The sky was gray.
Clouds hung low over the shattered battlefield like a lid trying to seal the world shut, but the sound of steel still tore through the air. Clashing. Screeching. The vibration of power met power, again and again, until even the earth seemed too tired to hold.
Broken weapons were half-buried in the crumbling ground. Craters pocked the landscape where spells had detonated. Smoke rose in lazy trails from blackened stone, and in the distance, mountains had been carved open like soft clay.
At the very center of it all, two figures still stood.
One of them was Lukas.
His breath was ragged, each inhale cutting down his throat like sandpaper. Blood dripped from a dozen cuts beneath his armor, soaking the cloth, sticking it to his skin. His sword — once spotless — was chipped along the edges, the blade darkened by the residue of clashing auras.
The other was the Demon Lord — a towering silhouette wrapped in crushing pressure, like a storm given form. Every movement of the Demon Lord's weapon carved rifts into the air, sending shockwaves across the ruined plain.
Behind Lukas, his companions lay on the ground.
Some were face-down in the dirt, weapons slipped from their fingers. Others were on their knees, clutching their chests, gasping, trying and failing to stand. Their auras flickered weakly around them, barely enough to keep them conscious.
They had given everything.
And the Demon Lord was still standing.
Lukas could feel it in every fiber of his body.
If he kept fighting like this… they would all die here. Not just him. Not just his companions. Everyone they fought for. Everything he'd sworn to protect.
His legs trembled as he adjusted his stance, raising his sword once more.
The Demon Lord's weapon came down in a brutal arc. Lukas stepped in, parried, sparks spraying between steel. The impact sent pain shooting up his arms, into his shoulders, but he gritted his teeth and shoved back. He dodged the follow-up strike by a hair, blade grazing across his armor, then twisted to land a counter slash across the Demon Lord's side.
It was shallow. Insufficient.
The Demon Lord barely flinched.
Their weapons clashed again and again, each collision louder than the last. The air around them screamed as aura met aura, sending ripples outward that knocked loose stones into the air before slamming them back down.
Lukas slid back across the ground, boots cutting furrows into the broken earth, and forced distance between them.
He could feel his companions behind him — their auras faint, flickering… but still there. Watching. Trusting.
He knew they were at their limit. He knew they couldn't stand back up and join the fight. He knew that if he fell the Demon Lord would simply walk past his corpse and finish each of them, one by one.
He also knew something else.
He couldn't defeat the Demon Lord and survive.
Not like this. Not as he was now.
His thoughts went to one thing — one Skill he had never wanted to use. The final thread in his Heroic Series. A Skill designed not to save the user, but to end everything along with them.
His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword.
He had always known that this road might end here.
Lukas closed his eyes for just a heartbeat, drawing in a slow, steadying breath as the Demon Lord gathered power on the other side of the battlefield.
Then he opened them.
His right eye flickered — and a faint golden trail appeared in his vision, as if someone had brushed a line of light through it. That light spread, threading through his veins, racing down his limbs. The air around him grew heavy, vibrating with something deeper than simple aura.
A radiant golden aura burst from his body, flaring outward in a sudden, blinding wave.
The ground beneath his feet cracked under the pressure. Dust and fragments of stone levitated for a moment, drawn upward before being vaporized by the sheer intensity of power.
His companions, lying scattered across the battlefield, felt it.
Even half-conscious, even barely clinging to life, their eyes widened. They knew this feeling. This weight. This resolve.
The last Skill.
Lukas stared at the Demon Lord through the haze of golden light.
Lukas(thinking): So this is the end of the road for me, huh?
There was no regret in the thought.
Only a quiet acceptance — and a small, stubborn spark of relief. If the path he walked had to end, then at least it would end here, where it mattered.
He stepped forward.
Then another step.
And then Lukas charged.
The Demon Lord roared, swinging its weapon with both hands as its own aura surged. In response, waves of compressed power shot forward — blades of force, arcs of killing intent, a flurry of invisible slashes ripping through the air.
Lukas did not dodge.
His focus narrowed to a single point. Not to his body. Not to the pain. Only to the sequence of power he needed to complete. The pattern that would unleash the last of his strength in one all-consuming strike.
The first aura slash tore across his side, carving through armor and flesh.
The second slammed into his right arm with enough force to twist it unnaturally, and in the next instant, his arm was gone — severed cleanly at the shoulder, spinning away trailing blood.
Pain ignited through him like fire.
The third slash came for his face. It cleaved across his left eye, cutting it in half. Blood burst from the wound, hot and blinding, washing half his vision in red.
