[FLOOR 1 BOSS UNLOCKED]

  [Temple of the Lost Crown]

  [Home of Malgrath, the Ruined King]

  A path of grey stone tiles stretched forward, flanked by twelve knights in full armor. Some intact. Others with cracks running across their chests like old scars. The throne doors waited at the far end, large and black.

  The whole place had decided to rot in silence.

  Gareth stopped at the entrance and took it all in with a single look.

  'If anyone saw me doing this, they'd think I'd lost my mind. Guaranteed death, they'd say. All because of their stupid ranking system.'

  He drew the Claws of Marveth.

  'But I am Mourgare. And even though I no longer have my player system, I'll fight exactly as if I did — because if I don't, I no longer deserve the title of Buff Master.'

  He ran.

  The first tile gave way under his foot — splitting open like a mouth as four iron spikes fired upward from below, and in that same instant the first statue lowered its lance with a grey flash and charged directly at him from the right.

  Two threats at once.

  Gareth used the momentum of the step to launch himself forward, body twisting in the air, clearing the spikes as the lance cut through the exact space his torso had occupied a moment before. He landed on the only safe tile available and the metallic sound of both impacts echoed through the entire temple as one.

  "This floor is full of traps, I remember it very well… but I also remember exactly which tiles to step on so I don't fall into them."

  The second statue was already moving. The third too. Then all of them at once.

  Twelve statues active and Gareth ran straight into the middle of all of them.

  The wiki said destroying them required special skills. What the wiki didn't know was that they didn't need to be destroyed. Just used.

  The first lance came from the left — he deflected it with his right blade, redirecting the impact without absorbing it. Another from behind — he ducked and let it pass over his head. Two simultaneous ones from opposite flanks — he threw himself to the ground sliding between both trajectories as the lances crossed exactly where he'd been.

  He got up and already had the first two where he needed them.

  He waited for the first to commit to its attack, blocked the lance with both blades crossed and in the same motion twisted it using his own weight as leverage, putting it between himself and the second. Both locked together over a trap tile.

  'Two.'

  The third came alone. He deflected its lance with his left blade at the last instant and slid to the ground between its legs. The statue turned to follow him and stepped on the tile he'd deliberately left open.

  'Three.'

  Three closing from different angles with no room to dodge all of them. He blocked the center one with both blades, felt the impact travel up his arms, and used that same momentum to spin it into the other two. All three lances hit together over a trap tile.

  'Six.'

  A lance caught him in the right shoulder and sent him two meters to the left. He landed on his knees, got up before the pain finished registering, grabbed the arm of the statue that had hit him while it still had momentum and directed it into the one coming from behind.

  'Eight.'

  The next came alone, slow but heavy. Gareth deflected two strikes stepping backward, let it back him against the wall, and at the last instant stepped aside. The lance buried itself in the stone. Trapped in its own attack.

  'Nine.'

  Two more closing in coordination. He blocked one with crossed blades, used the rebound to turn toward the other and deflect its lance, and with both of them out of position pushed them together onto a trap tile.

  'Eleven.'

  The last one had him cornered at the end of the path. No space. The lance pointing directly at his chest.

  Gareth didn't move. He let it charge.

  Half a meter. A quarter. He blocked with both blades at the last instant, bent his knees to absorb the impact and threw all the momentum to one side. The statue stepped on the last trap tile.

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  'Twelve.'

  Complete silence.

  Gareth stood in the middle of the path, surrounded by twelve neutralized statues, breathing hard.

  'Now for the best part.'

  What the wiki didn't know was that neutralizing all twelve opened an exact six-second window in which the runes carved on their backs became exposed and vulnerable. A direct strike on the rune and they fell instantly. No skills. No magic. Just speed and precision. Gareth had discovered it by accident on run nineteen.

  Six seconds. Twelve statues.

  'No system. No notification. Nothing to confirm this is going to work in this world.'

  'But I'll do it anyway.'

  He ran.

  First — blade on the rune, fell without a sound. Second and third — full spin, one blade per side, simultaneous impact. Fourth — full sprint, blade driven in passing. Fifth and sixth — jump between them, strike from the air. Seventh — sliding across the ground, blade upward from below. Eighth and ninth — back to back, two strikes in opposite directions at the same time. Tenth — without looking, pure muscle memory. Eleventh and twelfth — the last two together, one blade in each hand.

  They fell.

  'Road Fury.' Forty percent base damage. A secret that wasn't in any wiki, that no one else had found, that had been sitting there waiting for someone who looked at the problem the right way.

  No notification appeared. No system confirmed it.

  But something in the way he held his blades changed and he felt it exactly as if one had.

  'With or without a system, I did it. And that's enough.'

  He looked up at the throne doors at the far end.

  "Now for the cherry on top."

  He pushed them. They opened on their own.

