Maple Tree took a step forward, and the two bosses turned toward them, brandishing their weapons.
Water and lava spurted from the ground, transforming the room.
The battlefield collapsed. Waterfalls—some made of lava—flowed into the abyss below, and the ground was now made of rocky pillars that resembled the path they’d taken in.
Some of these platforms were covered in ice, water, lava, or electricity—using those would likely involve a penalty.
Before Maple Tree could regroup, the mage aimed his staff at them.
Five blue magic circles deployed. Guessing what they meant, Sally turned to Maple.
“Heaven’s Throne!”
A pure-white throne appeared.
A tornado-like deluge emerged from the magic circles, washing everything it touched into the abyss below.
Sally and Kasumi took evasive action. Chrome nullified it with his shield. But not everyone had those options.
“……! I-I’m okay!” Maple yelled over the roar of the torrent.
Everyone’s knockbacks were hitting her, and she couldn’t move at all, but the throne kept her from flying away.
If she tried to stand up, she’d likely slip right off the pillar—a fall from which she might never return.
“If I can’t move, then…Ancient Weapon!”
With a ka-chunk, her cube split apart and became a massive tube.
Every hit the party took went to Maple, so the energy powering Ancient Weapon was increasing rapidly. She might be stuck on her throne, but that just turned her into a stationary turret.
A blue beam of light shot back up through the quintuple torrent. It was aimed at the source of the spell. But before it hit, a giant white circle spread out, blocking the beam with an equally large wall of ice.
“Keep shooting, Maple! It can’t use that for every attack!”
“You got it!”
Still, Sally thought that if Maple’s attacks couldn’t end this, the rest of them would have to tip the balance.
The torrent and terrain made that difficult. Martyr’s Devotion covered a substantial area, but it didn’t reach all the way to the mage.
That made it a tall order to get Mai and Yui all the way over there.
As she racked her brains for a solution, the battle progressed.
The dragon warrior took to the skies, coming to them. It was obviously a close-range fighter. With little room to maneuver, Maple Tree couldn’t position themselves advantageously, but they preferred it when bosses came to them.
“Take that one out first!”
“Got it!”
“I’ll make some legroom!”
Iz took out some iron plates and let them fall over to connect the pillars.
Fire breath hit them, but Maple kept Iz safe, and she’d been particular about the durability of the iron plates, so they survived the fires, too.
“Chrome and I will slow it down.”
“Sally and I will pin it in place.”
““Got it!””
“Then let me give you room to maneuver… Taunt!”
The dragon warrior was headed for the twins, so Chrome distracted it, blocking the greatsword as it dropped from the sky.
“Gah……!”
A crushing blow. It was a unique sword that his shield alone could not stop. Electricity crackled, and Maple shouldered the stun.
Which meant Ancient Weapon stopped attacking.
Two magic circles covered the ceiling, one red, one white. Definitely bad news. But before anyone had time to move, a pillar of ice and a pillar of lava rained down.
“I’ll block ’em, someone take the boss! Guardian! Spirit Light!”
They had two great shielders. If Chrome pulled and nullified the damage on top of Martyr’s Devotion, they could survive any AOE.
And while he bought time, Maple recovered from the stun and started shooting at the mage again. Iz and Kanade finished expanding the platform.
Kasumi and Sally were darting around.
“Going right.”
“I’ll take the left.”
On safe footing, Kasumi dove below the dragon warrior.
That close, it couldn’t ignore her, and the second it turned, Sally webbed off an Ice Pillar and hurtled it toward its back.
“Flash Spout!”
Formation disruption, foothold creation, occasional evacuations—Sally’s water skills were good for all sorts of things. This time it pushed the dragon warrior away.
As it escaped the spout and tried to fly upward, purple mist surrounded it.
“Necro, Dead Weight.”
“Slow Field.”
“Now!”
Chrome, Kanade, and Iz cast debuffs, diminishing the dragon warrior’s velocity.
Mai and Yui were already potioned up, and this bought them enough time to move in.
““Destroy Mode! Double Strike!””
The blows were so heavy, the dragon warrior’s greatsword seemed almost adorable in comparison. Flash Spout had knocked it their way, and they knocked it the other.
With a boom, the warrior slammed into the wall behind the mage. Its HP bar dropped like a stone, and they were sure they’d finished it off.
But a moment later, the wall behind it lit up. A white magic circle refilled its HP bar to the halfway point.
““No way!””
“The mage has a resurrect…or wait…”
“Is this one of those ‘defeat them both at the same time’ fights?!”
“Very possible. Problem is…”
One, they could handle. But with this formation, they couldn’t handle both at the same time.
The mage was too far away. And the twins weren’t exactly capable of reducing their damage. If they acted, they one-shotted things. If they wanted to hit both at once, they’d have to split up the twins.
