“They won’t just hear that something happened,” she continued. “They’ll feel it. Watchers. mages. guards. anyone with decent awareness in the surrounding area.” Her gaze stayed on Ludger. “We won’t have time to do much investigation if we aren’t careful.”

That was the real cost. Not whether they could get in. Whether they would still have enough minutes afterward to matter. Ludger clicked his tongue softly.

She was right. Too much noise too early, and the whole operation turned from infiltration into breach-and-escape before they had even found the first useful throat to put a knife against.

So after a second, he said, “Fine.”

The word sounded reluctant.

Then he added, “We’ll be stealthy.”

That got the faintest shift in the carriage. Not relief, exactly. But something close enough to count.

Because hearing Ludger say we’ll be stealthy was the tactical equivalent of watching a storm agree, very reluctantly, not to flatten the first village it passed.

Rowan finally said, “Then we need signaling anyway.”

That made the whole group think in the same direction at once. Not loud signaling. Not flares. Not obvious magical pulses. Something quieter. Tighter. Timed. Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“We don’t rely on shouted timing.”

Jennifer nodded immediately.

“No.”

Eclaire said, “Visual cues if possible. Mana cues only if they can be masked.”

Luna added, “Or a fixed count after position is confirmed.”

Viola crossed her arms and asked, “And what if one team gets delayed?”

Silence sat there for a second. Because that was the right question. Eclaire looked toward Jennifer.

“If there really are underworld people there as well,” she said, “then the outer guards may not all behave like family retainers.”

Jennifer’s mouth tightened.

“Yes.”

The runic carriage kept moving through the dark while the six of them turned the opening sequence over again and again, building the shape of the breach from pieces that still wanted to resist them.

Three crystals. Possibly more. Outer guards. Possibly underworld support.

A barrier that had to die fast and quiet enough that the real investigation could start before the structure fully woke up.

And Ludger, very reluctantly, agreeing that maybe smashing everything immediately was not the first move. Only the second.

The group reached the location close to midnight.

The runic carriage had stopped well before the actual target, tucked away in the underground. From there, they moved on foot through the last stretch of tunnels, then slipped out into the night and took cover at a distance where they could study the area without immediately becoming part of it.

The air outside was cool and still.

A few kilometers to the east, a city sat under the dark, its scattered lights faint enough from here that it looked less like civilization and more like a low constellation fallen onto the land. Far enough not to interfere directly. Close enough to matter if alarms spread too widely.

And ahead of them, around five hundred meters out, stood a small forest. Or, at least, that was what it looked like to outsiders.

Officially, it was supposed to be the graveyard of the noble family in the area. Restricted ground. Old family land. Sacred enough that common people had no right to wander into it and foolish enough not to try unless they wanted trouble.

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In reality, it was the seal site. The labyrinth lay beneath it. Even from a distance, the lie around the place felt thin once a person knew where to look.

The trees were too evenly distributed in some parts and too naturally uneven in others, the kind of deliberate disorder rich families loved when hiding a structure behind “tradition.” The earth around the perimeter had been disturbed and corrected too many times over too many years. There were old stone markers between the roots, yes, but also routes disguised as paths that weren’t really for mourning visitors at all.

And despite the story that no one was supposed to go there, there were a lot of people moving around the area. Too many. Guards, clearly. But not only guards.

Some wore the cleaner, more disciplined shape of family retainers, armor kept decent, patrol paths consistent, posture steady enough to suggest training and habit. Others were less convincing. They had the look of adventurers at first glance, the kind of rough gear and casual movement that would have made the story of “graveyard watch” seem a little more ordinary if someone glimpsed them from afar.

But Ludger could see it immediately. Criminals disguised as adventurers. The way they watched too much and stood wrong for real wanderers. The way they held themselves near the perimeter instead of through it. The way their caution was not about monsters or wilderness, but about being observed while pretending to be something else.

Luna studied the pattern for a second and said quietly, “The security is too tight.”

