Ex-Rank Awakening: My Attacks Make Me Stronger-Chapter 126: EX . Snake In The Dragon’s Shadow

The air cracked with pressure as Leon and Elizabeth vanished, flickering out of sight just as Eleanor’s master unleashed a storm of corrupted energy. The black wave tore through the ground where they’d stood, scorching the stone and cratering the earth. But the couple had already reappeared at a safe distance, Leon dashed ahead, blade in hand, and Elizabeth behind, her hands already weaving necrotic symbols into the air.

Without a word, Leon surged forward like a missile, the ground exploding beneath each step. Behind him, Elizabeth lifted her arms and summoned her undead skeletal warriors, rotting hounds, and ghastly phantoms erupted from the shadows and charged alongside him.

Eleanor’s master responded instantly, their hands flaring with black lightning as a swarm of crackling demonic spheres spun into existence around them. With a flick, the orbs shot forward, twisting through the air like angry hornets, locking onto Leon with deadly precision.

Leon didn’t flinch.

In the blink of an eye, he switched places with a ghoul that had sprinted dangerously close to Eleanor’s master. It was a flawless execution, no flash, no signal, just cold strategy. One moment the undead was there, the next it was Leon.

He was already mid-swing.

"Extreme Art..." he whispered, his voice drowned by the hum of raw power gathering around his blade.

"...Horizon Cleave."

The sword howled. Force affinity pulsed out in waves, the energy so dense it warped the air around it. The slash didn’t just cut, it detonated. As a glowing arc of energy erupted point-blank toward Eleanor’s master.

They barely reacted in time.

As Layered barriers, five of them at once, snapped into place, black shields formed from pure demonic essence. But the moment Leon’s strike collided, the air erupted in a thunderous sonic boom. The barriers shattered like glass hit by a hammer, and the impact launched Eleanor’s master like a ragdoll into the cave wall, the stone buckling under the force. They hit was so hard that black blood sprayed from their mouth as they growled in rage, eyes blazing.

But Leon didn’t let up.

He pressed forward again, ready for another strike. That’s when the air shifted and became colder, and heavier.

"Basilisk!" Eleanor’s master screamed, their voice a chorus of two, human and something much darker.

A dark mist exploded from their form, and within it, a monstrous serpent slithered out, a giant black snake, taller than a building, its eyes glowing with toxic hatred. The Basilisk lunged forward with terrifying speed, fangs wide, darkness trailing its body like a cloak.

Leon met it head-on, coating his sword with force affinity once again, using the concentrated energy to lessen the blow. Steel met fang. The impact sent shockwaves rippling through the cavern and pushed Leon back, his boots carving trenches in the earth before he flipped and landed beside Elizabeth.

He caught his breath, sparing her a glance. "You got anything for pest control?"

Elizabeth didn’t even look at him. A smirk tugged at her lips as the dragon rune beneath her eye pulsed with light.

"I have just the thing."

She raised a hand, and a golden aura surged around her.

"Dragon Might."

The words weren’t spoken, they were declared. The very cavern quaked as an ancient pressure exploded outward, flooding the air with pure draconic dominance. The undead stopped moving, even the Basilisk hissed and recoiled, its instincts screaming at it to bow or burn.

And in that instant, the tide of battle turned.

****

The air shuddered beneath the force of Elizabeth’s awakening power.

Dragon Might, a trait of the dragon bloodline, unleashed from her like a floodgate had broken. The golden rune beneath her eye lit with a fierce brilliance, and in that instant, the very air changed. A crushing wave of ancient dominance rolled out from her, blanketing the battlefield in suffocating pressure. It didn’t just affect the basilisk, it pressed down on everything. The walls trembled and the shadows recoiled.

Even Leon.

Elizabeth’s eyes snapped toward him, a flicker of panic crossing her face. ’Please don’t let it affect him too much.’

But Leon was still standing. He didn’t stagger. Neither was he weakened. He just... watched her with Fascination in his eyes.

Like he was seeing her for the first time.

A small smile tugged at Elizabeth’s lips.

’What else should I expect from my love?’ She turned her attention back to the fight, pouring more force into the trait. The air shimmered with her dominance as the basilisk visibly faltered, its body coiling in confusion and resistance. The aura crushed its instincts, suppressing its strength by a massive margin. Its scales dulled and Its movements slowed.

And that was all Leon needed.

He exhaled, planting his feet. His aura pulsed, steady and sharp, drawing in from his core and surging into his blade. He raised the sword overhead, its edge glowing with condensed force affinity, his body already coiled like a spring ready to explode.

"I’ve got just the thing for a snake this big," he muttered.

"Extreme Art..." The first cut came down fast, vertical, smooth, and precise.

"Cross..." A horizontal slash followed immediately after, slicing over the line he’d just carved into the air.

"Impact."

It looked like a single motion to the eye. But what it created was unmistakable: a glowing cross-shaped aura slash that screamed through the air, crackling with stored energy. The basilisk couldn’t even roar, as its instincts were smothered under Elizabeth’s bloodline pressure. It didn’t move, neither did it react.

It simply took the hit.

The sonic boom that followed was deafening. The cross-shaped wave tore into the basilisk’s body, slicing through hardened black scales like paper, the impact rupturing the cavern walls behind it. With a roar of air and shattering rock, the snake’s form disintegrated mid-scream.

Eleanor’s master was flung out of the collapsing beast, crashing to the ground like a meteor, their body riddled with the blazing cross wound Leon’s art had carved into their torso. Black blood soaked the stone beneath them as silence slowly reclaimed the cavern.

The battle was over.

Leon straightened his sword, the tip trailing smoke as it cooled. His voice came quiet but confident as he looked toward the crumpled figure on the floor.

"Next time... don’t send snakes after Dragon."