Heyyyyyy, remember when I promised this chapter wouldn't take long to come out? :| yeah, I need to stop doing that, sorry.
Anyway, at least I've been productive during the wait. I made a decent amount of progress, more so than normal actually. To be perfectly honest with you though, my main struggle is that I've known exactly how I want to end this fanfic for a while now but having to write all the stuff in-between sucks because I'm so excited to write the ending.
I have a few good arcs in mind upcoming as well so just in case you needed a reminder, this fanfic will never be abandoned no matter what ;) Now, onto the chapter.
I DO NOT own Sword Art Online or its Characters.
"Where the fuck are all the enemies?" Sinon hadn't really noticed it until now but the guy was right. They had ventured well enough into the labyrinth and yet had not even seen, let alone fought, a single enemy.
"Kuro! Stop swearing unnecessarily, My mother would have your head on a pike if she heard you talking like that," June suddenly berated her boyfriend, who apologized deeply in reply. Sinon took a moment to envy their relationship before peering around another corner of the labyrinth. As she did, she finally spotted a lone enemy. It was a humanoid lizard with scaly green skin and wielding a spear. The couple behind her noticed the enemy as well and took cover.
"So we finally see an enemy, but why is it all alone? A trap maybe?" Kuro asked quietly so he didn't reveal their presence. Sinon shook her head.
"No, labyrinths aren't known to have traps. Those are for dungeons," She answered.
"Well, if it's only one enemy then surely we could overwhelm it considering there's three of us and only one of them," June suggested, but Sinon had a better idea.
"No need, I'll do something about him now. Watch this," Sinon said as she readied her bow with an arrow and aimed it at the lizard. Shortly after she did this, the tip of the arrow in her bow started to glow an unusual black color and started to make a low humming sound. "Hey!" Sinon shouted loudly enough to get the lizard's attention. Almost as soon as the lizard had turned its head to look at her, she fired her glowing black arrow directly towards it. The arrow made the roughly fifty-meter distance between them in the blink of an eye and struck the lizard right in the chest. However, now came the interesting part. As soon as the arrow struck the lizard, Sinon vanished completely from where she was and had no sooner reappeared right in front of the lizard where the arrow had hit. Then, the moment she reappeared, she reached down to a pouch on the rear of her waist and pulled out a thick dagger that was glowing a blinding white color and slashed the lizard completely in half across the abdomen. The lizard could do nothing but die on the spot after being cut cleanly in half before exploding in a firework of crystal particles. After the lizard was gone, the white light encasing Sinon's dagger vanished and she resheathed it in her rear waist pouch.
"What the bloody hell was that?" Kuro asked after having his mind blown after what he just saw. The couple ran up to Sinon from their cover position as he exclaimed.
"Pretty cool, huh? It's a bow and arrow skill I learned after beating the twentieth-floor boss called Shadow Flash. It basically allows me to use one of my arrows as a sort of teleporting mechanism and it automatically teleports me to wherever it lands. After I get teleported, I have about five seconds of double damage with my dagger which can insta-kill smaller enemies and make a large impact on boss's health bars," Sinon explained, much to the excitement of the couple before her.
"What? That's fucking sick! Maybe I should use a bow and arrow as well," Kuro cheered excitedly, only to get yelled at once again by June for swearing.
"I probably should've saved it for the boss fight but I haven't gotten proficiency on it yet so there's a chance the skill could fail," Sinon explained further, but for some reason, both June and Kuro looked rather confused.
"Uh, proficiency?" June asked awkwardly. This made Sinon realize that she might be partied up with noobs which caused her to sigh mentally.
"If you go into your inventory and select one of your skills, there are generally three options; Equip or Unequip, Discard, and Info. If you press Info, you not only see the stats of the skill, you'll also see a proficiency bar that fills up the more you use it. Once you get the proficiency bar to a hundred percent, you unlock its maximum potential so to speak, my one being that it will have a hundred percent success rate on all types of enemies once I eventually fill the bar," Sinon taught as the couple followed her instructions and saw that she was indeed correct. They both had a bunch of skills with proficiency bars that were around half to three-quarters full.
"Wow, you really do learn something new every day, don't ya," June laughed at her ineptness.
"When you've been playing for as long as I have, you tend to know pretty much everything," Sinon flexed as they proceeded to continue into the labyrinth.
"Oh? What level are you?" June asked curiously.
