Chapter 94: What He Shouldn’t Have Said

The man who stepped out of the black car was Julian Ashford.

Daemon’s irritation rose the moment their eyes met.

Julian looked exactly like the type WHA loved to promote on camera clean uniform, sharp posture, confident smile already prepared for attention.

He walked toward the team like the gate itself had been waiting for him.

"A-Rank Gate Clearance Team, form up," Julian said. "I’m your captain for this run."

Marcus, Lira, and Elena straightened at once. Roxanna gave a polite nod. Daemon only watched him.

Julian’s gaze slid over Daemon and stopped with mild disbelief.

"B-Rank?" he said. "WHA really is lowering standards."

Roxanna’s expression changed slightly.

"He was assigned with me."

Julian smiled the kind of smile that never reached the eyes.

"Then he stays behind the healers. Don’t create problems inside."

Daemon did not answer.

He only followed them toward the gate.

The dungeon opened into a wide stone corridor veined with gold-red patterns, like scales buried under rock.

The air was warm and dry. Every few seconds, a low vibration moved through the floor, soft enough to ignore if you were careless.

Daemon did not ignore it.

It felt like breathing.

"Stay sharp," Julian said, already walking ahead. "Standard A-Rank structure. I take point. Vanguard left. Strikers right. Healer center. B-Rank, rear support."

Marcus lifted his shield. Lira loosened her blades. Elena’s staff glowed faint blue.

They did not get far.

The first pack came from the side tunnels.

Ashscale Hatchlings.

Small bipedal dragonoids with brittle ember-colored scales burst into the corridor in a rush of claws and weak fire spit. There were more than a dozen, fast and disorganized, but dangerous in numbers.

"Left wall!" Marcus barked.

Julian moved first.

His body flashed with compressed force as he cut through the front line, each strike clean and showy.

Two hatchlings split apart under his blade. A third tried to leap for his shoulder, and he turned with perfect timing, kicking it into the wall hard enough to crack stone.

"Keep up," Julian said over his shoulder.

Lira shot past him and carved through two more. Elena raised a barrier just as ember spit sprayed across the center line. Roxanna’s hands were already glowing, ready, but no one was badly hit yet.

Daemon stayed back at first, watching the rhythm of the fight.

Then three hatchlings broke past Marcus and rushed the rear.

Daemon stepped in.

Thunderstep carried him forward in a short burst. Void Reaper cut the first hatchling clean through the chest.

The second lunged, and he caught it by the throat, slammed it into the ground, and finished it with a compressed Inferno Blast no larger than a fist. The third tried to reform from ash after Lira cut it down.

Daemon’s blade took the reforming core before it could stand.

Julian glanced back, mildly annoyed that the rear had not stayed decorative.

"Not bad for B-Rank," he said. "Don’t get cocky."

Daemon wiped the edge of his blade once and said nothing.

Deeper inside, the heat thickened.

The corridor opened into a wider chamber with broken pillars and scorched claw marks across the floor.

Emberback Lizard Knights waited there in formation taller, armored, spears glowing dull red along the tips.

Julian smiled.

"Finally, something worth recording."

He charged.

The first knight met him head-on. Spear and blade clashed, sparks flying. Julian twisted, cut under the arm joint, and forced the creature back.

Marcus slammed another with his shield. Lira slid around a third and carved at the knees.

Then one knight’s armor flared hotter, softening the impact of physical strikes. Lira’s blade skidded. Marcus grunted as a spear tip punched into his shield hard enough to numb his arm.

"Roxanna!" Elena called.

Roxanna was already moving. Life energy flowed into Marcus’s shoulder before the numbness could spread into a real injury.

Daemon watched the knights carefully.

Their armor was not invincible. It pulsed with heat in cycles. Hard, soft, hard again.

"Strike on the dim phase," Daemon said.

Julian shot him a look.

"I don’t need instructions from rear support."

Then one knight nearly took Julian’s side open.

Daemon moved.

Black Mist carried him a short distance through the heat haze. He reappeared at the knight’s flank during the exact moment its armor dullened and drove Void Reaper into the joint beneath the ribs. The creature screamed and collapsed.

Lira adapted immediately and started timing her cuts the same way. Elena pinned one knight in a suppression field. Marcus finished another with a full-body shield crash.

Julian killed the last one with a rising slash, then turned as if the solution had been his all along.

"See? Control the tempo and they fall."

Daemon checked the chamber again.

The walls had reacted when he moved.

Just slightly.

Like something inside the dungeon had turned its head.