The world tilted. His body screamed.
But he did not stop.
His legs kept moving — one step, then another, then another, dragging his battered body forward. Golden aura condensed around him, growing denser, brighter, sharper, as if refusing to let his consciousness slip away.
The Demon Lord's attacks continued, but now, the aura around Lukas bent them just enough to keep him moving. Every blow carved him further apart, but none of them struck his core.
He refused to fall.
He refused to let this be meaningless.
By the time he was just a few meters away, he could no longer feel his fingers. His grip on his sword was held together only by sheer will and the fading remnants of his strength.
He lifted the blade.
Not toward the Demon Lord — not to strike its body directly — but downward.
The point of his sword slammed into the ground.
Light exploded.
A colossal golden magic circle surged outward from beneath his feet, spreading in an instant beneath both Lukas and the Demon Lord. It was intricate, layered with countless runes and interlocking patterns, all pulsing with a blinding radiance that eclipsed even the gray sky above.
The air shook.
The world itself seemed to hesitate.
Lukas drew in one last breath, his remaining eye burning with fierce, unwavering resolve.
Lukas(shouting): Heroic Series, Ultimate String—Pillar of Sacrifice!
The moment the words left his mouth, the magic circle activated fully.
A gigantic pillar of golden light burst upward, swallowing both Lukas and the Demon Lord in a single, overwhelming column. The sound was indescribable — a roar, a scream, a shattering — as pure power disintegrated everything caught within its range.
For a few long seconds, the battlefield was nothing but light.
When the pillar finally vanished, silence followed.
Dust drifted slowly down through the empty air. The ground where Lukas and the Demon Lord had stood was gone — carved into a massive, perfectly circular crater of smooth, glassed stone.
The Demon Lord was no more.
So was Lukas.
Only the fading aftertaste of mana remained… and within that, something different. Faint traces of a higher, purer energy still trembled in the air, like the echo of a bell.
Divine mana.
A long moment passed before Lukas's companions, scattered across the ruined battlefield, finally forced their broken bodies to move.
One by one, they dragged themselves upright.
Swords were used as crutches. Staffs were pressed into the ground to support shaking arms. Armor scraped and groaned as they rose, each motion sending waves of pain through their injuries.
They looked toward the center of the battlefield.
There was only the crater.
No body. No sword. No familiar back standing tall where he should have been.
But they all felt it. The remnants of that light. The echo of Divine mana.
They did not need to see his corpse to understand what had happened.
He was gone.
Their knees buckled. Their hands slipped from weapons. Some of them fell back to the ground entirely, while others simply dropped where they stood, shoulders shaking.
The battlefield that had echoed with clashes and roars now held only the quiet sound of their cries.
The Demon Lord had fallen.
The world had been saved.
And Lukas, the one who had led them all to this point, had disappeared with the light.
◆ Three Hundred Years Later ◆
Lukas was reborn into that world.
No memories of the life he had given up.
No knowledge of the companions who had survived him.
No trace of the Heroic Series Skills that had once carved legends into the land.
Only a new life.
And a path that would eventually drag him back into the center of everything.
◆ A Few Weeks Ago ◆
The training grounds on the outskirts of a German city were crowded with noise.
They weren't anything special — just a large open area maintained by the local Hunter Association, fitted with rows of dummies, dirt arenas, and a few scattered mana-measuring devices. The concrete walls surrounding the area had been reinforced, just in case someone lost control of an ability.
Aspiring Hunters filled the place, some laughing, some trembling, some gritting their teeth as they swung weapons or practiced simple skills. The air carried the mingled scents of sweat, dust, and faint mana.
Off to one side, in front of a slightly worn wooden dummy, a dark-haired teenage boy swung a wooden sword again and again.
His name was Lukas.
His grip was rough but improving, hands curled tightly around the training sword. Sweat ran down his forehead, dampening his black hair and sticking a few strands to his skin. His light-blue eyes were narrowed in focus, tracking each imagined opening on the dummy's surface.
The wooden blade cracked against the dummy's chest area.
Lukas: Haah!
He exhaled sharply with the strike, then pulled back, shifting his feet, twisting his hips properly this time.
Lukas: Ha!
Another strike. Then another. And another. The movements weren't perfect, but they were better than when he started. The dummy's surface was covered in shallow dents and faint scuffs from repeated impacts.
His arms burned. His shoulders ached. His breathing was heavy.
But he didn't stop.
