Luna crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing slightly. “It’s not about personality. He doesn’t like people who ignore hierarchy. Ludger didn’t bow, didn’t salute, didn’t address him by title. For someone raised in the Imperial Army, that’s enough to feel like an insult.”

Lucius nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “Varik’s the kind who believes structure keeps chaos in check. Anyone outside that structure threatens it—especially someone who doesn’t have noble blood.”

Ludger gave a short, humorless laugh. “So me just existing ruins his order.”

“Something like that,” Luna said evenly.

Gaius grinned. “Then he’ll love you by the end of the month.”

Lucius rubbed his temples, exhaling through his nose. “Just try not to test him, Ludger. Varik’s not a brute—he’s calculating. If he decides you’re trouble, he’ll find a way to bury you in protocol, not swords.”

Ludger leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “If he tries, I’ll just bury him in stone first.”

That earned a tired groan from Lucius and a sharp laugh from Gaius.

Elaine, who had been quietly rocking the twins nearby, spoke up softly. “Try to avoid turning this place into a political graveyard, dear.”

Ludger sighed. “No promises.”

Lucius stood, adjusting his coat. “Tomorrow, the Silver Talon will set up their observation posts along the shore. I’ll keep them busy with paperwork. You focus on the bridge. Let me deal with the Senate’s man.”

Gaius smirked. “If he gets too nosy, we’ll just drop him in the sea. Tell them it was erosion.”

Lucius chuckled despite himself. “Tempting, but let’s try diplomacy first.”

As the nobleman left, the group fell into a quiet rhythm again—the hum of the ocean outside, the flicker of lamplight over the maps, and Ludger’s faint smirk as he muttered under his breath.

“If he wants to test hierarchy,” he said, “he’ll learn fast that the ocean doesn’t kneel either.”

Gaius gave a low, approving grunt. “Now that’s the spirit.”

The next morning,  the Silver Talon banners were already gone by sunrise—Varik and his soldiers had set out toward the inland villages, their polished armor flashing silver in the early light.

Ludger watched them leave from the edge of the unfinished bridge, arms folded, the salty wind pushing strands of his hair across his face. The rhythmic sound of waves filled the silence between him and Gaius.

“So,” Gaius said finally, voice rough like gravel, “that’s our problem gone for the day.”

“For the day,” Ludger repeated. “Not for long.”

He turned his gaze back toward the construction site. Workers moved in small groups farther down the bridge, loading timber and rope, whispering under their breath about the armored knights who’d marched through like they owned the place.

Ludger sighed. “They’re going to start interfering once they realize they can’t fight fish with speeches.”

Gaius smirked. “You’re not wrong. So what’s the plan, genius?”

Ludger scratched his chin, thoughtful. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

Gaius grunted. “Only way to make them back off is to prove we don’t need them. Stop the sahuagins clean. Not just push them back—stop all of them at the shore. Then even Varik’s report will make us look indispensable.”

“Stop all of them…” Ludger repeated, letting the words hang in the air. He looked at the sea again—dark, endless, restless. A place where every wave could hide a dozen threats.

Gaius continued, tone pragmatic. “But that’s impossible. They come from the depths, from different directions. No one can block an ocean.”

“Mm.”

Ludger rubbed his chin, his eyes narrowing slightly. There was that flicker again—the sharp, focused glint Gaius had seen whenever Ludger’s mind started pulling ideas together like threads in a web.

Gaius frowned. “You’re thinking about it.”

“I’m considering it.”

“Don’t,” Gaius warned, crossing his arms. “I’ve seen that face before. Nothing good will come out of it.”

That smirk made Gaius’ gut tighten a little. Every time Ludger wore that expression, something bold and reckless was about to happen—and every time, it worked just enough to make Gaius worry about the next one.

“Fine,” the old geomancer muttered. “You’re not gonna tell me the details, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Thought so.”

Ludger turned toward the waves, the sunlight catching on the blue sheen of his amulet. “If Varik wants to play the empire’s watchdog,” he said quietly, “then I’ll give him nothing to bark about.”

Gaius gave a resigned snort. “Just try not to drown the coastline while you’re at it.”

Ludger grinned, the wind carrying the scent of salt and earth as the tide pulled back again—quiet, but restless. Like something waiting to see what the boy would build next.

That night, when the others had already gone to sleep and the only sounds left were the distant rhythm of the waves, Ludger went back to work.

The moonlight spilled over the unfinished bridge, pale and cold, painting the sea in shifting silver. Down below, in the quiet hum of the base’s lower levels, he stood near one of the support walls and pressed his palm against the earth.

The familiar weight of mana rolled out from his core, threading through the packed sand and stone like a pulse through veins. He felt the tunnel he’d carved days ago—solid, functional—but now he wanted more than that.

He didn’t just want a passage. He wanted connection.

A direct line between the hideout and the beach itself.

Slowly, he reshaped the earth, expanding the tunnel in silence. Pebbles floated as his geomancy smoothed the walls, layering compressed mana into the surface until the structure hardened like tempered glass beneath his hand. Every few meters, he stopped to reinforce the walls with thin bands of stone—anchors to keep the pressure from collapsing it under the weight of the coast.

He didn’t make an exit at the end. Elaine and the twins were still in the hideout, and the last thing he wanted was some sahuagin sniffing out a convenient entrance. Instead, he sealed the last stretch tight and sank a mana into the wall—his own marker.

That part acted as both a barrier and a conduit.

When he focused, the tunnel hummed faintly, the entire length vibrating with resonance as his Seismic Sense activated.