"twenty-five, but that's nothing compared to one of my friends who's level ninety-seven," Sinon recalled the fact that Kirito had actually managed to level up recently despite them still being on too low floors for the XP he received to make that much of an impact on his levels.
"Ninety-seven!? Holy shit!" Kuro exclaimed loudly before being once again yelled at by June. As the trio continued into the labyrinth, they actually started to encounter a few more enemies but still nowhere near the amount that you would find in a normal labyrinth. But alas, after lots of twists and turns, they finally reached the door to the boss room.
"Alright, let's do this," June boasted with confidence as they opened the door with very little hesitation. In the middle of the boss room lay a massive brown slug with golden scales all around its body. The slug looked like it was sleeping so the trio crept closer until the boss's name and health bar finally showed up. It was called Vaal Karuuk and it had a solid five health bars which were one less than the previous floor's boss but Sinon theorized that it must've made up for the lower health with attack power. The three adventurers eerily stepped closer and closer, waiting for the fight to trigger, until they were literally standing a few inches away from it and had still gotten no reaction.
"Is it…dead?" June asked in confusion.
"No, it's definitely breathing," Kuro asked as he poked it, seeing if that would work. But it remained asleep.
"I guess we get a free attack of opportunity then," Sinon said as she pulled out her bow, attached an explosive arrow tip onto the loaded arrow, and fired it right at Vaal Karuuk's head. The explosion was loud and not only took a good nearly half of the first health bar down but also finally woke the thing up. "C'mon, attack it while it's still waking up," Sinon urged to the other two as Vaal Karuuk roared himself awake. They both activated different sword skills and unleashed their attacks on the giant slug and altogether, they had already gotten rid of one of the five health bars and it hadn't even started attacking yet.
"Damn, this is actually hella easy," Kuro exclaimed with a confident laugh as he unleashed a fury of attacks on the body of the boss.
"Don't jinx it, Kuro!" June shouted as Vaal Karuuk finally started moving around. All three of them instinctually jumped back, preparing for some proper offense but it just kinda slugged around really slowly. Sinon's disappointment in this fight was immeasurable but at least it seemed like a nice freebie. That was until suddenly, Vaal Karuuk started summoning some sort of purple mist in its mouth. The mist grew denser and denser the more it charged up.
"Quick, get a few more attacks in before it fires!" Kuro ordered as both he and June threw a few last attacks in before backing out. Sinon didn't need to worry as she was attacking from afar but something about this attack got her worried.
"You guys, get out of there!" Sinon urged the couple, who immediately turned to run but it was too late. Vaal Karuuk brought his head down and fired the purple mist into the ground, causing it to cover the entire boss room. Sinon thought she was safe from where she was but not a single speck of the room was missed as all three of them were engulfed by the purple mist.
"Crap, what's happening!?" Kuro cried out as he closed his eyes to avoid any possible ailments.
"I don't know, but I'm not feeling any pain," June realized as she slowly opened her eyes.
"It's not just that…we're not even taking any damage," Sinon added as the three of them stopped bracing and just gazed around in confusion. The mist didn't do any health or magic damage, nor did it cause any ailments. It didn't even blind or hinder their movements. The three just stood around and waited as the mist slowly disappeared. Vaal Karuuk did absolutely nothing during the mist attack but slowly and aimlessly crawl around.
"Alright, let's just kill this freebie. I'm kinda bored now anyway," Kuro moaned as the three of them prepared to attack again. Except they couldn't because they had just realized that they didn't have their weapons out.
"That's weird. Maybe this mist unequipped our weapons?" June suggested as they all brought up their inventory to re-equip their weapons. Only to then realize what was really going on.
"What the hell? I can't equip any of my weapons!?" Kuro cried in confusion. Both Sinon and June tried as well but no matter how many times they tried summoning their weapons, they just wouldn't show up.
"Ah, so that's the catch," Sinon realized. "Because we didn't kill it quick enough, now we have to fight it without weapons entirely. I see why they still needed a large number of people last time despite the fact that the boss itself was rather easy,"
"Okay, so we have to go bare-knuckle brawling then? Fine by me, I'm pretty good at fisticuffs," Kuro revealed confidently as he ran up to Vaal Karuuk, who took zero notice of his presence. "Take this you useless slug!" He cried as he punched Vaal Karuuk's body as hard as he could. But instead of doing damage to the slug, the area where he punched released a spray of green goo that completely enveloped Kuro and started to brutally poison him and cause his health bar to deplete at an alarming rate.
