Six...
Only six survivors remained.
No one spoke. Not because they understood what had just happened. Not because they had nothing to say.
But because... in that moment, words had completely collapsed.
They were crushed under the weight of reality.
The entire space felt strangled between two invisible, colossal hands, compressed, bent, condensed into a cold mist that blanketed the battlefield.
No more wind. No more footsteps. Only silence, like a blade driven deep into each chest.
An unnamed, formless dread silently slithered through every shadow, weaving through each remaining heavy breath.
Everyone's eyes were still trapped in that moment, when four bodies were torn apart, blood pixels bursting like cruel fireworks amid the brutal wave, and then... vanished.
No time to call names. No time to hold on. No time to cry.
And then...
A thunderous crash tore through the deathly silence. A raw, bone-dry sound, like a mountain crumbling. The ground trembled in waves, dirt and rock hurled upward like skin being ripped from bone.
It... had moved.
The Golem Sentinel.
The deadly stone knight, clad in armor forged from dense, time-worn rock, worn down by age, cracked by war, every line like dried blood scars etched into a body as hard as forged steel.
But that thing... was no longer a sluggish mass of stone. No longer the predictable mobile machine recorded in previous combat data.
It charged forward.
A dash that defied the very concept of reason.
Its speed... was nearly unreal.
That entire body sliced through the air, creating tearing gusts. Every footfall shattered the earth, making stone slabs crumble beneath it like offerings beneath the feet of a god.
Sparks flew as its armor scraped together, flickering in the dim light from the cave ceiling, reflecting the pale, frozen faces of the survivors.
Ren... was nearly paralyzed.
"NOOOOOOO!!"
He screamed, his throat burning raw like it was torn open by claws. The scream was no longer a warning, it was a last will, stabbing through the space between life and death.
His legs launched forward, not out of courage, but from the survival reflex of someone who had once stood before death.
The sword was already in his hand, though he didn't know when. His boot twisted hard into the ground, his body leaning forward like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
"Diavel! Fall back! It's not the same anymore!"
But...
It was too late.
Diavel had just landed, struggling to get up after being flung away by the monster. His body still trembled from the pain, his breaths shallow and broken, each beat like the tolling of a death bell.
Lind stood nearby, gripping his sword so tightly his veins bulged, but his eyes were empty, frozen, as if his soul had not yet caught up with real time.
They hadn't realized. That the balance had shifted. That they... were no longer the hunters.
But the prey.
The Golem Sentinel remained silent... it was rare for it to emit any sound from that ancient stone helm.
The silence was like hundreds of boulders being crushed in the same instant, a voiceless roar, not of anger, but of protective instinct.
No hatred. No mind. Only a primal command engraved deep in its data core: Eliminate intruders.
Its right arm, encased in thickly layered stone like a fossilized bone shield... rose high, surpassing even the jagged shadows on the cave's ceiling.
One beat.
Two beats.
No one reacted in time. No one escaped the kill zone.
And then...
IT STRUCK.
Then, a flash of light.
Ren's blade slashed through the air, fast as lightning, cutting into the side of the Golem Sentinel's fist. The blow was slightly off, but the recoil was so powerful that Ren was hurled back, his body yanked as if by invisible strings.
His arm went numb from the force, but before he could breathe, before he could regain focus, the stone sword of the knight came roaring toward him at a speed beyond evasion.
Swift. Clean. Unforgiving.
No time to think. No room to prepare. In one desperate instant, Ren barely managed to twist his body aside...but even so, the blade tore through the fabric of his cloak, nearly slicing his body in two.
He staggered, nearly lost balance, his heart pounding in his chest, the sensation of death just a breath away.
The tip of the blade, like a sharpened guillotine, grazed the edge of Ren's despair, making him truly believe, if only for a second, that he had been struck.
Ren's eyes darted quickly, sweeping over each face, gasping for breath, wide with panic, their wounds still open and bleeding.
They... still needed time.
Clenching his teeth, Ren forced himself to swallow the pain spreading through his numb arm and tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white.
He had no choice left.
He had to draw its attention.
'Look at me...' Ren thought, then slammed the ball of his foot into the ground and shot forward like an arrow, hurling himself straight into the Golem's line of sight.
He was ready to become the target, even if it only bought a few precious seconds for the others.
Ren charged like the wind, his blade cutting a sharp diagonal through the air. Light sparked against the Golem's coarse stone hide like steel striking flint.
He tried to read its movements, pouring all his focus into the slightest twitch, but it wasn't enough.
It was too fast.
Every sweep of its arms, every step it took, carried the weight of an entire wall of stone in motion.
