Chapter 500
Ludger hit the bottom with a muted thud.
His body absorbed the impact as water rushed over him, pressure closing in from every direction. He bent his knees, dug his boots into the flooded floor, and pushed. Hard.
Earth Overdrive anchored his weight. Wind gathered in short, controlled bursts along his legs. Every kick sent a shock through the water as he forced himself forward against the current and resistance. It wasn’t fast. Not like his movement on land. But it was steady.
Each push carried him tens of meters ahead, stone grinding against stone beneath his feet as he used the labyrinth itself as a track. The water tried to drag him back, tried to spin him sideways, but his mass and momentum held.
He advanced like a walking siege engine. Behind him, Luna and Viola entered the water properly. Wind Overdrive wrapped around their bodies, thinning the resistance, letting them glide instead of fight the current. Even so, swimming here felt wrong. The water was too dense. Too heavy with mana. Every stroke cost more effort than it should have.
They followed Ludger’s wake, using the turbulence he created to save energy. For a moment, it almost felt manageable. Then the shadow appeared.
It rose from the depths ahead of them, blotting out the faint light filtering down from the air pocket near the ceiling. At first it looked like part of the labyrinth itself, just another pillar or collapsed wall shifting in the current.
Then it moved. Not walking. Swimming. A massive silhouette glided through the water with disturbing grace, limbs folding and unfolding in perfect rhythm. Its shape was wrong for a golem, too fluid, too adaptive. Viola slowed instinctively.
“…That’s not the model from above,” she thought.
The runic golem emerged into clearer view.
It was larger than the ones from the first and second sections, its body built from dark, pressure-polished metal layered with runic alloy that gleamed like wet obsidian. Instead of two arms, it had four, two mounted high on its shoulders, two lower along its torso. Each limb ended in a modular weapon system: rotating spear assemblies, mana-discharge barrels.
Its torso was streamlined, ridged like the hull of a ship. Fins of carved stone extended from its back and hips, etched with glowing runes that pulsed in synchronized waves. Those runes weren’t decorative. They were propulsion arrays. The golem didn’t sink. It cruised.
A pale blue core burned inside its chest, protected by overlapping plates that shifted as it moved, constantly adjusting its profile to deflect incoming force. Vein-like mana channels glowed beneath its surface, circulating energy through all four arms at once.
Its head turned. Artificial eyes locked onto Ludger. Target acquired. The water around it vibrated as its propulsion runes flared brighter. And then it surged forward, swimming straight at them like a living war machine. Viola felt her stomach tighten.
“Of course,” she thought. “The labyrinth built a naval division.”
Luna adjusted her grip on her knives, eyes tracking every movement of the construct.
Ludger kept moving forward, boots pounding against the stone floor, stone armor grinding as he accelerated. Against a model designed for this exact environment… And he didn’t slow down. He leaned forward… And prepared to ram a monster that had never known fear.
The runic golem didn’t hesitate. Its upper arms rotated outward, segmented plating sliding back to reveal compressed mana barrels built directly into the forearms. Runes flared. Pressure built. Then it fired.
The water distorted as the first volley tore through it, compressed air bullets wrapped in mana sheaths, traveling fast enough to leave cavitation trails in their wake. Each shot punched a visible tunnel through the water, shockwaves rippling outward like invisible hammers.
Viola’s eyes widened. Those weren’t slow underwater projectiles. They were moving at lethal velocity. If one of those hit her unguarded, it would punch straight through armor and bone alike.
Ludger raised his arms. He didn’t dodge. He didn’t weave. He didn’t even slow. He brought his forearms up in front of his face and let the barrage hit him head-on.
The first impact detonated against his froststeel guard, a concussive blast that sent a ring of pressure through the surrounding water. The second hit a heartbeat later, then the third, then the fourth, each one exploding against his arms in blinding flashes of compressed force. Viola’s stomach clenched.
Is he insane?
Those bullets were probably designed to pierce reinforced hull plating. They were meant to shred ships. And he was blocking them with his arms like he didn’t care.
Water boiled around him. For two full seconds, Ludger stood there and took it. Then he moved. He kicked the labyrinth floor. Hard.
Earth Overdrive bit into the stone beneath his boots, anchoring his mass as wind detonated around his legs. The recoil alone sent a shockwave through the water behind him. He launched forward.
The water folded around his body as he surged ahead, body tearing a tunnel through the current. The golem’s targeting arrays scrambled, trying to recalibrate for a target that had just crossed twenty meters in a blink.
Too slow. Ludger closed the distance. He drew his fist back and drove it forward with everything he had. The golem reacted on instinct.
Its lower arms snapped up, spears crossing in front of its chest in a reinforced guard. Runes flared along the shafts as it braced for impact.
The punch landed. Freezing Enchantment ignited. Blue-white light exploded outward as Ludger’s fist crashed into the crossed spears. The temperature dropped so violently that frost erupted across the weapon shafts and the golem’s chest plating in the same instant.
The spears didn’t break. They screamed.
Metal shrieked as internal reinforcement runes flash-froze mid-cycle. Structural compensation failed. The force of the blow didn’t stop, it transferred straight through the locked weapons and into the golem’s torso. The entire construct was launched backward.
It spun through the water, limbs flailing as propulsion runes misfired and stabilization arrays collapsed. The massive body slammed into a stone pillar, cracking it down the middle and sending a cloud of debris spiraling outward.
The golem tumbled end over end, momentum carrying it another ten meters before it finally managed to reorient itself. Viola stared. Luna’s breath caught.
