Akashin vanished.
Not literally. His body was still there.
But the movement was fast enough to look like teleportation.
He advanced in a straight line and, halfway through, changed direction with a sharp pivot, reaching Jay's side instead of the front.
Jay barely had time to turn his shield.
The katana struck, slid, rotated along the rim, and came down in a blow aimed at the joint between neck and shoulder.
Marcus thrust his longsword into its path at the last second. The impact sent pain shooting up his arm.
"He got faster!" Marcus warned, breathing hard.
"Sienna!" Jay shouted.
"I see it!" she replied.
Sienna focused her mana, creating small locks on the ground: patches of energy that, when stepped on, exploded in opposing force, designed to ruin his perfect footing.
Ethan began marking the floor with small points of condensed fire—heat mines. They didn't explode violently, but created pressure waves that knocked enemies off balance.
Akashin noticed.
His stance changed again.
Even shorter steps now, almost on the tips of his feet, touching only where the ground was safe.
"He's reading the floor too," Sienna grumbled. "I hate this guy."
Elenya watched with her bow lowered slightly.
She couldn't fire Penetration every second. It was powerful, but not infinite. Timing mattered.
"He opens his guard very little…" she murmured. "But when he does, he opens it all at once."
She began counting the rhythm mentally.
One. Two. Three.
Retreat.
One. Two. Three.
Lateral shift.
Akashin launched a combo at Jay—three consecutive strikes, each testing a different angle of the shield. The fourth aimed for the knee.
Jay lowered the shield to cover it, briefly exposing his upper body.
Marcus tried to move in.
Akashin was already waiting.
He twisted his hips, using Jay's own shield as a wall to push off, and the katana came diagonally, aiming for Marcus's wrist.
Marcus flung his longsword aside, letting the blade cut through empty air, but lost the timing for the counterattack.
"He reads even the wrong reflex," he muttered.
Ethan came in with a lateral fire strike—a line of flames cutting across the ground at Akashin's waist level.
The Guardian leapt over it, spinning midair. His armor flashed briefly in the light filtering through the shattered stained glass.
In the middle of the spin, he pointed the katana at Ethan.
And descended.
Jay sprinted forward, raising his shield.
The impact was so heavy that the shield tilted several centimeters backward. Jay had to dig his foot into the floor to avoid being pushed back.
"You weigh more dead than alive, you bastard!" he snarled, forcing him back.
Sienna did what she could.
She summoned spiritual feline projections—not as strong as in the forest, but fast. The creatures rushed the flanks, trying to distract, scratch, disrupt.
Akashin didn't lose focus on his main target, but had to split his attention.
One of the spectral claws struck the side of his armor. It dealt no real damage, but stole microseconds from his reaction time.
And that was when Elenya saw it.
"Now."
She drew her bowstring.
The world narrowed into the line she traced with her gaze.
"Penetration."
The arrow left the bow like a silent bolt, passing through a crack in the shoulder plate and continuing inside, destroying bone levers of movement.
Akashin's arm trembled.
The katana dipped slightly.
Just enough.
Marcus surged forward.
The longsword came down in a solid strike, hitting the already cracked chest plate. The armor shattered completely, opening a gap.
Ethan unleashed a burst of compressed fire straight into the broken armor. Not to burn what no longer burned, but to deliver internal impact, shaking ribs and spine.
Akashin staggered back two… three steps.
The armor was fractured in multiple places.
Movements slightly less fluid.
But his eyes…
The lights in the sockets burned brighter.
He changed stance.
Instead of an open posture, he lowered himself, katana held with both hands, blade slightly angled toward the ground.
A counterattack style.
"He's going to stop rushing so aggressively," Marcus said, breathing hard. "Now he'll punish mistakes."
"So we can't attack on autopilot," Ethan added.
Jay rolled the shield on his arm, adjusting his grip.
"Who said we were on autopilot until now?"
Sienna snorted.
"My mana says otherwise… and my HP is draining. I need more healing potions."
The next minute felt like an eternity.
Akashin no longer rushed.
He waited.
He let Jay advance first, absorbed the shield's impact with small blade deflections, using the tank's force against him, opening microscopic gaps.
Marcus tried to exploit them, but Akashin seemed to predict every attempt, stopping the longsword not with brute force, but with perfect positioning.
It was beautiful.
If it weren't lethal, it would've been… art.
Ethan varied the tempo, alternating fast fireballs with small ground explosions, trying to lock Akashin's footing.
Sienna sustained energy chains that alternately bound, pushed, or cushioned impacts when a strike came too close.
Elenya searched for lines with her eyes.
She no longer shot at just any opening.
She shot where she knew Akashin would move.
Once, she fired Penetration into an empty diagonal. Akashin twisted to avoid a strike from Marcus—and stepped straight into the arrow's line.
