KLANGG!!
The sound of steel striking golden metal echoed like a death knell. Copper's sword trembled violently as it caught the sideways blow from the monster's pillar-like arm.
The sheer force sent him sliding backward, his boots carving a jagged trail across the floor of clinking gold coins, scattering them like sweat dripping from a dying god.
Another strike.
Then another.
The monster's remaining three arms came crashing down like thunder, not giving him even a single breath.
Copper clenched his teeth, weaving through each strike, his blade darting to deflect the blows, but every time it was three-for-one. A single second too slow... and he'd be dead.
"Ren!" he roared, voice booming as if trying to pierce through the ceiling. "Distract it for me!"
But Ren didn't move. He stood frozen.
His hand trembled. The sword hilt felt loose in his cold fingers. One step… then another… retreating on instinct. He glanced at Copper, being backed into a corner by the storm of limbs, and then... he turned his head and saw...
The door.
Right there. Just a few meters away.
Salvation. Escape.
He could leave Copper behind. He could run, right now, and survive. Abandon the one who led him into this damned labyrinth, let him die. He deserved it.
Ren's grip on the hilt tightened. His heartbeat pounded like war drums, blood surging painfully fast through his veins.
His eyes darted again.
At this very moment, Copper was losing his balance. He had spent too much strength to stay alive. He wouldn't last much longer.
Ren bit his lower lip, the taste of blood blooming across his tongue. He didn't know whether the chill crawling down his spine was from fear… or fury.
Ren was angry, furious enough to want to shatter the world itself, just to tear apart this helplessness. To deny the truth that after everything, after coming this far, growing this strong...
...after enduring so many battles, so much pain, he was still chained by invisible shackles called fear, still trembling like a boy who'd never known how to fight.
He clenched the hilt as if strangling the throat of the one he hated most... himself.
Frozen. Numb. But he didn't let go. Because he knew, if he let go now, he would never break free from the chains dragging him into the dark.
If reason couldn't conquer instinct, then he would let the sword do it instead. He would use it to cut down fear, to smash the coward's shell that clung to him since the first floor, to prove he was no longer the one always gasping behind others.
A cold flash sliced through the yellow-stained chamber. No battle cry. No heroic shout.
Only Ren, surging forward like a steel wind, as if an instinct honed over a thousand fleeting seconds had finally been unleashed.
His eyes no longer wavered. No longer hesitated between flight or fight. There was only one path, and on it, the monster. The embodiment of fear.
A past unburied. And if he couldn't kill it… he would never truly live.
The steel blade carved a half-moon arc across the creature's broad back.
A sharp hiss tore through the air, like red-hot iron plunged into water. Sparks burst upward, falling like burning stars from the sky.
The skin wasn't skin, but golden scale-plates, thick like hundreds of ancient coins forged and embedded by some hellish ritual. They quivered faintly.
He couldn't cut through the armor… but he had left a faint gash. A crack on what once seemed impenetrable.
The monster roared. Not the cry of a living beast, but the screech of grinding metal, a shattered bell, the voice of an ancient world stirred to wrath.
Four arms unfurled, then tore at the floor. Its milky, sightless eyes gleamed, and it lunged toward Ren like a runaway train, destroying everything in its path.
Ren didn't flinch. His gaze met it head-on.
Then, just a moment before the claws struck, Ren slipped left, his body gliding past like a breeze. The blow struck only air, detonating the stone floor behind him.
He didn't wait for the monster to recover.
The sword spun half a turn, its edge slicing a line as thin as a hair, sharp as a sickle cleaving moonlight, catching the creature's arm in a flash.
This time, the sound was deeper. A thok, like striking hollow, rusted iron.
Meanwhile, Copper had staggered back, panting, his hands trembling as he fumbled a healing vial from his inventory. He tilted his head and drained it in one gulp, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Shit... Ren, that was a solid distraction… I'm getting back in."
Ren didn't respond.
He still stood there, sword poised, eyes locked on the monster now slowly turning toward him, arms twitching, joints cracking like drums heralding the next round.
Ren drew his sword back with a smooth pivot, body shifting like smoke threading through the gaps between those massive flailing arms.
He landed on his toes, then slid backward, evading the strike while also giving himself a clearer view of the beast's massive body.
And that's when he saw the ruby on its chest.
It was no longer intact.
The glow inside was no longer pure like crystal, but murky, like mist curdled in blood.
Cracks webbed from its center, spreading like veins, like the marks of time… or wounds unhealed… now widening with each breath.
Ren squinted, heart pounding. He saw something else now, those milky eyes, once tracking his every movement like a flawless killing machine… now hesitated, missing beats, as if the commands from the brain no longer perfectly synced with the body.
The light from the silver mirror earlier… had left a mark.
And now, it could be defeated… a surge of belief rising strong within him.
