The moon sank, and the sun began to rise.
The darkest hour had passed, giving way to the pale light of dawn.
Yet, the morning light could not fully reach Isla Machina, shrouded as it was in steam.
As though rejecting the laws of the world itself, the island remained dark, dull, and oppressively humid.
It was an hour when most people fell asleep rather than woke.
That alone showed how out of sync Isla Machina was with the rest of the world.
The sun rose slowly over the ocean’s horizon, unfurling like a blooming flower.
Its radiant beams scattered across the waves, shattered into countless fragments of light—only to be swallowed up by the island’s mist.
The world blurred into a pale haze.
A realm of white and gray vapor rose like a dreamscape.
At its center towered a massive steel spire—
A sharp pinnacle stabbing into the heavens, symbol of the New Mage Tower, a modern Babylon.
And Ludger stood on the rooftop of a nearby building, gazing toward that colossal structure.
“So, this moment really came after all.”
Cravat, standing beside him, murmured with a strange mix of nostalgia and awe.
His voice was muffled by the drifting fog and moisture in the air, but Ludger heard him clearly.
“It begins now. Once I prepare the spell, you’ll cast the curse and then pull back.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I was planning to. I’ll need to fine-tune the curse for that girl afterward, anyway.”
Ludger pulled a pipe from his coat.
A spark of flame danced on his fingertip as he lit it and drew in deeply.
The potent strength of the poisonous herbs seeped through his lungs and into his bloodstream.
To an ordinary person, it would have meant death—a hundred times over.
Even a knight would have coughed up black blood. But Ludger was unfazed.
For him, poison was little different from medicine.
The toxic energy surged through him, transmuting into mana as it flowed outward.
A bluish mist began to rise, curling around him.
Mana fog.
Ludger controlled it with effortless precision, bending it to his will.
With a slight motion of his hand, the mist gathered, condensing above his open palm.
Cravat watched intently.
‘Using that venom as a mana source is absurd enough—but that level of control?’
The mana gathered in Ludger’s hand was enough to make Cravat’s skin tingle.
Not just physically—it exerted a psychological pressure that made the air heavy.
‘Well, with that much power, I suppose he really can take on the New Mage Tower.’
But to release mana of that magnitude without loss would normally be impossible.
Before Cravat could finish the thought, the bluish glow in Ludger’s hand began to take shape.
It solidified into a massive, double-edged sword.
Over five meters long, it gleamed with the faint light of condensed mana.
It looked like a siege weapon made to tear down fortresses—or perhaps a hunter’s blade forged to slay giants.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
Before him stood an iron Goliath.
‘To shape and contain mana of that scale so perfectly... that’s insane.’
Not a single wisp of power leaked. Every thread of mana was gathered cleanly—
no waste, no turbulence.
To control it so completely that it became a flawless, solid form—
only a monster could do that.
Cravat, who rarely judged or admired others, couldn’t help but think so.
A monster with a human heart.
“Ready?”
“...Yeah.”
Cravat began to infuse his own power into the enormous blade of mana.
The force of an ancient curse—
a power that crushed, corroded, and spread decay like a plague.
A red aura seeped into the blue sword.
Normally, the two energies should have clashed violently.
But under Ludger’s perfect control, they merged instead.
His mana and Cravat’s curse intertwined seamlessly.
The once-blue blade deepened into a dark violet hue.
Magic and black magic fused together.
—The Blade of Corruption.
“I’ll head back first. Make sure you succeed.”
With the curse imbued, Cravat’s part was done.
He withdrew as planned, leaving only a quiet wish for Ludger’s success.
Ludger nodded once in reply.
The violet blade floating above him aimed at the middle section of the Mage Tower.
He sent a signal through the communicator.
“Starting in ten seconds. Ready?”
[Yeah, yeah. Don’t rush me.]
“For this to work perfectly, not even a one-second error is allowed. You have to freeze time at the exact instant my spell hits the tower. Can you do it?”
Even before he finished speaking, Gariel’s laugh came through the line.
[Did you just lecture a time mage about timing errors?]
His voice brimmed with confidence—a stark contrast to his anxious tone from the night before.
[My time never slips.]
“Good.”
Ludger smiled faintly and fixed his eyes on the towering structure ahead.
The operation began.
He launched the violet sword toward the Mage Tower.
A sharp whine split the air as the blade shot forward like a beam of light.
Ping!
A long afterimage trailed through the fog as it tore across the sky, leaving a gaping tunnel in the steam.
The moment the Blade of Corruption struck the tower’s outer wall, its defense systems activated.
A magitech barrier—designed to repel external assault—flared to life.
The fusion of modern technology and magic rippled outward from the tower’s surface.
Layer upon layer of shimmering barriers unfolded.
Though it housed scholars and researchers, the New Mage Tower was nothing short of a fortress—equipped with every cutting-edge innovation.
The old Mage Tower had been similar, but this was an entirely different scale.
A home for mages, a research facility, and the most impregnable fortress in the world.
A citadel that no bomb nor siege engine could ever breach—
now raising its shield to repel the intruder.