He exhaled slowly. The image it returned was rough but clear—solid rock, packed sand, distant waves hammering the shore like a heartbeat. He could feel the coast now.

Every tremor, every step, every clash of claws on wet stone would echo through the hardened earth and reach him instantly.

Seismic Sense worked best when there was something dense to transmit through—solid stone, reinforced structures. This tunnel, hardened with layer after layer of mana, was practically an amplifier.

Perfect.

He brushed the dust off his gloves and looked down the long, dark tunnel—quiet, still, safe. His mother and siblings were asleep a few rooms away, protected by layers of earth thicker than any fortress wall.

For now, that was enough.

He knelt once more, pressing his palm against the cold ground. A low hum rippled outward as he marked the tunnel’s density signature to his core. If anything happened near the beach of the bridge —an impact, a surge, or even a whisper of movement—he’d feel it no matter where he was, as long as he was touching those hardened parts of the base.

Ludger sat cross-legged near the tunnel wall, eyes closed, one hand pressed against the packed stone. Mana pulsed faintly from his palm—steady, rhythmic—and the world unfolded inside his mind like a map drawn in vibration and pressure.

Every surface, every packed layer of earth, every subtle shift in density appeared in perfect clarity. The hardened tunnel stretched beneath the base like a smooth artery of stone, branching out to the hidden passage that reached almost to the shoreline. He could even sense the pillars under the bridge—dense, alive with the lingering mana he’d used to shape them.

With Seismic Sense, he could see everything without seeing. Every tremor painted a line, every echo carved an outline.

He traced the image mentally—tunnel, beach, foundations, even the buried coral veins beneath the sea. The clarity was intoxicating.

If he wanted to, he could expand the entire network beneath the coast—build a web of tunnels running below every strategic point. It would make the whole shoreline his domain. But the mana cost… he felt a twinge of pain behind his eyes just thinking about it. Even with the amulet and gloves, that kind of scale would drain him dry in seconds.

“Not yet,” he muttered under his breath. “Save that for when they really start swarming.”

Still, the idea lingered.

With this system, he could sense sahuagins the moment they breached the surf. If he reinforced certain chokepoints under the bridge, he could collapse the seabed under them or turn the ground to quicksand mid-charge. Even the bigger ones wouldn’t stand a chance in that kind of terrain.

That would at least stop ambushes there.

But the rest—the fishing villages, the roads—those were still too far. Too soft. His Seismic Sense lost precision past the hard tunnel walls, the signal bleeding out through loose sand and silt.

He exhaled slowly, running through options.

He couldn’t expand the tunnel everywhere. Not alone.

Maybe…

He frowned, tapping his thumb against his knee.

If he couldn’t reinforce the whole coastline himself, then the next best option was to make sure someone else did.

Splitting the Ironhand Syndicate teams to cover the outer villages would reduce manpower on the bridge, but it’d also make sure any new attacks got stopped before Varik’s men arrived. The last thing Ludger needed was that smug commander using chaos as an excuse to seize control.

“Better they think we’re efficient than desperate,” he muttered.

He leaned back, the faint vibration of the waves humming through the hardened floor beneath him. He could almost feel the sea breathing—slow, deep, waiting.

The next time the sahuagins came, they wouldn’t get the drop on them again. And Varik wouldn’t get his justification.

Ludger opened his eyes, the faint brown glow of mana still flickering around his irises as he stood. He brushed the dirt from his hands and glanced toward the ceiling, where he could sense his mother and the twins sleeping peacefully above. He’d make sure it stayed that way.

By the time the first month of work came to an end, the scale of their progress had become impossible to ignore.

The pillars—towering coral and stone supports rooted deep into the seabed—had already stretched nearly twenty kilometers out into the ocean. The bridge’s visible body, though, lagged far behind. Only about two kilometers of the main structure had been completed, the rest still waiting for timber and laborers to catch up.

The difference was staggering.

From the shoreline, it looked almost surreal—massive stone ribs vanishing into the mist, each one precisely aligned, forming a ghostly outline of the bridge yet to exist. The workers talked about it constantly, half in awe, half in exhaustion. They were doing their best, but no matter how fast they moved, Ludger and Gaius’s pace left them behind.

To make things easier, Ludger had started carving side paths of stone along the outer edges of the foundation—narrow but sturdy tracks that connected the pillar line. They let the crews move supplies, ropes, and food without needing boats every time. More importantly, they could serve as emergency routes if monsters surfaced again.

Gaius had called it “overengineering.”

Ludger called it “being prepared.”

Every few nights, he’d stand at the edge of the bridge, staring into the rolling dark sea, feeling the faint pulse of his Seismic Sense stretching under the waves. The foundation beneath was alive with mana, stable, breathing with the rhythm of the tide.

By his estimates, they could finish the pillars in four months at their current pace.

That was acceptable to everyone—except him.

Ludger’s control had been improving faster than he’d expected. His mana output was steadier, his shaping precision tighter, and with the gloves and amulet amplifying his abilities, the strain that used to exhaust him for hours now barely slowed him down.

He’d begun experimenting with compact casting—condensing his geomancy into smaller, more efficient bursts rather than long manipulations. It meant less show, but far more power per second.

Three more months. That was the number that settled in his mind.

If he could keep this momentum—if he refined his rhythm and stayed ahead of schedule—they could complete the entire foundation before anyone else even realized it.

And if that happened, then neither Varik, nor the Senate, nor any other noble looking for influence could claim the Lionsguard were lagging behind.

Standing on the half-finished span of stone, the wind whipping his scarf, Ludger clenched his fists and smiled faintly.

Four months was their deadline.

But three would be his victory.

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