Chapter 8
Asuna had lived through many boss fights before, but the terror of coming face-to-face with a powerful boss was a feeling that would never leave her. Her first impulse was always to run and then, maybe, to draw her sword and make a stand. She needed to observe its movements carefully first. You couldn't just dive into a boss fight – you'd get hit straight away. Asuna had seen enough death on the battlefield to wonder when she would be next.
It only took her one split second for the image of the boss to burn itself into her mind permanently. It hadn't yet begun to move, but it would soon.
She memorised the size of its HP bar immediately – it had just as much health as The Gleam Eyes, the boss on 74th floor.
"Yulier-san!" Asuna spun around urgently. Yulier was standing next to Agil, his eyes wide as saucers and his arms frozen by his side. He was only level 62. He'd get OHKO'ed at this rate and that would be that.
He would be dead.
Asuna frantically took out the teleport crystal and clenched it in her shaking hand. "Take it!" she cried, her voice coming out harsher than she intended. Yulier barely reacted to that at all, but Asuna dumped the crystal in the silver-haired man's hand. "Take the crystal and use it. We'll distract the boss for you!"
Yulier began. "I…!"
The ground started to shake beneath them. Yulier stopped speaking at once because of the noise. It wasn't just the rumbling that was loud – there was also the sound of heavy footsteps and breathing. Only one thing that it could be.
"Holy crap," Klein breathed.
On the other end of the corridor, at least twenty Queer Rats came rushing on all fours towards them. They weren't just your regular rodents – if they stood up on their hairy grey hind legs, they were easily as big as Asuna was, perhaps even bigger. Their huge red eyes boggled, almost popping out of their sockets. They were all snarling, baring yellowed teeth that were sharper than any of Lizbeth's swords.
They were surrounded. Front and back. There was nowhere to run.
No time to use any teleport crystals. The lag time was seconds too long – they'd get hit and the crystal would be rendered useless. Panic and they'd all just die unceremoniously.
"Let's take the rats! Run!" Agil roared. He whipped out his battleaxe from his inventory as he spoke. He ran forward towards the Queer Rats and swung his weapon heavily, like a whirlwind of death.
If they were going to take one option, it would have to be the pack of monsters over the boss. Asuna bent her knees and with one deft motion, she drew her sword out from scabbard and impaled a rat in front of her.
Battojutsu – the art of drawing a sword and slashing with the same motion. Asuna was a master at it.
"This way!" she cried out, leaving herself no time to proud of her own skills. "Come on!"
Klein grabbed hold of Yulier's arm and yanked him to ground, narrowly dodging the boss as it swung its scythe. It missed them by a hair. "Klein, are you all ri-!" Asuna began, as Klein drew his katana and stabbed one of the rats in front of him. He gritted his teeth and pushed the sword in deeper.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he grunted as the monster vanished in a flurry of crystal shards.
Asuna turned back to the enemies in front of her. She stabbed one right through, then another, chopping and changing and avoiding their fangs by jumping back lightly on her toes. Judging by how quickly they fell, they were probably monsters that belonged in a Level 60 dungeon or so. It took about three solid hits with her rapier before they died.
The real problem was the boss. It looked like it was still targeting Yulier and Klein judging by how close it hovered around them. Again, it raised its scythe. This it did slowly, but on the moment it swang the blade its speed was a blur. "Out of the way!" Asuna cried, launching herself towards the boss. No time to think. She had to distract it.
She ducked and rolled out of the way as the scythe's blade came her way. Her heart was pumping in her mouth – it was like her body was on autopilot. Anticipate the next strike…
Suddenly, Asuna felt a weight against her leg. Turning to look down, she almost screamed but her voice was clogged against her throat. A rat had latched itself on her leg and was steadily chewing away at her, digging its teeth into the side of her.
It was enough of a distraction for Asuna to not dodge the boss's attack like she was supposed to.
