January 7th, 2024 (Floor 50: Algade)
Algade was probably the most realistic city we'd been to so far in the terms of its messiness. Most of Aincrad felt too clean and simple to be real with the number of people living everywhere but Algade was cramped and uncoordinated. Streets led to anywhere and nowhere and a player never knew exactly what they paid for. Most of it was wrought shady dealings but the city was bustling and rapidly filling with players as the Army strangled more and more life out of the Town of Beginnings. At the rate the Town of Beginnings was going downhill, it wouldn't make sense anymore to host our training sessions there.
Algade was the host of the first strategy meeting for the 50th floor. Information regarding the boss room on this floor was shaky at best but, given the experiences on the 25th floor, everyone was nervous.
The strategy meeting was held in a large concert hall in the city. The hall was part of a complex that was likely there just so a guild could take it over and establish a great base but it was too noisy for the Hunters so I didn't put much thought into it. All of the top clearers were there by the time we arrived and, when the Hunters walked in, a momentary hush fell over the room and I sighed. Clearers were supposed to be professionals. Several of the players we were fighting with had been with us as early as the first boss battle; how could they stop seeing us as normal players?
I had to acknowledge that we weren't exactly normal players as the wolves fell in line in front of us.
"Nymer, fall back," I murmured. The wolf pricked his ears but he obeyed, moving to the guild's back. The rest of the wolves followed suit and we approached the table, where a large map of the labyrinth was laid down.
"Okay, now that we're all here, we have limited information as of right now," Heathcliff continued. "We have the location of the boss room but we need volunteers to form a scouting party to gather more intel on the boss, hopefully players with high detection and sneak skills. Until we can get a group in and out safely, we're working blind. Would anyone like to volunteer?"
"The Hunters can cover that," I volunteered. With the wolves, we've got the best senses in the game. "With the location of the boss room already discovered, we can be in and out of the labyrinth within a few days. Is anyone opposed to reconvening on the 10th?" There was no opposition and I grinned but quickly sobered up. "Most of you guys here didn't fight in the 25th. If the pattern continues that we've seen, with harder field bosses and tougher labyrinths, this floor is going to be similarly bad. We need to be better prepared than we were last time.
"Check out the smiths and find out what raw materials you need for upkeep and upgrades and bring it to the next meeting. I'll talk to the player smiths I know and see if I can get anyone to drop their rates for battle prep. If not, I'll fix your gear myself. We're not having a repeat of the 25th if I can help it."
Heathcliff nodded his approval before clearing his throat and bringing us back to the map in front of him. Everyone updated their map data to show the location of the boss room and we were dismissed.
January 8th, 2024 (Floor 50: Labyrinth)
"Are we ready for this?" I asked. Heidan rolled his eyes.
"I thought we established already that we're either very, extremely ready or totally and completely going to die."
"That's fair... At least this is only a scouting mission."
The labyrinth had been rough. We weren't totally unscathed, even if our battle healing was kicking in quickly. With all of us gaining back at least 500 health every ten seconds, our avatars were healed but the exhaustion didn't quite fade.
"Well... here goes nothing."
The door opened at my touch and everyone in the guild was in an immediate crouch, attempting to hide from whatever lie inside.
Unlike most boss floors we'd seen so far, where the room remains mostly dark until the players reach a certain point, the room was filled with light. The room itself was very much in line with the rest of the labyrinth, bearing a forgotten ruins sort of vibe. The room was dotted with about a dozen moss covered statues of all shapes and sizes and, at the far end of the room, a dark bronze statue far larger than the others- probably about fifty feet in height, was seated in a moss-covered throne. The statue was of a man with three arms on each side, with each arm a different height. In each hand was a massive scimitar that, like the hands that held them, were made of a dark bronze.
I quickly memorized each detail about the room I could- how many statues were there, what sort of weapons did the statues have, what did the main statue's face look like, was there anything in the room outside of statues and stone weapons?- and motioned for the Hunters to back out. My blood froze when the door started to swing shut, locking us inside.
"No," I whispered desperately. "No. No. No! Teleport crystals!" Everyone's hand dove into a pocket or a pouch for the crystal but, even as I shouted "Teleport: Algade!" I knew they wouldn't work.
The boss fight for the 50th floor had begun and we were alone.
"Riva...?" Blake's voice was hardly more than a whisper and I forced my brain to deal with everything being thrown at it. We weren't able to expect help. I had six guild members and six wolves against eleven Divine Statues and one mega-thing. Luckily, that thing hadn't sprung to life just yet so we had some time. Think. Think. Think!"
