Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest novel Chapter 1077

Chapter 1077: Chapter 256.1 - Supervisor

She tilted her head slightly, walking a few paces forward as Astron struggled to rise, hand pressed to his chest.

"How was it?"

Astron didn’t answer immediately. He coughed once—wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"...Heavy," he muttered.

But something in his expression twisted—not confusion, but a pinched discomfort at the edge of perception. That strike... it felt like it carried something more.

Unfamiliar.

Not just a martial echo or a mana strike—but something subtly misaligned. As if the frequency of her mana had shifted mid-blow. Not enough to analyze. Not enough to identify. Just enough to make his instincts crawl.

Dakota noticed.

She watched his eyes for a moment longer before speaking again.

"Something bothering you?" she asked, tossing a glowing vial underhand.

—CLINK.

Astron caught it mid-air.

He didn’t respond immediately, just cracked the seal and drank.

The healing potion flushed through him, working fast. Bones groaned back into place. Breath returned.

Still, he was silent.

Dakota walked forward, hands slipping into the pockets of her training coat now slung over her shoulder.

Then she stopped beside him.

Dakota exhaled slowly, the sharp edge of her earlier stance now folded into something quieter—measured, introspective. She turned her head slightly, glancing down at Astron as he pushed himself up onto one knee.

"From what I’ve heard," she murmured, "you won’t be stationed here long."

Her gaze didn’t waver.

"That’s why I showed you that."

Astron looked up.

Dakota’s eyes gleamed—not with pride or mockery, but with something rawer. More personal.

"Yes. Since you’re a monster when it comes to learning..." Her lips curled into a wry smirk, "Why not use that monstrosity of yours?"

She took a step forward, stopping just beside him—her presence no longer towering, but anchoring.

"Remember this moment," she said, her voice lower now, almost a whisper. "That strike. That technique. [Serpent Echo] is just the surface."

She tapped two fingers against his shoulder—gently, but deliberately.

"Try to make something from it. Knowing you..." Her tone sharpened, faint with amusement, "...it won’t take you long to crack it open."

Then she smiled—not the formal, composed one, but the kind that left a shadow of fire in its wake.

"I’ll be waiting."

Astron held her gaze.

And in that instant, he saw it.

Not the mentor.

Not the composed overseer from Sector B11.

But the Awakened from the borders, forged in survival. The soldier who’d lost her teammates in the Riftlines. The fighter who buried her past in muscle memory and silence.

But now—he saw something stirring.

Something she’d locked away for a long time.

A fire.

It flickered behind her eyes—not the restrained discipline of an instructor, but the glint of someone who had just remembered she loved the fight. Not out of duty.

But out of thrill.

So she’s not just training Adepts anymore...

Astron’s eyes scanned her body with instinctual precision—the slight tightness in her fists, the twitch of a muscle still charged with mana, the sharpness in her breath not from fatigue, but exhilaration.

She wasn’t cooling down.

She was winding up.

Something inside her had awoken.

And though she didn’t say it aloud, Astron understood.

Astron’s chest rose once—slow, steady—as the last of the healing potion settled into his bloodstream.

The pain was gone.

But the echo of her strike still lingered.

Not in the ribs. Not in the bones.

In the memory.

A strike like that wasn’t something the body forgot.

It was something the instincts filed away—for future judgment.

His gaze flicked up to Dakota again.

Her frame was still relaxed. But everything about her stood primed. The set of her jaw, the slant of her shoulders, the way her heels rooted to the ground as if the arena had become part of her. It wasn’t a stance anymore. It was intent. Sharpened. Reclaimed.

She exhaled once, the breath controlled. "Figured as much when I saw the lists forming. But now that you’ve returned..."

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