Serin pressed a hand to her earpiece.
"Captain?" Her voice was hoarse. She swallowed hard. "Captain Borin, respond."
Static.
"Captain!" Louder this time. "Captain Borin!"
Nothing.
Something tightened in her chest. 'No. No, he can't…'
"CAPTAIN!"
The shout echoed through the entire division's earpieces.
The other hunters froze, waiting.
Three seconds passed.
Then five.
Ten.
Serin opened her mouth to yell again.
[…damn it, Serin, you're gonna burst my eardrums.]
The voice was weak, broken by wet coughs, but it was Borin's.
Serin dropped to her knees.
Around her, a collective roar erupted. Ironveil hunters shouted, some raising their weapons, others falling onto their backs laughing like maniacs.
"He's alive!"
"The captain's alive!"
"FUCK YEAH, HE DID IT!"
"Captain…" Serin wiped her face with a rough swipe. "You… you okay?"
[Defining 'okay' here would be optimistic.] Borin coughed again. [Everything hurts. Right shoulder's shot. Think I've got three cracked ribs. Maybe four. And my armor… well, I used to have armor.]
"The Boss?"
Borin laughed. [Look at the Rift, Vice-Captain.]
Serin looked up.
The dimensional tear at the battlefield's center was shuddering. Its black edges were pulling inward, folding in on themselves like a wound closing. The ether pouring out thinned from a flood to a trickle.
[It's closing. Which means I kicked that monster's ass. Blew it up. Vaporized it. Reduced it to particles.]
Serin let out a choked laugh. "Your orders, Captain."
[Tell HQ. Tell them tomorrow I want that S-rank. I earned the damn badge.]
"Noted." She stood, ignoring her shaking legs. "Recovery team's inbound. Hold on."
[Take your time. I wanna stare at the stars for a bit. Rare to get a clear view like this.]
The channel cut.
Serin stood still a moment. Then she smiled and turned to her hunters.
"Form a recovery team! The captain's at the crater center!"
The hunters nodded and vanished into Ironveil's organized chaos.
The remaining nemesis wandered aimlessly. Some scattered into the forest. Others charged blindly at the hunter lines and were cut down in seconds. Without the Boss to guide them, they were just lost beasts.
Final cleanup had begun.
Mara O'Connel strode briskly between her hunter groups, digital tablet in hand. "Final report, Gamma-North sector. Twenty-seven nemesis neutralized. Zero human casualties. Minor material damage." She nodded, satisfied. "Gamma-South sector?"
"Fifteen units, Vice-Captain," Jax replied, wiping his blade. "The last ones seemed confused. Almost too easy."
"That's the Rift closing," Mara explained, turning on her heel. "The link keeping them aggressive and coordinated snapped. They're back to simple predators, not a coordinated army."
She stopped in front of Elias, who was perched on a rock, eyes half-closed like he was dozing.
"Command sector: zero units neutralized, captain inactive," she said dryly.
Elias opened one eye. "I neutralized the deadliest enemy: boredom. Public service."
Mara ignored the jab. "Cleanup is 98% complete. Ironveil and Clover are handling their sectors and Captain Borin's recovery. Our surveillance and support mission is done." She paused, anticipating his reaction. "I recommend immediate return to base to start post-mission reports. Forms 7B and 12C are due within six hours of—"
Elias leaped up, stretching his arms overhead with an exaggerated yawn. "Perfect. You convinced me. We're out."
He started walking, casual as ever, skirting around Mara without a glance. "Round up the troops. Let's go. This forest stinks of burnt blood."
Mara stood there a beat, then hurried to catch up.
"Captain! Wait! We need to at least coordinate with the other captains for the tactical exit debrief! Protocol—"
Elias didn't slow. "You handle it. You're way better at that kind of chit-chat."
"It's not about—" Mara started, annoyed.
Then Elias stopped dead.
So abruptly Mara nearly ran into his back. His gaze wasn't lazy or sleepy anymore—it was locked not on the closing Rift, but on a specific point in the sky, right at the edge of the phenomenon.
Mara followed his line of sight. She saw nothing unusual. Just the night, the stars, and the dimensional breach fading with a final sigh of violet energy.
