The minions floating in the air were enough for me to know that something bad was about to happen, and that I was done for. They were about to send a wide-ranging flurry of attacks down on me, which I wouldn’t be able to dodge.
I needed to remember, predict, and analyze what lay outside my vision.
“[Pump Up: Fünfzigmal.]”
I multiplied my brain function by fifty. Now, I could control my visual acuity, and my short-term memory would be more effective.
All the water in my head grew hotter, like it was on the verge of boiling over.
The attack came as soon as I looked up. It wasn’t using just its tentacles—it had mixed in water blades and lances with the flurry.
But I could see the entire attack! I could see everything and remember it too! There were 377 tentacles, 490 water blades, and 55 lances, including the ones beyond my field of vision. I could even predict their trajectories. This boss really was intelligent—it planned to hit me everywhere at once.
I deduced the shortest path. I could do this.
I kicked off the water. Yes, I could even kick water—I no longer needed a proper foothold. I targeted one of the water blades. Due to its width, if it collided with another attack, they would nullify each other. I leaped into the air and warded off the attack with the belly of my machete, disrupting the tentacles and lances around me.
I had succeeded at stopping or parrying the majority of the attacks. Now I just needed to cut everything down. In this state, neither the tentacles, the lances, nor the blades were a match for me. I used the recoil from slashing my machete to the right to repel the attacks to my left, spinning in the air to get rid of the unnecessary momentum. With this, I had momentarily halted the boss’s attack.
I found a foothold and kicked down with all my might. The boss had already begun the second wave of attacks. I wasn’t out of the woods just yet, but I weathered it—cutting, slashing, kicking, dodging, and spinning around.
“Aha ha ha!”
I feel amazing! This is so much fun! Being fully aware of my entire surroundings, I feel like I can do anything! I utilized every shred of every action and reaction, adding them to my momentum, and my plans actually worked! Could there possibly be any greater pleasure than this?
My body was covered in goosebumps, charged by the thrill that one wrong step meant death. The boss must have had its own tactics, but that didn’t matter. I could strategize on the fly, and it was exhilarating.
Once I realized that, there was no stopping myself. This impulse had always been within me.
I was fighting full throttle, and I was absolutely loving it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once the boy had closed in on the boss, it jumped, seemingly in fear. That’s when Wim disappeared.
I first thought the boss had knocked him into the air. I realized I was wrong when Wim came bursting out of the boss’s side. He had cut through it. Still airborne, he flipped around and threw his knife at the boss.
It writhed in pain. That one shot had nearly done it in.
“Commander!” Hans’s voice brought me back to reality. “How are your injuries?!”
“I can’t fight well, but I can still stand thanks to Abel.” Abel was still protecting me. The attacks from the boss itself had weakened thanks to Wim, but its minions still bombarded us as fiercely as ever. “Are we prepared to run?”
“We are—agh! Not!”
The flurry of attacks kept going as we spoke. All of our members were completely occupied just trying to stay alive. We were in no position to carry out a plan.
“Commander, your orders!”
Looking into Hans’s eyes, I realized he was panicked, and so was everyone else. I, the leader of this party, had ordered a desperate escape that relied on my own sacrifice. However, Wim had overturned my orders. Then, he showed us a fight so marvelous it had to be the first and last of its kind.
What should I do? What should Nachtlibelle do?
Do we support him? That would be impossible given his speed. The most likely thing to happen would be us getting in his way and getting caught in the crossfire. Do we retreat? We were surrounded, which made that impossible. We currently lacked the strength to carve out an escape path for ourselves. All we could do was counter the minions in front of…
The boss was acting differently now, and it had changed forms. I was shocked that Wim had singlehandedly managed to corner the boss.
The minions that had been attacking us floated high into the air. Were they now auxiliary organs of some sort?
For a moment, the attacks ceased. My mind was still fuzzy, but I immediately knew what the next one would be—and it wouldn’t hit just Wim, but the rest of us too. We were about to become victims to a torrent of lethal rain. I needed to give my orders.
‹Attention! They’re about to attack us from above! Get as far away as possible and focus on defense!›
A moment later, the auxiliary organs pelted us with a rain of arrow-like strikes and tentacles.
“[Wake up, Decapitator.]”
It took all my strength to raise Decapitator above my head. Its blade spread out like an umbrella, and while it was just a temporary measure, it would last for at least a little while. I could feel the force of the attacks spread to my arms, and as I withstood it, I used the rest of my strength to watch Wim.
The boy was doing flips. He twisted his body, cutting down the boss’s attacks and completely dodging the wave of projectiles. He was so close that he was practically colliding with the blows, but he managed to keep up his speed.
Wim had promised to defeat this boss, and clearly, he wasn’t bluffing like I thought. He was doing more than just fighting on equal footing. He had even succeeded in cornering the boss and making it transform.
That was exactly why I wasn’t certain of the outcome. The boy seemed to have the strength needed to defeat the menace, but as hope swelled in my chest, I told myself I needed to stay calm and rational.
There was one thing I knew for certain—there was no place for the rest of us in a battle on that level.