I know it's not been too long since I last updated this, but I had an itching to write and none of my other fictions were screaming out to me. Also for those who are waiting for my Pokemon one to continue, that may take a while as I am currently in the middle of the biggest badest writers block I have ever come across in my years of writing. I bet once that one's over I'll be pumping chapters out like a MG pumps bullets. The lack of reviews is a little disheartening, but I know people read it so I will write it, just don't expect updates this quickly very often. But an update/one-shot a week will not be impossible, hopefully.
'Nuff of my rambling, Enjoy!
Aincrad 1st Floor, November 23rd 2022 10:23PM
It had been two days since Kirito and Asuna had saved Yami. After introducing himself they escorted him out of the forest and into Horunka. The following day they taught him all about Sword Skills, which he had a basic understanding of but due to being the only known Scythe user he didn't have any information on it, including the activation positions except for the most basic skill called Lotus which was a simple three hit combo, but one he couldn't use on the Little Nepents in the forest due to their erratic movements. Kirito decided it be best if he checked his skills. At level 3 he only had 2, Scythe Weapon Skill and Battle Healing, both about level 20.
What he saw boggled his mind as nothing like that was mentioned in any guides he read. By highlighting his Scythe Skill he pulled out another tab, this one with names and information on all currently available skills, as well as their requirements. Seeing as the third one didn't make much sense he only looked at the information about his two previously unknown skills. Thorn and Harvest, the second one making him chuckle slightly at the joke the developer put in. Thorn was a short distance, three meters, dash with an upward curved strike while Harvest was a horizontal slash with a curve of 180o. The activation stances were rather simple compared to Lotus, Thorn requiring him to stand with one foot forward and the scythe pointing downwards parallel to my back leg and Harvest simply holding the shaft of the scythe flat in front of his hips.
Thinking it worth to give both skills a try Yami lined himself up with a tree, much to the surprise of Asuna and Kirito's near soundless laugh. Neither could see his menu, but it seems Kirito anticipated something similar. Putting his left foot forward he kept the blade down and placed it right near his right leg. Suddenly the blade flared up with a green light and he dashed forward with system assist, the blade impacting upon the system message Immortal Object and knocking him back a little. Not stopping he then lined up the scythe into the activation stance for Harvest and the blade took on a black glow, he thought it impossible too but the particles were surely black, and the blade this time glided along the system message, not striking it.
"Well, I think these might be useful in battle." He said turning around to look at an impressed Asuna and a smirking Kirito. "What's up, did I mess something up?"
"No…no, but how did you manage to pull off two Sword Skills in that space of time?" Asuna said not believing her eyes.
"Ummm, what do you mean. That was really slow?"
"No, Yami, it wasn't," Kirito butted in. "You managed to pull off the dash followed by the side sweep in under two seconds. Even with system assist that is an impressive speed, comparable to what Asuna can do. Except, it's almost like you avoided the system's Skill Delay, the skill cooldown that stops players from chaining even the most basic of Sword Skills."
"Heh, I didn't even know there was anything like that. I thought it was like with old MMO's where there was maybe a split second 'global' cooldown, but nothing like the Skill Delay," Yami laughed sheepishly while his bangs shook a little.
Aincrad 1st Floor, December 2nd 2022 3:23PM
After Diabel, Kibaou and Agil said all they had to say the group disbanded and went off into town or the field surrounding it to train. Luckily, in the past week and a bit Yami had been with Kirito and Asuna he managed to level up enough to the point Kirito said he'd have no problems helping in the boss fight. He was impressed by their own personal skill. While this was a game, and players had a lot of help fighting in the form of the System Assist they were simply amazing.
Asuna's pure, explosive speed was nothing even he could match. She was the perfect example of a rapier user, light, fast, deadly in one on one combat. Kirito on the other hand had reaction times like no one he had ever met, he was dodging attacks before the enemies even moved, his whole style of combat was so fluid often times he had to remember that he was a swordsman and not a dancer.
Then there was Yami's style of combat, the enigmatic Scythe user. While his speed or reaction times were not on as godly a level as the other two he himself had a little ace up his sleeve. It seemed his non-combo Sword Skills had no Skill Delay attached to them, allowing him to combo them effortlessly and deliver devastating damage to any monsters. He also learned that some of his skills were only usable or had different effects while he used twin scythes.
