Luna’s warning still hung in the air when a faint sound drifted down one of the side corridors—a slow, metallic scrape… scrape… like chains being dragged over stone. Another came from the opposite passage, softer but unmistakable.

Viola’s grin faltered. She shifted her grip on her sword. “More?”

Ludger straightened, eyes narrowing as he tilted his head to listen. The echoes multiplied—soft clinks, distant grinding, a faint hiss of mana stirring the dust. Not just one or two. Several.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “More.”

The torchlight at the edge of the nearest bend flickered as if something large was moving just out of sight.

Ludger’s jaw tightened. We’re boxed in at a junction, so it makes sense. Not smart to stand here and wait for whatever’s coming.

He turned sharply to the middle path. “Move. Now.”

Viola blinked. “What? But—”

“Now,” Ludger repeated, his voice cutting through her hesitation. “We’re not holding a line here. Too many angles, too many unknowns. We move before they surround us.”

Luna stepped to Viola’s side, guiding her with a light hand on the shoulder. “Go. We can fight if we have to, but better to pick the ground.”

Viola swallowed her protest and fell in behind Ludger as he led them down the center corridor at a quick but steady pace. The scraping sounds echoed behind them, growing fainter as the junction disappeared around a bend.

The torchlit walls twisted again, swallowing them deeper into the labyrinth. Ludger didn’t look back. We’ll fight on our terms, not theirs.

Ludger kept his pace steady but fast, eyes flicking to every dark recess. Viola moved just behind him, sword drawn, the echo of her boots muted by the rough stone. Luna brought up the rear, one hand under her cloak, fingers brushing the hilt of her blade.

They were almost at the next bend when the scraping stopped. The silence pressed in, thicker than the darkness.

Ludger’s instincts screamed a half-second before it happened. “Down!”

A mass of dark plates dropped from a hollow in the ceiling ahead—an iron elemental, but bigger than the first, its limbs segmented into jagged blades. At the same instant, a second one erupted from the wall to their right, its torso bursting free of a camouflaged seam like a trapdoor spider.

Shards of iron spun around them, then fired in a dense volley.

Ludger swung up his arms, his red-silver guards ringing as they caught the first wave of projectiles. Sparks showered the corridor. “Move!” he barked, voice sharp.

Viola pivoted on her toes, narrowly dodging a second volley, and slashed at one of the iron limbs as it lashed out. Her blade bit deep, but the plates held together under the mana binding them.

Luna had already slipped sideways, her dagger flashing to deflect a shard aimed at Viola’s exposed flank. Her movements were clean and efficient, her face expressionless.

Another spray of iron bullets hissed through the corridor, gouging pits into the walls where they struck.

“Don’t stop!” Ludger shouted, blocking another barrage. “Break through—now!”

The corridor was too tight to form up properly; every second they stayed meant more projectiles in the air.

Viola gritted her teeth, Weapon Enhancing flaring back around her blade. “Got it!” she yelled, ducking low and charging forward.

Ludger followed right on her heels, armguards up, taking the brunt of the incoming fire as they tried to punch through the ambush.

The corridor turned into a cage of flying iron. Shards screeched off Ludger’s armguards, the clangs echoing like hammer blows in a forge. He planted his boots wide, teeth clenched, absorbing every impact he could so nothing reached the girls behind him.

“Viola—make a gap!” he barked over the ringing noise.

“On it!”

Her blade flared as [Weapon Enhancing] surged back into it, brighter than before. The air around the sword hissed from the mana burn. She ducked under a volley of shards, rolled forward, and came up right under the bigger elemental’s floating torso.

With a roar she slashed upward. The first stroke severed one of the thing’s bladed limbs. She pivoted, the tip of her toes biting the stone, and swung again in a diagonal arc that left a streak of light across the corridor.

The elemental shuddered. Its limbs twisted as if trying to reassemble, but her third strike hammered through the lattice of plates, splitting it down the middle.

Ludger stepped in behind her, armguards absorbing a last barrage from the second elemental as it tried to flank them. “Go!” he snapped.

Viola leapt backward just as the bigger creature came apart, its plates scattering to the floor in dull chunks. The narrow corridor cleared for a heartbeat.

“Run!” Ludger’s voice cut like a blade.

They surged forward through the gap Viola had made, boots hammering against stone, iron shards crunching underfoot. The second elemental tried to reorient behind them, but its volley went wide, ricocheting harmlessly off the walls.

Viola’s chest heaved, sweat glistening on her brow, but a wild grin split her face. “That worked!”

Ludger smirked, still moving. “Keep running. We’re not clear yet.”

Luna slipped up on Viola’s other side, her dagger still in hand, eyes scanning ahead for the next threat.

The torchlight ahead flickered over a wider space—a chamber opening up past the bend.

They burst out of the narrow passage into a wider chamber, their boots skidding on grit. The space opened into a low-ceilinged cavern studded with jagged iron outcrops and flickering torches that cast more shadows than light.