The impact came almost simultaneously.
Ludger’s sword slammed into the enormous mana barrier.
In raw power and output, the defense system had the clear advantage.
Even with amplifiers, no individual could rival the mana reserves protecting an entire structure.
No matter how efficiently he had crafted the blade, compared to the tower’s scale, it was a toothpick against a fortress.
But Ludger’s sword wasn’t about brute force.
Cravat’s ancient curse, layered over it, defied that logic.
This wasn’t the modern kind of hex woven by formulas and theory—
it was a true curse, born from ritual and mystery, that ignored all conventional resistance.
Keening—!
The magical barrier, locked in a struggle with the sword, began to crack from the center outward.
The curse burrowed in, corroding it from within, spreading its rot through every layer.
The first barrier collapsed instantly.
The sword surged forward.
The second and third walls melted or crumbled in the same fashion.
Layer after layer shattered—until finally, the blade pierced the tower’s main wall.
It sliced through it as easily as tofu.
BOOM!
A blazing purple line cut through the sky.
The streak of light traced perfectly across the tower’s midsection.
A gaping hole burst open in the outer wall.
And it didn’t stop there.
The sword carved straight through the interior, tearing through floors, walls, and supports before punching out the far side.
Ludger watched in silence.
A massive passageway now pierced the tower—something no intruder had ever achieved.
But within seconds, alarms began to blare.
Walls would seal, partitions would fall, and mages would be awakened to respond.
All of that would happen in less than five seconds.
“But for him, five seconds is more than enough.”
At that instant—
Tick.
Time stopped.
“You really made quite the mess, didn’t you?”
Within the frozen world, Gariel looked up at the tower.
The violet beam cutting through the air made him whistle in disbelief.
That lunatic had actually broken through the tower’s defenses with a single strike.
Well—perhaps not entirely alone. Cravat’s curse had made it possible.
‘Still, knowing him, he probably could’ve done it solo anyway.’
With that idle thought, Gariel moved toward the tower.
WEEEOOOON!
Emergency sirens wailed across the island.
Their heavy echoes rolled through the morning mist like an ominous sunrise bell.
From the rooftop, Ludger watched the spectacle.
“Faster response than expected.”
Had Gariel managed to retrieve the target inside?
He forced himself not to dwell on it.
Now wasn’t the time to worry about Gariel.
War mages burst from the tower’s interior—New Mage Tower’s combat division.
They flew through the air toward him, riding waves of magic.
Their swift and coordinated formation showed they were no mere scholars locked in labs.
‘Not my problem. I just need to escape.’
But before he could move, Ludger sensed something behind him—and smirked.
“I knew you’d show up.”
He ducked his head just as something sharp sliced through the air where it had been.
Without turning, Ludger drew his sword cane and swung.
Clang!
The attacker blocked, but the sheer force sent him skidding backward.
Ludger turned.
A black coat. A fedora. Pallid skin.
“Again, is it.”
“John Doe.”
The creature tilted its head, rolling its strange, glassy eyes toward him.
One of Nikolai and Victor’s biological experiments.
And this one—clever enough to follow orders and even speak.
A special specimen, no doubt.
It gripped a massive greatsword in one hand—proof that it could use tools skillfully.
“Of course, you didn’t come alone.”
At his words, the creature’s mouth twisted into a grin.
Moments later, more figures landed on the rooftop.
Each one clad in a black coat and hat, skin ghostly white.
They held various weapons and stared at Ludger with eyes full of killing intent.
“So you were waiting to pounce the moment I showed myself. Cunning bastard.”
Nikolai could have interfered before the operation began—but hadn’t.
He’d chosen to strike after things were already in motion.
A slow, cruel method—meant to choke Ludger gradually, to break him under pressure rather than end him quickly.
Even a small delay now could be fatal.
‘Even if they’re enhanced, there’s no way mere test subjects can stop me.’
Then he noticed them pulling injector vials from inside their coats.
“Of course. You wouldn’t make it that easy.”
If they hadn’t, Ludger might have been disappointed in Nikolai.
Shhk.
The experiment subjects injected the serums.
Moments later, they ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) began convulsing, drooling as their bodies expanded grotesquely.
Muscles bulged beneath their coats, veins swelled red and blue across their necks and faces.
“Experimental stimulants, huh.”
They were already powerful, and now they’d been doped beyond reason.
Just how strong were they now?
Fwish!
Ludger’s eyes caught the faint sound of air being cleaved.
In less than a tenth of a second, his shadow-clad body flickered out of sight.
Weapons slashed through the space he’d just occupied.
The attacks landed almost simultaneously—so close their sounds blended into one.
Ludger reappeared in a nearby alley, straightening up from the darkness.
Then—he had to leap aside again.
BOOM!
A test subject crashed down where he had stood.
Its legs sank ankle-deep into the ground, cracks spiderwebbing through the alley walls.
‘They tracked me that fast?’
So they could detect his position somehow.
Had they developed a way to trace his short-range spatial shifts?
“This way! I heard something here!”
To make matters worse, the war mages were closing in on the scene.
