Chapter 7

June 30th, 2023

31st floor, Derelict necropolis Labyrinth gate

Approximately 02:30 AST (Aincrad Standard Time)

Party stats

Will: Level 52 spearman

Emily: Level 52 shieldmaiden

Grace: Level 52 Katana swordswoman

Xander: Level 52 War Hammer tank

Asuna didn't have an answer at first. The beast didn't look too powerful, but if her suspicions were correct, and it was a minion of the Floor Boss, they had to be careful. They had no idea what the labyrinth contained, and worse, that Lich was in there, likely summoning more minions to fight them. Asuna defaulted to assuming the worst case scenario, which was that these enemies wouldn't despawn until they, or their summoner, were killed. If they didn't keep after the boss, they might have to fight through an entire army of summoned minions to get to it, and she didn't know if they could pull that off.

"We're going in," Asuna replied as she took the first step into the labyrinth. She looked around, and after becoming certain that the way was clear, she waved everyone forward with her hand. Will and Emily took point right behind Asuna, with the other members of the Knights of the blood oath between them and Grace and Xander, who brought up the rear of the group. The inside of the first three floors was pretty standard: Just dimly lit caverns with a few branching off corridors. But when they stepped onto the fourth floor, what they saw shocked them. No more were the walls made of grey-brown earthen materials or tunnels that were just barely taller than they were.

The fourth floor was lined with walls made of massive, intricately carved wooden bookcases that seemed to stretch for miles above them. The floors were made of floating white lines that outlined semi-translucent pathways, and they could see stone columns, or at least, stumps where those had once been. "Woah..." Grace breathed, upon seeing the massive room. Even with the damaged books and tomes scattered about on the floor, the cobwebs collecting in the corners of the bookshelves, and the bits and pieces of chiseled stone and faceted jewels from various pieces of architecture and furniture lying on their sides, the place was a marvel of ancient design.

"Hey, look at that!" Nautilus said from the middle of the group, pointing at something in the air. Everyone looked up and saw what he was talking about: there were rows of books floating from one bookshelf to the next as if they were enchanted. Small balls of smoke seemed to drift through the air, paying no attention to the explorers that had just entered their library.

Curious to learn more about the books, Nautilus was drawn to the books on the shelves, and he reached out a hand to pull one of them out.

"Wait, stop! Don't touch the-" Will started to warn the boy, a second too late. Nautilus's hand drifted over one of the books, trying to clear away the centuries of dust that had collected there, only to pull his hand away in shock as the book flew out of the shelf on its own and snapped at him.

The boy backpedaled a few steps, and they all watched in confusion as the book ripped all of its pages out. The loose parchment began flying around the book's leather covering, obscuring it from view and stirring up a powerful wind. Asuna stepped forward and attempted to skewer the book through the papers. To her shock, however, the rapier was easily deflected by the papers, which shone with a metallic glint, before disintegrating into ashes.

Where the possessed book had been mere moments earlier, there was now a whispering ball of vaporous, black smoke. Asuna took one look at it, and she quickly moved away, small beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Her knuckles were tense, the skin a pale white, and her arms trembled.

Will took a step forward, unbothered by the presence of the spirit, and turned his head to look at Asuna. "What's up Vice-commander? It's just a ghost."

The Vice Commander of the Knights looked at him, completely bewildered. "What do you mean, it's just a ghost? They're terrifying!" she exclaimed, holding out her Rapier in front of her.

Will shrugged. "Never really bothered me. A lot of video games I played back home had ghosts in them, and if there's one thing I learned, as long as you don't bother them, they'll generally leave you alone too," he said, before tilting his head and adding, "Unless it's a wraith. Then you'd best keep your distance. But this one doesn't look like a wraith to me."

The spirit floated closer to Will, curiously flying around him. A pair of white dots and a curved line appeared on its face. "Woah! Hey buddy. Why'd you snap at my friend just now?" he asked, as the spirit examined his avatar. "Yeah, you're not a bad spirit. You were just cranky, weren't you?"

The wisp let out a cute little giggle that echoed around the room, and the white dots looked like small crescents while it was laughing. Will turned around and saw that the rest of the guild, outside of Emily, Xander, and Grace, were completely bewildered and shocked. But before long, even Asuna's petrified expression changed to one of confused humor. "You really are insane, aren't you?"

