Chapter 167: The Strongest Hunters
The clip was everywhere.
Not one clip. Hundreds. Different angles, different moments cut and shared and re-shared across every platform the city used. The final combination. The Blood Spears falling from the ceiling. The crater. The lightning crashing down from above.
People were already slowing the footage down frame by frame.
Sora went live and her viewer count climbed before she had even said anything. Nobody in the chat wanted to talk about Authority anymore. They wanted to talk about the fight.
"How did Kai disappear in that one section," someone typed.
"What was that combo at the end?"
"Did Raze really destroy half the dungeon?"
"Who wins if they fight again?"
Sora laughed. "I’ve watched it six times," she said.
She rewound the footage and paused it at the moment Kai’s stance shifted.
"I don’t think people noticed this part," she said.
She replayed it.
"He changes styles," she said.
She replayed it again.
"Again."
Another replay.
"Again."
She circled each transition on her screen, drawing a small marker over the footage each time his posture changed. "He isn’t using one fighting style," she said. "He’s switching between several. Mid-fight. Without losing the flow between them."
Even she sounded impressed saying it.
...
Outside the E-rank gate, most people still hadn’t left.
Nobody seemed to want to.
Groups stood together replaying different parts of the fight.
One hunter laughed.
"I forgot to breathe."
His friend looked over.
"What?"
"I actually forgot."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"When Raze dropped those Blood Spears..."
"I thought Kai was done."
Someone nearby overheard.
"And then he just..."
The man waved both hands.
"...started bouncing all over the place."
"I couldn’t even follow him anymore."
Another hunter laughed. "I’ve never been happier to be wrong."
Several people nodded.
One teenager looked down at his shaking hands. "I’ve never seen a fight like that."
Neither had anyone else.
...
At a playground in the eastern district, two kids had picked up sticks.
"I’m Kai," one of them said.
The other one grabbed a bigger stick. "I’m Raze."
The Raze kid swung. The Kai kid jumped sideways.
"No," the Raze kid said. "You have to disappear first."
"That’s cheating."
"It’s Air Step."
A third kid ran over. Then a fourth. Within a few minutes half the playground had organized itself into a loose recreation of the fight, kids swinging sticks and jumping sideways and shouting move names they had heard secondhand and gotten slightly wrong.
A girl near the swings crossed her arms. "I’m Mira," she announced. "You can’t hit me."
The others immediately tried.
A nearby parent watched all of this and smiled. "They’ve already turned it into a game," he said to the parent beside him.
At a training ground in the central district, a group of bronze-rank hunters had gathered around a screen showing the replay.
"I think I figured out the combo," one of them said.
He demonstrated. Sword motion. Kick. Punch.
Everyone watched.
Silence.
"That wasn’t it," someone said.
Another hunter stepped up. "No, look, it’s like this." He tried it. Tripped. Fell.
More silence. Someone coughed.
A veteran hunter standing at the back of the group laughed. "You’re all missing the point," he said.
They looked at him.
"He wasn’t repeating a combo," the veteran said. "He made one. On the spot. Every attack only existed because the one before it landed."
The group went quiet.
"How do you even practice that," one of the younger hunters said.
The veteran smiled. "You don’t."
...
One young hunter stood quietly at the edge of the training ground.
He had watched the replay four times. "I’ll never reach that."
The instructor overheard him. "Neither will I."
The young hunter blinked.
The instructor smiled.
"But that’s not why we watch."
He pointed at the screen.
"You don’t copy the whole mountain."
"You climb your own."
The young hunter looked back at the replay.
"...Right."
...
At Titan Forge, Raze’s footage had become required viewing whether anyone had assigned it or not. Several members stood around a wall screen, the replay running on loop.
One of them paused it. "Right here," he said, pointing. "Kai changed Raze’s footing with that thread."
Another leaned in. "And here. He already knew where Raze would swing next."
"He wasn’t reacting," a third said. "He was planning the whole sequence."
Even the Titan Forge members who had been openly skeptical of Kai’s approach before now were looking at the footage differently.
...
Elsewhere, several veteran hunters were watching Raze’s swings frame by frame.
One quietly said,
"I finally understand."
Another looked over.
"Understand what?"
"Why nobody can stop him once he starts moving."
He pointed at the replay.
"Every swing becomes the next step."
"He doesn’t attack."
"He advances."
Silence.
"...That’s terrifying."
...
The forums were in complete chaos.
A thread titled Kai vs Raze: Who Is Actually Stronger had over nine thousand replies. Another titled Could Anyone Survive Blood Tyrant had over three thousand. A third asked how Kai had copied four fighting styles in a single fight and had over eleven thousand responses, most of which disagreed with each other.
An eighteen-page thread broke down the final combination move by move.
One comment said Raze would have won if the fight had gone longer. A reply said Kai literally solved him before that mattered. Another reply said Blood Tyrant would have eventually overwhelmed any defense. Another said Kai never let fights last that long on purpose, that the speed was the strategy.
Another reply: you missed the point entirely.
The debate did not resolve. It just kept growing.
And there were the odd threads that had too many replies.
One thread simply asked:
Could Kai beat Raze if both were armed with frying pans?
It already had over two thousand replies.
Nobody could explain why.
...
A group of guild masters were watching the footage together in one of the coordination offices.
"If those two entered a B-rank gate together," one of them said quietly.
Another finished the thought. "The boss dies."
A third shook his head. "No," he said. "The gate dies."
Everyone laughed.
At a junior training hall, an instructor had pulled up the footage on the main screen.
"Everyone watch this," he said.
He played Kai’s combo sequence. Then paused it.
"What did he do," he said.
Hands went up.
"He attacked," one of the trainees said.
"No," the instructor said.
"He switched styles," another tried.
"No."
"He used Threads to redirect him."
"No."
Silence.
The instructor smiled. "He never attacked randomly," he said. "He attacked to create the next attack." He let that sit in the room. "Every strike was setup for the one after it."
The room stayed quiet for a long moment.
Mayor Ko watched the footage from his office, alone, the replay running through twice before he turned it off.
"The next generation," he said, to nobody in particular. "They’ve already surpassed us."
Nobody was in the room to argue with him.
Kai got home carrying the groceries he had picked up after leaving the dungeon. Bread. Vegetables. Rice. Everything Mina had asked for that morning, finally remembered and finally bought.
He opened the apartment door.
Leo looked up from the couch. His eyes widened immediately.
He stood up slowly.
"Teach me," he said.
Kai blinked. "What."
Leo pointed dramatically. "I don’t care which one. Lightning. Air Step. That kick. The disappearing thing. The combo." He took a breath. "The everything."
"No," Kai said.
Leo threw both hands in the air. "Worst teacher ever."
Mina laughed from the kitchen.
Kai set the groceries down on the counter and started unpacking them.
Behind him—
"HYAH!"
Kai turned.
Leo had grabbed a broom.
He swung it three times.
Jumped.
Spun.
Lost his balance.
Immediately crashed into the couch.
Silence.
Leo sat there for a second.
"...I almost had it."
Mina didn’t even look up. "No."
Outside, the city was still talking.
Not about Authority anymore. Not about candidates or rules or what came next in the selection process.
About one fight.
Across Mythal...
Some watched it for the hundredth time.
Some argued.
Some laughed.
Some dreamed about becoming hunters one day.
Some simply stared at the screen in silence.
The duel between Kai Rosefield and Raze Donovan had become more than a fight.
It had become the city’s new definition of strength.
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