Ludwig sidestepped without effort, barely a pivot of his foot, and Redd’s slash carved only dust.
Another slash came. And another. Wide arcs of wild fury. Each one missed Ludwig by inches—deliberate inches.
Ludwig didn’t flinch. He didn’t retreat.
He walked.
A single, lazy step. Then another.
For him, after having fought-no, survived a godlike being, the movement of such a ‘beast’ was like that of a toddler to Ludwig’s trained eyes.
He moved inside the arc of Redd’s swing and gently tapped the underside of Redd’s elbow with two fingers, throwing off his balance. Redd stumbled forward and snarled, catching himself with a ground-pounding claw.
“Stand still!” he roared.
“I am,” Ludwig replied, softly.
Redd leapt again, rage boiling. His claws swept outward in a flurry of diagonal attacks—slashes fueled by witchcraft, by [Carnophage] power, limbs no longer bound by human motion.
Ludwig ducked under one strike, tilted around the next. His movement was surgical. Clean. Almost too minimal to be believable.
A shoulder shift.
A neck lean.
And he was gone—each time just outside the edge of the killing arc.
He hadn’t drawn a weapon.
He hadn’t raised his voice.
He was dismantling Redd without fighting back.
Redd’s growls began to hitch with frustration.
“You think you’re better than me?!”
“No, I don’t think so,” Ludwig said quietly. “I know I am.”
The words struck deeper than any blade.
The Skin Walker behind Redd hissed, her voice an echo on the wind. “He’s playing with you…”
“Shut up!” Redd shouted, his voice cracking. “SHUT UP!”
He flared with more power. The crimson in his eyes deepened. Veins pulsed visibly across his arms and face as his aura surged outward with unstable energy—[Carnophage] fully activated, now bordering on uncontrolled.
He dove in, not with finesse, but desperation.
And that was when Ludwig moved with intent.
A simple pivot brought Ludwig’s left hand up, catching Redd’s forearm at the wrist as the claws swept toward him.
The strike stopped. Instantly.
Ludwig didn’t budge an inch.
The full strength of a possessed bandit—enhanced by spiritual witchcraft—met with Ludwig’s hand…
…and failed.
The might of a beast pales against the limitless strength of an Undead Being.
Redd snarled, teeth grinding as he pushed. “Why—aren’t—you—moving!?”
“Because,” Ludwig said quietly, “you’re not worth the effort yet.”
Redd’s howl was feral. Incoherent. Blood sprayed from his lips as his rage boiled over into something less than human.
“DRAW YOUR DAMN SWORD!” he screamed.
Ludwig’s eyes flicked upward.
“Sure, for that Hope of yours, Show me… how fleeting it is…”
Silently, wordlessly, he raised his right hand—and in a quiet shimmer, a black glint emerged from his ring.
The air thickened.
Space itself seemed to bend around it.
Oathcarver was not summoned with a roar. It arrived in silence.
A presence. A silhouette of steel and judgment.
The blade manifested in Ludwig’s hand like it belonged there. Like it had always been there.
And it dwarfed him.
Longer than a man was tall. Broader than most shields. Matte black with jagged edges, its surface scarred from countless trials. No shine. No ceremony.
Only weight.
Oathcarver made the ground crack where it landed.
Redd stopped moving.
His breath caught. His claws retracted slightly. His pupils shrank.
The aura that surged from Ludwig in that moment was different—not angry, not passionate, but suffocating in its stillness.
Like a prison cell with no air.
“…Wh…what is that…?” Redd muttered.
“That’s the sight of your hope… fleeting,” Ludwig answered.
Redd lunged. Desperate. Screaming.
And Ludwig moved.
No technique. No spell. No flourish.
He brought the blade around once.
Just once.
A wide, low sweep, not to kill—but to redirect.
Oathcarver met Redd’s charge mid-step, its flat side colliding with his ribs—not slicing, but slamming. Redd’s entire body was lifted off the ground, sent crashing into the mud with a brutal crunch.
He gasped.
He tried to stand.
But he couldn’t.
Oathcarver’s flat was suddenly there—pressed gently against his throat. Not cutting. Just resting.
Yet the sheer pressure made it hard to breathe.
Ludwig leaned slightly forward, still calm. Still silent.
His eyes bore into Redd’s.
“You wanted to see it,” he said softly. “Now understand it.”
The Skin Walker hissed again, wrapping around Redd’s body protectively.
“He could have killed you,” she whispered. “He still can.”
Redd’s face twitched. Not from pain.
From realization.
“You’re…” he stammered, “you’re not a noble… no noble would wield such a monstrous weapon…”
Ludwig didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Because in that moment, Redd understood.
He wasn’t the predator.
He wasn’t the king of this forest.
He was a frog.
In a well.
And Ludwig?
Ludwig was the sky.
Silence.
The kind of silence that doesn’t settle gently but crashes down like a wave. The kind that fills the lungs and makes it hard to breathe.
