This sentinel moved nothing like the one before.
It was fast.
Gone were the slow, crushing swings. In their place came rapid, precise strikes, each blow delivered with intent. It moved the way Rune did. Quick. Decisive. Relentless.
Rune had no choice. Shadow surged over his body as he activated Shadow Reflexes.
Even so, the attacks came too quickly to evade completely. He slipped past some, but others forced their way through. Rune raised his arms to block, bracing as heavy impacts slammed into him.
The force rattled through his frame.
Each strike sent a jolt through his bones as he absorbed the blows, shadow flaring and thinning with every impact.
Fast. Too fast.
Rune barely had time to think. And that was exactly what he needed.
Time.
Just a second. Two at most. Enough to form a plan.
'Light.'
He grimaced.
'This might be a stupid idea, but it could buy me time.'
The shadow peeled away from his arms, replaced by a fierce, radiant glow. Rune knew what this meant. Light would only feed the sentinel's regenerative core.
But it would also explode.
When the next strike came, Rune raised his arms and turned his shoulder into the blow.
The moment the sentinel's arm connected, light detonated outward.
The force blasted the creature back, its feet digging into the cavern floor to keep from toppling.
It charged again.
Rune met it the same way.
Explosion. Again. And again.
Each time, the light was absorbed, fueling the sentinel's regrowth. Bark reformed even as it was scorched away. But the repeated blasts drove it back just enough to give Rune the time he needed to think.
'Lock it down, I just need to lock it down.'
Rune focused on his element.
'It's smaller. Weaker than the first. Shadow tethers might work.'
From beneath the sentinel, darkness rose and took form. Tendrils burst from its own shadow, wrapping around its legs first, then coiling upward around its torso. The bindings tightened, rooting it in place.
The sentinel thrashed, bark plates grinding as it fought against the restraints, trying to tear itself free.
Rune rushed in.
He hacked at its body, driving his axes toward the chest, aiming for the core hidden beneath.
The sentinel reacted instantly. Its arms crossed over its torso, shielding its chest. Using its arms to defend itself just as Rune had done moments earlier.
Rune's strikes glanced off hardened bark.
It had adapted again.
Even worse, the shadow clinging to its arms began to thin. Green light pulsed beneath the bark, the light he had fed it earlier coming back around. Regeneration washed over the darkness, peeling it away.
Rune realized the truth.
It wasn't just learning how to fight. It was learning how he fought.
'I need something it can't copy, and I need to get behind it. Now.'
Rune's eyes focused on the shadow stretching out behind the sentinel.
Something clicked. Memory stirred, not as thought, but as motion.
Shadow moved and swallowed him whole. Rune vanished. There was nothing where he had stood.
He emerged directly behind the sentinel, seated perfectly within its shadow, the world snapping back into place around him.
[Shadow Step remembered…]
[Element Power increasing… +5]
Rune swayed slightly, disoriented. For him, the world had just flipped in an instant.
'That's… convenient.'
His grip tightened around his axes.
'Let's end this, with a flash.'
Even knowing how reckless it was, Rune didn't want this to drag on any longer.
So he committed. A plan formed. One that would either work, or fail spectacularly.
He began Triple Judgement.
Stagger. Break. BANG.
The final explosion tore through the sentinel's defenses, bark and plating on its back blasting apart as the core was laid bare. For a brief moment, it pulsed wildly, reaching out to absorb his light and restore itself.
Rune didn't give it the chance. He dropped his axes.
Without hesitation, he plunged both hands into the exposed cavity, fingers closing around the core. With a raw shout, he tore it free and fell backward, landing hard against the cavern floor.
The sentinel froze. Slowly, unnaturally, its head twisted all the way around to look at him.
Then its form lost cohesion.
Bark cracked, roots withered, and the massive body collapsed into dust, sinking back into the living floor as if it had never been there.
Rune remained seated on the cavern floor for a moment, catching his breath. He slipped the core into his pouch, the faint glow dimming as it vanished inside.
'Honestly, I don't know which is worse. Spiders that come in hordes… or tree men that adapt to how you fight.'
He pushed himself to his feet, dusted dirt and bark from his clothes, and stepped toward the second core lying nearby.
The chamber rumbled.
Rune froze.
"…I'm not going to say anything. Every time I do, whatever comes next is ten times worse."
Dirt and fragments crumbled from sections of the cavern wall, peeling away to reveal three petrified forms embedded within. They looked fossilized, half grown into the stone itself. Sentinels, waiting.
Rune pressed his lips together and murmured, "Nope. Not doing it."
Nothing happened. He waited.
"…Alright, come on," he said at last. "Don't just sit there lifeless, hanging in the moment like this."
The chamber answered.
Life surged into the three sentinels at once. Stone cracked as they pulled free, joints creaking as they adjusted their limbs. One pulsed with the same familiar green glow beneath its bark.
The other two burned differently.
Orange light flared within them, like living fire trapped beneath wood, heat rippling through the air as they fully awakened.
Rune walked over and retrieved the axes he had dropped, and readied himself once more.
"You know," he said quietly, "that could've been worse."
His voice echoed through the chamber.
"It went exactly how it looked like it was going to."
The echo hadn't finished fading when the two orange sentinels charged.
The third, the one glowing green, remained where it was. It tilted its head, watching. Then it drove its arms into the ground.
Vines and roots burst upward around Rune, coiling and snapping as they tried to bind him in place. He leapt back just in time, the growths whipping around where he had been standing moments before.
They had adapted again. Not just to his attacks, but to his techniques. Replicating his shadow tethers.
Rune let out a long, exaggerated sigh.