A dry, deafening crack tore through the air like stone splitting deep within a mountain.
The blade of the Golem Sentinel howled coldly, leaving behind a lingering, ominous echo, like the aftershock of an earthquake that had just erupted.
Diavel and the girl wielding the Tachi could no longer withstand the ferocious strike. They were flung away like kites in the wind, staggering and tumbling across the ground.
And then, only silence remained. But it wasn't the silence of peace. It was a thick, suffocating stillness, like the calm before a storm, where one couldn't tell if their heart should keep beating or stop altogether.
Ren almost forgot how to breathe in that moment.
His gaze caught sight of two terrifyingly plunging health bars...Diavel and the Tachi-wielding girl, once the pillars of their formation, now their HP was down to the flickering yellow line.
Part of his mind screamed in alarm, but the rest was trapped in a haze too thick to break free from.
His fingers clenched tightly around the sword's hilt, as if it were the last anchor on a crumbling earth.
One heartbeat out of rhythm. One unconscious step back, not out of fear, but because his mind was scrambling to reorient itself.
Earlier, it had just been a crack. Now, it was a strike that nearly claimed two lives.
No one spoke. Every mouth was caught, words frozen in their throats. There was no need for words to understand. The utter despair and creeping terror flashed in each person's eyes, A low-level boss shouldn't be able to strike like that.
But it just did.
Nautilus could barely believe his eyes. He raised his sword, though his arms trembled even though he hadn't been hit.
He glanced at the Golem, then at Yuna beside him, as if calculating distance, time.
But the more he calculated, the tighter the anxiety gripped his chest. No one would make it in time if they were targeted next.
"If that strike had been aimed at me… would I still be standing?"The thought surfaced like a blade slicing through a budding sense of confidence.
Yuna said nothing. She stood tall, but the resolve in her eyes had dimmed.
A quick glance toward Ren, almost like a habit too ingrained to break...but that glance lasted less than a second. And yet…
…in that look was a storm of emotions: helplessness, vigilance, doubt… and somewhere, the silent plea for someone to show her what to do now.
Lind, who always carried himself with confidence....sometimes arrogance, was now gritting his teeth so hard the sound could be heard.
His eyes darted between the Golem and his fallen teammates, muscles tensed like drawn bowstrings. But no one missed the hesitation in his eyes, should he advance, or fall back? Keep attacking, or defend until death?
Should they run?The main exit had collapsed during the first strike...but it wasn't hopeless.
A gaping hole still hung above them, with faint threads of light filtering down.
Shivata froze, his hand hovering near his waist, where a healing item peeked out from beneath cloth. But his eyes remained locked on the boss. Not out of desire to strike, but from fear that if he looked away, the next one to fall would be him.
Chest was different. No hesitation, no wavering, he simply stepped forward to shield the others.
The air grew heavy, as if there were no oxygen left to breathe. There were gasps, hurried footsteps, blades clashing in the chaos that had just erupted.
One by one, the entire team was pulled into the vortex of panic, though each tried desperately to mask it behind a cold exterior.
Everyone understood.This was no longer a typical boss fight.
This was a deathmatch, with something not necessarily stronger, but far more ruthless.It didn't just want to defeat them. It wanted to break them.
And amid the shattered silence, a single dry sound rang out, the noise of Diavel forcing himself to stand.
His arm still trembled, his elbow nearly numb, but his hand clutched the sword hilt like it was part of his own flesh and bone.
Sweat dripped along his temple, mixing with red pixelated blood oozing from his shoulder, but his eyes blazed with something long lost. Not duty, something deeper. A quiet, seething anger. Not at the Golem.
At himself.
He looked up, staring straight at the stone beast that watched them with hollow eyes. No one knew what he would say. But no one needed words right now.
The fact that he stood, that was the answer.
And then, like the final spark falling into a powder keg, Diavel's action became the ignition.
The entire room seemed to be drained of air in an instant, before exploding into a storm of footsteps, clashing steel, and shouted commands echoing off every wall.
"Don't let it attack again!"Diavel took a deep, burning breath, and charged, his voice hoarse but resolute.
And that very shout, strained, dry, decisive, was the command everyone had been waiting for.
No discussion. No confirmation.Each member broke from their position, driven by a shared combat instinct forged in blood and survival.
All hesitation was burned away by the looming threat of death.
Shivata was the first to move. He slid along the wall like a shadow, moving swiftly but silently, his heels making no sound on the stone floor. From his belt, he pulled out a glowing teal recovery potion and threw it straight toward Diavel.
The throw didn't need angle adjustment, it was instinct, a complete trust in the trajectory forged by one's own hands.
