Eventually, Ludger crossed the final bend of the first zone and stepped into the wide, glacial expanse of the second. The air here was colder, heavier—each breath cutting like glass. He already had this area mapped out, every choke point and ice ridge memorized. Still, soloing the monsters here was his kind of warm-up. Predictable pattern, solid resistance, good for shaking off rust.

He adjusted his armguards, the faint hum of the heaviness runes resonating just beneath the metal. “Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s see how much fun you make this.”

The sound reached him first—a deep, echoing crunch of armored steps. Then the frost paladin emerged from the mist, towering and broad-shouldered, its ice-forged armor glinting in the faint blue light. It let out a hollow snarl and charged, shield raised, spear angled like a lance.

Ludger didn’t bother dodging. He grounded himself, arms up, and met the blow head-on.

The impact slammed into him with a crash that would have shattered a lesser fighter, but this time—nothing. The runes pulsed once, the weight of his armguards absorbing and redirecting the force into the frozen ground. Ice cracked beneath his boots, but he didn’t budge.

The paladin reeled back, confused for half a heartbeat. Ludger exhaled, a short, irritated groan escaping as he focused, condensing energy into his right arm. He drew his fist back. The air around it warped slightly under the compressed weight.

Then he punched.

The strike connected with the paladin’s shield, and the world cracked. The rune-laden armguard hit like a siege ram—ice and froststeel splintered in a single shattering pulse. The paladin was launched backward, tumbling across the frozen floor in a blur of armor and shards before coming to rest against a jagged pillar.

It twitched, the remnants of its shield dissolving into icy dust. Slowly, it pushed itself upright, spear trembling in its hands—but the protection it relied on was gone.

Ludger rolled his shoulders, his breath fogging the air. “Without that shield,” he muttered, “this’ll be easy.”

The runes on his arms glowed faintly again, like predators’ eyes in the dim light, as he stepped forward to finish what he’d started.

The frost paladin steadied itself, its hollow eyes burning faintly blue—but its footing was unsteady, its guard wide open. Ludger didn’t give it time to recover.

He closed the distance in three silent steps, frost cracking beneath his boots, then twisted his body into a tight, practiced motion. The heaviness runes pulsed dark red once more, concentrating mana along his arm as he drove a clean uppercut into the creature’s chest.

The result was instant. The paladin’s torso caved in, the ice armor splintering from the inside out. The shockwave rippled through its frame, and the creature burst apart in a storm of glittering frost shards. For a moment, the air shimmered with residual mana before all that remained was silence—and a fading echo.

Ludger straightened, lowering his fist as the glow from his runes dimmed. “Good warm-up,” he muttered, shaking a few flecks of ice off his gauntlet.

Then, his vision flickered.

[Rune Crafter Class – Level Up!] (+4 INT, +4 WIS, +4 DEX.)

[Skill Acquired: Mana Conduction Lv. 1]

Allows the user to create temporary mana channels between two engraved runes or enchanted objects, enabling short-range energy transfer or combined effects.

Channels remain stable for up to 30 seconds before dispersing.

Efficiency and stability scale with Intelligence and Wisdom.

Mana Cost: 60 per channel (continuous drain).

Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly as the familiar blue text faded from view. “Combined effects.” he murmured. “That’s going to make things… interesting.”

He flexed his hand again, already calculating how far he could push it. He only knew a single rune, but he was planning to learn more of them… given that it seemed that he would need to spend a lot of money to buy books that teach them, then he might as well keep fighting for a while longer.

For now, though, he let the thought simmer. The labyrinth was still wide open ahead, and there were plenty of skeletons left to test new ideas on.

“Alright,” he said under his breath, resetting his stance. “Let’s see what else I can really do.”

Ludger didn’t think much as he fought—just moved. Strike, pivot, crush, repeat. Every motion was habit now, muscle and instinct doing what they were made for. The frost paladins came one after another, and one after another, they fell—shattered shields, splintered armor, cold dust scattering across the ice.

When the last of them broke apart, Ludger didn’t stop. He wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his brow and started toward the next spawning point, boots echoing on the frozen floor. He wanted to see how far he could go before exhaustion forced him to retreat.

