Chapter 973

Verk only shrugged.

Like Ludger had just finished commenting on the weather instead of calmly explaining how he planned to kill him.

“Still talking too much,” Verk said.

Then he pointed both hands toward Ludger.

The runes lining his sleeker armor flared at once, not just on the palms, but along the forearms, shoulders, and chest as if the whole suit had become part of the attack sequence. White-gold light gathered fast, tighter and denser than the earlier blasts. It didn’t just shine, it compressed. Twisting inward, folding over itself, drawn into a pair of rotating cores in front of each palm.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed.

That was different.

The two masses of energy spun faster and faster until the air around them began to distort violently. Rain striking the rotating light was shredded into vapor before it could even touch it. The ground beneath Verk’s boots cracked as his armor anchored itself with a low mechanical hum, stabilizing for recoil.

Then the two spirals merged.

The twin cores snapped together into a single, larger vortex of white-gold force between Verk’s hands, spinning in a brutal helix that made Ludger think of his Turtle Shock Wave for half a heartbeat… and immediately realize this was not the same thing.

It looked similar from a distance. A concentrated blast. A forward-release attack. A spiraling discharge built for overwhelming force. But the feel of it was wrong. This wasn’t just mana. There was another nature to it.

Less fluid than a normal mana blast and more… constructed. Like mana had been stripped down, forced through some other medium, or fused into an energy state that no longer behaved the way it should.

The spiral also moved differently.

His Turtle Shock Wave expanded with layered impact and compressive release, a crushing wave designed to overwhelm. Verk’s attack, on the other hand, felt narrower and crueler. The spiral tightened around a piercing core, like a rotating drill made of light and pressure.

Ludger only had time to register that much. Then Verk fired.

The blast erupted from both hands in one savage burst.

White-gold force crossed the distance between them almost instantly, the spiral twisting so violently that it chewed up the air in its path. The sound came a fraction later, a shrieking roar like metal being fed into a grinder the size of a building.

Ludger tried to move. Too late.

The spiraling blast hit him square in the torso and detonated forward, not as an explosion spreading in all directions, but as a concentrated torrent that wrapped around his body and drove him backward with horrific force.

The world vanished into light and impact.

His feet left the ground at once.

There was no controlling the motion, no clever adjustment, no half-step recovery. The attack simply took him and threw him. Ground blurred beneath him. Rain turned into streaks. Pain slammed through his chest, ribs, and spine as the rotating force kept grinding into him even while carrying him away.

Ludger gritted his teeth hard enough to hurt. The spiral was still chewing at him. Not just pushing. Grinding.

Its rotation battered at his defenses from several angles at once, making it hard to fully brace against the force. His forearm guards came up on instinct, but the main impact had already centered on his body, and all they really did now was keep the edges from tearing more pieces out of him while he was launched through the dark.

His back hit the barrier surrounding the capital. The collision was brutal.

A deep crack of force echoed through the night as Ludger slammed into the magical wall with enough violence to make the whole surface flash into visibility around him. Lines of pale energy rippled outward in a huge circle from the point of impact, turning the invisible dome into a giant sheet of glowing distortion for a fraction of a second.

Then the spiraling blast pinned him against it.

Ludger felt the barrier at his back and Verk’s attack at his front, caught between them like something being crushed inside a vice. The force drove the breath from his lungs. The rotating pressure kept drilling into him, its white-gold light splashing across his skin and guards while steam burst from his body where heat and rain met.

His jaw clenched. His muscles shook. But he didn’t scream. The blast kept roaring for another second. Then another. Too long. Way too long for a normal palm-shot. So the armor could sustain output now, not just burst-fire.

Ludger planted his boots against the soaked ground as best he could, even though they barely found purchase while the barrier bowed slightly behind him from the pressure. The whole thing felt wrong, his chest burning, his back aching from the magical wall, the attack twisting against him with that unnatural spiral nature that refused to behave like normal mana.

Then, finally, the blast ended. It cut off all at once.

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The sudden absence of force made Ludger drop forward a half step before he caught himself. He stayed standing mostly because he was too stubborn to do anything else. Steam rolled off his body. His chest felt like someone had tried to cave it in with a heated drill. Rain struck his skin and hissed faintly where the residual heat still clung.

He inhaled once. Sharp. Painful. Then lifted his head.

Verk stood some distance away, both hands still raised, the runes on his armor dimming gradually after the release. The bastard looked pleased with himself. Not overly excited. Just satisfied in the way men got when an expensive toy finally performed the way they always bragged it would.

Ludger spat a little blood to the side and straightened up fully, though the movement was slower this time.

The armor hit harder than before. Faster, yes. And now it had sustained-output attacks with some strange energy composition layered into the blast. That explained part of Verk’s confidence. It didn’t explain all of it.

