The dull, metallic clanging of Sol’s party members parrying Unlimited Sword Glint slashes filled the air nonstop. All three with offensive capability—Reen using Butter Knife, Frederica with her fists, and Eliza with ropes of magic threads—were striking down the slashes close to them as soon as they appeared, while Luna’s tail smacked down everything targeting Sol and Julia. Rosalind alone made no move to protect herself, as the slashes only dug a few centimeters at most into Rodem’s formless body.
“I can handle this pace with no problem,” Reen reported with Thought Acceleration active.
“The slashes stop when you break Novem’s line of sight,” Frederica noted. “They are no threat when I stay outside of his field of vision.”
“With our speed, we can cross his field of view so fast he doesn’t have time to target us,” Eliza added. “So it looks like just staying on the move works too.”
While Reen was diligently cutting down her slashes, Frederica was using her high mobility to stay out of IX’s sight, and Eliza was repeatedly popping in and out of his view. In doing so, they confirmed that his kinetic vision wasn’t capable of keeping up and that the targeting ability of Unlimited Sword Glint did not happen all by itself. As a bonus, Eliza quickly filled the room with her threads so that she could kill or capture IX whenever Sol gave the word.
Julia sighed with admiration at her friends’ performance. “Do we have the world’s best attackers or what?”
She had taken part in the Country Eater fight too, but the place she felt most comfortable was next to the party’s shot caller, where she had enough distance to see the full picture of the fight playing out. If she scattered Type Phoenix’s feathers now, they would just get shredded by Unlimited Sword Glint, so she was entirely on standby at the moment.
“I couldn’t agree more. They’ve completely got this in the bag. And Luna, thank you too,” said Sol.
The girls’ teamwork was near perfect even without his orders, and they weren’t making any offensive moves until he instructed them to do so. In watching this display of battle prowess that overshadowed that of top veteran adventurers, Sol felt laughter bubbling up from within. Reen was one thing, but Frederica’s and Eliza’s growth was so remarkable that his feelings went beyond impressed to straight up amazed.
Of course, he did not forget to thank Luna either for handling the attacks directed at him and Julia. Frankly, the two of them could deal with something of this level themselves—him with his shortsword and her with her wand—but as a commander and healer, they deeply appreciated having someone protecting them.
Luna was already over the moon at Sol getting angry on her behalf earlier. Being thanked for a task that took less effort than child’s play had sent her over the edge, eliciting a slovenly expression and gross laugh that was rather inappropriate for the head of the prideful race of dragons. This time, the Demon Lord wasn’t alone in recoiling—even the Elven Queen gave the All Dragon a side look and warbled a low-pitched note in a disapproving tone.
Sol’s expression was rather complicated, but no one commented on it. If this mental state was effective in making the All Dragon stay put on the back line like Sol had ordered, there was no need to snap her out of it. This way, he was free to observe how well normal people trained up with Player could perform against a being that was allegedly protecting this world’s status quo in an official capacity.
Unlike the others, Rosalind had yet to master high-speed aerial maneuvers. She was practically standing still and just blurting the occasional “Huh?” and “What?” in reaction to the bits and pieces she caught of the ongoing action.
“Calm down, Rosalind,” said Sol. “Rodem is protecting you from the flying slashes, so you’re completely safe.”
“I-I know that in my head, but...”
“If this is all he’s got, he is no match at all for us,” said Rodem.
It was a blessing that Rodem was so well-matched with Unlimited Sword Glint. Rosalind didn’t actually need to move, and she wasn’t in any danger from staying still. Even if something that could harm her appeared, Rodem had the discernment to take appropriate action. Therefore, Sol wasn’t all that worried about her.
In fact, the fight was so anticlimactic that Sol was afraid he would get careless. He had to give IX points for launching his assault right after Sol’s declaration, but it had become clear that he was woefully incapable of keeping up with Sol’s party when they used Thought Acceleration, which had become a matter of course in all their fights. They had yet to get a measure of IX’s physical capabilities, but the movement of his head and eyes was no faster than that of a normal human. He was no match at all for Sol’s party as they zipped around, both thinking and moving at superhuman speeds. He was completely left in the dust.
Most importantly, Unlimited Sword Glint was nowhere near a threat. The flying slashes’ hidden ability to stun and whittle away HP was indeed exceptional. It also provided assistance with targeting those in the user’s view and flew quite fast. It probably would make someone invincible in a fight against monsters.
