Jax stepped out of the smoke and collapsed tents, the black-veined sword still humming in his grip like a satisfied cat. Level 8. Not bad for what started as “just one look.” He gave Barbara a lazy spin, watching the faint red-green glow pulse along the edge. The thing felt alive now. Hungry. Like it already knew there was more meat ahead.

  The mini-map painted a single large chamber directly forward. No more branching tunnels. Just one big open space labeled “Convergence Room.” He cracked his neck and kept moving, boots echoing off the stone. The air grew warmer, damper. The smell of wet grass and ozone hit him before he even rounded the last corner.

  He stepped through the arch and stopped.

  The room was… wrong. Soft grass covered the floor instead of cold stone. Actual trees grew in scattered clumps, their leaves glowing with faint blue veins. Crystals jutted from the ground and walls like jagged teeth, pulsing slow and steady. It looked more like a hidden meadow someone had stuffed underground than a dungeon boss room.

  And right in the center of it all sat a mountain.

  Not a pile of rubble. Not a pile of crystals. A full-on mountain of jagged, translucent crystal the size of a small building, half-buried in the grass, catching the faint light and throwing it back in fractured rainbows. No movement. No red dots on the mini-map except the one labeled “Unknown Entity – Level ???” that had just appeared right on top of it.

  Jax stared.

  “…You’ve gotta be shitting me.”

  He scanned the room again. Nothing else. No goblin reinforcements, no slimes, no skeletons. Just trees, crystals, and one oversized shiny rock formation.

  His jaw tightened. The heal had made him stronger, sure, but it hadn’t fixed the part of his brain that hated wasting time.

  He marched straight up to the crystal mountain, boots sinking into the soft grass, and glared up at the sheer face of it.

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  “Alright, listen up, you oversized paperweight,” he muttered, voice low and pissed. “I’ve had a long fucking day. I just murdered an entire goblin camp with a sword that talks in my head, and now you’re wasting my time looking pretty?”

  No response.

  Jax rolled his shoulders once, planted his feet, and kicked the base of the “mountain” as hard as he could.

  CRACK.

  The impact jolted up his leg like he’d just punted a steel beam. A spiderweb of fractures exploded outward from the point of contact, glowing angry red.

  The entire mountain shuddered.

  Then it stood up.

  Hundreds of tons of crystal unfolded with a sound like grinding glaciers. Massive arms of jagged stone ripped free from the earth. Two glowing eyes — each the size of a dinner plate — snapped open in the upper face, burning with raw earth mana. The ground beneath Jax’s boots cracked as the colossal golem rose to its full height, towering over the trees like a living landslide.

  A deep, grinding voice rolled through the chamber like an earthquake.

  “You… dare… touch… the vessel?”

  Jax looked up, knife still in one hand, new sword in the other, and actually grinned.

  “Took you long enough to wake up, you lazy bastard.”

  The golem’s fist came down like a collapsing building.

  Jax rolled left — grass tearing under his boots — and came up running. The impact behind him turned the meadow into a crater of flying dirt and shattered crystal. He didn’t stop. Didn’t look back. He just sprinted straight at the descending arm that was already swinging back for another strike.

  The golem’s arm was a ramp of jagged crystal the width of a highway lane. Jax hit it at full speed, boots sliding on the smooth surface, and used the momentum to keep climbing. The arm jerked as the golem registered the tiny human insect crawling up it. The motion almost threw Jax off, but he jammed Barbara’s edge into a crack and hauled himself higher.

  “Keep swinging, big guy,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “You’re making this easy.”

  The golem roared again — the sound vibrating through the crystal like a subwoofer made of earthquakes. The arm flexed, trying to shake him loose. Jax rode it like a bucking bull, boots scraping sparks, knife and sword both buried in the surface for grip. He reached the shoulder in seconds — the joint a massive ball of glowing crystal that pulsed with earth mana.

  The right eye — a dinner-plate-sized orb burning with orange fire — locked on him.

  Jax didn’t hesitate.

  He launched off the shoulder, twisted in mid-air, and drove his knife straight into the center of the eye with both hands. The blade sank deep. A wet, crunching sound echoed as the orb shattered inward like broken glass.

  The golem staggered.

  A howl ripped through the chamber — not sound, but pure mana pressure that made Jax’s ears ring. The eye exploded in a shower of molten crystal shards. Jax kicked off the socket and dropped back to the shoulder, rolling to avoid the spray.

  [Appraisal Update – MAXED]

  HP: 3,920 / 4,850

  Status: Blinded (Right Eye) – Accuracy -60%

  Jax grinned, blood and crystal dust on his teeth.

  “One down, ugly.”

  The golem thrashed blindly. Trees snapped like matchsticks. Crystals shattered. The ground buckled under its weight. Jax rode the chaos, sliding down the arm again as it swung wildly. He hit the grass running, rolled under a low sweep, and came up facing the golem’s chest.

  There — right in the center — a brighter, deeper glow. The core. Appraisal had called it out. Blunt force. Sustained drain.

  He had neither.

  But he had Barbara.

  The sword pulsed hotter, almost burning his palm.

  Feed…

  Jax tightened his grip and charged.

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