"Great, now we can't even leave if we wanted to," Akimi said helplessly, rubbing his nose.
Asuna shot him a glare and replied flatly, "Did you seriously think we could have left earlier?"
Akimi blinked at her words, then chuckled lightly.
"Fair enough. Judging by how the BOSS was guarding the exit, we probably never had a chance... Damn it, it's not like we've got some miracle cure or anything."
"Enough with the jokes," Asuna said, lightly poking his waist.
"If we keep dawdling, we really won't have any chance left."
Akimi shrugged, saying nothing more, but his expression gradually turned serious.
The BOSS, now standing in the center of the room, slowly lowered its head, scanning the area without making any moves.
The remaining players stood tensely, weapons raised, eyes locked on the monster.
"..."
For about ten seconds, the BOSS and the players stared each other down in complete silence.
Looking around at the hesitant, motionless players, Akimi slowly said, "Hmm, looks like someone's gotta take the lead... I'll go first, then. Water Breathing, Third Form: Flowing Dance!"
With a burst of ukiyo-e-style water effects, Akimi moved like a dancer, charging toward the BOSS.
Asuna also stepped forward quickly, her rapier glowing as she readied her technique.
"Attack now!"
Following Akimi's move, Kibaou took a deep breath, raised his scimitar, and shouted loudly.
Then he rushed after Akimi and Asuna toward the BOSS.
The other players, spurred into action, roared and followed suit.
Reaching the BOSS, Akimi first ducked under a claw swipe, slashing its thigh with his Nichirin Blade, then rolled away to dodge its sweeping tail, and landed another hit on its lower back with a Water Surface Slash.
"Switch!"
As soon as he finished attacking, Akimi retreated and called out to Asuna.
Asuna, weaving side to side to dodge several breath attacks, activated her sword skill.
Once close enough, she used the BOSS's large body as a wall and performed a "Wall Run," climbing up near its massive dragon head, where she unleashed a horizontal four-directional slash directly across its eye.
As she flipped gracefully back to the ground, Agil and his three burly teammates moved in, using their weapons to block the BOSS's incoming claw aimed at Asuna.
While they held the attack off, Kirito and the others launched their own counter.
"Hexa Dissection!"
The single-handed sword 「Essence of Deep Space」, dropped from the boss on the 22nd floor, gleamed in Kirito's hands as it danced through the air, striking the BOSS in tandem with the others' weapons.
After this coordinated assault, the BOSS's HP dropped by a solid one-fifth.
But clearly, the BOSS wasn't limited to just a few moves—light shimmered across its body, gradually concentrating in its claws.
Then it placed its claw into the dragon-head pattern embedded in the ground.
As multicolored light radiated outward, the previously destroyed bronze head sculptures on the surrounding walls—wrecked earlier by Akimi —suddenly regenerated.
This time, the bronze heads didn't grant the BOSS overwhelming defense, but they began periodically spewing fire, lightning, water jets, and freezing blasts.
While these attacks didn't deal instant-kill damage like the BOSS itself, they could still cut a player's HP down by a third—and worse, the damage seemed to bypass defense entirely.
Akimi had initially considered destroying the heads again, but quickly abandoned the idea—this time, when his Nichirin Blade struck one, it was blocked by a golden barrier.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't damage them in the slightest.
Fortunately, the heads gave a visual warning before attacking—their eyes would flash with different colors, and there was over a second of delay before each strike.
It wasn't enough to prevent damage entirely, but at least it meant players wouldn't drop dead instantly.
Still, with the increased battle intensity, casualties were inevitable.
Two members of Kibaou's squad were lost, and each of the two Blood Knights teams lost one player as well.
Of the eight near-dead players from earlier, three more fell.
Agil and his three heavy-hitters had taken too many hits and were forced to retreat temporarily to heal.
Not long after they pulled back, Kibaou's squad and the Blood Knights also retreated from the front lines.
Now, with only five minutes left before the 20-minute deadline, the only ones left actively fighting were Akimi, Asuna, Kirito, Heathcliff, and Kibaou—Rind, unfortunately, had his right hand smashed during the third attack cycle and was forced to withdraw.
The BOSS's HP was down to about 10%.
If Akimi and the others could unleash one or two more sword skills, they could probably finish it.
But their conditions weren't great either—each of them had only about one-third of their HP remaining.
Only Heathcliff was in slightly better shape, sitting at half HP—and ever since he dropped to that amount, it hadn't decreased at all, despite him blocking even more attacks than Agil's group.
Akimi pulled out the last two healing potions from his shortcut bar.
He downed one himself and handed the other to Asuna—she had run out of potions five minutes ago.
Wiping the corner of his mouth, he silently cursed Kayaba Akihiko.
Why the hell would you design a BOSS this broken?
"Hey… let's finish this quickly," Akimi said softly, gripping his Nichirin Blade tightly.
Then he began charging up his next sword skill.
Asuna and the others nodded in response.
"Water Breathing - Tenth Form : Constant Flux!"
"Linear!"
"Quintet!"
Asuna and Kirito's attacks struck the left and right sides of the BOSS's thigh, while Akimi leapt high into the air, heading straight for the BOSS's neck.
Kibaou unleashed his strongest sword skill, slashing at the BOSS's right arm, and Heathcliff followed up with a six-hit combo skill.
"Clang!"
The Nichirin Blade struck the BOSS's neck with a sharp sound.
Feeling the resistance, Akimi pushed with all his might—an azure water dragon bit fiercely into the BOSS, and the blade slowly sank deeper, causing the BOSS's HP to drop rapidly.
By the time the blade had sunk halfway in, Akimi's strength had run dry, but the BOSS still had a sliver of HP left.
Gritting his teeth, Akimi tried to force more power out, determined to finish the BOSS off.
But things didn't go as planned—snap—his strength gave out, and he began to fall, while the BOSS's claw swung toward him.
The Nichirin Blade had snapped.
Holding the broken blade in his hand, Akimi's gaze was strangely calm.
"Tch… What bad luck…" he muttered with a wry smile, glancing sideways at Asuna and the others.
They had all been blown back by the BOSS's counterattack after their assault and were now four to five meters away.
It would take them at least a second to reach him.
Seeing Asuna sprinting toward him in panic, Akimi gave a bitter smile and slowly closed his eyes.
Just as despair filled the air—
—a white shield with a red cross intercepted the BOSS's claw.
"A top-tier player can't afford to fall at a moment like this."
A middle-aged man said calmly, his voice steady and deep.
Then, with a single thrust, he drove his sword into the BOSS's chest—clearing its remaining sliver of HP.
Akimi wasn't sure if he was just hearing things, but he felt like that man, clad in crimson armor with flowing silver-white hair, whispered one more line—
"Only you and Kirito-kun have the chance to defeat me."
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