The streets outside the Aegis Guild headquarters were quiet, washed clean by the night's rain. Lanterns flickered against slick stone, throwing pale light across the fortress that loomed at the city's heart.
The guild hall was less a building than a bastion — high walls of black stone, buttressed like a fortress, its gates engraved with the sigil of a shield split by a single star. To most hunters, it was a sanctuary. To the city, it was power.
Seo Haneul stepped through its iron gates, his boots echoing in the vast courtyard. His golden mist had long since receded, leaving only the faint ache in his chest — the echo of a presence that refused to leave his mind.
Yoon Sihyun.
The scar. The mismatched eyes.
A Beta, he said. An A-rank. Impossible.
He forced the thoughts aside as he entered the main hall. A hush fell briefly as guild members noticed his arrival — a ripple of respect, of instinctive deference to the Dominant Alpha whose presence filled every shadow.
He ignored it all and made his way to the conference chamber.
The chamber itself rose like a cathedral, its vaulted ceiling ribbed with blackened beams. Stone walls bore the Aegis sigil carved deep, and banners of blue and gold hung from the rafters, their golden threads catching torchlight with every ripple.
It was meant to inspire loyalty, to remind hunters they were under a shield that could not be broken.
He took his seat at the long table. At his right sat Jung Minho, his vice guild master — broad-shouldered, steady-eyed, with the easy grin of a man who had stood beside him in countless battles. Jung Minho noticed him immediately and nudged a bottle of water toward him.
"Hell of a raid," Jung Minho said. "You burned your pheromone field to the bone again. The rear guard could barely breathe under it."
Seo Haneul uncapped the bottle but didn't drink. His golden eyes lifted only when one of the senior advisors cleared his throat.
"Guildmaster Seo Haneul," the man asked evenly, "did you notice anything unusual during the raid?"
Seo Haneul leaned back slightly, voice calm. "There was a Beta among the foreign strike team. Scar across his face. One amber eye, the other silver-grey. His rank card listed him as A-rank."
A faint murmur passed through the table. One elder raised his brows. "A-rank? For a Beta? That's rare."
Another chuckled lightly. "But not impossible. Even Betas may rise higher than expected with enough grit."
Seo Haneul gave no reply. Outwardly, his expression stayed composed, but his hand curled faintly against the table's edge.
The memory of silver-grey eyes, fractured with light, burned behind his own eyelids.
He said nothing else for the remainder of the meeting.
Jung Minho leaned back in his chair, studying him from the corner of his eye. Seo Haneul's answer had been perfectly professional, yet something in his tone… was different. Too sharp. Too deliberate.
Jung Minho filed it away silently. Whatever it was, he'd get the truth out of him once the room was empty.