Chapter 53: Golem Bora
The Bora charged without wasting even a single moment....
"Mark, left side!" Lucas shouted, already pivoting to put his own body between the creature and Pyra, who stood frozen a few steps behind him, claws extended but clearly unprepared for something moving this big and moving this fast.
Mark didn’t hesitate. He surged forward to meet the charge head on, gauntlets flaring bright as the Bora’s reshaped horns crashed against his raised arms and this time, unlike the weakened, less than half strength fight they’d suffered through back at the fortress, the impact staggered the beast instead of staggering Mark.
"That’s more like it..." Mark grinned fiercely, feeling the full force of [Bastion’s Oath] answer properly for the first time in what felt like ages. "We’re back in business baby! As long as we’re in this hell hole, beating this thing should be easier..."
The creature reeled, faster to recover than anything its size should have been, and lashed out with a foreleg that Mark barely managed to parry, boots skidding backward through loose sand.
He caught his balance and drove a counter into its shoulder, the impact ringing out solid and satisfying, nothing like the hollow, not so effective strikes that had plagued every fight since they returned home.
"Pyra." Lucas kept his voice low and steady, angling his body to keep hers shielded. "Breathe.... Listen to me... You’ve got this. Stay behind me until I say otherwise"
"I’ve never—" Her voice shook, claws trembling at her sides. "I’ve never actually fought anything before. We’ve been running away from them most of the time."
Lucas stared at her for a moment. In all honesty, he couldn’t blame her. Part of her fear stemmed from the fact that her expectations and the reality were worlds apart.
She’d seen beasts, but she’d never seen this one...
"Don’t worry... today’s not the day you start alone." Lucas managed a reassuring smile despite the chaos unfolding a few yards away. "Watch and Learn,.You’ll get your moment when I give you the signal."
She nodded, swallowing hard, and Lucas turned his full attention back to the fight, flame roaring to life around both fists albeit weakly...
"Mark! Hang on! I’m coming..."
[Tampered skill has been neutralized.]
[Awakening skill at full strength.]
’Stupid glitch...’
He closed the distance at a dead sprint, [Ignition] flaring hot and full-strength around his knuckles for the first time in what felt like an eternity, and drove a burning punch into the creature’s exposed flank the instant it turned to track the new threat.
The impact landed clean, flame catching properly against plated hide that had shrugged off everything back home, and the Bora shrieked, genuinely hurt for the first time since it had torn free from the sand.
"Finally!" Lucas grinned despite himself, feeling the familiar, glorious weight of his full strength answering his call like it had countless times before they got home.
The creature’s tail lashed out, its serrated tail lashing far and wide, aimed low at his legs, and Lucas twisted clear, countering with a flaming kick that connected hard against its foreleg.
Mark used the opening to slam his gauntlets into the same wounded flank, the two of them falling into a rhythm that felt, despite the unfamiliar enemy, oddly and comfortably familiar.
"You know," Mark said, ducking under a horn aimed at him and driving a fist into the creature’s jaw, "between the two of us, I feel like I’m doing most of the actual blocking here."
"That’s kind of the point my guy." Lucas said, dodging the tail again. "That’s what a human body shield does..."
Lucas darted in low, [Ignition] flaring around both feet now as he drove a burning kick into the same joint Mark had just widened.
"I feel like I should get compensated for this."
"You get the glory of being a human body shield. That’s all the pay you need...."
"That is NOT—"
The Bora recovered faster than either of them expected, twisting mid exchange and driving its tail low and fast, a strike aimed to sweep both their legs at once.
Lucas dodged the first arc cleanly, shifting his weight back, already congratulating himself on the clean dodge...
... But he didn’t see the second tail whip around from the opposite side until it was already too late, the serrated edge catching him full across the ribs and hurling him sideways into the sand with bone shaking force. Tearing into him from his sides and coming out the other end...
"Lucas!"
The pain arrived, mind bending pain flooded his body as his breath was knocked clean out of him before he even hit the ground, and the last thing he registered before the world went dark was Pyra’s scream and the desert sky spinning wildly above him.
[You have died.]
[Regression Activated.]
***
The familiar cold swallowed him whole, that same disorienting nothing he had grown to recognize across dozens of deaths now, and then, just as sudden, warmth, light and sand beneath his boots again.
"Mark! Hang on! I’m coming—"
The words left his mouth again, exactly as before, and Lucas staggered slightly at the familiar, disorienting flood of memories came flooding back all at once — the fight, the tail, the strikes he hadn’t accounted for.
[Player has returned to designated checkpoint.]
[Checkpoint has been restored to the last stable moment prior to death.]
’Two tails.... The second one follows the first from the opposite side, timed just late enough that dodging the first puts you directly in its path.’
Mark was already moving, charging to meet the Bora’s opening charge, and Lucas caught his arm before he could fully commit.
"Wait. Listen to me... Its tails attack in pairs. The first strike draws you into position for the second one. Don’t dodge the first out right. Angle away from both at once, don’t commit fully to either direction."