  The throne room was circular, with a high cracked ceiling. At the far end, on a half-collapsed black stone throne, Malgrath. Motionless. Crown fused to his skull. Scepter resting on his knee. Four meters of corroded armor that had decided to rot sitting down.

  Gareth walked to the center of the room.

  The doors slammed shut behind him and the sound echoed through the entire temple.

  "We meet again, Malgrath." A pause. "I've missed you."

  Malgrath raised his head slowly. His eyes — two points of red light inside the helm — found Gareth's and stayed there for several seconds.

  Then he snapped his fingers.

  The floor cracked open at two simultaneous points and from each fissure emerged a shadow warrior — black armor, sword in hand, no face visible inside the helm. They materialized in under a second and charged before they'd finished forming.

  Gareth threw himself left, rolled, and countered directly to the chest with his right blade.

  The blade bounced off.

  "How could I forget..."

  The armor of the ruined shadow warriors was a condensation of dark energy that conventional damage couldn't penetrate. In the game he'd needed specific buffs to break through it. Buffs that weren't really there now.

  Four more emerged. Six total closing in from every angle with that silent coordination of things that execute without thinking.

  Gareth ran between them looking for space. A lance grazed his left side and he felt the edge leave a line of heat across his skin. Another came from behind and he blocked it with his crossed blades — the impact traveled up his arms all the way to his shoulders.

  He turned. Attacked. Bounced off again.

  "It's useless."

  He drove his blade into the joint of the nearest warrior's helm — the only point without visible armor.

  Nothing. The shadow absorbed the strike without registering it.

  Two warriors flanked him and Gareth had to choose — he blocked the one on the left and the one on the right caught him in the side with the flat of its weapon and sent him two meters flying. He was up before they reached him.

  "Spells...?"

  The thought came so fast he muttered it without meaning to.

  'I'm a Thornfield in this body. I managed to channel something at the synchronization exam. If I try now—'

  "No!"

  He discarded it before it finished forming. Resorting to spells meant sinking low. Admitting the buffs weren't enough, that he needed something external, something that wasn't his. Buffs were everything. They'd always been everything.

  He attacked again with the full weight of Road Fury's forty percent behind it.

  The blade bounced off. The warrior didn't move.

  Gareth stood still for a moment staring at the blade in his hand.

  He only had them in his head. And in this world that wasn't enough.

  A lance caught him in the right shoulder — the same one as before — and this time the pain was different. Deeper. Something inside that shouldn't move moved.

  He kept fighting because there was no other option.

  Then Malgrath, bored with the spectacle, snapped his fingers once more.

  The six warriors stopped and stepped aside in silence, opening up the center of the room as if something that deserved more space was about to occupy it.

  The seventh emerged from the floor.

  Different from the first instant. Leaner than the others. Black armor without a single crack. And in its hand, instead of a sword, a shadow katana with a blade radiating dark pulsing light.

  "Valdris the Eternal..."

  Malgrath's right hand. The only ruined warrior to have retained something resembling his own will after the king's fall.

  Gareth looked at him. Valdris looked back.

  And charged.

  The speed was incomparable to the other six. Gareth blocked the first strike with crossed blades and the impact sent him three meters back. He dodged the second — but the third came from an angle he hadn't anticipated and the katana opened a diagonal line across his left forearm that burned instantly with a heat that had nothing to do with temperature.

  Burning shadow. It spread from the wound inward, burning muscle, making the fingers of his left hand respond half a second slower than they should.

  Valdris didn't give him time to process the damage.

  Cut across the right shoulder — deep, muscle compromised. Kick to the side that spun him a hundred and eighty degrees. Cut across the left leg that made him stagger. The burning shadow spreading through every wound simultaneously and the pain occupying every available space in his head.

  Gareth blocked what he could. He couldn't block everything.

  A cut across the abdomen bent him forward. A kick to the chest sent him flying back into the stone wall with an impact that echoed through the entire room.

  He got up.

  Not fast. With the slowness of a body doing the last thing it could do before it couldn't do anything anymore. His hands found the wall, his feet found the floor, and Gareth stood up with his blades still in his hands because dropping them wasn't an option his brain registered.

  Valdris filled the katana with burning shadow. The entire blade covered in pulsing dark light, radiating black heat in every direction.

  'I remember this.'

  First run. The very first one, when the game was new and he knew nothing. Valdris had used that same attack and it had been instant death — no time to react, no time to understand what had happened. Just the game over screen and the run counter resetting to zero.

  That time he'd tried again.

  This time there was no reset.

  'Eighty percent muscle weakness.' One direct cut from that charged katana and the body stopped responding almost entirely. In the game his character had barely been able to move. Here it was going to be worse — wounds burning from the inside, compromised shoulder, hand responding late, abdomen protesting with every breath.

  'This is possibly my worst run.'

  'And the worst part is that it's going to be the last one.'

  Valdris began to move.

  

  [SYSTEM ALERT]

  [Time remaining until the end of humanity:]

  [00:15:00]