Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

The door to Reina's office hissed shut behind him with a final, reinforced click.

Astron didn't glance back.

He adjusted his coat collar once as the corridor lights responded to his presence—soft pulses of white following him down the hall. The Organization's underground base wasn't crowded. It never was. But tonight, it felt particularly still. As if the facility itself was holding its breath.

He walked in silence.

Measured, even steps.

Not rushed. Not slow.

But with each pace, his thoughts moved faster.

The moment she'd approved his solo deployment, the threads in his mind began weaving into place.

He'd be alone.

No eyes. No observers. No teammates.

No false pretense.

That mattered.

Not just for efficiency.

But for secrecy.

Because Reina was sharp—but even she couldn't account for what he carried inside. Not fully. Not yet. And that was exactly the way he needed it to stay.

Astron turned a corner and passed through another layer of access clearance. The field shimmered faintly as it acknowledged his presence.

Then he descended the last set of stairs into the private Adept quarters.

His room was as he left it—clean, minimal, sealed. A cold-blue interface lit as he approached, bringing up his deployment schedule, travel protocol, and requisition menu.

Astron ignored it for now.

He stepped inside, set his satchel down, and leaned briefly against the edge of the wall.

Fourteen hours.

He exhaled once, slow.

His eyes flicked to the equipment access node, still glowing faintly in the corner of his interface.

He considered it.

Technically, Reina had unlocked full access.

Which meant he could outfit himself with specialized daggers. Collapsible long-range support units. Barrier-grade plates. Arc-blades. Filtered reality lenses. The works.

But…

He turned away.

None of it mattered.

Not for this run.

Not for what he planned to test.

Because the truth was—he already had everything he needed.

His weapons were secured in his spatial storage—balanced, reinforced, personally calibrated.

After all, his Celestalith is bound to him to the end.

His body was ready. His mana stable.

He didn't need gadgets.

He needed space.

Room to move.

Room to act.

Room to unleash what he really wanted to refine.

His hand brushed lightly across his coat's inner lining—where the last of the [Shadowborne] seals were woven, discrete and unreadable.

The Organization didn't know about them.

And they wouldn't. Not unless he allowed it.

Which meant—

This solo mission?

It was more than deployment.

It was freedom.

Astron moved toward the center of the room, his thoughts aligning into clean stacks.

He'd been refining [Voidborne] in simulated spars. Contained fields. Practice drills. But it wasn't enough. The resonance wasn't clean. The trigger conditions weren't complete. It needed pressure.

Real combat.

Real variables.

Would be much better.

That was how [Voidborne] would evolve.

The more he honed it—the [Voidborne] trait—the more control he'd gain.

Not just over its usage.

Over its resonance. Over its entropy. Over the strange anomalies that pulsed along its edge like fractures in a pane of glass no one else could see.

And with every step forward… he could feel the path forming more clearly.

There was no doubt in his mind anymore.

These gates weren't natural.

Not truly.

They bore structure. Pattern. Purpose. But not from the Association. Not from the Organization. Not even from the world's latent mana cycles.

Someone—or something—was orchestrating them.

And if that someone was tied to the demons, as the game once suggested, then the answer was simple.

The more gates he cleared, the fewer footholds they had.

The fewer footholds they had, the less power they could pull from the resonance lattice binding the sectors together.

And if he pushed fast enough… sharp enough…

He might sever the chain before it even started tightening.

Astron's boots clicked softly against the corridor floor as he moved from the Adept quarters toward the private dorms connected to the central node wing. His pace was steady—mind clear, purpose fixed.

Until—

He stopped.

Mid-step.

His body didn't shift. His expression didn't change.

But his senses flared.

Two presences.

Ahead.

Close.

Stationary.

Astron's eyes narrowed, just barely.

He didn't accelerate. Didn't retreat. But in the time it took for the light overhead to flicker once—his senses expanded.

A sweep of perception—refined, surgical, no longer just reading mana signatures or biological traces. His vision, tuned through layers of [Keen Eye] and [Perceptive Insight], sliced through the corridor's stillness like a blade through silk.

There.

Prints—light, but recent. Residue trails of stabilized mana. Psionic patterns woven into lingering traces. Not fresh enough for attack readiness, but recent enough to be intentional.

And familiar.

The faint crisscross of chaotic kinetic flux—the after-echo of someone who always moved too much in too little space. The scent of high-exposure affinity mingled with odd cold spots—an internal inconsistency, the mark of someone who masked their actual output.

One chaotic. One smooth.

Astron's lips thinned slightly.

'Lyra and Kael.'

It had been months since their paths had crossed.

Months since Reina had first brought them along—when Astron had entered the base under watchful eyes and concealed truths. Back then, they had been energetic, too easy to read… and yet somehow harder to understand. Not because they were dangerous. But because they weren't entirely trying to be anything at all.

Just… there. Present. Testing the waters. Watching. Nudging.

But that had been before.

Before the academy. Before the missions. Before his solo runs and breakthroughs into [Voidborne].

Astron resumed walking.

His pace didn't quicken. His breathing didn't change. But his mind adjusted—subtly, like shifting the angle of a blade before impact.

He knew they were there.

And he knew what came next.

The corridor ahead remained still—too still. One of the overhead lights flickered. Once. Twice. Then stabilized.

Predictable.

Just as the next corner darkened. Shadows bloomed unnaturally along the wall, too heavy for the light source that cast them. The temperature dipped half a degree. The silence grew fractionally tauter.

A sudden creak echoed from the vent shaft above. Then—

thunk.

A small, glimmering object hit the floor in front of Astron with a hollow chime. A faint trail of smoke curled upward from it—colored pink. Glittery.

Astron stared down at the canister. Then up at the ceiling.

Really?

He stepped forward anyway.

The canister popped, releasing a wave of shimmering smoke, twinkling with some kind of harmless mana-infused pigment. A second later, from behind the corner, a tall figure lunged out, half-shrouded in shadow, wearing a crudely drawn mask of Reina's face.

"INTRUDER DETECTED—ENGAGING COUNTERMEASURES!" Kael's voice boomed in a stiff, robotic monotone.

Astron blinked.

The second figure—smaller, perched upside down from the ceiling tiles—dropped like a spider.

Lyra landed lightly behind him, cloak fluttering. She pointed dramatically at Astron's back.

"Boom! Gotcha! That was a fatal sneak-crit." She paused. "With glitter damage. Double affinity bonus. You're so dead."

Astron didn't turn around. He simply let the silence stretch.

Kael stepped closer, yanking the fake Reina mask off and tossing it to the ground. "Tch. You didn't even flinch."

Astron finally looked back over his shoulder, expression perfectly flat.

"You used pink glitter smoke."

Lyra grinned. "It's my signature spell now. Glittermancy."

"I see."

He turned fully to face them, arms loosely crossed. "You've both matured."