Chapter 683

Ludger exhaled slowly, breath turning faintly visible in the cold air. He didn’t decide yet. Not in the quiet. Because decisions made under pretty stars could be just as fatal as decisions made under panic.

But the doubt was there now, seeded and real.

And somewhere beneath the calm surface, something enormous moved through the dark, patient and hungry… waiting to see what kind of man was sailing above its territory.

Ludger stared at the stars another moment, then shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to let a pretty night talk him into stupidity.

Even if the beast

was

acting like some kind of boundary, who knew how long that would remain true? Who could say it hadn’t already killed plenty of people elsewhere? It had sunk ships. It had drowned crews. It had shattered hulls like they were toys.

A “guardian” that murdered indiscriminately was still a threat. And Ludger wasn’t naïve enough to believe the ocean only punished the guilty. He exhaled slowly, letting the cold air scrape his lungs clean.

My guild will use this sea.

That wasn’t a dream anymore. It was a plan already in motion, an actual crew under the Lionsguard banner, trained and disciplined, using the

S.S. Elaine

as their tool instead of leaving the coast to whoever had the most seals and the least conscience.

If he was going to build that… then he couldn’t allow a ship-sinking monster to remain as a wildcard in his waters.

Better to kill it now, while he had strong hands at his side. Better to be sure.

Ludger’s grip tightened on the rail, and the doubt that had crept in under the stars was pushed back into its proper place, filed under

questions for later, after survival.

He kept his eyes on the sky anyway, because it was easier to think when you weren’t staring into black water. He didn’t notice the movement near the cabins at first.

Two figures stood in the dim lantern light, half-shadowed by the doorway. Viola and Luna. They weren’t resting like the others. They were watching him. Not like guards watching a suspect. Like family watching someone they didn’t fully understand, trying to decide whether to interrupt or just stay close enough in case the silence turned heavy.

Viola leaned lightly against a post, arms crossed, her posture casual, almost bored, but her eyes were sharp. Luna stood a step behind her, quiet as always, gaze calm but attentive.

They kept their voices low so it wouldn’t carry across the deck. Viola watched Ludger for a few seconds, then spoke softly.

“He looks thoughtful,” she murmured.

Luna’s eyes didn’t leave him. “And uncertain.”

Viola’s mouth twitched, not with humor this time, more like surprise.

“Huh,” she said under her breath. “He always moves forward without hesitation.” She tilted her head, studying him like he was a puzzle she’d assumed she’d already solved. “It made me think he never questions himself.”

She paused, then added, quieter.

“But… it looks like that isn’t true.”

Luna didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Her silence was agreement, and her eyes stayed on Ludger’s back as he stood at the rail with the stars above and a monster below, still moving forward… but proving, in the smallest way, that even he had moments where the path wasn’t as simple as

advance and break whatever is in front of you.

Luna kept watching Ludger for another breath, then leaned closer to Viola and spoke quietly.

“Don’t add to his worries.”

Viola’s eyebrows pulled together immediately. “What do you mean by that?”

Luna didn’t look away from the rail. Her tone stayed calm, almost gentle, but there was steel underneath it.

“I mean,” Luna said, “don’t do anything stupid that puts him in a difficult spot when it comes to decision making.”

Viola blinked, then huffed softly, half offended, half defensive. “I’m not—”

Luna cut her off without raising her voice.

“If something happens to you,” Luna said, “right after he found a middle ground with your grandfather… that would be a pity.”

The words landed clean. Not emotional. Not dramatic. Just… practical truth. Viola’s mouth opened, then closed. She grunted like she hated being handled gently more than she hated being handled at all.

“…Yeah,” she muttered. “Fine.”

She exhaled through her nose and looked back toward Ludger, eyes a little less playful now.

“I’ll stick to the plan,” Viola said.

Then, as if she needed to reclaim some pride before the conversation made her feel too responsible, she added with a stubborn edge:

“Hopefully my skills improve faster during this trip, magically, so I can actually be useful against the monster.”

Luna’s gaze flicked to her for half a second, the faintest hint of amusement in her eyes. Then she looked back at Ludger.

“Try training,” Luna said quietly. “Not wishing.”

Viola groaned under her breath. But she didn’t argue. And that, more than anything, showed she’d heard the warning. Viola rubbed the back of her neck, then glanced at Luna out of the corner of her eye.

“I’ll behave,” she said, quieter now. “I don’t want to cause trouble for you too, Luna.”

Luna didn’t answer immediately. She just stood there, eyes on the dark sea, expression calm in the way calm people were when they’d already seen enough “I’ll behave” promises collapse under adrenaline.

A few seconds passed. Then Luna finally spoke, voice soft and matter-of-fact.

“That’s easier said than done.”

Viola’s lips pressed together. She sighed, long, theatrical, but there wasn’t much bite behind it this time. Of course. Of course Luna was learning from Ludger. Not the magic. Not the tactics.

The

timing.

The dry little stabs that hit clean because they were true. Viola stared toward the rail where Ludger stood under the stars and felt that familiar, helpless irritation that came from being surrounded by people who could outthink her in silence.

Great,

she thought.

