A/N: It's time to face the tenth-floor boss. One thing I should add, this boss is going to be more dangerous then any of the floor bosses the WWO players have faced. Bet you World of Warcraft players out there can guess who's the boss.


MARCH 3RD, 2023. FLOOR 10, SHARP HILL

The five of us rest up an in Inn, having dinner. It's been a long day clearing up those dungeons and opening up the Elite Dungeon entrance. An announcement has been made that the Assault Team are going to form a meeting first thing tomorrow morning.

I'm just relieved to leave this floor. I wonder what is going to lay in store on this floor's boss since Kayaba had to lock him away with this method.

When we're done eating, it was nighttime and we all head to bed. Right now, I'm the only one who's awake. I'm just sitting in bed looking at the family photo I brought here. I really miss Serah. I just wish there was a way for me to talk to her, just one more time. I just hope she's doing okay in the real world.

There's a knock on the door. I was startled and I dismiss the photo. The door opens and Hope walks right in. "Couldn't sleep?" Hope asks.

"I have a lot on my mind at the moment," I say. Hope approaches to sit next to me on the bed. "What about you?"

"I'm a little nervous about boss fight. What is he's really dangerous?" Hope asks.

"I'm sure he's not that tough," I say.

"I don't know, Claire. I mean, I remember in Zombie Ninja's 3, there was a boss in the game, and the only way to get to it is to destroy all the Death Knights. That was similar to what we did now. And the boss fight, it was so tough I had 27 game overs and I was using the strongest equipment and skills I could get on level 58."

I see what's going on here. He's comparing what's happening from another video game to what we been through. Because of what he's been through in one game, he thinks it's going to happen to us.

I put a hand on Hope's shoulder. "That won't happen. Even if it will, you don't have to worry." I move my arm to his other side, pulling him close. "Cause I'm going to protect you. I'll make sure you'll survive the battle."

"I know you will, Claire. But...I still feel nervous." Hope says.

I move my hand to his head giving him a ruffle in the hair. "You're probably just tired. Try to get a good night's sleep. I'm sure that'll help."

Hope softly nods. "You might be right."

I take Hope back to the room he's staying in and then I tuck him in bed. After that, I return to my room as well and get some sleep.

The next morning, we all had a quick breakfast. Hope got a good night's sleep, which is good cause it did help out his nerves. After breakfast, we went to the meeting, which took place outside of the Barracks in Sharp Hill. Asuna stands on stage, but she's not the one taking the lead. Instead, it's the commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath.

Heathcliff.

"Heathcliff is taking the lead? He never leaves the Knights of Blood Oath HQ unless it's something big and important." I hear Klein say.

I've heard of Heathcliff. Leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath. A Grand Crusader they say he is. People say he's the first, and the only player, who never had his HP ever reach a yellow zone. Not even by Laughing Coffin.

I'm very suspicious about this man. Something about him rubs me the wrong way.

Heathcliff plants his massive shield in front of him.

"Everyone! Today: We, the Assault Team, are about to take on the boss of the Tenth floor. Just yesterday, the boss was locked away. But now, the path to the boss is open, thanks to a brave group from the Assault Team for figuring out the puzzle. However, some of you are concern about the boss fight, how dangerous it's going to be. I can ensure you that the boss fight won't be difficult, but for good measurements, we will be forming the largest raid team we can make and we'll run through the dungeon. We have one hour to get ourselves ready. That is all. You're all dismissed."

Everyone in the audience disbands. I just stay in place, staring at the space where Heathcliff once stood upon. Something about him feels off for me. Like I can and I can't trust him at the same time.

I'm gonna have to keep an eye on the Crusader.


FLOOR 10, ELITE DUNGEON.

The Assault Team forms as a 40-player raid group, which is the biggest raid team the system will allow. The dungeon here is a massive fortress for the Metal Horde, known as Orgrimmar.

We face each of the Metal Horde clans: The Battlesong, Bleeding Empty, Shattered Arm, The Shadowlunar, The Burning Sword, and the Blackstone. This raid is certainly the toughest we have ever encountered. Heathcliff certainly made a good call informing the largest raid. I'll give him credit for that.

When we clear our way through the dungeon, which took over three hours, which is the longest time we ever spent in a dungeon, Heathcliff allowed us to rest and eat up before entering the boss room. I spent my break time with my guild, the Lunar Twilight. Spellbreaker made some jokes, some cause Raphael to lose his temper. But we all laughed and had fun.

Rokel did tell me about how he and Silica are doing. It's nice to hear they're getting along. I suppose I made the right decision setting them up. Rokel's a nice boy and Silica seems very friendly.

When our break time is over, we all stand in front of the boss room. Heathcliff stands right in front of it, facing us as he gives us another one of his speeches.