"Ren!!" Copper shouted, his voice clenched between his teeth. His arms crossed tightly, holding the sword horizontally to block the crushing weight of all four arms striking down at once.
His whole body was being forced to the ground, knees buckled, boots gouging into the stone floor, blood seeping from his grip on the sword.
"The gem… strike the gem!!"
Ren didn't wait for a second call. He kicked off the ground, body launching like a blue arrow.
The light around his sword flickered. "Stab!" the Sword Skill activated, a cold blue glow enveloping the entire blade, letting out a shrill hiss as it tore through the air.
Ren roared in silence. The sword tip aimed directly for the crimson gem.
The air whistled and coiled like a drill, spiraling down the blade as it pierced through the massive arms and drove straight toward the gem.
A sound like cracking glass, like the heart of a god breaking apart.
Sparks burst out, followed by a deep crack within the stone. The gem trembled, then a small fragment shattered.
The monster screamed, a sound filled with hatred, like a warped bell tolling straight into the listener's chest.
It flung Copper away like a broken toy, his sword flying from his hand and landing far across the room.
Immediately after, the monster leapt backward, spine arched, all four arms raised as if preparing a crushing blow.
It retreated… to protect the gem.
Can't let it recover.
Ren growled in his throat and charged like an arrow loosed from a bow. No excess thought. No wasted breath. Only instinct and a single goal.
The moment the monster recoiled to dodge, Ren burst forth.
Click!
Another Sword Skill triggered. A pale blue glow wrapped around his body, trailing a cold arc of steel like moonlight slicing into night.
The air shrieked. The stone floor beneath Ren's feet cracked from the sheer pressure of his launch.
The monster turned. But it was too late.
Ren melted into the air, becoming a streak of light aimed straight for its chest.
One of its four arms swung up, shielding the gem. The clash between blade and flesh exploded in sparks.
The sword skidded off target by mere inches.
Ren was thrown backward, his feet carving trenches across the floor of gold, but he didn't scream, didn't gasp, just twisted his body, rebounded, and lunged again.
"Copper!! Fake it out!" Ren hissed.
Copper was already moving. From behind, he leapt in, his crimson sword slicing toward the monster's spine.
A brutal blow, but not enough. The armor-like scales cracked, but only slightly, not yet reaching the core.
The monster roared. All four arms flared outward, like a storm of flesh and steel sweeping the entire room.
Ren ducked low, sliding under, his boots nearly kissing the scattered gold coins. Copper vaulted off one of the monster's arms, using the force to launch himself upward.
One second. Two seconds.
Now or never.
Ren screamed, "Stappppp!"
His body snapped into the arc of the Sword Skill, the blade igniting like lightning in a storm.
A blue streak cut through the dark, a slash so sharp it split the night itself, slicing through the blocking arms.
Crack!!
The shattering sound echoed...
The ruby in the monster's chest burst open like a heart being crushed. Fractures webbed outward in a blinding light, like a shattered spiderweb of fate.
The monster let out a cry that wasn't a roar, but a wretched sob, raw and hoarse, like a dying creature cursing its own destiny.
Copper didn't miss the opening. From above, he plunged down like a living spear, his blade smashing the monster back into the massive pillar behind it.
Ren followed immediately. He ducked, dodging two swipes just grazing over his head, and drove his blade straight into the gem before the remaining arms could grab and rip him apart.
The four deformed arms with claws glinting like razors, trembled… then collapsed, limp.
Like a puppet with its strings severed, the massive body crumbled onto the stone floor, amid a soft, metallic rain of scattered gold coins.
A thunderous crash echoed like a death bell, and then… only panting, gasping breath filled the suffocating silence of the sealed room.
The boss… was down.
Copper turned toward Ren, his gaze darkening as if sinking into something unnameable. He knew Ren was strong...but not this strong…
But in that very instant, Copper's pupils shrank as if pierced.
"Run...!"
The shout came without thought.
Ren instinctively leapt back, his body dropping and rolling just as a sword burst up from the ground where he had just stood, stabbing deep, hilt and all into the floor, flinging a pile of gold violently outward.
A cold, metallic sound echoed.
Clink, clink… like breaking bones.
The fallen boss's corpse began to twitch..then splinter. But it wasn't dissolving into data or ash like usual. No…
It was just a shell.
A shell shedding its skin.
Chunks of golden armor clattered down, falling like a rain of metal, revealing a figure slowly rising upright. A humanoid form, or rather, something horrifyingly mimicking one.
Tall and lean. Skin polished like freshly forged metal, reflecting a chilling gleam beneath the dim light. No face. No identity. Just a naked mannequin standing amid the ruin.
But the most horrifying part… were the four arms.
Each one held a sword, raised in eerie silence, as if preparing for a dance of slaughter.