Chapter 960

The guard hesitated only once, then bowed again. “Understood.”

Two of his best hired killers had already been defeated. Alphonse did not need the formal report in front of him to remember that fact. He remembered the price well enough.

The first had died too quickly to justify the coin spent on him. The second had done better, better in the way a man drowning did better if he managed to stay above water for three more breaths before sinking.

The third had been the one meant to finish the job.

Not necessarily to kill Ludger outright. Just to weaken him. Slow him. Force out more mana. Draw blood. Leave behind damage that the capital’s forces could then exploit properly.

And yet even that had failed.

Not completely, perhaps. Ludger was wounded. Tired. Burning through himself more aggressively than before. But the result was still wrong. The boy remained mobile, lethal, and, most annoyingly of all, dangerously functional.

Alphonse stood by the window with one hand resting lightly against the stone frame, eyes fixed on the distant district where dust and fire kept rising in irregular bursts.

He had intended to preserve some of his better forces just in case. That had been the sensible course.

Hold them back while the cheaper layers did their work. Let the city’s weight grind Ludger down first. Let exhaustion, attrition, and constant pressure do what prideful warriors often failed to accomplish with direct confrontation. Then, once the boy was properly slowed and bleeding enough that he could not adapt as freely, commit the more specialized assets.

Now it was becoming clear that economy might no longer be an option. Alphonse’s eyes narrowed slightly. He had already paid a great deal for the people he had brought in. Too much, by most standards.

The kind of sums that bought loyalty only temporarily and silence only as long as fear or profit remained greater than betrayal. But coin spent badly could still be recovered. Reputation damaged by hesitation could not.

And allowing those hired predators to fail without giving them the final support needed to complete their task would be even more costly than the money itself. If Ludger survived after forcing back this many pieces, the message sent to every enemy and observer would be unacceptable.

That could not be allowed.

The guard still kneeling in the office kept his head lowered, but Alphonse could practically feel the man waiting for the next order. Waiting meant there was still discipline somewhere in the city.

“Send word,” Alphonse said at last, voice smooth and measured. “ If at sunset the target is still alive, The Iron Containment unit should be deployed.”

The guard looked up slightly despite himself. Only slightly.

Then he bowed deeper at once. “Yes, Your Excellency.”

The name alone carried enough weight. The guard rose, saluted, and left the room with controlled urgency, the door shutting behind him with a quiet finality.

Alphonse remained where he was. His gaze drifted back toward the smoke in the distance. That should do it.

Those things had not been assembled casually. They had not been trained for ordinary suppression or for the kind of decorative violence nobles liked to imagine made them look strong. They had been shaped with one purpose in mind.

Ludger.

Not the exact boy, perhaps, not in every detail, but the type of threat he represented. Brutal at close range. Capable of reading obvious traps and turning pressure back onto those applying it.

The Iron Containment units were meant to answer that.

Restricting his options until the most appealing path became the fatal one. A death zone did not need to be hidden from someone like Ludger. It only needed to be the best available choice. That was the important part so many lesser commanders failed to understand. Truly dangerous prey did not walk blindly into traps. It examined them. Circled them. Tested them.

Which meant the trap had to be built in layers deep enough that even after recognizing danger, the target still chose the wrong direction.

Sunset would help.

The lowering light would lengthen shadows, complicate visibility, and make the city’s ruined districts even more treacherous. It would also press Ludger’s instincts in the right direction. A boy hunted alone, cut off inside a hostile capital, would naturally become more aggressive about finding a way out before full night settled in.

That urgency could be used.

And if the units did their work properly, Ludger would not realize where he had truly been led until the kill zone closed around him from all sides.

Alphonse’s expression did not change, but satisfaction touched his thoughts all the same. Yes. That should do it.

After leaving a trail of destruction behind him… streets littered with the dead, the dying, and the unlucky bastards still screaming through crushed ribcages, Ludger reached a simple conclusion.

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The Regent’s hired assassins were not anything special. Not aside from those two.

The thought came to him between one breath and the next as he tore his club free from the remains of a man who had tried to block the swing with both arms and most of his courage. The body dropped in a broken heap, joining the others scattered across the ruined street.

Firelight reflecting off shattered stone. And in the middle of it all, Ludger kept moving.

The first assassin had been competent enough to deserve the title.

The second had been worse, and dangerous in a way that forced Ludger to pay attention. Those two had been worth the hassle. The others? Noise.

Ludger stepped over a man writhing on the ground clutching what was left of his side, ignoring the raw, wet sounds coming from inside the dented armor. Ahead of him, more enemies were trying to reorganize around the rubble of a half-collapsed building, using distance and elevation the way frightened people always did once they understood that closing in meant pain.

He didn’t blame them. If he were them, he wouldn’t want to get close either. His eyes narrowed slightly. Still… if the assassins had attacked together, that would have been troublesome. That much he admitted without hesitation.