They found the Scalebind Serpents in the next passage.

The first one dropped from the ceiling without sound and coiled around Elena before she could raise a full barrier.

Scale bands hardened over her arms and ribs, locking her in place. A second serpent lunged for Lira. A third went for Marcus’s legs.

"Break them carefully!" Roxanna shouted. "If you cut wild, you’ll cut her too!"

Julian tried to force the serpent off Elena with raw power. The bands only tightened.

Daemon stepped in, eyes cold and focused.

He did not slash wildly. He used Bloodline Insight for a fraction of a second, reading the living tension in the scale bands, then cut three exact points in rapid succession.

The serpent convulsed and fell apart. Roxanna caught Elena before she hit the ground and poured healing through her bruised ribs.

Lira finished the second. Marcus crushed the third under shield weight after Daemon severed its binding ridge.

Elena coughed and nodded shakily.

"Thanks."

Julian’s jaw flexed.

He did not like being outdone in front of the team.

The miniboss chamber was worse.

A Molten Horn Guardian waited at the center of a circular hall, four-armed and massive, horn-core glowing in its chest like a furnace heart. The moment the team entered, the temperature spiked.

"Surround it," Julian ordered. "I take the head."

He launched first.

The guardian answered with a heat wave that cracked the floor. Marcus braced and still slid backward.

Lira tried to flank and was nearly crushed by a backhand swing. Elena’s barrier shattered on the second impact.

Julian landed one clean hit on the guardian’s shoulder, then got blasted across the chamber by a horn-shock pulse.

"Captain!" Marcus shouted.

Roxanna sprinted to him, already healing the burns along his side.

Daemon’s eyes locked on the chest core.

It was regenerating.

Every wound the team made was closing because the horn-core was feeding the body.

"Destroy the core fully," Daemon said. "Partial damage is useless."

Julian forced himself up, face twisted with heat and pride.

"I said I take point!"

Daemon ignored him.

Thunderstep. Black Mist. Inferno Blast compressed into a dense spear of flame. He vanished from the guardian’s front line, reappeared above the exposed chest during a recovery frame, and drove the burning strike straight into the horn-core.

The chamber rang like struck metal.

The guardian screamed.

Julian, unwilling to let the finish leave his hands, leapt in and cut through the cracked core with a final flashy slash.

The Molten Horn Guardian collapsed into cooling stone and fading heat.

Silence held for a breath.

Then the dungeon walls pulsed.

Harder this time.

Daemon froze as a thin thread of foreign sensing magic brushed across him not attacking, not binding, just recognizing. Bloodline Insight flared without being called.

[Dragon Race Scout Thread detected.]

[Target Resonance: White Dragon / Earth-side awakening.]

Kassia.

This dungeon was not random.

Virendal’s dragon race had used the gate route as a probe path. They had sensed her. They were already looking.

Daemon’s fingers tightened around Void Reaper.

Outside the gate, cameras and officials were waiting.

The team emerged to flashes of light and raised voices. Someone shouted questions about the clear time. Someone else asked who led the operation.

Julian stepped forward before anyone else could speak, posture perfect, expression humble in the exact way media liked.

"Under my command, the A-Rank gate was stabilized and cleared," he said. "My team performed well. Ashford is safer today because of coordinated leadership."

Marcus looked uncomfortable. Lira said nothing. Elena kept her eyes down. Roxanna’s face remained calm, but her silence was sharp.

A reporter pushed closer.

"Captain Ashford, any comment on the mixed-rank assignment? There was a B-Rank hunter on your team."

Julian’s smile widened just enough to turn ugly.

He glanced at Daemon, then back to the cameras.

"I should thank my master, Victoria Hale," he said clearly. "Because of her training, I am now an S-Rank awakener. It’s impressive what real guidance can do."

Cameras shifted. Microphones lifted higher.

Julian continued, voice smooth and poisonous.

"It’s a little sad, honestly, to see that her own husband still hasn’t awakened properly and remains a B-Rank hunter... while he enjoying himself with other women."

The air went dead for half a second.

Roxanna’s eyes hardened.

Daemon’s vision narrowed.

He did not think.

He moved.

The punch landed hard enough to turn Julian’s head sideways. Teeth clipped. Jaw cracked under impact.

Julian staggered back into the barricade line as camera shutters exploded around them like gunfire.

Reporters shouted.

Phones rose higher.

Julian’s mouth bled as he stared at Daemon in shock, and the entire gate exit drowned in flashlights and noise.

Daemon stood over him with his fist still clenched, eyes cold, no longer caring who was watching