In which case, the problem was Martyr’s Devotion’s limited range. Splitting the twins meant they had to take risks.
“Gotta send several of us to the back, huh?”
“Not seeing any other way. But who…?”
Mai or Yui, one or the other. They’d have to split up Maple and Chrome, too. Then someone would need to help expand the platforms.
Doing all that at once didn’t leave much wiggle room.
And the cost would be stability. If they failed to pull it off the first time, they’d have trouble regrouping.
If they had to take a risk, they wanted their odds to be the best they could be.
“Sally, what do we do?”
“Maple, any ideas?”
“Huh? Me?!”
Maple’s jaw dropped. She had not expected the ball to come to her court.
But Sally had a good reason for asking. Since Martyr’s Devotion was key to their strategy, Maple’s opinion mattered.
“If you’ve got nothing, we’ll just have to avoid them, then try and hit when they’re exposed.”
The knockback came from that torrent. If they could find a way to get out of that, then Maple would be free to move.
Still, that would take time and effort.
“……I think I might have something!” Maple said, brightening up.
“Yeah? Then I’ll distract him while you hash it out,” Chrome said.
Everyone darted over to Maple, and they went into a huddle. They soon concluded that the risk was worth the return.
So it was time to lay the groundwork. Kasumi quickly relayed the plan to Chrome, and he looked appalled…but agreed.
To one-shot both bosses at once, they had to split up the twins.
Maple couldn’t keep both safe, so Chrome had to step up.
“Wool Up! Crystallization!”
Maple solidified the surface of her woolly form.
“Okay, the timing will work.”
“Cool. Then I’ll bring it in!”
No time like the present. Despite her added bulk, Maple was still somehow stuck to the throne.
“Ready, Mai?”
“……Ready!”
“Go!”
“Fey, Item Boost.”
“Mass Spell Barrier!”
Sally gave the sign, and Mai raised her hammer. As she did, Iz buffed her items, putting barricades on the platforms as Kanade put up magical defenses. That momentarily stopped the torrent, freeing Maple from the knockback.
The crystalized Mapleball was no longer pinned to the throne. Mai’s hammer swung, sending the orb flying.
It was a brute-force approach, but still, the torrent would push her back.
So Maple employed her sole means of combatting that.
“Heavy Body!”
A knockback-nullification skill. With Maple’s stats, it also immobilized her, but that didn’t matter when she was already in the air. She was safe until she landed.
A wall of ice appeared to block her approach. The Mapleball was hardly iron. Even with Mai’s power behind the launch, it would do no damage on impact.
But just before she hit the wall, the crystallization ended.
“Wow, Sally!”
She’d timed that perfectly. The red glow inside the wool grew brighter with no crystals to block it.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was an enormous boom. All the explosives stuffed into the Mapleball blasted away the ice wall.
““Taunt!””
Maple and Chrome both drew aggro. The dragon warrior charged at Chrome, and an ice road stretched across the air behind it.
Mai was in the boss’s blind spot.
“The rest is yours!”
Maple went rolling across a nearby platform. Her job was punching through that ice wall. She had skills that did damage…but nothing like the twins’. She alone could not guarantee a simultaneous defeat.
But her ball had contained more than just explosives. It had held another attacker—one a bit more reckless than Mai, with the guts to carry off a crazy plan.
Through the shattered ice wall, sliding right up to the mage, with her hammer raised—Yui.
““Double Strike!””
They were on opposite ends of the room, but their timing was perfectly in sync. Hammers slammed home and the bosses hit the walls beyond.
Dust flew. Fire and water burst. They heard the bosses shatter and saw them vanish. Their plan had worked. A smile lit up each of their faces.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once the bosses were down, the field returned to a more walkable state. The others caught up with Maple and Yui.
“Nice. That went well.”
“Yeah! Thank goodness.”
“The twins’ strength is epic. At least these bosses didn’t have damage caps like that king.”
“That was clearly exceptional. But we’ll still have to watch out for it in the future.”
They’d made one attempt at downing the dragon warrior, and that outcome had proven that their strategy had potential. If the mage had turned out to have a damage cap, the plan would have backfired.
Things had gone well this time, but from now on, they’d have to account for the fact that the twins couldn’t one-shot everything.
“We’re all looking forward to the tenth stratum. Let’s go check it out! The path’s opened up back there.”
“I wonder what it’s like. I’ve heard it’s the biggest yet.”
““We can’t wait!””
“Then let’s move out!”
Maple led the way, and they climbed the stairs to the tenth stratum. After a lengthy climb, they saw light pouring down from above.
They were almost there.
Anticipation swelling, they took their first step onto the tenth stratum’s field.