The battlefield was still thick with smoke when Seo Haneul crossed the broken gate. The monsters had been reduced to ash beneath his aura, their carcasses dissolving in the golden mist still rippling around him. Hunters regrouped in scattered clusters, the sharp bite of blood and iron in the air.
But Seo Haneul's eyes weren't on them.
They were on the man who stood apart.
Dark hair clung damply to his face, a scar cutting from brow to cheek. One eye was amber, dulled to autumn's edge; the other, silver-grey fractured with faint cracks of light. His blade dripped black ichor, but there was no aura, no pheromone field, nothing that marked him as more than a Beta.
To the others, he was invisible. Forgettable.
But Seo Haneul's instincts screamed otherwise.
He crossed the debris-strewn floor until they stood a few paces apart. "Who are you?"
The man glanced at him, brow furrowed faintly as if irritated by the question. His voice was steady, low, almost detached.
"Yoon Sihyun. A-rank. Beta."
The words lodged like a blade under Seo Haneul's ribs.
An A-rank Beta? That was a contradiction in itself. Everyone knew Betas capped at B-rank. They lacked the pheromone force to rise higher — it was as simple as breathing.
And yet here he was.
No Beta could stand here like this. No Beta should make the air feel like this.
His golden mist flared, restless, reaching. The other man flinched faintly but didn't back away. His mismatched eyes caught the fading torchlight for only an instant before dulling again.
"…A-rank Beta," Seo Haneul repeated under his breath, tasting the words, but they didn't fit.
Yoon Sihyun's gaze narrowed, unimpressed. "…Is there a problem?"
Seo Haneul opened his mouth — then stopped. He didn't have an answer. His chest ached, hollow and unfamiliar.
He turned away.
But as he walked back to his hunters, his eyes betrayed him, flicking back once, then again.
Yoon Sihyun. A-rank. Beta.
That's no A-rank Beta, he thought.