The Colossal Golem did not breathe. It did not hesitate. It simply acted.
The massive stone fist, roughly the size of a carriage, swung downward with the force of a falling tower. The air pressure alone flattened the dust against the floor.
Maren didn't close her eyes.
She didn't pray.
She moved.
*Left.*
She threw herself into a roll, her shoulder slamming into the cold stone floor, jarring the fresh wound on her left arm. Pain screamed through her, white-hot and blinding, but she used the momentum, pushing herself back up to her feet before the dust could settle.
The Golem's fist impacted the ground where she had been standing. The shockwave knocked her sideways, but she kept her footing.
"Haruki..." she thought, her mind flashing to the boy with the dead eyes who had held a severed arm without flinching. "You bought me this chance. You lied to a monster for me."
She grabbed a loose rock from the ground. It was a futile gesture, a pebble against a mountain, but she threw it anyway. It bounced harmlessly off the Golem's rocky shin.
The construct didn't even register the impact. It simply turned, the grinding of its joints echoing like thunder in the enclosed space. It raised its foot to stomp.
*I can't fight this.*
*I can't beat this.*
Cas was dead. Haruki was captured. Fen, Sable, Wick—gone.
"I am pathetic," she whispered, the words tasting like ash. "I collapsed. I cried."
But then, another voice cut through the fear. Haruki's voice, calm and steady in the tunnel.
*You were afraid. That is human. But you are not a coward, Maren. A coward would have stayed down.*
She looked at the door. The heavy stone archway leading to the first floor. It was twenty meters away. An eternity.
She reached into her bag with her one remaining hand. Her fingers brushed against the coarse texture of her climbing rope—sturdy, reinforced, the kind used for rappelling into dungeons.
She didn't have enough rope to climb the Golem.
But she had enough to hang on.
The Golem stomped. The floor cracked, jagged lines spiderwebbing toward her.
Maren sprinted.
Not toward the door. *Toward the Golem.*
It was a suicidal charge. The Golem, detecting the sudden movement, turned its massive torso, bringing its other arm around in a sweeping backhand.
Maren slid. She slid on her knees, the stone tearing through her trousers, sliding right between the Golem's legs.
As she passed under the behemoth, she lashed out with the rope. She didn't try to tie it; she just looped it, wrapping the friction knot around a protruding piece of iron rebar sticking out of the Golem's ankle—an old piece of dungeon infrastructure.
She tied the other end to her belt in a single, practiced motion.
The Golem turned, trying to track the pest.
It stepped forward.
The rope snapped taut.
Maren was yanked off her feet, dragged violently forward. Instead of being trampled, she was pulled *with* the Golem's leg.
She gritted her teeth, tears streaming from the pain in her stump, and scrambled up the back of the Golem's calf. She used the rope as an anchor, pulling herself up the rocky surface like a mountaineer scaling a cliff.
The Golem thrashed, sensing the weight on its back. It reached around, trying to grab her, but its arms were too long, too bulky. It couldn't reach its own spine.
Maren climbed. One hand. One foot. One hand.
She reached the Golem's neck—the junction where the head met the shoulders. There was a gap in the stone plating, a cluster of mana crystals pulsing like a heart.
*I will get us out of here.*
That was the promise she had made to herself. The promise she had made to the memory of Cas.
"I am NOT a coward!" she screamed.
She didn't have a sword. She didn't have magic. She had her body, and she had the resolve to not die in a hole.
She braced her feet against the Golem's shoulder blades. She grabbed a jagged outcrop of stone on the Golem's head with her one hand.
And she pulled. With every ounce of strength the adrenaline could give her, she hauled herself up and slammed her shoulder into the crystal cluster.
*CRACK.*
It wasn't a sword strike. It was a body check.
But it was enough.
The impact jarred the mana cluster. The Golem's head snapped to the side, the giant construct losing its balance. It stumbled, legs tangling.
The momentum was perfect.
Maren unhooked the rope from her belt.
She pushed off the Golem's head, launching herself through the air toward the door.
The Golem toppled backward, crashing into the wall, missing her by inches.
Maren hit the ground hard, tumbling, rolling, bruising every inch of herself. But she was on the other side.
She scrambled to her feet. She didn't look back. She lunged for the stone door.
She slammed her hand against the opening mechanism.
"Open! OPEN!"
The heavy stone slab groaned and began to slide aside.
She squeezed through the gap the moment it was wide enough, scraping her shoulders raw, and tumbled out onto the stairs of the first floor.
Behind her, the Golem roared, a sound of grinding stone, and began to pull itself up to give chase.
But Maren was already running. Up the stairs. Towards the light.
She had escaped.
Rico stopped walking.
He paused, his head tilting slightly as if listening to a distant sound. A faint tremor in the dungeon's mana flow.
He smirked.
"My, my," he murmured. "The nerve of that girl."
He turned around to share the amusement with his captive.
"Did you feel that, Haruki? She actually took the Golem down. A one-armed rat brought a giant to its knees. Impressive, isn't—"
He stopped.
The corridor was empty.
Well, not entirely empty. Fen, Sable, and Wick were still there, suspended in the air, wrapped in strings, unconscious and helpless.
But the porter was gone.
Haruki was gone.
Rico blinked. He looked left. He looked right. The smooth obsidian walls reflected nothing but shadows.
The strings that had been trailing behind Haruki—slack now—lay on the floor, severed cleanly, though Rico hadn't felt the cut.
Rico's expression shifted. The amusement didn't fade, but it sharpened. It became something predatory.
The prey had run.
But instead of running *away*, the prey had let the predator turn his back.
Rico looked at the unconscious party members. Then he looked down the dark side-tunnel where Haruki's scent trail lingered.
"Where are you, Haruki?" Rico whispered to the dark.
He chuckled. It was a low, dangerous sound.
"You didn't run for the exit. You didn't try to save your friends. You went... deeper?"
Rico shook his head in mock disappointment.
"Bold move, little rat."
He snapped his fingers. The strings holding Fen, Sable, and Wick tightened, dragging them along the floor behind him like discarded luggage.
"Come on then," Rico said, walking toward the darkness Haruki had vanished into. "Let's see what you're trying to build."
TO BE CONTINUED...