Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger

Chapter 436 436: EX 436. Incompetence Is A Brother To Catastrophe

Leon stared at the radiant sphere suspended in the void, stunned into silence. For the first time since stepping into this space, he didn't know what to think. Ignorance. The word felt wrong, misplaced, almost insulting.

How could something as vast as origin, something that predated worlds and laws, claim ignorance as its failure?

He didn't voice the question. He didn't need to.

"There is something you should know, Leon," the core said, its light steady, unblinking.

"No primordial has ever truly understood me."

Leon remained still, his gaze fixed as the voice continued to echo through the emptiness.

"All they were capable of was manipulating my energy. And that was only natural. Their existence was derived from me, so of course they could draw upon my power. Shape it. Refine it. Use it. But understanding?" The light pulsed once, faintly.

"They never reached that point."

Leon's thoughts churned. The primordials. The so-called architects of existence. Beings that treated worlds as pieces on a board. If even they had failed to understand origin, then—

"Then why is my case different?" Leon finally asked, his voice low.

The core answered without hesitation.

"Because you achieved something they could not."

Leon frowned. "What did I—"

"Your origin core quality has reached ninety-nine percent."

The words struck him like a physical blow. Leon's eyes widened, instinctively turning inward as he checked. The numbers didn't lie.

The fluctuation he had felt earlier, the unnatural smoothness of the process, the way origin energy had responded to him without resistance—

It was real.

For a moment, Leon could only stare, disbelief tightening his chest. Ninety-nine percent. That was a level he hadn't even thought possible, not this soon, not at all.

"How?" he asked quietly.

The core's light softened, almost gentle now.

"It is simple," it said. "You chose to stop being ignorant."

Leon stared at the origin core, the glow painting his face in soft, restless light.

"You keep calling it ignorance," he said at last, voice low. "But ignorance of what, exactly?"

The core did not answer directly. Instead, it asked a question of its own, its voice echoing through the void like a thought that had always been there.

"Do you know the two absolute laws, Leon?"

Leon fell silent.

"These laws," the core continued, "are the source from which all other laws are derived. The universe cannot exist without them. They are the foundation upon which everything was built."

Leon waited, instinctively holding his breath.

"The first is the Law of Perfection. The second is the Law of Imperfection."

The words settled heavily in the space.

"The Law of Perfection governs all that is right with existence," the core said. "Power. Death. Motion. Change. Unity. These are perfect laws. They allow growth, evolution, and progression. The Law of Imperfection governs all that is wrong. Immortality. Powerlessness. Decay. Stagnation."

Leon's eyes widened, the idea striking him harder than any revelation before it.

Death… perfect?

Immortality… flawed?

For a brief moment the contradiction rattled him. Then understanding bloomed.

With death, change was inevitable. Nothing could remain frozen forever. Growth demanded endings. Immortality, on the other hand, was not life without end. It was stagnation without escape. A stillness that choked possibility.

Leon exhaled slowly.

'Of course.'

The core seemed almost pleased.

"You understand," it said simply.

Leon nodded, even though the core did not need the gesture.

"But this," the core continued, "is where the ignorance lies. The primordials chose one law and rejected the other. They pursued perfection while suppressing imperfection."

The light around the core pulsed faintly.

"You did not."

Leon frowned slightly.

"When you shared your origin energy, you did not weaken yourself. You created balance."

The words struck deeper than Leon expected.

"By sharing," the core continued, "you allowed perfection and imperfection to coexist. Growth and limitation. Strength and vulnerability. In doing so, you grasped the Law of Unity."

A perfect law.

Leon listened as the core continued, its voice steady and unhurried.

"While the primordials were creating the world, they focused solely on the Law of Perfection. They chased power, order, progress, growth. In doing so, they completely neglected the Law of Imperfection. And that mistake," the core said plainly, "was absolute."

"Perfection cannot exist alone.

Light cannot exist without darkness. Without darkness, light has no meaning. And darkness itself is only born from the absence of light. One defines the other. Remove either, and the concept collapses."

Leon understood it immediately. The idea settled into him with a quiet weight, heavy but undeniable. His gaze sharpened as he spoke.

"So perfection and imperfection are meant to exist in balance."

"Yes," the origin core replied. "Only through balance can one understand me."

"The primordials had never achieved that balance. They suppressed imperfection, tried to erase it, believing it to be a flaw rather than a necessity. Because of that, they never truly understood origin. They could wield its energy, manipulate it, shape worlds with it—but comprehension had always been beyond them."

"You did not do that," the core continued. "You did not reject one law in favor of the other. When you shared your origin energy, you embraced unity. You allowed growth without denying decay. Power without denying weakness. Life without denying death."

Leon absorbed every word, his expression still grim.

"So," he asked quietly, "what happens when the balance breaks?"

For the first time, the core fell silent. The darkness around them seemed to thicken, pressing closer.

Then it answered.

"You are already experiencing it."

The words echoed through the void, and Leon felt them settle deep in his chest, heavy with implication.

The core's light pulsed once, slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat echoing through the void.

Its voice returned, calm but heavy. It explained that when the primordials shaped existence, they had favored perfection and cast imperfection aside. They treated flaw as something to be erased, not understood. That single choice fractured the balance at the foundation of reality.

Leon listened, unmoving.

"Perfection without imperfection had no counterweight. No resistance. No release. The law of imperfection, denied its place, became unstable. It strained, twisting against the structure of the universe, trying to correct the imbalance it was never meant to handle alone."

The core continued. "Laws were absolute, but they were not sentient. They could not think. They could not choose restraint." "Without a guiding will, without balance, a law pushed to its extreme would only produce chaos."

"And so imperfection sought balance the only way it could.

It birthed corruption.

Not as an act of malice, but as a consequence. A forced correction. A blind reaction to an unequal world."

Leon felt the weight of those words settle into him. The war. The demons. The endless cycles of destruction. None of it had started as evil. It had begun as a flaw in understanding, carried forward until it became unstoppable.

The core's light dimmed slightly.