The Solara Votary didn't roar. It didn't boast. It simply moved.

In the instant its featureless golden head locked onto me, it lunged.

It didn't just run; it accelerated, crossing the ten-meter distance of the platform in a timeframe my eyes could barely register.

Its sword of pure light left a searing, white-gold trail in the air, aimed not at my chest, but at my neck. A clean, emotionless, programmed decapitation.

B-Rank speed. No hesitation.

My mind screamed. Every instinct honed from the game, every fiber of my being supercharged by my E+ stats, went into a single, desperate reaction.

"Swift Step!"

I didn't try to parry. I didn't try to block. I threw myself backwards, my Siekie Ryoku footwork activating in a burst of explosive energy.

The wind from the blade's passage seared my cheek, singing the front strands of my hair. The smell of burnt ozone filled my nostrils.

I landed heavily on the black stone steps of the dais, tumbling backwards and rolling to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Too fast. That was too fast. A clean hit would have eliminated me instantly.

The construct paused. Its head tilted, a gesture of pure, cold calculation. It had missed. Its internal programming was now recalibrating.

...Target evaded. Recalculating trajectory. Switching to suppression protocol...

The whisper echoed in my mind, cold and synthetic. The psychic interference in this room wasn't just ambient sorrow; it was the construct's own operational log, leaking into the air.

"Suppression protocol?" I panted, gripping Draken. "Right. The game bosses always have a pattern."

The Solara Votary raised its free hand. The air around it warped as golden light gathered, not into a blade, but into dozens of shimmering, ethereal chains.

[Radiant Bindings]!

It's a classic B-rank Knight skill. Low damage, high-speed capture. It wants to immobilize me, then execute.

The chains shot forward like golden serpents, fast as arrows, weaving through the air to cut off my evasion routes.

I couldn't dodge them all; the spread was too wide. But this wasn't raw physical force. This was a mana construct.

"Aura Dominion!"

The silver-blue field of my will snapped into existence, a 5-meter radius of psychic and spiritual pressure.

The incoming chains visibly slowed as they entered my field, their golden light flickering, destabilized by my Will Suppression.

It was the opening I needed.

"Judgment Chain!"

I didn't aim at the Votary. I aimed at the chains themselves. My hand snapped into the seal, and arcs of blue-white lightning exploded from my palm, leaping between the golden mana constructs.

KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA-KRA!

Lightning met light. The chains, already weakened by my aura, overloaded instantly.

They shattered into a glittering shower of golden data particles, dissolving before they ever reached me.

...Suppression failed. Target neutralized binding protocol. Reverting to Pattern Alpha: Primary Assault...

The moment the whisper registered in my mind, the Votary moved. It lunged again, crossing the dais, its light-sword raised for another high-speed execution.

I blinked, using a micro-Shadow Swap to dodge, the blade hissing through the space I'd occupied a nanosecond earlier.

I landed on the main chamber floor, my mind racing, a wild, desperate grin splitting my face.

It's a loop.

It's stuck in a programming loop!

The realization hit me with the force of a revelation. This thing wasn't a modern, adaptive AI. It was an ancient guardian. Its programming was rigid.

Pattern Alpha: High-speed assassination.

If Evaded -> Pattern Beta: Mana-based suppression.

If Suppression Fails -> Revert to Pattern Alpha.

It didn't know how to handle an opponent who could both evade its B-rank speed and shatter its B-rank mana constructs. It was cycling between its two primary protocols, unable to find a solution.

This is it. This is the flaw. The 'author's loophole' I was looking for.

The Votary paused again, its featureless head tilting, processing the repeated failure. The ambient mana in the chamber grew heavier, more agitated.

...Tactical loop detected. Threat level elevated. Accessing Failsafe Protocol: Purification Cascade...

My blood ran cold.

Shit. It's adapting.

The Votary wasn't a simple machine. It had a third option. A "wipe the board" maneuver.

The golden light of its body began to intensify, turning from a warm gold to a blinding, sterile white.

The heat in the chamber spiked instantly, pressing against my Aura Dominion, making the silver-blue field sizzle and steam. The construct's internal core was overloading, bypassing its programmed skills for a raw, indiscriminate power dump.

