Scene 1 — First Real Fight Results
Crow POV
"So, brat! How does it feel to win your first real fight?"
Tasey's voice hit a second before the burn in my nose did. Grim jammed the smelling salts under my face like he was trying to jump-start a dead engine. My whole skull lit up and I jerked awake on instinct.
"Travelers don't stay down in enemy territory," Grim muttered, already tucking the vial away.
"As if he could stay down with you shoving poison up his nose," Tasey snorted, looming over me with that stupid grin.
"Give him space, you idiot," Agni snapped. "He still needs treatment on the transport. Focus on leaving without provoking Athena into beating us into the same state as Crow."
I pushed myself up on my elbows, vision swimming, and finally got a real look at the field.
Athena stood a little ways off, arms folded, watching everything like it was a mildly entertaining documentary. There was a faint curve at the corner of her mouth—amusement, not at me, but at the way the adults around us were posturing.
Next to her, Ares rested a hand on his hip, shoulders loose, eyes locked on Tasey. The two of them were staring each other down across the wreckage, daring the other to make it real. No words. Just that quiet, ugly itch to swing.
And then there was the man carrying Charles.
He moved through the aftermath like a shadow that had decided to stand up and pretend to be human. No thunder. No waves of pressure. Just a calm, oppressive quiet. Charles—Zeus—hung over his shoulder, blood dripping steadily from his mouth.
"That's Erebus," Agni said, following my gaze. "Opposite of his brat. Content being his father's shadow."
Oceanus' shadow. The most mysterious of the second-generation SSS monsters—spoken of in the same breath as Ares, Tasey, and Agni, but you never saw him in front. Always half a step behind the real monsters, which somehow made him worse.
Charles' aura felt… wrong now. Thin, cracked, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to a glass core and then shoved the pieces back in his chest.
"What happened?" I asked, throat dry.
"He had chaos energy in his astral core," Agni said. "So his dad decided to break it instead of letting it linger."
I stared at Erebus' back.
No screaming. No ranting. Just a quiet, controlled monster who'd shattered his own son's core because something inside it offended the rules he answered to.
I swallowed and nodded, filing the words chaos in the core away to throw at Huginn later. Right now, my body hurt too much to chase concepts.
Tasey took a slow step forward, lifting his chin at Ares.
"So, what now?" he called. "You gonna stand there and look pretty, or—"
Ares' aura spiked, battle-lust sparking in his eyes as he shifted his stance a fraction. My heart stuttered. The idea of those two actually going at it here, on top of this mess—
"Enough," Athena said.
Just one word. Calm. Almost bored.
Ares didn't argue.
He moved.
His fist slammed into Tasey's gut before my uncle could finish his grin. The hit sounded like someone punching a wall. Tasey folded around the blow with a wheeze, boots scraping back in the dirt as he fought to keep his feet.
"That's for earlier," Ares said casually, already turning away.
Athena's faint smile didn't change. She'd let it happen. Controlled the exact amount of violence, the timing, even the direction of the humiliation without lifting a finger.
Grim clicked his tongue and finally pushed me flat against the transport, starting proper treatment.
I let my head rest against the metal, trying not to laugh and cough at the same time.
I thought I was watching gods and monsters clash—the SSS freaks who defined the world.
I hadn't realized yet that the quiet amusement on Athena's face meant she was the one actually holding the leash on all of them.
For now, that wasn't my problem.
I closed my eyes and focused on breathing through the pain.
First real fight survived.
New year coming.
Scene 2 — Line in the Sand
Simon POV
"You can't enter unless President Jiden orders it."
The B-rank Traveler blocking the barricade puffed his chest out like the sentence gave him an extra inch. Government patch. Clean armor. Decent stance. Not talentless.
Just small.
I lifted a hand before my men could move and glanced back at the SUV we'd arrived in.
Through the half-open window, I could see Lily in the back seat, quietly eating from a paper container, legs tucked up, expression lazy. To anyone else she looked like a bored college student stuck on a long trip.
To me, she was a walking plague sealed in a metal box.
One word from me and she could turn this whole perimeter into a live test site for her astral research taboos. The only reason the people behind this barricade were still breathing clean air was because I'd told her to stay in the car and keep eating.
Behind the spokesman, more government-sanctioned Travelers lined the road—B-ranks mostly, a scattering of shaky C-ranks trying to look important. On paper, it was a respectable response team.
If I hadn't spent the last few years watching my kids walk into A-rank like it was just another room, maybe I'd have been impressed.
"We have astral-energy readings that put this at Society level," I said, turning my attention back to the B-rank. "You're out of your depth. Move aside and we'll handle it before it gets worse."
His jaw tightened. "Orders are orders. No Society personnel past this point without presidential clearance. We can handle it."
Of course he believed that. B-rank feels like the top of the mountain when all you've ever seen are foothills.
