Chapter 126

The morning dragged on with nothing but the steady grind of work. Pillar after pillar rose, cracks sealed, rubble compacted. His detection net hummed under the ground like a spider’s web in the wind…but no plucked strings, no odd heartbeats, no slow stalk where there should’ve been walking. Just the constant shuffle of guards and workers.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

Nothing. Not a ripple.

He kept his hands moving, smoothing another seam, but his mind ticked on. Whoever had eyes on him wasn’t going to move in broad daylight. Too many witnesses. Too much open space to hide a clean strike.

More likely they were watching him now, cataloguing everything—how long he worked before stopping, how many potions he could handle, what tricks he used. Waiting for him to slip. Waiting for the night or some moment alone.

He forced his expression to stay blank, shoulders loose, as if he’d noticed nothing. Another block slid into place, perfect and seamless.

Fine,

he thought, a faint curl tugging at the edge of his mouth.

If you’re studying me, study hard. You’ll only see what I let you see.

The wall rose another meter under his touch, dust curling around his boots. Outside, the town went about its business. Inside, Ludger filed away the silence like a warning.

The next few days blurred together into a steady rhythm of stone and sweat. Sunrise to sunset Ludger shaped walls and foundations, taking measured breaks when Captain Darnell barked at him to stop, a good part of the northern wall had already being repaired, though. The detection net stayed active, pulsing quietly under the ground, but nothing ever tripped it. No hidden heartbeats. No slow stalkers.

At night he’d return to the tent, where two or three guards ]rotated shifts outside at all hours. With the extra eyes, his meal trays, and clean bedding, he looked almost like an officer instead of a laborer. He’d sit on the cot, stretch his fingers, and smirk faintly at how “relaxed” his situation had become.

Still, on one random night well past midnight, something felt…off. The camp was quiet, but not in the usual way. The air seemed thicker, sounds dampened, the low murmur of the guards outside swallowed into a strange hush. His skin prickled with the same unease he’d felt in the labyrinth.

He lay back on his cot, eyes on the canvas above, trying to pin down the source. No footsteps out of place. No tremor in the ground. Just a strange weight in the atmosphere, like the moment before a storm.

Weird,

he thought, turning onto his side.

No ping. No movement. Just…wrong.

He let his eyes close anyway, muscles still coiled under the blanket. Sleep crept in slowly and shallow, and he wondered what exactly was waiting for him out there in the dark.

Ludger’s steady breathing filled the small tent, soft and even, the kind of rhythm that told anyone listening he was deep asleep. Outside, the camp was a pool of silence. No shuffle of armor, no coughs from the sentries. Just a single, muffled noise—slow and deliberate—creeping closer to the canvas.

The flap shifted without a whisper. A guard eased inside, head low, movements practiced. The lantern glow from outside barely touched his face. He paused, eyes narrowing at the cot.

Ludger lay heavy under his blanket, completely cocooned. The shape of his shoulders rose and fell with each calm breath. On a night this cold, bundling up wasn’t strange at all.

The guard’s fingers slid under his cloak and came back with a compact crossbow. He lifted it, the string already drawn.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

The muted sound of bolts punching into cloth echoed in the cramped tent. Three shots, center mass. He waited for the wet cough, the sudden stillness, the smell of blood.

Nothing.

The “body” under the blanket didn’t jerk, didn’t slump. No crimson spread through the fabric. The breathing he’d been following so carefully…stopped.

The guard’s brow furrowed. He stepped closer, eyes flicking across the blanket. Something was off. No blood. No weight-shift. No sign he’d hit flesh at all.

That was when the unease began to creep up his spine.

The “guard” barely had time to process the situation before the ground under his boots turned soft. First a slight give, then a hungry pull. He looked down and his stomach dropped — the packed dirt of the tent floor had liquefied into a dull gray whirlpool.

Quicksand.

He jerked one leg back but it only dragged him deeper. The more he struggled, the faster it swallowed him. His knees sank, then his thighs, the crossbow wobbling in his grip.

“What—?” His voice cracked into a muffled hiss as panic clawed up his throat. The quicksand wasn’t natural; it moved with purpose, coiling like a living thing.

A shift of cloth behind him made him snap his head up. The blanket he’d shot into stirred, then peeled back.