Oathcarver sat still across Redd Dos’s throat—just barely grazing the skin.
It wasn’t the cut that threatened him.
It was the potential.
The infinite weight that lingered behind that blade. The certainty that if it moved again, it would not stop.
Redd trembled. Not from pain.
But from the profound understanding that he had crossed a threshold—that he had looked into the eyes of someone who lived beyond him, far beyond, in a different realm of strength, of experience… of judgment.
A creature, not a man.
Ludwig didn’t move.
His arms didn’t shake.
His expression didn’t change.
He was still.
Like a guillotine waiting for the signal.
Timur exhaled slowly, his arms dropping to his sides. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then:
“…Well,” he muttered, scratching the side of his beard, “I suppose that’s that.”
Gorak gave no verbal response. He merely tilted his head. A subtle nod—approval, perhaps. Or recognition.
Robin slid his dagger back into its sheath, almost too gently.
“Told him,” he muttered, not smug—just matter-of-fact.
Melisande blinked once. Then again. Her mouth parted as if to say something, but no words came. She settled for folding her arms and letting out a slow, exasperated breath.
“You can’t have this level of drama anywhere else. I needed popcorn,” she mumbled, though the tension in her shoulders slowly bled away.
Around them, the other bandits stared—wide-eyed, pale, and frozen in place.
No one reached for a weapon.
No one dared breathe too loudly.
The spell wasn’t just Oathcarver.
It was the way Ludwig moved.
It was the deliberate slowness. The control. The implication that he could have crushed Redd with the same effort one might swat a gnat—but chose not to.
Power restrained was often more terrifying than power unleashed.
Redd’s claws twitched. Then retracted.
His eyes—once bloodshot and full of fury—now blinked slowly, the beast within him receding into something small. Something scared.
The Skin Walker coiled around him, protective but no longer whispering vengeance.
“She’s afraid,” Ludwig thought. “And so is he.”
He let the blade rise.
Not a flourish.
Just a lift.
He stepped back, Oathcarver returning to his side with a weighty thud as it was anchored into the dirt.
Redd remained on the ground.
His hands trembled as he pushed himself to his knees. He looked up—not in defiance, but confusion. The kind of confusion that doesn’t come from loss, but from exposure.
From realizing you’ve lived your whole life under a lie.
“…Why?” Redd rasped.
Ludwig looked at him, his eyes flicking down briefly.
“Because it served no purpose.”
Redd’s lips parted.
No words came.
He looked around—at the bandits behind him. They avoided his gaze. Some looked ashamed. Others terrified.
“…We’re bandits,” he whispered. “We were strong. We had—this land. We had—”
He swallowed hard.
“You’re not from this world,” he said to Ludwig. “Are you?”
Ludwig tilted his head slightly. He was confused. Was this just a way of speech, or was he onto something?
“I am,” he replied. “You’re just too deep in your own well to see where the walls end.”
The phrase landed like a hammer. Echoed through the still air.
“A frog in a well sees only the sky above,” Ludwig added. “You’ve been roaring in darkness, thinking it makes you a god.”
The Skin Walker hissed behind Redd, curling in tighter.
‘She’s not defending him,’ Ludwig realized. ‘She’s hiding behind him.’
Redd looked down.
Then—slowly—he knelt fully. Not as an offering. Not in submission.
But in realization.
“…What do you want?” he asked, voice barely above a breath. “You proved your strength, just don’t hurt my people.”
“No boss!” one of the bandits said as he slid in between ludwig and Redd, “Even if we die!” he said holding his shaking weapon forward, “We ain’t letting you die for us!”
“Peter! put your weapon away!”
Ludwig sighed and then glanced behind him. In his group.
“I’m not intending on killing anyone, I just want the path,” he said. “To Mira.”
Redd nodded once. Slow. Mechanic.
“There is one,” he murmured. “A hidden road. Through the west cliffs. it reaches straight into the royal road, right toward the city. All you need to do is keep moving in this direction,” he pointed at the bushes.
Ludwig said nothing.
He turned.
Behind him, the group began to move. Robin first, vanishing into the woods like a breath of smoke. Timur walked with a low grumble, but no longer on edge.
Melisande cast one last glance toward Redd—something complicated in her eyes. Not pity. Not mercy. Just… contemplation.
Gorak passed last. He didn’t speak. Just looked down at Redd as he moved past.
For once, Redd did not return the glare.
Ludwig followed at the rear.
Oathcarver vanished in a flicker of light, pulled back into the ring.
The moment it was gone, the forest seemed to exhale.
The tension thinned.
But the scar it left behind remained.
As they walked deeper into the trees, the Skin Walker whispered softly behind them—only loud enough for Redd to hear.
“…What was he?”
Redd didn’t answer.
He didn’t have the words.
All he could do was stare down at the place in the dirt where the blade had rested—and understand that, for all his rage, for all his power…
He was a footnote.