I sighed inwardly.
My students—the second generation—were already pushing into A-rank before some of these people had finished filling out government benefits forms. Lily alone, still chewing on whatever snack she'd bullied from the nearest vending machine, could wipe this entire road clean if I stopped holding her leash.
"Back to HQ, boys," I said, not breaking eye contact with the B-rank. "If these government B-ranks think they're enough, we won't pressure them."
I heard my team shift behind me, boots scraping, a few surprised exhalations. The government line began to relax—
"Oh, and don't forget," I added, raising my voice just enough, "take pictures of every Traveler working under government contract here. The Society will need them on file for the ban list."
The color drained from their faces in perfect synchrony.
"You can't—"
"I can," I cut him off. "You ignored Baldur's order and refused Society cooperation on a threat you can't properly read. Don't cry about consequences now."
His aura spiked—anger, humiliation, fear—but he swallowed it. None of them were stupid enough to swing first with Society teams watching and recording from multiple angles.
I tilted my head toward our communication specialist.
"Full report to Artemis and Baldur," I said. "Names, faces, refusal to cooperate. Flag local astral readings and attach the government roster."
Once that report finished its run, these people's ceilings were set. No Society dungeons. No real training. No access to the places where A-ranks were made instead of imagined.
They'd grind their way up to B, if they weren't there already, and stay pinned there for life—grown adults who'd chosen stability over reality while my "kids" tore past them.
I turned away from the barricade, catching one last glimpse of Lily in the SUV's side mirror as she speared another bite of food, utterly unconcerned. A nuclear option in human skin, waiting on my word and a research excuse.
"Let's go," I said.
My team fell in behind me without question. Behind us, the government B-rank held the line he'd been given, probably convinced he'd just stopped the Society from overstepping.
All he'd really done was choose which side of the line he'd be stuck on when my students finished growing into the monsters the world actually needed.
Scene 3 — Behind the Tavern
Huginn POV
The back lot of our tavern always smelled like old ale and burned wood from the last time Ghost got bored and turned the training dummies into kindling.
Today it smelled like sweat and shaky astral energy.
"Good. At least Crow taught you the basics before dumping you on me," Ghost said.
I stopped in the doorway.
Amber stood in the center of the yard, breathing hard, clothes clinging to her. Ghost circled her like a predator, eyes tracking every twitch and every uneven pulse of astral energy trying to move through her body.
Crow had dropped the girl off at the front with a rushed, "Watch her. I'll explain after Zeus." Then he ran off to his meeting.
I stepped out for one trip.
Came back.
Ghost already had Amber in the rear lot.
Explorers don't "help out" kids. If we take a student, we're taking responsibility like a parent. We train them, we educate them, and we accept what they become when they walk into the Astral Sea dragging our name behind them.
And Ghost was already watching Amber like she'd found something uncomfortably close to herself.
"Start the cycle," Ghost said. "In… two… three. Out… two… three. Follow the path I showed you."
Amber's breathing synced with the count. Astral energy stopped flailing and started dragging itself through the right channels.
That was the first step. Foundation.
Under the barrier, if you couldn't even cycle cleanly, you weren't a person—you were just meat for whatever crawled out next.
Most of the second generation are trash in that sense. But even trash can turn into rats. And rats live longer than the corpses because they find the holes the gods forgot to patch.
This generation's dividing line isn't rank. It's who can get strong under the barrier—whether they brute-force their way through it or carve a path with knowledge.
Simon's report would already be moving by now. Once Artemis and Baldur acted on it, government-sanctioned Travelers would be locked out of the real paths forward. No Society resources. No proper dungeons. No real keys.
They'd scrape their way up to B-rank and rot there forever.
Our brats? The ones under us?
They'd either break through the barrier or learn how to make it work for them.
"Good," Ghost murmured. "That's your foundation. Don't lose it. Without stable cycling, you're just another corpse waiting for a dungeon report."
She flicked Amber's wrist with a knuckle. The girl flinched, then reset her stance.
"Now, external arts," Ghost said. "This is how you use that energy with your body. Hit, guard, move, survive—without your joints exploding. My method's gentler on your body, but when you release it, it hits a lot more extreme than the other elements."
Amber stepped into the stance she'd been shown, energy layering over muscle and bone instead of leaking like steam.
External arts. Second step.
Most of the world would live and die right there. Cycling and external arts. Rats in the dark. Trash that got smart enough to dodge the teeth. They'd never touch an astral core, but some of them would still be useful—running cleanup under the barrier, holding lines, keeping pressure off the ones who went where the barrier thinned.
"We'll rebuild your external arts until no one can fold you in the first exchange," Ghost said. "While we do that, we'll keep pushing your understanding of astral energy."
She watched the girl move, eyes sharp, judgmental, and—annoyingly—interested.
