Ludger said nothing, but his fingers twitched slightly, the way they did when he was calculating risks. Kaela nudged him lightly with her elbow, whispering,

  “So… why don’t we try something that doesn’t end with you flattening half of Coria?”

  Ludger sighed again, not angry, just acknowledging the truth. They had arrived at the right moment. Whether he would admit it or not, he needed backup. Even if he couldn’t let them follow him into the heart of the enemy’s nest… having them here meant the difference between recklessness and a plan.

  Ludger straightened his posture, eyes turning back toward the fortress.

  “All right,” he said. “New approach.”

  Maurien nodded.

  “Good. Because the last thing we need is you starting a war.”

  Kaela grinned. “Speak for yourself. I wouldn’t mind watching one.”

  Maurien groaned. Ludger ignored them both. Time for phase two.

  Maurien crouched beside Ludger, studying the glowing barrier with a veteran’s eye. He didn’t look intimidated, just annoyed, as if the fortress offended him personally.

  “I’ve taken down mana barriers before,” he murmured, keeping his voice low enough that it blended with the night. “Bandit dens, rogue mage outposts, even a fortified ruin once. But nothing quite like this. Verk’s got layers upon layers, all fed by stabilized cores. Breaking it isn’t the real issue.”

  Ludger glanced at him. “Then what is?”

  Maurien tapped the ground lightly with two fingers. “The city. People around here have tools to analyze mana flow. Architects, research mages, half of them can read magical residue like footprints. Even if you avoid geomancy, everyone’s mana has a distinct imprint, and these people are trained to recognize fluctuations. You hit that barrier alone, they’ll follow the trail straight to you.”

  Ludger felt his jaw tighten beneath the mask. He had known the risk, but hearing it clearly laid out made it worse.

  “So,” he said, “how do we stop them from tracing anything?”

  Maurien’s mouth curved into a small grin. “By changing the entire environment.”

  Kaela blinked. “Changing… the environment?”

  Maurien nodded. “Right now, the ambient mana is stable and predictable. If Ludger strikes the barrier, his mana will stand out like a bonfire. But if we change the atmosphere, literally, then the mana around us becomes noisy and unstable. Their detection tools will see nothing but clutter.”

  Ludger folded his arms. “And how do we create that clutter?”

  Maurien pointed upward. “Start with the weather. You summon rain, not lightning, not a magical effect, just raw moisture. Enough to spike the humidity across the whole district.”

  Kaela cut in, excited. “And if humidity suddenly shifts like that, every tool that reads mana will start malfunctioning. Water vapor screws with mana perception.”

  Maurien continued, nodding. “Then I heat the ground beneath us, not a fire spell, just enough thermal magic to warm the stone. When the hot ground meets the rain…”

  Ludger finished the sentence for him. “It forms mist.”

  Maurien gave a satisfied grin. “Exactly. A thick one, dense enough that nobody sees more than a few meters ahead. And while that’s happening, Kaela will use her wind magic to keep the mist tightly controlled, making visibility unpredictable and distorting sound.”

  Kaela smirked. “I can spread it, thicken it, make it swirl exactly where we need. No one will notice three people moving inside it.”

  “And while we’re hidden,” Maurien added, “I’ll get close enough to the barrier to search for flaws. No matter how perfect a structure is, there’s always an uneven node or a poorly linked filament. If Verk rushed any part of this installation, I’ll find the weak point.”

  Ludger raised an eyebrow. “And once you find it, I strike?”

  “Yes,” Maurien said, “but not alone. You strike at the exact moment the mist, the rain, the heat, and Kaela’s wind all hit the same spot. It’ll look like a perfectly natural environmental overload, something strange, but not suspicious enough for anyone to blame a specific person for.”

  Kaela grinned. “Weather-assisted sabotage. I love it.”

  Ludger considered the plan for a long moment. It wasn’t subtle, but it was clever. It protected their identities. It turned the district itself into a smokescreen. And most importantly, it avoided any mana signature that could be traced back to him or the Lionsguard. Finally, he nodded.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll do it your way.”

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  Maurien patted him on the shoulder. “Good. Because tonight, we’re bringing down a fortress.”

  Kaela chuckled. “And making it look like the weather did it.”

  Ludger turned his attention back to Verk’s manor, the glow of the barrier flickering in his eyes. Now they had a plan. And phase two was about to begin.

  Ludger took one last breath and centered himself. The three of them spread out across the rooftop, each preparing their part of the plan. Once Maurien gave a short nod, they moved.

  Ludger raised his hands toward the sky and activated Cumulonimbus. The clouds above Coria shifted almost instantly, thickening as if someone had stirred them with a giant spoon. A heavy weight pressed down on the district as the mana-rich air responded to his pull. After a few seconds, rain began to fall, first a thin sheet, then a steady curtain that drenched the rooftops and streets in a controlled downpour.

  The rainfall wasn't meant to last long. Just long enough to soak everything and disrupt the city’s natural mana flow. Even so, the effort pulled hard on Ludger’s reserves. When the clouds finally dispersed and the rain tapered off, he felt nearly half his mana drained in one go.

