Eron stood there, his gaze fixed on Lucian’s back.
The dust was still hanging in the air, the ground still steaming from the heat Karl had poured into it. The crowd’s noise—hunters, soldiers, and survivors—was like a distant hum in his ears. None of it mattered.
What mattered was the boy standing in the middle of the ruin.
Eron had fought his way to the top for years, carrying the weight of being called the strongest human. It wasn’t just a title—it was the one thing that proved he’d survived what others hadn’t. The one thing that set him above the rest.
And yet... watching Lucian just now, bending space and time like they were his personal tools, defeating a Rank X dragon as if it were training... Eron knew. Deep down, in that place inside where pride turns to something sour—he knew.
He wasn’t the strongest anymore.
That boy had gone somewhere no one else had ever reached. A height so far beyond reach that even imagining closing the gap felt like staring up at a mountain that touched the clouds.
And it burned him alive inside.
The cheering started. It wasn’t for him.
Eron’s jaw tightened, his fists curling until his knuckles cracked. The crisis was over. People were alive. That should have been enough. But seeing all those eyes fixed on someone else—someone younger, someone who had stolen the spotlight—made something coil tight in his chest.
He didn’t stay to clap. He didn’t even try to hide the anger twisting his face.
Turning on his heel, Eron walked away from the broken field without a word. His team moved with him instantly, no questions asked. His squad followed, boots crunching over shattered stone and molten glass, leaving the sound of celebration behind them.
From the edge of the ruined street, Dean Garos watched them go. He didn’t call out. He understood what had just happened, even if Eron couldn’t say it out loud.
Garos’s gaze shifted. His eyes found Vyn.
She stood a little apart from the others, black cloak settling around her as the air shimmered faintly with the trace of her power. He could feel it from here—the weight of her aura. SSS rank. An achievement hunters spend their whole lives chasing.
A small smile tugged at his lips. Pride. Quiet and deep. "Well done," he murmured under his breath, knowing she wouldn’t hear him.
Then his attention moved back to the center of the battlefield.
Lucian was crouched beside Karl’s body. The massive dragon form was still, its molten glow dimmed. Lucian’s movements weren’t hurried—his hands hooked under the weight of the scaled frame with a kind of ease that shouldn’t have been possible. He lifted Karl like someone carrying a sleeping child, no strain in his shoulders.
And then Garos saw her.
Lucy. She was draped carefully in Lucian’s other arm, head resting against his chest, unconscious but breathing. Her hair shifted with the faint wind, and Lucian’s expression didn’t change as he glanced once toward the crowd—then turned his eyes skyward.
He rose slowly into the air. There was no visible burst of magic. One second he was on the ground. The next, he was rising, the air bending around him in smooth, silent ripples.
And then—he vanished.
Garos blinked. His instincts flared. That wasn’t just speed. That wasn’t flight.
A voice came from his right. Calm, sharp.
"There’s a cloaked ship there," Reia said, nodding toward what looked like empty sky just above the ruined skyline. "He just entered it."
Garos stared for a moment longer, then gave a slow nod, still piecing it together. "I see..." His tone was quieter now, something like stunned understanding settling over him.
Reia didn’t move. She was watching the sky like she could still see the ship even with its camouflage.
Vyn stepped to her side without a word, adjusting the strap on her blade. Evelyn and Silas joined them, their expressions carrying the same unspoken decision.
Garos finally looked back at them. "You’re going with him."
Evelyn’s mouth quirked faintly. "Of course."
Silas only gave a small nod, eyes already fixed in the direction Lucian had gone.
Reia turned to Garos. "We’ll see you again, Dean."
Vyn didn’t speak, but her gaze lingered on him a moment longer—enough for him to catch a rare, faint curve at the corner of her lips before she turned away.
The four of them crossed the cracked battlefield together, stepping over rubble and broken weapons, past bodies both living and still.
Athena was there near the edge, arms folded. She didn’t smile, but her eyes followed them with a quiet approval. She and Garos exchanged a look—one that carried more weight than words could.
Reia stopped just long enough to give Athena a respectful nod. "Thank you... for everything."
Athena’s reply was simple. "Make sure you come back."
Vyn’s cloak shifted in the wind as she walked past without looking back. Silas and Evelyn followed, each giving Garos and Athena their own brief farewells—small nods, a word here or there. Hunters didn’t need long goodbyes.
Then they were gone, their figures fading as they reached the far end of the street.
A shimmer cut through the air in the distance, the faint outline of a ramp extending from nothingness. One by one, they stepped inside.
The shape of the cloaked ship flickered for just a moment—enough for Garos to make out its sleek lines, dark hull, and almost alien design—before the image dissolved back into empty air.
He stood there for a long while after, the sounds of the city slowly returning around him. The cheers had died down. The survivors were tending to the wounded, clearing debris, searching for the missing.
But his eyes stayed on the place where that ship had vanished.
Because he knew—whatever Lucian was doing next, wherever that ship was going—it wasn’t the end of something. It was the start.
And the world would feel the impact soon enough.