Fortunately, everyone was still alive, but only half of the guild members were still able to fight. Two had shut themselves in their inn rooms, and four dropped their weapons and were shaking in fear.
A procession of monsters kept marching on from beyond the horizon. The players were getting their bearings and gaining levels, which made the fighting easier…but there was just no end to it.
How many more hours—or days—do we have to keep this up…? Umineko wondered.
Whenever it seemed they were making headway, it never lasted more than a split second, but they weren’t losing ground, either. It was as if they’d been dealt cards with either angels or devils on them, and with the limited information they had, they kept drawing the angel cards.
While they could heal their injuries, nothing could help with the mental exhaustion. Every enemy they defeated was just a drop in the bucket. Behind every strong foe was a line of hundreds of others.
“Master!”
With a dull clang, a dent appeared in Umineko’s armor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a semitransparent knight holding a mace.
The strike sent Umineko sprawling on the ground, and the piercing pain almost knocked him out. The emotionless knight raised its mace to deliver a finishing blow.
“Rune of Lupus!”
A wolf ripped apart the ghostly knight with its teeth.
On cue, a pack of darkly glowing wolves advanced like a wave, tearing monsters limb from limb as if they were feasting on their flesh before charging at farther targets.
A green glow enveloped Umineko’s body. His LP recovered, and his injured leg that he couldn’t move was healed.
“I won’t let you die.”
Byakuren waved her staff as if she was dancing.
Star magicians, a type of summoner, cast spells that were brief but very powerful.
After exterminating all nearby monsters, Byakuren moved on to cover other players without casting as much as a single glance at Umineko.
“Master! Are you okay?!”
“Yeah, I’m fine…”
Umineko was dazed, but he was alive. He touched the dented part of his armor, and only then, a wave of fear washed over him.
“Let’s retreat. I…I’m at my limit,” Marebito’s sub-master pleaded, tearful and covered in mud.
Umineko got to his feet, refreshed, and looked down at his distressed sub-master.
“I want to protect everyone here. I’ll keep on fighting a bit longer,” he said.
He drew his sword again and headed toward a group of enemies. The sub-master quickly wiped their tears and followed Umineko.
Three arrows pierced a giant’s knees. The monster growled, hunching down, and then another Silver Arrow struck its forehead.
With a terrible rumble, the giant began to sink into the ground, its LP fully depleted. Misaki swiftly jumped to retrieve her Silver Arrows from the enemy’s knees, shoulders, and forehead.
She switched to wooden arrows and pulled the bowstring all the way back.
Full-Power Rapid Shot in four…three…two…one!
She unleashed the attack from the sky with sublime accuracy. Some monsters were pinned down to the ground. Others had their defensive stance broken and got skewered with swords. Some became immobilized and were fried by spells, while others simply exploded into bits.
She took down the monsters that could be killed in one hit and scattered the others to make them vulnerable to her allies’ attacks.
When she silently landed, a formless creature moved in—but something pulled its writhing body in the opposite direction. Misaki turned and saw Makoto, who’d just used Provoke.
“Shield Charge!”
Makoto smashed the foe with his shield, splattering gloop and exposing its core. Without delay, Misaki cut through the core with her dagger, and the monster burst into shards of light.
Makoto ran over to Misaki.
“How’s the situation looking?” he asked.
Misaki used her unique skill to check the number of enemies and their positions.
“We’re pushing them back… Incredible…”
The allied guild forces had started the battle with a numerical advantage that had since increased. Having continuous artillery support from the fortress was certainly helping, and the magic soldiers, soldier NPCs, and mechanical dragons were reliably thinning out the enemies, too.
However, they weren’t the ones who made the biggest difference…
“Ground Tremor!”
Alan leaped into a group of enemies and smashed his fists into the ground, sending the monsters flying and releasing an explosive shock wave through the earth. He launched his flaming right fist at the airborne monsters.
“Divine Firebird!”
In the blink of an eye, all the monsters burst into pixels that rained down onto the ground where Alan had been standing mere moments earlier.
Strengthened by the angels, members of Yamata and Aegis surpassed the other fighters on the battlefield.
“! Incoming!”
Misaki’s gaze snapped toward the Cerou Underground Labyrinth entrance. A giant wrapped in chains had crept out of it and was looking down at the players.
Boss Mob: Chained Giant King Level 50
When the players saw the monster’s level displayed above its head, their hearts sank. A level-50 boss monster—who was strong enough to take down such a formidable foe?
