F-Rank Sold, Married to an S- Rank-Chapter 38: The Weakest City Hunter
The night air outside the academy felt strangely quiet after the battle.
Broken stone still covered the arena floor behind them. The remains of the spawn had already dissolved into black dust, leaving only faint cracks in the reinforced ground.
Adrian stepped outside the ruined arena slowly, his mind still focused on the Bond Network.
The system was active.
The connections between him and the others pulsed softly in his awareness.
Seraphine.
Lyra.
Kaelith.
Elara.
Aria.
Five anchors.
Five sources of power.
Yet the system continued analyzing something deeper beneath the city.
A faint vibration spread through the underground mana channels.
Adrian stopped walking.
Lyra noticed immediately.
"What is it now?"
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he closed his eyes and focused on the system.
A moment later, the interface appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Stability Field: Active
Subterranean Mana Flow Detected
Primary Breach Entity: Moving
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Adrian exhaled slowly.
"It’s awake."
Seraphine’s eyes sharpened.
"The creature under the city?"
"Yes."
Kaelith stepped closer to the cracked street where faint mana currents leaked from underground.
"The spawn we killed wasn’t random."
Elara nodded.
"It was a probe."
Lyra crossed her arms.
"So the monster sent a scout?"
Adrian shook his head slightly.
"No."
"It sent a test."
The difference was subtle but important.
A scout gathers information.
A test measures resistance.
And now the creature had learned something.
The stabilization field Adrian created was interfering with its feeding network.
Which meant the creature would adapt.
The system pulsed again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Threat Recalculation
Multiple Spawn Signatures Detected
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aria looked worried.
"How many?"
Adrian scanned the signals.
"Four."
Lyra groaned.
"Of course."
"Why would anything ever be simple?"
Seraphine remained calm.
"Where are they?"
Adrian turned toward the distant skyline.
Tall towers rose above the city lights.
The center district.
The political heart of the capital.
"The Council district."
Elara’s expression hardened.
"That area houses the barrier control systems."
Kaelith understood immediately.
"If the spawn reach those structures..."
"The barrier weakens," Seraphine finished.
Lyra whistled.
"So the monster underground just decided to sabotage the city."
"Wonderful."
Adrian stared at the system interface.
The creature wasn’t attacking randomly.
It was targeting infrastructure.
That meant one thing.
It was intelligent.
They moved quickly through the academy streets.
Most of the campus had already been evacuated.
Emergency sirens echoed in the distance.
Hunter patrol vehicles sped past intersections while academy security teams guarded the main roads.
Yet the city still looked calm.
Too calm.
Most civilians had no idea what was happening beneath their feet.
Adrian walked slightly ahead of the group.
The bond network remained active.
Each of the five anchors strengthened the stabilization field surrounding him.
Seraphine’s light mana balanced the core.
Lyra’s chaotic energy disrupted corrupted currents.
Kaelith stabilized combat flow.
Aria amplified the network.
And Elara...
Elara directed everything with perfect control.
The system displayed the connection strength.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Active Anchors: 5
Network Efficiency: 67%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lyra peeked over Adrian’s shoulder.
"Sixty-seven percent?"
"That doesn’t sound great."
Adrian nodded.
"It isn’t."
"But it’s enough."
Kaelith glanced at him.
"Enough for what?"
"To slow the creature."
Seraphine spoke quietly.
"But not defeat it."
Adrian didn’t argue.
Because she was right.
The spawn were dangerous.
But the real threat was still below the city.
And that monster was growing stronger every minute.
They reached the edge of the academy district.
Beyond the wide road ahead stood the first major junction leading toward the Council sector.
Several hunter teams had already gathered there.
A large armored vehicle blocked the main street.
Adrian recognized the insignia immediately.
City Defense Command.
A tall officer stepped forward.
"Halt!"
"This area is restricted."
Elara stepped forward calmly.
Her badge glinted under the streetlights.
The officer froze.
"Commander Elara..."
She nodded.
"Status report."
The officer straightened instantly.
"Three spawn detected moving toward the Council district."
"One already destroyed near the academy."
Lyra smirked.
"Yeah."
"That was us."
The officer blinked.
Adrian ignored the exchange.
His attention remained on the system.
One spawn signal was closer than the others.
Much closer.
Too close.
His eyes narrowed.
"Something’s wrong."
Seraphine followed his gaze.
"What is it?"
"The nearest spawn isn’t heading toward the Council building."
Kaelith frowned.
"Then where is it going?"
Adrian turned slowly.
His eyes moved toward a completely different part of the city.
A place no one expected.
"The lower district."
Lyra blinked.
"The slums?"
Aria looked confused.
"Why would it go there?"
Elara spoke quietly.
"To feed."
Everyone went silent.
The lower districts contained massive underground mana pipes.
Energy channels built decades ago when the city expanded.
If a spawn absorbed those reserves—
It could evolve.
Adrian’s system confirmed the danger.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Spawn Evolution Risk
Location: Lower District
Threat Level Increasing
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lyra groaned.
"So we’re chasing monsters into the worst part of the city."
"Great."
Seraphine looked at Adrian.
"What do you want to do?"
He didn’t hesitate.
"We split."
Kaelith raised an eyebrow.
"That’s risky."
Adrian nodded.
"Yes."
"But necessary."
Elara studied the map quickly.
"There are four spawn."
"Four directions."
Seraphine understood.
"Divide the anchors."
Lyra cracked her knuckles.
"Finally."
"Now we’re talking."
Adrian turned to her.
"You go with Kaelith."
"Handle the western spawn."
