Chapter 970

As it was, controlling the thing felt less like piloting a proper body and more like forcing a siege engine to imitate one. Every step needed correction. Every turn risked overbalancing if he got sloppy. Even raising an arm without ruining the giant’s posture took a level of attention that made his temples throb.

Still… for an idea he had just come up with, it was already amazing that the thing was working at all.

A fifty-meter construct, built in a poisoned capital, under pressure, without a proper design for the whole structure, and it was still moving well enough to kick runic guardians across the city and carry him toward the wall.

That was good enough. For now.

Poisonous mist rolled around MK 1’s legs as the giant strode through the capital, each step sending tremors through the streets below. Broken buildings passed by at knee height. Towers that once loomed over ordinary people now barely reached its waist. The runic guardians that had not yet been smashed or frozen stayed back, their movements hesitant and badly disordered after the earlier beating.

Ludger kept his attention forward. Toward the wall. Toward the barrier beyond it. That was the only thing that mattered.

MK 1 reached the edge of the capital’s interior and then stepped over the wall, one massive leg lifting high enough to clear the stone fortification before crashing down beyond it with a deep, ground-shaking impact.

Then the second leg started forward… And Ludger felt it. Resistance. Not from the earth. Not from poor balance. Something else. Something in the path itself.

MK 1’s movement slowed as if an invisible weight had caught against the giant’s advance. The mist was too thick to see clearly, even from this height, and the barrier still blended poorly with the poisoned night and rain.

But now that he was this close… he could sense it. The wall itself was not the true obstacle. The barrier was. Not just above the capital. Here. In front of him.

A solid, unseen pressure stretching across the way like a giant invisible surface. The mist bent strangely around it. Rain struck something that could not be seen and slid off in warped patterns. Even the earth giant’s forward motion carried that unmistakable feeling of force pressing back.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. Now he had found it properly. Ludger made MK 1 attack the barrier without hesitation. The giant earth golem drew back one leg and kicked.

The impact hit the invisible wall in front of the capital with enough force to make the night itself seem to jolt. A deep shockwave rippled outward through the barrier, warping the poisonous mist and rain around it in a huge circular pulse. For a brief moment, the invisible surface became visible, not fully, but enough. Distorted lines of force flashed across it like cracks in glass that refused to become real cracks.

Then the barrier held. Ludger’s eyes narrowed.

“Again.”

MK 1 punched this time.

Its massive fist crashed forward, compacted earth and hardened stone smashing into the unseen obstacle hard enough to make the air scream. Another shockwave rolled through the barrier, stronger than before, shaking the wall, the mist, and the ruined ground beneath them. The dome flickered faintly overhead in response, as if the whole structure had absorbed and redistributed the force.

Still no real weakness. No tearing point. No section collapsing. Just resistance. Heavy, stable, infuriating resistance. Ludger clicked his tongue and drove the giant forward again.

Kick. Punch. Elbow. A second punch from the opposite side.

Each blow made the barrier show itself for a heartbeat through violent ripples and warped pulses of light. Each impact proved that the construct could transfer enough force to disturb it. But disturbing it and breaking it were not the same thing. And at the same time, the cost was becoming obvious. After each attack, parts of MK 1 began falling away.

A section of the forearm cracked apart and dropped in heavy chunks to the ground below. Fragments from the shin broke off after the next kick, raining down like broken fortress stone. The repeated impacts were too much even for Ludger’s absurd reinforcement. The giant’s outer shell was hard, yes, but the barrier’s recoil was monstrous, and every strike fed stress back into the construct’s limbs.

Stone chipped. Reinforced earth splintered. Whole portions of the arms and legs began shedding mass with each exchange. MK 1 could keep doing this for a while. But not forever. Ludger stared at the barrier through the mist, jaw tightening.

“I can’t waste time,” he muttered.

His voice came out low and cold. Because he knew exactly what would happen next. The asshole would send more trouble soon. Of course he would.

Alphonse was not the kind of man to watch something like this unfold and simply wait. If Ludger had made it all the way to the barrier with a fifty-meter earth golem, then more traps, more machines, more poison, more hidden pieces were already being moved into place to slow him down.

That meant every second spent here mattered. He needed to break this barrier. Not shake it. Not test it. His eyes followed the distorted pulses spreading through the invisible wall after each impact.

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Perhaps enough attacks would force it to consume more mana. That was possible.

A structure like this could not absorb repeated force forever without cost. If he kept hammering at it, the barrier would have to redistribute energy, reinforce strained sections, and compensate for the pressure. Somewhere in that, mana would be spent.

But Ludger wanted something more definitive. Not a battle of attrition. Not when he was already low on mana, poisoned, and standing atop a construct losing pieces every time it hit back.

He needed a real answer. A weakness. A way to make the barrier fail instead of merely endure. So while MK 1 drew back its damaged arm for another strike, Ludger’s eyes sharpened, his mind already moving past brute force even as he kept applying it.

