Ch 23: The second boss raid.

Like for the first raid, Noah and Asuna joined the rest of their team in Taran, left departed for the labyrinth. The atmosphere was significantly less tense than last time, as the players now had a lossless boss subjugation under their belts.

As they made their way toward the top floor of the labyrinth, Noah decided to test the readiness of his team.

“Quizz time! Kirito, can you tell me what we’re expecting to find in the boss room?”

“We aren’t sure. According to the guidebook, the floor boss is Baran the General Taurus. Crimson fur, five meters tall, armed with a golden one-handed hammer. In the beta, there also was Nato the Colonel Taurus as a mid-floor boss, blue fur, 2.5 meters tall, armed with a two-handed hammer. Since we haven’t seen him in the labyrinth’s tenth floor, we suspect he might be accompanying the floor boss. “

“Thanks. Asuna, what are their weak points?”

“Their horns. They have a chance to be stunned for a moment if we can hit their horns.”

Argo made a thumbs up. “Yeah. That Baran’s head is five meters off the ground, and jumping isn’t a great idea. It’s harder to evade when you’re mid-air. I hope you all have throwing blades. I can lend you some if you don’t.”

“Suzu and I don’t have any projectiles. We’d appreciate if we could borrow some.” Asked Kaede.

Argo transferred two dozen narrow knifes to the sisters, then turned to Noah.

“No-chan, your turn to answer a question. What are the boss’s special attacks?”

“If Nato lifts his hammer above his head, and the hammer starts glowing, he’s about to smash it on the floor in front of him. It’s an AoE attack, and we need to get well away. If we’re hit, we’ll be stunned for 10 seconds. That’s a Bad Thing. And if he hit us with another attack while we’re in that state, the debuff turn into Paralysis and last up to 600 seconds, unless cured with an antidote crystal. That’s a Very Bad Thing. The boss also has three HP bars and will enter a frenzied state once the first two are depleted.”

“As for Baran, he’s basically the same, but the AoE of his special attack is twice as large, and he has five HP bars. By the way, everyone has at least two or three antidote crystals?” asked Noah as he looked at his party members, and they all nodded.

It was still possible to get rid of the paralysis status using an antidote crystal, as that status still let players move their arms, but the movement allowed was slow. Very slow. It might take well over six or seven seconds for a player under stun or paralysis status to take and use a crystal, and in the middle of a battle, that was a huge vulnerability.

“Our group is one of the four in charge of Baran. We’ll rotate his aggro between the teams as needed, but we’ll also have to be careful not to do too much damage, too fast.” Said Kirito as he looked at Kaede and Suzu, as they didn’t have experience fighting a boss yet.

“I don’t think they’ll have to worry about doing too much damage. Not when Kirito and Noah are in our party.” smiled Asuna.

Noah nodded. Kirito had a highest level among them, now lv 18, and he had put most of his stat points in strength. Noah had just reached lv 16, and mostly prioritized the agility stat, but he and Asuna were, as far as he knew, the only ones to actually exploit the overlapping effect of damage lines during boss battles. Asuna, Kaede and Suzu were all lv 14, while Argo was lv 13, as she spent a lot of time doing her job as an information trader.

Noah had considered making that knowledge public by telling Argo about it. However, since he now had a quest needing to for him master twenty proficiencies, he didn’t want the game to end too fast. He finally decided to keep it under wraps.

As they made their way to the twentieth level of the labyrinth, the players started to grow quiet and more vigilant.

They reached the door of the boss room without incident. After a last check on the raid member’s readiness, Mobius opened the doors.

The boss room was fairly similar to the one on the first floor, being long and roughly rectangular, but its walls were made of irregular dark gray stone. Groups of large stalactites and stalagmites emerged from the floor and ceiling, providing a few obstacles while sill leaving most of the ground free. It was more a vast cave than a room.

Two large monsters were resting near the back of the cave.

Nato the Taurus Colonel

Baran the Taurus General.

Both monsters looked like minotaurs, armed with huge hammers. But Baran was twice Nato’s size, culminating at five meters in height. They both roared at the players and lifted their hammers but didn’t charge forward.

