Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest - Chapter 1026

Chapter 1026: Chapter 243.2 – Threat
A beat passed.

Then another.

And slowly—subtly, like the shift in wind before a summer storm—something changed.

The weight in the air didn’t vanish, but it tilted. Lightened.

Raine exhaled, her lips parting slightly as her grip on her crystal case loosened. She blinked once, then again, like something had just clicked behind her eyes. The quiet murmuring stopped.

Kaela didn’t move at first, but her bowstring—once caught between fidgeting fingers—was finally let go. She rolled her shoulders once, just barely, and her stance corrected into something straighter. Sharper. Less burdened.

Marin let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and finally—finally—his feet moved again. Not the nervous bounce from before, but a firm step forward. Grounded. Present.

He looked at Ethan for a long second, eyes unreadable behind the scarf. Then, without warning—

Smack.

His hand landed against his own cheek in a loud, self-inflicted slap that made Raine jump and Julia whip around.

“…What the hell, Marin?” Julia muttered, blinking.

But Marin didn’t answer her.

He looked straight at Ethan. The corners of his eyes crinkled just slightly above the cloth. “Thanks,” he said. “Really.”

Then he turned to the rest of the squad. His voice was clearer now. “Alright. No more bitching. Ethan’s right.”

He glanced toward the gate.

“We’ve trained for this. And if we trip, we get up. Simple as that.”

Kaela snorted under her breath, barely audible, but she was nodding. Raine gave a small, almost reluctant smile, tucking her crystals back into her belt pouch and rising to her full height.

Even Deacon—quiet, often forgettable Deacon—straightened beside them, his hand tightening over the hilt of his shortblade.

There was no fiery cheer. No rallying war cry.

But that didn’t matter.

Because something had steadied.

And beneath the eyes of the Federation scouts, the fear didn’t own them anymore.

They remembered.

They all remembered.

Ethan Hartley—the boy who hadn’t even ranked in the top 2000 when the semester began. The one who had no elemental affinity in the first month. The one who showed up late to group matches because of extra remedial sessions and was paired with cast-offs no one wanted.

He’d been behind all of them once.

And now?

Now he stood at their side, second-in-command, lightning spear at his back, calm in his voice, and no one questioned why.

He must have felt what they did—worse, even.

But had he whined?

Had he frozen like Kaela, or spiraled like Raine, or cracked jokes like Marin to hide it?

He hadn’t.

He’d gotten stronger.

Quietly.

And maybe… maybe that’s what they needed to do too.

****

They began to walk.

Boots hitting stone. Step by step, five shadows cast forward toward the shimmer of the gate. No hesitation now. No faltering. Just motion—measured, ready.

Ethan walked just behind Julia, his spear strap snug across his back, gauntlet humming faintly with residual psions. The others flanked close—Raine adjusting her wristbands, Kaela scanning their surroundings, Marin flicking his fingers like he was already warming up for the first strike.

And then—

SMACK.

A sharp, sudden smack landed clean across Ethan’s shoulder.

He winced, stumbling half a step forward. “Ow—again?”

He turned to look at her, frowning. “What was that for?”

Julia didn’t stop walking. She just tilted her head, smile playing at the corners of her lips. “No reason.”

Ethan gave her a look. “Seriously?”

“What?” she asked, all innocent eyes and not-so-innocent amusement.

He opened his mouth to press further—but Julia beat him to it. She raised her hand, index finger pressing gently to her lips, mock-thoughtful.

“Shhh,” she whispered with a grin. “You looked cool back there.”

Ethan blinked.

She leaned in, just a bit, voice teasing. “Keep talking like that, and you’ll make a lot of girls fall for you.”

He stared at her, flustered. “I didn’t say any of that for that reason.”

“Oh. Of course, mountain boy,” she drawled, eyes twinkling.

Ethan groaned. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? You were so noble and humble—like some kind of martial arts protagonist from an old cultivation drama.” She gave a theatrical sigh, eyes fluttering for effect. “Truly, a man forged in silence and snow, rising from obscurity to steal the hearts of maidens everywhere…”

Kaela coughed from behind them. Raine snorted. Marin didn’t even try to hold in his laugh.

Ethan looked up toward the shimmering veil of the gate, muttering, “I take it back. I should’ve let you do all the talking.”

Julia grinned, clapping him on the back again—but lighter this time. Familiar. Steady.

“You did good, Hartley,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear.

And together, they stepped into the light.

****

The moment their boots touched down inside the dungeon’s barrier field, the temperature dropped.

A thin mist crawled along the ground, lit faintly by the gleam of bioluminescent moss clinging to the jagged cavern walls. The air smelled damp—minerals, old blood, stale mana. Somewhere in the distance, something growled—low and gurgling, like a creature not meant to exist outside the dark.

Marin was the first to speak.

“…Yeah. This place sucks.”

Julia cracked her neck once, rolling her shoulders. “Suckier for them.”

Ethan let his fingers slide along the haft of his spear, the silver inlays catching the low light. His psions were already active—quiet hums echoing in the gauntlets, lightning folded tight around his muscles. He didn’t need to charge anything.

This wouldn’t take long.

They didn’t even form a proper battle line. No elaborate pre-fight ritual. No whispered strategies.

They didn’t need them.

The squad’s structure had always been simple—Julia in the front, Ethan at her flank, and everyone else orbiting around the chaos they created.

Because Julia was chaos.

The first beast emerged—twice the height of a man, covered in bone-plated armor with three jaws layered atop one another—and Julia didn’t wait for it to finish screaming.

She launched.

No callout. No warning.

Just a blur of muscle and grit, her longsword already in motion as her mana exploded out in a crimson arc behind her.

CRACK—BOOM.

The beast’s front leg was severed before it could take a full step. Blood sprayed across the mossy stone as it howled, only to have that howl cut short by Julia driving her blade straight up through its center mouth with a brutal twist.

It collapsed.

Marin whistled. “Right into it, huh?”

Kaela didn’t answer—she was already moving, arrows loosed in a crisp rhythm, each one pinning distant spawn to the walls before they could fully emerge from the mist. Raine followed close behind, her light-based glyphs spinning into place like clockwork—one barrier, two buffs, a rapid minor heal for Julia’s shoulder even though Julia hadn’t even noticed she was bleeding.

Ethan?

He moved like water around her.

The second wave hit harder—four beasts this time, serpentine and armored, with mana-coiling tails that lashed out like scythes. But Ethan didn’t flinch. He dashed forward, lightning singing beneath his feet, and struck before they could converge.

“Form Two—Radiant Surge.”

A spiraling bolt of thunder cracked through the cavern, illuminating their path in blinding arcs. His spear struck once, but split into three lines of piercing current, ripping through two of the serpents before they could hiss.

One lunged for him, jaws wide.

Julia’s boot crashed down on its skull from above.

She drove her heel into the thing’s cranium like it was a fruit, using the height from her leap to anchor the strike and grind its head into the stone.

Another tried to flank.

Ethan spun, slashing sideways with an arc of coiled lightning, catching its jaw and launching it sideways—right into Kaela’s waiting arrow, which didn’t just pierce the skull but detonated in a focused burst of compressed air.

CRACK.

Silence returned for a breath.

Then another gate opened deeper inside.

More monsters.

Larger.

Some even wearing fragmentary armor, remnants of a corrupted hunter squad long since lost. Their movement patterns were different—smarter, faster, adaptive.

It didn’t matter.

Julia grinned. “Perfect.”