Aden's first instinct when he heard the thunderous footsteps was simple.
Run.
He pressed himself against the cold stone wall, his pulse hammering in his ears. The rhythmic sound wasn't just loud—it was calculated, steady, like the ticking of an enormous clock.
"Nope. Nope. Not doing this."
But the temple wasn't big on giving him choices. The passage behind him had sealed shut the moment he entered, and the only way forward was through the massive chamber ahead.
Aden swallowed hard. His palms were sweaty, fingers twitching near the handle of his knife—not that it would do much against something big enough to shake the ground.
The first thing he saw when he peeked around the corner was legs the size of pillars.
The golem stood at the center of the chamber, its body woven from stone and metal. It wasn't moving much, just shifting slightly with every step, but Aden knew the moment it noticed him, he was dead.
He tried to breathe quietly, forcing himself to think.
Okay. Okay. There's always a trick. There's always—
A sharp click beneath his foot.
Aden's stomach dropped.
The golem's head snapped toward him.
For a single, stretched-out second, neither of them moved.
Then it lunged.
Aden screamed and threw himself out of the way as a fist the size of a wagon slammed into the ground, shattering the stone floor.
He hit the ground hard, barely managing to roll to his feet. His legs felt like jelly, his breath coming out in quick, panicked gasps.
"Oh, great," he wheezed. "Big, fast, and wants to kill me. Perfect."
The golem wasn't stopping.
Aden ran.
---
He wasn't fast enough.
The golem's next step sent a tremor through the chamber, nearly knocking Aden off balance. He staggered, catching himself at the last second, but the golem was already adjusting its movements—predicting where he'd go.
It was moving in a pattern.
Step. Step. Step. Pause.
Step. Step. Step. Pause.
Aden barely dodged the next strike, feeling the wind from the attack brush against his back.
He wasn't fighting this thing. He couldn't.
But… maybe he didn't have to.
He forced himself to watch its movements, even as his brain screamed at him to just keep running.
Three steps, then a short pause.
It was like a dance.
A stupid, terrifying, "I'll die if I mess up" dance.
"Oh, this is gonna suck."
He hesitated for half a second—then, instead of running blindly, he moved with the rhythm.
The golem swung, but Aden sidestepped right as it paused.
It adjusted, shifting forward but the pause gave him just enough time to slip behind it.
"Okay. Okay. I can work with this."
His breathing was still ragged, his legs shaking, but his mind was catching up.
"I can't outrun it. I can't overpower it. But I can outsmart it... or I can outdance it!"
The golem roared and pivoted faster than he expected.
Aden panicked, tried to dodge
Too slow.
The back of the golem's arm clipped him mid-turn, and he went flying.
He barely managed to tuck into a roll, but the impact still knocked the breath out of him. He lay there for a second, his vision spinning.
"Ow."
The golem turned toward him again.
Aden's stomach knotted. He wasn't gonna win this. He knew that.
But he wasn't dying here.
Not in this temple. Not like this.
---
Step. Step. Step. Pause.
Aden's brain worked through the pain, through the fear, through the exhaustion clawing at his limbs.
If he couldn't break the golem
He had to break its rhythm.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself up, ignoring the screaming protests of his body.
The golem charged again.
Aden waited.
Waited.
At the last second instead of dodging away, he moved toward it.
The golem swung wide, expecting him to retreat but Aden was already underneath its arm, sliding past its strike instead of away from it.
Its fist slammed into the wall instead of him.
The golem staggered.
And for the first time
it hesitated.
Aden grinned wild, breathless, half-mad from adrenaline.
"Oh," he gasped out. "You don't like it when things go off-beat, do you?"
The golem whirled, its movements growing more erratic. But now Aden wasn't just dodging.
He was leading the rhythm.
He baited it into swiping too early, stepping too hard, overcommitting to its own attack cycle. Each time, it lost more balance.
It tried to correct itself but Aden kept changing the beat.
And then, finally
The golem overextended.
Aden ducked past its last attack, landed near its ankle joint, and slammed his knife into a small gap between the metal and stone.
It wasn't a strong attack.
But it was enough.
The golem lurched forward off-balance, off-pattern, too heavy to catch itself.
And with a final, earth-shaking crash, it collapsed.
---
Aden lay on the ground, sucking in desperate gulps of air.
His hands were trembling, his limbs screaming, his body aching all over.
He turned his head slightly, staring at the motionless golem.
Then he laughed.
Hysterical, breathless laughter, spilling out between exhausted gasps.
"That… that was the dumbest thing I've ever done." He wiped the sweat from his face. "Holy shit, I need to go lie down."
The temple, as always, did not care.
The far wall rumbled open, revealing yet another dark passageway.
Aden groaned.
"Of course. Of course there's more."
He dragged himself to his feet, legs barely holding him up.
"I swear," he muttered, limping toward the entrance, "if the next trial involves another oversized rock, I'm punching the architect of this place in the face."
The darkness swallowed him whole.