The explosions in the distance didn’t stop. They rolled across the sea like distant storms—deep, echoing, relentless. Even from the second island, they could see the trails of fire streaking upward from the Silver Talon ships, their cannon volleys splashing wildly against the waves.

Ludger clenched his jaw. “That thing’s tearing through the fleet.”

Another flash erupted beyond the mist, followed by the unmistakable crack of timber snapping. One of the distant ships listed sharply to its side, smoke curling from its deck.

Gaius’s expression hardened. “They won’t last if that beast keeps circling under them.”

Lucius looked to the horizon, fists tight at his sides. “We can’t reach them fast enough from here.”

“No,” Gaius said, already stepping forward, his voice grim but steady. “I can.”

Everyone turned to him.

“I’ll go,” the old earth mage continued, eyes fixed on the burning horizon. “There are survivors in that wreck. If we leave them now, the Silver Talon Order will take massive losses, and that’ll cripple this entire expedition before we even reach the labyrinth.”

Lucius hesitated, his expression tightening. “You’ll be exposed.”

“I’m not planning to fight that thing,” Gaius replied. “I’ll just buy time, pull whoever’s still breathing out of the water, and get them to the reef line. You all focus on what’s ahead.”

He turned to Ludger, his tone shifting, firm, commanding, but with a note of trust that didn’t need words. “You keep building the bridge. Secure the third island. Make sure when I come back, we still have a foothold to stand on.”

Ludger didn’t like it, he didn’t want to like it, but he nodded anyway. “You’re sure?”

Gaius smirked faintly. “Don’t sound so worried. I was teaching geomancy before you learned how to walk.”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about,” Ludger said flatly.

Gaius only grunted. Everyone’s eyes turned toward Lucius. The choice was technically his. For a moment, the heir of House Hakuen said nothing, weighing the cost, the danger of splitting their strength, the possibility of losing one of their best mages, the risk to the Silver Talon Order’s reputation if their ships went down completely.

Then he exhaled and gave a single, sharp nod. “Do it. Save who you can. We can’t afford to let them take that many losses.”

Varik’s name wasn’t mentioned, but everyone was thinking it. If his Order suffered too many casualties, his cooperation would vanish, and with it, the Empire’s current support while it was still suspicious, it was support nonetheless.

“Understood,” Gaius said simply.

He pressed his palms together, gathering mana until the ground beneath him began to tremble. Shards of coral and sand lifted from the beach, forming into a wide stone disk beneath his feet. The platform pulsed once with golden light, then shot forward over the sea like an arrow, leaving a trail of vapor in its wake.

Viola watched him vanish into the mist. “He’s really going alone.”

Ludger didn’t answer at first. He just stared at the waves where his mentor had disappeared, then reached into his pouch and scattered a handful of sand onto the ground. The grains shimmered faintly, resonating with his mana.

“Alright,” he said finally, eyes turning toward the massive black cliffs of the third island. “Then we’ll make sure he has somewhere safe to come back to.”

Lucius gave a curt nod. “Do it. We hold our ground here until he returns.”

The soldiers began regrouping, tightening ranks as Ludger stepped forward, his hands glowing with earthen light. The ocean rumbled in answer.

Behind them, the sky still flashed with fire as the battle raged far out at sea. Ahead, the labyrinth’s island loomed like a sleeping beast.

Two fronts, one mission, and no room for mistakes.

The sea had gone eerily quiet. Ludger’s new stone path stretched far over the open water, a wide causeway of coral-fused rock that shimmered faintly under the light of mana. It connected the broken edge of the second island to the dark cliffs of the third, the island of the labyrinth. 

The fleet was now just a distant shadow behind them, silhouettes barely visible through the mist. The ships couldn’t approach this close—not with the reefs rising like serrated knives beneath the surface and the massive beast still circling the deeper waters. That distance was both a blessing and a curse.

“Looks like we’re on our own from here,” Viola muttered. 

“Good,” Ludger said. “Means the big one can’t reach us either.”

Lucius gave a small nod from the head of the column. “Stay alert. That creature may not surface again, but the sahuagins will try to slow us down.”

