After the fifth runic golem went up in a pillar of blue fire, the entire manor finally understood the truth, whoever had infiltrated their defenses wasn’t going to be stopped by standard protocols or brute numbers. The courtyard shook from the last detonation, and even the barrier itself flickered twice, its surface rippling like disturbed water. That was enough to trigger a shift in the golems' behavior or on the one controlling them…

  Their runes flared in unison as they abandoned their scattered pursuit pattern and retreated toward the edges of the mana barrier. Heavy metallic steps thudded across the stone paths as they formed a broad defensive ring, each construct planting itself beside a barrier pillar or a mana conduit. Their orders were clear: protect the remaining cores at any cost. But the barrier wasn’t the shimmering fortress it had been minutes ago.

  Half of its power sources were gone, either shattered by Ludger’s sabotage or disrupted by Maurien’s precise strikes. What remained was stretched thin, its light dimming and brightening in uneven pulses like a weakened heartbeat. Several spots along its surface looked unstable, rippling with distorted mana.

  Ludger could feel it even from inside the smoke-choked courtyard. His senses picked up the weakened mana currents as if the world itself was breathing irregularly.

  More importantly, he felt something else: Maurien’s movement slowing… then stopping.

  Through the mist, he sensed the subtle shift of wind magic withdrawing, consolidating near the perimeter. Kaela’s presence drew closer too, her mana coiling around the fog like silken threads. They were regrouping, exactly what the plan demanded.

  None of them could be seen. None of them could be recognized. None of them could be linked to him.

  The chaos inside the manor had to remain a mystery, an untraceable disaster with no clear culprit. Their job, now that the inside had descended into confusion, was to hold the outer field, warping the ambient mana, drowning the surroundings in mist, and making sure any witness or sensor spell returned nothing but noise.

  Ludger exhaled slowly, feeling the fog thicken again as Kaela tightened her control.

  Maurien’s winds were ready to scatter traces. The barrier flickered. The golems braced. Inside the smoke and fire, Ludger straightened his spine. His mask hid his expression, but his eyes sharpened. The real hunt inside the manor had only just begun.

  Mana whined through the air again, tight, controlled shots cutting straight through the haze. Ludger snapped up a mana wall just in time, the bolts smashing into it hard enough to make his wrist burn. They weren’t firing blindly. Even with the smoke, dust, and mist swirling together in a chaotic mess, they were tracking him.

  They can see me through this? No… they’re sensing me.

  Seismic Sense filled in the rest, steady footwork, synchronized breathing, weight shifting with discipline. This wasn’t a random patrol. These were elites.

  Ludger slid to the left, letting the smoke swallow him, but the next volley curved after him too cleanly to be coincidence. He changed direction again, and still the shots followed. That confirmed it, they weren’t using the mist at all. They had some kind of detection rune built right into their gear. He exhaled once, then rushed toward the source.

  Through the gray curtain of mist, shapes solidified. Six heavily armored soldiers advanced in a tight formation, glowing visors sweeping the garden like hunting predators. They looked nothing like the standard guards Ludger had seen around Coria. Their full appearance became clear as he darted closer:

  Their helmets were entirely sealed, thick metal with a single blue visor line running horizontally across the face. No openings. No gaps. Just a smooth, reinforced mask with small vent runes pulsing at the jawline.

  Their armor was heavier than Imperial knight plate, layered steel infused with arcane channels that glowed faintly with circulating mana. Hexagonal rune clusters pulsed on their chestplates, and their pauldrons, broad enough to be shields on their own, hummed softly with defensive wards.

  Each soldier carried a rectangular tower shield nearly as tall as themselves. Runes spiraled across the metal surface, ready to disperse spells or absorb impact. Their other hand gripped compact runic launchers, half weapon, half magical tool, barrels reinforced with cooling sigils, mana cartridges glowing like embers along the chamber.

  As soon as Ludger came into full view, all six angled their weapons at him in perfect, mechanical precision. Straight at his head.

  He didn’t waste time swearing. He pushed off the ground and rolled aside as another volley ripped past, slamming into the stone wall behind him and leaving molten craters in its surface.

  Whatever these soldiers were, their gear was top-tier. And they weren’t here to capture him. They were here to erase whatever threatened the manor, quickly and efficiently.

  Ludger forced his breathing to steady as he pulled the smallest thread of Overdrive into motion. If he let even a fraction slip, if he allowed his mana to flare the way it usually did, the soldiers would see it, runic lenses tracking elemental signatures instantly, revealing what he was. So he compressed the flow, shrinking it until it became a thin pulse beneath his skin, something quiet and controlled rather than explosive. The energy tightened along his limbs with surgical precision, forming not the bright aura of wind nor the deep thrum of earth, but a barely visible sheen of water mana. It hugged his body like a cold mist, silent enough to hide, flexible enough to adapt. The shift was subtle, almost imperceptible, exactly what he needed.

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  When the soldiers opened fire again, the world stretched. The mana bolts ripped through the fog in clean lines of light, each one powerful enough to pierce iron, but under Water Attunement Ludger saw everything with a heightened clarity. He could sense the minute fluctuations in air pressure, the faint tremors of armored feet shifting, the tight recoil paths of the runic launchers as they strained to pump out shot after shot. His body responded before his thoughts caught up, shoulders dipping an inch to let a bolt skim past, weight sliding across his foot to melt under another shot, spine bending with a liquid grace that let the barrage pass through empty air where he’d stood a heartbeat ago.

