Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Chapter 435: EX 435. A Chat With Origin

Leon remained seated, unmoving, his consciousness still anchored deep within the space of his origin core.

Outside, Zion breathed again. Inside, something was wrong.

The moment the final link had stabilized, the instant every divine stage expert had been successfully connected, Leon should have withdrawn. He had done this before. With Elizabeth, the process had demanded focus, restraint, constant correction.

This time, though, the flow had been effortless. Too effortless.

Now he stood within the core’s inner space, unable to leave.

The darkness around him pressed closer than before, though it never touched the core itself. The origin core hovered ahead, radiant and steady, its light carving out a hollow sanctuary in the void.

Leon turned slowly, scanning the space as if the answer might be hiding between the shadows.

"What in the world is happening?"

His voice echoed faintly, swallowed by the vast emptiness.

He replayed the process in his mind, step by step. The formation of the links. The division of the tendrils. The acceptance from the divine experts. No resistance. No backlash. No instability. Everything had gone exactly as intended.

Too exactly.

Leon frowned.

He had always known he learned fast. Ridiculously fast. But this was different. This had not felt like mastery earned in the moment.

It had felt... assisted. As if the moment his origin energy touched theirs, the system had taken over.

The tendrils had moved on their own. The distribution had balanced itself. Even the strain he expected from linking so many divine existences had barely registered.

Elizabeth had required constant adjustment. Careful moderation so her body would not collapse under the pressure.

But them?

Dozens of divine stage experts. SSS ranks. Beings standing at the ceiling of existence.

And yet the energy had flowed into them as naturally as breath.

Leon’s eyes narrowed.

"The whole process was smooth," he muttered. "That’s the problem."

He stared at the origin core, light reflecting in his pupils.

This was not just talent.

This was automation.

A chill ran through him as the realization settled. Something had anticipated this outcome. Something had prepared the pathway in advance. The links had not been forged from nothing. They had slid into place like grooves already carved.

And Leon hated that more than any resistance.

Before he could act on the thought, before he could attempt to force his way out of the core space, a sound rippled through the void. A presence, expressed as vibration rather than voice.

"I was hoping you wouldn’t notice."

Leon’s eyes widened as he turned toward the voice, his breath catching before he could stop it.

"Did you just... speak?"

His gaze locked onto the origin core. There was nowhere else the voice could have come from. The void was empty, the darkness pressed back by the steady glow of the sphere before him, and yet the presence was undeniable. A moment later, the voice answered, calm and faintly amused.

"I don’t see anyone else here. It’s just the two of us."

For a heartbeat, Leon forgot himself. A dry thought slipped through his shock, uninvited.

’What is it with spherical bodies talking nowadays?’

He had heard voices among the stars in the primordial plane, heard existence itself murmur through celestial forms older than time. And now this. His own origin core. Speaking.

The glow of the core pulsed, almost irritably.

"That comparison is rude," it said. "You make me sound like one of those children."

Leon stared at it, then exhaled slowly. "Sorry about that."

He didn’t bother arguing about age or hierarchy. He knew better. Origin was origin. It didn’t matter that this core had been created long after the primordials.

It didn’t matter that it had been shaped by his hands, refined by his will. Origin did not care for timelines or ownership. It simply was. No past, no future, no present. Just existence in its purest form.

Leon’s expression hardened as the initial shock faded, replaced by focus.

"Then why are you keeping me here?"

The light around the core intensified, its glow sharpening, pushing the darkness farther back. When it spoke again, the levity was gone.

"Because we are running out of time."

Leon fell silent.

"Running out of time," he repeated softly, as if testing the words.

"Yes," the origin core answered without hesitation.

Confusion crept into Leon’s expression. He lifted his gaze fully to the radiant sphere.

"I thought the primordials already handled everything. They created another timeline. They moved the pieces, sealed the damage, and bought a future for a part of creation."

The light of the core pulsed once, slow and measured.

"If creating another timeline were enough to stop corruption," it replied, "then corruption would not have endured for this long."

That answer unsettled him more than any threat ever had.

Leon’s thoughts spiraled. Until now, everything he had done rested on a single assumption—that the other timeline was safe. That Nikko, Elizabeth, and Racheal were beyond corruption’s reach. That he had bought them certainty, even if he himself stayed behind to fight a doomed battle.

But if that wasn’t true—

A sharp dread tightened in his chest. His false heart began to pound, fast and uneven, the sound echoing through the hollow space of the core.

He pictured them clearly: Nikko’s steady resolve, Elizabeth’s warmth, Racheal’s obsession at his side. If the future he left them in wasn’t secure, then he hadn’t saved them at all. He had only delayed the knife.

He looked back at the core, eyes burning. "Then you know how to stop it. You have to. Otherwise there would be no point in telling me time is running out." His voice hardened.

"Why haven’t you done anything? Why didn’t you at least tell the primordials what needed to be done?"

Leon could feel it. The certainty beneath the core’s words. Origin knew. It had to. There was intent in this conversation, not despair. That meant there was a solution, or at least the outline of one.

"So why?" he pressed. "Why keep it to yourself?"

The light surrounding the core dimmed slightly, no longer blazing, no longer distant.

The answer came quietly.

"It was ignorance."

Leon froze.

Of all the explanations he had prepared himself for, fear, restraint, limitation, that was the one he had never considered.