No one disagreed.

Then she added, “They probably increased it after the incident with the giant ants.”

That explanation fit.

A recent large-scale disturbance of monsters would have put families like this on edge fast. More guards, more patrols, less trust in normal cover, more layered watchers. It was the obvious reaction for people who preferred secrets over confidence.

Ludger squinted his eyes as he studied the movement more carefully. That made several things worse all at once. Not because the security was merely strong. Because it was alert in the wrong way.

Not panicked, not openly expecting an assault, but carrying the taut vigilance of people who had been told to take irregular threats seriously and had actually listened. The patrol rotations overlapped too neatly. The “adventurers” drifted in ugly half-random arcs that were clearly designed to create unpredictable sightlines. Even the spacing around the treeline felt deliberate, like they wanted no angle left fully unwatched for too long.

That made sense. And that made it troublesome. Because it meant the opening would not just be about crystal anchors and barrier timing anymore. First they had to get close enough to matter without waking the whole perimeter. Which, unfortunately, meant Ludger’s life had once again become more annoying than he preferred.

Ludger lowered himself slightly and placed one hand against the ground. Then he closed his eyes. The others stayed still around him, understanding immediately that this was not the moment for questions.

He let Mana Sense spread outward first, thin and careful, not as a wave meant to probe aggressively, but as a controlled field meant to feel the shape of what was already there. At the same time, he sank Seismic Sense beneath it, threading it through the packed soil, roots, stone pockets, old foundations, hidden reinforcement lines, burial markers, and all the pressure changes left by too many feet moving around the same false graveyard.

The two senses layered together. Mana. Structure. Movement. Intent. And in his mind, the area began to take form. Not in words. In space.

A three-dimensional image of the forest and everything beneath it started emerging in precise sections. The outer perimeter first. Then the movement paths. Then the pressure points where guards paused longer than they should. Then the hidden shapes buried around the forest edge where the sealing logic converged.

He followed the pulse of the barrier feed. Once. Then again. And the map sharpened. Six crystals. Not three. Six.

Placed wider than he would have preferred, but not randomly. Three on one rough axis, three on another, the whole pattern feeding into the labyrinth seal from multiple directions so the structure could stay stable even if the environment shifted. Clever. Annoying. Exactly the kind of overbuilt caution a family with too much to hide and too much military influence nearby would use.

At the same time, the people around the site came into clearer focus. A lot of them. Too many. At least fifty guarding the perimeter.

Not all in one formation. That would have been easier. No, they moved in linked groups, drifting and overlapping in a way designed to prevent blind spots while keeping enough spacing that any disturbance near one route would be seen by another. Family guards. False adventurers. Criminal watchers. A few heavy points that looked more like response teams waiting in reserve than simple patrols.

They weren’t joking around.

Ludger kept his eyes closed a few seconds longer, making sure the map in his mind had settled properly. Six crystals. Fifty-plus bodies. Reserve points. Rotating sightlines. Weakest approaches. The likely rhythm of response if the first line broke.

Then he said quietly, “There are six crystals.”

That drew a very small shift through the group. Because the night would not be content with being merely difficult. Ludger continued without opening his eyes yet.

“You move toward them when I use a flash of light in the forest.”

Now everyone was listening hard.

“Another flash of light,” he said, “is the signal to destroy the crystals.”

That was clean. Simple enough to survive tension. Complicated enough to still be dangerous. He opened his eyes. The map stayed in his head.

Then, without another word, he reached to his sides and equipped the hand crossbows. The mechanisms locked around his wrists with those smooth, tight motions Raukor had built into them, the weapons settling into place like they had been waiting all day for this exact moment.

The metal sat along his forearms cleanly. Ready. Mana-fed. Built for one-handed firing and fast transitions in confined spaces. Ludger flexed his fingers once.

Good. Then he looked toward the false graveyard and the forest hiding the sealed labyrinth beneath it. It was time for the cleanup work.