We proceeded at random through a convoluted series of branching corridors until finally, we encountered an individual with a long, reddish-brown ponytail and rather androgynous features. There was no way an ordinary person would be in a place like this, so I immediately knew we’d met our next boss.
“Hey there—I’m the god of fate, Caven. Fair warning: I’ll be using an unavoidable instant death ability called Inevitable Fate on you every other turn.”
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“That’s basically the same thing as the first boss’s ability!”
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I really wish this game would stop making the bosses look tough with insta-kills and start making them deal actual damage! All this instant death is making the training we did feel like it was a total waste…
“Don’t like it? Not my problem. Take this—Inevitable Fate!”
Once again, Pecora and Laika got hit by Caven’s ability and dropped like stones.
Maybe some people are just naturally more susceptible to instant death skills than others…?
Our party, of course, wasn’t about to take that lying down.
“Have a taste of my instant death spell: Divine Punishment! ’Tis my ultimate magic!”
She’s using the exact same sort of spell the boss did on her very first turn! But wait…insta-kills barely ever work on late-game bosses, so there’s no way this will—
“Oh. I can’t deal with moves like that. Ah, crap…”
The god of fate, Caven, went down in a single attack.
“What goes around, comes around! ’Tis just as true for a god of fate as it is for us mortals,” Beelzebub said with a smirk as she healed Pecora and Laika. Thankfully, the system that brought them back to the verge of death post-battle still worked just fine, even when they’d been hit by a death spell. That meant basic healing magic was all it took to bring them back to full strength.
“I was under the impression you were cautious to a fault, Beelzebub, but I see now you can be quite aggressive as well,” Wynona said with a rather mystified look on her face. Beelzebub had demonstrated her cautious side on plenty of occasions throughout our adventure, so that trait was one we were all familiar with.
“Dragging out the battle would only force me to waste healing magic,” Beelzebub explained. “As such, I decided it was worth giving an instant death spell a try, just in case.”
So in the end, even this was all about keeping her MP economy in a good state…?
“While I’m at it, I shall fully heal the rest of you as well. For all we know, the final boss may be mighty enough to blow away most of our health in a single spell.”
I didn’t know if this was a coincidence or if Godly Godness had planned it all out, but surprisingly, Beelzebub was very well-suited to the role of party cleric.
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“Incidentally, considering the final boss has been referred to as an ‘elder god,’ I imagine we’ve all made a certain conclusion regarding who we’ll encounter?” asked Laika.
“Sure have,” I replied. “I mean, all the bosses we’ve fought since we got to this sanctuary have been real-world gods. If the game says it’s going to throw an elder god at us, I think we can expect a real elder god.”
Plus, we’ve already worked our way through most of the people I know who could turn up as characters in this game. There aren’t really many options left. It’d be weird if the very last boss was the only one who turned out to be a total stranger, right?
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When we arrived at the sanctuary’s deepest point, we found a girl floating in the air, wearing a white robe that just screamed, Look at me, I’m a god.
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“I, the ELDER god Dekyari’tosde, will REMAKE the WORLD in my IMAGE!”
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Yep, there she is. Of course it’d be Dekie.
She didn’t look very intimidating at all, but I knew for a fact she was tremendously powerful. This was all but guaranteed to be a brutal smackdown of a final battle.
“I’ll trust you to call the shots in this battle, Sub-Hero,” Wynona whispered to me.
“Really? Are you sure?” I whispered back.
“If all of us were to fight on our own initiative, we would stand no chance of beating her real-world form, correct? She even defeated you once. As such, I believe that following your orders is our best chance at victory.”
The other members of our party turned to glance at me. I could tell by the look in their eyes that they trusted me to take the lead, as well.
“All right, then. I’m not exactly an expert commander, but I’ll give it my best shot!”
At long last, the final battle began. We found ourselves transported into the battle screen.
“First up, Pecora and Beelzebub, get all our defenses buffed up! Especially our magic defense—any spells for that would be perfect!”
I was convinced we were about to get slammed by some absurdly powerful attacks. We needed our defenses up as high as they could go! Unfortunately, however, before the demonic duo could follow through on my orders, Dekie targeted Wynona with the most powerful lightning spell in the game!
“That just drained seventy percent of my health in a single hit!” Wynona shouted.
“And here’s attack TWO out of THREE!” Dekie said as she swung what looked like a blade of ice at me, which I assumed was her basic attack. Basic or not, it shaved off a third of my health… She used the same attack on Pecora as the final hit of her turn, taking our wizard down to half health in one blow.
“She’s really not holding back,” I muttered. “Laika, keep attacking every turn! Use whatever you have that deals the most single-target damage! Wynona, make sure to heal yourself up any time you’re hurt! When you don’t need healing, cast whatever your strongest spell is at her! Pecora, just keep using that one staff that heals the whole party!”
I figured I didn’t need to give Beelzebub orders—she’d be focusing on healing whether I told her to or not—and was immediately proven right, in a sense, as she cast an incredibly powerful but incredibly expensive spell that fully healed our whole party.
“What—no! That spell uses up way too much magic! This isn’t the time!” I shouted.
“I shan’t let our allies die by being miserly with my magic reserves! Or are you hoping I would let you perish?”
“Just trust me, okay?! I have a plan!”
My plan was to spend the early stages of the battle fighting defensively. The best way to make it through battles like this one, in my book, was to dedicate a small part of your party to attacking, and the rest to just keeping you alive. Laika the warrior would be filling our main attacker role.
[Oneshot Strike! Dekyari’tosde takes 7515 damage!]
All right, nice! Laika’s Oneshot Strike deals just as ridiculously high damage as ever against the final boss!
On turns when we had HP to spare, Beelzebub and Pecora used their actions to cast defensive magic on us. I knew there was a chance Dekie would have an ability that dispelled those buffs, but using it would eat one of her turns, so it still seemed worth it to me. The question of how much health she would have, however, was a mystery. I had to make sure we’d be able to last through an extended battle of attrition.
On turns when I had the chance, meanwhile, I went on the offensive. I wasn’t using the strongest equipment in the game, but I could still dole out some pretty substantial damage when I tried.
“Here I come, Dekie!”
“Hero’s Smite! Dekyari’tosde takes 4686 damage!”
I don’t hit quite as hard as our main attacker, Laika, but I’m no slouch, either!
“Our plan is working! So long as our healing remains sufficient, we can beat her!” Beelzebub shouted, encouraged by our success.
She wasn’t wrong to think that, precisely. The most important part of a final boss fight was setting yourself up to weather a war of attrition, and we’d pulled that off. That said, the one thing we couldn’t do was let our guards down.
“I think we’ve probably got a second phase coming up! Bosses transform all the time, and this is Dekie we’re talking about!”
Dekie may have looked human, but she had the option to transform into just about anything whenever she wanted. And, just as expected, she suddenly dropped to the ground right after we passed the thirty thousand damage mark.