Ludger sat up slowly, dust sliding off his shoulders. Under the blanket, a thin, cracked layer of hardened earth clung to his tunic like a shell, spiderwebbed where the bolts had struck but still intact. He flexed his arm once, grimacing. “Tch. Hurts like hell,” he muttered, brushing a splinter of stone off his chest.

Then his eyes rose to the sinking man. Cold, flat, almost silver in the lamplight — eyes no kid his age should have worn. “Surprised?” he asked softly, tilting his head. The assassin froze, halfway sunk, crossbow falling from his hands.

“You should be,” Ludger went on, his voice a low thread of iron. “Three bolts. Middle of the night. And you didn’t even check the ground you were standing on. Well, it wouldn’t have changed jack shit.”

The quicksand tightened around the man’s legs with a wet, sucking sound, dragging him another few inches down. Ludger’s expression didn’t change. He looked like a boy, wrapped in a blanket. But his mana was coiled around the earth like a fist.

In the cramped space of the tent, the only sound was the assassin’s ragged breathing and the slow, hungry swirl of the ground beneath him.

The man clawed at the quicksand, fingers raking furrows in the gray slurry, but every movement only dragged him deeper. His crossbow clattered away, swallowed whole.

Ludger rose fully from the cot, bare feet on the packed earth, his blanket sliding off his shoulders. Dust and shards of hardened stone fell from his tunic as he moved, expression still cold and unreadable.

“Struggle all you want,” he said quietly. “It only makes it faster. I smell blood outside… you killed the other guards.”

He flicked two fingers. The whirlpool under the man’s waist tightened, dragging him down to his chest, then to his chin. Panic widened the would-be assassin’s eyes. He opened his mouth to shout or bite down on whatever suicide pill he’d hidden, but Ludger was already moving.

With a sharp gesture he forced his mana through the loose earth. The slurry seized, grains locking together like teeth of a trap. In the space of a heartbeat the quicksand turned to stone around the man’s torso, neck, and jaw. His eyes bulged above the rigid collar of earth; only his nostrils and eyes remained free.

Ludger’s gaze stayed on him, cold and clinical, no hint of pity. “I know your type,” he said, voice low. “You’ll chew your tongue off, snap a capsule, slit a vein — anything to erase the trail. Not tonight.”

The assassin made a muffled sound, unable to move his jaw. Sweat ran down his temple and dripped onto the hardened earth. Ludger crouched down until they were eye level, the dust-streaked face of a boy looking into the terror-stricken face of a man.

“Now,” Ludger murmured, “you’re going to stay very still alive while we have a little talk.”

The tent was silent except for the faint hum of mana, the smell of earth, and the assassin’s ragged breath through his pinched nostrils.

The man’s pupils suddenly blew wide. For a heartbeat his gaze darted around as if he were seeing something far away, then locked on Ludger with a strange, empty focus. A thin line of red welled from his nostrils and ran down over the hardened collar of earth. His chest hitched once.

Ludger’s jaw tightened. “Tch…” He’d seen this kind of thing before, agents sent in knowing they wouldn’t come back. “Already dead,” he muttered. “Poison baked in. Came fully knowing that you would die after succeeding or failing..”

The man’s eyes glazed, a soft shudder running through his trapped body. Whatever he’d ingested had done its work long before he’d stepped into the tent; the quicksand had just delayed the inevitable. He slumped as far as the stone shell allowed, breath rattling once, then nothing.

Ludger straightened, clicking his tongue again, irritation flashing in his cold eyes. “Figures.”

Boots pounded outside. The tent flap whipped back as two guards pushed in, hands on weapons. They stopped dead at the sight: their young builder standing amid a swirl of hardened earth, and a “fellow guard” frozen to the waist in stone, head bowed, blood seeping from his nose.

“What in the Emperor’s name—” one of them began.

Ludger didn’t answer immediately. He just stared at the corpse, dust still clinging to his tunic where the bolts had struck, and thought grimly about how deep this sabotage really went.

More boots crunched outside, heavier, slower. The flap lifted and Captain Darnell stepped in, hair mussed, shirt only half-buttoned, eyes still gritty with sleep. He stopped just inside the tent and took in the scene—the boy standing among swirls of hardened earth, the “guard” locked waist-deep in stone, head slumped forward, blood drying under his nose.