Because if simple power wasn’t enough… then he would have to find the exact point where power stopped being simple. Ludger clicked his tongue softly as MK 1’s damaged arm drew back for another blow. He should have researched more anti-magic tactics. The thought came sharp and annoying, the kind that only showed up in the middle of a crisis when it was no longer useful as regret and had to be converted into resolve instead.

He had been too busy. Too many enemies. Too many projects. Too many things that needed doing at the same time.

Walls to raise. Routes to secure. labyrinths to clear. recruits to train. politics to endure. monsters to kill. family to protect. By the time he finished one problem, three more were already waiting.

That was the truth of it. And because of that, some things had remained half-studied or pushed aside for later. Anti-magic tactics were one of them. Not because he had ignored them. Because there had never been enough time to dig as deeply as he wanted.

He could work around spellcasters. He could adapt to strange mana properties. He could brute-force most magical problems until they cracked.

But a large-scale barrier like this, stable, layered, and obviously prepared by people who knew what they were doing—was exactly the kind of thing that punished gaps in knowledge. And now that gap had left him here.

Poisoned. Tired. Half-buried in the night atop a giant earth construct while an empire tried to hold him inside its cage.

Ludger’s jaw tightened. It wasn’t like he could prepare for every contingency. That part was obvious. No one could. Not every weapon. Not every trap. Not every hidden formation or insane tactic a desperate enemy might drag onto the field.

Trying to account for every possible problem would have been stupid. But even so… The thought lingered. Useful only because it stung. Ludger shook his head once, hard enough to throw the thought aside along with the rain clinging to his hair.

No. He didn’t have time to worry about that now. Regret was for later. Assuming later happened. Right now, all that mattered was the barrier in front of him and the few precious moments before the Regent sent the next wave of trouble crashing into his back.

So Ludger narrowed his eyes at the unseen wall ahead, let the self-annoyance settle into something colder, and forced his mind back to the only question that mattered.

How to break it. After thinking for a while, Ludger finally came up with an idea. It probably wasn’t the best one. That much he knew immediately. Too crude. Too expensive. Too dependent on forcing the problem instead of solving it cleanly. But he didn’t have time for anything else. He had to destroy the barrier now.

So Ludger exhaled once, lowered his center of gravity atop MK 1’s shoulders, and began to pull.

Not earth this time. Water. All the moisture he had forced into the capital earlier, the unnatural rain, the lingering saturation in the air, the wetness coating rooftops, walls, streets, and ruined districts, he gathered it back with brute control. Mana spread through the capital like invisible hooks sinking into every drop he could still claim.

The effect was immediate.

Across the city, rainwater lifted in streams.

Thin ribbons at first, then thicker flows, drawing upward from shattered roads, rooftop puddles, dripping eaves, broken gutters, and the soaked stones of the battlefield. The poisoned mist twisted violently as its moisture content was ripped apart and dragged toward a single point.

Toward him. Toward the giant. Toward the barrier. Water converged from every direction in long, spiraling currents that gleamed faintly in the night. It looked like half the capital had begun bleeding liquid into the sky.

Ludger clenched his jaw as the pressure built. Then he condensed it. All of it. The gathered mass of water compressed in front of MK 1, shrunk tighter and tighter under overwhelming force until the air itself started screaming from the strain. The shape elongated. Narrowed. Hardened.

And then he froze it.

He forced cryomancy through the entire structure in one violent rush, locking the compressed water into solid form while preserving as much density as possible. Ice spread in an instant, layers crystallizing over each other under absurd pressure until what had once been rain and mist became a single monstrous weapon.

A giant spear of ice. It was enormous.

Longer than several buildings laid end to end, thick enough near the base that ordinary men could have built homes inside its width, and sharpened into a brutal point that gleamed pale in the dark. Frost rolled off it in waves. The rain around it hissed and froze in drifting lines wherever the cold bit too hard.

MK 1 grabbed it.

The giant stone hand closed around the frozen shaft with grinding force, reinforced fingers digging into the ice just enough to hold without ruining the point. For a moment, the whole construct adjusted under the added weight, its stance shifting, knees bending, feet grinding deeper into the soaked ground.

Ludger placed both hands on the giant’s head and poured what remained of his mana into the movement.

All of it. No more holding back. No more saving strength for later. His vision tightened. His breathing turned harsher. Every wound on his body burned as if protesting the decision. But he ignored all of it and drove the power downward through MK 1’s frame.

The giant pulled the spear back. Slowly at first. Then farther. Its entire upper body twisted with the motion, stone plates grinding, joints trembling under the strain while the massive ice spear angled behind it like the promise of a natural disaster.

The ground shook. Rubble slid. Even the barrier in front of them seemed to pulse faintly, as if it already sensed what was coming.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed to slits.

“Go.”

MK 1 threw.

The motion was not elegant. It was overwhelming.

The giant’s whole body snapped forward with a violence that would have torn apart a lesser construct instantly. Its shoulders rotated. Its hips drove through the movement. Its arm whipped forward, and the ice spear left its hand like a piece of winter fired from a god’s siege engine.

The capital seemed to inhale. Then the spear crossed the distance.