"To breach A-rank officially," Ghost added, "you'll need pure astral energy and a deeper understanding of it. Only then can you condense an astral core. That's the part where you stop being a rat and start being a problem."
Amber's eyes flickered at that, but she didn't speak. Just sank deeper into the movement.
Most of this generation will never reach that. Especially not the ones who pinned their futures to government funding and fake safety. Once Simon's information finished doing damage, their ceiling was set.
B-rank forever.
From the doorway, I watched Amber move under Ghost's eye—Crow's little rescue project, dragged to our tavern and thrown behind it like a stray.
Trash, sure.
But trash that was learning how to gnaw through stone under a crushed sky.
If she kept this up, the barrier wouldn't keep her small.
And if Ghost really decided to claim her as a student…
Yeah. The kid Crow saved for me?
I'd already lost her.
Scene 4 — What B-Ranks Should Look Like
Wukong POV
"Shin, behind you!"
The boy was still a half-step too slow.
He dropped his weight and slid, the orc's cleaver shaving a line of hair off his head instead of taking it clean. His glaive came around in a rough but honest arc, cutting the orc in two at the waist.
Good kill. Sloppy survival.
A shockwave rolled across the cavern as Buddha's palm connected with another monster's chest. Compressed astral energy—about twice the size of his hand, a little unstable at the edges—sent the creature flying into a rock wall hard enough to spiderweb the stone.
Too much output for a B-rank. Wasteful. Still, better than being dead.
Their leader, Ei Sei, moved a few meters ahead, tied up with the Orc Chief.
No blindfold today. He hadn't earned that handicap yet.
Thin layers of astral energy coated his fingers as he tapped at joints and tendons, probing for weaknesses, but every time he found one, he overcommitted just a little—burning more energy than he needed to, like every young talent does when their body finally starts listening to them.
"To your left, Shin," Ei Sei called out, eyes never leaving the Chief.
Shin didn't hesitate. He pivoted and slashed left, glaive biting into the shoulder of an orc that had been creeping in from his blind spot. Not a clean kill, but enough to shut it down for Buddha to finish with a lazy palm strike.
This was what B-ranks were supposed to look like.
Not those comfortable, clean-armor, government-sanctioned B-ranks standing behind barricades and regulations. These three were fresh into B-rank, rough around the edges, bleeding in the dark and learning what that rank actually meant with their own bones.
The Orc Chief roared and swung an axe at Ei Sei's ribs.
Ei Sei slipped inside the arc instead of backpedaling—good choice—and his fingers drove into the monster's side, energy flaring just a bit too bright as he targeted the liver. The Chief staggered but didn't drop.
"Overcommitting again," I muttered.
He'd feel that drain later.
"Shin, pressure the flank. Buddha, cut his legs," Ei Sei ordered, voice calm but breathing just slightly heavier now.
Shin charged in with that stupid grin of his, glaive dragging sparks off the stone before he brought it up in a rising cut that forced the Chief to turn. Buddha slipped low, palms slamming into the back of the Chief's knees with more force than necessary.
The monster buckled, dropped to one knee.
Ei Sei stepped in and drove an astral-coated hand into its throat. Not the clean surgical poke I wanted to see yet—there was a flare, a small stutter—but it still shut the Chief down. The body hit the ground with a heavy, wet thud.
Silence rolled over the dungeon in the aftermath.
I shifted my staff across my shoulders and watched them catch their breath.
Shin, newly minted B-rank, still moved like a C-rank street fighter someone had stapled astral energy onto, but his instincts were sharpening where it counted.
Buddha, solid mid B-rank, had the control but liked to throw out more power than necessary just because he could.
Ei Sei, brushing against the peak of B-rank, was already trying to think like an A-rank while his body reminded him he wasn't there yet.
Three different kinds of B-rank talent. All of them here because I'd dragged them into dungeons instead of letting them spar in padded rooms and call themselves elites.
Most adults sitting comfortably at B would never step into a room like this unless it was sanitized and filmed for training material. These brats were here bleeding on the stone because I pushed them, because someone had to show the second generation what their rank could be instead of what the world told them to settle for.
Shin wiped his glaive on a corpse and turned, grinning too wide.
"Hey, old man Monkey! We're done here!" he yelled, waving like we were in a park instead of surrounded by cooling bodies.
Buddha simply clasped his hands behind his back and gave me a small nod, like the whole thing had been a walking meditation.
Ei Sei was already scanning the cavern for the next path forward, mind working past the fight he'd just finished, cataloging mistakes, spacing, energy usage.
I snorted.
"This," I thought, looking at them, "is what a B-rank is supposed to grow through. Not hide behind."
If more teachers were willing to throw their students into danger and drag them back out by the neck when they failed, B-rank wouldn't be the ceiling everyone treated it as.
It would just be the start.