Darnell’s face didn’t change at first. Then his jaw worked once, the scar at his cheek tugging. He crouched, fingers brushing the dead man’s collar, eyes flicking over insignia, weapon, boots. His brow creased deeper with every detail.

Finally he clicked his tongue, a short, angry sound. “Damn it…”

Ludger watched him without speaking. He could read the man’s thoughts as clearly as the vibrations underfoot. One of his own. No obvious ties to an enemy faction. No warning signs until now. Someone had planted a sleeper right under his nose for who knows how long, and now the man was dead before he could talk.

Without a word, Ludger extended his hand. The earth that had swallowed the body shifted, rising smoothly to lift the corpse out of the hardened shell. It slid free and laid itself gently on the tent floor, bolts still protruding from the shredded blanket nearby.

Dust settled. The other guards shuffled back instinctively, but Ludger didn’t look at them. He kept his eyes on Darnell, waiting.

The captain rose slowly, met Ludger’s gaze, and jerked his chin at the flap. “Out,” he said to the others. “All of you.”

Boots scraped as the guards filed out, muttering. The tent flap fell closed. For the first time since the attack, Ludger and Darnell were alone with the body between them, the lantern throwing sharp shadows across the canvas walls.

Ludger stood with his hands at his sides, dust still clinging to his clothes, eyes cold and steady. He was ready to hear what the captain had to say—or not say—about what had just crawled out of his ranks.

Darnell stayed crouched for a long moment, his hand still on the dead man’s collar. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost its usual edge.

“Damn…” He drew a slow breath, then straightened, looking at Ludger across the body. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

He rubbed at his face, the scar pulling taut. “We’re here to protect you. All of us. And you’re the one who had to handle it yourself. That’s—” He cut himself off, fists clenching. “That’s on me.”

The captain bowed his head slightly, not a formal bow but a soldier’s gesture of respect and apology. “I failed. Lord Torvares ordained me to make sure nothing touched you. Instead, one of my own men came in here with a crossbow.”

Ludger watched him in silence, then gave a small, almost lazy shrug. Dust shifted off his tunic with the motion. “Don’t lose sleep over it,” he said flatly. “I don’t trust anyone but my family with my life anyway. Haven’t for a long time.”

Darnell blinked at him, taken aback by the coldness in the boy’s tone. Ludger crouched, brushing a fragment of hardened earth from the floor with his fingers. “You didn’t put the poison in him,” he added without looking up. “Whoever’s pulling the strings wanted you in the dark. They got what they wanted.”

The captain’s jaw tightened, but he nodded once. “Even so,” he said quietly, “I’ll find out who sent him. That’s a promise.”

Ludger finally looked up at him, expression unreadable. “Good luck,” he said, and straightened. “Just don’t expect me to sleep with both eyes closed any time soon.”

The tent was quiet for a beat, just the two of them and the corpse between them—one man ashamed, one boy already thinking about his next move.

When Darnell finally straightened, the lines around his eyes looked deeper. He gave the dead man one last glance, then turned for the flap. “I’ll take care of this,” he muttered, more to himself than to Ludger.

He stepped out into the cold night air, barking clipped orders. The body was removed under heavy guard. Before dawn, a rider was already pounding down the road toward the Torvares estate carrying Darnell’s own sealed message. He didn’t try to sugarcoat it; he laid out the attack exactly as it happened. If Lord Torvares wanted his head for it, so be it.

While he waited for the reply, he reorganized his detail. The guards posted outside Ludger’s tent were his most trusted men now, and he barely left the boy’s side himself. Whether it was at the wall, the mess tent, or even just walking the perimeter, the scarred captain was there, a silent shadow making sure no second crossbow found its way in.

Days passed. The wall grew taller. Ludger worked with his usual cold efficiency, but Darnell could feel the tension in the air, like a wire stretched tight. He wasn’t sure if it was his own guilt or the boy’s watchful paranoia.

And then, one morning, the tension shifted. Word ran ahead of a fast carriage rattling up the main street. And stepping down from the carriage with fire in her eyes, heavy with pregnancy but moving like a storm, came someone far more overprotective than Darnell could ever be.

Elaine. Ludger’s mother. The captain’s stomach sank. If she had come all the way out to the border town herself, she already knew.

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