Chapter 635

Varik’s expression tightened as Ludger laid out the shape of the plan.

He didn’t like it.

Not because it was cowardly, Varik wasn’t that kind of man. Because it meant removing strength from the line.

“Fifty,” Varik said, almost to himself, eyes flicking toward the tent flap where the camp’s lantern lights bled in. “Fifty warriors who can use Healing Touch, basic elemental attacks… and you want them

away

from the main engagement.”

His jaw clenched. “After they beat a force ten times bigger yesterday.”

Harold’s mouth twitched. Selene looked offended on principle. Aleia’s gaze stayed steady. Cor didn’t react, but his posture suggested he was watching Varik’s thought process like a lesson. Varik exhaled slowly.

He could feel the math. A battle tomorrow morning with ranged variants and unknown numbers wasn’t something you wanted to face without every trained hand you could keep in the line.

And yet… He could also see the strategic value.

If Ludger went in clean and cut the head off the swarm, then the line wouldn’t need fifty extra fighters. It would need time and pressure, and then the enemy would start collapsing from within. Varik looked back at Ludger, eyes tired but clear.

“All right,” Varik said. “I’ll do it. The Lionsguard recruits will work as support. Keep flanks stable, reinforce weak points, run wounded back, plug holes.”

Ludger nodded once, as if this was simply the sensible arrangement. Varik’s mouth tightened again, and now the caution came out, less about tactics, more about politics.

“But,” Varik said, voice low, “I need to warn you. Making demands like that… to another commander? It wouldn’t fly.”

His gaze sharpened. “It only works because we’re friends.”

Selene let out a small laugh. “Friends. That’s generous.”

Varik ignored her completely. Ludger didn’t smile. He didn’t take the word

friend

as flattery. He treated it like a fact with requirements.

“I know,” Ludger said.

Varik held his gaze. “Good.”

Ludger continued, calm and matter-of-fact. “And I didn’t demand anything from a friend.”

Varik’s brows drew together slightly.

Ludger’s voice stayed even. “I worked with you. I offered a plan that gets what we both want.”

He tapped the map once, right over Rokram’s center.

“Avoid further chaos,” Ludger said. “Avoid conflict spreading. Keep people alive. End this fast.”

He looked up again, eyes cold but not hostile.

“I don’t pull on you,” Ludger said. “We pull in the same direction.”

Varik stared at him for a moment, then nodded, slow, reluctant, but real.

“Fine,” Varik said. “Then we’re aligned.”

He straightened, the commander returning fully to his posture.

“Tomorrow morning,” Varik said. “We make it loud. You make it sharp.”

Ludger’s expression didn’t change.

“That’s the idea,” he said.

And as the tent’s lantern flame flickered, the plan settled between them like a blade laid on a table—simple, dangerous, and now impossible to pretend away.

When Ludger stepped back out into the cold night, the camp looked the same, lanterns, murmuring voices, men pretending they were resting while their minds stayed awake.

But the weight in his chest had changed. A plan like this wasn’t just tactics. It was an advantage.

If it worked, if the four-pronged assault hit like a hammer and Ludger’s team slid under the city like a knife and cut the leader out of the swarm, then the story would spread faster than any runner.

Not just

Lionsguard helped.

Not just

Lionsguard fought bravely.

It would become something sharper.

Lionsguard ended Rokram.

Lionsguard killed the thing that commanded the swarm.

Lionsguard saved the containment line.

And the empire loved stories like that. Stories of decisive action. Stories where one group did what others hesitated to do. Ludger could already see the consequences stacking up like coins in a ledger.

More recruits. More contracts. More leverage in negotiations. Even nobles who despised them would be forced to treat them carefully, the way you treated a wolf pack after it proved it could tear down bigger prey.

It would be good for the guild. Good for Lionfang. Good for everything Ludger was trying to build. And if it failed… He didn’t let his face show it, but he ran that path too.

If his team went in and didn’t come out, if they got trapped underground, if the queen sensed them, if the swarm didn’t break, if the city turned into a kill box and the western line collapsed. Then it wouldn’t matter how much they’d accomplished in five years.

Failure didn’t just kill people. It damaged myth.

The Lionsguard’s reputation had become one of their strongest weapons. It kept bandits cautious and recruits eager. It made rival guilds hesitate before starting games they couldn’t finish. It made Lord Torvares’ political shield heavier, because it was shielding something

valuable

.

A visible failure, on this scale, would punch that weapon in the mouth. People would still remember their successes, sure… but they would also remember that the Lionsguard could bleed. That they could be outplayed. That they weren’t inevitable. And in politics, inevitability was half the battle.

Ludger stared out across the dark field toward Rokram’s silhouette, still faint on the horizon, still wrong. He listened to the earth for a moment, felt distant vibrations, movement inside the city like an infection shifting under skin.

He didn’t feel fear. He felt responsibility. Because this wasn’t just his life on the line. It was the guild’s name. And names were hard to build and easy to stain. Still… He believed Varik didn’t want to screw with them. That belief wasn’t sentimental. Ludger didn’t do sentimental. It was based on behavior.