“Teams A, B, C and D on Nato! All other teams on Baran!” Shouted Diavel, who had been chosen as the raid’s leader.

The raid members ran toward their respective targets, and Noah, being the fastest, was the first to enter Baran’s aggro range. The boss brought his hammer down on him, and Noah side-stepped to evade easily as he started to slash away at the trunk-sized legs of the oversized monster.

Baran was huge, but not that fast, and with the benefits of his Yin-Yang System and his focus on agility with the SAO status, Noah had little difficulty avoiding each of the boss moves. If anything, his only issue was that he had to crane his neck upward to keep his attention on Baran’s arms and shoulders. He felt that if the fight lasted too long, he would end up with serious neck pain.

To be able react as soon as Baran swung his huge hammer at him, Noah didn’t attack with any sword skill. He just slashed and slashed, not attempting to overlap damage lines, until another player who had executed multiple sword skills back-to-back received the boss’s attention. Only then did Noah start using sword skills.

Baran roared and lifted his hammer above his head. Every player around him quickly scattered, but two of them still got caught in the large area of effect when the boss slammed his hammer in the ground.

Noah and the three other players in charge of tanking jumped close and executed sword skills to take the aggro back and stop Baran from going after the three stunned members, while Kirito and two others dragged them back out of the way.

Whenever Noah wasn’t the target of Baran’s attention, he kept an eye on his surroundings. Kirito, Argo and Asuna were fighting with efficiency, pacing themselves to not steal aggro from the tanks. They closed on the boss, made a few attacks, and backed away for a few seconds, to more easily avoid Baran’s area of effect attacks. Kaede and Suzu, who were fighting a floor boss for the first time, had decided to adopt the same tactic. When Suzu advanced, she quickly launched a half-dozen sword skills with her dagger before retreating.

Kaede’s own sword skills were quite beautiful, mixing simple thrusts with her spear and arcing moves as she twirled her weapon like a staff and spun it around her body, weaving arcs of colored light in front of her. The way the sisters smoothly coordinated their attacks, smoothly switching the back and front positions without needing to speak or look at each other, made clear they had a lot of experience fighting as a team.

A few dozen meters away, the four parties assigned to Nato were making steady progress. One of Nato’s three HP bars was gone, and the second one was steadily decreasing. Another two minutes or so, and then, all hell would break lose. Nato would enter a frenzy state, increasing the speed of his attacks and the frequency of his hammer smashes, and the other surprise would appear.

Noah focused back on Baran, who was about halfway on his second HP bar, and decided to get more serious. Now that he had memorized the boss’s attack pattern, he felt more confident using sword skills more often, and his damage output increased. But he didn’t try to overlap the damage lines yet. He didn’t want the other players to notice and start wondering what he was doing. If that became general knowledge, Kayaba might decide to “nerf” it.

It didn’t take long for him to regain Baran’s attention, as even the other three tanks weren’t going all out. They mostly used shields to reduce the damage from the incoming hammer blows, but their HP bars were still decreasing a little when they couldn’t absorb the full force of the blows, and they needed to rotate and use healing crystals regularly. Noah and Heathcliff were the only ones able to tank Baran without needing regular breaks to use healing crystals. Noah simply evaded the vast majority of the attacks instead of blocking them, and already having the Battle Healing proficiency that boosted his HP regeneration. And Heathcliff, because his cross-shaped shield was overpowered and stopped all the damage inflicted by the boss.

The fight progressed as planned, and they started on Baran’s third bar, when it happened. Nato suddenly bellowed in rage, and his eyes became blood red.

And in the empty part of the boss room, near the entrance, a large formation started appearing on the floor.

“Diavel!” shouted Noah as Agil got Baran’s attention.

As soon as Diavel took a step back and looked at Noah, the later pointed at the formation with his sword. Diavel glanced back and paled as he saw several horns and the top of a huge head with a large golden crown over it, slowly emerge from the magic array.

“We’re about to have company! We need to kill Nato now! Before we end up with three monsters on our hands!”