Will laughed hysterically at that. "Guilty as charged, ma'am," he replied. A quick glance to his side revealed that his little ghost friend was also laughing with him, and not only that but when he looked to the side, so did the ghost. It was copying him he realized, and he simply laughed harder, before getting its attention again. "Say, little fella. Do you think you could show us how to get to the boss room?"

The ghost flew around quickly, with a wide and happy grin on its face. "I guess that's a yes," Will assumed, before turning to Asuna. "Permission to take point after my little friend?"

She sighed. "All right, but only because I can't stand ghosts."


Will and the rest of the guild party followed the small ghost down numerous hallways, They could now see the doors to the boss room floating above them, but no matter how far they walked, they never seemed to get any closer.

"Argh, this is pointless, this ghost is just leading us in circles!" Asuna muttered under her breath just loud enough for Will to hear it. The spear wielder ignored the comment, but in the back of his mind, he had been thinking the same thing. And yet something didn't sit right with him. He watched as the ghost in front of them flew gleefully through a bookshelf once again,

"What's going on with this ghost… is it trying to tell us something? It's flown through that specific bookshelf all three times we've walked passed it…"

Grace eyed the books it passed through again, and for the first time, noticed that the titles were written in English, "Huh… why would the titles be printed in the English Alphabet?" she wondered out loud, and Asuna looked back at her, a bewildered and surprised expression on her face.

"Uh, Grace? That's not English, it's Kanji," she replied, but Grace Shook her head.

"No, really! That's definitely English," she said after looking closer at the books' spines. "Hey, I recognize this one too! It's the Tales of Exalion!" she added excitedly. "Will, check it out! Remember this one?"

Will walked back over. "Yeah, you suggested it to me after marching band ended," he said. Sure enough, the titles were printed in English, and to his surprise, the book was indeed the Tales of Exalion. "What do you know. It is the Tales of Exalion, printed in English too," he mused, and Asuna narrowed her eyes in confusion. Then, Uzala walked over and took a look.

"I must be looking at a different book then because this one has a title printed in Chinese, my native language," she told them, and then Xander figured it out.

"Wait a minute, I think I've got it. The text is the same for all of us, but the game probably just translated the text from one language into another," he said, and after everyone looked at it, it seemed like he was onto something.

"Yeah, I think you've hit it on the head, Xander. But now that I think about it, that just raises a bigger question," Emily agreed, turning to look back at the group. "How can we all understand each other to begin with?"

Godfree tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"What language do you hear me speaking right now?" Emily asked, to which the group all answered with different languages. Godfree, Asuna, Nautilus, and the rest of Team B answered with Japanese, while Uzala said she was speaking fluent Chinese, and Will, Grace, and Xander said that she was speaking English. "I think that settles it then," she said, gesturing to each portion of the party as she repeated back to them the language that they'd said she was speaking. "Additionally, to me, all of you sound like you're speaking English."

Will nodded. "Yeah… yeah that makes sense! Remember when each of us logged in for the first time? The game had us take our body measurements, size, and all that stuff, but it also had us select a language. I bet that, while each of us is speaking our native languages, the game is taking that and translating our speech into the appropriate language for everyone else, like some kind of fancy voice changing program."

The other members of the group nodded in understanding. "So even though I'm speaking Japanese right now, you all hear it in English and Chinese as well?" Asuna asked, and again the group nodded. "Huh. that's neat. And based on that logic, Xander's almost certainly right about the text being translated by the game into our selected language."

Godfree shook his head. "I just want to know why we didn't wonder about this sooner," he said, and Will shrugged.

"It's probably just because we've all presumably grown up hearing almost exclusively our native language. So hearing it here didn't seem too strange, even though we knew that many of us were from very different places back home," he theorized.

"Now if only we could figure out how to get up to the boss room… we've gone past this section of the library at least three times now, so we've got to be missing something," Nautilus wondered, walking over to look at the books. One of them seemed to be glowing with a faint inner light, and he raised an eyebrow at it. "This looks important, Maybe there's something in here…"

Will turned around from where he had been examining the bookshelf and stretched out his hand. But he was too late, as the boy unclipped the metal clasp and cracked open the book, and a horrible screeching noise filled the room. The party all covered their ears, and Nautilus dropped the book on the floor as its pages whipped wildly with an invisible gale.

