Yes, updates require < 10 GB - 15 GB or more of free space, the recommended amount of free space is 25 - 30 GB.
The current system drive has only 4 - 5 GB of free disk space.
I cloned the c: drive and upon reboot received a different recovery error relating to MbamElam.sys. Realized that was related to Malwarebytes. Got in as before using advanced startup and selecting (8) Disable Early Launch Anti-Malware Protection. That made me think that maybe when I was uninstalling some programs initially to free up space that possibly MB didn't uninstall properly.
When I tried to run MB I got an error relating to mbcut.dll. I decided to reinstall MB and reboot. The system rebooted perfectly. Tried a couple of times to confirm and all was good with the reboot issue.
I then turned on Windows updates and all pending Windows updates installed in one pass with no issues. Curious if I had multiple issues (MB and low disk space) so I reinstalled my original SSD and did all of the exact same procedures stated above. Everything mirrored except that Windows updates could not apply all of the updates in one pass so I had to run the updates process two times instead. I assume because of low disk space on that drive.
So all is good and the larger drive clued me into the Malwarebytes issue which was also causing the Windows updates to revert (due to all of the automatic repairs the system was attempting to apply upon reboot).
You're welcome. Glad to hear everything is up and running and you've managed to resolved the MB issue as well...
The we can mark this thread as solved.