Varik had pushed for containment. Varik had listened. Varik had acted like someone trying to prevent the realm from tearing itself apart, not like someone trying to set Ludger up for a public fall. He could be annoying. He could be stubborn. He could even be politically blind in certain ways. But Varik didn’t feel like a knife behind a handshake. If Varik wanted the Lionsguard ruined, he wouldn’t be arranging a plan that depended on them winning.

He’d just let the swarm chew through the province and then blamed the border guild for “failing to assist properly.”

This plan didn’t smell like sabotage.

It smelled like desperation mixed with respect. Ludger exhaled slowly, then turned back toward the stone building he’d raised for his people. There would be no real sleep tonight. Not for him. But there was something close to calm in knowing where the edge of the blade would fall.

If they succeeded, the Lionsguard’s myth would harden into something the empire couldn’t ignore. If they failed, they’d pay for it in blood and reputation. Either way, tomorrow would decide more than Rokram. It would decide how the realm looked at them from this point forward. And Ludger had never been the type to let the world decide his reputation without a fight.

They left Varik’s tent with the plan lodged in their heads like a nail.

No one spoke for a few steps. Not because there was nothing to say, because there was too much. Each of them was already running their own version of tomorrow morning: the noise of the four-sided attack, the chaos in the streets, the moment where a wrong turn underground meant getting buried alive.

Still, they didn’t look shaken. This wasn’t their first time operating half-awake with blood on their hands and grit in their teeth. Two or three nights of bad sleep was practically a warm-up for veterans.

Cor broke the silence first, staff tapping softly as they walked back toward Ludger’s stone shelter.

“Five kilometers,” Cor said, tone mild, like he was asking about the length of a fence. “Can you make a tunnel that far and reach the town before morning?”

Ludger didn’t even slow.

“I can do it in an hour,” he said.

Harold’s brows rose. “Show-off.”

Ludger shrugged. “It’s just dirt.”

Selene snorted. “Says the boy who tells the earth to behave.”

Cor nodded slowly, but his eyes stayed on Ludger. “Then the question isn’t time.”

Ludger answered before Cor even finished.

“It’s mana,” Ludger said. “How much I’ll have left after.”

Cor’s staff tapped once in agreement. Harold let out a low grunt, the kind that meant

don’t overthink it.

“You don’t have to worry about using more mana after that,” Harold said. “Save it. Hold it until we find the leader. That’s the only part that matters.”

Selene rolled her shoulders and grinned, already imagining herself in the middle of a mess.

“So Ludger gets all the fun,” she said, mock-offended. “Tunnel work, stealth work, boss fight. What do

I

get?”

“A job,” Ludger said flatly.

Selene laughed like that was the best insult she’d heard all week. Aleia, walking a half-step behind, spoke without looking up.

“I’m fine with that,” she said. “I don’t want to get too close to a giant ant queen that can speak.”

Selene tilted her head. “Afraid?”

Aleia’s mouth twitched. “Just picking my fights.”

Harold chuckled. Cor made a thoughtful hum. Ludger didn’t smile, but there was a faint ease in his posture, because this was what they were good at. Not speeches. Not politics. Not public celebrations. Work.

He glanced toward the dark horizon where Rokram’s silhouette sat like a bruise against the night.

“One hour,” he repeated quietly, more to himself than anyone else.

Then his eyes sharpened.

“And after that… we go find the brain.”

Once they reached the shelter, they forced sleep the way you forced a door open with a shoulder. Not gently. Not naturally. With sheer refusal to let exhaustion win at the wrong time.

Three hours. That was all they allowed themselves, three hours “good,” in the sense that it was scheduled and protected and uninterrupted by patrol duty. Their stone shelter kept the wind out, kept the camp’s noise muffled to a dull hum, and kept the jealous eyes at a distance.

Still, tension didn’t let them

sleep

. It only let them close their eyes.

Harold lay back with his arms folded over his chest like a man trying to nap in armor out of habit. Selene sprawled like she owned the floor, but her fingers twitched occasionally, muscle memory shadowboxing in the dark. Aleia sat with her back to a wall, bow within reach, eyes shut but breathing too controlled to be real rest. Cor’s presence stayed quiet, steady, like an old tree that had decided it would not be moved tonight.

Even with almost twenty years of experience between them, more, if you counted the kinds of fights that made time feel longer, none of them had done

this

.

Not like this. A monster army occupying a fallen city. Not a labyrinth run with unknown rules. Not a border skirmish with raiders who wanted loot and could be reasoned with.

This was different. This was a living thing taking territory and treating humans like livestock. That kind of problem didn’t sit well in the body. It crawled into the muscles and refused to relax.

Still… Three hours of closed eyes was better than nothing. And Ludger didn’t waste even that.

Thank you for reading!

Don't forget to follow, favorite, and rate. If you want to read 400 chapters ahead, you can check my patreon: /Comedian0