Suddenly, large specters flew out of the book and reformed in front of them. "Damn… those aren't wisps like the one we were following… Their wraiths… Everyone! Stay sharp and don't let your guard down, no matter what!" he shouted, knowing from experience he'd gathered in other games how easily these things could administer a total party wipeout, especially in a horde. The members of the assault team gathered together and pressed their backs to each other, as two of the wraiths flew at them. They sliced at them as they flew past, but the blades merely phased right through them, dealing no damage.

"Damn it all… we can't kill these things…" Godfree swore as his large axe failed to leave even a scratch on the wraith's tattered forms.

Asuna turned to Will. "Hey, ghost expert! How do we fight these things?!" she asked, ducking as a wraith attempted to skewer her with ghostly metal spears. But Will was at a loss.

"I've got no idea! In every other game I've played, wraiths are all but immune to physical damage! The only thing that works on them is magic, but we don't have that in SAO," he replied, frantically searching for a way to fend off the angry phantoms.

"Well, there's got to be something we can do. Power-hungry lunatic or not, no game developer would ever implement an unkillable enemy in an area that wasn't supposed to be out of bounds to the players!" Emily added. As she said this, Emily blocked a steaming metal sword with her shields and attempted to counter attack with a sword skill, but to no avail. As with their normal attacks, the wraith's bodies simply phased in and out of existence around the swords, leaving no trace of the attack.

"Come on, think Will, think! There's got to be something!" Will muttered to himself, and as a wraith flew at him, he rolled to the floor to dodge the attack, his eyes glanced over the frenzied pages of the book Nautilus had opened. "Wait, that's it! Nautilus, kick that book over to me, I've got an idea!" he said, and the boy nodded, sliding the ancient tome over to Will with his shoe.

Will picked up the book, and just as another wraith charged at him, he held the book up at it. White light flared from its pages, and the wraith screeched as it was forced back. Then, Will noticed that they weren't phasing through the bookshelves, just their weapons. "That's it!" he called out, a grin on his face as he solved the puzzle. "Everyone, get behind me!" he said, leading the group as he used the light of the book to force the Wraiths backward.

"Hahaha! Get back! Back, I say! Back, you fiends!" Someone cheered.

"Let's go Gandalf! Give 'em the old 'You shall not pass' treatment!" another one whooped, and it was then that Will realized that the other books on the shelves were glowing with a similar white light. Slowly but surely, they forced them into a corner where one by one, the screeching wraiths were pulled back into the pages of the books. As soon as the last one was forced back into the book, he closed it and held it tight under his arm as he fumbled with the clasp. Even trapped inside the book, the wraiths still fought back desperately to keep from being sealed away again.

With a sigh, he turned around to face the group. "Is everyone ok?" he asked, and there were nods all around.

"Sorry about that everyone…" Nautilus apologized, but grace shook her head.

She pointed up at the boss room's doors. "I don't think you have anything to apologize for Nautilus. Look!" she exclaimed. The group looked up, and they saw that the boss room doors were floating down towards them. As this happened, Will noticed that the bookshelves in front of them were rotating and revealing a hidden path.

"Of course!" He exclaimed as the doors came to a stop in front of them. "It was a puzzle! The ghost from before was trying to tell us to open the books from that specific bookshelf. I'll be you anything that the books from any other bookshelf wouldn't have released the wraiths. In fact, the wraiths were probably the ones holding the doors up in the first place!" he explained.

Asuna nodded. "And only someone curious enough to touch the books at the entrance would've released the ghost that led us here, but they would've also had to have been brave enough to trust that the ghost wasn't leading them into a trap, and clever enough to realize that sealing the wraiths back in the book was the way to defeat them," the vice commander added. "Wow, the dev team really wanted to go a different route for this floor, didn't they?" She mused as Will approached the doors, instinctively attempting to scout out the boss, only to be stopped as the game then threw them another curveball in the form of a notification window.

"Hm? What's this…" the boy mused, reading the message with careful scrutiny. After a moment, he made a whistling sound. "Well… that sure complicates things. Hey Asuna?" he called out. "You know how you just said that they wanted to go a different route for the floor? Well, check this out, because I think that also applies to the boss," he said. Asuna and the others walked up behind him, and the same windows appeared in front of them. On every window, there was a detailed description of the boss, including its attacks, what it looked like, and what kinds of minions it would spawn. As Will and Emily had both expected, it was the Lich that had led them to the labyrinth which would be the final boss of the floor.

"Sword skills will work differently in this boss room… when used from far away, they will produce a ranged projectile, but when used up close, they'll function as normal? That seems like an odd change…" she muttered. "All the same, we've made a lot of progress today. Let's head back and put together a raid party tomorrow, shall we?"