  “That’s good,” Maurien said, stepping up beside him. “Now it’s my turn.”

  Maurien crouched and placed both palms against the damp ground. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the air around him shifted with a strange, rising warmth. Maurien had always preferred wind, but he wasn’t limited to it, he had plenty of tricks most people never saw.

  A soft hum vibrated through the ground. The streets and walls of the northern district began to heat slowly, absorbing just enough warmth to clash with the lingering moisture left by the rain. The effect wasn’t dramatic, but it didn’t need to be. The heat of the buildings that worked overnight helped him with the head that he needed.

  Within seconds, thin wisps of fog began curling upward. Within a minute, the streets vanished under a spreading white haze. And soon after, the fog thickened into a dense mist that swallowed entire buildings.

  Maurien stepped back with a slow exhale. “There it is.”

  Kaela moved forward next, hands raised slightly as the mist swirled around her ankles. She closed her eyes for a moment and then made a subtle gesture, guiding the air currents with her magic. The fog responded immediately, tightening around the manor and spreading through the streets in heavy waves.

  “I’ll keep it dense,” she said with a grin. “Five meters of visibility at best. Maybe less if I really stir it.”

  She flicked her wrist again, and the mist rolled over the district like smoke from an enormous fire, hiding rooftops, alleys, and the manor’s walls behind a constantly shifting wall of white. Even the runic lamps flickered under the thickness of it.

  Ludger adjusted his hood and mask. Maurien checked the mist’s movement, making sure no gaps formed. Kaela continued shaping the fog into unpredictable currents that distorted sound and blurred silhouettes.

  When they finally stepped forward together, the mist closed around them, swallowing their shapes completely and leaving no trace of their presence.

  The northern district of Coria disappeared behind a blanket of fog, the perfect cover for a break-in.

  Maurien slipped into the mist like it was a second skin. His outline blurred almost immediately as he let a faint stream of wind mana carry him forward. He didn’t run, he glided, feet barely touching the damp cobblestones. Even Ludger had trouble keeping track of his movements inside the haze.

  The moment he approached Verk’s manor, the atmosphere changed. A deep metallic thrum echoed from beyond the barrier. Then another. Then several more. The golems. Their internal mana conduits vibrated when they shifted positions, and the sound cut through the mist like distant war drums. Ludger and Kaela immediately stiffened.

  But only a handful moved. Most of the constructs stayed in place, their glowing cores unwavering, their eyes fixed outward. The fog didn’t breach the barrier; the moment it reached the invisible dome, it simply flowed along its surface and slid away. For the golems, nothing had actually entered their perimeter, so there was no alarm. Still, Ludger frowned.

  “They should have internal sensors,” he muttered under his breath. “If he gets too close—”

  Kaela nodded. “They’ll detect the pressure wave from his mana. Even mist can’t hide that.”

  Maurien knew it too. He didn’t approach the wall directly. Instead, he skirted its perimeter, adjusting his distance every few meters, eyes scanning for inconsistencies. His head tilted slightly each time he caught the faintest flicker of mana through the fog.

  He moved with precision, stay too far and he’d miss the weak points; too close and the golems would register his presence. It was a dangerous dance.

  Ludger and Kaela waited in thick silence. The fog swirled, hiding everything except the occasional flash of golem light behind the barrier. The sound of the constructs shifting positions grew louder for a moment, then quieted again. For a tense stretch of minutes, Maurien vanished entirely from their perception.

  And then, a faint breeze brushed their sides.Maurien materialized beside them like a shadow stepping out of nothing, breathing evenly but with his eyes sharp.

  “I found a fault.”

  Ludger blinked. “…Already?”

  Kaela raised an eyebrow. “That was ridiculously fast.”

  Maurien shrugged, brushing fog off his sleeve. “Lucky break. Literally.”

  He pointed toward the northern corner of the manor, barely visible through the haze. “There’s a small crack in the outer wall. Looks like the mana expanded unevenly, maybe from heat distortion or poor reinforcement when they installed the new cores.”

  Ludger frowned. “A crack that tiny can disrupt a barrier?”

  Maurien nodded. “Normally no, but the way they set up their runic channels makes the flow depend heavily on symmetry. That crack forces the mana to bend slightly out of alignment.”

  Kaela leaned in. “Meaning…?”

  “Meaning the barrier there is thinner than it should be,” Maurien said. “Nothing an average mage would detect from the outside, but enough that if we time the strike with the environmental surge, rain, heat, mist, we can overload it without drawing attention to your mana signature.”

  He tapped the side of his temple. “The golems’ mana cores don’t help either. They’re close enough to the crack that some of their signatures interfere with the barrier’s regulation. Whoever installed them put too many in one cluster, and the imbalance is amplifying the flaw.”

  Ludger exhaled slowly. A real weakness. Small, but real.

  “Then that’s our opening,” he said.

  Maurien nodded. “It won’t stay open long once we hit it, but it will be enough for one clean entry.”

  Kaela grinned. “Perfect. Let’s ruin someone’s night.”

  Ludger tightened his grip on his earthen blades. Time to breach the fortress.