Even without consciously planning it, his steps took the shortest path through the second zone’s corridors—he’d memorized them long ago. The air grew heavier, the tunnels wider. Before long, he stood before a wide archway of solid frost, jagged like a beast’s maw—the entrance to the third zone.

He’d never gone beyond it. Not once.

The northerners had tried early on—teams of them, strong warriors who treated danger like an old friend. But they’d come back limping, frostbitten, sometimes carried on makeshift sleds. Broken arms, shattered legs. After a few days of that, they simply stopped trying.

Kharnek hadn’t liked it. Ludger remembered the man’s frown when he’d asked.

“What’s in there?” he’d said.

Kharnek had only grunted. “They don’t speak of it.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Ludger had pressed.

The old chieftain’s answer stuck with him: “No true warrior tells the tale of his defeat. They’ll heal their bones and let the silence say the rest.”

Now, standing at the threshold, Ludger stared into the pale mist beyond. The air that seeped out was colder—thicker, heavier with mana. It tasted like danger.

His knuckles tightened unconsciously. He could go in. He wanted to go in. But reason whispered caution. Alone, even he wasn’t sure what waited past that point.

For a moment, he just stood there, breathing slow, eyes tracing the faint runes etched into the ice at the zone’s edge. Then he exhaled, long and measured. “Not today,” he muttered. “But soon.”

He turned back the way he came, the frost beneath his boots cracking softly—already planning how to prepare for the next time.

Ludger stopped there for a few more seconds, staring into the pale mist that marked the boundary of the third zone. Logic told him to turn back. Every rational part of his mind agreed. But then the thought slipped in—quiet, simple, and irritatingly familiar.

Fuck it.

He turned on his heel and started forward. If this was a mistake, then fine. Even he deserved to make one now and then. Or perhaps more often than not.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped like a blade. His breath froze in the air, and the chill crawled under his skin, biting at bone and nerve alike. The tunnels here were wider—massive, easily fifty meters across—and eerily silent. No rattle of bones. No flicker of light. Just frost and emptiness.

Then the shaking started.

At first, he thought it was his own trembling from the cold. Then the ice under his feet vibrated, a low, steady rumble rolling through the corridor. He clenched his jaw, instinctively pulling mana through his veins. The sudden flare of heat burned away the creeping numbness—Rage Flow igniting like a furnace inside his chest. His blood felt alive again, hot and heavy.

And then he saw it.

The wall ahead—no, the wall itself—shifted. Cracks spread like lightning veins, shards of frost falling away as something massive tore itself free from the ice. A hulking shape emerged, the mist swirling around it like a shroud.

A rider.

The creature sat astride a monstrous, skeletal horse rimed in blue flame and frost. The beast’s eyes glowed with ghostlight, every snort blasting out a cloud of icy vapor that froze the ground where it landed. The rider above was clad in thick, jagged armor—like the frost paladins, but heavier, more deliberate. Old. Purposeful.

And in its hand, it carried a glaive.

Not a spear—this was something else entirely. The curved blade gleamed like frozen moonlight, the edge sharp enough to make the air hiss. Just the blade’s point was the size of Ludger himself, wicked and cruel, shaped for killing rather than war.

Ludger tightened his stance, exhaling steam through clenched teeth.

“Well,” he muttered, the faintest smirk ghosting across his face. “Guess I found out what broke the northerners.”

The frost rider lowered its weapon. The horse’s hooves scraped the ice, sparks of blue mana trailing in their wake. Then it charged.

The instant the frost rider moved, Ludger knew he was outmatched.

One step—just one—and the creature covered ten meters in a blur, its glaive cutting through the air with a shriek that made the walls hum. The force alone carved a shallow scar across the frozen floor. Even from that distance, Ludger could feel the weight behind it.

A fair fight would be suicide.

Maybe his reinforced armguards could block a few strikes—but for how long? One slip, one angle off, and that glaive would take his head clean off his shoulders. Or his arm. Or both.

He didn’t hesitate. Survival and instinct were faster than thought.

He threw his arms wide, mana surging down to his palms. The glow started faint, then flared bright—raw earth mana flooding his veins, crackling through the carved lines of the armguards. The ground under his boots trembled, webbing with cracks as the power built.

The rider got closer.

Ludger slammed his hands together.

The air detonated.

A massive shockwave of mana burst outward, a column of compressed mana exploding from his palms like a cannon blast. The shock tore across the icy corridor, shards flying, the temperature spiking from the friction alone.