Around him, others were focusing on flashier things — trying to conjure sparks of mana, practicing low-level offensive skills, talking excitedly about their awakenings and plans. Lukas, however, had only one thing in his hands.
A wooden sword.
He had come to these free training grounds almost every day he could, ever since he first learned what Hunters were. Even without an awakening, even without a single skill, he had refused to do nothing.
If he was weak, he'd train his body. If he had no ability, he'd master a weapon.
He raised the wooden sword again.
The air around him felt… thick.
He paused mid-swing, frowning slightly.
Something was different.
For a moment, the background noise of shouting, clashing, and conversation seemed to fade, like someone had turned down the volume on the world. Lukas's heartbeat filled his ears instead, steady and loud.
A faint, unfamiliar sensation crawled along his spine.
Not pain. Not fear.
Something like… warmth. And pressure.
Lukas(thinking): …What is this?
He lowered the wooden sword slightly, his gaze unfocusing as the sensation grew stronger. It felt as if the air itself was pressing against his skin, seeping into his lungs with every breath.
Then—
A chime sounded inside his head.
It wasn't from the training ground. No device had gone off. No one nearby reacted.
It rang only for him.
A translucent window of light snapped into existence in front of his face, hovering just beyond the tip of his sword. Its edges were sharp and geometric, marked with thin, faintly glowing lines that traced a neat frame.
Lukas's eyes widened.
Bold letters formed across the surface of the window, glowing with a soft white radiance that felt both unreal and inevitable.
◆ AWAKENING COMPLETE ◆
[NAME] Lukas
[LEVEL] 1
[INNATE SKILL] Rising Star [Passive]
[STATS]
• Strength: 6
• Agility: 6
• Endurance: 5
• Mana: 5
• Luck: 1
[SKILLS]
• Basic Swordsmanship [E-Rank]
He forgot to breathe for a second.
Then, very slowly, Lukas's lips parted.
Lukas(whispering): I… awakened…
The words came out barely audible, as if he was afraid saying them too loudly would make the window vanish.
But it didn't.
The luminous text hovered patiently in the air, as if waiting for him to accept it as reality.
Rising Star.
A passive skill.
He had no idea what that meant yet. No explanation window opened automatically, no voice in his head elaborated. But the moment he saw the words, something hot surged in his chest.
This was it.
The line between ordinary civilian and Hunter had always been clear. Awakening — manifesting an innate skill and being recognized by the System — was the first gate he had never been able to cross.
Until now.
His shock dissolved into something else — excitement that sparked behind his eyes, overriding the fatigue in his muscles and the dull ache in his arms.
His hands tightened on the wooden sword again.
Lukas(shouting): Alright! Now I can begin my training for real!
A few people nearby glanced over at the sudden outburst, some raising eyebrows, others smirking faintly at his enthusiasm. Lukas barely noticed them.
His focus was on the window, on the words that had just rewritten his future.
Rising Star.
Basic Swordsmanship [E-Rank].
It wasn't flashy. It wasn't some overwhelming destructive ability, or a rare elemental trait.
But it was his.
And it meant he no longer had to stand on the outside, watching others walk forward without him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a long breath as the System window slowly faded from sight, dissolving into light that sank into his chest.
From that day on, his routine changed.
He still came to the training grounds, still swung his sword until his arms burned, but now he did it with a different weight behind each movement. When he practiced, he could feel something subtle — a slight correction in his stance, a faint pressure guiding his timing. His Basic Swordsmanship responded, growing little by little as he pushed himself.
And he made plans.
Every week, in different countries, the Hunter Associations held Recruitment Exams. Passing one of those exams meant being officially recognized as a Hunter — gaining access to gates, contracts, resources, and a real path forward.
The next exam was scheduled in Japan.
Waiting for a closer date, finding something more convenient… none of that mattered to him when he saw the listing.
Three hundred years of history, ten great guilds, and a world that relied on Hunters as its shield — all of it was beyond what Lukas truly understood. But he knew one thing clearly:
He wanted to stand on that stage.
He wanted to move forward.
He wanted to grasp strength with his own hands.
So he made his decision.
He would go to Japan.
◆ The Present ◆
The exam building loomed in front of Lukas like a concrete monument.
It was tall enough to flirt with the idea of being a tower, its design blunt rather than elegant. Reinforced walls, thick support pillars, and minimal windows gave it a heavy, solid presence. Wide steps led up to its front entrance, and above the doors, a simple sign marked it as the site of the Hunter Recruitment Exam.