Behind them came the grinding scrape of pursuit—the second elemental sliding and clattering along the floor like a living guillotine, limbs rearranging as it gained on them. Its glowing “eyes” burned hotter, and a fresh volley of iron shards hissed past Ludger’s shoulder, sparking against the wall ahead.

Ludger’s jaw tightened. Running like this just gives it a perfect angle to shoot at our backs… but we’re already moving—no time to set up a wall.

He shifted his stance mid-stride, red-silver armguards snapping up to intercept the next barrage. Shards rang off the metal in sharp, hammering clangs, each impact jarring his shoulders. “Viola! On my mark!” he barked.

“Right!”

He twisted aside, letting the elemental’s limb slash past him, then slammed one armguard against it to deflect its charge. The thing staggered for half a heartbeat, its torso plates opening just enough.

“Now!”

Viola pivoted on her toes, mana flaring around her blade again. She lunged back toward the monster instead of running, bringing her sword down in a brutal arc. The first strike sheared through one of its legs, the second chopped into its floating torso.

The elemental shrieked in a soundless vibration, plates scattering as the mana binding them unraveled.

Another volley of shards spat out as it fell apart—Ludger raised his guards and took them all, sparks bursting around him.

Then the creature collapsed in a rain of dull chunks, its glowing eyes winking out.

Viola panted, grinning despite the sweat. “Got it!”

Ludger lowered his arms slowly, rolling his shoulders. This tactic is messy… but it works as long as I keep taking the hits.

He glanced at her, voice flat but edged with approval. “Good timing.”

Luna moved up beside them, scanning the shadows with her dagger still ready. “We should move before something else comes.”

Ludger nodded once. “Agreed. Let’s go.”

Viola was still catching her breath when Ludger crouched by the scattered pieces. The elemental’s body had already begun to dull, the glossy iron sheen draining from its limbs until they looked like ordinary rubble. Only a single lump, no bigger than a fist, glimmered faintly in the pile—dense ore shot through with veins of pale mana.

He picked it up, rolling it between his fingers. “Another core,” he muttered. The weight felt different this time—denser, more compact, the mana still thrumming faintly inside. “Same trick as before… heart stays, shell dies.”

He dug his knuckles into one of the lifeless plates. It crumbled like soft stone under the pressure. A few more punches and the surrounding shells fell apart completely, breaking into chalky fragments. Aside from the core, all of it was dead weight.

Viola crouched beside him, still grinning despite the sweat streaking her face. “So we can keep these cores?”

“They’re worth something.” Ludger slipped the new ore into his pouch next to the first. “Or they might be useful for something else.”

Luna stood a step back, dagger still in hand, her eyes never leaving the twisting corridors leading out of the chamber. “We can’t stay here long. If more are coming, they’ll hear the fight.”

Ludger straightened, brushing dust from his knuckles. “Yeah. We move.” His gaze flicked to the three passages leading deeper. “But we pick the path this time instead of letting it pick us.”

He adjusted his armguards and looked at Viola. “Stay sharp. This was just a warm-up.”

Viola swallowed but squared her shoulders, tightening her grip on her sword. The labyrinth’s breath rolled over them again—cool, metallic, and damp—as they prepared to slip deeper inside.

Ludger knelt near one of the torches driven into the wall, its flicker casting a pale glow over the rough stone floor. He tugged a folded sheet of paper and an old pen from his pack—one of the few luxuries he always carried—and flattened it across his knee.

While Viola wiped her blade clean and Luna kept watch at the edge of the chamber, he began sketching quickly but with a steady hand. Lines for the stairwell. A square for the first junction. Three branching corridors. Cross-hatching for the chamber they were standing in now.

“We’re not wandering blind,” he said without looking up. “Every turn, every fight, we log it. That way, if we have to retreat—or if someone follows us—we know exactly where to go.”

Viola tilted her head, watching the quick marks appear on the page. “You’re… making a map?”

“Yes.” Ludger’s pen scratched out another turn. “It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to keep us alive.”

Ludger added a small X at the spot where they’d fought the elementals and circled the direction they’d come from. He marked the other two passages with question marks. “We’ll pick one of these and keep marking as we go. With this much twisting, we can’t rely on memory alone.”

Viola gave a little hum, impressed despite herself. “You really think ahead, huh?”

Ludger capped the pen and slipped it back into his pack, folding the map carefully. “Someone has to.” He stood, glancing at the dark corridors ahead. “Now, which way do we want to risk first?”

The cool, metallic wind from the labyrinth whispered past them as the three of them stared at the black mouths of the passages, the flicker of the torches making the shadows seem to move.

The three of them stood in silence for a moment, weighing the dark mouths of the corridors. Each one exhaled a different draft—left smelled damp and stale, right carried a faint metallic tang, and the center… was steady, the air clearer, with the torches set a little more regularly.

