Pride’s golden eyes narrowed as Ludwig stepped into the palace carrying neither uncertainty nor hesitation. There was no exploratory caution in his gait this time, no testing of boundaries, and no reckless charge disguised as confidence. He walked like a man retracing steps he had already memorized, and that alone changed the air between them.

"This world... how come it... returned?" Pride asked, and for the first time, Ludwig heard something in his voice that had never existed before. It was recognition, not full understanding, not yet, but enough instinct to realize that something fundamental had shifted. The palace itself seemed quieter because of it, as though even the mirrors and golden halls understood that Pride was not greeting an intruder anymore. He was observing an anomaly.

Ludwig pulled out a massive tusk and held it in his hand before resting it over his shoulder. The curved ivory was stained dark from old blood, its surface etched with faint traces of golden residue that had never fully faded after the Red King’s corruption.

"You remembered... so you learned, and so you changed..." Ludwig said, grinning beneath the warped visor of Noctivex. "That’s good. Means I was right."

Pride’s gaze shifted briefly toward the tusk, and that tiny motion told Ludwig everything he needed to know. Pride knew. Not everything, perhaps, but enough. He had already reached the same conclusion Ludwig had reached before him. Pride-touched objects could bypass his protection, and his own influenced existence had become the loophole. That meant the fight had already changed before either of them made a move.

Golden weapons did not rise from the floor. No floating spears formed behind Pride, and no palace-wide barrage of authority manifested overhead. Instead, Pride simply stood there with his hands lowered at his sides, posture immaculate and still, adapting in silence.

Ludwig snorted. It was loud, obnoxious, and entirely genuine, echoing through the chamber with the kind of amusement that seemed to insult Pride more than any threat could have. "There it is," Ludwig said, pointing the tusks directly at him. "There it fucking is."

Pride’s expression hardened as he stared at Ludwig. "You find amusement in futility."

"No," Ludwig replied, lowering the mace slightly while his grin remained fixed beneath the visor. "I find amusement in watching perfection improve. Again"

Something invisible shifted in the room. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but Ludwig saw it immediately. There was a tightening around Pride’s jaw, a fractional delay in the next breath, and a microscopic pause that lasted less than a heartbeat.

Pride had already stepped onto the same contradiction that killed him last time. The only difference now was that he had done it much earlier, and the realization visibly irritated him. Golden light intensified around his frame as the palace reacted to his emotional instability. The mirrors lining the walls began vibrating softly in their frames, thin cracks spidering outward across their surfaces like fractures spreading through frozen water.

"You misunderstand," Pride said, his tone lower now and more controlled. "Correction is not growth. It is maintenance of perfection."

Ludwig placed a hand over his chest dramatically, as though the logic had physically wounded him. "Oh wow," he said, shaking his head with exaggerated pity. "That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard." Then he lunged.

The fight that followed was brutal but short. Pride had abandoned ranged weaponry entirely, choosing instead to weaponize raw authority through pressure, spatial denial, and direct force. Marble shattered beneath Ludwig’s boots as invisible force attempted to pin him in place, but Ludwig had already died to these mechanics more times than he cared to count. He knew every timing, every rhythm, and every invisible threshold hidden beneath Pride’s movements.

When Pride raised his left hand, Ludwig ducked before the crushing force arrived. When his gaze shifted slightly right, Ludwig sidestepped the spatial severance that followed. When Pride planted one foot forward, Ludwig already knew the palace floor beneath him would rupture, and he moved before the golden authority could claim the space he had occupied a moment earlier.

It was less a fight and more a rehearsed execution, not because Pride was weak, but because Ludwig had become monstrously efficient. Noctivex reinforced his body just enough to survive contact while refusing full transformation, allowing him to move leaner, lighter, and faster than before. Every action served one purpose, and that purpose was to get close.

Pride finally understood this too late. By the time he attempted to widen the distance, Ludwig was already inside his guard. Nightbreaker swung high in what looked like a decisive blow, and Pride reacted to it instinctively, raising his forearm to intercept. It was the wrong choice.

Ludwig released the weapon entirely, letting the expected attack vanish before it could be countered. His left hand came up instead, and the Red King’s tusk drove forward with all the force Ludwig could generate. The sharpened point punched through Pride’s abdomen and emerged cleanly through his back, forcing both of them still in the center of the collapsing golden chamber.