Ludger’s eyes sharpened while his breathing settled again by force. He could still fight. His body hurt. That meant it was still there. Still his. Still moving. And the attack, for all its power, had confirmed something important.

Verk really had spent years building this thing for him.

Which meant the bastard had come prepared with every trick he thought would finally bridge the gap.

Ludger found that almost comforting.

Because if this was Verk at his best… then once Ludger broke it, there would be nothing left underneath except the same coward from before.

Ludger wobbled forward. Only one step. Then another.

Not smooth. Not controlled in the way he preferred. His balance was there, but only because he was forcing it to be there, dragging his body back into usefulness through discipline and spite.

His mind was foggy.

The spiraling blast had rattled something deeper than muscle. His thoughts came a fraction slower than they should have, edges blurred by impact, exhaustion, poison residue, and the lovely collection of injuries he had spent the whole night gathering like trophies from idiots.

His forearm guards had protected him. Mostly.

They had taken enough of the blast to keep his arms attached and his chest from being carved open worse than it already was. But they were thinner now. Weaker. Layers of metal had been burned, shaved, and warped by repeated impacts throughout the night. The edges were uneven, the reinforced plates no longer as thick as before, and the faint enchantments running through them felt strained.

That was annoying. He took another step and nearly stumbled. Verk noticed.

The bastard’s armor hummed softly, rain running down its sleek plates while the runes along his palms dimmed from the last attack. He watched Ludger with that patient, satisfied look of a man who had finally started seeing the cracks he had been hoping for.

Ludger placed one hand against his chest and activated Healing Touch again.

Warm mana pulsed through him. Not nearly enough. But enough to matter.

Enough to stop the fog from deepening. Enough to stitch the worst internal damage into something less immediately fatal. Enough to force his lungs to work properly and clear the shaking from his vision by a few degrees.

Ludger inhaled slowly, letting Healing Touch burn through the available mana and convert it into temporary function.

Across from him, Verk tilted his head.

“You really are as resilient as a cockroach.”

Ludger lifted his eyes. Verk’s palm runes began to glow faintly again, just enough to remind him that another attack could come at any moment. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

“Die,” Verk said, voice calm and almost generous, “and you will suffer less.”

For a second, rain filled the silence.

Ludger stood there, half-bare, covered in burns, cuts, bruises, bullet wounds, poison irritation, and enough exhaustion to bury a normal man twice over. Steam still rose faintly from parts of his body. His forearm guards smoked in the rain. His stance was wrong by a few inches because one leg was not listening properly.

Then he smiled. Small. Crooked. Mean.

“Are you enjoying it?” Ludger asked.

Verk’s expression shifted slightly. “Enjoying what?”

“The last moments of your life.”

The words would have been terrifying if Ludger weren’t visibly wobbling. If his breathing weren’t rough. If his body weren’t so obviously close to its limits that even standing looked like an argument he was barely winning. Instead, the threat hung strangely between them.

Absurd. Insane. And because it was Ludger saying it… still not dismissible.

Verk let out a short laugh. “You can barely stand.”

“Yeah,” Ludger said.

He took another step forward and nearly swayed again before catching himself. Then his eyes sharpened through the fog.

“But I’m still standing.”

The smile faded from his face.

“And you’re still in range.”

Verk’s amusement thinned.

Ludger flexed his fingers once, forcing sensation back into them while Healing Touch continued to patch just enough of him to keep the fight going.

“You should’ve killed me with the first shot,” Ludger said. “Or the second. Or whatever that shiny spiral garbage was supposed to be.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Now you’re just giving me time to understand the armor.”

Verk’s jaw tightened. There it was. A tiny reaction. Not fear. Not yet. But irritation.

Ludger’s voice stayed low, rough, and dry despite the blood at the corner of his mouth.

“So keep talking. Keep firing. Keep showing me how proud you are of your new toy.”

He took one more step. This one steadier. Not by much.

“I’ll break it soon.”

The barrier shimmered faintly behind Ludger’s back. And Verk, for all the power wrapped around him, no longer looked quite as amused as before.

Verk charged. No warning. No dramatic line. One moment he stood in the rain with his palms glowing faintly, armor humming like a predator waking up. The next, he crossed the distance.

Fast.

The sleeker runic armor moved nothing like the bulky shell Ludger remembered from years ago. That older suit had been powerful, but awkward. Heavy. A fortress trying to pretend it could dance.

This one moved like a weapon.

Verk’s boots tore through the wet ground, runes flashing along his legs as the armor accelerated him in short, brutal bursts. He reached Ludger before the boy could properly reset his stance.

Ludger tried to shift. The barrier stopped him.

His back was still too close to the magical wall, the dome pressing behind him like an invisible cliff. The torn hole he had opened was already sealing, and the remaining surface had hardened again, trapping him between Verk and the capital’s hateful cage.

No room. Not enough. Ludger raised his arms. Verk’s first punch hit his guard like a battering ram.