"Guess we're doing this!" I said, grabbing my weapon. "Maisie, Taka, right flank! Heidan, Blake, left! Kirito, with me, forward! Tag team those divine statues and work your way to the boss. Nymer, pack hunt!"
Everyone burst into action and I swallowed as much fear as I could. I couldn't lose my head. If I did, we were all dead. We had to get rid of the statues, kill the boss, and not die. Easy, right?
Okay, not easy at all.
I slammed my staff into a divine statue and it staggered back at the blow. With another strike, it was done. The statue didn't disappear into pixels though and I cursed aloud. I swung my staff at the rubble as it started to shift and move and, at the third blow, the rubble shattered into light.
"Destroy the rubble! Don't let them regenerate!"
Kirito was already several statues ahead of me but he had left the rubble behind. I watched, transfixed for just a moment, as one of the statues reformed out of the mess and tried to attack his unprotected back. I roared, activating a howl and forcing the statue to turn its attention to me as I sprinted forward, ripping through the rubble and the statue Kirito left in his wake.
I destroyed a fourth statue, tearing apart the stone chunks left behind, when the room began to shake. I glanced up to see the main statue started to shift and groan as the metal was forced to move. The arms began to spin and the scimitars performed a slow and deadly dance as the boss painstakingly stand from his throne. His entire head, which once bore a face with a jovial expression, turned to reveal another side to his head, which bore angry eyes and razor sharp teeth that were raised in a savage, hungry grin. A red cursor appeared above his head, quickly followed by 3 HP bars and the name "Vengeful Destroyer."
Kirito and I were on the boss in moments, each delivering our most powerful sword skills. It wasn't enough, though. The HP bars were draining but they were draining painfully slowly, making me wonder just how much health this behemoth had.
"Kirito! Dual wield! I'll cover!" I ordered. The statue wasn't putting much of an offense out right now; I could physically keep up for now, but I wasn't sure about what would happen later.
The labyrinth was full of statues and it was discovered early on that, if you didn't take them down quickly enough, they learned and grew. Most got much faster from their original speed, as if they had to warm up to the fight. Others introduced new attack patterns. All of these changes were potentially deadly.
I kept up my attack while Kirito searched through his inventory. He had discovered the new dual wielding skill in his skill list a couple of months ago but he hadn't wanted to reveal it to anyone until it was absolutely necessary. As a result, he had to go through and track down his secondary blade.
While Kirito was distracted, the others finished up with their work. I directed Heidan and Maisie, as the heavier hitters, to help me against the boss while Blake and Taka, supported by the wolves, kept any divine statues at bay.
As soon as the first HP bar hit the yellow, the boss changed. His bronze skin and weapons began to gleam a little brighter as if they'd just been polished. The boss's eyes honed in on me and, in a new pattern, one of his arms swung out towards me and I cursed, trying to jump away from it. I wasn't fast enough and the scimitar struck me in the side and I went flying.
"Riva!" someone shouted. I coughed, watching my health bar dip down. I wasn't in the yellow but I that one hit had easily taken a fifth of my HP.
"Don't get hit!" I shouted as strongly as I could, trying to forget how wounded my ego was at that one hit. I had bigger things to deal with but I'd let my battle healing handle that one. I didn't have time or healing crystals to work on that loss.
Kirito had his dual swords out and he was almost beautifully attacking the statue. With all of our weapons being made of the same heavy metal- barunum- our weapons were as effective as they could be against the enemy's defenses. For better or worse, once the Destroyer started to move faster, it was more susceptible to melee attacks so we were whittling down his HP bar in decent time.
We were in good standing up until his first HP bar was gone. I was the only one to have taken a hit and my battle healing had taken care of it in minutes but, once his second HP hit the red and then was gone, the boss kept getting faster and unpredictable.
Maisie was the second one to take a hit. She was caught off guard when the scimitar closest to her was suddenly thrown into a reverse grip and thrown at her like a dart. The scimitar shook the entire room as it buried itself six feet into the ground as Maisie went flying, her HP dropping into the yellow as her shield went flying in the other direction. Blake was at her side in an instant, though, so I refocused on the battle.