The next day, a party made up of the Knights of the Blood Oath, the still stubbornly solo Kirito, the Fuurinkazan, and a few other smaller guilds reached the massive stone doors. To Will's relief, the puzzle had remained solved, so they wouldn't have to risk losing anyone to the wraiths before the boss battle actually began. He was a bit bummed, however, to hear that Nautilus and his friend Yuna wouldn't be joining them. The young girl had finally managed to convince Nautilus to pick up the musical instrument skill a few weeks prior, and when word reached Will's ears that he had taken a liking to the clarinet, Will's preferred instrument, he was simply ecstatic. Since then, the two of them and Will's group had become good friends, and they'd agreed to head to the first floor soon to give a performance to the younger players.

"All right everyone. Let's take a break here. As we explained to you before we left, it is our understanding that sword skills will work differently in this boss room," Asuna called out to the group, snapping Will out of his thoughts. "Myself and the rest of the scouting team from yesterday have thoroughly read over the notification windows that you all see now. While we can't say for sure how this boss fight will work, one thing is certain. It will most definitely be unlike anything we've fought before, so be on your toes at all times, because this will be a fight where we'll have to adapt on the fly, of that, I have no doubt."

There were nods all around the room. "If everyone is ready, then let's take this sucker down!" she shouted, raising her rapier high in the air as members of the raiding party did the same. The Knights of the Blood Oath pushed open the doors and everyone swarmed inside, spreading out so that the boss couldn't target them all at once. Overhead lanterns flickered to life, and the boss was revealed.

"It's the Lich from earlier all right! Watch out for its arms, they're very grabby!" Xander warned them, as six healthbars appeared around its head, along with the name "Lich, the Undying Gravemaster". The boss let out an earsplitting scream and extended two sets of scythe-like claws, generating red glowing orbs at the tips of each claw.

A massive wave of red lasers shot towards the party, but they were all able to either jump over the waves or slide underneath them. "It's a freaking bullet hell boss!" Will shouted, readying a snake bite sword skill. The blades of his double ended spear glowed with crimson red energy, and he swung, sending two rays of red light at the boss. Asuna jabbed her rapier into the ground and used it to pole vault herself over the next wave of energy, before jabbing forward with rapid thrusts from her glowing green blade. an uncountable number of green beams shot out of her blade and pierced the Lich's forehead like a stream of bullets, and the boss shrieked with pain.

"Take it!" she shouted, and within moments, the boss room was fully illuminated with laser lights of all different colors as players with more agile weapons, like swords and spears, unleashed barrages of ranged attacks from their sword skills, while players with shields and heavier, two-handed weapons, generated human-sized, hexagonal shields that glowed with a pale yellow light, stopping the Lich's attacks before they hit any players for massive amounts of damage. Before long, the unceasing waves of sword skills, their users fully protected by the line of tanks in front of them, had chewed through the first healthbar of the Lich.

As its first healthbar emptied completely, however, it let out a horrible screech, and two long tendrils with massive, bone-colored blades at the ends. The edge of the blades glowed with an orange light, and Will realized what it was about to do a split second before everyone else did. "Crap! Railgun attack incoming! Everyone get behind a shield before it finishes charging up!" he shouted, but it was too late, as the blades flicked to two players on opposite sides of the room who had tried to flank the boss, and with a flash of light, they were both disintegrated instantly. A girl shouted from behind Will, and she recklessly charged around him, her two-handed curved sword glowing purple. Will held out a hand to stop her, but to no avail, as she released the sword skill only to be immediately skewered by one of the tendril blades. "I get it. The ranged sword skills do more damage, but with each healthbar we knock out, it's going to get stronger and use a wider variety of attacks," Will said, and Asuna nodded.

"Got it. Everyone listen up! Stay with a tank at all times and don't take any chances! Tanks, keep a close eye on those healthbars, and call out when one's about to be fully depleted!" Asuna ordered, before releasing a barrage of lime-colored lights from her blade, while Kirito shifted around next to her, sending arcs of light blue energy at the boss. The attackers kept up the assault until the second healthbar was just a sliver away from being depleted.

"Vice Commander! The second healthbar is almost up!" Agil called out from the front, his shield absorbing another railgun blast.