"Hold steady!" Shivata shouted, eyes still locked on the Golem as it turned its body. "We'll handle the rest!"
There was no time for persuasion or encouragement. His words cut through the air like a blade.
"Use this chance to recover," Shivata added, his voice dropping to a grim undertone, like a warning before a coming storm. "We can't afford to lose our leader right now."
At that exact moment, like a spring wound too tight, Nautilus burst out from the rear lines.
Fear was etched deep in his eyes, the kind that had rooted itself in him since the moment he set foot in this world.
But now, it no longer made him tremble. It had been compressed, strangled down into a raw form of determination: If I don't act, no one else will.
He dashed to the right, cutting across the Golem's field of view, forcing its trajectory into an unnatural hesitation.
Nautilus roared, voice rasping through tightened breath: "Over here! I'm right here!!"
The sword in his hand glowed, activating its first skill: Horizontal Arc.
A gleam of light burst forth like a shooting star tearing across the darkness. It struck the Golem, forcing the hulking beast to turn fully toward him, not just from the damage, but from sheer provocation.
No hesitation. No delay.
Nautilus slid sideways, unleashing a flurry of thrusts. His slashes came so fast the air itself seemed to compress, four strokes carving a rectangular frame between the Golem's chest and shoulder, forming a hovering sigil between the two entities.
It flashed for less than a heartbeat, then suddenly collapsed into a single point, Nautilus's custom skill, focusing all the damage into one sharp explosion.
-73-88-61-102
The string of damage numbers appeared coldly, almost... mocking. They popped up on the screen, then faded away, mere scratches on the stone armor as hard as titanium of the Sentinel Golem.
Nautilus stood there, panting, sword still raised, but his eyes were numbed by the brutal grip of reality.
He quickly leapt back a few steps to dodge the creature's sword.
The Golem… didn't recoil. Didn't falter. Didn't roar in pain. Instead, the stone merely cracked slightly...like a burnt-out matchstick.
The slash merged into a spiderweb of cracks already spread across its strange stone plating.
The feeling of helplessness lodged itself deep in Nautilus's chest.
Even my strongest sword skill... is this all it can do?
The Golem's health bar barely moved. His four strongest attacks… hadn't even drained it significantly.
And then, as if to answer the fragile hope that had just flickered into existence, the Golem moved.
It didn't roar. It wasn't enraged. It simply lifted its massive arm with calm indifference, as if brushing aside a gentle breeze.
Just as Nautilus stood frozen, stunned by the creature's sheer defense...
...the Golem Sentinel didn't hesitate at all. Its left arm, not bulging with muscle nor massive in size, but encased in solid stone armor, whistled through the air like a sharp axe blade.
The monster moved with terrifying speed, closing the gap between it and Nautilus in mere moments.
Nautilus had no time to react. His eyes widened, knees bending instinctively to dodge, but...
A sharp sound tore through the air, like metal crashing into boulder at breakneck speed.
Ren's sword, dark steel glinting with a faint black hue, slammed into the Golem's forearm, just as the swing was about to strike Nautilus.
Ren's body became the lone barrier between life and death. He had slid in from a diagonal angle, no one had seen the moment he arrived.
A Slant, a simple skill, but executed at the perfect time and angle, cut into the Golem's moving arm, diverting the swing entirely.
The arm froze mid-motion, its arc knocked downward into the stone floor, shattering the ground with a thunderous rumble.
Ren said nothing. He exhaled sharply, stepped back half a pace, his sword arm numb, his heartbeat pounding like it was trying to burst from his chest.
Nautilus stared at him, stunned.
Ren's eyes remained cold, no scolding, no emotion. He spoke a single sentence, light as a passing breeze, but impossible to ignore:
"Get up. You're not dead yet."
Without waiting for a reply, Ren turned and slid behind the Golem with impossible speed, like an arrow loosed from a fully drawn bowstring.
"Slant!"
Black Fang lit up, a pale violet gleam running down its edge. Ren activated Vorpal Strike, plunging it into the Golem's right knee joint.
-204
The number appeared, not massive, but clearly deeper than any before. Not because the skill was stronger… but because of the target: a weak spot, the joint where two stone plates connected.
The blow caused the Golem to stumble for half a second.
A narrow opening had been created, and Ren wasn't about to keep it to himself.
"Chest!" he shouted, not even turning his head.
A roar erupted from the other side, echoing off the stone walls like a lion's fury.
"On it!"
Chest's shadow darted in from the far side.
He swung his sword, activating the heavy skill Cyclone Cleave. His weapon carved a bright semicircular arc, landing directly on the spot Ren had struck.
-355
The Golem froze, for the first time...for real.