  The soldiers tried to adapt, rotating in perfect formation. Their visors flickered as detection runes recalibrated, attempting to lock onto him again. But their vision wasn’t built for this, Ludger wasn’t running, or zig-zagging, or performing anything their battle algorithms recognized. He was flowing, moving like water finding its path through cracks in stone. Every step blurred into the next, his body shifting around danger with an organic unpredictability that no machine-built sight could track.

  Gradually the rhythm of the battle shifted. The launchers’ barrels glowed a harsh red as heat sigils strained to cool them. Steam hissed from venting runes, and one soldier slapped the side of his weapon in a panic when the mana coils inside shrieked like overheated metal. Another launcher sputtered mid-shot, coughing out a weak blast before jamming entirely. One by one the weapons began to fail, each collapse marked by sharp chhk–chhk locking sounds as overheated chambers seized up. The firing stopped.

  For a moment, the only sounds were the distant rumble of collapsing golems and the crackle of flames spreading across the garden. The soldiers turned toward each other in rigid disbelief, their posture tightening as their visors pulsed with error signals. They had never seen a target dance through a storm of mana bolts without taking a scratch. Their gear was cutting-edge. Their formation was flawless. Their runic targeting was supposed to be impossible to evade. Yet Ludger had slipped through everything without breaking rhythm.

  He stood still in the fog, water attunement glistening faintly over his mask and gloves like a thin layer of condensed breath. His shoulders rose and fell with calm, deliberate breaths, each exhale a quiet mist of cold air. Beneath the half-mask, he wasn’t smiling, but there was a sharpness in his eyes, a cold precision that told the soldiers he had already moved past defense.

  If they couldn’t touch him? Then their turn was over. Ludger shifted his weight, stone blades tightening in his fists as he prepared to move. The soldiers braced, trying to raise their shields, trying to recover position, but they were too slow. The moment they lost control of the battlefield, they’d already lost the fight.

  Ludger exhaled slowly, and the shift in his aura was immediate—subtle at first, then rising like a furnace taking its first breath.

  The thin layer of Water Attunement that had wrapped around his body dissolved as he redirected the Overdrive’s nature, compressing the flow of mana until his core tightened with a deep, molten pressure. Heat rushed through his veins. His pulse throbbed with a heavy, rhythmic beat. A faint red shimmer rose from his skin, spreading in thin tendrils before igniting fully.

  Fire Overdrive, ignition.

  The temperature around him spiked, forcing the mist to recoil from his body in swirls of steam. Red embers flickered along the seams of his gloves. An explosion rune emerged on his palm, stirred awake with a hungry vibration, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

  The runic soldiers stiffened when they felt the heat roll off him. Their heavy armor glowed faintly from the enchantments activating under stress, and their massive metal shields formed a tight defensive wall. Anyone else would’ve backed away. Anyone else would’ve hesitated.

  Ludger stepped forward without pause. The unit reacted instantly, their formation snapping into motion with practiced precision. They swung their shields like guillotines, serrated edges and runic enhancements turning each blow into a death sentence. The coordinated attack should’ve forced Ludger into retreat, boxed him in with overwhelming pressure. Instead, he moved faster.

  He slid past the first shield, heat distorting the air around him as he cut through their formation like liquid fire. The soldier on his right tried a fast backswing, but Ludger didn’t even look, he simply twisted his torso, letting the blade miss by a breath before stepping deeper into their ranks.

  The hesitation that followed was obvious. They were trained for people to run away from this formation, not into it. Ludger’s palm slammed against the center of the nearest shield.

  BOOM.

  The explosion rune detonated in a concentrated burst. The impact melted a crater straight into the shield, completely compromising the runic structure. The soldier behind it was launched backward as if struck by a battering ram, crashing into his comrades and sending them sprawling.

  Heat rippled outward, forcing several soldiers to shield their faces. The blast singed the plants in the garden, leaving patches of burnt grass smoking around them.

  They recovered quickly, too quickly. Runes flared across their armor as they readjusted and swung again with renewed force. Ludger didn’t bother blocking. He didn’t even break his rhythm.

  Fire Overdrive sharpened every muscle fiber, turning each movement into a blur of red heat. He stepped around their blows with calculated ease, letting shield edges pass inches away from his cheek, his shoulder, his ribs. Whenever a gap opened, he struck, sharp, precise, always hitting where armor met cloth, where a joint bent, where a rune seam existed.

  Another palm strike landed. Another explosion roared. This time the shield didn’t just crack, it ripped apart. Molten fragments scattered across the courtyard as the soldier was hurled backward with a strangled scream, armor flickering like a dying lantern.

  Still moving, Ludger twisted away from another slash, dropped low, and slid beneath a descending shield. The soldier tried to stomp him with a runic-boosted boot, but he was already past the danger line. Ludger planted his palm upward under the shield’s arm.

  BOOM.

  The shield bent into a warped metal crescent. The soldier was thrown upward, slamming into the manor wall hard enough to crack the stone.

  Only then, while steam curled around him and the air flickered with residual flame, did Ludger piece together what was bothering him.

  Their footwork was rigid. Their guard transitions were sluggish.

  Their timing, their reactions, even their formation movements were too formulaic. They fought like men who memorized combat from diagrams, not battle.