The air outside the gate shimmered with heat, though the sky was cold and gray. Hunters from the four families gathered in a loose semicircle, weapons drawn, eyes locked on the rift that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Karn stood at the back, hood low over his face. As far as the families were concerned, he was here only as "support." Nothing more.
The rift ripped open with a sound like tearing metal. Something massive stepped through — a beast plated in obsidian, its claws glowing with molten cracks.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
"A Magma Devourer?! That's A-Rank at least—"
The leading hunters moved in formation. Steel clanged, arrows sang — but the creature barely flinched. Each blow seemed to only enrage it further.
Karn's senses — that heightened perception only his mother knew about — lit up like a storm. Every movement of the beast played in his mind before it happened. Every heartbeat, every shift of muscle.
The Devourer's tail swung. He saw it a second before anyone else. One hunter in its path froze, panic in her eyes.
Karn moved.
To onlookers, it was a blur — one moment he was at the back, the next he was there, arm hooked around the hunter's waist, pulling her clear as the tail crushed the ground where she stood.
Gasps again.
"How did he—?""I didn't even see him move!"
He ignored the whispers.
The beast roared, molten drool spattering the earth. It lunged straight for him.
Karn's hand slid inside his jacket. Not to draw his full weapon — not yet — but just a plain, short hunting blade. The wrong weapon for a beast like this. Or so it seemed.
He stepped forward once.
Every movement from the Devourer slowed in his mind — the arc of its claw, the spread of its weight, the opening in its plated neck.
The blade flashed once.
A thin line of steam hissed from the beast's armor as it staggered back, a shallow but perfectly placed cut smoking on its neck joint. It roared, stumbling in confusion.
He didn't press the attack — instead, he stepped back, letting the lead hunters close in again, but now the beast's movements were erratic, weakened.
No one saw his face under the hood. No one but his mother, watching from the crowd, her lips pressed together in a mix of pride and worry.
You can't hide the sun forever, Karn, she thought.