Just as his mind was drawing to a blank about what kind of monster they might have to fight as the boss, his first idea being a massive boar, he noticed Kirito and Asuna stand up. He did so too and followed them to the dungeon. There was more mapping to be done if they were to find the Boss Room. It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
Aincrad 1st Floor, December 3rd 2022 4:45PM
They were to first to hear the cheers of Diabel's party as they exposed the doors to the Boss Room. Once Diabel's part went inside, they were also the first to see the boss. He was massive, towering at over 2 meters in height, easily a foot taller than Yami, wielding a gigantic axe made of bone in one hand, his other holding an equally large leather buckler. As the party approached the beast snarled, showing his massive canine teeth and beat the axe against his shield, summoning three Ruin Kobold Sentinels. Illfang the Kobold Lord looked at the six humans while they ran out of his throne room, the red skin on his face still lined with a snarl as his glittering eyes followed the fleeing humans.
Aincrad 1st Floor, December 4th 2022 2:40PM
The boss battle has begun. Yami was sitting in the back along with Kirito and Asuna, dealing with any Ruin Kobold Sentinels that managed to get past the group that was meant to be killing them while the five other groups lead the assault on Illfang. Their job was simple, to make sure none of the monsters got past and into the main attack groups. This meant that they'd most likely get no credit for killing the boss.
While Yami lamented about that, propping himself up on his spear like a guard on a halberd, his first opponent came towards him. While one group was killing the first Kobold, Kirito and Asuna were dealing with another; he was left on his own to handle the last one. As the Kobold approached, his Spear type weapon raised into an offensive position, Yami took the scythe into both hands and activated Thorn. As he dashed forward the Kobold's spear shaft moved in an attempt to block it, but the curvature of the attack let it move under it and struck the Kobold across the chest, staggering him slightly. Yami then activated Harvest and this time connected with a clean hit to the side of the dami-human. As the monster staggered back once again Yami activated Lotus, this time the blade taking on a pure white glow.
The first hit was a horizontal slash along the lower half of the Kobold's stomach, just where his armour was at the weakest. The second hit connected at the right hip, and went across the whole torso and stopping at the left shoulder. The third hit was a vertical slash from the waist all the way up the Kobold's torso and up to till the blade was over Yami's head. The creature's health dropped from 40% to zero as Yami once again took a relaxed stance. In the 4 seconds it took to do all, and the minute or two before the fight begun, that the boss' health barely dropped at all. Kirito and Asuna were handling themselves fine, having Kirito disable the Kobold by knocking its spear up into the air and having Asuna dash in for a Linear to the throat. The other group was doing good too, their monster surrounded and being stabbed to death by regular attacks and the occasional Sword Skill.
When the first health bar of Illfang's dropped another three Kobolds came out of the walls. This time he wasn't about to let it get to him first, instead using Thorn to dash to it rapidly. Chaining a Harvest to it he left it at 40% HP once more, but this time before Yami could activate Lotus he was knocked forward by a jab to the back, dropping him by about 20% HP. It was the group's Kobold, he'd managed to break free when one of theirs freaked and dropped his weapon, and the AI put all aggro on Yami. Now he had two Kobolds attacking me, and with their spears poised they seemed to be trying to stab him from two angles.
At the last second he managed to use Harvest to deflect both their spears as they jabbed at hip height, knocking their weapons up into the air, though both kept a tight grip on them. In the meantime the group managed to pile back onto the Kobold and mob him once more while he finished his opponent off with two regular slashes, one to the exposed neck of the monster and one across his chest.
The third and fourth waves of Kobolds went off without a hitch, no more problems with any more enemies breaking away from their designated groups. As the last one was being taken down by Kibaou's group he sat back and watched as the main groups were dealing with the boss.
The red skinned Kobold was on his last health bar, or more accurately 3/4 of his last health bar. Diabel's team seemed to be leading the assault while Agil and his team did most of the tanking with the second tank group taking some hits once in a while. As the boss hit half health he threw his axe and buckler away, instead gripping the hilt protruding from the sheath on his back and pulling out a massive curved sword, which Yami thought to be Talawar mentioned in the boss guide. But something seemed off, Diabel's party surrounded the boss in a manner that seemed a little too prefect, and the fact he then couldn't really touch them also seemed off to him.
