Dust swallowed them both. Inside it, the hits kept coming. Shapes moved in flashes. A fist from the left. A counter to the body. A forearm smashing into a temple. A punch to the chest. Another to the jaw.
The dust cloud pulsed with every impact like lightning was trapped inside it, and each pulse made the ruined castle tremble harder.
When the air finally shifted enough for their silhouettes to show again, both were still there. Still standing. Still throwing hands.
Drarc’s massive armored frame drove forward like a war beast, every punch heavy enough to cave in walls. Ludger met him with savage precision, his smaller frame slipping through the gaps just long enough to hammer back with compact, brutal counters that made Drarc’s head and torso snap from the force.
Another exchange. Another detonation. The remains of a marble arch behind them gave out and collapsed completely, crashing into the floor in a storm of stone.
Still they did not stop. The entire castle felt like it was being beaten apart around them by the rhythm of their fists.
Drarc’s grin widened. Then his fist came in low and fast, ugly in a way that made it clear he had been waiting for exactly that opening.
Ludger saw it. Just barely. He brought both arms up in time, crossing them in front of his body as the punch crashed into his guard.
The impact still launched him.
A violent blast of force tore through his stance and ripped him off his feet, hurling him backward like broken masonry. He shot through the jagged hole in the wall they had already made, clipped more stone on the way out, and burst into the open night before crashing into the castle garden.
His body hit the ground hard enough to gouge a trench through the polished earth and shattered decorative stone. Grass, dirt, marble dust, and blood sprayed behind him in a long scar as he skidded across the garden floor, finally grinding to a stop beside the wreckage of a smashed lantern post.
For one second, the world rang again. His arms screamed. His hands felt wrong. Too loose in some places, too sharp in others. Ludger planted one knee into the ground and looked up just as Drarc came down from above.
The giant dropped into the garden with enough force to crack the path stones beneath him, one armored knee bent for a moment before he rose with a laugh rumbling out of his chest like distant thunder.
Moonlight and firelight caught on the black scales of his dragon-shaped armor, giving the bastard the shape of some ancient beast that had wandered into a noble garden just to ruin it.
“I’m amazed,” Drarc said, still laughing, “that a brat like you can endure this much.”
He rolled his shoulders once, eyes locked on Ludger.
“But it doesn’t look like that’ll last much longer.”
Ludger didn’t answer immediately. He lifted one hand off the ground and brushed a bit of dust and powdered stone from his clothes. The motion would have looked colder, maybe even impressive, if his body had matched it better.
It didn’t.
Both arms were bruised badly, ugly purple marks blooming across the flesh from repeated impacts that had gone far beyond normal punishment. His fingers were worse. Several were clearly broken, bent just enough to show it if someone looked closely. Every attempt to tighten his hands sent sharp pain lancing up through the knuckles.
Still, his expression did not change. Not even a little. He grabbed the damaged fingers one by one and fixed them with quick, brutal motions.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
The bones slid back into place through raw force and stubbornness, his face staying flat the entire time. Then green-gold healing light bloomed across his hand.
Healing Touch.
The glow spread over his bruised arms, and the purple swelling began to sink little by little. Not vanish instantly. Not perfectly. But enough. Enough to restore function. Enough to keep his limbs from failing in the next exchange.
Drarc’s grin faded.
He frowned, staring at the healing light.
“They said you could use healing magic,” he said. “But not this much.”
Ludger finally looked up at him. Blood still marked the side of his face. Dust still clung to his clothes. The bruises were fading slower than they had any right to after that kind of beating.
His voice came out dry and sharp.
“Looks like you’re the type to lick the ground if someone tells you it’s fine, huh?”
For a split second, the night went very still. Then Drarc’s frown deepened.
Ludger rose fully to his feet, flexing his restored fingers once while the last traces of healing light disappeared from his skin.
The garden around them had become another ruin, uprooted flowerbeds, shattered paths, broken statues, chunks of fallen wall, and drifting dust under the cold night air.
Much better. More room. Less gold. Less pretending.
Ludger settled back into stance and looked at Drarc like the man had simply become the next obstacle he intended to break.
“Come on,” he said. “Try again.”
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Drarc rolled his neck slowly, the layered plates of his armor shifting with a low, grinding sound. He looked at Ludger with a strange mix of amusement and recognition, like he had finally figured something out that had been bothering him.
“You know,” he said, voice almost casual despite the devastation around them, “you didn’t have to try so hard just to buy time for those three… and the oversized dog.”
He gestured lazily toward the direction Ludger had launched them, as if the act itself had been insignificant.
“No one in the capital is leaving to chase them.”
Ludger didn’t answer, but his eyes narrowed slightly. That alone was enough to show he was listening. Drarc’s grin widened.
“If they somehow manage to cross half the Empire and make it back to your guild,” he continued, taking a slow step forward, “your little town won’t be waiting for them with open arms.”
Another step. Stone cracked beneath his weight.
“It’ll be waiting with enemies.”
He kept walking, closing the distance inch by inch.
“Guilds that hate yours.”
Another step.
“Criminals who’ve been waiting to carve out a piece of it.”
Another.
“Armies that won’t hesitate to move now that the excuse exists.”
The air itself felt heavier with each word, like the future was being laid out piece by piece.
“And…” Drarc paused just long enough for the tension to stretch, his smile sharpening, “…another group.”
That one landed differently.
“One that’s been waiting for years,” he said, voice dropping, “for the chance to return… and erase the stain in their past.”
