Valtherion froze the moment he saw Azrael.
His blue eyes, wide as coins, searched the hunter's face — for approval, for reassurance, for something only Azrael could give.
Elarwen, on the other hand, gripped his hand tightly, as if even a single breath might draw danger back to them.
Azrael watched them in silence for a few moments.
Then, with a slow nod, he spoke: "It's over. For now."
Those two words dropped like a weight over the scene.
The for now didn't go unnoticed by Freya, who gave him a look that was somewhere between annoyed and concerned.
"You should go back inside," Azrael said, shifting slightly to let them pass.
The children obeyed, but not before Valtherion hesitated beside him.
"Th-thank you, Master," he said softly.Azrael lowered his gaze just a fraction.
He didn't answer right away, and when he did, his tone was more iron than warmth:"Don't call me that."
Valtherion bit his lip, ready to say something else, but Elarwen tugged him away, pulling him back into the hut.
Freya crossed her arms. "You know you scare them half to death when you talk like that?"
"Better scared than dead."Azrael's voice was flat, his eyes still locked on the eastern horizon, where the air still carried the distant echo of a power that belonged to no human.
"Where's the enemy?" Azrael asked.
"Gone. Maria helped him." Freya replied, with an annoyed voice.
The words landed heavy, and for a moment, silence filled with nothing but the rustle of the first leaves stirred by the morning wind.
Then Azrael added, without looking at her: "I guess that this is only the beginning. We must hunt them all."
Freya's eyes sparkled a little when Azrael said "We" and not "I".
His words actually caught her out of surprise.
But then, she returned to reality and the grip on her daggers tightened, and a glint of defiance lit her gaze. "I guess there's a lot of work to do."
Azrael glanced at her — just once — and his silence said more than any reply, after moving his gaze to the dawn.
The air still hung heavy with the scent of blood and burnt wood.
Ash drifted lazily in the newborn dawn, curling through the cold wind like the final sighs of the dead.
Azrael stood at the edge of the ruined clearing, his shadow long against the pale light.
Freya lingered behind him, her eyes still darting toward the hut where the children had returned, making sure no further danger crept from the darkness.
That's when movement stirred at the far end of the road.
Two silhouettes emerged from the smoke.
The first walked with deliberate steps, tall and broad, but missing both arms.
His coat hung ragged, the sleeves soaked in blood where his limbs had once been.
Yet his gaze was steady, and the wolf-emblem of his guild still clung to his battered armor.
Kawara — the White Wolf.
He had awakened.
Moreover, he didn't seem shocked at all about his missing limbs.
Beside him limped a woman with long, silver hair, her robes torn and burnt in several places.
Her hands trembled slightly around the stave she used as a walking stick.
Her eyes — sharp despite her exhaustion — scanned the ruins until they found the hunter in the black cloak.
Lysaria.
When they finally stopped a few paces from him, both lowered their heads.
Kawara bowed as far as his injuries allowed.
"Hunter… we owe you our lives. I… owe you more than I can repay. Forgive me. I let my pride lead my hunters into a slaughter. Because of me, good men and women died." He said, with a cracky voice, almost on the verge of crying.
Lysaria followed, voice quieter but steady.
"I failed my duty to protect them. If I hadn't—"
Azrael cut them off with a simple gesture.
His voice was low, even, carrying the weight of something that needed no flourish.
"Raise your heads."
They obeyed.
"If you feel guilt," he continued, his cold blue eyes fixed on them both, "then you're still human. Learn from your mistakes — or their deaths will mean nothing."
The words sank deep.
Kawara's breath caught in his throat.
And then it hit him — like a blade sliding into place in a scabbard.
He knew this man.
Not from today. Not from rumor alone.
But from stories.
The solitary hunter.
The one who took the hardest contracts without ever demanding payment.
The shadow who walked into vampire dens alone and came out alive, without so much as a scratch.
The strongest graduate to ever leave the halls of Nox Aeternum.
Azrael Noctis.
Kawara's throat tightened, not in fear — but in the raw awareness that he was standing before someone who had already on his way to become a living legend.
Azrael's presence and spirit made him realize that he knew nothing about the path he had chosen to walk.
Lysaria realized it too, though in her mind, the image was something more.
Looking into Azrael's eyes, she felt… something ancient.
A weight older than the village, older than the guilds.
It was as if she was staring into the soul of a god wearing mortal skin.
A man destined not just to be remembered — but to shape the very myths that would outlive them all.
The silence between them was broken only by the groan of collapsing beams from the destroyed hut nearby.
One by one, survivors began to emerge from the wreckage.
A handful of villagers, faces streaked with soot and tears, stumbled toward Azrael.
Some carried the injured, others clutched the lifeless hands of those who hadn't made it.
They knelt before him, murmuring thanks, blessings, prayers.
A woman pressed a bloodstained scarf into his hands — the only thing she had left to offer.
A boy tried to give him a silver coin, but Azrael shook his head and closed the boy's fingers over it.
"You keep it," he said, without warmth but without cruelty. "You'll need it more than I will."
For a moment, there was something almost sacred in the clearing.
The dawn light caught in the drifting ash, framing Azrael like a statue carved from shadow and steel.
Then the moment shattered.
A series of footsteps — heavy, arrogant — crunched over the debris from the northern path.
Ten men.
All wearing the wolf-emblem.
The White Wolf Guild.
But these were not like Kawara. Their armor gleamed despite the smoke.
Their expressions were not grim from battle, but smug — the faces of men who expected coin, glory, and warm beds after a "hard day's work."
Azrael's eyes narrowed.
He knew the type.
Hunters in name only.
Mercenaries fattened by greed.
Men who weighed danger against payment and never lifted a blade without the promise of gold.
The leader of the group, a tall man with oiled hair and a polished breastplate, smirked as he looked around the devastation.
"So," he said, voice dripping with false camaraderie, "looks like we missed the fun."
Another chuckled. "Missed the payday too, by the look of it."
Another one said "Oh? Who's there? The black lonely guy? Hahaha!" with a tone of mockery.
Azrael didn't answer.
He simply turned away, his cloak brushing against the dirt.
But Freya saw it — that subtle tightening of his jaw, the same restrained disgust she'd seen before when Azrael's patience wore thin.
Kawara's gaze hardened.
Even without arms, the weight of his presence silenced the cocky laughter. "Show respect," he growled. "You're speaking in front of the man who saved what's left of this village. And your commander."
"Commander?" one of them scoffed, glancing at Azrael. "Never seen him before. Doesn't even wear our colors. Our leader is right here."
Lysaria's staff struck the ground with a sharp crack, the sound snapping through the morning air.
"We're alive because of him," she said, her voice like steel. "Remember that before you open your mouths."
Azrael still said nothing.
His eyes remained on the horizon, as if he'd already dismissed them from his thoughts entirely.
To him, they weren't worth the air it would take to scold them.
The leader of the ten shifted uneasily under the silence.
For the first time, he seemed to realize that Azrael's stillness wasn't passivity.
It was the calm of someone who could end every man in front of him without breaking stride.
The air between them grew heavy.
Finally, Azrael moved — not toward them, but past them, walking toward the road leading out of the village.
"We're done here," he said to Freya, without looking back.
Freya followed, though she cast one last glance at Kawara and Lysaria.
"Get some rest. Heal. Next time, we make sure none of them escape."
Kawara nodded, his expression solemn but lit by a spark of renewed resolve. Lysaria's gaze lingered on Azrael's back until he vanished into the rising sun.
And in her mind, the thought remained:
No one will ever be like him. No one.