For all his faults, Diavel was decisive and didn’t panic. His first reflex had been to order a general retreat, but they had nine players under the paralysis effect, and not all of them had antidote crystals. With the new boss between them and the exit, they would likely incur losses if they tried to run. So he decided to fight.

“Teams E and F! Help the others finish Nato! Maximum dps, everyone! Kill those bosses!”

Noah resumed his efforts in monopolizing Baran’s attention while the rest of his team and Team H went all out.

Diavel’s instructions were bearing fruit, and Nato would likely be dead before the summoning of the third boss was completed. But the recklessness of the players had a cost, and six more players were paralyzed. There was even one who got too close and couldn’t be evacuated fast enough, who died under Nato’s furious blows. His body dispersed into light blue polygons.

Consternation spread amongst the players, and some fell into shock, while others intensified further still their effort to kill Nato. Thankfully, Nato didn’t have time to claim more victims, and its last Hp bar reached zero. His body shattered.

“Teams A,B,C and D in reserve! Use crystals on the paralyzed players! Team E and F back on Baran!” shouted Diavel again.

“Only four teams on Baran? Shouldn’t we all fight him?” On one the team leaders asked.

“No! His AoE are larger, we need more space to evade them! Four teams is already pushing it!” answered Diavel as he looked worriedly at the ongoing summoning. It looked like it was about half-way done.

The new monster was another giant minotaur, about the same size as Baran, but its fur was jet black, and it had six sharp horns, not just two. The handle of a weapon was appearing, held head down in the monster’s raised right hand.

If that weapon was also a hammer, and if its head reached the same level as the monster’s hooved feet, Diavel estimated it would be about twice as massive as Baran’s already huge hammer.

Noah kept executing short sword skills as he kept dodging Baran’s strikes, and inserted a few Deadly Sins when the boss had its back turned to him.

Finally, Baran entered its last HP and entered the frenzy state. As the teams had to spend more time to evade, Baran received less attacks, and the speed at which his last HP bar was decreasing slowed down.

Argo and Asuna were mixing their normal attacks with knife throws, aiming at Baran’s horns and sometimes managing to stun him.

“Teams A, B, C and D! Get ready! Be careful, we’re running low on antidote crystals!” ordered Diavel.

The 23 remining players of the first four teams took position in the middle of the room, looking with apprehension at the new boss, and at Baran behind them. Seconds later, the summoning ended, and the name of the new boss appeared above its head.

Asterius the Taurus King.

Six HP bars were displayed above the monster’s left shoulder, signaling the end of its invulnerability phase. The monster opened his black eyes and straightened from his crouching posture, lifting a massive hammer. His upper body was bare, while his waist and thighs were covered by dark chainmail. Asterius took a deep breath, and screamed a loud roar, loaded with challenge and menace, and took his first step towards the puny humans in front of him.

Noah, still busy with Baran, positioned himself so that both monsters would be in his field of vision. He risked a quick glance at his belt as he evaded yet again, confirming the position of the five throwing knives at his waist. Baran still had close to half of its last HP bar left. At the current rate, it would take about thirty seconds.

A lot of things could happen in thirty seconds.

“Charge!” shouted Diavel.

As Diavel and the first four teams ran toward Asterius, the Boss suddenly breathed in a lot of air, and blue sparks appeared between its huge teeth.

The boss released its lightning breath, instantly hitting nearly two thirds of the players in front of him.

“Wha!” Diavel and the impacted players collapsed on the ground, with their own HP bars taking heavy damage and turning yellow. Worse, all of them received a stun status. The eight players who had been on the sides of the charging players and been spared because of it froze in horror.

Asterius was walking toward the downed players, already lifting his huge hammer, when a knife flew across the room, tracing a red line across his neck and doing negligible damage. But more knives followed in quick succession. The second knife hit the boss’s head above its left eye. A third impacted its centermost right horn, and the last one impacted the golden crown.

Asterius suddenly flinched and stepped back, lifting his free hand to protect the crown. He stayed frozen in that posture for a few seconds.

Some of the players looked back to see who had launched those knifes, and they saw Noah, his sword held in the same hand that also gripped the handle of his shield, while he took another throwing knife from his waist. Noah had deliberately aimed first at Asterius’s neck, face and horns because he didn’t want to reveal that he already knew the crown was the weak spot.

