Winston climbed the stairs with measured steps, the Yari resting behind his back with the blade angled toward the ground.

The third floor was larger than everything below it combined.

Massive stone pillars lined the space from floor to vaulted ceiling, every surface carved with leering demonic faces that caught the flicker of distant torches.

The floor itself was dark polished slate, worn smooth over what looked like centuries of use. Shadows swallowed the ceiling entirely. At the far end of the hall, a set of iron-bound doors stood closed.

They were imposing, permanent and the clear endpoint of everything in this pagoda.

And in front of those doors, two figures sat cross-legged on the stone floor.

Both wore crimson oni masks. Both had massive greatswords driven blade-first into the slate beside them, handles upright, hands resting on the hilts. They weren’t moving. They were waiting with the patience of things that had been sitting in this room for a very long time.

Winston’s panel updated the moment he stepped onto the floor.

[Blood Demonic Third Floor Guardian II — Level 90]

[Blood Demonic Third Floor Guardian I — Level 92]

’And that’s just the floor guardians. What level is the actual guardian behind those doors?’

He didn’t have an answer, so he filed the question away.

The two figures rose slowly, pulling their greatswords from the stone as they stood. Their movements carried the easy, unhurried confidence of things that had never lost — the kind that came from being the strongest presence in a room for so long that the concept of threat had stopped registering. They looked at Winston the way someone looks at an inconvenience.

Winston was going to fix that.

『Energy Coating』

He cast the expendable spell and burned one soul slot into it immediately, pushing it from Level 5 to Level 10.

The kinetic film wrapped tight around the Black Dragonic Yari, the coating shimmering at full intensity with thirty seconds on the clock.

The twin guardians’ eyes dropped to the Yari. Something shifted in their posture. They had noticed the change but Winston didn’t give them time to adjust to it.

He charged.

Seeing this they reacted instantly — one appearing directly in front of him, the other materializing behind, both greatswords swinging in the same moment from opposite directions.

Winston read both attacks in the half-second before they connected and threw himself into a sharp spin, the Yari crossing both incoming blades simultaneously.

CLANG!

CLANG!

The block held, but the combined force was enormous, it shoved him back several meters before his footing caught.

He was already moving forward again before he’d fully stopped sliding.

Winston crashed back into the fight before his footing had fully recovered.

The Yari moved fast as sharp, constant, sparks jumped every time the blade caught one of the greatswords. But the twin guardians were nothing like anything else in this pagoda.

They were agile in a way that had no business coming from creatures that size. Their attacks came down heavy and quick simultaneously, barely any gap between exchanges and hardly any wasted motion.

One strike got through.

It caught Winston across the chest and sent him flying. He hit the floor hard, rolled several meters before stopping, and the Energy Coating’s thirty seconds expired at almost the exact same moment.

A crack had split across the breastplate of the Black Dragonic Armor — the first visible damage the armor had taken since he’d entered the pagoda.

Winston was already rolling before the follow-up reached him. He dove to dodge two consecutive swings in quick succession, threw a flip to create distance, and landed in a clear space across the floor.

The twin guardians tracked him without rushing. They didn’t need to rush.

’They’re more skilled than me.’

It was a simple assessment, and Winston made it without any ego attached to it. Every monster in this pagoda had been a step up from the last, but the jump between the second and third floor was a different category entirely.

These two fought like actual elite warriors. They were measured and coordinated with each one compensating for the other’s angle without any visible communication.

’That’s probably why there are no minions on this floor. Nothing else here could match that level of technique.’

The twin guardians watched him from across the slate floor. Behind their oni masks, he could feel the surprise. After all, he had survived longer than they had expected.

Winston rolled his shoulder once and settled into a stance.

"I’ve never been particularly skilled at fighting," he said, more to himself than to them. "Genuinely. My track record before this week was bad." The guardians shifted their footing slightly in response.

"But I’ve never once lost because I succumbed."

His expression went flat.

"So it’s either I die here or I take both of you out." The coldness settled into his voice naturally. "I’m more in favor of the second option."

His energy stirred. His crimson eyes brightened as a faint glow bled into the ambient light of the hall. The pressure around him built from nothing into something tangible and the floor beneath his foot spiderwebbed with a crack from the gathered force.

『Grey Charge』

150 energy deducted but it was barely a mark against an energy pool of 7,000 at his current Mastery.

The pressure surged immediately, a crater forming outward from his position as the spell’s kinetic buildup reached critical density.

The guardians read it and moved. Both of them appeared beside him in the same instant, greatswords raised, coming down with everything they had.

Winston burned one soul slot into Grey Charge.

Then cast Energy Coating and burned another soul slot into that simultaneously.

The layered force output hit a level the floor couldn’t contain quietly.

The twin guardians’ greatswords shattered on contact. Both blades broke apart on impact with the combined pressure field before a single pound of force reached Winston’s body. The guardians themselves launched backward with thunderous momentum, slamming into the pagoda wall on the far side of the hall. The stone cracked from the collision and blood followed.

Winston appeared thirty meters from where he’d been standing, the charge’s displacement landing him cleanly on the other side of the hall. He turned back to look at where the guardians had hit the wall.

Neither of them was getting up.

The spell effects dissipated and the pressure bled out of the room. Winston let out a slow exhale.

"Told you I’ll win."