Inside, the main arena sat in the center of the structure, open to the sky via a circular skylight that let sunlight pour down like a natural spotlight. Rows of seating and viewing platforms surrounded the arena floor, arranged in levels.
The place hummed with energy.
Aspiring examinees milled about in the lobby area, some sitting on benches, some stretching, some pacing nervously. The murmurs of conversation bounced softly off the walls — speculation, bravado, fear.
Lukas stepped through the entrance, boots clicking lightly against the smooth floor, the strap of his bag slung over his shoulder.
He took a moment to look up at the interior.
The skylight's light cut through the higher levels, casting a gentle glow over the arena where, soon, people would be fighting examiners one-on-one to prove their worth.
This was the starting line.
He moved toward the registration desk set up near the entrance to the arena proper.
Behind the counter sat a man with slightly graying hair and a relaxed expression, flipping through a stack of forms. Despite the number of people, the process moved quickly; the staff here were used to handling this sort of crowd.
Lukas approached the desk and set his bag down at his side.
Lukas: Hello. I would like to register for the Hunter Recruitment Exam.
The man looked up, eyes flicking over Lukas briefly — taking in his age, his posture, the slight tension in his shoulders — then gave him a friendly grin.
Man at the Register: Sure thing, lad! Name?
Lukas: Lukas.
The man scribbled something down, then reached into a tray and pulled out a small numbered badge.
Man at the Register: Alright, Lukas. Here's your number. Go up to the stage when your number is called. You'll be fighting against an examiner. First round starts in about thirty minutes.
He handed the badge over the counter.
Lukas accepted it with both hands out of habit, then glanced down at the number printed on it.
He nodded once, feeling a faint flutter in his chest.
Lukas: Thank you.
Man at the Register: Changing rooms are down that corridor. Don't be late when they call you. Missing your number means automatic disqualification.
Lukas: Got it.
Lukas turned away, clutching the badge for a second longer than necessary before sliding it carefully into a pocket.
He followed the indicated corridor, passing other examinees who were adjusting armor, checking the fit of their boots, or murmuring last-minute pep talks to themselves. The scent of oiled leather and metal lingered in the air.
In the changing room, Lukas set his bag down on a bench and opened it.
Inside was his gear.
It wasn't impressive. Simple leather armor that covered his torso and vital areas, worn but well-maintained. A pair of sturdy boots. Bracers to protect his forearms. No emblems, no special colors, nothing to stand out.
He changed out of his casual clothes and into the armor, tightening the straps and adjusting the fit until it sat comfortably against his body. It didn't make him look strong or imposing. It simply made him look prepared.
Lastly, he picked up his sword.
The simple steel blade had seen better days. Nicks and faint scratches marked the edge, the hilt's wrapping slightly frayed at the corners. It wasn't something crafted by a master, and it certainly wasn't enchanted.
But it was the weapon he'd trained with since childhood. It was the blade that had been in his hands for every swing he'd taken trying to improve.
He slid it into the worn scabbard at his side.
For a moment, he stood there in the quiet of the changing room, fingers resting lightly on the hilt.
Lukas(thinking): This is it.
His heart beat a little faster. Not from fear — or at least, not only from fear. There was anticipation, too. A strange sense of rightness, like some part of him had always been meant to stand in a place like this.
He took a slow breath, then exhaled, letting the tension bleed away.
Outside, time moved.
Others were called one by one. The faint muffled sound of clashing, cheering, and announcements seeped through the walls as examinees stepped into the arena, fought… and either succeeded or failed.
Minutes passed.
Then a voice echoed through the speakers installed around the facility.
Voice: Examinee number fifteen. Please make your way to the arena.
Lukas opened his eyes.
He adjusted the strap of his scabbard once more, made sure his armor was secure, then picked up his bag only long enough to move it into a locker. He shut it, turned, and headed for the exit to the arena corridor.
His footsteps echoed softly as he walked.
The corridor opened up to the light of the skylit arena. The air felt different here — clearer, sharper, charged with the focused attention of everyone watching.
Lukas stepped out onto the edge of the arena, the sunlight brushing over his face as he looked up at the open patch of sky above.
He could feel eyes on him from the stands. Other examinees, staff, maybe even scouts. None of them knew who he was. None of them knew what he carried inside him — the silent determination that had been shaped by years of training and something deeper — a drive to reach the life goal that had defined him since that night.
He moved toward the center.
His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his simple sword. His armor creaked faintly with each step. The badge with the number 15 was pinned clearly to his chest.
This was only the beginning.
His journey started now.