The roots slammed into the Rock Golem with enough force to push it back several steps. Some pierced through its stone body entirely, but it didn’t go down. It grabbed the roots instead, massive stone hands locking around the thick woody tendrils and held on with everything it had.

Zelda moved the moment the Golem made contact.

She grabbed the roots alongside it, both her hands closing around the rough bark, arms that looked far too slender for what came next pulled with the full output of her Realization’s passive.

The strength boost wasn’t subtle. It never was. Her feet dug into the cave floor and she pulled in tandem with the Golem, the combined force built fast and the ground erupted as the root system tore free from the cave floor all at once.

Stone fragments launched outward, as the sudden loss of anchor sent the shockwave straight up through the Troll’s connection point.

The Giant Tree Troll launched into the air, completely off balance.

Freya didn’t miss the opportunity as she dropped into a low crouch. Her breath misted in the cold air. Energy coating wrapped around her katana in a tight, shimmering layer as she locked onto the airborne monster above her.

『Sword Mirage』

The floor cracked as she launched upward, closing the distance to the falling Troll in a straight line. The Troll saw her coming. But despite being mid-air and off-balance, it still managed to swing the club on pure instinct, aimed directly at her.

The club hit nothing.

Freya reappeared behind the Troll an instant later, the mirage having carried her through the attack entirely. Time seemed to slow for exactly one breath. Then the Troll’s head separated cleanly from its shoulders. Freya landed on the cave floor a half-second before the body did.

The fight was over.

After that she turned to Zelda. Zelda gave a short nod as she dismissed her golem to heal and they moved without discussion toward the sound of the remaining Tree Trolls.

❖❖❖❖

Winston stood in front of the guardian’s door and didn’t touch it.

The first floor entrance had taught him something. Pushing through a door in this pagoda without preparation had sent him flying across a cavern and cost him armor integrity.

He wasn’t making that mistake twice. He spent a moment working through the likely scenarios before recovering his spent energy with the Level 10 potions he had gotten from Freya.

But after a few seconds he finally made up his mind and pushed the door open as he braced for impact.

Nothing hit him.

The hall he walked into was enormous. Polished obsidian floors stretched out ahead of him, reflecting the flicker of torches mounted between blood-red marble pillars that lined the perimeter in evenly spaced rows.

Each pillar was carved with weeping figures of deities or something the builders of this place had decided deserved that treatment. Tattered crimson banners hung between them, shifting slightly in a draft that carried the cold smell of iron.

At the far end of the hall, a throne sat on a raised dais of jagged black stone. It had been built from fused blades. Behind it, a stained-glass window set with deep rubies threw fractured red light across the back wall.

The silence in the room had weight. Because something was sitting on the throne.

It had pale skin, raven-black hair falling loose over the shoulders and blood-red eyes that were already open and watching him with the complete absence of urgency.

Its pointed ears were partially visible through the dark strands and its ivory fangs caught the faint light from a slightly parted mouth.

The figure had one elbow resting on the throne’s jagged armrest, head propped lazily against its own hand, one leg crossed over the other.

The entire room felt like it belonged to whatever was sitting in that chair, like the air itself had decided to take its cues from the figure rather than from any natural law. Winston held the Yari at his side and looked at the creature across the length of the hall.

[Blood Emperor — Level 140]

A Tier Four guardian!

Winston absorbed the number without letting his guard slip.

He had suspected something above Tier Three after the twin guardians on the third floor after all their level and skill had been too high to be guarding a Tier Three beacon.

But Level 140 was approaching mid-Tier Four territory. That wasn’t just above what any of the students or agents could handle.

That was above what most new Rank four holders would walk into willingly.

’How were any of us supposed to survive this gate in the first place?’

He already knew the answer. They weren’t. This was a false gate two full tiers above its displayed classification, it was something so far outside recorded precedent that the Association couldn’t have predicted it regardless of how thorough their checks were.

There was no fault to assign. Just a situation that had no business existing.

The Blood Emperor rose from its throne, It moved without hurry just taking a single step, and then it was simply a few meters from Winston, the distance between throne and intruder collapsed as casually as someone crossing a room.

There was no visual blur or dramatic buildup. It was just there, blood-red eyes level with his, the weight of its presence hitting differently up close than it had from across the hall.

Winston didn’t step back. He tracked it and ran quick calculations, how many Life Tithe charges he was willing to spend learning its attack patterns, which spells to layer first and whether Grey Charge had enough output at this level to matter at all.

Then the Blood Emperor opened its mouth.

"What is a primordial trait doing in the mortal realm?"

Winston’s eyes went wide before he could stop the reaction.

The guardian had spoken and it was in a language Winston had no reason to understand.

The Blood Emperor wasn’t just intelligent, it had looked at him and immediately identified something about his Soul Trait that apparently didn’t belong here.