Viola adjusted her grip on her sword, then pointed with the tip. “That one. The middle.”

Ludger raised an eyebrow. “Reason?”

She shrugged but kept her voice steady. “It looks easier to track back from. Fewer twists, better lit. If we need to retreat, we won’t get turned around.”

Luna glanced at her, unreadable, then nodded slightly. “Practical choice.”

Ludger studied the corridor a moment longer, then smirked faintly. “Not bad. You’re learning.” He pulled the folded map back out long enough to draw a line into the middle path and mark it.

Viola puffed her chest just a little, though her grin was tempered with focus this time. “Told you I can think too, not just swing a sword.”

“Let’s hope you can keep doing both,” Ludger muttered, tucking the map away and stepping forward.

The middle passage yawned ahead, wide and straight, the torchlight stretching into its depths like a trail of bread crumbs. Their boots echoed against the damp stone as they moved in, the noise of the earlier fight fading behind them. The labyrinth accepted them without a sound.

The middle path stretched on for what felt like several hundred meters, its walls straight and regular, the torchlight brighter than in the other corridors. Then, without warning, it opened into a wider chamber carved out of the rock like a vast underground hall.

Rusty mining carts sat toppled on their sides, their wheels half-buried in grit. Piles of cracked pickaxes and bent shovels leaned against the walls where miners had once left them. A pair of collapsed scaffolds lay in splinters across the floor, and everywhere were veins of dark ore glinting faintly under the torchlight. The air smelled of iron dust and stale water.

Viola slowed, eyes darting around the ghostly equipment. “Looks like a mining outpost…” she whispered.

Luna moved in a little, eyes scanning the shadows between the carts. “Abandoned,” she said quietly. “No fresh footprints.”

Ludger took a cautious step forward, gaze sweeping the high ceiling where jagged ridges cast deep shadows. He was about to speak when a faint metallic scrape echoed from behind them. Then another.

His instincts flared. “Down!”

Too late—the shadows at the edge of the corridor behind them rippled. Three iron elementals peeled themselves out of the rock, their segmented limbs unfolding like trapspring spiders. They had been part of the wall a heartbeat ago.

Viola spun, her blade snapping up, but their glowing cores were already brightening. Shards of iron detached and hardened mid-air, angling toward the trio like a dozen knives.

Ludger crossed his arms, red-silver armguards ringing as the first volley slammed into him. Sparks skittered off the floor. “We’ve got company!”

Luna slid to Viola’s flank, dagger flashing as she knocked aside a stray shard meant for the girl’s head. Her face stayed calm, but her eyes had gone cold.

Viola’s pulse raced; she could feel the force of each impact rattling Ludger’s guard. “Three of them?!”

Ludger’s jaw clenched. “Stay tight. Hit back hard or we’ll be buried here.”

The chamber that had seemed wide a moment ago now felt like a killing ground.

The three elementals shifted, their floating plates glinting in the torchlight like serrated blades. More shards detached from their limbs, hardening mid-air with a hiss of mana.

Ludger raised his armguards to catch the first volley, the impacts ringing up his arms like hammer blows. Sparks danced across the floor. Behind him, Viola’s breath came quickly, her grip white-knuckled on her sword.

I could end this right now, Ludger thought, teeth clenched. A few full-power Mana Bolts and these things would be scrap.

Another spray of iron bullets slammed into his guard. But she’ll never learn to handle real fights if I keep bailing her out. She needs to feel the tension, the ambush, the noise—the moment when everything tries to crush you and you still swing anyway.

He shifted his weight, eyes flicking to her. “Viola—move!” he barked.

Her head snapped up. She took a breath, [Weapon Enhancing] flaring back to life around her blade, the glow brighter than before. “Got it!”

She darted forward under his guard, weaving between the next volley of shards. One clipped her shoulder, but she kept running, sliding between two of the elementals as their limbs reoriented to fire at her.

Luna didn’t miss a beat. She stepped in smoothly, her hand flashing from under her cloak. Two small knives spun from her fingers in quick succession, each one slamming into a glowing joint just as it formed another shard. The barrage faltered for an instant, giving Viola a clean line.

Viola planted her toes, pivoted hard, and brought her sword down in a sweeping arc. The first elemental split at the torso, its plates scattering across the stone floor.

Ludger stayed back just long enough to absorb the next wave of shards from the remaining two, his armguards ringing. She’s holding her ground. Good. Keep the pressure on.

He adjusted his stance, the faint glow of Mana Bolt already forming at his fingertips in case she faltered.

“Don’t stop!” he barked. “Cut them down before they regroup!”

Viola’s eyes were fierce now, her breath coming in controlled bursts. “I’m on it!”

Luna slid in behind her again, another knife ready. The chamber rang with the sound of iron on stone, the glow of mana, and the harsh breaths of three people trying to stay ahead of an ambush.

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