Chapter 953

While the capital was still choking on dust, fire, and the aftermath of Ludger’s battle with the second transformed labyrinth guardian…

Lionfang remained calm. The kind of normal that only existed because no one there could yet see the storm forming far beyond the horizon.

Inside their home, Elaine moved through the kitchen with a soft hum under her breath, her hands busy with preparations. Ingredients were laid out neatly across the table, flour, fruits, spices, carefully preserved meats, and a few rarer items she had insisted on bringing in for the occasion.

Ludger’s birthday.

Tomorrow.

She had originally planned something much bigger.

A celebration that would spill out of the house and into the streets. Tables across Lionfang, people gathered from every corner of the town, food, music, and laughter strong enough to shake off the harshness of border life for a day. Something worthy of everything Ludger had done for the place.

But in the end… she had scaled it down.

After thinking it through, and after a few quiet conversations with people who knew him well enough, she had decided that something smaller would suit him better. More personal. Less noise, less attention.

Something he could actually enjoy instead of endure. So instead of a town-wide festival, she focused on a tighter gathering. Still warm. Still meaningful. Just… closer.

She had already spoken with the people she hired for the arrangements earlier that morning, cooks, helpers, a few decorators, and made sure everything would be ready in time. After going over the details and making a few last adjustments, she returned home with a faint smile still on her face, already thinking about what else needed to be done before the day ended.

When she stepped inside, she expected to find Arslan already gone.

He had been training the twins that morning, something he had taken seriously ever since they started showing early signs of potential, and after that, he usually headed straight to the guild.

But he was still there. Standing at the entrance of the house. Not moving. Just looking out toward the distance. Elaine paused for a moment, then walked up behind him, her curiosity quietly rising.

“That’s unusual,” she said lightly. “Skipping the guild today?”

Arslan didn’t answer right away. That alone made her expression shift slightly. She followed his gaze. At first, there was nothing out of place.

The familiar stretch of land beyond Lionfang, the roads, the distant terrain, everything as it had been for days… Then she saw it. Clouds. Rain clouds. Dark ones.

They were forming far off in the distance, slow and heavy, rolling across the horizon with a weight that didn’t quite match the usual patterns of the area. The sky above Lionfang was still mostly clear, sunlight breaking through as usual, but those clouds were coming.

Elaine narrowed her eyes slightly as she watched them.

“…Rain?” she said.

Arslan finally spoke.

“Maybe.”

His tone wasn’t convinced. And neither was she. Because something about those clouds felt… off. Not just weather. Not just a passing storm. Something approaching. And for reasons she couldn’t quite put into words yet, the small, carefully planned birthday celebration waiting for tomorrow suddenly felt just a little too fragile against it.

Arslan kept his eyes on the horizon a moment longer before speaking.

“I’ve got a feeling it’ll rain tomorrow too.”

Elaine immediately looked at him as if he had just said something personally offensive.

“Don’t you dare jinx the party.”

Arslan gave a small shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching just enough to show he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Rain this time of year this far north isn’t that unusual.”

That was true.

Lionfang wasn’t so far removed from rough weather that the sight of approaching rainclouds should have meant much on its own. The season had its moods, and the farther north one lived, the less surprising sudden changes in the sky became. Even so, Elaine still clicked her tongue softly.

“Unusual or not, it can wait until after tomorrow.”

Arslan huffed something that might have been a laugh, then finally turned away from the horizon.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m heading to the guild now.”

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Elaine nodded. Neither of them took a step. The ground shook.

It wasn’t violent enough to throw them off balance, but it was strong enough to be felt clearly under their feet, a deep, spreading tremor coming from more than one direction at once. The stone under the house gave a low shudder. Dust shifted from the edges of the doorway. Somewhere inside, something light rattled faintly against wood.

Both of them froze.

Arslan’s expression changed first.

The ease disappeared from his face so completely it was almost abrupt. He turned at once and dashed back into the house, moving fast enough that Elaine didn’t even try to stop him. A thought had clearly hit him before it hit her.

The tunnels. Ludger’s tunnels.

If something had happened underground, if part of the network he had shaped beneath Lionfang had shifted, cracked, or collapsed, then the danger wouldn’t just be structural. It could spread beneath homes, roads, walls, everywhere.

Nothing like that had ever happened before.

That didn’t matter. The moment the possibility existed, Arslan treated it seriously.

