Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

Sylvie Gracewind.

She wasn’t blasting spells across the battlefield.

She wasn’t darting in with blades or walls of flame.

Instead — she was rather….

Layering glyphs onto terrain.

Weaving speed buffs between team members.

Setting up silent suppression fields without announcing it, subtly choking enemy movement before it could even threaten the front line.

One of the scouts frowned slightly, pulling up her earlier profile.

Starting classification: Healing Specialist.

Current deployment: Combat Support / Utility Enhancement.

A quiet exhale. Not disappointment — interest.

“Started as a healer,” the woman muttered, tapping her notes, “yet now she’s operating as a dynamic field support.”

“And she’s doing it without breaking formation,” the older man added. “Most healers transitioning into combat scatter under pressure — they try to cover too much at once.”

But Sylvie didn’t.

She wasn’t rushing from point to point like a panicked medic.

She was moving with the team’s rhythm, anchoring when needed, surging when the gaps widened — not forcing herself to be everywhere, but being where she mattered most.

“Smart mana usage too,” another scout noted, checking the stream metrics. “Her surge patterns are layered. Defensive frames under acceleration frames. Efficiency above projection.”

The more the scouts watched, the clearer it became.

She wasn’t just supporting from a distance.

She wasn’t just layering spells for others to shine.

She engaged.

When a straggling canid broke from the fog, slipping past Jasmine’s forward sweep, Sylvie didn’t flinch.

She adjusted her stance with practiced ease, palm flaring briefly as a compression glyph locked into place — a hard, focused burst that spiked the creature’s footing, staggering it just long enough for her follow-up.

No wasted movements.

No excess mana flare.

The beast collapsed under a second layered strike — a precision burst of kinetic reinforcement along her palm guard — before it could even bare its fangs.

One of the Blackstone Verge scouts leaned forward slightly, tapping the crystal screen to rewatch the frame at half speed.

Not sheer power.

Not desperation.

Technique.

Calculated, deliberate — the kind of reflexes only possible through long, consistent practice.

Another scout — older, with the look of someone who had seen far too many raw cadets flame out — shook his head once, slow.

“Most healers,” he said, voice quiet but certain, “don’t do that.”

And it was true.

Healing wasn’t a role chosen by the unfocused.

It demanded precision, mana endurance, and nerves tighter than steel wire.

Training to become a combatant on top of that?

It was more than difficult.

It was counterintuitive.

An unnecessary burden.

Healers focused because they had to.

Because even surviving their own specialization was exhausting.

But Sylvie Gracewind had gone beyond that.

While still maintaining smooth, efficient heal spells — the small, nearly invisible pulses of restoration that flickered across Layla’s battered shield arm, across Jasmine’s ribs after a mistborn strike — she moved and fought without breaking rhythm.

Maintaining two fields of battle at once.

External. Internal.

Healing and engaging — synchronously.

The woman scout from Blackstone Verge drummed her fingers lightly against her slate, a small, approving rhythm.

A rare rhythm.

“She’s special,” she said at last.

Not loudly.

Not like a dramatic declaration.

Just a simple, professional judgment.

A talent like that — one who could not only defend herself, but expand the tactical envelope of a squad — was rare.

Dangerously rare.

Most teams lived or died by the fragility of their healers.

By the need to shield and protect the core from disruption.

But with Sylvie—

Team Fourteen didn’t shield her.

She shielded herself.

And more.

She reinforced the team’s aggression.

Pushed their forward momentum by removing the burden of hesitation — the fear that if they overreached, the core would fall apart.

Because they could trust her to stand.

Even when the lines blurred.

Even when monsters closed in.

In her quiet way, Sylvie Gracewind shone nearly as brightly as Irina Emberheart.

Not in flame.

Not in spectacle.

But in the invisible architecture of victory.

*****

The moment Astron gave the signal, the team surged forward into the mist-wreathed ruin.

The cracked ground trembled beneath their boots as they advanced—closing the final distance to the collapsed cathedral in measured, ready steps.

And then—

The air shattered.

From within the gaping maw of the broken cathedral, the boss monster emerged with a thunderous roar that split the mist apart.

Its name appeared briefly on their synchronized visors:

[Boss Identified: Vulkran, the Ashen Howl]

Classification: Fire-Pison Aberrant – Peak Rank-6, Early Rank-7 Potential

Vulkran was massive—easily towering three meters tall even hunched.

Its body was a patchwork of sinew and molten plates, veins of ember-red light crisscrossing through its charred black muscles. Sharp jagged spikes of obsidian jutted from its back and forearms, and its head resembled a monstrous wolf’s skull fused with volcanic rock, mouth constantly leaking trails of searing vapor.