"Captain?"
Elias didn't answer. His eyes narrowed.
"Shit," he muttered.
The word was barely audible, but it carried an urgency Mara had never heard from him.
Before she could ask what he'd seen, what was wrong, Elias moved.
A simple shift of his foot—so fast it left a faint scorch mark on the rocky ground. The space where he'd stood blurred, and he was gone.
Mara's mouth hung open, her brain taking seconds to process.
"What…?"
Around her, Jaeger hunters froze too. Briggs, mid-roll-call, dropped his clipboard. The others whispered, wide-eyed, staring at the spot their captain had occupied a second ago.
"Where… where'd he go?" a young hunter asked.
Mara had no answer.
That reaction… It wasn't laziness or indifference.
'He was looking at the Rift. At the spot where Borin just pulled off a suicidal explosion and walked away alive… Could it be…'
"Hold position!" she barked, snapping back. "Maximum alert! Monitor all scanners—dimensional and thermal!"
"You think there's another problem?" Briggs asked, already moving, weapon ready.
Mara clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms. She stared at the horizon, where the Rift was now just a faint scar in the sky.
"I don't know. But when 'he' moves like that… it never means anything good."
At the crater's center, Borin lay sprawled on his back.
The ground beneath him was still warm, almost steaming. Fragments of his armor littered the dirt around him. His bare torso was a map of purple bruises covering nearly every inch of skin. Dried blood crusted his forehead.
He raised one hand toward the sky.
The stars shone clear, beautiful. The mushroom cloud had cleared, leaving a perfect night sky.
"Not a bad view," he murmured.
He let his hand drop.
Then he slowly sat up, groaning with every move. His abs screamed. His right shoulder refused to budge. He propped himself on his left arm and managed to sit.
He looked around.
Not a tree left standing. Not a rock intact. Just bare, glassy earth in places where the heat had been fiercest.
Borin smiled.
Then he raised his good fist to the sky, brandishing it like a trophy.
"CHAMPION!"
His voice echoed across the empty crater.
He laughed—until it turned into a cough. Blood splattered his hand.
"Shit. Really need to get patched up."
"That's not good."
Borin froze.
The voice came from his left, about ten meters away.
He turned his head slowly.
A figure stood at the crater's edge. Black tactical gear, form-fitting, no insignia. A smooth white facial mask—no eye slits, no mouth. Just blank, featureless white.
Borin frowned.
"Who's there?"
The figure didn't answer right away. It was looking up at the closing Rift. The black edges kept retracting, leaving a dimensional scar that would fade in hours.
The person scratched the back of their head.
"This wasn't supposed to end like this," they said.
The voice was male, young, tinged with almost childish disappointment.
Borin felt ice crawl up his spine.
He stood. Slowly. Every muscle protested, but he pushed through the pain. His right arm hung limp.
"I'm only asking once," Borin growled. His voice carried despite the exhaustion. "Who are you?"
The figure didn't turn. Kept staring at the Rift.
"You know," they went on, as if they hadn't heard, "we calculated everything. Timing. Boss strength. Environmental variables." They sighed. "But we didn't account for a captain crazy enough to let himself get skewered just to buy three seconds of positioning."
Borin took a step forward.
"If you don't tell me who you are in the next five seconds, I'm crushing you right here. Broken arm or not."
The figure fell silent.
Then, finally, they turned.
The white mask had no expression. No eye holes. No drawn mouth. Just smooth, almost glossy surface under the starlight.
Yet Borin distinctly felt watched.
"This mess," the figure said, raising a hand toward Borin, "is your fault."
"Explain."
The figure tilted its head.
Then dropped the hand back into its pocket.
"You killed the Boss too early. The Rift's closing too soon. The dimensional flow we wanted to stabilize never had time to set. All our prep work… wasted."
Borin's blood ran cold.
"Your work?"
"Mmh."
"You… you created this Rift?"
The figure didn't answer.
Silence stretched.
Then the figure stepped forward.
Borin instinctively stepped back.
"Tell me, Captain Borin of Ironveil Company, Division 7, Britania Hunter Association," the figure said. Its voice had lost all casualness—cold now. Clinical. "How should I punish you for screwing everything up?"