"Friends! Today, we take on the boss of the tenth floor in this death game. We don't know what lay beyond this door, we don't know how tough the boss will be, but I do know and believe that we will prevail."

Everyone cheers for his speech, then he turns to start opening the door. As the door slowly opens, I find Hope with the Dancing Fairies. He seems a little unease. But I grab hold of his hand, which startles him a little.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," I whisper. "Just stay close to me."

Hope looks up at me then nods. "Right."

The door slowly opens until it's fully open. We all shout and charge right into the darkness. When we're all in, the door closes and vanishes into the shadows. It was quiet...a little too quiet. I don't even like it.

One-by-one, braziers on the walls burn on, up until the end of the room, where it reveals a big red orc sitting on the throne. He looks very aggressive.

The boss stands, taking out his ax, which looks a lot like a two-handed ax known as Gorecry, only it's purple and has eyes on it. He walks down the steps of his throne. He snarls as his health bar, red cursor, and name: Garrosh Hailroar, appears. What's strange is that he only has one health bar. Normally a floor boss would have five.

Garrosh Hailroar shouts and charges at the nearest Crusader. The Crusader panics, but he was able to defend himself just in time. Garrosh strikes, but it breaks through the shield and his armor...and the Crusader dies. Seeing that completely shocks us.

"He...he killed that Crusader," Klein says.

"In only one swing? That's insane." Leafa says.

Garrosh Hailroar focuses on us and shouts. He charges for the next player close to him. The Cleric panics, that's when Heathcliff rushes in and blocks the attack with his shield. Heathcliff only loses 5% of his HP. He's able to block that much after what Garrosh did to that last Crusader?

"I'll hold off his attacks, you guys attack him!" Heathcliff says.

I didn't hesitate to follow his order. I figured it's best for us to down this boss cautious and swift before he wipes us all, or at least a large number of us.

Heathcliff took all the damages while we attack Garrosh Hailroar. We all still suffer some damage for he summons his minions, which the other Crusaders hold off, and he unleashes those Metal Star machines. The Metal Stars are large metal balls that unleash massive explosions when they hit something.

We have Garrosh's HP in a red zone, that's when we all attack at once. But that doesn't kill him. He only reaches 1 HP and it doesn't go down. Something's wrong. That's when Garrosh runs to the center, standing under some giant brain.

"What the...is that?" I ask.

"It is. It's Y'Shaarj's brain." Hope says.

Y'Shaarj is some old god in this death game. Apparently, that brain was the source of those dark spirits that are made of negativity.

"Rage! Terror! Vengeance!" Garrosh ruses his ax into the brain. A large mist rains on him and he absorbs its energy. "They are weapons of war! The tools of a Warchief!" When he absorbs enough power, he grows large, his Health Bar fully restored and he gains four more Health Bars. That is not good. "Yes! I can see it now! I can see the future of this world! A world ruled by the Horde! MY HORDE!"

Garrosh Hailroar starts attacking Heathcliff again, and we attack him. Garrosh's attack patterns seem to have changed. He now starts throwing his ax on the ground, a duplicate I should say cause once he throws that ax, he's still wielding it. The Duplicate Gorecry unleashes some shadow swirl that hurts us when we stand in it.

The fight against Garrosh was pretty hardcore. We couldn't avoid taking any damage, but at least we don't suffer as much as his hits as he did with that one Crusader. The two other Crusaders stand beside Heathcliff, taking cleave damage so the Assassins and Swordsman don't hurt.

Garrosh draws his ax to the back of his side. "The power to crush your world!" His weapon charges and he unleashes Corrupted Whirlwind. "And everything on it!" We suffer great damage to it.

We know we have to run away from the whirlwind. Even if we did, we're still suffering damage. Even the rangers and healers are still suffering the damage, but not as much as we melees are. We made it out of the whirlwind, but two players, an Assassin and a Swordsman were not lucky. They ran out of HP before they made it out.

The Clerics and Dreamers try their hardest to keep our HP's up. "He's too tough!" Noel says.

Noel's not kidding. We're losing people and Garrosh barely lost one of his Health Bars. "We can't give up! We have got to try!" I say.

Garrosh finishes his Whirlwind attack and resumes attacking Heathcliff. The two Crusaders failed to get back into position, and Garrosh's cleave attack ends up hurting me and an Assassin. I survived but the Assassin didn't.

Kirito and I deliver some powerful charged attacks on Garrosh. He loses his first Health Bar and the second one starts draining. Garrosh unleashes another Duplicate Gorecry, we were able to predict it coming and avoid it.

The battle against Garrosh was long and hard. It goes on for the next twenty minutes. Every ability he uses, a player dies. We have already lost ten people in this fight. We now have Garrosh down to his final Health Bar. That's when he starts running underneath the giant brain.