As the scythe flashed out and hit her straight on, Asuna's heart jolted, even though she felt no pain. Before her eyes, she could see her health bar flashing.
Half her health bar… gone…
Asuna's eyes flashed with grim fury.
Firmly, she stabbed the rat on her leg until it was dead, and then Asuna quickly began to back away, pressing her back against the side wall. On reflex, her hands began opening up her menu for a potion.
"You need help there?" asked Agil, coming up beside her. He was already panting slightly. A quarter of his HP was gone, too. Still, he kept on swinging his axe. "I'll take them while you recover."
Asuna knew he would be true to his word. Stepping back a little further, she removed herself from the combat and waited until her HP bar finished recovering. She had a small amount of time. She needed to use it to evaluate how the scene was going.
Even from a distance, it looked absolutely chaotic. Klein and Agil had pressed up against each other back-to-back, taking down any rats that came their way. Yulier had taken out his whip and was hurling each monster in the direction of the two men, though he constantly paused so that he could run out of the range of The Fatal Scythe. As for the boss itself, it only sidled up slowly towards the players, though it was much, much faster than it chose to move. Asuna knew that from experience. The boss was using its slowness to let that sense of death creep up on you. She shivered – it definitely worked.
She had three-quarters of HP left. Good enough. Asuna straightened up and headed straight for the boss. She had figured out enough of its movements to try and combat it for a while.
Where a monster moved and decided to attack from was decided by its algorithms. A player watching carefully would be able to predict its movements after a while – after all, monsters were only programmed entities. The problem with this monster was that it could move so quickly that even if she could predict where it would go, it would still beat her in the long run. She had no hope but to distract it until her friends could get away.
With a careful, measured stride, she stepped forward and thrust her blade at The Fatal Scythe, backing away just as her rapier lightly grazed it. As she expected it swung its scythe all around itself very suddenly. Had she attacked with her entire body weight, she would not have been able to dodge the counterattack.
But the compromise in damage was severe. She had barely grazed its HP bar. Meanwhile, she had only dodged the monster's attack by less than an inch herself – she had felt the wind pressure against her chest plate. She could not keep up her level of speed forever. Already, her legs were starting to feel a little sluggish from so much acceleration.
Urk.
Asuna forced herself to take a deep breath and evaluated the situation once more. What would Kirito have done? What she would have given for his dual swords!
"Calm down, Asuna," she could imagine Kirito telling her soothingly. "Look for weaknesses. Fight smartly."
Kirito could be such a hypocrite sometimes, Asuna thought. He'd tell her to fight without putting herself in danger and then he'd go off and use a berserker style of fighting himself. Perhaps it was best not to listen to him.
But, because she had thought of him, she felt serene, as she always did when he came into her thoughts. She could anticipate The Fatal Scythe's blows better. Timing her backward jump with perfect precision, she landed back on the stone ground on her two legs and her left hand. The other hand was readying the stance of one of her Sword Skills.
"Star Splash!" she yelled out as she sprang forward in the air and launched the eight-hit combo. Her rapier moved like a blur, hitting the boss several times. To her satisfaction, its HP bar visibly lowered. There was still so much damage she had to inflict, though…
She was still in the air when the monster swung its scythe and hit her – not with the blade, because she had already anticipated that – but with the butt end of the scythe. Asuna gasped and was knocked backwards, crashing resoundingly against the wall.
Damn!
To her alarm, she realised the attack had taken more damage from her than The Fatal Scythe's previous strike. Her HP had actually gone into the red zone from this.
The monster floated towards her and Asuna gasped and started to crawl away. She needed more speed! Her Emergency Recover skill was already working on healing her depleted health bar, but it wasn't fast enough to let her recover in time.
As The Fatal Scythe raised its weapon one last time, a whip cracked and furled itself around the handle.
Asuna's eyes widened.
"Yulier-san!" she gasped.
Yulier grimaced as he pulled against his whip, struggling to keep his footing. "You didn't leave me," he said. "So I won't leave you."
