298 Victory?
It was a win, but none of them were celebrating as they all stood, ignoring their bodies that were bleeding and riddled with various wounds.
Silence fell among them as their eyes looked at each other.
With the common enemy gone, each of them was standing in their vulnerable state.
And the feeling of distrust grew stronger between them as all of them maintained some distance from each other.
Even with the Calamities slain and the major threat having disappeared, it didn't mean the real threat was gone.
Zephyr, the masked man, and the people who started all of this, and all of them could guess that someone among the 11 SSS Rank Hunters was involved.
It wasn't possible for such a group to rise out of nowhere and threaten the whole world, and awaken the calamities together in such a way.
The only one among them that they knew wasn't behind all this was Farnus Calmort.
With the amount of restrictions that Farnus had with all the Mana Oaths he took, it was impossible for him to be the one that started all this.
And Farnus had no reason to do any of this, as without his help, they wouldn't have been able to defeat these monsters either.
But above all things, even ignoring Zephyr for a moment, almost none of them got along with each other, and the existence of other SSS Rank Hunters was simply a threat to them.
And this would have been the best time for one of them to step up to do something like that.
And this was the reason why this silence prevailed on the battlefield.
Dexter looked around, and till his eyes could see, all the land was utterly destroyed, and he could guess that the borders weren't looking that great either.
After a massive mana wave from the explosion traveled through them, it was enough to cause some destruction.
As Dexter put his hands on his hammer, all eyes looked at him, and a tense atmosphere was created.
"Let's calm down," Dexter said as he put the hammer on his shoulder.
Watson Family SSS Rank Hunter, who had half of his leg torn, was the most vulnerable one here.
He took out a powerful healing potion and drank it immediately, and poured the rest on his legs and chest that had multiple wounds.
They needed to recover their strength first to counter the wild mana that was disrupting their natural healing abilities.
But there was only one person whose mind wasn't here at all.
It was Farnus who looked at his left hand that was contaminated with black energy up to his elbow.
But the thing that he was regretting the most was his decision in this battle.
'It seems I have made a mistake, boy,' Farnus thought as he tried to clench his left hand but found it difficult.
All of them stood up as they took out potions and healing elixirs one by one and drank them.
None of them were moving as they would leave together to ensure nothing foul would happen to one of them.
Right now they were in the worst condition, and it would have been the best time to attack one of them.
Dexter brought out a ring as he informed his subordinates about the victory, but he felt weird calling it a victory.
It wasn't even close to a victory.
All of them were injured, and it wasn't easy to guess how long it would take for each of them to recover.
He turned his eyes to the side where the monsters were fighting with them, but there was nothing but a gigantic crater with not even a single body of an SSS Rank Monster.
Even the Mana Gems they might have obtained became the source for the Core Explosion, and he could guess that the mana waves would have damaged the cities near the border for sure.
And he was correct; the last manawave was even something that the SS Rank Hunters with numerous artifacts felt hard to block, and the result was nothing other than the destruction of various cities.
The amount of casualties wasn't known as they had evacuated the citizens already, but there were chances of some people remaining in the city.
But more importantly, the once lavish cities of Belvoria had turned into a mess.
"At least it's over," Dexter muttered to himself.
"I will leave first," Osbert said as he floated in the air.
"I will leave as well," Xarax stood up, but his injuries were visible.
Osbert glanced at all of them. Some thoughts came to his mind, but right now, he needed to go back and make sure everything was working fine, especially his plans.
But Osbert was yet to know what sort of crisis had fallen and the mess that was created when he was absent.
Farnus moved near the crater, and Silvus looked at him.
He didn't know what Farnus was thinking, but Silvus looked at the sky.
'I should go see the kids,' Silvus thought in his mind.
Being so close to death reminded him of his family.
'Sigh, the balance will break now,' Silvus thought as he knew that the injuries sustained by some of them weren't small at all.
A wave of chaos was coming, and he knew that this incident was the mark of its beginning.
"Zephyr...." Silvus muttered.
The cause of it all, and the people behind it.
Whose identities were unknown, but their capabilities were too shocking for even Silvus, who had lived a long life.
Being at the SSS Rank, Silvus knew a lot of things that other hunters didn't, and even with his knowledge, he knew that the enemy this time was far more dangerous.
From outshining Dexter Wright, who was the first Runemaster to ever reach SSS Rank, by using strange runes that even he didn't know about.
And controlling monsters like the snakes and awakening calamities.
Whoever was behind them, Silvus knew that he needed to get ready for the future.
While the whole Belvoria was anxiously waiting for the news while experiencing dreadful mana waves and warnings to leave the city, the news about the victory of the SSS Rank Hunters came.
"The Calamities have been defeated!!" Multiple news sources were reporting the news just after 10 minutes after the fight ended.
People were eagerly waiting for the words of the SSS Rank Hunter, but no news about the SSS Rank Hunters was shared.
The only thing that was relayed to the media was the defeat of the calamities.
Even the people in power, including the Executives of the World Association, didn't know what had happened on the battlefield.
Soon, the World Association's Top Executives were called by Osbert's Personal Assistant.
Osbert had just come back and he immediately went to heal himself, and Declan did the same.
The purpose of this meeting was for the Top Executives to receive the order of the Chairman who had just returned.
"What, all three of them are injured?" One of the Top Executives shouted as he stood abruptly.
If this news got outside, it would spark a few people to rise up, as the power holders of the World Association were spending their time healing themselves.
"The Chairman is fine, but it will take him weeks to come back," the Assistant said as all the Executives listened silently.
All of them belonged to the three different groups of the World Association, spread between the 3 SSS Rank Hunters of the World Academy.
"Did he say something else? What about Vice Chairman Declan Cartis, how much time will it take for him to come back?" One of the people aligned with Declan spoke out.
"I didn't receive any information about this," the Assistant replied.
Half an hour later at the Mansion in Soran,
"So it's over," Kai said as he looked at the news, standing behind Tom.
"Yeah, and we can start the next mission whenever the Black Market does their transaction," Tom said as he turned towards Asher.
"So we don't need to go to Belvoria now?" Kai asked.
Tom had told them that in case of any problems with the business contracts, they might need to visit Belvoria to 'fix' a few things, but now it wasn't needed.
Just by accessing the news channel of the Elite Family that was accessible to Tom, due to the fact he was using it under Aztech's name, he could see the damage that was done in Belvoria.
Even the cost of deploying so many SS Rank Hunters, using countless mana crystals and artifacts, and the destroyed cities, all of this would soon affect the economy of not only Belvoria but all other continents as well that were hit by the calamities.
Due to the rise of SSS Rank Monsters, the monster tide would stop, but it wouldn't halt the frequent movement of monsters near the border.
Although the major threats were gone, the effects that they left would mark these continents for years, and that was what they were truly after.
The whole world was celebrating the defeat of the Calamities, but now questions about the man behind it all, the masked man Zephyr, were being raised.
But they didn't know that the man behind all this chaos was learning normally among the students of World Academy.
"So try casting all these defensive runes, and show me your progress in the next class," Professor Neyman said.
He left the class, leaving the confused students behind who were still looking at their paper, seeing the faults in the runes they had drawn.
Asher stood up as he looked at the notification of his Rune Mastery going up.
[ Rune Art's Mastery has increased ]
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