"The Metal Horde will come to pass!" He tosses his ax into the brain, and the brain unleashes all of its power into him. "I have seen it! It has shown me! I have seen mountains of skulls and rivers of blood! And I!" The brain dies and Garrosh is twice his size, his body turning as purple corrupted as that ax of his. "WILL HAVE! MY WORLD!"

We are all speechless at seeing how monstrous Garrosh Hailroar is. He's like three times...no, four times our size. "Oh. My. God." We all say.

When he's done gaining power, Garrosh raises his ax in the air, shouting maliciously. Kirito's expression is shocked and astonished. "Oh no! It can't be." Garrosh is charging massive power. "Everyone! Gather!"

We all look at Kirito confused. "What? Why?"

"Do it!" We didn't hesitate to do what he says. "Clerics! Shield everyone! Rokel! Arcane Barrier!" The Clerics and Rokel obey.

Garrosh's weapon is fully charged. "I WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER LOVED!" he does a leap towards us and unleashes a massive impact smash on us.

The Clerics only shield about 26 of us, the other four died when we were all knocked back. We all crash against the walls knocked back from that massive smash. Garrosh remains center, and he roars. I'm on my hands and knees, seeing everyone in danger of dying. Reds and yellows.

This is horrible. As I'm watching this, I remember Jude's death from the first boss. His final words echo in my head:

'Save everyone.'

I gasp after hearing that, then I notice someone screaming. It's Leafa and Kirito. They're huddling, Leafa in fear while Kirito faces fearless at Garrosh. Garrosh stands in front of them, holding his ax out. Garrosh roars as he makes his strike. Leafa screams, burying her face into Kirito.

I rush in a burst of speed and block the weapon in time. Garrosh's strength is too much for me, I can hardly hold the weapon back. Instead, I redirect it to the side. The impact knocks the three of us back, but I was able to land on my feet.

Garrosh only has half a Health Bar left. "Kirito! Leafa! Let's finish this together!"

Kirito stands. "Right!" Kirito and I charge while Leafa stands back. While Kirito and I are charging, Leafa chants an Arcane spell. It takes ten words to finish it, then she unleashes it by shooting an arcane bolt in the air, then stars fall upon Garrosh.

That only holds Garrosh off a little. He focuses on Kirito. "Kirito! Duplicate Illusion!"

"On it!" Kirito vanishes then reappears as five different Kiritos. Garrosh gets confused at which one to kill. He strikes one of them, luckily it was a fake. Leafa finishes chanting a nature spell, a large ring of blazing sun appears in front of her and she unleashes a massive solar blast.

While Garrosh Hailroar is suffering damage from Leafa's attack, Kirito and I attack from the sides. "Now!" I shout.

We hold our weapons back, charging them, as we run. We both unleash powerful blows at the same time. Garrosh staggers and shouts in agony. For a finishing strike, I jab my sword into Garrosh's leg, running up through his body until it cuts his head in half.

Garrosh is knocked into the air from the final blow. He shouts as he glows brightly, his body falls apart and shatters. A giant 'Congratulations' appears in the center of the room, then we all earn our results.

We have defeated the boss.

We are all exhausted. Instead of celebrating our victory over a difficult boss, we just sit or lay down trying to catch our breath. We have lost fourteen players in this fight. We have never lost this many people on a boss fight.

I look around to see how everyone is doing. Some are recovering, few are in remorse cause their friends or loved ones had been killed. I spot Silica, sitting in exhaustion with Pina in her arms. Rokel approaches her, putting his hands on her shoulders. Silica was startled a little but smiles when she turns her head to see it's her boyfriend.

Heathcliff approaches before us.

"Well, the fight didn't go as well as we thought. We did lose fourteen players, but their sacrifice will not be in vain. We have already cleared ten floors, which means we're forty floors close to beating this game. I will return to Sharp Hill to deliver the news to everyone." Heathcliff takes out his Teleport Crystal. "Teleport: Sharp Hill!"

Heathcliff vanishes. He's an okay guy I guess, but I still don't trust him. When he's gone, we the survivors of the boss fight gather around, wondering what we should do.

"We could move to the next floor," Kirito suggests.

Few of us agree. "I don't know. I'm pretty exhausted from that boss fight." Rokel says.

"So am I. We're gonna head back to town." Silica adds.

"Your loss," Kirito says. Kirito, Asuna, Hope, Leafa, Hakomo, Shinon, and I head for the stairs, leading to the next floor, while the rest head back to town. To be honest, I'm not sure if we really are ready for the next floor.

If the boss was that dangerous, I can only imagine the difficulty of anything behind the tenth floor.