The world slowed a little for him as he thought this whole thing through, remembering what Kirito said about some player wanting to buy his powerful sword from him, offering ludicrous amounts of Col for it. Then it clicked, as a piece of knowledge he read long ago from a guide jumped to the forefront of his mind. "The LA or Last Attack on a boss is the act of getting a final blow on the boss in order to get priority on the item drop of the boss." No one but the Beta testers knew how to use this knowledge effectively, so it came to him just as Kirito shouted his warning to Diabel.
Again, something was off. The attack that Illfang was using wasn't mentioned in the guide that Argo had produced. And something about the sword also seemed off, then when the red light appeared he knew that the monster wasn't wielding the weapon they were expecting. Upon closer inspection he realised it was a Katana, or some kind of similar sword, not a Talwar. The front line was completely stunned, literally as the attack afflicted them all with the Stunned status. Kirito attempted to save them by directing a charge at the boss to draw aggro away from Diabel's party, but that failed as all the monster's aggro focused on the blue haired, self-proclaimed "knight", Diabel himself.
The knight was knocked up into the air, followed by the Kobold. As he squired around uselessly trying to activate a Sword Skill, Illfang activated his own three hit combo skill, starting the rapid decline of Diabel's health bar. Kirito, having defeated his own foe, ran to the falling player and as he tried to say something, but his health bar depleted seemingly in the middle of the sentence. After a short exchange of words with Kibaou, who seemed distressed, Kirito gave Yami and Asuna quick glances to which they nodded our heads and formed their standard formation with Kirito leading the charge with Asuna behind him and Yami bringing up the rear. As they ran towards the boss Kirito activated a Sword Skill to counteract Illfang's own. With it he knocked the sword into the air, similar to how they dealt with the smaller Kobalds. Asuna followed by her comet-like speed, a beautiful Linear landing on the boss and denting his HP bar while Yami followed her with Thorn and a linked Lotus, locking him down for a bit and doing more damage than Asuna.
They then jumped backwards, once again creating the same formation. This time however they stopped in front of the boss instead of running at it. In that split second Kirito misjudged the attack pattern and was seeming paralysed, the boss slashing him across the torso and throwing him into a wall like a ragdoll. Right after he went for Asuna who barely dodged the attack and Agil then followed up with an intercept that knocked Illfang back. This allowed Kirito to drink a pot while Agil, who was the only one rivalling Illfang for height, and his group tanked it.
Kirito was calling instructions, Agil and a few more were tanking the hits from Illfang while Asuna and Yami danced around, throwing Linears, Thorns and Lotuses while the boss was on his attack delay timer. All was going well until one of the tanks slipped and fell to the bosses flank, activating his omni-directional attack. Asuna and Yami jumped back just as Kirito called out a warning, but the others who had been as to now stationary had no chance of doing that. Without thinking Kirito used one of his Sword Skills to counter the mid-air attack. Leaving Illfang open for Asuna and Yami to jump in.
With two cried they both ran at full speed, Asuna pulling ahead slightly. They both jumped up, Asuna activating a beautiful mid-air Linear while Yami used Thorn to propel himself upwards faster, managing to level with Asuna as their attacks struck at the same time, leaving the boss with barely any health left. As he fell to the floor Kirito ordered everyone to attack it head on while it was in a stunned state. The attacks, both normal and Sword Skills, rained down upon the red skinned beast, until finally he was moving once more. This time however, before he could even launch himself Kirito was ready.
Yami, Asuna and Kirito once again launched their series of attacks, but in reverse, with Yami opening with Harvest, Asuna following up with a rapid Linear before Kirito jumped in with a Vertical Arc for the killing blow. As the boss fell to the floor everyone was deathly quiet, before a sea of cheers erupted in the boss room. They had won.
Sorry, didn't feel like writing out the whole Beater part of this. It essentially is the same except Asuna and Yami follow him, and they then split off, each on their own. Starting next chapter we go onto new, non-cannon content. YAY.
Luca, out!