Noctis and Rengar continued through the dungeon passage after leaving the training chamber behind, and as the distance from the ape cavern increased, the environment became less like a natural formation and more like a hidden structure that had grown inside the mountain according to rules separate from weather, erosion, or beast habitation. The walls no longer carried the rough unevenness of ordinary stone. Dense sheets of ice layered over them in smooth bands, and beneath those translucent surfaces faint blue light traveled in slow currents that resembled veins of energy rather than reflected illumination. The floor beneath them was not ordinary frozen ground either. It was a fused surface of stone and ice compressed so tightly that each step carried a muted resonance rather than a brittle crack, and through that resonance Rengar could feel a distant weight deeper ahead, steady and unmoving, the same pressure Noctis had already identified as the titan's presence.
Rengar kept both daggers in his hands as he walked, and although the weapons had already accepted his blood energy during the earlier practice, live combat had not yet forced that technique into instinct. Frost and lightning did not require the same conscious attention. Those elements belonged to him from his time as the Ice Thunder Wolf King, and after his evolution into a Sanguifrost Voltari, they had become even more responsive, flowing through his body like familiar muscles. Blood energy was different. It was not weaker or harder to command, but its nature carried density, weight, and a darker pressure that did not surge like lightning or spread like frost. It had to be drawn, guided, charged, and released with timing, and because it was new, a part of him still treated it as something to use after deciding, not something that moved together with his body the moment combat began.
Noctis noticed without needing to ask. His gaze remained ahead, but his words entered the cold passage with the same calm authority as before. "You understand the skill, but you have not made it instinct yet. The next fight will be your first real test, so do not separate movement, weapons, and blood energy in your mind. Use them together."
Rengar listened while continuing forward, his grip around the dagger handles tightening slightly as the meaning settled into him. This was different from the duel against the Ice Giant Ape. That fight had tested his new body and the weapons Noctis had given him, but it had not tested the blood-dagger method under true pressure. The ape had been flesh, muscle, bone, and rage. These dungeon enemies would be different, and the pressure in the air already told him that the dungeon would not present a creature meant to be dominated by old habits.
"Yes, Master," Rengar replied, his voice low and controlled as he adjusted the angle of both blades in his hands.
The passage widened gradually into a larger chamber, and the moment they crossed the threshold, the space opened into a broad field of fused ice-stone surrounded by pillars of blue crystal that rose from floor to ceiling. The chamber did not contain loose debris or signs of animal habitation. It was clean in the way old ruins sometimes were clean, as if the dungeon constantly repaired or absorbed anything that did not belong. The floor held faint lines beneath the ice, forming patterns that were not decorative but functional, and when Noctis stopped near the chamber entrance instead of continuing across, Rengar understood that the room itself was about to respond.
The response came through the ground. Cracks spread across eight separate points in the chamber floor, not randomly but with spacing that created a rough circle ahead of Rengar. Dense ice and stone lifted from those fractures, assembling upward into large humanoid bodies. Thick legs formed first, anchoring into the ground before separating fully from it. Heavy torsos followed, layered with plates of compressed ice and darker stone beneath. Arms formed with oversized fists built more like hammerheads than hands, and when the heads settled into place, each construct turned toward Rengar with an absence of breath, anger, fear, or instinct. They were not beasts. They were bodies given motion by power.
All eight ice golems advanced at once.
Rengar lowered his stance as crimson lightning entered his body. The current tightened his muscles and sharpened the delay between intent and motion, and before the golems could fully close the distance between them, he entered the formation directly. This first movement came from instinct more than technique. Multiple enemies meant that the safest place was not always outside their reach, because remaining outside allowed them to form a wall. Entering early, before their bodies aligned, forced their own size to interfere with their attacks. He drove himself into the middle of them, crossed both arms near his chest, and snapped them outward to shoulder height as power gathered through his torso and shoulders.
"Thunder Clap."
The burst expanded from him in a compact wave that struck the surrounding golems and disrupted the timing of their first movements. Their upper bodies shifted, their arms delayed, and the small opening created by that disruption was enough for Rengar to choose the nearest target. He stepped into it and slashed across the torso with both daggers in a fast crossing motion, expecting the blades to bite, split, and open a path the way they had against flesh and lesser material.
