Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest - Chapter 1042 246.6 - Sister

The Resonance Breaker’s echoes faded from the screen.

Golden light receded. Silence returned to the platform.

Leonard blinked once—slowly—clearing the overlay feed before shifting his gaze.

To him.

Astron Natusalune.

The cadet stood quiet at the rear left now, adjusting his grip on the bow, calmly replacing a used arrow from his quiver. His movement wasn’t dramatic. His breathing didn’t spike. He didn’t glance at the others.

He simply watched—already plotting the next angle.

Leonard narrowed his eyes slightly and activated a spectral overlay on the mana stream.

No irregularities.

No surge. No divine interference. No celestial resonance. No subconscious pressure from latent bloodline traits.

Just clean control.

Even.

Almost… too even.

Leonard watched the playback again—how Astron had moved during the wave. Efficient. Intuitive. Striking joints, freezing angles, timing debuffs within a two-second rhythm of Irina’s flame zones.

Good. Better than good.

In fact, most scouts would consider him exceptional.

And some already were.

From further down the observation arc, a few murmured assessments drifted through the ambient haze.

“His aiming window’s nearly professional-grade.”

“Did you catch how he redirected the aggro chain after Layla’s tempo broke?”

“His shots don’t miss. He’s built for synchronization.”

Leonard listened.

But only in passing.

Because while others admired Astron’s utility, Leonard saw something else.

Absence.

There was no pressure. No residue of heritage. No internal turbulence behind the spellflow.

He didn’t bend space. He didn’t disturb tempo. He didn’t warp other people’s mana fields the way Sylvie did simply by anchoring herself near them.

Astron moved with the field.

But he didn’t bend it to him.

And for Leonard?

That was the end of the story.

It wasn’t about competence.

Astron was valuable.

He could see that immediately.

But he wasn’t the Kin.

Not someone like that.

Leonard’s gaze lingered a moment longer on Astron, even though the conclusion was already drawn.

He didn’t possess the qualities of the Kin.

Not in pressure.

Not in mana.

Not in presence.

He just looked like a normal cadet.

A talented one—yes.

Disciplined. Intelligent. Quietly effective.

But nothing stirred the artifact.

Nothing twisted Leonard’s instincts.

Nothing felt off.

And right now, “off” was what he needed.

Still…

A thought surfaced.

Quiet.

Persistent.

Hadn’t he already decided to consider the possibility of the Kin hiding?

Suppressing resonance.

Concealing growth.

Dormant—or worse, unaware.

He narrowed his eyes a fraction.

Astron’s flow was clean—but was it too clean?

No. Not this one.

Leonard dismissed the hesitation. There were no frayed edges. No subconscious recoil. No traces of someone folding inward to contain a deeper force. Astron’s mana wasn’t being suppressed.

It was just… normal.

And besides—

What was he supposed to do?

Go and check every student in the Academy by hand?

Even he had limits. Even patience could be bled dry.

Then—

Velvetin’s voice cut the silence beside him, drifting like smoke.

“This kid is quite unlucky.”

Leonard glanced sideways—brief, unreadable.

She didn’t look at him.

She was watching Astron, elbows on the projection rail, her tone detached but strangely thoughtful.

“If he was in another team, he could show his talents much better.”

Leonard didn’t respond immediately.

She went on.

“He’s clean. Precise. Doesn’t step where others are already standing. Knows when to pull back, when to press forward. But when your front line burns like a comet and your rear guard casts like a symphony?”

She tilted her head faintly. “You vanish.”

Leonard’s eyes returned to the screen. Astron had just shifted position again—two meters clockwise—so that Layla could rotate into recovery stance without signaling.

It was the kind of support no one noticed unless they knew what to look for.

Velvetin’s voice softened. Just slightly.

“He’s not unremarkable.”

Leonard’s jaw tightened faintly.

“But he’s not the one I’m looking for.”

Velvetin smiled—without warmth, without scorn.

“Of course not.”

Then she leaned back again, letting the silence return between them as the platform below began to tremble—new energy signatures rising from the dungeon’s deepest sectors.

And Team Fourteen—

Braced for the final wave.

****

The mana began to rise.

It started as a tremor beneath the shifting platforms—a quiet rumble, barely felt under their boots. Then the ley-lines threading through the dungeon flared bright white, seizing the whole battlefield in a low-pitched hum that settled into their bones.

Astron stilled. His next arrow hovered at full draw, unmoving. His sharp eyes narrowed.

Irina felt the pressure spike first—a heavy drag across her skin, like the air had thickened, turned molten.

Sylvie gasped softly, her casting hand trembling as her golden mana crackled. “…Mana compression,” she whispered. “The dungeon’s funneling energy into a central point.”

Layla shifted her stance, shield raised. “That’s not just more monsters.”

“No,” Astron said calmly, lowering his bow an inch. “This is a structured escalation.”

Then, like a second gate within the dungeon had just opened—

They came.

The final wave.

Ten monsters—bipedal, obsidian-armored, etched with glowing crimson veins. Each radiated dense, honed mana—Stage-6, no doubt. But they didn’t lurch forward like brutes or scatter like beasts.

They advanced. Together.

No wasted movement.

No overlap in approach.

Each one held a formation. Two in front took wide, shielding stances—tanks. Four in the back conjured mana projectiles with eerie, in-sync timing—ranged support. The remaining four flanked in pairs, quick and reactive, waiting for the frontline to make contact.

It was structured. Precise.

Organized types.

Astron’s voice came low, almost mechanical. “Command-linked monsters. Integrated battlefield behavior. They adapt to each other, defend each other, protect weak points. Like a coordinated hunter squad.”

Jasmine’s grip tightened on her blade. “So… not a monster fight.”

Irina’s eyes narrowed. “No. This is a war party.”

Most dungeons were populated by ferals—monsters that relied on instinct and raw power. Some had rudimentary tactics, others territorial behaviors or hunting patterns. But even Stage-6 monsters, when acting alone or without order, were predictable.

But organized types?

That was a different category entirely.

These were monsters that had evolved—or were designed—to fight in formation. To coordinate.

To think—not as individuals, but as one unit.

And that made them exponentially more dangerous.

It wasn’t a matter of numbers or strength anymore.

It was strategy versus strategy.

Asked once in a class, “If a Stage-6 monster can overpower most Stage-6 hunters, then why not just call it Stage-7?”

It was a valid question.

Professor Darius had answered it with the same calm confidence he used when dissecting death patterns:

“Stages are not about raw power alone. They represent mana density, processing capacity, reaction time, and structural strength. Monsters often outperform hunters of the same stage in raw stats. They’re built that way. Born with advantages.

But hunters possess something else.

Tactics. Cohesion. Memory. Planning.

A Stage-6 hunter team may be statistically inferior, but they overcome that gap with planning and synergy.

So long as the monsters do not organize, hunters can still win.

But the moment monsters start coordinating…

You’re not fighting a beast anymore.

You’re fighting a system.”

And that’s what was happening now.

These weren’t ten individual enemies.

They were one problem—split across ten bodies.

That was why Astron’s voice remained so measured.

That was why Irina’s flame flared brighter.

Because this wasn’t about killing monsters.

This was about breaking their formation—before the formation broke them.