By the time Elaine stepped fully aside from the entrance, he was already coming back out with the twins in his arms, moving in a hurry that made it obvious he wasn’t taking chances. Elle clung to him in sleepy confusion while Arash blinked around with the dazed irritation of a child whose morning had been interrupted for no understandable reason.

Arslan didn’t slow.

“We’re not going back inside for now,” he said.

His voice was calm, but only because he was forcing it to stay that way.

“I’ll have someone check the tunnels first.”

Elaine nodded immediately.

She reached out and took the twins from him by the hands as soon as he set them down, drawing them close on either side of her. Elle leaned into her instinctively. Arash looked from one parent to the other, clearly aware now that something was wrong even if he didn’t understand what.

The ground didn’t shake again right away. That somehow made the silence worse.

Because now all four of them were standing outside the house, waiting, listening, with the strange rain clouds still gathering in the distance and the possibility of something going wrong beneath Lionfang suddenly hanging over the morning like a second storm.

Arslan turned his head toward the guildhall and the streets beyond, already shifting from husband and father into guildmaster.

“I’ll get people moving,” he said.

Elaine tightened her hold on the twins’ hands, eyes still fixed on the house for a moment before lifting toward the town around them.

The birthday preparations, the weather, the quiet normalcy of the morning… all of it had just broken.

Arslan dashed to the guild at once, his pace fast enough that people on the street stepped out of his way without needing to be told. One look at his face was enough to make most of them understand that this was not routine.

By the time he reached the guildhall and pushed through the entrance, he had already started sorting through possibilities in his head.

Tunnel collapse. Sabotage. Attack.

None of it felt right. And none of it felt random.

Inside, the atmosphere had already changed. People were moving faster, voices lower, tension spreading in quiet waves through the hall. Arslan’s eyes swept the room once and quickly landed on the two men he needed.

Yvar was already there, speaking with Maurien near one of the central tables.

That alone told Arslan enough. It seemed Yvar had already started digging for answers before he even arrived.

The archivist noticed him first and immediately straightened. There was no wasted greeting, no polite lead-in, no delay.

“Guildmaster,” Yvar said, stepping toward him. “Maurien confirmed it.”

Arslan’s gaze shifted to the wind mage. Maurien gave a short nod, his expression grim.

“I used wind to trace the pressure shifts underground,” he said. “The tunnels gave in.”

Arslan’s jaw tightened slightly.

“All of them?”

Maurien’s eyes hardened. That made the answer worse before Yvar even finished speaking.

“It doesn’t look accidental,” Yvar said. “The pattern is too deliberate. All the routes from Lionfang to the rest of the Empire have been cut off.”

The words settled heavily between them. Not a collapse, then. A seal. A trap. Someone had closed every path outward. For one brief second, Arslan stood still. Then his expression turned completely cold.

“Stop all missions immediately,” he said.

His voice was firm enough to cut through the noise in the hall without needing to rise.

“Recall everyone you can. Put every guild member on alert.”

Yvar nodded at once. No questions. He turned immediately and moved off, already calling for runners and signaling to the others nearest the dispatch boards. Within moments, the guildhall’s tension sharpened into action as people started moving with purpose instead of uncertainty.

Maurien remained where he was, watching Arslan carefully.

And Arslan, standing in the middle of the guild his son had helped build, already knew what that order truly meant.

Whatever was coming… it had already started. Arslan’s mind kept moving as the first orders spread through the guildhall. Then another problem surfaced. Kaela and Renvar weren’t in Lionfang.

They were away, working with Maris’ guild on the silver ring extraction, which meant two of the people he would normally trust first for fast movement and field judgment were already out of reach. That left a gap he felt immediately. In a town like Lionfang, losing even a few key hands at the wrong time could change the shape of a crisis fast.

So they couldn’t count on them. Not now. Not until they returned, if they even could return with the routes cut like this. That narrowed Arslan’s options hard.

If something was approaching, if this was the beginning of a siege, an ambush, or some wider operation meant to isolate Lionfang before striking, then the only person in immediate reach with the senses and range to catch trouble before it arrived was Maurien.

Wind.

Awareness spread wider than what ordinary scouts could offer. And using scouts before that would be stupid. Too dangerous.

Not when the roads had been deliberately sealed. Not when the tunnels had been sabotaged. Sending people out blindly now would only mean handing the enemy a few easy kills and losing information before the real fight even started.

Arslan looked at Maurien fully.

“The tunnels didn’t collapse by chance,” he said. “All the paths out are closed, which means someone either wants to trap us here or slow us from responding to something bigger.”

Maurien said nothing, but the look in his eyes showed he was already following.