Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Chapter 420: EX 420. Realization

Gordon came to with a violent jolt, pain biting into his wrists and ankles.

He realized he was hanging from the ceiling of a classroom, his body suspended by restraints he couldn’t see in the dim light.

A few weak bulbs flickered overhead, casting a sickly glow that illuminated just enough to see, but never enough to feel safe.

Something was wrong with the room.

The classroom was far too large. The walls stretched wider than any schoolroom should, the ceiling rising like a cavern roof. But the size wasn’t what made his stomach turn.

It was the bodies.

They were piled high in one corner, stacked carelessly like refuse. None of them were whole. Organs lay exposed. Limbs were torn away. Flesh had been reduced to a grotesque mash of blood and bone, the air thick with the stench of iron and rot.

And beside that pile was a creature.

It was massive, nearly filling the already oversized classroom. Bipedal by structure, yet crouched on all fours like an animal at a feeding trough.

Its skin was ashen, stretched tight over a sickly pale body, and where a head should have been sat the bleached skull of a dead lizard, hollow eye sockets fixed on nothing. It devoured the bodies without haste or care, jaws working methodically as wet sounds echoed through the room.

Gordon could only watch.

His body refused to move. His mind screamed, but no sound came out.

Then a soft hmph broke through the horror.

Gordon’s eyes snapped toward the sound, and his heart plummeted.

Hanging from the ceiling, stripped bare and covered in wounds, were his family. His father. His mother. His son. His daughter. All four suspended like decorations, their bodies bruised, cut, broken.

The sight shattered what little remained of his composure. His thoughts scattered, panic clawing at his chest, reality slipping through his fingers.

Then a voice spoke, calm and almost pleased.

"How do you like my work?"

Gordon turned toward the voice.

Someone sat casually atop a classroom desk, legs crossed, posture relaxed.

They looked painfully out of place against the horror surrounding them.

A blue jean jacket over a white shirt. Blue jeans. Black leather boots, polished and clean. An amused smile rested easily on their face, as if this were nothing more than a private joke.

Gordon’s breath caught.

His eyes traced her features, disbelief tightening his throat until words barely formed.

"Honey..." he whispered, the sound breaking as it left him.

It was Valeria.

The smile on her face shifted, thinning into something colder. She slid off the desk and began walking across the room. Gordon watched her, confusion bleeding into panic.

"Honey, what are you doing?" he asked again.

She didn’t answer.

Valeria stopped beside a table. A large suitcase rested on top of it, its surface scuffed and worn. She opened it without ceremony.

Gordon’s stomach dropped.

Inside was an array of torture tools. Blades, hooks, clamps, devices he didn’t recognize but instinctively feared.

Valeria reached in and pulled out a steel baseball bat, its weight solid in her hands. She turned it slowly, testing the grip.

A terrible premonition washed over him.

And in the next moment the bat struck his face without warning.

Pain exploded through his skull. Blood sprayed from his mouth as his head snapped to the side.

Before he could scream, another blow crashed into the opposite side of his face. Then another. And another. Bone screamed. Flesh tore. Each strike echoed through the oversized classroom as the creature still ate casually unconcerned with what was happening.

The pain was immense.

But it was nothing compared to the agony of knowing who was holding the bat.

By the time Valeria stopped, the steel was slick with blood.

Gordon hung limply from the ceiling, weak groans slipping from his throat, his vision swimming.

Valeria looked at him, her expression empty now.

In a cold, flat voice, she spoke.

"Don’t call me honey."

At that statement Gordon’s memories of Valeria came rushing back in a painful blur. Her gentle smiles. The quiet encouragement she offered when the world pressed down on him. The way she had stood beside him at his lowest, steady and warm when he had nothing left. He remembered everything. That was why, hanging there bloodied and barely conscious, he could not reconcile the woman before him with the one who had shared his life.

Even the monster at the back of the classroom, the impossible creature tearing into the corpses of students and teachers, faded into the background. It became secondary, almost unreal, compared to Valeria.

He stared at her, eyes shaking, breath ragged.

He struggled against his restraints. "H—"

The bat slammed into his face again, snapping his head to the side. Pain exploded through his skull as Valeria’s voice cut through it, cold and absolute.

"I won’t repeat myself again."

The words sent a strange shiver through him, as if he had heard them before, somewhere distant and buried. He tried to grasp the thought, but a fog rolled over his mind, smothering it before it could take shape. His focus snapped back to her.

Blood dripped from his mouth as he forced the words out.

"So... you were the White Devil."

This time, she didn’t hit him. Valeria smiled instead, the same calm curve of her lips he remembered so well.

"No," she said lightly. "Unfortunately, that title belongs to my brother."

She gestured toward the back of the classroom.

Gordon followed her hand, and his breath caught. Shock hollowed him out as he stared at the towering creature devouring the bodies without pause.

Her brother.

The realization hit harder than any blow.

***

-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 ^^