He was right. The moment the first squads stepped onto the bridge, the sea erupted on both sides. Sahuagins burst from the foam in coordinated groups, flanking from the waves, some with tridents with mana-infused tips.

But the Ironhand mages were ready.“Formation Delta!” shouted Rathen. “Keep the line tight!”

The air cracked with power as her team raised their hands. Mana surged, weaving into chains of glowing sigils that hovered in front of them.

“Fire!”

Blazing orbs and arcs of lightning rained from the sky, tearing through the nearest wave of sahuagins before they could reach the bridge. Steam exploded from the impact points, the smell of scorched salt filling the air.

The soldiers pressed forward, boots thudding against the stone, the roar of the ocean beneath them mixing with the low rumble of spells detonating across the water. But the strain was beginning to show.

Each volley from the mages took longer to cast. Their movements grew slower, breaths heavier. The mana-lights flickering along their focus rings began to dim, and one of them nearly stumbled after unleashing a fire surge.

“Running low already,” Ludger muttered under his breath.

Viola grimaced. “They’ve been casting non-stop since we left the shore.”

Lucius didn’t look back, but his tone was clipped, controlled. “Hold formation. Once we reach the next ridge, we rest.”

Another group of sahuagins breached the surface, fewer this time, but faster. Their scaled bodies moved like knives through the water, their eyes glowing faintly with cold blue light. They leapt, tridents aimed for the mages.

Ludger reacted instinctively. His hand snapped downward, and a row of jagged stone spikes shot up from the bridge, impaling the first two mid-leap and sending the rest crashing into the sea. The mages flinched, but the relief on their faces was clear.

“That’ll buy them a minute,” he said.

Lucius’s voice cut through the wind again. “Keep moving! Don’t let them pin us down!”

The team advanced, step by step, across the endless bridge. The waves slammed against the coral foundations, splashing high enough to soak armor and boots. Behind them, the distant sounds of cannonfire were growing faint, Gaius was too far now to hear clearly.

And ahead, the third island loomed larger, its cliffs rising higher than any before, streaked with glowing blue veins that pulsed in rhythm with the ocean’s waves.

Ludger’s gaze lingered on it, jaw tightening. The labyrinth was close, he could feel it like a heartbeat echoing through the stone under his feet. But so was the fatigue in their ranks.

The Ironhand mages were nearly spent, sweat glistening on their faces, their breathing shallow. Their spells still burned bright, but weaker, slower.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Viola murmured beside him, gripping her sword tighter.

Ludger nodded grimly. “Then we make that time count.”

The group pressed on through the mist and heat, their bridge of stone cutting across the endless sea—each step bringing them closer to the labyrinth’s island… and whatever waited beneath it.

From the corner of his eye, Ludger saw motion in the water. Ripples at first, then dozens of thin shadows slicing through the surf, fast and coordinated.

“Hold!” he shouted.

A moment later, the ocean erupted. Sahuagins launched themselves out of the waves in perfect formation, riding the spray like arrows loosed from the deep. They didn’t aim for the soldiers this time, they aimed for the bridge itself.

The first few landed hard against the stone, claws scraping as they anchored their tridents into cracks, trying to destabilize the structure. Others stayed in the water, their gills flaring as they drew in air—then exhaled it as a barrage of pressurized water bullets, each one sharp enough to cut through armor.

“Incoming!” Viola yelled.

The barrage hit before the warning could even finish. The air filled with hissing trails of blue light, water bullets striking the bridge like a rain of knives. Soldiers ducked behind shields, mages scrambled to raise barriers, but the sheer volume of fire was overwhelming. Then a single voice cut through the chaos.

“Mana Wall!”

A pulse of deep-blue mana rippled through the air as Cor stepped forward.

A translucent barrier surged to life in front of the group, stretching wide like a dome of shimmering glass. The first volley hit it—hard—and the impact lit up the air in a blinding flare. Dozens of water bullets struck at once, exploding against the barrier and sending ripples of energy through the shield’s surface.