Ludger rolled his shoulders once, frost still clinging to his guards, and took another step forward through the drifting debris.
The golem didn’t crash helplessly.
As it spun through the water, its propulsion runes flared again, this time in reverse. A burst of compressed wind detonated beneath its legs, counter-rotating against its momentum. The water around it churned violently as the construct arrested its spin in a storm of bubbles and debris, stabilizers screaming as they forced its mass back under control.
It hovered there for a fraction of a second. Reorienting. Recalculating. Viola felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
That’s not standard monster behavior.
Even the more advanced constructs she’d seen were clumsy outside their intended terrain. This one adapted in real time. Vector correction. Emergency stabilization. Environmental propulsion. Luna’s eyes narrowed.
That’s way above Velis-level design, she thought. At least.
Almost too advanced for something grown by a dungeon. Almost like it had been built by engineers who expected it to fight in three dimensions. Suspiciously advanced. But Ludger didn’t care. He was already moving.
Before the golem finished arresting its spin, Ludger was on it. Wind detonated beneath his boots as he closed the gap in a heartbeat. He slammed into the construct’s chest and grabbed hold.
His fingers bit into overlapping armor plates, froststeel tips carving through runic alloy with a screech that never made a sound. He tore one of the plates free and flung it aside, exposing the glowing circuitry beneath.
The golem tried to bring its spears down. Too late. Ludger drove his other hand forward.
Blue-white light flared as Freezing Enchantment ignited, then collapsed inward, focused into a tight, destructive cone. The temperature around his palm plunged to nothing. Runes froze. Mana circulation seized. The circuits inside the golem’s chest flash-crystallized.
Then fell apart… From structural collapse. The frozen inscriptions shattered under their own stress, disintegrating into glowing fragments that bled out into the water like dying stars.
The golem convulsed. Its propulsion runes flickered. Its targeting arrays went blind. Its limbs locked mid-motion as the core lost synchronization. Ludger twisted, braced his boots against the labyrinth floor, and wrenched the exposed chest cavity wider. The construct’s light dimmed… And then it went dark.
The massive body drifted, inert, sinking slowly toward the stone below. Viola stared at the wreckage. Luna exhaled through her nose as they moved to the surface to rest for a bit.
“That thing was built like a war machine,” Luna muttered.
The water around them settled, debris drifting in lazy spirals as the labyrinth recalculated its losses. Somewhere deeper, something far larger shifted… And Ludger tightened his fists as he emerged as well.
“Keep moving,” he said.
Because whatever Lucius had gone looking for, it clearly hadn’t wanted to be found by anyone weaker than a siege engine that refused to drown.
They followed Ludger in stunned silence.
The wreck of the first construct sank behind them, broken plates drifting like dead leaves through the dark water. Viola and Luna swam in his wake, eyes fixed on his back, still replaying the way he’d torn a war-machine apart with his bare hands.
Neither of them spoke. They didn’t get the chance. The water ahead rippled. Then parted.
A second shadow surged out of the darkness, far larger than the last, its propulsion runes flaring bright as it accelerated straight toward them. This one didn’t hesitate. It didn’t test. It went straight for the kill.
Four arms unfolded.
Lower arms locked into spear configuration. Upper arms rotated into stabilizers as the construct angled its body like a living torpedo. It charged.
The water screamed around it as it crossed the distance in seconds, stone fins carving a violent wake behind its mass. Its targeting arrays locked onto Ludger’s centerline, predictive algorithms firing off a thousand micro-corrections. Then it struck.
The golem unleashed a barrage of thrusts, spears blurring through the water in a storm of lethal points. Each attack was perfectly timed, layered to overwhelm any guard. The tips burned with condensed mana, drilling forward with enough force to punch through hull plating.
Ludger raised his arms. The first spear slammed into his forearm guard with a concussive shock that rippled through the water. The second struck a heartbeat later. Then a third. Then a fourth. The impact hammered him backward, boots grinding trenches into the stone floor as the construct pressed the assault. Viola’s breath caught.
That’s too much.
Ludger didn’t retreat. He took the hits. Froststeel rang under the impacts as Earthen Overdrive absorbed the force. Then Ludger moved. He caught the next thrust.
His fingers closed around the spear shaft, frost spreading instantly where skin met runic alloy. The second spear followed, and he seized that one too.
The golem tried to pull back. Ludger yanked.
He used the construct’s own momentum to launch himself forward, boots leaving the stone as he rocketed through the water straight into its core mass. He released the spears mid-flight and twisted his body.
His legs snapped around the golem’s neck. Earth Overdrive locked his grip. Rage Control surged. Muscles bulged. Veins burned. His skin flushed a deeper red as heat poured off his body in visible waves.
The water touching him began to boil. Steam erupted around his frame as Ludger twisted. Hard.
Stone plates screamed as torque ripped through the construct’s upper frame. Stabilizers shattered. Propulsion runes flickered and died. Then the neck snapped. Clean.
The head tore free in a spray of fractured stone and frozen mana, tumbling away into the depths as the body went limp. The golem drifted, lifeless.
Ludger released it and landed back on the labyrinth floor in a burst of bubbles and steam. The water around him churned violently as heat radiated off his skin, turning the flooded corridor into a roiling storm.
His eyes burned. Without looking back, he stepped forward again. Stone cracked beneath his boots. The water around his body continued to boil.
And he advanced deeper into the drowned labyrinth like a walking catastrophe that refused to slow down.
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