They kept moving.
Mountains blurred into shadows, forests flattened beneath invisible pressure, and rivers split apart as if the land itself bowed to their passage. This was how S-rank hunters traveled—unconcerned with terrain, unbothered by distance, carried forward by raw authority over mana.
Lunaria remained at the front.
His half-length hair swayed freely with every step, framing his face in a way that made him look almost harmless at a glance. The nose mask hid part of his expression, and the loose clothing softened his silhouette. From afar, he looked like a wandering youth—quiet, delicate, even cute.
A fatal illusion.
They entered a ruined trade road, remnants of old checkpoints half-buried under rubble. That was when the air shifted.
Hostility.
Seven figures emerged from the broken structures, weapons already drawn. Their mana signatures were sharp, aggressive—but poorly controlled. Rogue hunters. The kind that preyed on survivors, weaker teams, and lone travelers who looked easy to exploit.
One of them whistled low when his eyes landed on Lunaria.
"Well, damn," the man said, grinning. "Didn't expect to find something this pretty out here."
Another laughed. "Looks like the apocalypse's been kind to us."
The four hunters behind Lunaria stiffened.
"Don't," one of them muttered under his breath.
The rogues stepped closer, eyes lingering on Lunaria's smaller frame, his loose hair, the way he didn't even turn to look at them.
"Mask off," the leader said casually. "And maybe we'll let you walk away."
Lunaria stopped.
The world seemed to pause with him.
He turned slowly, head tilting just a fraction. From behind the mask, his gaze settled on the speaker—calm, unreadable, utterly detached.
"You should leave," Lunaria said softly.
The rogues burst into laughter.
"And if we don't?"
That was when the aura leaked out.
Not released.
Not unleashed.
Just… allowed to exist.
The air dropped several degrees. Dust froze mid-fall. The rogue hunters' smiles vanished as crushing pressure slammed into them, forcing knees to bend and lungs to seize.
"What—what the hell—?!" one gasped.
Their instincts screamed danger far too late.
Lunaria stepped forward once.
The ground imploded.
In the same instant, he vanished.
The leader's weapon shattered before he realized Lunaria had moved. A flicker of steel, a dull thud—and the man collapsed, unconscious before his body hit the ground.
Two more fell the same way, struck by pressure alone, their mana circuits overloaded by proximity to something vastly above them.
One rogue tried to run.
He made it three steps.
Lunaria appeared in front of him, eyes glowing faintly beneath the shadow of his hair.
"You made a mistake," Lunaria said quietly.
A single strike to the chest.
Not lethal.
But precise enough to crush the man's core and permanently sever his path as a hunter.
The remaining rogues dropped their weapons, terror written across their faces.
"We—we didn't know—!"
Lunaria turned away before they finished.
The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving the survivors gasping on the ground, alive but broken.
Behind him, the four hunters stared in silence.
They hadn't been able to follow the movements.
They hadn't even been able to look directly at him when his aura surfaced.
One of them swallowed hard. "Those weren't weak hunters…"
Lunaria resumed walking, his softer appearance untouched, hair drifting gently in the wind.
"They should have known better," he replied.
As they vanished down the road at impossible speed, the rogue hunters were left behind—alive, humiliated, and burdened with the knowledge that in this broken world…
Some mistakes were merciful.
Others were not.