“Turtle Shock Wave!” Ludger shouted, because—hell—he felt like he had to. Viola would’ve been proud of the stupidity.

The name echoed off the walls, ridiculous and defiant, as the blast engulfed the charging beast. The explosion of sound and force drowned everything else out.

The rider’s glaive hit the incoming wave and shattered the ground beneath it, but the mana burst didn’t stop—it slammed into both mount and master, sending them skidding backward in a storm of frost, shattered armor, and mist. The walls shook. Fractures raced up the ceiling, scattering shards of glowing blue ice like glass rain.

When the dust finally settled, Ludger stood in the middle of the frozen corridor, breath steaming, chest heaving.

He stared at his hands for a moment and muttered, “God, that was dumb.” Then, under his breath, “...but worth it.”

As the mist began to thin, Ludger’s pulse slowed just enough for him to register what he was seeing—then stopped dead cold.

The beast was still standing.

Chunks of its armor hung off in slabs, the rider’s chest split open to reveal a frozen ribcage pulsing faintly with blue fire. The mount’s legs were half gone, hooves cracked, one side of its skull missing—but it refused to fall. It just stood there, trembling, steam rising off the ruin that had once been its flesh.

Ludger swallowed hard. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He could probably finish it now; its movements were slower, off-balance. The fight should’ve been easier. But then he saw its eyes—those hollow, glacial orbs burning with unnatural light. The way they locked onto him made his skin crawl. There was no pain in that gaze, no rage. Just intent.

A chill crept down his spine, colder than the air itself.

He shifted his stance again, boots grinding frost. His hands went to his sides, palms open, fingers trembling—not from fear, but from the strain of pulling what little mana he had left. This time, he wasn’t holding anything back.

The air started to vibrate as he drew everything he had into one final pulse. His vision swam, edges of the world darkening as mana gathered thick in his veins. The ground around him cracked under the pressure, his breath turning to vapor as his body temperature spiked.

The frost rider moved.

Its skeletal hand rose slowly, the massive glaive lifting with it. Ludger watched as the monster angled the weapon, flipped its grip, and—

His stomach sank.

Throwing stance.

“Oh, fuck.”

He saw the muscles—or what was left of them—coil tight along the creature’s arm. The glaive hummed, frost flaring along its curved edge. It wasn’t just going to swing. It was going to launch the thing like a spear.

Ludger’s mana flared brighter, teeth clenched, every nerve in his body screaming as he prepared to release his last attack. One wrong move and that glaive would go clean through him.

And still, even as the corridor shook under the tension between them, a grim, reckless grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Alright,” he muttered, voice low and sharp. “Let’s see who throws first.”

Ludger brought his hands together, palms aligned and fingers locked tight, the glow between them intensifying with every heartbeat. The energy condensed, the air around him twisting under the pressure—raw, violent mana pulled into a single, trembling point. His arms shook from the strain, the sound of crackling stone echoing through the corridor as the floor splintered beneath him.

Across the ice, the frost rider coiled like a drawn bow. The beast’s undead steed reared, hooves scraping sparks of frozen light. For a moment, both man and monster stood still, locked in the kind of tension that only ended one way.

Then the creature moved.

The rider’s entire torso twisted, the glaive blurring as it left his hand. The air didn’t even have time to scream before the weapon shattered the sound barrier—its flight so fast it warped the world around it.

From Ludger’s perspective, it didn’t even look like a throw. One moment the beast still held the glaive; the next, the weapon was just there, a breath away from him. Like his vision had lagged—like the world had skipped a few frames.

Too fast.

He didn’t think. He couldn’t.

Instinct took over. Ludger’s mana flared, the energy between his palms collapsing inward before detonating outward in a compressed shock.

“—Turtle Shock Wave!”

Why did he shout the name? Because stupidity is definitely a virus. The name tore out of his throat as the explosion erupted point-blank, the corridor lighting up like a small sun. The blast met the glaive mid-flight, the impact sending a blinding surge of force through the frozen air. The weapon’s trajectory shattered, shards of frost and mana scattering like molten glass.

The shockwave slammed back into Ludger, driving him half a step into the cracked ice, his arms locked in place. The recoil stung like fire, but he didn’t budge.

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