"Kuro!" June cried out as she ran to his aid. Once she was by his side, she healed him with magic art and his health returned to full, only to then start to deplete again due to the poisonous goo on him. "Quick, get the goo off," She warned as they both started to rub all the goo off his body. In doing this though, they failed to realize that Vaal Karuuk had made his way over to them and it wasn't until it was leaning down with its mouth open that they realized the mess they were in.
"Watch out you two!" Sinon yelled as she ran over and tried to pull them out of the way. She was able to pull June away but unfortunately, the goo on her boyfriend's body caused her grip to slip out and she fell away from him. She stood back up and cried out Kuro's name just in time to watch Vaal Karuuk pick him up in its mouth and chomp him in half before swallowing his body. The display on the top right of Sinon's eyesight revealed that Kuro's health bar had reached zero and he had perished. The only thing that kept June from screaming at the top of her lungs in sadness was the fact that he wasn't actually dead and that he would very shortly be respawning in the Town of Beginnings, but watching her boyfriend die was still rather traumatic.
"Damn it! Why did my stupid hands have to slip! I'm so sorry Atsushi!" June cried into her hands beside Sinon, who ignored the fact that she fully just let her boyfriend's IRL name slip out.
"Keep your cool, girl. Remember, he isn't actually dead. He's probably already respawned by now," Sinon reassured quickly while she wracked her brain on ways around the battle.
"You're right," June sniffled aloud as she wiped away a few tears. "But we're not going to be any better off unless we can find a way to use our weapons again," She backed up towards where Sinon was. Vaal Karuuk's movements were still extremely slow and easy to predict, but it seemed to have gotten somewhat hostile as a result of Kuro's attack since now it was occasionally spitting some of that same poison out of its mouth towards wherever the two girls were. It would also occasionally let out a roar that staggered their movements as well. At one point, Sinon reached down to one of her leg straps to see if she could throw some of her arrow tips at the slug but found out that those had also been taken away in the mist. So ultimately, they were left with nothing. "All we've been doing is dodging and running around, how the heck do we damage this thing?" June complained.
"There's gotta be some sort of catch to this," Sinon thought aloud. "Maybe there's a way for us to use its ailments against it?"
"Maybe, but poison definitely wouldn't work. It would have to be something else like fire or lightning," June pointed out as she avoided another poison spit. Almost as soon as those words had entered Sinon's ears, she finally realized something.
"Wait a second," She realized as she closed her eyes and focused for a moment.
"Not sure what you're doing but be careful," June said worriedly from across the room. Sinon's eyes remained closed and she continued to keep her mind calm and focused for a little longer until suddenly, a spark. She opened her eyes and saw that a kind of lightning aura was encircling her hands. This aura was an effect of the shock gem that she had activated on herself a few weeks ago. It was always something she forgot about because she was still not used to having super-human lightning-like powers. "What's happening to your arms?" June called out in concern.
"It's okay," Sinon reassured confidently. "I think I've figured out a way to beat this thing," Vaal Karuuk noticed the sudden danger that the blue-haired avatar now possessed and turned its head towards her before charging up another spit attack. The lightning aura continued to slowly envelop Sinon's arms and eventually started covering her entire body. Just as the aura had enveloped her completely, the boss shot its poison spit out of its mouth. The force of the spit had the pile of poison covered the distance between the slug's mouth and Sinon in the blink of an eye, but with literally lightning-quick reactions, Sinon seemingly teleported away from the line of fire and appeared a few feet to the side. Before Vaal Karuuk could charge up another spit attack, Sinon retaliated. She thrust her right hand forward in silence and cracking thunderbolts shot out of her hand and assaulted the slug with a bang. Vaal Karuuk was launched across the room and landed not too far away from where June was. As it struggled its way back upright, Sinon fired another bolt at the slug and another loud impact caused it to fly right into the far wall with a thud. The two lightning attacks together had taken down a further one and a half of its health bars, meaning that it was now sitting at only two and a half health bars left and since that now it was at half of its original health, its HP bar was now colored yellow instead of green.
