I was having so much fun, I wanted to stay like this forever. I even began to relish the time I spent cutting down everything in my path without a single thought.
However, I wasn’t getting anywhere. While I managed to endure the attacks raining down on me, I couldn’t get to the boss’s main body at all. I was giving this fight everything I had, but I lacked the strength to do sideways movements. It was becoming a battle of attrition.
I started to wonder if I had any tricks left to pull when I felt something tugging at the corner of my mind. I was still lacking something—or rather, it was more like there was something I hadn’t realized quite yet. I was overlooking something important, something deep within me was telling me I wasn’t in danger.
What am I missing?
All parts of my vision were committed to memory. It was something before me—right before me…
That’s it! The boss. I heard a loud clang when my knife collided with something earlier. What could that have been?
There was a hard mass within its body. It must have been protecting something, but what?
That was obvious—its weakness. Or really, its vitals. The hard thing was a shell, and if I managed to smash it, I would win.
The moment I realized that, my brain had already deduced a path to the boss. What was this? How had I arrived at the answer? I couldn’t even track what calculations I had made.
This was undoubtedly a sequence of constant epiphanies. I didn’t make any choices in order but immediately jumped to the perfect answer given the probabilities laid out to me all at once.
I had completely predicted the boss’s movements, I was certain of that. It was going to move exactly as I thought it would, and as long as I followed this one path, I could win. Well, as long as I didn’t mess up, that is.
Somewhere along the line, my hands started to shake.
It was odd—it didn’t feel like I was trembling in fear, but in awe that I had found the exact path I needed. While it had come to me in a flash, it was perfectly calculated, so much so that it was almost suspicious. However, there was no room for rebuttals or recalculations. It left me bewildered. That was the kind of trembling this was.
Now that I thought about it, I might have been shaking like this the whole time.
I knew that this was a premonition of victory. Even when up against a foe of impossible odds, making guesses of one-in-ten-thousand miracles could reveal the way forward.
What made this different from delusion? From an objective standpoint, they were ridiculously similar. Yet somehow, I was certain I could pull this off. This was suicide, and I was facing near certain death. But that just made it even more thrilling, and if I could feel that excitement, I didn’t mind the risks.
The lances seemed the easiest to kick. While they were made of water, they were dense enough that they could serve as footholds to launch myself sideways.
I kicked aside what was crashing down towards me, all the while dodging the tentacles. This was a crazy, but I knew I could pull it off.
And as soon as that thought occurred to me, I had won. The processes that controlled my thoughts and actions had fallen out of sync, but surpassing sequential processing speeds had realigned them.
Maybe it was because I had been dodging all the attacks with kicks, but I was now quite high in the air. I turned to my side and shot downwards, half free-falling and dodging, kicking, pushing, and cutting down the attacks I failed to elude, while using the momentum to go faster.
The wind was cold, but it felt good on my skin. Now that I had reached my full speed, I was falling faster than the rain. It had been some time since my skin was last dry.
Sound faded around me, and I prepared for a sonic boom. Time stopped, and all was silent. It was as if I was alone in the world. My heart soared at the feeling of being the sole ruler of this space.
I was a moment away from colliding with the boss. It was right before me, and I knew at this speed, I could blast right through its shell.
The boss was shocked, but it had already set up its final barrier and had no moves left. I sliced at the same spot five times, which was enough to break through it. Then, I used the rest of my remaining MP to toughen up my body as much as I could and slammed right into its flesh.
“Fweh heh!”
I felt something hard hit against my machete twice. My body went straight through its decimated flesh. I felt an unpleasant sensation, as if my entire body was being licked, before resurfacing in an instant.
I had pierced right through it.
In that moment, I saw a large shell through the white that surrounded my field of vision. I knew immediately that this was what I had pierced.
Something crawled out of the gap I had created. It looked human, but I couldn’t see its face. I had no idea what was happening.
The human-like creature slowly came to stand before me. Then, I think it spoke.
“ફરીથી આવવા દો.”
I didn’t understand what it was saying, but it didn’t feel malicious. So, I responded with a nod.
“Sure.”
When I landed, I was completely depleted of MP and stamina. I turned. The boss was silent, its large, translucent form now looking like a stalactite.
I heard a groaning sound from the boss that was perhaps its scream. Then, from the top down, its giant form began to melt. My vision cleared as I watched the giant crumble into dust before me. What had been sustaining it was now destroyed.
Now, I could see the others. They had stood and were running toward me.
That’s right, I was fighting to protect them. I had forgotten.
My energy sapped, I began to lose consciousness. I dispelled my buffs, and my body gradually returned to its normal state. I was in so much pain, it felt like I being ripped apart. I really overdid it. I was exhausted, and couldn’t move a single muscle.
Someone took me into their arms. They called out to me, but I didn’t know who they were or what they were saying.
But, hey. The rain had stopped, at least.