Only one problem: The slashes had to actually land. They were fast, but not instantaneous. Although they could be launched close to a target, that distance was similar to normal melee range. Given that, Sol’s group, who could move fast enough to match their quickened thoughts, were more than capable of simply using their weapons to parry the slashes when they appeared. They could probably even have dodged them.
Moreover, despite the slashes’ guaranteed effect against HP barriers, they weren’t all that powerful themselves. There was no chance of them destroying the top-of-the-line Gawain-made weapons that everyone in Sol’s party wielded. Nobody wanted to take the risk of testing, but they were sure even their normal-looking gear could take quite a beating from the slashes, not to mention their Numbers armaments. In fact, their foundation suits alone could probably withstand more than a few hits.
In other words, the flying slashes were getting nowhere near touching the party’s HP barrier in the first place.
All attacks directed at monsters first landed on their HP barrier and directly harmed them only after exhausting that barrier. Since most monsters were virtually fully reliant on their HP barriers for protection, very few developed exoskeletons or hide that could withstand skills and spells. This meant once their barrier was down, the fight was effectively over.
Taking down a human was another story entirely. One would have to first get past the weapon they were using to parry attacks, get past the shield they were protecting themselves with, and get through the gear they were wearing before finally reaching their HP barrier. A flying slash that failed to do all that would not stun or shave off an HP point and therefore was inconsequential.
In short, against humans, Unlimited Sword Glint was essentially a very dense barrage. This was still effective against humans whose eyes couldn’t keep up and who could be killed with a single slash—in other words, normal people without Player’s support. For Sol’s party, however, the skill was little more than a tiresome and somewhat flashy game of Whac-A-Mole. This was something they had already confirmed using Blue Water’s version before. If the only thing different about the form IX wielded was that it was truly unlimited and had no need to build up a stockpile, the change did not make it any more of a threat against Sol’s group.
“Reen, try taking Novem’s aggro. If it works as usual, redirect everything to Rosalind.”
“Not to my shields? I’m pretty sure they can take it.”
Now that he knew his side was in no danger and could respond any way they chose, Sol decided to try dealing with it how they usually did. Through practice matches with each other, the party had learned that Reen’s ability to control the targeting of skills and spells was effective against those cast by humans too. That said, there was no guarantee that would always be the case when facing hostile enemies, thus Sol’s use of the word “try.”
Whenever Reen did this, however, she had always redirected the attacks toward one of her shields, and she therefore found Sol’s instructions a little unexpected. Even her weakest shields, the two cannon shields, could very comfortably withstand the attacks she was currently fending off with Butter Knife.
“I don’t doubt it, but it would get really noisy. So, Rodem, think you can handle it?”
“Without a doubt.”
“All right, let’s do th— Ah, it’s working just fine. All good.”
Since Sol had heard her out but reconfirmed his order regardless, Reen carried it out without another moment’s delay. Members of this party had the right to voice their opinions when there was time to discuss it, but when Sol expressed understanding and still insisted—and he would often explain why—they absolutely had to obey. This was an ironclad rule for fights in this party, and anyone who could not follow it had no place there, regardless of their relationship with the other members. Even Reen, who was aware she had the most say with Sol, made sure to respect that rule.
When she used Intimidate, the targeting function of the perfected Unlimited Sword Glint easily fell under her control, so she promptly set it to only attack Rosalind, who was still standing stock-still. Until Intimidate wore off, all skills and spells used by IX could only target her. The only recourse IX had left was to get close and throw kicks or punches using his actual body.
Reen had thought Intimidate extremely powerful from the start, but it continued to impress and terrify her with its development. In the beginning, she could only choose a member of her party as the target, but now she could even specify a piece of gear they were wearing. Recently, her go-to strategy in ordinary fights not intended to impress anyone was to transfix Axis Nine, her toughest shield, in the air and have it basically suck away all of the skills and spells launched by the monster they were facing. It was so effective that she couldn’t help feeling bad whenever she did it.
Eventually, though, she would learn how to select empty points in space for this purpose, and that would greatly demoralize even her sparring partners, not just monsters. Anyone’s spirit would break when they packed everything they had into an ultimate attack only to flub it by sending it off in an unintended direction.
This was exactly what Sol was trying to do against IX at the moment.