The wall held… for now. Cor’s teeth clenched, both hands gripping his staff as streams of sweat rolled down his brow. The mana wall pulsed erratically, each hit forcing him to pour more energy into stabilizing it.

“Damn it,” he hissed under his breath. “There are too many!”

Ludger glanced back. The old sage’s barrier was already fracturing, thin cracks spreading like frost across glass. The sahuagins weren’t letting up. Their attack was relentless, the sound of their barrage blending with the roar of the waves below.

Lucius’s voice barked over the noise. “Hold the line! Give him cover!”

Ironhand archers and mages scrambled to respond, launching counter-fire into the  other side, flames, lightning, arrows tipped with glowing runes, but the sahuagins were fast, darting beneath the surface only to reappear and fire again.

Viola crouched beside Ludger, breathing hard. “He can’t keep that up much longer!”

“I know,” Ludger said, eyes narrowing as he tracked the movement of the sahuagin groups along the water. “They’re not just firing—they’re trying to collapse the bridge. Hit it enough, and the structure will crack.”

“Then what do we do?”

Ludger’s hand twitched, mana already gathering beneath his boots. “We end their firing line.”

Another barrage hit the wall. Cor stumbled slightly this time. The barrier flared brighter, then dimmed again, its edges flickering. The next volley would shatter it.

Ludger stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “Keep it up a few more seconds, old man,” he muttered. “I’ve got it.”

He slammed one hand to the stone. Mana pulsed out like a heartbeat.

The bridge itself began to tremble, dust and pebbles shaking loose as the air grew heavy with earth-aspected power.

Cor looked over his shoulder, face strained but fierce. “You’d better make it quick!”

Ludger’s voice was calm, almost too calm over the chaos. “Quick’s all I need.”

The next volley was coming, faster and heavier than before. The sahuagins were screaming now, their collective shrieks echoing across the ocean as they prepared to break the wall.

The barrier flickered—cracked once—then twice. Cor gritted his teeth, forcing one last surge of mana through his staff, shouting through the noise, “Do it now, Ludger!”

And Ludger did. The tremors beneath his feet turned violent as power surged outward. In the next instant, the bridge itself responded, splitting along its surface into hundreds of small channels that funneled mana forward. The stone began to rise, compressed, sharpened, and reshaped under Ludger’s will.

Then the air screamed. A barrage of stone bullets exploded from the bridge like a living cannon. Each chunk of rock spun at terrifying speed, glowing faintly orange from the heat of mana friction. They tore through the air with thunderous precision, slamming into the sahuagins that clung to the bridge’s flanks and those still surfacing from the sea.

Every shot hit true. Every impact split scale and armor. The attackers were shredded mid-leap, their blood spraying across the waves in streaks of red and blue. Ludger’s control didn’t falter—until it did.

His vision swayed, a heavy fog creeping into his thoughts as the recoil of the spell hit him. It wasn’t just the mana drain; it was the mental strain of guiding so many projectiles at once, each one bound to his focus.

By the time the last stone bullet fired, Ludger’s knees felt weak. The bridge stopped trembling. The only sounds left were the crashing of waves and the hiss of the dying.

The sahuagins were gone. Their bodies floated in the surf or sank beneath the foam.

Viola exhaled hard, lowering her sword. “Remind me not to stand in front of you when you do that.”

Ludger didn’t answer at first. He blinked through the haze, forcing his focus back. The fog in his head began to lift, slowly, unevenly, but at least the battle was over.

Cor slumped to one knee behind them, his Mana Wall flickering out with a shatter of light. “About time,” the old sage muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “I was starting to think my spine would give before your spell did.”

Ludger gave him a tired half-smirk. “Appreciate the cover.”

Then his gaze lifted—past the smoke, past the fading light—and there it was.

The shore of the third island. A massive ridge of black stone and coral, rising like a fortress from the sea. Waves crashed against its sides, sending up mist that glowed faintly in the evening sun. From here, the labyrinth’s island looked close enough to touch—vast, foreboding, and alive with mana. Ludger straightened, steadying himself as he wiped a streak of blood from his cheek.

“Alright,” he said quietly, voice steady again. “No more delays. Let’s finish this.”

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