"No, Yulier-san!" Asuna insisted. "You have to run now! You shouldn't…!"
But it was too late. The boss pulled on the scythe and Yulier was dragged up with him. In his panic, Yulier let go of his whip, but by then the boss had already caught up to him.
Asuna climbed to her feet.
More speed!
"Hrrrnnnngggghh!" she grunted. One foot landed firmly on the ground and from there she took off in a sprint. "Hyaaaaaa!"
At first, she thought she wouldn't make it, so she held her rapier forward, praying: oh please please please…!
All she could see was the glinting blade of that scythe descending. It made a whooshing sound, so forceful it was like it was breaking apart the atoms in the air.
And then-
Clang!
Just in time, the steel of her rapier hit the scythe. It was just enough to delay the boss for a moment. Asuna ducked and shoved Yulier out of the way. Then she leaped back and held herself in fencing stance, one hand by her side and the other pointing her sword towards the floor. She was readying herself for another Sword Skill.
Meanwhile, Agil and Klein had finished off the Queer Rats. "Hang on, Asuna!" Klein cried out. "We're coming!" She heard pounding footsteps to her right.
"Quickly!" she insisted. "Use the teleport crystal! You two and Yulier-san have to go! I'll take on this boss and buy you time!"
She had finally figured this monster out. While she would have liked to congratulate herself for this, she almost wished she didn't know. It seemed like this was actually a harder boss than The Gleam Eyes. She could feel the adrenaline inside of her giving way to sheer exhaustion now – she was approaching her limit.
If she got hit now, even at full health, she might not survive. Even now, her HP bar had only recovered into the yellow because of her Emergency Healing. She was guaranteed to lose.
I guess I don't have it in me to solo bosses, Asuna thought with a sad smile, though she held her ground stubbornly.
When she noticed the flash of the teleport crystal taking effect, only then did she feel at ease. This was finally it. She had come towards the end.
That was when her knees buckled out and with a pained gasp, she found herself falling.
No!
Warm arms surrounded her, holding her steady. "Whoa, hang in there!" She blinked, peering into Agil's reliable face. "Don't bite off more than you can chew!"
Asuna groaned slightly. She felt so, so light-headed. Somewhere to her right, she could see Klein exchanging blows with The Fatal Scythe. Still holding her steady, Agil took out a potion from his inventory and poured its contents into Asuna's mouth.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm okay," Asuna said, a little shakily. Then, gritting her teeth, she sat up. "I thought you were supposed to teleport out!"
"And leave you here alone?" Agil asked. "That's not what party members do. Yulier's safe now, so don't worry."
Asuna wanted to feel disappointed that Agil had not done as she had asked, but, truth be told, her relief took up too much of her heart.
One thing was certain: they couldn't leave Kirito to fight the Level 75 boss on his own. Not after this experience; it was just too lonely and scary.
"I'm okay," Asuna declared, climbing to her feet. She readied her rapier. "Come on, let's beat this boss together!"
"So? Any strategy?" Klein called out. He was grunting as he blocked the boss's scythe with his katana.
"We'll keep switching," said Asuna firmly. "I'll distract it and run out of its range while you guys attack it from behind."
Out of the three of them, she had the highest speed stat and therefore the highest evasion rate. Klein was the all-rounder, so he could attack from any angle, while Agil could catch the monster off-guard with his heavy axe strikes.
"Ready, guys?" Asuna said quietly, readying her Sword Skill stance.
"On your count," said Klein.
Asuna closed her eyes for a moment, preparing herself mentally for the manoeuvres she was about to attempt. Firmly, her eyes snapped open.
"Go!"
Author's note: It's mentioned in canon that The Fatal Scythe is about as powerful as a Level 90-something boss. For this story, I nerfed its strength, so it's about as strong as The Gleam Eyes (or perhaps a little stronger). It's somewhere between Level 74 and Level 75.