One to pressure from the blind spots. One to force direct engagement. One to create openings at close range. Layer that with the mage bombardment and the city’s chaos, and even he would have had a far uglier time of it. Not impossible. Just costly.

Too costly, maybe, with the barrier still overhead and the capital packed full of enemies. But they hadn’t done that. Whether because of arrogance, poor coordination, or simple mistrust among hired killers, they had come in pieces… And pieces could be broken.

Ludger adjusted his grip on the club and turned down another fractured stretch of street, boots crunching over debris and blackened stone. His breathing was rougher now, but controlled. His mana lower than he liked, but still steady enough to matter.

Then his eyes shifted slightly. The sniper was nearby.

Waiting. Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but the thought sharpened immediately. The same rotten poison. The same kind of patience. The same refusal to waste a shot without certainty. That bastard was still out there.

Close enough to matter. Close enough to kill if Ludger got careless. Which meant one thing… he couldn’t drop his guard.

He kept walking anyway, club dragging for a second beside him before he lifted it again and rested it against one shoulder. Around him, enemies watched from farther away now, less eager than before, herding rather than charging.

As long as they kept trying to shape the battlefield, they’d keep revealing how they wanted him to move. And eventually… the sniper would reveal himself too. Because men like that always did. Not from pride. From greed.

They waited and waited and waited until they saw the perfect chance, and the moment they believed victory was certain, they reached for it. That was when they died.

Ludger walked through another ruined stretch of street, club resting heavily against one shoulder, his eyes half-lidded as if the encirclement around him had become nothing more than background noise. In truth, he was watching everything.

The shifting distances. The mages pulling farther back. The melee fighters trying to look brave while quietly waiting for someone else to solve the problem.

He lifted his eyes toward the sky for a brief moment. The sun was setting. The light had changed enough that the capital no longer looked merely damaged. Now it looked wounded.

Long shadows stretched across shattered roads and collapsed walls. Smoke caught the red-orange glow of evening and turned parts of the city into a smear of blood and ash. The barrier overhead reflected the dying light in faint, warped ripples, making the whole capital feel more sealed than before.

And the atmosphere had tightened with it. The tension in the city was worse now. The kind that came when day began to die and people realized they still hadn’t solved the disaster rampaging through their streets.

Ludger inhaled slowly. His body had recovered a bit. Enough that his movements no longer felt on the edge of collapse. Enough that his lungs, while still irritated by smoke and dust, didn’t burn with every breath like before.

Enough that his limbs responded properly when he asked them to move. But the exhaustion was accumulating. That was the problem. Not some sudden crash. Just the slow, ugly weight of repeated strain.

Too much mana spent, recovered, and spent again before his body had been given real time to stabilize.

He could still fight. That wasn’t in question. He could still kill plenty. That wasn’t in question either. But continuing like this through the entire night, inside a sealed capital full of enemies who were steadily adapting around his habits? That was a bad plan.

Ludger clicked his tongue softly. He had to find a way out tonight. Not tomorrow. Not after another dozen streets collapsed. Tonight.

Because every hour he stayed inside the barrier shifted the balance against him. More fatigue. More information for the enemy. More chances for their better pieces to enter the board. If he gave them enough time, even his earlier psychological advantage would start to dull under sheer repetition.

By the time true darkness settled over the capital, Ludger finally found a place to stop.

Not for long. Just enough.

He landed lightly on a rooftop worn smooth by years of weather and recent chaos, then let the massive earth club crumble apart at his side. The condensed stone and hardened soil broke down into loose fragments with a low grinding sound before scattering across the tiles.

For a few seconds, he simply stood there, breathing.

The city below was darker now, though not quiet. Never quiet. Fires still burned in distant streets, painting parts of the capital in flickering orange while the rest sank into deep shadow beneath the barrier overhead. Smoke drifted through the night air in uneven sheets, and every so often, the far-off sound of shouting, steel, or collapsing stone reminded him that the capital still hadn’t finished bleeding.

Ludger looked across the rooftops and recognized the place immediately. This roof. He had been here before. This was where he used to meet Hroth when he needed information.

The thought lingered for only a moment.

Given everything that had happened, Hroth had probably smelled trouble early and decided to disappear before the city truly lost control. That would have been the smart move. A man like him didn’t survive in places like this by being loyal to walls and banners. He survived by reading danger before it arrived and stepping aside before it swallowed everyone slower than him.

If he was smart, he had already fled the capital.

If he was smarter, he had also warned his own people that something ugly was coming.

Ludger could respect that. Not enough to waste time worrying about it, though.

He put those thoughts aside and crouched near the edge of the roof, one forearm resting over his knee as he stared down into the dark streets below.

“I’m hungry,” he muttered.

Then, after a beat—

“And thirsty.”