“Piercing Beam!”
A silver beam of light struck the giant’s chest, reducing its LP by 5 percent in one go. The moment the monster roared and swung its arms down, something small slipped between its fists and the ground.
It was Alan. He fended off the giant’s enormous fists with a punch, charging his own attack.
“Destroying Fist!”
A heavy smashing noise followed, and to everyone’s surprise, Alan overpowered the monster. Its fists crumbled, shaving off another 10 percent from its LP bar.
“Piercing Beam!”
The Gem Dragon fired another light beam, this time at the giant’s forehead. The boss monster crumpled to its knees.
“They totally own this fight…,” Makoto muttered in shock.
Misaki took her eyes off the boss and faced the opponents in front of them.
“We should do what we can to kill off other monsters before the rest of the bosses swarm us.”
“Roger. I’ll go and pull some.”
The battlefield was heating up, and it was the players who had the upper hand, yet Misaki couldn’t shake off her anxiety. She concentrated on shooting to keep her mind occupied.
“Are they really human…?”
“Look at that! They’re going to defeat that boss!”
“You’ll finish him off in no time! Go, go, go!”
The Yamata players’ overwhelmingly powerful attacks halved the Chained Giant King’s LP. Other fighters watched, riveted, as Kleinod roared and whipped the monster with its spiky tail. The giant fell backward, knocking up a cloud of dust and crushing a group of monsters that had been coming up behind it.
The players felt this boss monster was no challenge for the frontline guilds. They once again began to feel hopeful; their morale was being restored to its former glory. But then a thunderous war cry ripped through the battlefield, as if foretelling a counterattack. The players’ hearts thumped audibly.
The Giant King shall be unchained.
The Giants shall be unchained.
The boss monster’s chains began to glow as if they were heating up. Only a few players noticed, and by then, they could do nothing to stop the transformation.
The boss’s battered chains broke and shattered on the ground. All the giants on the battlefield stopped moving as if a spell had been cast on them. Their chains started cracking and falling off, and their eyes began to glow red. A mere moment later, the mood on the battlefield changed completely.
The red eyes were everywhere.
“Watch out for the giants’ punches!”
No sooner had someone shouted the warning than something flew into the air—several players whom the Giant King had scooped up and thrown skyward. Electric spears appeared in the giant’s right hand.
“Quick Shot!”
Misaki reflexively attacked with her Silver Arrows. As each one hit a lightning spear, they both shattered—but the giant had one spear left, and it threw the weapon at the players still in midair.
“Aaaaaargh!”
“Aaaaaaaaaah!”
“Guh… Aaargh!”
Their screams of agony lasted only a single moment. The horrible stench of burning flesh filled the air, and the players’ carbonized bodies shattered on the ground.
For a couple seconds, everyone was silent.
“They’re…they’re dead!”
“Aaaah!”
Terrified shrieks filled the battlefield. Players broke ranks, their attacks missed their targets, and spells were being misfired. The monsters knew no mercy, targeting the panicking players one after another.
Boss Mob: Lightning Giant King Zauron Level 50
There were bosses in the game whose attack pattern, weapons, or properties changed when their LP dropped past a certain point. And then there were bosses that transformed completely. Shirokado assumed that the spirit in Cerou would have a second form, but it was this giant that possessed that fearsome trait.
The LP that had initially been displayed above the monster was actually the durability of its chains. It was only when the chains broke that the monster’s real LP bar was displayed, and it was back at 100 percent.
“We’ll keep fighting!” hollered Hiiiiive.
There was no time to grieve for the lives already lost. The players had to deal with the danger at hand first.
“If we hit it when it’s readying the lightning attack, we may be able to stop it from throwing the spears!”
“Attacking the spears directly seems to work, too!”
“Protective barriers are meaningless against that move…!”
Players were hastily exchanging observations and theories. These monsters were all new to them, so they had to guess at how best to fight them.
But the enemies were many, and there was no telling what other skills they might have had. Furthermore, the fighters had just witnessed their allies’ horrific deaths. Their anxiety had grown into fear, which was dulling their reflexes. Some players had already broken ranks and were retreating.
No… No…!
Seeing what the others couldn’t, Misaki was losing her own battle against despair. She raised her shaking voice to alert her allies of more bad news.
“Large monster at ten o’clock! Likely a boss!”