"Amazing," June said aloud as her lightning-infused friend walked towards the currently flattened slug. Suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, the slug jumped upright and lunged towards Sinon so quickly, it was basically a blur. The sudden speed change of the slug caught Sinon off guard and she had to use her newfound light speed to just barely avoid a massive flying chomp. Luckily, however, that super fast lunge seemed to be some sort of special move as after it landed, it went back to its slow self. Even so, its hostility had continued to grow as it was now spitting out its poison balls much faster and frequently. As a defense, Sinon gathered up a bunch of lightning among her hands and used small bolts to swat each poison ball out of the way. During the entire fight so far, Sinon was completely silent and completely focused and continued to remain so as she summoned a decently sized lightning ball in her hand, while expertly dodging more spitballs, slowly powered up the attack. June watched from afar in awe at the badassness of her new friend and wondered why she never did this more often. That's when she noticed something. As Sinon charged this large attack, her health bar steadily decreased at an alarming rate and had just entered the red. She didn't know what was happening, but what she did know was that Sinon would die if she charged up this attack anymore. Luckily, Sinon seemed to be aware of that as well and after readying her arm behind her, threw the lightning ball as hard as she could towards Vaal Karuuk. Almost as soon as she had thrown it, the ball made contact with Vaal Karuuk and exploded in a fury of static surges all over the room. Vaal Karuuk whinged and writhed in pain as the lightning show quickly died down, but not before it left the boss with barely a single health bar left. At the same time, after the lightning explosion died down, Sinon momentarily staggered around before falling flat on her back while the lightning aura surrounding her vanished. June ran over to her with worry. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine, but I won't be of any more use in the fight," Sinon revealed as she rolled her head around to make sure she could still feel. "Not sure if you noticed but, while that lightning stuff if really strong, using it causes my health to decrease as a result of the power coming from within me, so to speak. That's why I don't use it often, Toran always got mad at me if I used it recklessly," Sinon explained, not caring that she mentioned Toran's name to someone who didn't know who he was.
"The more powerful something is, the more annoying the catch is," June laughed before looking at the battered and bruised boss struggling to get itself upright. "Not sure how I'm going to-" Before she could finish complaining, the same purple mist from before started to envelop both the girls. June started to attempt to swat the mist away before she realized what it was doing. After a few short seconds, her trusty rapier was back in its sheath on her hip. As for Sinon, her bow had returned to her hand. "Oh, speak of the devil,"
"There ya go, you'll be fine," Sinon reassured from her immobile position. June couldn't help but giggle briefly before unsheathing her weapon and readying herself before the boss.
"Alright slug, time to face your doom!" She shouted before charging at the slug and activating a sword skill as she ran.
"Okay, but why the cheesy line though?" Sinon thought to herself as she moved her head to a position where she could clearly watch her new friend fight the slug. After multiple sword skills and battle-cries, June landed the final blow on Vaal Karuuk and after a short moment of watching it writhe in pain, it fell dead on the ground before exploding in a firework of data crystals. As the usual success chime played and the word 'Congratulations' displayed in front of them, June celebrated her first-ever boss battle victory. Sinon had also finally been able to start moving by now and was just starting to stand up as the music chime ended.
"Congrats," Sinon applauded as she walked over to June to celebrate with her.
"Thanks! But you did pretty much all the work, I only finished it off," June laughed.
"Speaking of which, did you get any special rewards for it?" Sinon asked, only to find confusion on June's face. "Right…noobs," She thought. "When your fighting a boss, whoever gets the final killing blow usually tends to get something called the final attack bonus. So did you?"
"Oh, yes I did!" She jumped cheerfully as she searched her inventory for the new item. "Ah, here it is. It's called a Rapier Arts Token and it allows me to be automatically proficient in any Rapier-based sword skills!" She read with joy.
"Wow, that's quite useful. Nice find," Sinon approved with a thumbs up.
"I can't wait to tell Kuro," She giggled with joy as they both made their way up the small staircase to the door to the next floor. As they opened it and stepped into the further unknown, the usual voice-over sounded over all the floors.
"The Twenty-Second floor of Aincrad has just been cleared. Repeat, the Twenty-Second floor of Aincrad has just been cleared. Floor Twenty Three is now available to all players,"
So whaddya think? a purely battle focussed chapter which I hope you liked. I wanted to try my hand at creating my very own totally original SAO boss for the first time and wanted it to be a unique challenge for our heroine so I hope you liked it.
Not much else for me to say other than please leave a Follow/Favorite/Review and let me know what you think of this story. 'Till next time.
pls excuse all spelling and grammar mistakes, the cake, as it turns out, was not delicious.