“The crown!” shouted Argo. “That’s his weak point! Target the crown and give antidotes to the downed players!”

Noah launched his knife at Baran’s horns, stunning it briefly, while he took his sword back in his left hand and focused back on Baran. Agil had done a great job holding its attention while Noah was playing darts.

Asuna, Kirito, Argo, Kaede and Suzu diverted most of their attention to keeping Asterius stunned by launching more knives at him as the eight players of the first four teams used what antidote crystals they had on the downed players, and those players either assisted the others with more crystals or dragged the limp bodies away, waiting for the stun effect to run its course.

They managed to stun the boss often enough to stop him from slaughtering the helpless players, but their expenditure in throwing knives wasn’t negligible, and they wouldn’t have enough to keep it up for long.

With his team being busy, the dps inflicted on Baran slowed down further, but he was almost dead. When only a sliver of red remained, Noah decided to completely forgo defense and launch of Deadly Sins attack. He wasn’t the only one, as most of the players attacking Baran opted to do the same, no doubt secretly hoping for the last blow bonus. And Baran died under the onslaught of brightly colored sword skills.

“Congratulations. Last hit: Noah.”

He didn’t take the time to congratulate himself or check the loot.

“Everyone, keep the knives in reserve for when the boss is about to use its breath attack! We don’t have enough to keep it stunned constantly!” He shouted as he ran toward Asterius, the other players quickly following.

When Noah reached Asterius, there were no remaining player still under the stun status, and most of their HP bars were back in the green area, after they used healing crystals. But they were shaken by their brush with death, and let Noah and the other players take the lead.

Noah, Agil and Heathcliff took turns tanking the boss, while the others started pacing themselves while inflicting damage. Each time Asterius seemed to draw a deep breath, three or four knives flew at his crown, stunning him. Now that the players had adapted, things got better, as Asterius’s attack pattern with his hammer was identical to Baran's. Only his method of unleashing his area of effect attack, and the scale of it, were different.

Even when the boss entered the Frenzy state on its last two HP bars, the players didn’t panic and kept rotating as they went in and out of Asterius’s hammer range, delivering a few attacks and retreating before they could steal aggro from one of the tanks.

Finally, Asterius was killed. A player named Grimy got the last hit.

“Good job, everyone.” Announced Diavel, his voice heavy. “Let’s go the third floor, and we’ll hold a memorial service for Darcy.”

The other players nodded, torn between regret at their lost comrade, and relief that they had knocked down another obstacle on their way to freedom and return to their normal life.

“That was great thinking, No-chan” quietly said Argo as she squeezed his shoulder.

“I only assumed that this boss had to have a weak point, like the other two.” Noah answered, equally quietly. “The boss would simply be too strong for something on the second floor if that breath attack could be spammed. Still, I’m glad it worked out. A lot of us wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“You can say that again.” sighed Argo, as she looked around.

Another player approached, and Noah was surprised to see Mito. She had been one of those who had taken the breath attack and been incapacitated.

“Noah. Thank you very much. I owe you one.” She bowed deeply toward him.

“It’s fine. I just did my job, and who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one saving my bacon in the next boss fight.” He smiled gently, hiding his intentions. He would one day give Mito plenty of opportunities to show her gratitude.

“Mito, I’m so glad you’re fine!” Mito barely had time to straighten before Asuna hugged her tightly.

“Asuna…” Mito hugged her back awkwardly, conscious of the people looking at them.

“Ahem…” Noah turned to Argo, Kirito and the twins.

“Argo, Kirito, Kaede-san, Suzu-san, I finally got around to create my own guild. The name is Valhalla. It’s only me and Asuna right now. Would you be interested in joining?”

“Ah? Your own guild?” Argo looked at him thoughtfully. “Are you going to have rules? Taxes? Is it a specialized guild? Will there be uniforms?”

