voice. Only certainty.

"But I know the perfect one. Worse than all of them combined."

Gordon thrashed in Leon’s grip, fingers clawing at a forearm that might as well have been forged from the world itself. It was useless. It had been useless from the start.

Blood began to seep from Gordon’s scalp, trickling down his temples, spilling from his nostrils. His struggles weakened, not from exhaustion but from the certainty settling into his mind. There was no contest. No escape. This was power in its purest form, absolute and indifferent.

Leon’s fingers tightened.

Blood continuously seeped from Gordon’s scalp, pouring from his nostrils and ears as the pressure mounted.

His eyes bulged, veins standing out like cords ready to snap. His muffled screams never became words.

The pressure increased once more.

And then his head exploded.

****

"Ahhhhhh"

Gordon tore awake with a raw scream, the sound ripping out of his throat as if dragged free.

Sweat soaked his body. His lungs burned as he sucked in air, gasping, choking, his heart hammering like it was trying to escape his chest.

He sat upright, eyes wild, scanning the room.

It was dark. Quiet. A normal residential bedroom. Plain walls and familiar shadows. He was topless, sheets tangled around his waist, his body trembling as if the nightmare still had its claws in him.

For a brief, fragile second, confusion dulled the terror.

The place felt real, safe and known.

Then a hand grabbed him.

His heart nearly burst, as a panicked snarl tore from him as he tried to break free, muscles screaming, mind snapping back into survival.

"Gordon."

The voice calmly called his name,steady and close.

He froze.

Slowly, he looked up.

A woman knelt beside the bed, raven black hair spilling over her shoulders, green eyes soft with concern.

She held his arm firmly but gently, grounding him, anchoring him to the moment.

"What’s the matter?"

The world tilted.

Gordon stared at her, breath hitching, confusion flooding his face as recognition slammed into him harder than fear ever could.

The woman was Valeria.

His wife.

***

-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 ^^