Mark blinked at him. "How do you—"
"Not the time," Lucas said, already moving. "Trust me on this one. Please."
Something in his tone must have carried enough weight, because Mark didn’t push further, he just adjusted his stance and nodded once before surging forward to meet the charge.
This time, when the creature’s horns crashed against his raised gauntlets, Mark planted himself at a deliberate route instead of squarely in its path, and the impact staggered the beast just as satisfyingly as it did before.
"Pyra, stay behind me," Lucas said, already moving into position. "This one’s going to be tough to beat"
He closed the distance at a dead sprint, [Ignition] roaring around both fists, and this time he tracked the fight with a different kind of attention...
Not just reacting to what the creature did, but predicting the shape of what came next, cataloguing every twitch of muscle beneath its plated hide the way he’d learned to read a dozen other beasts before this one.
’It favors its right foreleg after a hit lands on the left, the same as the ones back home and the ones before that.’
Details piled up fast now, each one slotting into place— the way its shoulders dipped a half moment before any lunge, the way its wounded flank made it lean slightly sideways when it pivoted, the subtle shift in its breathing that preceded every shriek.
None of it was magic. It was pattern recognition sharpened across dozens of fights and dozens of deaths...
"Mark! It’s going to pivot right after this next hit. Be ready to catch the follow up"
Mark’s fist connected with the creature’s left flank exactly as Lucas called it, and the Bora pivoted right precisely as he predicted, focusing its stance in a way that left its wounded side exposed for a moment longer than it should have.
Lucas was already there, flame roaring around both fists as he drove two burning punches into the newly exposed wound, widening it further, and the creature shrieked in genuine pain this time, staggering hard enough that its balance visibly wavered.
"How the fuck are you doing that!" Mark shouted, ducking another wild swing, sand flying up around his boots.
"Later. Watch the tail. It’s about to try the double swing again..."
The Bora’s tail lashed out, exactly as Lucas remembered, first strike sweeping wide toward their legs and this time, instead of dodging cleanly, he angled his retreat in a way that pushed him out of the beast’s trajectory.
The second tail whipped around a second later, exactly where he’d have been if he’d dodged like the last round, and caught nothing but empty air where his body should have been.
"MARK!"
Mark scrambled onto a nearby dune’s crest without question this time, trusting the pattern even without understanding where it came from, and the creature’s attention split between the two of them exactly as Lucas needed it to.
Lucas user [Ignition] to get himself into the air, causing the beast to go up all the way to its hind legs and Mark rushed towards it, slamming both fists into the beast, causing it to topple backwards.
"Pyra— Now!"
[You have activated skill: Skyhop]
She hesitated only a moment before Skyhop launched her upward in a burst that defied every understanding her body had ever had about jumping, and she came down hard, claws extended, driving them deep into the creature’s exposed belly mid fall, the instant Mark’s follow-up strike from below forced it to fall back in pain.
The Bora’s shriek climbed to something desperate, thrashing wildly as it was wounded from every angle at once, and Lucas closed the last of the distance with everything [Ignition] could give him, flame roaring around both fists and feet as he drove a final, devastating blow directly into its throat.
The creature convulsed once, twice, and collapsed into the sand, motionless, its plated hide finally still.
Silence fell over the dunes, broken only by three people breathing hard as exhaustion clawed at their bodies...
"Okay," Mark said eventually, chest heaving, staring at the fallen creature with clear disbelief. "Someone explain to me, right now, how you knew exactly how that thing moved."
Lucas managed a tired, evasive smile, wiping sweat and sand from his face. "Lucky guesses."
"That was not luck. That was you calling out its entire attack pattern before it happened."
Lucas shrugged. "Educated lucky guesses, then."
Mark studied him for a long moment, clearly unconvinced, but the exhaustion of the fight and the sheer relief of having survived it seemed to win over pressing further.
At least for now....
"Fine. Keep your secrets, Princess. But don’t think you’ve escaped this time..."
"Noted," Lucas said, turning...
Pyra sank down into the sand, retracting her claws with a shaky exhale and staring at her own hands like she still couldn’t quite believe what they’d just done.
"I actually hit it," she said, half to herself, voice shaking. "I actually landed a real hit."
"You did great," Lucas said, and he meant it. "First real fight, and you came through when we needed you to."
"Thanks to whatever you just did," she said, glancing at him with the same searching curiosity Mark’s expression carried. "Seriously though, How did you know?"
Lucas looked out over the dunes, the desert sun beating down mercilessly on all three of them, and let the question hang for a moment before answering.
"Let’s just say," he said quietly, "I’ve had practice."
Neither of them pushed further, though he caught the look that passed between Mark and Pyra. It was not quite suspicion, but the particular curiosity of people filing away a question they intended to return to eventually.
Lucas let it go for now, turning instead toward the dunes ahead, the objective still waiting somewhere beyond the heat...
"Come on," he said, offering Pyra a hand up. "We gotta get moving..."