The Golem and the Runesmith Part 2

The Shadowfang’s eyes glowed like twin coals in the dark, its maw splitting into a snarl that showed too many teeth. Then its head twitched side to side—quick, serpentine—before it split at the jawline. A slick, black tongue lashed outward, impossibly long, snaking toward Keiji with a wet hiss.

Keiji’s smirk vanished.
“There’s always something with these damn beasts…”

He splashed water with his palm towards it. The water struck the tongue, sizzling against its strange hide. The Shadowfang recoiled, the appendage snapping back in increments, getting shorter each time, yet still thickening with each pull, building more muscle for the next strike.

It wasn’t enough. Water slowed it, but didn’t stop it. He needed something faster than the beast, something with more power than fire.
And then—mid-step, mid-breath—he remembered.

Earlier…in the other trials and even when CIX fought in that fake dungeon. The flash, the bite in the air, the crack of power that outpaced thought itself.

Lightning. That would do it.

The thought came just as the Shadowfang’s tongue blurred forward again. The System’s UI flickered open in his vision—distracting him. He felt a sharp pain like getting shocked by electricity.

[Rune Acquired: Lightning]

A jagged symbol etched itself on his chest, searing into his skin in an arc of gold-white light. Sparks danced across his arm, crackling in the air.

Keiji grinned. “Now we’re talking.”

Without hesitation, he slammed the two runes together.

[Rune Fusion Detected: Fire + Lightning → Plasma Surge]

Fire ripped into strands of white-hot plasma, stitched together by electricity until the light burned his vision. The very air screamed as he moved— a blur of heat and light trailing behind him. His punch landed like a miniature sun exploding, hurling the Shadowfang backward in a spiral of molten energy before it crashed. Keiji grabbed it mid-stagger, hauling the smoking carcass toward the lake, and dunked it under. The water hissed, boiling around its thrashing form until the creature went limp, purple blood staining the water.

The lake rippled.

From its stained surface, a stone arch rose—veined with ancient Sigils, each one glowing brightly as though they’d been waiting for their master. Through it stepped the Golem.

Its body was an avalanche given form—slabs of stone grinding into place with each step. Six runes burned across its chest, each one thrumming a different elemental note. The air around it shifted—heat, frost, static, gravity—each breath pulling at the weave of the world.

[Final Objective: Defeat the Golem of the First Sigil]

Keiji moved, activating the fire rune — his fist ignited, punching against the Golem’s knee with enough force to splinter stone. But the thing barely flinched.

Keiji exhaled slowly. “Alright, big guy… let’s see what you’ve got.”

The first strike came instantly—flame erupting into a tidal wave of molten heat. Keiji rolled aside, the Fire rune in his own arm answering in kind. He countered with a blazing punch, the heat washing harmlessly off the Golem’s stone.

The Golem roared as the Earth rune on its chest glowed green. The ground tore upward, boulders shaping mid-air before launching like artillery. Keiji kicked off with Air, body light as silk, vaulting past two of them—until the third clipped his shoulder, spinning him midair.

His body locked up for half a breath, just long enough for the Golem’s fist to catch him and send him tumbling. The Air rune flared, dragging him upright, letting him dart between a barrage of boulders thrown by the Golem. He struck fusing fire and lightning weaving through the gauntlet —but the Golem’s Water rune hissed, extinguishing his flames and diffusing the charge.

Keiji gritted his teeth. “Fine… all in.”

He switched tactics and movements layering each element one after another— fire igniting, lightning snapping, air carrying him skyward. The fight became a blur of activations, releases, and fusions, every strike taking more from his body. He hadn’t realized it but he began to slow down, his veins bulging from his neck and arms turning a dark purple.

[Warning: Rune Flow unstable]

“Shut up, I got this!”

He hit the Golem with everything he had— plasma bursts, flame whips, wind blades — but each strike barely chipped the stone.

The Golem roared, slamming both fists into the floor —and all six of its runes began to rotate, grinding against each other like the teeth of a massive lock being turned after centuries. Keiji felt it before he saw it—an oppressive weight in the air pressing on his lungs.

Flames burst outward in a wave so hot it warped the light, swallowing the dungeon in unbearable heat. The lake rippled, a tidal wall of water rising to coil protectively around the Golem. Air howled in from above, lifting dust and stone particles into a blinding cyclone. The ground tore apart as jagged stone pillars erupted skyward —lightning racing across them in branching webs.

The runes didn’t just fire one by one—they wove together. Water spiraled into steam under Flame’s heat, only for Air to whip it into scalding vortices. Lightning traveled through the water’s spray, each drop becoming a dart of electricity. Earth pillars rose coated in ice, then shattered into razor hail under the storm winds.

It wasn’t random. This was an ancient spell pattern encoded into the First Sigil’s guardian. Six schools of power not just colliding but deliberately amplifying each other—a perfect fusion.

Keiji fought through it. But every step he took was countered by an element ready to break him. He had one desperate option, to try a perfect fusion; however, unlike the Golem, he could not contain that much power.

His skin steamed, the Fire rune splitting across his arm, leaking through. Lightning stabbed through his muscles like barbed wire. Air refused his control, lifting him without his consent. \

[Final Warning: Anchor compromised. Burnout imminent.]

And in the middle of it all, the Golem’s steps never faltered. It didn’t tire. It didn’t hesitate.
It advanced with the inevitability of a landslide—slow, crushing and unstoppable.

[Survival probability: 0.3%. Eject immediately. In doing so, Progress will be reset.]

Every nerve in Keiji’s body screamed. Heat tore his skin apart in fissures of molten red. He wanted the win—wanted this power—but ejecting meant starting over, as a weakling.

Then he looked at his arm—splintered with cracks, glowing from within—and he knew.

“…Dammit.”
He spat. “Eject!”

The Golem froze mid-stride, its roar suspended in the air. Then it crumbled into dust that scattered on a wind that didn’t exist.

Silence.

The light swallowed him whole.
When it spat him out, Keiji’s knees hit something solid—cold marble.

He gasped like a drowning man breaking the surface, clutching at his arm. The runes were gone, leaving only bare skin where the burns had been, but the pain still ached under his flesh. His body felt lighter, but only because every drop of strength had been wrung out of him.

[Trial failed. Attempt 1/3. Access locked for 21 days.]

The sterile voice echoed in his skull, and the system’s interface dimmed from blue to a dull iron-grey—the system’s color for failure

Keiji dragged himself to a sitting position, still catching his breath. “Until next time then…and I don’t plan on losing.”

It was around afternoon when I had returned from Mount Kazarra after collecting the black sand. I found Keiji fast asleep in the dust, his arms and legs spread wide in an X shape. For a moment he looked lifeless but after hearing him snore, i exhaled relief washing over me.

I knelt, slipped my arms beneath his weightless frame and carried him home.