Ludger kept moving.

The runic golems came in groups of three, patrol formations spaced just far enough apart that ordinary delvers would be forced into repeated engagements without time to recover. The labyrinth had been designed to grind people down through attrition.

It wasn’t working. Every encounter ended the same way. A burst of wind. A flash of blue-white frost. Stone shattering into frozen fragments. Cores torn free and sealed beneath distortion runes before the labyrinth could register their loss. To Viola, the pattern became impossible to ignore.

Ludger was strong, there was no denying that. His strikes hit like siege weapons. His movement erased distance. His control over mana bordered on unnatural. But that wasn’t what made him dangerous. He had options.

If a golem tried to kite him, wind carried him in. If it tried to hold ground, earth anchored his blows. If it reinforced its core, runes hijacked the circulation. If it adapted, he changed first. He wasn’t fighting like a Northerner.

Northerners fought with overwhelming presence. Raw aggression. Momentum that crushed resistance under sheer brutality. Ludger could do that too. She had seen it. But he didn’t rely on it. He fought like someone solving a problem.

Each strike was chosen. Each movement is deliberate. Each resource spent with intent. He didn’t rush. He didn’t waste motion. He didn’t let adrenaline dictate tempo. For someone his age, that composure was unsettling.

Most warriors her age burned hot and fast. They chased glory. They chased challenge. They chased the feeling of power. Ludger didn’t chase anything. He advanced. Methodically. Relentlessly.

And as the labyrinth’s guardians fell one formation after another, Viola realized something that made her grip tighten around her sword. This wasn’t just strength. This was the kind of power that changed how wars were fought.

Viola stole a glance at Luna. Normally, Luna’s attention was everywhere at once. Corners. Shadows. Blind angles. The spaces between patrol routes. She watched the environment like it was an enemy waiting for a mistake.

But right now… She was watching Ludger. Intently. Her posture was still alert, her balance still perfect, but her eyes tracked only one thing: the way Ludger moved through the golems. The way he closed distance. The way he broke formations. The way his strikes ended fights before they truly began.

Viola frowned. It was rare to catch Luna off-pattern like that. Even rarer to see her attention pulled away from her duty. Viola studied her from the side. Normally it was impossible to read Luna’s thoughts. Her face was a mask, calm, neutral, professional. But now…

There was no calculation there.No tension. No anticipation of threat.Just observation. Pure and focused. She wasn’t thinking. She was watching. And for the first time since they’d entered the labyrinth, Viola realized that Ludger wasn’t just dismantling its guardians. He was redefining what danger looked like to the people who were trained to live in it. Viola moved up beside him while the last fragments of a shattered golem slid across the stone.

“Are you okay on mana?” she asked quietly. “There’s no point if you exhaust yourself before we even reach the third section.”

Ludger didn’t look away from the corridor.

“I’m fine,” he said.

It was true. And it wasn’t. His reserves were still high. His control was stable. His circulation hadn’t destabilized. But the drain was real. Every layered rune. Every freezing strike. Every burst of wind. The second section was built for attrition, and while he was dismantling it efficiently, the cost was stacking.

More than he could regenerate naturally. He didn’t have potions. That had been deliberate, less weight, fewer variables, no leaks. But it meant every mistake now would compound.

“Good,” Viola said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced.

Ludger nodded once. Outwardly calm. Inwardly, he was already running calculations.

If he continued at this pace, he’d reach the third section with less than optimal reserves. Still functional. Still dangerous. But without margin.

Which meant he needed to change something. Pace. Technique. Or the environment. Brute clearing would work. But not indefinitely. He had to use his head. Because the labyrinth was designed to bleed people dry. And he had no intention of becoming another statistic carved into its walls.

As they moved deeper into the corridor, Ludger’s thoughts drifted toward the growing stack of mana cores sealed behind distortion runes.

Could I eat those?

The idea surfaced uninvited. Mana cores were, after all, condensed mana. Physical manifestations of raw energy shaped into stable circulation nodes. On paper, they were exactly what he needed. On paper.

In reality, it was a terrible idea.

Mana potions worked because they were processed. Refined. Filtered. Diluted into a form the human body could metabolize without tearing itself apart. The mana inside them was stabilized into a consumable state, harmonized with organic circulation, and buffered by alchemical carriers that prevented overload.

Mana cores were none of that. They weren’t food. They weren’t medicine. They were engines. Each core was a closed system, mana compressed into a self-sustaining loop with its own internal flow logic. Trying to absorb one directly would be like swallowing a lightning generator and hoping your stomach knew how to digest electricity.