"This is bad," I breathed, skidding backward. Quantum Analysis Mind flared, probabilities collapsing. Evasion: 0%. Survival via direct block: 0%. The attack isn't targeted; it's a room-wide detonation.

Waves of annihilating light began to pulse from the construct, weaker at first, then stronger, pushing me back. The black stone floor around its feet began to crack and sublimate under the sheer energy release.

I couldn't block it. I couldn't dodge it. I couldn't outrun it.

My mind raced, grabbing at the last, most reckless thread of logic. The Votary is a Guardian.

Its core programming isn't to 'kill.' It's to 'protect the vault.' Its failsafe is to 'Purge Intruders.' But what if I force its core directives into conflict?

"You guard the Dais!" I roared, less a strategic call and more a desperate gamble.

I poured every last drop of my remaining mana into a single, final, suicidal charge.

I deactivated the costly Aura Dominion, funneling the energy instead into my legs and blade. Ice, Lightning, and the volatile, tearing energy of Space all fused with Draken.

"Siekie Ryoku Arts: Form Three - Heaven Splitter!"

I didn't aim for the Votary. I aimed for the empty platform it had been standing on. The Dais. The 'heart' of the vault it was programmed to protect.

I vanished, using the spatial-blink aspect of Heaven Splitter, tearing through the waves of building light, my body screaming in protest as unrefined Space energy threatened to tear me apart from the inside.

The Solara Votary, in the midst of charging its [Purification Cascade], felt the shift. Its core programming registered my new target.

...Threat detected. Intruder targeting Vault Core.

Directive One: Protect the Vault. Overriding Failsafe...

The room-wide detonation... stopped.

The Votary abandoned its ultimate attack. In a flash of golden light, it 'light-stepped' – a form of instantaneous teleportation – appearing directly on top of the Dais, placing its own body between my incoming attack and the platform it was sworn to protect. It raised its sword of light, not to attack, but to defend.

It was the fatal mistake I had gambled my life on.

I was already in motion. The Votary had shielded the Dais from me, but in doing so, it had exposed itself to me, its defenses reoriented to block an attack on the platform, not its own body.

Twisting mid-air, a maneuver that felt like it would tear my spine in two, I re-angled my Heaven Splitter. The blade, humming with the combined, chaotic power of Ice, Lightning, and Space, bypassed its hasty block.

My space-infused blade didn't just cut; it severed the connection between the construct and its mana core.

There was no sound. No grand explosion. Just a sudden, absolute silence.

The blinding white light of the construct's core sputtered, flickered, and went out.

The Solara Votary stood frozen for an eternal second, its featureless head tilted as if in confusion.

Then, like a statue made of golden sand, it began to crumble. Its arms, its torso, its sword of light – all dissolved into a shower of glittering, harmless data particles that drifted silently down onto the black stone platform.

[Vault Guardian Defeated.]

[Quest Complete: Echoes of the Forgotten Sun]

[Rewards Added to System Inventory.]

I hit the floor on my hands and knees, Draken clattering from my numb fingers. My vision swam. My mana core was bone dry.

My entire body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder. The backlash from the spatial jump and the overload of affinities left me trembling, nauseous, blood trickling from my nose and ears.

But as I looked at the empty dais, now silent and dark, and the faint chime of the system confirming my victory, a ragged, painful laugh tore itself from my throat.

A B-Rank construct… beaten by an E+...

My alibi for my parents – "personal training" – had escalated slightly.

I'd found the ingredients for Elina's father. I'd completed the quest. And I had survived.

Now, the only problem was figuring out how to stand up.

____________

The silence in the central chamber was absolute, a heavy blanket pressed down where a storm of light and mana had raged moments before.

The only sound was my own ragged breathing, each gasp echoing too loudly in the vast, empty vault.

I was on my hands and knees, my forehead pressed against the cold, reflective black stone. My entire body felt like it had been struck by a high-speed train.

A dull, pounding throb pulsed behind my eyes, the familiar and agonizing signature of spatial magic backlash.

(To be continued)

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