Ren twisted his body, spun mid-air, used each breath to regain balance. His sword deflected the first blow—but the second came immediately, leaving no room to recover.
One beat too slow... and he would be erased.
His foot slipped on shattered ground. Ren pivoted to dodge, his shoulder narrowly missing the blow. The torn fabric of his sleeve flared open, and even that grazing strike made his HP bar flash red in warning.
Sweat trickled down his temple, but Ren didn't stop.
If he fell here... the others wouldn't make it out alive.
Ren noticed something off....but it was too late to predict, too early to understand.
The fighting style of this monster… was unlike anything he'd faced before.
It didn't just swing a weapon or unleash techniques in the pattern of a warrior.
Not at all. Each movement was strung together like a chain of instinctual actions, yet executed with terrifying precision.
The sword in its hand wasn't the center of its style, but a supplement, blending seamlessly with brutal uppercuts, crushing knees, and kicks powerful enough to shatter stone walls.
It was as if it had fought for hundreds of years, not by thought, but by some killing algorithm etched deep into every stone fiber of its body.
Ren gritted his teeth and ducked under a horizontal slash. Wind tore past his ear, icy cold.
But before his feet could even touch the ground, before he could recover his stance, a massive fist surged upward from below, so fast it defied reading.
The impact sounded like a hammer strike. Ren's entire face took the blow. His body flew backward like a flung stone. His vision flashed white from the shock, sky and earth blending into one blur.
Each roll across the ground burned. Shards of stone scraped skin. His cloak shredded. His whole body felt like it was breaking into pieces.
He only stopped when he slammed into a massive boulder behind him. The world spun. A metallic taste filled his mouth. His ears rang, as if the world had sunk underwater.
Ren propped himself up with trembling arms, slowly raising his head. His vision was blurry. A red stream of pixelated blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, dripping from his chin like rain falling onto rusted iron.
'I can't fight the same way... Not against this.'
Ren panted, each breath like dragging a mountain off his chest. He pushed himself up, knees shaking, head still spinning, but his eyes began to refocus.
The monster wasn't charging in. It stood there, towering like a god descended from stone, staring at him with emotionless eyes, as if evaluating whether the prey was still worth crushing.
A brief moment of silence.
Then it stepped forward. Each footfall made the ground tremble slightly.
Ren wiped the blood from his mouth and spat out the pixel-clotted lump in his throat. His hand was still shaking...but the grip on his sword had tightened again. No longer from fear, but from the adrenaline surging through his veins.
If he couldn't fight the normal way… then he wouldn't.
He crouched low, completely shifting his stance. No longer a formal swordfighter's pose, but something lower, more fluid, reminiscent of a street brawler, ready to roll, dodge, leap, slip through, and strike back from the most unexpected angles.
A straight, clean slash was no longer enough.
Ren hissed through gritted teeth, "Alright then…"
The Golem Sentinel roared again, the sound like hundreds of stone slabs grinding to dust, then lunged, its sword crashing down from above like a falling pillar of heaven.
Ren didn't dodge to the side as before.
He dove in.
In the instant of impact, he dropped to the ground, sliding beneath the strike like an arrow threading through the space between life and death.
The blade slammed into the ground behind him, kicking up a cloud of dust. But Ren was already within striking range.
An opening!
He sprang up while still sliding, his sword glinting through the gray cloud, slicing straight into a joint on the Golem's knee armor a tiny crack, barely visible even to the touch. A spark burst out.
But... one tiny crack among the hundreds scarring the Golem Sentinel's body...
...wasn't enough to stop it.
Ren knew that. He felt it the moment his blade struck.
A dull clang rang out. A brief flash of light, and then… nothing.
No dent. No fracture. Just the slightest twitch in the Golem's knee, as if it didn't care. As if it had grown used to being struck...and surviving every strike.
Ren immediately retreated, rolling away from a brutal side-kick that nearly shattered his left ribs.
The Golem retaliated like a machine, no pause, no hesitation. His attack was nothing more than a breeze brushing against meters-thick stone. Not enough to stagger it. Only enough to get its attention.
'This is bad. If that's how it reacts to a critical hit…'
Ren clenched his teeth, panting, cold sweat running down his spine.
'I can't just hit and retreat. Can't wait for an opening. It doesn't have openings. Or if it does, it doesn't care about them being exploited.'
He raised a hand to wipe sweat from his brow, eyes never leaving the stone creature slowly closing in. This wasn't a sword duel anymore. It was a race for survival. And if Ren wanted to live, he would have to break the rhythm of the monster itself.