We were all attacking furiously. My staff wasn't doing enough damage- it was more of a defensive weapon or mid range- so I threw it down and drew my sword, taking Maisie's spot at the boss's flank. I could hardly reach it's knee standing on the ground but I still had plenty of daggers to go around. I stabbed the daggers into the boss's leg and body, providing us with a way to climb up, and used my acrobatic skill to leap up. Climbing up onto the boss's shoulder had its pros and cons, though; I got a much better shot at the boss and my hits did a considerable amount of damage but I barely had time to escape whenever the Destroyer changed up his attack patterns. I'd already gotten flung off once and, while my health hadn't really been affected, it was a good wake up call to get the hell off of him when a change was about to occur.
"Riva, drop!"
I didn't question Heidan's shout before stabbing my sword into the boss's side and swinging my way down, dragging my sword alongside the metal along the way.
I had scarcely touched the rocky floor when two of the massive scimitars fell to the ground, signaling the change as the boss lost its second HP bar, leaving it with just one. The boss's face twisted and became even angrier as it turned and suddenly it was gone, reappearing at its throne in a blast of speed. I was still gaping at the massive construct's speed when it pulled a giant, two-handed war axe from behind the throne. With its new weapon in tow, the Destroyer was on us in an instant and its axe was suddenly a foot, then a few inches away from my face.
Someone tackled me to the side and the ground exploded where I just had been. Breathing heavily, all I could offer Kirito was a nod of gratitude for saving my life, as there was no way in hell I would have survived that blow.
"Together?" I gasped.
"Gladly," he answered roughly. He offered me a hand and I got to my feet. Taking a quick breath, I focused my energy into a new sword skill, one I hadn't attempted before. It was granted to me on a quest but I'd never before had a reason to use it. No other foes had really offered me the opposition I felt required before unleashing the attack, which was good since it left me totally drained.
Kirito rocketed forward in a burst of speed and I was right behind him, forcing my mind to keep up. Strength in this world is an illusion; it's just a string of numbers that happened to fall in a certain order that determined a certain thing. Speed, however, was true. Speed in this world was determined not by your player stats but your mind. If I could think faster, I could move faster. I'd been crippled early in the game because of my low expectations but, once I believed I could move that fast, I did.
The howling octave move was a sword skill that required immense speed. I had to power level just to be able to learn it, let alone use it effectively. That move was part of my goal in becoming as strong as I did, and that extended to the Hunters who were forced to keep up with me or risk being unprepared for any battles I landed myself in. With seven precision slices followed by a full throttle uppercut, I didn't doubt that the move would work well against the Destroyer's weakening defense.
Kirito flew ahead of me and, leaping, slammed the scimitars out of my way, allowing me to reach the boss's body. His sword gleamed above me as he directly attacked the Destroyer's axe, trying to shatter the weapon through arms blast. The distraction he provided was all I needed to slip in through the defenses.
I roared as I struck once, twice, three times, four. The barrage continued until the final assault and I savagely ripped through the belly of the boss, ignoring the stone dust and rubble that was thrown in my face. I was left stranded in mid-air after the attack, unable to jump away or dodge, but I grinned at the boss anyway as its final health bar sank into red, leaving just a sliver of health remaining. That last piece would be easy for the Hunters. They were strong.
The boss recovered from Kirito's assault and I bit back a sigh. This was to be expected, wasn't it? I did my part. The boss was almost dead. It felt like an ironic justice that I go with it. I was the one that volunteered for this mission. It was on me that the Hunters were even involved with this battle.
The four remaining scimitars twisted and the Destroyer crossed his four arms and I envisioned what would happen. He would rip his arms apart and I would be caught in between. His four scimitars, slicing at me at blinding speed in two directions, would simply melt through me. Smirking slightly- even with a surprise attack pattern, this maneuver was predictable- I closed my eyes. I didn't need to see.
True to the game, I didn't even feel anything. There was a rush of wind and an insurmountable pressure on my sides but there was no pain. Everything was black but it wasn't uncomfortable.
In this darkness, there was no SAO. There was something optimistic in that that Maisie would have been a fan of, but it still settled in my stomach like a heavy weight.
Was this what death was, or am I still sleeping? Is there a delay between my in-game death and my IRL death? Was I just waiting to be destroyed again, or was nothingness all there was to death?
A bluish light appeared in front of me and I smiled. It reminded me of barunum, and the ghostly glow the Hunters' weapons made. Maybe that was what was in front of me: my own sword, coming to end my life.
Now that would be poetic.
Updated 22:12, 1.27.2022