The follow-up swing came in fast, chain angled low to cut off the retreat.

But Winston didn’t retreat, instead he drove the Yari forward, timing the thrust to intercept the chain mid-arc.

The moment contact happened, he shifted his stance and rotated, using the Yari as a pivot point, letting the chain’s own momentum wrap itself around the shaft.

He kept the spin going, and the force dragged the Gatekeeper off its footing into the air.

Winston brought the Yari up hard and the spearhead drove straight through the descending monster’s skull.

The impact was final and total. He swung the Yari to clear the body, let the corpse drop, and stepped over it toward the pagoda entrance without breaking pace.

He placed his hand on the door and pushed.

A force hit him the instant the door moved and it was not a visible attack, just raw pressure slamming into his chest and launching him backward across the cavern.

He spun once in the air and landed hard, skidding several meters before stopping.

The Black Dragonic Armor had absorbed the worst of it, Draconic Resolve converting the impact into a temporary shield layer that had already started dissipating.

Winston got up and looked at the pagoda entrance.

[Blood Demonic First Floor Guardian — Level 70]

Ten levels above the Gatekeeper. It stood in the open doorway, and behind it, pouring out around its frame, came the rest.

[Blood Demonic First Floor Minions — Level 61–69]

Forty of them. Various sizes, same blood-demonic classification as everything else in the cavern, fanning out in a loose aggressive formation as they cleared the pagoda entrance.

The Guardian held the center position while the minions spread to cut off angles.

Winston watched them come and didn’t move.

’A minor inconvenience.’

He let them close the distance and raised the Yari.

The First Floor Guardian was built to be imposing, and it succeeded.

A towering frame draped in heavy tattered furs, its face hidden entirely behind a snarling oni mask made of carved bone, and exaggerated tusks, painted the color of dried gore.

In its grip, the great maul rested with casual ease. The same weapon that had launched Winston across the cavern when he’d pushed the door.

Up close, the iron head was massive and scarred from what looked like centuries of active use.

The forty minions didn’t wait for orders.

They surged forward in a loose wave, jagged katanas held low, movements unnervingly synchronized.

They were less like individual monsters and more like extensions of a single intent. The cavern filled with the low collective hum of their shared aggression as they closed the distance to Winston from every angle.

Winston’s eyes stayed on the Guardian as the first minion reached him, a Level 61 monster, the lowest in the group. Winston drove the Yari forward in a straight thrust and didn’t stop. The spearhead punched through the first, carried through the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Five bodies stacked on the shaft before the momentum finally gave out, the Yari jutting forward like a grotesque skewer.

The remaining thirty-five froze as an invisible shockwave cut through the air where Winston had been standing a half-second earlier.

The Guardian’s maul swing, had sent the sudden force. But Winston had already moved.

He’d had his eyes on the Guardian since before the minions charged so the attack passed through empty space.

The plan was straightforward. Clear the minions first, dodge the Guardian’s attacks while doing it and face it one-on-one when the board was clean.

Winston swung the Yari in a wide arc, flinging the five impaled bodies into the approaching crowd, and went after the next cluster before they could reset.

The remaining minions came in waves, but the pattern never changed.

Winston moved through them in controlled bursts. He would strike, reposition and dodge the Guardian’s force attacks before striking again.

The maul swings came consistently, each one capable of cratering stone, but Winston had already internalized the timing.

He was gone before each one arrived, and the gap it left was always just long enough to put down another minion.

One by one the numbers dropped and the cavern floor was littered with bodies. When the last minion went down, silence fell across the space.

Just Winston and the First Floor Guardian remained, the oni mask staring at him from behind the maul’s raised head. Winston didn’t pause to acknowledge the moment.

He dashed forward immediately and the Guardian swung with the same reckless force it had been throwing since the fight started. Winston ducked under it, kept his momentum and closed the remaining distance in a straight line.

The Guardian read the approach and tried to bring the maul around for a point-blank shot, no windup, just raw desperation.

But it didn’t get there in time.

Winston drove the Yari upward into the Guardian’s neck mid-step, the Level 90 spearhead punching clean through without resistance.

He didn’t stop moving. He carried the momentum forward, lifting the Guardian partially off the ground with the impaled shaft, and kept running straight through the pagoda entrance, driving the creature ahead of him until the Yari’s tip slammed into a stone pillar and pinned it there.

The pillar cracked and the Guardian went still.

Winston pulled the Yari free and stepped back. The body slid off the shaft and collapsed to the pagoda floor.

Winston scanned the first floor quickly and it was empty. Every monster that had been stationed here had come out to meet him in the cavern, and none of them were coming back.

The floor itself was a wide open space and it was made up off dark stone walls, a high ceiling and the same obsidian construction as the exterior, with sigils etched into every surface.

At the far end, a staircase rose upward. Wide enough for thirty people to climb side by side, the steps carved from the same black stone as everything else in the pagoda.

Winston looked up the length of it and started climbing.

The second floor met him at the top.

He stepped through the archway and the new panel appeared before his eyes had fully adjusted to the space.

[Blood Demonic Second Floor Guardian — Level 80]

Ten levels above the first. Winston looked at the creature waiting for him and adjusted his grip on the Yari.