"Copy that Agil! Everyone group up behind the tanks and stay sharp! Will, Grace, when I give the signal, go for the eyes!" she ordered. Grace and Will nodded, pointing their weapons at the boss's head.

"You go left and I'll go right?" Will asked, and Grace nodded.

"Let's do it. We're ready Asuna!" Grace replied. The players finished grouping up behind the tanks, and Asuna nodded, giving the two a thumbs up.

"Fire away!"

Grace's blade glowed with a bright, fiery orange glow, and Will charged up a thrusting skill. In unison, they jabbed their blades forward at the eyes, and with perfect accuracy, the projectiles slammed into two of the Lich's eyes. "Bullseye!" Klein whooped from the rear, bumping wrists with Grace and Will.

The Lich shrieked once again, and it jabbed its claws into the ground. "What's it doing?" Emily wondered out loud before her question was answered by the boss as the ground beneath her feet began to glow. She threw herself to the side in the nick of time, as the ground exploded with crimson red flames. "Woah!" she exclaimed. "Asuna! We're going to have to keep moving for this stage, or find a way to disrupt that attack!"

"Got it! Everyone, you heard Emily! Don't stay in one place for more than a few seconds, and stick to sword skills that have a short recovery period!" Asuna answered, sending a Linear sword skill at the boss as she dove out of the way of a plume of fire. She quickly got to her feet, but their sword skills seemed to be doing much less damage during this phase. And that was when she saw that not only were the Lich's claws embedded in the ground but so too were the long, tendril-like blades, meaning the boss had no defense against close-range attacks.

She looked over at Kirito, who sent a Horizontal sword Skill at the boss to little effect. "Kirito! I think I've figured out this phase! Follow me!" she called out, and the black swordsman nodded. The duo rushed up close to the boss and hacked away at the claws, and as Asuna had hoped, the beast roared in agony, its healthbar taking a massive hit. "Yes!" she exclaimed, before turning back to the rest of the raiding party. "Everyone! Focus on dodging its attacks, not attacking! It's resistant to sword skills in this phase! Kirito and I will do damage. So call out when this phase is about to end!"

"On it Vice commander!" Xander replied, jumping to the side to avoid a tower of fire. With Asuna and Kirito slashing at the vulnerable boss, and the rest of the assault party keeping it distracted from their efforts, the two nimble fighters were able to make quick work of the boss's third healthbar. "Vice Commander! Kirito! It's almost empty, one of you should fall back now and let the other finish the job!" he said, and Kirito nodded at Asuna, who made one last jab through the neck of the beast before the two of them rushed back to the safety of the Tank's shields.

"Three down, three to go…" Will muttered as the fourth phase of the boss fight began, signaled by yet another bloodcurdling roar from the Lich. Instead of attacking this time, however, it retreated to the back of the room and threw up its arms and tendrils to defend itself. "What's it-" Will wondered out loud before his eyes glanced over its healthbar. "Damn it! Asuna! It's regenerating its health! We've got to out damage it before it fully heals!" he exclaimed, rushing forward and attempting to cut through the tendrils with a Setsudan Sword skill.

Within seconds, other damage dealing players were at his side, including Grace and Emily, hacking and slashing away with Rotation and Saikuron sword skills respectively, But it still wasn't enough to overpower the regeneration, and then they heard screams from behind them as undead warriors dug themselves out of the walls and floor. "Heads up, we've got minions behind us!" Asuna called out from the front, turning around with Kirito, Godfree, and Uzala to combat the reinforcements. She jabbed out twice with her rapier, piercing two skeletons before they could stab the others in the back with their swords.

"Hitting these tendrils isn't enough!" someone shouted as the Lich's third healthbar reached 25%.

"Argh… what can we do? We need to get to the boss itself, but we can't get through these tendrils!" Will thought to himself as he tried cutting through again. Suddenly, Xander barreled through, evidently having an idea of his own.

"Brace for impact ugly!" he shouted, swinging his hammer with a bone-shattering sword skill. The Lich roared in pain, and although it didn't do much to its healthbar, it parted the tendrils and allowed Will and some others to jump through, while Asuna and the others dealt with the rest of the minions.

"Let 'em have it!" Will shouted, goring the Lich's forehead with his spear and inflicting massive damage in a single hit thanks to the boss's vulnerable skin being exposed to allow it to regenerate. The strategy for that phase revealed, Will and the others were able to make quick work of its fourth healthbar, and the moment it hit zero, the boss screeched, lowering its wall of tendrils and claws to prepare for an enraged attack as Will and the rest of the assault party retreated to the back of the room.