The blades did not pass through.
The edges struck the golem's dense outer shell and stopped after only a shallow bite. The force of the failed cut rebounded through both weapons, traveling into his wrists, forearms, and shoulders with enough violence to make his grip tighten instinctively. It was not pain alone that caught his attention but the nature of the resistance. This was not like striking armor over flesh, where force could travel through the surface and damage what lay beneath. The construct's body was dense throughout, an ice-stone shell compressed into a single structure that absorbed the physical portion of the strike and returned it through the weapon. The daggers remained sharp, his strength remained high, and the angle of the slash had been correct, yet the enemy's material had refused the cut because he had entered combat using the blades as blades rather than as mediums for blood energy.
Before he could adjust, the golems recovered enough to attack. Their fists descended from several directions, slow compared to his perception but wide and heavy enough that staying in the center without movement would trap him under overlapping force. Rengar launched upward, crimson lightning driving through his legs as the fists smashed into the ground beneath him and fractured the floor where he had stood. He reached the ceiling and caught the frozen surface with claws and frost-assisted grip, feeling gravity pull down through his body as the ceiling resisted his weight. The position was usable only for a breath, not for sustained fighting, and while the golems below tilted their heads and began shifting their arms upward, he pushed off and crossed toward the chamber wall, using the change in elevation to escape the closing circle.
During that movement he sheathed his right dagger, freeing one hand while keeping the other blade ready. Lightning compressed into his palm, shaping itself into a narrow dagger-like bolt. He threw it toward the nearest construct, and the projectile struck the golem's chest with a crackling impact that sent current across its torso. The lightning slowed the golem's movement and left thin cracks across part of the surface, but it did not penetrate deeply enough to destroy anything important. Rengar did not stop. His remaining dagger swept upward, and frost gathered above him in multiple sharp formations.
"Ice Shards."
The shards launched in a tight spread and struck the same golem's upper body. They shattered on impact. The fragments scattered across the floor as harmless splinters because the golem's elemental composition was too similar to the attack itself. Ice against ice could disrupt, weigh down, or alter footing when used properly, but as direct damage against these bodies it was inefficient. The realization came quickly and without confusion. Rengar did not need Noctis to explain that part. Frost belonged to him, and he understood its nature well enough to know when the element was meeting a body that could endure it.
He drew the second dagger again while landing along the chamber's side, and only at that point did the earlier instruction return fully into combat context. The first strike had failed not because the daggers were weak, but because he had not charged them. His old instincts had carried him into the opening, used speed, used thunder, and attempted to cut through physical durability directly. That instinct was not useless, but it was incomplete. Noctis had not given him these weapons so he could swing them like claws made of metal. They were designed to receive blood energy.
Rengar drew the dense dark pressure from within his body and guided it through his arms into the twin daggers. The response was immediate. Blood aura covered the blades, spreading across the surfaces in a thin crimson layer before concentrating along the sharpened edges. The energy did not flare wildly. It clung to the weapons as if the daggers had awakened to their intended state, and faint red currents flowed along the edges like living veins. The aura extended just beyond the physical blades, forming an invisible-thin cutting line marked by a dim crimson glow. When he moved the daggers slightly, the charged edges left brief red streaks in the air, not as decoration but as the visible trace of blood energy trailing from the weapon's path.
The golems continued advancing.
Rengar pushed off the ground with lightning reinforcement and entered again, this time with the charged daggers held low and ready. A construct swung one arm toward him in a broad horizontal motion, and rather than retreating from the entire arc, he moved inside the outer reach of the swing and cut across the forearm. The result was completely different from the first strike. The crimson-coated blade carried through the dense ice-stone shell, and a streak of red light cut through the air alongside the movement. The golem's arm separated cleanly and fell, striking the floor with a heavy impact.
The success entered his body as information, not celebration. Blood energy did not simply add force. It changed the quality of the cut. The physical blade opened the path, while the crimson aura extended the severing pressure into the structure. This was why Noctis had said the daggers were special. They allowed him to use blood energy as a cutting medium rather than only a body-strengthening force.