Pride looked down slowly at the tusk buried through him. His golden eyes widened again with that same expression, as if surprise itself offended him. "You..." he whispered, the word catching somewhere between disbelief and insult.

Ludwig leaned closer, gripping the embedded tusk with both hands to force it deeper. "Still not perfect."

A small notification flickered at the edge of his vision, almost insulting in its simplicity:

[-1 HP].

The palace began collapsing almost immediately afterward. Golden cracks spread across Pride’s skin like fractured glaze over porcelain, while blood leaked from the wound, first gold, then rapidly dulling into human red. It was the same transformation, the same unraveling, and the same death repeating itself in a room that had already learned to fear the outcome.

Notifications flooded Ludwig’s vision, but he ignored all of them.

He left the tower. Looked up, it was still dark.

His face turned sour.

He was late.

Again.

He spoke to Gale and Kaiser, informed them of the same tasks he did before. And touched his lanter.

"Send me back," Ludwig muttered immediately, and the lantern responded with merciless familiarity as the system filled his sight:

[Rewind has activated.] [Termination has activated.] [90% soul loss incurred.] [You Died.]

The next runs blurred together until Ludwig stopped treating the tower like a challenge and began treating it like logistics.

Each floor became a checklist, and each death became route optimization. He learned which fights were mandatory, which rewards mattered, which persons could be ignored, and which detours wasted precious hours. He deliberately sacrificed entire runs just to shave minutes off traversal, abusing death points ruthlessly, discarding unnecessary loot, skipping needless talk, baiting enemies into environmental kills, and weaponizing prior knowledge with shameless efficiency.

Some runs failed because Pride adapted faster.

Others failed because he was less efficient.

A few failed because he exited the tower too late by months, then by weeks, then by days, and every failure became another incision carved into the route until there was nothing left but the most efficient path forward.

Each death taught him something. Each failure refined the route further. Days became loops, loops became routine, and routine became obsession. By the time Ludwig finally succeeded, the process no longer resembled adventuring. It resembled speedrunning reality itself, stripping away everything unnecessary until only the required sequence remained.

When he emerged from the Tower of Trials again, cold mountain air hit his face. There were no warped heavens above him, no ruptured skyline, no descending tendrils, and no corpse-strewn apocalypse waiting beyond the peak. The sky above Lufondal was still blue, ordinary and almost painfully beautiful.

Ludwig stood frozen for a moment with the lantern still in hand, as if his body did not fully trust what his eyes were telling him. After everything, after nearly a year trapped in recursive death, the world had not ended yet. He exhaled a long, exhausted breath and murmured, "...Finally."

Both Gale and Kaiser were waiting outside, before the large still intact walls surrounding the tower.

"Ludwig, you took longer than expected..." Gale’s spoke.

"How long was I in there?" Ludwig asked, his eyes still fixed on the sky.

"A little over a couple hours, what happened that got you caught up? Was pride that powerful?" Gale replied, and Ludwig nearly laughed despite himself.

A couple of hours... After everything, after nearly a year trapped in recursive death, he had done it. The relief lasted only a second before his expression sharpened again. "What’s the situation outside?"

A pause followed before Kaiser answered instead, his voice carrying the kind of hesitation Ludwig did not like. "Something feels amiss... strange even..." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Ludwig’s grip tightened around nightbreaker. "How strange?"

"The skies... they are restless. And I feel dark mana gathering." Kaiser said. I sent a few undead critters an hour ago, and heard some strange news about occurrences in Solania."

"What sort?" Ludwig said, almost dreading the news.

"Refugee caravans. Military mobilization. Increased patrols from Solania and neighboring territories. Something is happening there..."

Ludwig looked toward the distant horizon. So he had made it in time, barely. It was not enough to relax, but it was enough to intervene.

"Good, the worst hasn’t happened yet..." Ludwig took a deep breath.

"The worst?"

"Yes," Ludwig said, "We’re facing some very dark days... and we don’t have much time to stop it. We’ll need to head to Solania."

"That’s a lot of news to digest... wait... return by death, you experienced it? How bad?" Kaiser asked. Almost dreading the reply.

"World ending bad..."