That’s probably why angels and demons are so popular, as they’re the same size as humans. Angel players usually main defensive builds while demons favor attacks, with angels having the slight edge when it comes to suitability for flight—likely due to their wings.
“It’s sphere time! Aren’t you excited, everyone?”
“No, I hate them.”
“I love all round things!”
“May you be kicked by the Hounds of Tindalos.”
“If I get kicked by the Hounds of Tindalos, may you be kicked by Yog-Sothoth.”
“Kicked by Yoh-Sothoth?”
“It defies the very notion of what a ‘kick’ is!”
“Yes, Yog-Sothoth doesn’t have legs to speak of. I believe it’s Stellura who would come and give you a kick,” I suggest.
“Sounds more like a perk than a punishment.”
“But you’ll probably die if a god physically kicks you.”
“I’d rather die by the foot of a beautiful goddess than by one of those pointy dogs.”
I’m not exactly sure how we started discussing this.
The frontliners carry the spheres until the very last second and throw them at the force field to make them explode. We knock the others against their opposing elements to make them disappear or sweep them into a safe corner. Any mistakes during these steps will make the mines explode and take out anyone around them.
“Farewell, cruel world!”
“Don’t you dare die on me, or I’ll kill you!”
“What are you talking about? Are you trying to say, ‘The only one who can kill you is me’?”
“C’mon, back on your feet.”
“You always come and save me! I love that about you!”
“Oh, shut up. You’re on your own the next time you die.”
“There you go again!”
Um, they seem to be enjoying themselves.
It looks like we’re knocking out the remaining fanatics just fine. Of course, this turns them into more sacrifices for the enemies to work with, but the fanatics are simply reaping what they’ve sowed, of course.
“Ha ha! Mead just headshotted a fanatic with Meteor Shoot!”
“That sounds like overkill.”
It’s actually quite a sophisticated technique. Meteor Shoot has a bit of a delay, so she must have aimed for the fanatic before the force field was even broken.
“What should we do for steps six and eight?”
“It’s either a strike or a sweep, right?”
“After the spells, it goes for whatever its last unused attack is. It’s never repeated the previous attack again.”
I see. So it’s one or the other? It must never repeat the same move before and after it attacks us with spells.
Well, it’s those spells that are deadlier to us flying players, so I don’t care whatever it wants to do with its tentacles.
The twins, Ms. Fairellen, Ms. Cupid, and I end up battling alongside each other in the sky.
Despite all the deaths, it does feel as if we’ll manage to defeat this boss. Although…
“There’s just so many of them now,” I remark.
“Seventy-eight enemies in total, right?”
“I wonder how high that number will go.”
“But I think the Dark Young should be calming down soon.”
“I’m glad there’s fewer spheres now. It means fewer deaths.”
“Sure, but the bigger problem is that it’s harder to break the force field now.”
That’s because we have fewer opportunities to work with. As a result, this fight has only gotten harder. Of course, that does reduce the burden on our healers too.
“Aaaah! There’s way too many minions!”
As we predicted, the amount of minions appears to depend on the amount of Blessed.
The problem is that there’s likely a fixed amount of time before the Dark Young begins to attack. In other words, it’s a DPS check. If we’re too slow to defeat the minions, the Dark Young will begin to attack while minions are still up and active. The Dark Young’s attacks do kill any minions caught in the crossfire, fortunately—unfortunately, said minions are actually quite capable of messing with our timing if they strike at the right moment.
“Hey, how does it feel to be killed by enemies with names like ‘Minion A’ and ‘Minion B?’”
“Don’t put it like that!”
“If you ignore their names, they’re actually pretty scary.”
Minion A is a four-legged close-range attacker; Minion B walks on two legs and deals close-range physical attacks; Minion C is also bipedal but fires off long-range spells; Minion D is a flying type that uses long-range spells; Minion E is a flying type that uses close-range physical attacks… There’s actually quite a lot of variety. As for their appearances, well, they’re not the kinds of things easily described.
The very first minions summoned were just the four-legged type, but they began to vary more over time.
“There’re too many damn flying types!” everyone yells.
“It must be because we have so much space to fight up here,” I suggest.
“They can hardly move down there on the ground!” say the twins.
They’re right. After all, players on the ground have to group up and form squadrons. There simply isn’t any space to fight.
“They keep adding Es too!”
“Those damn Es are turning it into a free-for-all!”
“It’s dogfightin’ time!”
“There’re stray bullets flyin’ everywhere! I’m not having fun anymore!”
“Eeeeeeergh! Oof!”
The nearby angel players are stabbed by some sort of bug-like stingers from the Es, who then grapple them and hurtle them toward the ground. Taken altogether, the damage to the angels’ bodies, the falling speed, the grappling move that makes it impossible to get into a defensive position, and the damage from impact with the ground all amount to the players’ untimely deaths.
“The minions kick the players’ bodies away just before they hit the ground together.”
“What a disgusting thing to do. And they do it so casually.”
“So if you mess up your posture, they hit you with the screwdriver and kill you instantly.”
“How did it ever come to this?”
The players are plummeting to the ground head-first. Heads and necks are considered weak points on most players, so anyone who isn’t like our group needs to put up a fight or risk being killed.
“Take that! And that!” chant the twins.
They’re fighting minions while circling around each other.
“Wow! They really look like twins!”
“That’s the best description you can think of?”
“I’m too busy fighting to use my brain!”
Yes, I understand how combat takes up most of your attention. Ms. Cupid and Ms. Fairellen are really in a pinch. The same goes for Ms. Trine, who fights with magic, but she has Mr. Ame to cover for her.
“Looks like we have to make this a close-range battle, or we’re done for!”
“No! I refuse! I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘close-range!’ Aaaaah!” cries Ms. Fairellen.
“Ms. Ellen was just… Uh, she’s… Just now, they killed Ms. Ellen!”
“You might need to work on timing your canned reactions better,” I remark.