Rengar continued before the severed limb stopped sliding. Another golem brought a fist downward, and he shifted past the impact with a short lightning burst through his legs, letting the fist strike behind him while his dagger cut through the construct's knee. The red streak that followed the blade appeared and vanished within the same movement, and the leg separated at the joint. As the golem tilted, Rengar drove his other dagger into the shoulder and released lightning through the point of contact.
"Lightning Shock."
The current ran through the construct's upper body, interrupting its attempt to stabilize. Rengar pulled the blade free and passed behind it, using the falling body as a temporary obstruction against another golem's swing. He did not remain behind cover. The moment the next construct's fist struck the collapsing body, he slid along the side of the impact, crossed his arms again, and released a smaller Thunder Clap at close range. The force staggered the nearest golem's upper body backward, not enough to destroy it but enough to expose the torso, and Rengar carved two blood-red lines across the chest before shifting away.
Now the fight began to flow in layers. Crimson lightning gave him entry and escape. Blood-charged daggers gave him penetration. Thunder Clap disrupted timing when too many heavy bodies converged. Lightning Shock created brief instability through direct contact. Frost, though useless as direct damage, remained useful underfoot, allowing him to create traction points and change direction across the slick fused floor without losing speed. Rengar no longer treated the abilities as separate options. Each one entered the movement where it belonged.
The golems' greatest advantage was weight, and their greatest weakness was speed. Their fists could crush sections of the floor, but their swings required full-body commitment. Their bodies could withstand ordinary strikes, but blood aura changed that exchange. Rengar moved through the spaces their attacks created, and because there were eight of them, every missed strike had a chance to interfere with another golem's movement. He used that repeatedly. When one construct swung horizontally, he ducked beneath the arm and slashed through both ankles as he passed, causing the golem to collapse into the path of another. When a second tried to step over the fallen body, he burst upward along its leg, crossed the knee joint with one dagger, and drove the other into the hip while lightning ran through the blade. When a third reached down to grab him, he stepped onto a blood-red frost patch formed beneath his foot, pushed sideways, and sliced through the fingers as the hand closed on empty air.
The chamber filled with motion that the golems could not match. Their heavy limbs struck ground and ice pillars, sending cracks through the floor and broken frost into the air, while Rengar's red blade-streaks appeared in thin flashes around them, each one marking a limb, joint, or support line being severed. He cut arms first when the fists threatened space. He cut legs when he needed bodies to collapse and obstruct the others. He cut shoulders and torsos when an opening allowed deeper damage. He did not yet know what would permanently kill them, so his attacks followed the logic he understood from fighting living enemies and dismantling bodies: remove movement, remove weapons, remove structure.
One construct attempted to catch him between both arms, bringing them inward like a closing gate. Rengar moved forward instead of backward, sliding beneath the closing limbs while his daggers crossed upward. Both forearms separated at the midpoint, and as the pieces fell behind him, he used the golem's torso as a wall, ran two steps along its front with lightning-supported traction, and kicked off toward another target. During the leap, he threw a lightning dagger from his hand toward the next golem's shoulder, slowing its turn before landing beside it and cutting through the leg. The moment it dropped, he released Thunder Clap against its side to push the falling mass into another golem's path.
The more he fought, the smoother the blood charge became. At first, he had consciously guided blood energy into the daggers, but now each time the aura thinned from repeated cuts, his body replenished it while he moved. The crimson coating remained dense along the edges, and each slash left a clear red line through the air. The sight became part of his rhythm. If the red streak was clean, the cut carried properly. If the aura thinned, the blade met more resistance. He began adjusting between movements, feeding the weapons before the charge weakened too far.
The eight golems could not land a clean strike. They remained dangerous because a single hit would carry tremendous force, but danger without contact did not matter. Rengar's speed and increasing integration allowed him to dismantle them faster with every exchange. One golem lost both legs and crashed forward. Another had both arms severed before it could complete a swing. A third split across the torso after Rengar crossed beneath a descending fist and released a blood-charged slash upward through the body. The floor gradually became crowded with broken construct pieces: arms, fists, legs, shoulder plates, and sections of torsos scattered across the fused ice-stone.
Eventually the chamber held no upright golem. Rengar stood among the wreckage with crimson lightning still moving through his body and blood aura still coating both daggers. His breathing remained controlled, and his attention moved across the scattered pieces to confirm the result. The bodies had been broken apart thoroughly enough that any living creature would have been dead many times over.