She grinned.
"Easy."
He looked at Seraphine.
"You take Aria."
"Eastern district."
Seraphine nodded.
"And you?"
Adrian looked toward the dark streets leading to the lower district.
"I’ll deal with the closest one."
Elara stepped forward.
"Then I’m coming with you."
He didn’t argue.
Because if there was anyone he trusted in a direct fight—
It was her.
The bond network pulsed again.
Five anchors.
Soon to be divided.
The system displayed a new message.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Warning
Network Stability Will Decrease
If Anchors Separate
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lyra shrugged.
"Yeah."
"That sounds about right."
Adrian looked at the others.
"We don’t have a choice."
Seraphine placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Be careful."
Aria nodded nervously.
"Please."
Kaelith simply said,
"We’ll regroup once the spawn are eliminated."
Elara turned toward the dark road leading downward into the lower districts.
"Let’s move."
Adrian took one last look at the skyline.
The towers of the Council district glowed faintly against the night sky.
Beneath them...
The true monster still slept.
But not for long.
And if the spawn continued evolving—
The city would face something far worse than a simple breach.
Adrian stepped forward into the darkness.
Because tonight...
The weakest hunter in the city was about to fight alone.
The streets grew darker the further Adrian and Elara moved away from the academy.
The polished roads of the upper district slowly turned into cracked pavement and narrow alleys. Neon lights flickered on the sides of old buildings, casting long shadows across the empty streets.
The lower district was never quiet.
But tonight...
It felt abandoned.
Even the usual street noise had vanished.
Elara noticed it too.
"The civilians already ran."
Adrian nodded.
"They probably felt the mana disturbance."
Even ordinary people could sense it when something powerful moved beneath the city.
A faint tremor passed through the ground.
Not strong enough to shake the buildings.
But enough to make the air feel heavy.
The spawn was close.
Very close. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
Adrian slowed his pace and activated the Bond Network again.
The system appeared in his vision.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Active Anchors: 2
Network Efficiency: 39%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lyra and Kaelith’s signals moved farther west.
Seraphine and Aria’s connection pulsed somewhere in the eastern district.
The network had stretched thin.
Without the full formation, the stabilization field weakened.
But it was still enough for Adrian to track the target.
Elara stepped beside him.
"You feel it?"
"Yes."
"The spawn is feeding."
She frowned slightly.
"Already?"
Adrian looked down the alley ahead.
Mana currents swirled between the buildings like invisible smoke.
"It found a pipe."
The underground energy network beneath the city supplied power to training grounds, barrier systems, and research facilities.
But in the lower district, many of those pipes were old.
Poorly protected.
Which meant they were easy targets.
Elara drew her blade slowly.
A faint silver glow appeared along its edge.
"If it absorbs too much mana..."
"It evolves," Adrian finished.
They turned the corner.
And finally saw it.
The spawn crouched in the middle of the street.
It was smaller than the academy monster.
But far more unstable.
Its body twisted with dark energy.
Sharp bone-like armor covered its shoulders and back, while long claws dug into the ground.
But the most disturbing part was what it was doing.
The creature had ripped open the street.
A massive mana pipe beneath the road had been exposed.
Blue energy flowed through the cracked metal like liquid light.
And the spawn...
Was absorbing it.
Black veins spread across its body as it consumed the mana directly from the pipe.
Elara cursed quietly.
"Too late."
The creature lifted its head.
White glowing eyes locked onto them.
For a brief moment—
Everything went still.
Then the monster roared.
The sound echoed down the empty street like thunder.
Adrian immediately felt the change in the mana flow.
The creature had already evolved.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Enemy Status Update
Spawn Evolution: 82%
Estimated Rank: A
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Elara stepped forward without hesitation.
Her blade flashed.
"Then we end this now."
The spawn moved instantly.
Its body blurred forward with shocking speed.
The claws slammed into the street where Adrian had been standing a moment earlier.
Concrete exploded outward.
Adrian jumped back.
"Fast."
Elara intercepted the second strike.
Her sword clashed against the creature’s claws.
The impact sent sparks flying through the dark alley.
For a moment they held their ground.
Then the monster pushed harder.
The force drove Elara several meters backward.
Lyra would have laughed.
Kaelith would have countered.
But Adrian wasn’t either of them.
He raised his hand slowly.
The bond network pulsed.
Two anchors remained.
Not enough to dominate the battlefield.
But enough to disrupt it.
Blue energy spread outward from Adrian like invisible threads.
The stabilization field expanded across the street.
The chaotic mana surrounding the spawn suddenly slowed.
The monster hesitated.
Just for a second.
That was all Elara needed.
Her blade flashed again.
This time the strike cut deep across the creature’s chest.
Dark energy burst from the wound.
The spawn screamed.
Adrian’s system reacted immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Bond Network System
Combat Sync Activated
Anchor Support: Elara
Efficiency Boost: +21%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Elara felt it too.
Her movements became faster.
Sharper.
More precise.
The spawn attacked again.
But this time—
She was ready.
Her sword cut through the air like silver lightning.
And the battle truly began.
Somewhere beneath the city...
The creature that had sent the spawn was still watching.
Still learning.
And tonight—
It had just discovered the one person interfering with its plans.
Adrian Vale.
The hunter officially ranked as the weakest in the city.
But the only one capable of controlling the network that threatened its awakening.
If you enjoy the story, support it with Power Stones and collections to help the novel grow!
Author Note
The city crisis arc is escalating. In the next Chapter, Adrian enters the lower district to confront a rapidly evolving spawn — but something unexpected is waiting there.
