Ragdar groaned as he untangled himself from the cratered wall, rolling forward until his boots finally hit the floor. He stood up in a stagger, shaking off dust and humiliation in equal measure. The confused haze vanished from his eyes, replaced by pure, pulsing rage. His jaw flexed. A vein throbbed at his temple. Every breath he drew came out like steam.

  “Alright… you little brat…” he snarled, low and guttural. “Now I’m REALLY done playing.”

  He reached into a pocket sewn inside his vest, movement sharp, practiced, and pulled out a small glass bottle. The lantern light glinted off it, illuminating swirling red liquid inside. Thick. Oily. Almost alive. Ludger’s eyes narrowed immediately.

  He had never personally seen berserker draughts before, only heard the descriptions, read the notes Yvar collected. But the look of the thing… the color… the way the surface writhed faintly like it resisted being contained… Yeah. It matched the rumors perfectly.

  “That,” Ludger said, voice flat and cold behind the stone mask, “will upset your stomach. And eventually your head. The addiction hits hard. It won’t end well for you.”

  Ragdar didn’t even pretend to listen. He popped the cork with his thumb. The liquid hissed like something feral freed from a cage. Ludger’s stance tightened, not from fear, but annoyance.

  “Seriously,” he muttered. “You’re choosing long-term brain damage over a clean fight?”

  Ragdar tilted his head back and drank the entire bottle in one go. Adam's apple bobbed as the red fluid slid down his throat. The moment it reached his stomach, veins around his neck and temples began to bulge, pulsing with unnatural vigor. His breathing turned ragged. His irises bled into a dark crimson. Muscles twisted, thickened, and swelled beneath his skin.

  The draught had taken hold. And the guildmaster of the Iron Moth Brotherhood was transforming into something far more dangerous.

  Ludger’s eyes narrowed to thin slits behind the mask.

  He didn’t know exactly how berserker draughts affected Imperials. The archives mentioned scattered results, some gained immense power, others tore themselves apart, and a few simply went insane after continuous use. But the reaction was always magnified in people with non-Imperial lineage. Northerners, beastmen… their bodies harmonized too well with the concoction, for a while.

  And Ragdar… Up close, Ludger could see it clearly now. The bone structure. The thickness of his frame. The coarse hair along his forearms. The way his pupils sharpened into predator-like slits for a fraction of a second.

  “...You’ve got northerner blood,” Ludger muttered.

  The effect of the draught hit him almost instantly, muscle fibers ballooning, veins twisting under the skin like heated iron cables, raw steam venting from his mouth with every breath. It wasn’t exactly Rage Flow, but it was close. Too close. Ludger had watched Kharnek fight enough times to recognize the telltale signs of amplified combat instincts.

  Ragdar roared like a maddened beast. Then he charged. The first footstep cracked the ground. The second shattered it. By the third, he was already a blur of bloodlust, speed spiking beyond what a man his size had any right to achieve.

  Ludger reacted in the same blink. A pulse of mana ignited beneath his skin as he triggered Water Overdrive, letting moisture in the air coat his joints, loosen his movements, sharpen every step. His body shifted sideways, light and fluid, almost sliding rather than stepping.

  Ragdar’s fist passed so close that the air pressure alone stung Ludger’s skin.

  But not quite enough. The spiked gauntlet clipped his cheek, leaving a thin, burning cut. Tiny flecks of stone mask chipped away, scattering across the floor as Ludger spun back into stance. Ragdar skidded a few meters past him, turning with a feral grin twisting his face.

  “FAST, AREN’T YOU?!” he barked, voice deepened and warped by the draught.

  Ludger touched his cheek, seeing a smear of blood on his fingers. He exhaled through his nose. Not fear. Annoyance.

  Ragdar’s speed was now frightening, frightening for any normal fighter, at least. That gauntlet strike would’ve caved in the skull of a trained soldier. Even a novice adventurer wouldn’t have seen it coming. But Ludger had. And the guildmaster wasn’t done.

  With another thunderous step, Ragdar launched himself forward again, fury fueling his limbs and the berserker draught turning his body into a living weapon. This fight had just entered a new phase, and Ludger would have to respond in kind.

  Ragdar didn’t give Ludger a second to breathe. The berserker draught howled through his veins, turning him into a charging monster with no concern for defense or sanity. He lunged forward with an upward hook that would’ve launched Ludger across the chamber. Ludger twisted sideways, letting the punch pass along his ribs so closely he felt the heat of friction brush his skin.

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  The guildmaster shifted instantly, bringing his other fist down like a falling hammer.

  Ludger slid forward under the descending arm, Water Overdrive coating his joints and muscles like a liquid sheath. His movements weren’t steps anymore, they were glides, controlled slips across the ground that let him escape by centimeters.

  Ragdar spun, spiked gauntlet carving a vicious horizontal arc through the air. The wind pressure alone ripped through the front of Ludger’s tunic, shredding fabric in a single violent tear. Ludger bent backward, spine dipping in a smooth arc just enough for the blade-like wind to pass over him.