Silence followed. Short. Heavy. Ludger’s eyes narrowed fully now, mind snapping through the implications with brutal speed.
Another group. Waiting for years. Erase the stain. The answer came instantly. The Rodericks. Verk. People like that didn’t forget. Didn’t forgive. They waited. Patiently. Quietly. Until the moment came where everything could be settled in one move.
And now that moment had arrived. Ludger’s aura changed. Not gradually. Not subtly. It snapped.
Dark red energy surged outward from his body, heavy and violent, pressing against the air itself. His skin flushed with that same color, faint at first, then deepening as power flooded through him. Muscles tightened, then bulged under the strain, veins standing out as something deeper took over.
Rage Flow.
It activated without his input. It simply answered. Drarc saw it and grinned wider.
“Yes,” he said softly. “That’s more like it.”
Then he blinked… And the world turned dark. Not fully.
Just… too slow. Ludger was already gone. Wind Step. He crossed the distance faster than sound, appearing directly in front of Drarc in less than a heartbeat.
Then his leg moved.
The kick slammed into Drarc’s chin with explosive force, the impact snapping his head back and lifting his massive armored body clean off the ground.
For a fraction of a second, the giant was airborne. Ludger didn’t stop. He stepped forward immediately, grabbed both of Drarc’s legs mid-air, and spun.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The motion built speed violently, the air screaming around them in a high-pitched tear as Drarc’s massive body became a weapon.
Then Ludger let go. Drarc shot backward like a launched projectile, smashing straight into the castle. The walls didn’t slow him. They exploded.
One after another, thick stone barriers burst apart as he tore through them, carving a straight line of destruction through the structure.
First wall. Second. Third. Each one shattered in a storm of debris. Then beyond the castle… Into the buildings behind it. Roofs collapsed. Structures cracked. Stone gave way like it had been struck by siege magic. The path of destruction stretched deep into the capital, marked by a continuous roar of collapsing architecture.
Then… Silence. Not complete. But heavier.
Ludger stood where he had thrown him, chest rising slightly, red aura still burning around him. Slowly, he turned his head. Toward the direction his friends had escaped.
Toward Luna. Viola. Torvares. Silva. They had distance now. But distance wasn’t safety. Not with everything Drarc had said. Ludger’s jaw tightened. He had prepared for that possibility. He wasn’t naive enough to think the past would stay buried. He had countermeasures, plans layered over plans, ways to turn Lionfang into something far harder to break than people expected.
But even then… Even with all of that… They couldn’t face everything at once without consequences. A flicker of worry passed through his eyes. Then it disappeared. Because worrying didn’t matter.
Drarc’s laugh echoed through the ruined stretch of the capital, rolling across broken stone, shattered walls, and the night air like something heavy being dragged over metal.
At first, it still sounded human. Then it changed.
The laughter deepened little by little, the sound warping into something rougher, more bestial, until it no longer resembled amusement so much as the warning growl of a predator that had finally stopped pretending to be civilized. It carried through the rubble with an ugly resonance that made the damaged buildings around them feel even emptier.
Ludger heard the footsteps next. Each step came with a metallic thud that sank into the ground and sent faint tremors through the broken garden paths and scattered debris. The kind of steps that belonged to something built to crush rather than walk.
He squinted into the drifting dust. Then Drarc’s voice came out of it, lower than before and layered with a harsh vibration that hadn’t been there when he still wore a human face.
“I think,” he said, “I’ll fight a little more seriously now.”
The shape in the dust kept growing.
“And by more seriously…”
The dust pulled aside.
“I mean I’ll show you my true form.”
What stepped out no longer looked human in any meaningful sense.
It was a four-legged beast covered in dark metallic scales, its body massive enough to make the ruined garden feel suddenly too small. Some of the scales were black as forged iron left too long in flame, while others carried a colder silver-like sheen, layered across parts of its shoulders, spine, jaw, and flanks like natural armor plates hammered by an insane craftsman. The whole creature stood easily five meters tall at the shoulder and stretched perhaps fifteen meters from the front of its chest to the end of its heavy, whip-like tail.
Its build was a monstrous blend of lion and dragon.
The chest and forelimbs carried the dense, predatory power of a great lion, all muscle packed beneath scale and armor, with shoulders broad enough to look like they could batter down fortress gates. The stance was feline in the way it distributed weight, balanced, ready to pounce, terrifyingly fluid despite the mass involved. But everything else was wrong in ways only a labyrinth could produce.
Its neck was longer than a lion’s should have been, thick and ridged, giving its head a draconic lift as it stared down at Ludger. The face itself held traces of both beasts: the predatory jawline and forward menace of a lion, but elongated, plated, and sharpened into something more reptilian. Rows of metallic fangs pushed past its lips, too long and too clean to belong to a normal predator. Horn-like ridges swept back from its skull, not large enough to be absurd, but large enough to make its silhouette look ancient and unnatural under the moonlight.
Its eyes glowed with the same cruel intelligence Drarc had shown in human shape. Its foreclaws were the size of swords.
Its tail dragged behind it in a slow, deliberate curve, the end plated in jagged scale segments that looked capable of smashing through walls if swung hard enough. Along its spine rose a line of thick silver-black ridges, almost like the beginnings of folded draconic spines, each one catching the broken light from the castle in cold glints.
Even the way it breathed felt wrong.
Each exhale came out hot and heavy, carrying the scent of metal, blood, and something old that should have been left buried in stone beneath a labyrinth floor.
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