Chapter 94: Karl Makes His Move
Hunter Sector 10 – Southern Wastes
The gates didn’t just open.
They vomited monsters like a flood of nightmares. Crawling, screeching, slithering. The sky was torn, the land cracked, and bodies were already piled high around the trenches where Sector 10’s front line had collapsed.
Hunters screamed into radios, begging for reinforcements. Most signals didn’t even get replies.
And then they came.
Not from the sky.
Not through teleport.
They walked.
Slowly. Proud. Like gods walking through fire.
Seven shadows.
And at the front—
Eron Thorne.
A tall man in a blood-red coat that dragged behind him like a noble’s funeral shroud. Hair white as frost, slicked back. Eyes—empty. Not calm. Not cold.
Void.
Like he didn’t see people. Only toys.
He raised one gloved hand as they approached the battlefield.
Behind him, the six others of the Thorne family stopped in a perfect arc. Each one SSS rank. Each one wearing a variation of that same long coat. Their presence distorted the air.
"...Hm," Eron said, glancing at the chaos like it was an art gallery he didn’t like. "I suppose that’s enough."
Then he smiled.
Slow. Thin. Dead.
"Time to clean the trash."
He flicked his hand once—like shooing a fly.
And the ground split.
A black spike erupted beneath a cluster of monsters and impaled all thirty of them in one shot. Their bodies convulsed, melted, then turned to ash.
"Take the east," he said flatly. "Leave the S-class bugs to me."
The family moved.
No words.
No hesitation.
Just power.
One of them—Malek Thorne, a broad-shouldered man with metal bands around his wrists—charged into a wave of creatures and detonated the ground with his fists. His ability: Kinetic Fuse. The more he moved, the more power he built. And now?
He was dancing.
Every punch was a shockwave. Every kick shattered bones. His laughter was brutal and loud, echoing across the battlefield.
"COME ON, YOU ANIMAL BITCHES!"
Beside him, Selina Thorne, a woman with black hair and no visible weapons, simply raised her hand.
The sky dimmed.
Shadows poured from her fingertips like ink, crawling across the terrain. Every monster they touched stopped moving. Froze. And dropped like puppets with cut strings.
Silent Kill. Her aura was death.
To the west, Cato Thorne stood alone in a ring of flame, smiling gently.
He clapped once.
And everything around him burned.
Not just fire.
Reality burned.
The ground. The air. The rules.
A monster charged.
And disintegrated before it even touched him.
"Too slow," he whispered, almost disappointed.
Eron, meanwhile, strolled forward, unbothered. Monsters snarled ahead. Dozens. No—hundreds.
He stopped.
And sighed.
"Uncultured things. No beauty. No style."
The monsters lunged.
And Eron raised both hands slowly, like a conductor before the symphony began.
The air bent.
The land peeled open.
Black threads—thin, glowing, alive—slithered from his fingers and danced like silk ribbons in the wind.
He snapped.
SLICE.
Everything in a five-hundred-meter arc fell.
Not roared.
Not exploded.
Just... fell apart. Cut cleanly. Neatly. Like paper dolls.
Even the wind paused.
Eron tilted his head, looking at his work. "Still too noisy," he muttered.
The remaining hunters—what few were still standing in Sector 10—watched from cover, frozen.
They didn’t know who was worse—the monsters or the family that just arrived.
"That’s... that’s the Thorne family..."
"I thought they didn’t respond to summons..."
"They don’t," someone whispered. "He came because he was bored."
One of the S-rank hunters dared to run up to Eron.
"Sir! Thank you for the backup—do we coordinate with your team?"
Eron looked at him.
Smiled.
And stabbed him through the heart with a black spike made of nothing.
The hunter gurgled and dropped.
Eron didn’t blink.
"You’re too loud."
No one spoke after that.
The battlefield turned quiet in his wake.
Further ahead, a massive beast—another SSS-class monster—emerged from a collapsed gate. It was different. Smart. Watching.
Eron grinned.
"Oh? This one has thoughts?"
The creature snarled. Dark blue crystal jutted from its shoulders, energy crackling.
Then it lunged.
BOOM!
Faster than a jet.
But Eron was already in the air.
Floating.
He rotated his hand once—and the monster’s legs bent backwards like wet branches.
The thing screeched, crashing into the dirt.
Eron descended slowly. "You shouldn’t crawl."
The monster struggled, shaking off the curse, charging again.
Too slow.
Eron grabbed its face.
Black fire crept from his palm, but not like Lucy’s. His fire didn’t burn. It corroded. It ate.
The monster screamed.
It began melting alive.
Eron leaned in close. "Shhh. Die quietly."
And crushed its skull like a fruit.
Blood rained. Bones snapped. The body collapsed.
He stood there, eyes flicking back toward the gate.
Still pulsing.
Still open.
A third one began forming behind it.
Eron exhaled like it was mildly annoying.
"Bastards don’t quit."
A voice echoed through the comms.
Vice Commander Rael.
"Eron. Standby. Lucy’s en route to Sector 10."
Eron clicked his tongue.
"Why? I already cleaned it."
"Another SSS-class is coming. Bigger. Multiple signatures."
Eron grinned wide. For the first time that day, he looked alive.
"...Finally."
He rolled his neck. Fingers flexed. His aura began shifting—darker. Sadder. Hollow.
"Tell your Queen of Black Flame... if she’s late, I’m not saving her portion."
Rael’s voice hesitated. "Just don’t kill her."
"No promises."
Then he stepped forward.
The air bent again.
And far in the distance, something ancient and hungry stepped through the gate.
Elsewhere
"The mindless SSS ranks won’t cut it," Kael muttered, voice low, eyes flicking across the stormy horizon. "If it were up to me, I’d let the warriors burn this whole planet to ash."
He chuckled, a slow, sharp sound. No joy in it—just hunger.
"But since the elders are asleep... guess I can have a little fun."
His grin widened, teeth sharp as his eyes darkened with thrill. That name danced through his mind again—Lucian.
"That bastard better show up. I’ve been bored."
And then it happened.
His repressed aura—Rank X—started to slip through the cracks. The ground beneath him cracked. Trees nearby withered. The air twisted and grew heavy, like the planet itself was rejecting him.
Kael tilted his head.
"I feel them... a nest of SSS ranks, all in one place."
He started walking—slow, but each step echoed like thunder.
"Perfect."