The pieces began to move while he was still observing them.
A severed arm dragged itself toward a torso. A broken leg rolled, lifted, and snapped back into alignment with a lower body. Cracked plates pulled together. The deep red cuts he had carved into the torsos filled with new ice, and the separated sections fused as if the bodies were being rebuilt from an instruction hidden within them. Rengar watched the first golem reassemble, then the second, then the others, and within a short span all eight constructs stood again with their bodies restored.
He attacked again immediately, because the first answer to regeneration was to test whether faster destruction could overcome it. His blood-charged daggers cut through the nearest golem's torso, severing it almost in half before lightning surged through the opening. The construct fell apart, but the pieces pulled together again. He cut through another from shoulder to hip, scattered its limbs with Thunder Clap, and drove lightning into the broken sections, yet the fragments still dragged themselves toward the body and fused. He severed legs, arms, heads, and torsos, and each time the golems restored themselves around some unseen source.
The agitation began as a low pressure beneath his ribs. His attacks were not failing in the ordinary sense. Every cut landed. Every movement worked. Every skill did what it was supposed to do. The problem was that none of it stayed done. The fight became a repeating cycle in which he dominated the golems physically, destroyed their bodies, watched them rebuild, and had to destroy them again. His speed was superior, his blades could cut them, and his lightning could disrupt them, yet the enemies continued advancing with the same slow, tireless pressure.
He began attacking harder, not because it was the right answer but because instinct pushed for greater force when results refused to hold. The blood aura along his blades brightened as he fed more energy into them. Red streaks cut longer through the air. Lightning surged more violently through his limbs. He sliced one golem into multiple sections in rapid succession, separating arms, legs, and torso before the pieces struck the ground, but the fragments still pulled inward and reassembled. He drove both daggers into another golem's chest and released Lightning Shock through the impact point, yet when he tore the torso open, the body closed again after he retreated.
Noctis's voice entered his mind before the agitation turned into waste.
"Calm down. You are doing great in this fight, but you are missing a very important combat theory."
Rengar withdrew from the center of the chamber with a lightning-assisted step, creating distance while keeping both daggers raised. The golems advanced once more, whole again, their movements slow and steady as if the repeated destruction had meant nothing.
"You need to know your enemy," Noctis continued through the bond. "When you understand your enemy, you can identify their weaknesses."
Rengar forced his attention away from the frustration of their regeneration and toward the bodies themselves. "Master, how can I know my enemy?"
Noctis chuckled softly, not with mockery, but with patience. "You observe them. You build understanding through experience. Since this is your first time fighting golems, I will help you."
Rengar's ears lifted as he focused. He watched the nearest construct more carefully, not its fists, not its legs, not the thick shell he had already proven he could cut, but the way its body held together. A golem was not flesh. It did not bleed, breathe, or depend on limbs the way a beast did. Its body was material arranged around power. If destroying the shell did not kill it, the source had to be elsewhere.
"Look at their chests," Noctis said. "Do you see the faint glow?"
Rengar narrowed his eyes and focused on the center of the nearest golem's torso. The light of the chamber made the glow difficult to separate at first because the ice reflected pale blue from every direction, but after watching the construct move, he noticed a small pulse deep inside the chest. It did not shift with the outer shell. When a crack opened across the torso, the glow remained steady. When the body regenerated, the ice reformed around that point. He shifted his gaze to the others and found the same pulse within each one.
"That is their core," Noctis explained. "That is their weakness. For golems and titan constructs, the core is the power source. Some may have smaller secondary cores, but every construct has one main core. Destroy that, and you destroy the body permanently."
The agitation faded as the explanation settled into place. Rengar had not lacked power. He had not lacked speed. The blood-charged daggers had worked exactly as they should. He had simply been cutting the shell instead of the life of the construct. The body was not the true target.
He lowered his stance again, and this time his focus did not spread across limbs, fists, or joints. Crimson lightning moved through his legs, blood aura thickened along the daggers, and the red edge-light on both blades stabilized as his gaze fixed on the faint glow inside the nearest golem's chest.
"Thank you, Master."