The Lich created a circle with its hands, and inside of its claws formed a massive red sphere of energy. "Incoming! Tanks, get your shields up stat!" Kirito shouted, taking cover behind Agil with Klein, Asuna, and the rest of the Fuurinkazan's damage dealers. Emily threw up two smaller shields to reinforce Xander's as Will, Grace, and some other players hunkered down behind them. Moments later, the massive orb was discharged from the Lich's hands and flew slowly towards the players.

"It's a bomb! Brace yourselves!" Will shouted. Mere seconds later the orb exploded and sent the majority of the raid party flying, including the entrenched tanks. "Damn it! Asuna! We can't take another hit like that! We need to knock out this phase asap!" Will warned her, frantically running from player to player and using every healing crystal he had brought with him to get them back in the fight.

"I'm on it!" Asuna shouted, courageously leaping onto the boss's skull with Grace, Klein, and Kirito at her side. Together, the four of them began impaling the Lich, trying to both keep its attention on them and not on the recovering players, as well as to try and end the fifth phase as quickly as they could. Fortunately, it seemed that the boss in this phase seemed to have reduced melee defense, and they were able to chip away at its health with relative ease.

"Everyone! If this boss is like any other bullet hell boss, the last phase will be some combination of all the previous phases put together! Get ready for all hell to break loose!" Will warned everyone as the attackers reduced the boss's health to less than a sliver. "Asuna! You need to get out of there now before it reaches the last phase!" he shouted, but the Vice Commander didn't seem to hear him.

Asuna jabbed her rapier through the Lich's skull one last time, and then its body began to ripple. With barely any warning, the boss released a massive shockwave that sent Asuna, Grace, Klein, and Kirito flying to the back wall, their healthbars just barely above empty after the jarring impact with the wall. With no hesitation or time for the players to catch their breath, the boss suddenly launched into a flurry of attacks with no pattern, launching energy bombs from each of its hands, blasting at them with its railgun-like tendrils, and summoning plumes of fire under their feet.

Agil and Xander ran over to the injured players and checked their wounds. "Will! Asuna, Kirito, Klein, and Grace are down! They're alive, but out of commission, and we're out of crystals to heal them with!" Agil shouted, and Will nodded.

"Understood! Just keep your shields up and try to get them to their feet as best you can! I don't want to bank their lives on hoping the fire plumes don't reach back that far! Everyone else, with me! We can't outlast the phase for long, so give it some hell!" Will responded, leading the vanguard of players towards the boss. Fortunately for them, even though the boss's attacks didn't seem to have a preconceived pattern like its previous phases, they could see that there were slightly longer warnings that allowed them to predict the attacks more easily in this phase. They sidestepped around the fiery plumes, rolled out of the way to dodge the railgun blasts, dove over the rows of energy rays, and threw up small shields as best they could to absorb the brunt of the damage from the blasts, and all the while they traded off in pairs, sending an unending torrent of sword skills at the boss.

Will and Emily led the Fuurinkazan onto the Boss's body and began slashing away at any vulnerable parts of its form they could see, while the remaining tanks absorbed the damage from the stray attacks, and the remaining damage dealing players hung back, hurling sword skills at the boss from afar. The room trembled as the Lich roared with agony, fruitlessly trying to shake off its attackers and simultaneously defend against the unending stream of sword skills launched from a distance, but it was to no avail as the Lich's health finally dropped to zero, and it fizzled out of existence.


A/N: FINALLY! My word I am SO GLAD that I can FINALLY move on from this one chapter! I truly could not tell you why it took me so long, because I myself don't even know, and being unable to finish this chapter... well it's been killing me! But at long last, it's finally over, and now I can start working on the next chapter which will hopefully be easier than this one!

I'm really proud of this boss fight, but as always I'm interested in what you all think too. Please, do not hesitate to let me know if my attempt at writing a three dimensional bullet hell boss fight turned out well or not, because it took me at least a good three or four days to stretch my brain for ideas on how to not only write a kind of boss fight that you don't see in books often (or at least I haven't seen often), but one that I've only ever seen portrayed as a top down, two dimensional kind of fight, and then turning that into a three dimensional battle, so I like how it turned out!

Well, with that said, it is finally time... (my goodness I've been itching to say this for so long now!)

BRING ON CHAPTER EIGHT OF THE UNTOLD HEROES!