A horn blast cracked the air.

Not military, authority.

From the upper balcony of the Coria Guild Hall, five robed figures stepped forward, flanked by elite guards wearing obsidian pauldrons. The crowd froze instantly. Even wounded mages stopped groaning mid-breath.

Some members of the Council. Velis League hierarchy incarnate. Legislators. Judges. Executioners. People who could order the death of a city with a signature.

Their collective gaze swept the plaza, broken stalls, shattered cannons, smoking equipment, frozen sentinels, children on the ground, and settled on Ludger and Commander Albrecht.

The eldest councillor raised a staff capped with spinning gears and crystal. His voice echoed like a decree carved in iron.

“All combatants will cease action.

Lay down arms and surrender yourselves for inquiry.”

The weight of authority slammed into the crowd harder than any spell. Soldiers who had been ready to die moments earlier now looked pale, doubt crushing their resolve.

Disobeying a Captain was insubordination. Disobeying the Council was treason.

Most weapons dropped immediately. Shields lowered. Even the sentinels, frozen by Ludger’s sabotage, seemed to bow in shame.

This was bad. Ludger didn’t fear chains, he feared losing control of the narrative. If he allowed arrest now, underground horrors could be buried before dawn. He alsos didn’t want to show who he was. He needed a spark. A mistake. And Albrecht handed it to him.

The commander snarled, slamming his palm onto his chestplate. Runes flared violently beneath his armor, seams splitting open like a blooming flower. A hidden suit expanded beneath. Dark, angular plating. Sleek cores breathing malevolent blue light. Linne’s breath hitched. Dalan whispered, horrified:

“That’s Verk tech…”

Before anyone could stop him, something shot from the Guild Quarter rooftops, a metallic streak that latched onto Albrecht’s skull.

A helmet. Fanged visor. Verk’s signature design.

Then the armor folded upward, plates sliding, locking, whirring, turning the man into a combat exo-frame. Runic boosters ignited beneath his boots, screaming with thrust. Albrecht rose into the sky like a missile.

“THE COUNCIL CAN’T PROTECT YOU FROM ME!”

Gasps erupted. Even Councillors recoiled.

This wasn’t sanctioned gear. This was contraband war armor. Exactly the proof Ludger needed. He moved before anyone processed the betrayal. Stone beneath his feet cratered as earth mana surged. He launched upward, no wings, no boosters, no elegant flight.

Just raw force and hatred of gravity.

He punched the air like breaking through glass, body flung skyward in a streak of brown-and-green light. Albrecht soared above rooftops. Ludger followed like a thrown spear, closing distance fast.

In that frozen heartbeat, everyone looked up. A shadow chasing a war machine into the night sky. Not running. Hunting.

Albrecht shot higher, boosters screaming. Runic vents spat blue-white flame, scattering sparks across the night. The armor expanded along his spine, missile slots, mana-fed vents, Verk-style war modules.

He didn’t try to duel Ludger. He tried to escape, raining destruction behind him like a cowardly comet. Four shoulder-ports snapped open.

Runic mana missiles locked onto Ludger immediately.

He felt their mana signatures snap onto his core like fangs. Homing. Intelligent. Fatal. Albrecht spread his arms wide and laughed, voice metallic through the helmet vocoder.

“DIE!”

The missiles screamed forward. Ludger didn’t panic. His pulse barely shifted. He twisted his forearms and triggered blasts of wind at his sides.

FWOOOOOM—!

Air detonated beneath him like a compressed mine, launching him sideways mid-air with unnatural acceleration.

Missiles tore past his shoulder, heat grazing his cheek. The wake singed the edge of his cloak. He rode the wind like stepping on thunder.

Two more projectiles curved back, tracking him automatically, but Ludger wind-burst sideways again, a sharp angle that human bodies shouldn’t survive, landing against the side of a bell tower for half a heartbeat before kicking off it.

The missiles lost track, corrected too late.

CRAAAAAASH!

Both slammed into Coria’s western block. A bakery, a workshop, and an entire row of apartments erupted in fire and rune-shrapnel. Shockwaves rippled through the district, citizens screaming, rooftops collapsing in showers of burning tile.

Albrecht didn’t stop firing. More runic cannons unfolded from his gauntlets, unstable heat vapor leaking from vents. Mana shell after mana shell launched toward Ludger and the city indiscriminately.

Boom.

Boom.

BOOM.

Ludger dodged each one with controlled violence, wind detonations snapping in sharp pulses, throwing him left, right, vertically, spinning him between projectiles.

He wasn’t dancing. He was calculating. Every dodge drew the missiles off course, and every miss tore Coria apart further. Merchant halls turned to rubble. A tower collapsed like a kicked anthill. Runic vehicles exploded in chain reactions.

Fire reflected off Ludger’s eyes as he vaulted over a spiraling mana grenade, feeling the heat claw at his back.

This chaos wasn’t his doing, it was Albrecht’s cowardice. And everyone was watching.

Council members. Soldiers. Civilians. Recording crystals glowing like dozens of floating eyes. Albrecht fired again, a massive compressed mana beam straight at Ludger. Heat distorted the air, promising instant disintegration. Ludger slammed both arms forward.

Air compressed between his hands into a shock-sphere, then detonated backward like a hurricane kick.

He blasted himself sideways, rolling mid-air as the beam tore past, carving a street-wide trench through three blocks, glass windows shattering into glittering rain. Albrecht flew higher, boosters whining under strain, running instead of facing judgment. Wide arcs, reckless firing. Buildings burned in his wake.

He wasn’t trying to win. He was trying to escape responsibility. Ludger’s jaw clenched. Enough.