The projectile pierced the side of his armor, destroying another internal support.
Jay laughed, even while gasping.
"We're dancing with a monster… and she's setting the rhythm."
"Better," Sienna said. "We're changing the rhythm he thought he controlled."
But Akashin was no ordinary foe.
He accelerated.
A rapid combo slammed into Jay's guard—strikes at progressively higher and lower angles, forcing the shield up, down, twisting. One scraped the edge and nearly clipped his shoulder.
Marcus entered from the flank, but Akashin twisted his body, letting the longsword pass by mere centimeters.
That was when he did something new.
He struck the flat of Marcus's blade with the side of the katana—not to cut, but to destabilize. The vibration ran through the metal, up the hilt, into Marcus's fingers.
The longsword slipped free.
Marcus's eyes widened.
"Damn it!"
He instinctively retreated, raising his empty hands.
Akashin was already spinning, the katana tracing a line that would have ended in Marcus's chest.
Sienna detonated an energy circle beneath the Guardian's feet. The impact didn't knock him down, but pushed his body just a few inches sideways.
It was enough to shift the line of the strike.
Marcus still felt the blade's wind pass across his chest, slicing a thread of his cloak.
Jay slammed his shield into Akashin's side, pushing him back and opening space for Marcus to roll and recover his sword.
"Thanks," Marcus gasped.
"You're paying for my arm's physical therapy later," Jay grumbled.
Ethan decided to risk more.
Flames rose along his body. This time, not only red. For a brief moment, something darker flickered within the fire — a deep blue.
He held it back.
Remembering what had happened on the first floor.
It was not time to release that yet.
Even so, the presence of that denser flame made the air vibrate differently.
Ethan focused energy at a point just behind Akashin.
"Shift."
A burst of compressed fire erupted behind the Guardian, shoving him forward, straight toward Jay.
Jay swung his shield aside, repositioning.
Akashin advanced more than he intended, balance compromised for an instant.
Elenya didn't waste it.
"Penetration!"
The arrow pierced the side of Akashin's neck, shattering support bones.
His head tilted slightly to one side. His movements became uneven.
But he didn't fall.
That skeletal body, bound to its armor, still found balance in chaos.
Sienna clenched her teeth.
"Does anyone remember he's 'just' a miniboss?"
"Is that 'just'?" Jay muttered.
"Imagine the floor boss," Ethan added.
Akashin seemed to realize that if he kept that pace, he would be worn down.
So he changed.
His intensity rose in a way that didn't feel physical.
It felt emotional.
He charged like the first assault—but faster.
This time, not in a straight line.
He traced a Z across the battlefield: step forward, lateral slide, spin, another step. The katana cut the air not just toward them, but along paths that marked space itself, anticipating where someone might be.
Jay raised his shield, but now the pressure was constant. Every second, a blow against the guard. Every blow, perfectly calculated to destabilize.
Marcus tried to engage, but any mistake was punished: a minimal tap on the sword, a subtle angle change forcing him back.
Sienna maintained chains and shockwaves, feeling her mana drain.
Elenya searched for a line.
But now, Akashin was almost always in a favorable position. A poorly placed arrow could hit Jay, Marcus, or Ethan.
"He's pushing us back!" Jay shouted, retreating step by step. "A few more meters and we're against the wall!"
"If we hit the wall, he shortens our movement space and dominates the room," Marcus assessed.
Ethan knew he had to break the rhythm.
And potions wouldn't last forever.
He detonated compressed fire on the floor near the group, throwing everyone a few steps sideways and breaking the route Akashin was carving.
The Guardian had to recalculate.
A breath.
But he didn't stop.
He spun with a motion far too fluid for something without muscles, and the katana traced an arc along Jay's flank.
Jay set the shield—but the blade didn't stop. It slid along the rim, climbed, rotated in an elegant wrist motion, and came down in a diagonal slash aimed at the head.
Jay, by reflex, tilted his head back.
The strike passed.
But not completely.
The blade grazed Jay's cheek, opening a clean cut.
Blood flowed quickly, hot, dripping onto the edge of the shield and the stone floor.
For a second, the sound of the fight simply… stopped.
Akashin froze.
Katana raised.
Body in guard.
But the lights in his sockets flickered differently.
As if they had seen that blood before. Not in this group, not in this room, not in this time.
At once, they all felt a strange impact in their heads.
Not pain.
It was as if someone had yanked their world backward, like a curtain being torn away.
"What…?" Ethan pressed a hand to his temple.
"Is it the system?" Sienna tried to focus on her interface, but the menus vanished.
The throne room dissolved before their eyes.
And for an instant, Marcus, Jay, Ethan, Sienna, and Elenya were no longer in the ruined castle.
They were inside another memory.
Not just watching.
Living it.