Even if he could break the circulation and release the energy, the result would be catastrophic. Raw mana didn’t behave like liquid. It didn’t spread evenly. It surged. It tore through channels. It burned pathways into the core and left permanent scars behind. At best, it would cause mana poisoning, violent feedback, organ damage, long-term instability.

At worst, it would rupture his core outright. Delvers who tried to “consume” raw mana sources didn’t become stronger. They died. Or worse, they lived long enough to regret it. Ludger exhaled slowly.

So that’s out.

Which meant he had only two real options. Either slow down and let natural regeneration stabilize his output… Or find a way to turn the labyrinth itself into a resource. He glanced at the walls. At the circulation patterns woven into the stone.

He just needed to steal from the dungeon that thought it owned him.

Ludger’s thoughts snapped back to the runes he’d used to hide the golem remains. Those arrays were still working. They were feeding on the mana cores, drawing just enough energy to maintain distortion without collapsing. A closed loop. Stable. Efficient.

If a rune can feed on a core…

Then, in theory, it could feed on something else. On him.

Normally, he used one-use runes. He etched them onto his palms, poured mana in, triggered the effect, and let the construct burn itself out. Fast. Clean. Disposable. Not degradation on his flesh.

That was safe. Sustained runes were a different matter. To make the process repeatable, the rune had to remain active. Which meant it needed a continuous mana source. Which meant it needed to be anchored. On non-organic material, that was easy. Metal. Stone. Crystal. The structure didn’t fight the flow. The rune stayed where it was written.

A living body did. Flesh rejected such logic. Blood circulation interfered with rune circulation. Nerves misfired. The core reacted defensively. If a sustained rune destabilized inside a human body, the backlash could cripple or kill the caster.

That was why permanent runic tattoos were rare. And why successful ones were terrifying, but then Ludger recalled Hroth..

Ludger flexed his fingers, then glanced down at his forearms. The forearm guards weren’t just armor. They were platforms.

Froststeel shells layered over compatible alloy. Internal channels designed to carry enchantments. Stabilizers that bled excess force into the ground.

If he wrote the rune there… Not on his skin. Not in his flesh. But around it. A parasitic array.

One that siphoned mana from his circulation, converted it through controlled resonance, and fed it back into his core in a regulated loop.

A personal regeneration circuit. Dangerous. Unstable. But possible. Ludger slowed his steps slightly as calculations ran in his head.

He’d need to tune the intake rate. Too fast and it would cause feedback. Too slow and it wouldn’t matter. He’d need a regulator rune, a buffer layer, and an emergency sever glyph in case the loop destabilized.

It wasn’t something he should attempt in the middle of a labyrinth. Which, of course, meant that was exactly when he would have to do it. He rolled his shoulders once, feeling the weight of the guards settle.

All right, he thought. Let’s see if I can teach my gear how to do it.

Ludger stopped near a support column and rolled his sleeve higher.

He placed one of the extracted mana cores against the inner plate of his forearm guard and began to write. Not a one-use construct.

A feeder rune.

The kind that only functioned while being supplied with continuous energy. The lines sank into the alloy, glowing faintly as he completed the last stroke. He pressed the mana core into the center of the array and released his grip.

The rune activated. For half a second, nothing happened. Then the circuit stabilized.

From his forearm to the ceiling, a sudden barrage of mana bolts erupted upward, ripping through the air in a tight spiral. Stone exploded as the shots punched into the roof, fragments raining down before the sound-seal swallowed the impact entirely.

Viola flinched and stared at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

Ludger lowered his arm and watched the rune cycle again, smaller this time, more controlled. He adjusted a stabilizer glyph with two fingers, then smirked.

“Making mistakes,” he said. “And adapting.”

She blinked. “That’s your explanation?”

“It’s how innovation works,” Ludger replied.

The rune dimmed, then flared again, this time releasing only a thin stream of mana that dissipated harmlessly into the stone. At the same time, the core was slowly decreasing in size.

He nodded to himself. Such an obvious solution. He could have done this back home. In a workshop. With proper tools and time.

But there had always been too many fires to put out. Too many problems stacked on top of each other. Politics. Logistics. Training. War planning. Labyrinths.

At some point, he’d stopped innovating. Started reacting instead. Ludger tapped the rune once more, satisfied with the new baseline.

“Guess I should’ve tried this earlier,” he muttered.

Viola stared at the cratered ceiling, then back at him.

“You’re insane,” she said.

“Probably,” Ludger agreed calmly.

Then he turned back toward the corridor.

“Let’s keep moving. I need to see if this thing can actually keep up.”

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