He kicked the air again, bending wind like a solid plank, and shot after him, faster now, trajectory straight and merciless. His voice carried across the burning city, low and cold:

“You’re done running.”

Below, the Council chamber exploded into shouting.

One councillor slammed his staff down so hard the runes on it flared red.

“City Defense Protocol—GRADE FOUR!

Anti-air batteries, FIRE AT WILL!”

The order was madness, or desperation.

Moments later, from rooftops and fortified towers across Coria, arcane artillery arrays unfolded like iron flowers, rotating toward the sky. Blue mana pooled inside their barrels, humming dangerously.

To the watchers below it was simple: Two figures were launching explosions. Two figures were burning the city.

Who cared who started it? Panic replaced reason.

Screams echoed through the streets. Civilians trampled abandoned stalls as shockwaves hammered the district. Runic alarms wailed like dying animals.

Then the sky lit up.

BOOM—BOOM—BOOOOM!

Dozens of artillery bolts streaked upward, massive mana shells, shrapnel runes, lightning bursts, fire payloads. Not tests. Not warnings. Lethal shots meant to kill both of them.

Ludger felt the hair on his arms stand as several shells locked onto him instead of Albrecht. Air tasted of burnt mana and powder. He clicked his tongue, irritation leaking through the exhaustion.

“Idiots,” he muttered.

One shell screamed toward his ribs. He twisted, Wind Overdrive bursting behind his heel, sliding his entire body an arm’s length out of the impact. The shell rushed past, detonating against a mid-air barrier and sending molten stone raining like volcanic ash.

Two more followed.

Ludger braced, hands crossed before his face, and let the first graze his gauntlet. Pain lanced up his arm as the shockwave hit like a titan’s slap. His forearm guard cracked, runes sparking. He hissed through his teeth.

If he had mana to spare…

He envisioned it. Turtle Shock Wave, the full form.

Not the controlled whisper from before, the real one. A secret technique meant to unmake matter through raw energy.

He could dissolve half of Albrecht’s armor. Maybe more. Kill him instantly.

The city would hate him for it. Politics would turn. But chaos wouldn’t spread further. He bit down frustration. Mana too low. Wrong timing. Wrong battlefield.

Another artillery bolt roared toward him from below, this one lightning-laced, meant to fry nerves and stop hearts. Ludger snapped his fingers.

Wind Burst.

CRACK!

Air warped, redirecting the bolt just enough to miss, instead plowing into a Council tower’s balcony. Mages dove for cover as stone exploded into glowing rubble.

Even the councillors staggered, faces pale. They almost ordered their own deaths. And yet Albrecht kept fleeing upward like a deranged firefly, still launching missiles wildly. More buildings below ignited, whole streets collapsing in flames.

Everyone on the ground saw only this:

A shadow and a flying war-machine tearing Coria apart. Political panic bloomed like rot.

Some soldiers shouted:

“THE SHADOW IS WORKING WITH HIM!”

“KILL THEM BOTH!”

“COUNCIL ORDER STANDS, FIRE!”

Mana artillery intensified, beams and shells crossing the sky like war-rain.

Ludger grit his teeth, diving through the barrage, wind bursting at his hips, ankles, palms to weave impossible zig-zags between explosions. Each dodge cost him mana. Each deflection tore his muscles harder. Pain accumulated. Breath shortened. Vision sharpened.

Albrecht’s armor flared as he accelerated,  escaping, leaving Ludger to take the blame. Coward. Ludger spat blood, wiped his mouth mid-flight.

“Fine.”

He surged forward through a wall of shrapnel. Sparks skated across his armor.

“If nobody else will drag you down, I will.”

He angled his body, preparing for a brutal approach, already accepting the bruises he’d take, the cuts, maybe broken ribs. He forced wind under his heels and the world blurred.

Artilhery shells passed within arm’s length, one clipped his shoulder, spinning him, pain flaring bright. He rode the momentum, gritting through it, correcting with a burst of air.

Smoke streaks and flame trails tangled behind them like two comets in a dying sky. The city burned below. People screamed. Council lost control. History shifted.

And Ludger closed in. Only twenty meters now. Ten.

Five—

Albrecht finally turned, realizing Ludger was still there, relentless.

“YOU SHOULD BE DEAD!” he shrieked through the helmet vocoder.

Ludger’s gaze burned cold.

“You first.”

Albrecht finally stopped fleeing.

Maybe pride snapped. Maybe panic turned to rage. Maybe he was out of mana and refused to die.

He twisted in the air, boosters flaring, and his right gauntlet unfolded, revealing his sword again. The blade ignited with a mana vibration that buzzed like a hornet swarm.

He waited until Ludger was close, close enough to smell metal heat. Then he raised the sword overhead and slammed it downward like he intended to cut the sky in half.

No running. No dodging. Ludger met him head-on.

He snapped his right forearm upward, crossing it against the descending blade.

Steel met runic bracer, and the world screamed.

KRAAAANG!

Sparks exploded around them in a blinding ring. Wind peeled away in a shockwave, rattling windows across three blocks. The impact cracked pavement hundreds of meters below.

Ludger’s shoulder SNAPPED under the force, white pain detonating through bone like lightning. His arm trembled, barely holding the blade back, teeth grinding so hard blood filled his mouth. But he grinned. Not madness. Victory.

With his left hand, the free one, Ludger reached out and placed it gently, almost tenderly, on Albrecht’s armored pauldron. A rune flared under his palm, bright, sharp, elegant.

《Sand Armor》

Albrecht’s eyes widened under the helmet.

“…what—”

Sand crawled.

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