“No taxes. Only one rule, really, and that is that you wouldn’t be allowed to extend invitations to other people without my approval. The purpose of the guild will mostly be to better coordinate during boss fights, as well as hunt together. We will be less tempting targets to murderers and robbers if we don’t move around alone. There will be a uniform, whose design isn’t defined yet, but if you don’t want to wear it, I won’t force you. And I’ll ask for everyone’s opinion on the design phase. And if you wish to leave later, I won’t stop you... At some point, we’ll have a large house or something, and we’ll essentially live as roommates.”

“Then I don’t see why not. But if I don’t like the uniform, I won’t wear it, ever.” Argo easily agreed.

“…Thank you for the invitation, but I’ll decline.” said Kirito, as he scratched his head. He just wasn’t good at socializing, and the idea of sharing accommodations with people he didn’t really know made him very uncomfortable.

Kaede and Suzu looked at each other for a moment, and they nodded.

“You have a point about us being safer if we are in a group, Noah-san. We’ll join, if you’re willing to have us. But we have not decided yet about living in the same house.” Said Kaede.

“Great, three more members.” grinned Noah. He looked at Mito.

“Mito-san, if you don’t already have a guild, would you like to join?”

Mito looked him up and down in thought. Her instincts must have kicked in, because she hesitated.

“Why are you inviting me? We barely know each other.” She asked cautiously.

“I barely know Kaede-san and Suzu-san as well. We just met today. I know you’re a competent fighter, with an honest and kind personality. You wouldn’t be Asuna’s friend if you were a bad person.”

Mito looked at Asuna, who smiled at her in encouragement.

“You can trust us, Mito-chan. You won’t regret it.”

Asuna, of course, knew that Noah would eventually sink his fangs in Mito’s tender flesh. Actually…

An idea started sprouting in Asuna’s mind. She would need to think about it for a while.

Missing the gleam in Asuna’s eyes, Mito nodded to herself and turned to Noah.

“Can you give me some time? I’m already part of a guild, and I promised those guys that I would at least help them until the tenth floor, where my knowledge as a beta tester ends.”

“Sure. Keeping promises is important. You can join whenever you want.”

“Everyone, let’s leave this place. Or we’ll be late for the memorial.” Pointed out Argo. All the other people having participated in the raid were already on their way to the third floor’s main city.

She didn’t wait and started walking toward the small room that had opened after Asterius’s death.

The others followed suit.

“By the way, Noah, you got the last hit on Baran. Did you get anything good?” asked Kirito.

“Hum, let’s see…” Noah opened his item storage, and seconds later, the heavy two-handed hammer appeared on his hands. “… Baran’s Wrath, Attack +70, 10 enhancement chances, every six hits, stuns the enemy for two seconds. Multi-hits sword skills only count as one hit, and doesn’t work on bosses. 300 Two-Handed Blunt proficiency required to execute sword skills with it. That’s quite decent, I guess, but I don’t see myself using it against floor bosses.”

“No-chan, you should keep it for dealing with skeleton-type bosses and monsters. They take bonus damage from blunt weapons.”

“That’s good to know.” Noah memorized that information as he put the heavy hammer back into storage. The 75th floor boss, Skull Harvester, Skull Slicer, or whatever its name actually was, certainly qualified, as it was entirely made of bones.

“Undead… there will be undead monsters? Like, ghosts?” Asuna looked in fright at Argo.

“Don’t worry, A-chan! No-chan will protect you!”

Noah smiled as he took Asuna’s hand. “That I will. Speaking of particular phobia, is everyone good with spiders? Because there will be plenty to fight on the third’s floor. Including a field-boss.”

“Hugh, spiders.” Complained Kaede as she visibly shuddered. Suzu took Kaede’s hand to remind her of her support.

“It’s okay, Kaede-san. You won’t face them alone. You have your sister, and you also have us, now.” kindly pointed out Noah.

Kaede took a deep breath and nodded.

“Yes. Thanks.”

Holding Asuna’s hand, Noah entered the third floor with the others. This floor was a vast forest, divided in two parts by a large cliff. An ideal terrain for the many spiders and elves that would try to kill the players. Noah welcomed the change, as he was getting sick after killing thousands upon thousands of minotaur-shaped monsters.