Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Chapter 422: EX 422. Family Dinner

Gordon stared at Valeria with his one remaining eye, the words echoing hollowly in his ruined head. Only a good man could feel true pain. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t. The question burned inside him, but she offered no explanation.

She turned away.

Valeria walked toward the others, her footsteps unhurried. Gordon’s breath hitched as she reached his family. Without ceremony, she sliced through their restraints. One by one, their bodies dropped to the floor in dull, lifeless thuds, still unconscious.

She looked down at them, her face empty of warmth or hatred. Just calm.

"There’s an ancient tribe," Valeria said softly, "that believes becoming one with one’s family is the highest form of nirvana."

Gordon’s eye widened.

"Let’s see how true that is."

The change was instant.

Their bodies jerked. Skin rippled as if something alive crawled beneath it. Shapes twisted under the flesh like worms burrowing frantically for escape. Spines arched at impossible angles as mouths opened wide, releasing sounds that tore at the soul more than the ears.

Gordon screamed through blood and broken teeth.

"What—what are you doing to them?"

Valeria didn’t look at him. Her gaze lingered on the writhing forms as if she were observing an experiment.

"I’ve been feeding them my brother’s blood."

She glanced toward the massive creature at the back of the classroom. It had stopped eating. Its hollow gaze remained locked on Gordon, unblinking, endless.

Valeria turned back to her family as their screams rose higher, wet and broken.

"And let’s just say," she continued calmly, "the blood has a tendency to corrupt."

Gordon could only watch, helpless and broken, as his family writhed on the blood-stained floor.

Their bodies twisted in ways that defied nature, bones snapping, skin rippling as if something alive slithered beneath it. Every scream tore through him like shrapnel.

His heart clenched until it felt like it might burst. And through it all, Valeria stood there, calm, silent and almost serene, as if she were admiring a piece of art.

That look... that terrifying calm... it shattered something deep within him.

She wasn’t human. She couldn’t be. No human could watch their children, their family, suffer like that without flinching. No, this was something worse, she was a demon born from the deepest pit of hell.

Fear, horror, regret, and denial crashed into him all at once, choking the air from his lungs. His mind begged him to wake up, to end this nightmare. But the pain, the smell, the warmth of his blood, everything reminded him this was real.

The creature at the back of the classroom lifted its skeletal head, its empty sockets gleaming faintly as it turned its gaze from Gordon to the writhing family. Gordon could barely breathe as his tears mixed with blood and sweat.

His heart begged for mercy, just once, for this to stop. Then, without warning, the movement ceased.

The silence was worse than the screams.

They lay still now, their bodies horribly changed. Ashen skin stretched over twisted limbs, hair bleached to a ghostly white, and their eyes, those dead, black orbs, stared at nothing.

"How... how could you?" Gordon rasped, his voice broken, trembling with disbelief. "How could you do this, to them? They loved you!"

Valeria’s eyes met his, unfeeling and cold. The faintest smile tugged at her lips. "Love," she murmured, almost mocking the word.

"I told you earlier: what happens now is of no concern."

She glanced at the lifeless forms, and as if her words carried command, those bodies began to move again. One by one, the creatures that were once his family rose to their feet, their empty eyes all locking on him.

Gordon’s breath caught. His body trembled, his mind screaming at him to run though he couldn’t move. The realization settled like ice in his veins. Whatever stood before him now wasn’t his family anymore.

Valeria tilted her head slightly, her tone smooth, almost playful as she added,

"In the end, it doesn’t matter, does it? After all... you’ll all become one."

Then came that small, mocking smile again, the same smile she once gave him after saying she loved him.

Gordon could only watch as the creatures that had once been his family began to approach him. Their movements were slow, almost gentle, their dead black eyes fixed on him with an eerie calm. Still bound to the ceiling, he writhed and strained until his muscles screamed, but the restraints did not give. Panic clawed up his throat.

"Mom... Dad... please," he sobbed, his voice breaking. "Kids, snap out of it. Please."

The words barely left his mouth before one of them lunged.

The impact was monstrous. His body was ripped downward with such violent force that his arm tore free at the shoulder, severed instantly as he slammed into the floor. The remaining restraints still held his arms aloft, as blood poured freely from the stump. He gasped, choking on the agony, staring in disbelief at the ruin of his own body.

He should have been dead. He knew that. The sheer blood loss alone should have ended him. Yet he lived, painfully aware of every second, every heartbeat. Supernatural hands were keeping him alive. Just alive enough to suffer.

Through blurred vision, he lifted his head and saw the creature responsible. It was his daughter.

The thing that wore her shape crouched over him, its ashen skin slick with blood, its dead eyes staring without recognition. Gordon’s breath came in ragged bursts as he forced out a whisper.

"Darling... please..."

She answered by opening her mouth.

Rows of jagged teeth gleamed before sinking into his neck. White-hot pain exploded through him as his scream died in his throat. Another body latched onto his right leg, teeth tearing into flesh. Another seized his left. Then his son plunged his fangs into his stomach, ripping him open as if he were nothing more than meat.

Gordon could no longer scream.

His strength was gone, drained along with his blood. Yet the pain remained, sharp and merciless, every nerve alive to it. He was being eaten alive, and still death refused to come.

His one remaining eye drifted upward, staring lifelessly at the ceiling as his mind finally shattered. There was nothing left inside him to fight with. He was broken. Broken beyond repair.

Two shadows fell over him.

One was Valeria.

The other belonged to the massive creature that loomed nearby.

And then, in that ruined classroom filled with blood and silence, the impossible happened.

The creature spoke.