Nobody knew how long the fight had been going on, but one thing was clear: the party seemed to be on the verge of defeating the Dark God for good.
Upon reaching its third phase, the Dark God had cast an imposing figure. But now, the efforts of the five-man party had reduced it to a pitiful state.
While all five were mages, they were equipped with a treasure trove of weapons they had made themselves. They had been using them to bring forth tremendous waves of brutal firepower and mayhem, overwhelming the Dark God from start to finish.
“Damn, you’re a stubborn one. Can you just hurry up and die already?!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“It’s the last boss! Of course it’s going to be tough!”
“Ooh, winding up for an attack, are you? Guess I’ll put up my magic defense!”
The Dark God’s powerful magic attack came surging toward Satoshi and his party, looking as if it were tearing up the world itself.
But despite its force, they’d blocked the attack with a network of magical barriers. That created an opening—an opening that the party could use. Brandishing their weapons, they rushed in for a joint assault.
The god’s arm was sliced right off, and fell to the floor to the sound of almighty roar.
That the party had managed to pull off this sort of feat despite all being mages was thanks to the spells and equipment they had made together. In freely devoting themselves to whatever sort of ultimate gear, magic, and items took their fancy, the party members had casually tested all sorts of things against enemy monsters.
This was not the first time the party had tried to bring down the Dark God. But their many previous attempts had ended in utter defeat—and now, they were out for revenge.
“All righty! Should we go in for the finish? I’ve gotta get to my part-time job soon.”
“Yeah! Go murder that bastard!”
“I’ll back you up. You’d better appreciate it, okay?”
“I wonder what kind of rare drops we’ll get? I can’t wait to see!”
“Okay, then—how about we make some sort of cool pose together? It’s the last boss, after all. What kind of top players would we be if we didn’t show off here?”
The players all had bold grins plastered across their faces. And all at once, they sent out magical attacks of immense power that cascaded over the Dark God, forcing its health to plummet toward zero.
The magic from the oddball band of mischief-makers—ridiculously excessive, terribly overpowered magic—hurtled ruthlessly toward the Dark God. It was almost enough to make you feel bad for the poor thing.
Bathed in countless explosions, the Dark God was in its pitiful final moments, slinking down from the sky to the ground in defeat.
“Well, that’s the end of that. Just what you’d expect from the last boss fight...that was tough!”
“So, what now? I’ll have to pass on any celebrations, though. I’m just about to fall asleep...”
“Yeah, I’ve got work now, so it’s a no from me too. I’ll be logging off in just a sec.”
“Same here. Sorry, guys. I’ll make up for it next time, though.”
“All right, I guess we’re calling it for today, then. I’m off to work. Niiiight~!”
A chorus of “Niiiight~!” echoed back from the rest of the party.
With his party members teleporting out and logging off one after another, Satoshi was left alone in the Dark God’s castle, having decided to stay and look through the loot he’d received.
And it was this decision that set everything in motion.
Oblivious to the slight twitch in the Dark God’s body in front of him, Satoshi continued to scan through his status screen, looking over his level-ups and the points he’d earned as he thought about what skill to acquire next. Then all of a sudden, the corpse of the Dark God began to move before his eyes.
Cloaked in an ominous haze, the god gazed straight at the foe in front of it, eyes burning with hatred.
“You cretins dare to overthrow me? Unacceptable!”
“Wh—?! No way! I’m sure I saw that health bar hit zero...!”
“A curse upon the meddling goddesses who sealed me! A curse upon the ignorant cretins who opposed me! You will all fall together!”
“You’re kidding... The event’s not over yet?! I swear it was—”
The Dark God let loose a wave of cursed energy, striking with the full force of its fury.
✦ ✦ ✦
That day, the entirety of Japan experienced a power outage.
In the midst of the chaos, dozens throughout the country were found dead of unknown causes.
Nevertheless, with all efforts going toward restoring the nation’s power grid, those that died were almost completely forgotten about in the frenzy. They were relegated to merely a short article in the corner of a newspaper page, and that was it—lost to the waves of time.