Chapter 3
Few people were left. Hysteria just used a command to randomly eliminate ninty percent of the raiding party. A trick that Kayaba never did. It was an act of unruly sadism. There was nobody that was sane who could enjoy the slaughter of others so much. But the real question was why he was doing this in the first place, how did he reprogram the Amusphere without being in each person's room? It made no sense, the Amusphere was designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening, and yet here it was happening all over again. Like as if it was some sick contest to see who can use virtual realities to slaughter the most people.
"Now that's more like it," Hysteria said regaining Kirito's attention, "Now you may continue ur raid!"
Hysteria disappeared in his normal fashion by a flash of light. Leaving the room silent as each of them waited for the bosses to appear. However the silence was soon broken by none other then the ead guild's leader Ashbrooke himself.
"We're gonna need to reorganize, it seems that there is just enough of us to go six on one with the bosses," Ashbrooke said, " which hopefully that will be plenty of us."
Everyone nodded in acknowledgement. To what Ashbrooke was saying. Every instruction that he gave sank in. Then he reassigned everyone to unit commanders. The three were Ashbrooke himself, Yukato from the Altrea Militia, and Commander Lyst. Kirito was assigned to Lyst still, while Leafa was assigned to work with Yukato from her own guild, and Asuna worked along with Ashbrooke. Not really Kirito's favorite choice but it's not like he could argue, for if this kid had so much success up till now he must be good with his tactical stratigies.
"Alright, now we're organized, when do you think that the bosses will show up?" asked Daiska a mercenary hired for the raid.
"They already showed up, they're waiting for us in the labyrinth," Yukato said in his harsh tone.
"It would seem that assumption is correct, seeing how these doors have been open the entire time," Ashbrooke said pointing to the three doorways.
"They want us to come in for them so that they can trap us," Kirito figured.
"then we will have to stay on our toes and be ready to defend ourselves," Lyst said.
The three groups separated from eachother and each headed their own separate way. Into the dark maze in front of them. In search for the triplet wraiths Tairas, Kairas, and Meiras. Kirito followed Lyst down the hall in which they were closest to. Whenever they made it to an intersection Lyst would choose which ever direction that would keep him on the outside walls. Considering that they started from the center that will be the likely choice to help them get further out. There was a mini map in the corner of Kirito's vision which seemed to show the immediate surrounding area, but once it got so far away from his avatar it would become hidden on the mini map again.
"The map seems to be covered with a fog of war!" Kirito said to Commander Lyst as they ran.
"Apparently this mad man likes to keep us guessing" Lyst said smirking.
An unearthly shriek was heard in the distance, echoing off the stone walls. It sent chills down the spine of any who heard it. The voice sounded for just a few moments before fadeing to silence again. If you listened hard enough u could hear the clanging of weapons.
"sounds like one of the other teams found they're target," one soldier said.
"Either that or the beast found its target," Lyst said.
It was a grim truth, depending on who saw who first determines the advantage here. Yet they didn't have much time to ponder over the thought for they had to continue the search. The group continued moving. The sound of their footsteps tapping the floor over and over again. However Kirito's mind lingered away to thoughts of Asuna and Leafa.
Would they be okay? Which one of them encountered the beast? Honestly Kirito felt that Asuna might be better equipped for this situation because of her fast reflexes. Leafa although being fast, didn't have as high stats right now as Kirito or Asuna, and might not fare as easily against these things. However Kirito did get to see the skill level of most of the ones assigned to Leafa's group just now. Most of them we're pretty high, so at least he had ease of heart that she could be safe around them.
The group reached a dead end, which usually in mazes with monsters roaming the halls it was not good to reach dead end. Kirito also had a feeling of being watched, his eyes gazed about the space as the members started turning around to continue they're search. The only thing that seemed weird to Kirito was the fact that there was a statue on the wall that looked kind of grim. Other than that there was nothing in the space.
However whenever Kirito gazed upon the stone alter mounted at the end of the space he had a sense of dread. Even though there was other alters just like this that he had seen when passing the other dead ends along the way. This was the only one that gave him an un-easy feeling.
"Kirito lets go," Lyst said.
Kirito ignored Lyst, slowly walking toward the alter in which gave him his dread. The others called out for him to return to the group, however he didn't hear them anymore. Something about this alter was different from the rest, but he couldn't put his finger on it.
"This statue, I feel like its staring at me, like it wants to kill me," Kirito said.
"Come on Kirito, they all look the same, from their stone bodies to their stone eyes. Lets keep looking," Rewin, one of the soldiers said.
Stone eyes that was it! The other statues had eyes completely of stone, but this one has Onyx for the pupils of the monsters eyes, it was barely noticeable because of how little of the creature's eye you could see. But this one was different. Kirito lifted his blade in the air and stabbed it straight into the statues head.
As he done so an ear shattering screech of pain sounded in the air. So much that the room seemed to quake by the creatures call of pain. The onyx gemstones disappeared and were replaced with regular stone. The screeching now came from above, where when Kirito looked, he saw a Reptilian looking monster flying about screaming in pain. It had two arms and no legs, or wings. In fact in looked like the ghostly remains of an ancient monster.
The creature's health bar appeared, showing that it already had damage to its health. The name that appeared next to the meter was Kairas. The creatures red eyes blazed in fury at the ones who had injured it.
"Remember what the code says men, Fight together, and don't leave anyone behind!" Lyst said rallying his troops to fight as one unit.
Kairas let out another roar before shooting barbs out of his mouth which headed toward each of them. Kirito's quick reflexes allowed him to block the barb with his blade, however soon enough he found out that the others weren't so lucky. For each of them got stuck with a barb. Which in itself had done no damage.
However red energy began flowing from the barbs to Kairas, and Kirito came to realize something. Kairas was draining their health. Lyst and the others tried pulling the barb out, but doing so just damaged them even more. The only way it seemed was to actually damage the creature.
Kirito ran toward Kairas with his blade fully drawn, he was gonna strike the beast in between the eyes. Jumping forward he pressed his foot against the wall and pushed off heading upwards, in a sense running up the wall. Once he was able to jump on the creature he pushed off with all his strength. Blade ready to impale the beast he seemed to move ever slowly toward the creature. That was until the creature's tail slapped him aside into the stone wall. The wall racking as his body broke its way in.
At that point Kairas had fully drained the mens health bars, resulting in their deaths. Kirito watched as all of them burst into stray data. At that moment he was starting to doubt if they could beat these bosses.
