The silence that followed Lunaria's declaration was not empty.
It was aftermath.
The ruined city—once a place of memory, then despair, then absolute annihilation—stood frozen beneath a sky that no longer dared to distort. The air itself felt exhausted, mana currents sluggish and uneven, like a body recovering from a near-fatal wound. What had once been streets were now trenches of fused stone. Towers lay folded into the earth as if pressed down by a god's palm.
And at the center of it all—
They remained.
Ash lay sprawled against a slab of broken marble, chest rising and falling in shallow, painful intervals. Every breath burned. His muscles screamed in protest, nerves firing long after they should have gone numb. When he tried to move his fingers, they trembled violently, refusing to fully obey.
Still conscious.
Barely.
I didn't die, he thought dimly. So this is what victory feels like.
Nearby, Riven coughed, dark flecks of blood splattering onto the stone. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at it for a long moment, as if surprised to see proof that he was still human.
"…Eight hours," he muttered. "We fought that thing for eight damn hours."
Kael let out a broken laugh from where he lay flat on his back, staring into the sky. His lightning had long since vanished, leaving his body feeling hollow—like someone had scooped out his core and forgotten to put it back.
"And he still didn't kill us," Kael said. "That's the worst part."
Juno sat with his legs crossed amid shattered chains embedded in the ground around him. His posture was composed, but his hands shook faintly against his knees. His mind replayed fragments of the fight—moments where Lunaria's berserk aura had pressed against his soul, threatening to tear his sense of self apart.
If my control slipped for even a second…
He exhaled slowly.
The guild masters were scattered across the battlefield like debris.
Some lay unconscious, bodies unable to handle the strain of prolonged exposure to Lunaria's abyssal presence. Others knelt where they had fallen, eyes unfocused, lips silently moving as if reciting prayers they weren't sure anyone was listening to anymore.
One A-ranked guild master trembled uncontrollably, clutching his head.
"That wasn't power," he whispered. "That was judgment."
No one corrected him.
Lunaria stood apart from them all.
He was whole.
Not unscathed—his clothes were torn, faint traces of dried blood marking his skin—but his posture was relaxed, unburdened. The chaos that had once wrapped around him like a living storm was gone, sealed away so completely it was hard to believe it had ever existed.
He looked… human.
That, somehow, was more terrifying.
"Training has ended."
The words echoed, bouncing off broken stone and hollow chests alike.
Ash forced himself upright, leaning heavily on his sword. His vision blurred, but he refused to look away from Lunaria.
"Ended?" he rasped. "After all that… you just say it's over?"
Lunaria turned to face him fully.
"Yes."
Riven dragged himself to his feet beside Ash, legs shaking. "We didn't win."
"No," Lunaria agreed calmly. "You didn't."
Kael pushed himself up on his elbows. "Then why stop?"
Lunaria studied them—not as a monster, not as a god, but as a hunter evaluating the blades at his side.
"Because you've crossed the threshold," he said. "What comes next cannot be taught the same way."
Juno's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
Lunaria gestured toward the ruined city around them.
"You learned speed by chasing what you could not reach. You learned combat by surviving what you could not defeat. You learned killing intent by facing something that would not hesitate."
His gaze sharpened.
"And today, you learned who you are when everything that restrains you is stripped away."
Ash swallowed.
Images flashed in his mind—rage, fear, despair, the moment he had nearly lost himself entirely.
"You forced our berserk states out," Ash said. "On purpose."
"Yes."
"And you let us hit you," Riven added.
Lunaria nodded. "Because hesitation is death. I needed to see if you would cross that line."
Kael clenched his fist. "And?"
A brief silence followed.
Then Lunaria said, "You did."
That single sentence settled over them like a weight—and a promise.
The guild masters stiffened.
One of them—an older man with an A+ insignia cracked down the middle—finally spoke.
"…What are they now?" he asked quietly. "Compared to us?"
Lunaria didn't look at him.
"They are unfinished," he said. "But they are no longer fragile."
He turned then, eyes locking onto each guild master in turn.
"And you," Lunaria continued, "have been granted a mercy you did not earn."
The pressure in his words alone made several of them flinch.
"Remember this feeling," he said. "The helplessness. The certainty that rank, title, and preparation mean nothing when true power moves."
The A+ master bowed his head. "We will not forget."
Lunaria finally stepped away, walking toward the edge of the ruined city.
"For the next phase," he said without turning back, "you will recover. Heal your bodies. Stabilize your minds."
Ash frowned deeply. "You said training ended."
Lunaria paused.
"Yes," he replied. "Training ended."
He glanced back, eyes unreadable.
"Preparation begins now."
Riven let out a humorless chuckle. "That doesn't sound better."
"You will no longer be pushed," Lunaria said. "You will choose when to step forward."
Kael stared at the sky, where faint mana scars still shimmered. "And if we don't?"
Lunaria's voice was calm.
"Then you will die later instead of now."
He walked on, presence fading naturally, not forcefully—until even Ash's sharpened senses could no longer track him.
For a long time, no one spoke.
The wind moved through broken streets, carrying dust and old memories.
Ash finally looked at his hands again.
They still shook.
But there was something new beneath the pain.
Control.
He clenched his fist—and this time, it held steady.
"This isn't the end," Ash said quietly.
Juno nodded. "No. It's the line between being forged…"
"…and being unleashed," Riven finished.
Kael pushed himself fully to his feet, ignoring the pain. "Whatever's coming next—"
Ash met his gaze, resolve burning brighter than exhaustion.
"—we won't be hunted anymore."
Far beyond the ruined city—
Beyond guild territories.
Beyond watchers that mistook humanity for weakness.
Something ancient shifted once more.
And this time—
It recoiled.
Because for the first time in a very long while—
What it had been watching
was watching back.