Two molten wings—cracked, skeletal, more for intimidation than flight—arched from its back, dripping magma that hissed against the broken stone below.

The instant Vulkran laid eyes on them, the temperature spiked. Mana surged violently in the air.

BOOM!

Without warning, a wave of explosive fire erupted outward from Vulkran’s body, cracking the ground in a radial shockwave. Entire stone pillars near the entrance vaporized under the blast.

“Scatter and reform!” Astron barked immediately, already moving.

The team split as the explosion hit, minimizing damage.

Chunks of debris rained from above—collapsing half-formed bridges and opening new chasms in the terrain.

“It’s attacking the terrain itself!” Astron called sharply, dodging a boulder mid-flight. “Keep moving! Never anchor in one spot for too long!”

Layla gritted her teeth, raising her shield just in time to block a splintering shard. Her arms shook from the impact, but she held firm.

Vulkran surged forward, its molten claws raking the ground as it targeted Layla first—the frontline anchor.

BOOM.

A direct clash.

Layla braced, but the sheer force of the monster’s charge threw her back several meters, scraping across the broken ground.

“Layla!” Jasmine shouted, lunging forward, dagger flashing to intercept—but Vulkran’s molten tail whipped outward, catching Jasmine mid-dash and sending her tumbling with a pained grunt.

Sylvie immediately reacted.

She moved gracefully across the shattered field, her gloves glowing brightly as she unleashed twin spells—one a pulse of Restorative Sigil that enveloped Layla’s battered form, knitting bone-deep bruises in seconds. The other a focused Tendon Mending Thread that stabilized Jasmine’s shoulder mid-motion, letting her regain stance almost instantly.

“Move!” Sylvie cried, reinforcing them both with mana-boosted acceleration glyphs.

Meanwhile, Irina skidded back, fiery mana roaring around her—but this time, she didn’t recklessly charge.

She stood still—lowering her center of gravity slightly, one hand rising skyward.

Her flames twisted unnaturally, spiraling inward instead of expanding outward.

Sylvie pivoted, her hands weaving swiftly—layering Mana Resonance Threads around Irina’s gathering flames, compressing the fiery energy even tighter.

Astron noticed immediately.

He moved into position without hesitation—crossing into Vulkran’s approach vector, intercepting it.

His daggers flashed—not trying to harm, but to control.

He parried molten claw strikes, redirected explosive blasts with careful mana slashes, always staying just outside of fatal range—stalling Vulkran.

“Buy her time!” Astron shouted, slashing upward as Vulkran’s talon narrowly missed cleaving the ground.

Jasmine and Layla rallied—Layla advancing with a reinforced charge, slamming her shield into Vulkran’s lower limbs to stagger its forward momentum.

Jasmine weaved around the edge of the battlefield, targeting exposed joints with rapid strikes—each hit minor, but collectively slowing the boss’s motions.

Irina inhaled deeply.

The air around her folded—heat compressing into a pinpoint so dense the mist nearby evaporated in an instant.

Her eyes flared gold, her voice cutting through the chaos.

“School of Emberheart: Solar Rend.”

A compressed laser—pure, searing destruction.

The gathered flames in her palm bent once, twisted—then fired.

KA-CHAAAM!

The beam wasn’t wide.

It wasn’t chaotic.

It was thin—surgical—and impossibly fast.

The Solar Rend struck Vulkran dead center, piercing through its molten chest. The boss’s fire resistance crumpled under the sheer density and purity of Irina’s compressed magic.

Vulkran let out a strangled, molten howl, thrashing violently—but the beam didn’t waver.

It drilled through.

Flames erupted outward from the monster’s ruptured core as the internal mana structure destabilized.

Astron, reading the shift instantly, barked one final order. “All units, disengage! Collapse imminent!”

The team scattered back just as Vulkran’s body convulsed, its molten veins exploding outward in a brilliant eruption of light and ash.

BOOOOOM.

The ruins shook violently, debris raining from the sky—but by the time the dust began to settle, the five figures of Team Fourteen were already regrouped at a safe distance, breathing hard but standing tall.

At the center of the destruction, only the smoldering remains of Vulkran’s shattered form remained—slowly crumbling into ash and broken stone.

Silence reigned.

Sylvie’s hands trembled slightly from the mana exertion but steadied as she lowered them. Layla leaned heavily on her shield, grinning despite the burn along her arm. Jasmine laughed once, sharp and exhilarated.

And Irina—

Irina simply stood there, breathing in the residual heat, golden flames flickering around her shoulders like a mantle of victory.

Astron met her gaze briefly across the battlefield, giving her a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Solid fundamentals.

Flawless execution.

Another dungeon conquered.

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