Now I’ve got two of them.

She already had an insufferable younger brother who was a smartass on legs. She had a pair of twin siblings who left her mentally and physically exhausted just from existing in the same area for a couple of hours. She didn’t need an older-sister-shaped Luna learning the art of quiet torment too.

She didn’t say any of that. Because she didn’t get to. Not after everything she’d already dragged Luna through. Not after the messes she’d caused, the times Luna had covered for her, the way Luna had stepped into the gaps without demanding repayment.

Viola exhaled slowly, letting the complaint die in her chest where it belonged. Instead she just nodded once, almost stiff.

“…Yeah,” she muttered. “Fair.”

And in the lantern glow, with the sea whispering below and Ludger’s silhouette at the rail, Viola let herself swallow the irritation. She could endure a little teasing. If that was the price of being grateful without turning it into another problem, she’d pay it.

The calm didn’t last.

Around midnight, the first warning wasn’t sound. It was

pressure.

The air shifted, heavier, charged, like the world had swallowed a mouthful of metal. The wind strengthened in uneven bursts, tugging at sails and rigging with impatient hands. The waves followed, rising higher, slapping the hull harder, turning the ship’s gentle roll into something sharper and more demanding.

Above, the sky began to close. Stars vanished one by one as clouds slid in from the horizon, thick and fast, swallowing the night like ink spreading across water. Lantern flames flickered. The deck groaned louder. And then the ship’s crew stopped pretending this was normal weather.

Doors opened. Footsteps pounded. One by one, everyone who had been resting spilled onto the deck, half-dressed, alert, eyes scanning the dark.

Kaela’s hair was already whipping around her face. Renvar tightened straps and checked lines with practiced hands. Shera looked up at the clouds like she was reading a spell. Valk stood calm, but his gaze was sharp. Luna stepped out beside Viola, both of them bracing against the stronger wind.

Rathen was at the wheel, barking orders, turning the ship into a machine that had to stay afloat through force of routine. Maurien came to Ludger’s side and lifted his face to the wind, eyes narrowing.

“A storm’s approaching,” Maurien said.

His voice was flat, but the way his mana responded, subtle, defensive, said more than the words did. Then he added the part that mattered.

“And it’s charged with mana.”

The air practically

vibrated

as he said it, as if agreeing. Viola blinked, eyes narrowing up at the thickening clouds.

“…Mana?” she repeated. “You mean it’s not natural?”

Maurien didn’t answer immediately. He watched the sky, felt the wind, listened to the pressure changes like the storm was a living thing whispering in a language only mages understood.

The silence stretched.

Then Viola, because she couldn’t leave silence alone, tilted her head and said, half joking, half not:

“Is this something someone called?”

Maurien’s mouth didn’t move, but his eyes shifted slightly toward Ludger, then back to the clouds. Another pause. Long enough that even the sailors near them glanced over, uneasy. Finally Maurien spoke, tone dry as dust.

“…Perhaps,” he said. “If that someone had five times more mana than Ludger.”

Viola’s grin died immediately. Luna’s expression tightened. Shera’s eyes brightened in the wrong way, excited and worried at the same time.

Kaela’s gaze sharpened, wind starting to coil around her feet as if her instincts had already decided they were under attack.

Ludger, for his part, didn’t look impressed. He looked like a man who’d just been informed the world had decided to laugh at him personally. He stared at the worsening waves, felt the wind snapping at the rigging, watched the cloud ceiling lower like a lid.

Then he cursed under his breath, quiet, vicious, and entirely earned. Because with weather like this, his explosive harpoons were close to useless. A clean impact was hard enough on a stable deck.

In a mana-charged storm? With rolling waves and shifting angles and a target that could vanish beneath foam in an instant?

Those harpoons weren’t weapons anymore. They were expensive rocks waiting to miss. Ludger’s jaw tightened as the ship pitched harder. The ocean had been calm when he prepared. Of course it had. Now it was reminding him whose territory this really was.

Ludger pushed through the chaos toward the wheel.

The deck was already turning into a battlefield without an enemy, sailors hauling lines, boots slipping on wet wood, lantern light shaking as the ship pitched. Wind snapped at cloaks and hair like it was trying to peel people off the deck and toss them into the sea.

Rathen had both hands locked on the wheel, shoulders braced, eyes flicking between waves and sail angle with the focused intensity of a man who had no illusions about what the ocean did to the unprepared.

Ludger leaned close enough to be heard over the rising wind.

“Be ready to turn away,” Ludger said. “Full speed. The moment something goes off.”

Rathen’s eyes cut to him. “Something goes off?”

“Anything,” Ludger replied. “A surge. A shadow. A hit. A sign that the beast is here, or that someone is making sure we don’t leave.”

Rathen’s jaw tightened. He nodded once anyway, captain accepting an order because the alternative was dying with his pride intact.

“Aye,” he said.

But the doubt was there. Ludger could see it in the way Rathen’s eyes narrowed toward the black horizon.

How do you run from something that sinks ships?

The answer was: you didn’t, not in the normal sense.

You ran by being smarter. By buying seconds. By breaking patterns. By doing something the monster hadn’t predicted yet.

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