  Stone chips and dust exploded behind him, the shockwave carving a deep gouge into the wall. But Ragdar wasn’t done.

  He pressed forward, throwing a relentless barrage, jab, jab, straight, elbow, overhead slam. Every strike was heavy enough to pulverize bone, and each one came faster than the last as the draught frenzied his body further.

  Ludger avoided the first elbow by ducking. He avoided the next punch by sliding left. He avoided the sweep of a spiked backhand by tilting his head. But the margin of error was shrinking.

  He pushed more mana into Water Overdrive, more than he ever had during training, more than he had ever needed before. It surged through him in a cold rush, allowing his muscles to stretch farther, react faster, rebound with unnatural elasticity.

  But Water Overdrive wasn’t something he had refined. He had almost no extended combat experience with it.And it showed. His movements grew sharper, but unstable. His breath tightened. His joints burned with the strain of mana-rich motion.

  Still, he dodged, narrower each time. Ragdar’s fist came within a millimeter of his nose.

  Ludger jerked back, feeling the shockwave slice a line across the surface of his stone mask.

  Another punch rushed toward his side, he twisted, letting it pass close enough for a spike to shear through the hardened earth around his forearm. Pieces of stone armor cracked and fell away, dust trailing behind him like smoke.

  Ragdar roared, throwing a downward strike so savage the wind behind it acted like a blade, carving into the ground and slashing through Ludger’s trousers at the thigh. A faint red line appeared beneath, barely a cut, but proof of just how thin the line between survival and disaster had become.

  Ludger exhaled through his teeth, forcing his breathing to stay steady even as the strain of Water Overdrive clawed at his control.

  Too much mana. Too fast. Body’s not used to it.

  But the alternative was getting pulped by a berserker-enhanced brute with more muscle than sense. Ragdar took another step, cracking the stone beneath him, and cocked his fist back for a killing blow that promised to shatter the entire chamber.

  Ludger tightened his stance. He could keep dodging. Barely. But not forever. And Ragdar… Ragdar was only getting faster.

  Ludger’s breath steadied, cold and deliberate. He could feel the fatigue creeping in. Not overwhelming—but present. Water Overdrive consumed mana faster than most of his techniques, and Ragdar, despite his reckless fighting style, had stamina to burn thanks to the berserker draught raging through his blood.

  If Ludger kept dodging forever, he’d eventually make a mistake. And with Ragdar in this state, one mistake was enough to end the fight the wrong way.

  So I need to end this in a single clean exchange.

  He shifted his footing. Lowered his center of gravity. Let his arms fall open, not for defense, but for control. One hand extended forward, palm steady. The other angled to the side, ready to latch on, redirect, or break. Ragdar, bloodshot eyes wild with triumph, let out a feral laugh.

  “Hah! FINALLY gonna fight like a MAN!”

  Ludger didn’t respond. His breathing slowed. His pulse steadied. Every muscle aligned.

  Ragdar tensed, veins bulging. He coiled like a beast ready to pounce, and then he launched himself forward at a speed that tore the air behind him. The stone floor cracked under the force of his acceleration.

  His fist came at Ludger’s skull like a cannonball wrapped in metal spikes.

  Ludger stepped forward and slightly to the right, just enough to slip past the killing blow, letting it scrape through empty air with a sonic snap.

  But this time, he didn’t just dodge. He raised his left arm to intercept.

  The spikes punched through his palm easily, ripping through skin and muscle as if they were paper. Pain flared white-hot up Ludger’s arm as the force hurled him backward, dragging him across the ground for several meters. He left a trail on the stone, boots screeching against the floor as he absorbed the impact.

  Blood dripped from his pierced hand, warm and steady. Ragdar grinned savagely, ready to capitalize on the opening, But froze. His expression twisted sharply, confusion and agony seizing his features.

  Because Ludger’s right hand, fast, precise, and reinforced with earth attuned mana and stance, had already struck.

  His palm slammed into Ragdar’s solar plexus, right where the diaphragm connected beneath the ribs, with the weight of a stone spear anchored to the earth. The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.

  The diaphragm is the muscle that controls breathing, contracting to pull air in, relaxing to push air out. It’s essential. Hitting it with enough force doesn’t just “hurt.” It disrupts the entire respiratory cycle. When that muscle spasms or collapses under trauma, the body: loses its ability to inhale, the lungs seize, air flow stops, panic sets in as the brain suddenly senses oxygen deprivation, muscles lock up, vision warps, and the victim is left helpless, drowning on dry land. Ludger knew that very well, thanks to his boxing experience in his previous life.

  Ragdar’s eyes bulged, breath slamming to a halt mid-inhale. His chest convulsed violently. His knees buckled as all the berserker rage in his veins was instantly overshadowed by raw, primal suffocation.

  A guttural, broken wheeze escaped him. half-choke, half-gasp. He reached for words. None came.

  Ludger stood in front of him, bleeding hand hanging at his side, expression unreadable behind his stone mask. He had taken the hit deliberately. Because sometimes the fastest way to win …was to step into the strike and end it with a single, perfect counter.