Chapter 70: Putting Feelings Into a Moment, Part 17
Author’s Note: Been busy with my part-time job collecting golden salmon roe... (shabby excuse)
Now, here's a question for you: when building a game... what's the one thing you must never do when tuning a boss enemy?
Unreasonable attacks? Forty points. If they can be negated through events or special items, they're actually a splash of world-building color — the kind of thing you should be actively leaning into.
Making sure it doesn't bug out? Zero points. That's just the baseline, idiot.
The correct answer: "Letting a boss attack with no gaps whatsoever."
Whether it's a turn-based battle, an action game, whatever — a game isn't cleared until you beat the boss. And in a battle against a formidable boss enemy, "one-sidedness" that isn't purely a level gap must never be permitted. A boss that never stops attacking. A boss that never stops evading. A boss whose defense never breaks no matter how many hits you land... Strength and trashiness are two sides of the same coin. Precisely because the constraints of world-building are involved, overpowering a boss character can easily turn a game into garbage... like Faircrap, or Faircrap, or Faircrap.
So then, how do you implement a "perpetual boss turn" without breaking the game? Simple: you set limits. A concentrate that's too thick just needs diluting.
For example: "If you hit a specific body part, you can seal its actions." Or the aforementioned "dispelled through a special event or item." Or maybe "set a time limit" — that works too. In that respect, the thing Wethermon the Tombguard unleashed — that "Clear Sky Conquest" — could be called a merciful move in the sense that it had a clear victory line: "survive, and you win."
The problem was that it was a super-heavyweight unreasonable attack consisting of "nonstop, no-recast, no-cooldown skill spam for thirty seconds."
Wethermon: "Severing Wind."
Sunraku: "Tsya—?!"
Wethermon: "Thunder Bell."
Sunraku: "Soh—!"
Wethermon: "Tidal Rush."
Sunraku: "Dah—!!"
The instant I dodged the hyper-speed iai slash, a rain of thunderbolts homed in on me even as I practically threw myself into evasive rolls. I kicked the palm trying to grab my skull through the lightning to repel it and used the recoil to buy distance.
Wethermon: "Cumulo..."
Sunraku: "...! Heads up, you two — AoE incoming!"
Wethermon: "...nimbus."
I circled behind him in sync with the sweeping arm, recovering stamina. Climax Boost and Hunger Wolf were already active, and this was the state I was in. There was no time for attacking.
Wethermon: "Severing Wind, Severing Wind, Severing Wind."
Sunraku: "Nnah?!"
Head shot. Heart shot. Shoulder shot. Before my brain could even process it, my body dodged the three hyper-speed strikes on pure reflex. Dammit — he can use the same skill back-to-back? The recast concept is totally broken?!
Wethermon: "Ka...!"
Severing Wind, Cumulonimbus, Thunder Bell, Tidal Rush... There’s no move that starts with “Ka.” Which meant — new skill incoming.
(Above?! Below?! Aaargh, screw it, just DO IT!)
Wethermon: "...sai..."
He gripped his sword in a reverse hold and drove it into the ground as if planting a staff. From the point where the blade had pierced the earth, the ground began glowing red-hot. Twisting and coiling like a snake crawling across the dirt, that red-hot line painted the ground as it closed in on me.
Sunraku: "I read it!"
Wethermon: "...ryū!!"
The ground — now heated past red into white — bulged upward like slime before erupting into a pillar of flame that tore through the earth. Viewed a certain way, it looked like a dragon ascending to the heavens. I lured it in to the absolute limit, then evaded with a backstep. Without even fully straightening up, I circled around the flame pillar to keep Wethermon — hidden behind it — in my sights.
When he entered view, Wethermon was pulling his blade from the ground and raising it to the sky... and at its tip, I witnessed black clouds spawning to blanket the eerily pure-white sky overhead.
Sunraku: "These attacks are designed to combo from the start...!"
Wethermon: "Ash Blizzard."
Triggered by Wethermon's words — which seemed to confirm my own — the black clouds lingering overhead surged toward me as if possessed by intent. For an instant, my body nearly locked up at the thought of a guaranteed instant-death attack. I forced myself to move, threading through the scant remaining gaps in the black cloud that coiled to encircle me like a serpent. Feeling my HP being shaved away, I somehow managed to break free of the ash siege. Looking up, I saw Wethermon reaching for me — better than getting hit with yet another brand-new attack layered on. I reversed the situation, seizing Wethermon's wrist and shoving it sideways. As long as I didn't get grabbed, that move wasn't scary.
(How many seconds have passed? How many skills has he used? What's the trigger that ends this?)
Even thinking was a chore — but I had to think. If this ends when time runs out, that's still fine. But if it won't end until I perform some specific action, I've got to figure that out or I'll be run into the ground. Actually — I'm already being run into the ground.
I knew I was being cornered by a furious assault that felt like every attack from Phase One and Two compressed into one. But black smoke, not just flame, had begun rising from the cracks all over his body — so he clearly wasn't pulling these unreasonable attacks with zero risk on his end either. At this point, forget counterattacks. I hurled both Togetsu blades aside, pulled an item from my inventory, and braced for his next move.
Wethermon: "Clear Sky Conquest — through the cycle of rebirth and a parting gift, I bring the ultimate end."
Sunraku: "So fast...!"
The instant my eyes flicked to the window to retrieve an item, Wethermon closed the distance. What do I do? Open it again to pull out a weapon... no, not fast enough.
Wethermon: "Clear skies turn, and with them, my ultimate blade. A strike to sunder even dragons... Tensei."
Sunraku: "You son of a—!!"
I hurled the item in my hand and tried to dodge — but in that instant, my body simply... stopped. Not a loss of focus, not a stumble. This was...
Sunraku: "The action itself was canceled..."
The last thing I managed was to desperately tilt my head away from the blow that came cleaving down from high above, meant to split me in two. Slightly above my right shoulder, into the base of my neck — the blade bit deep. Resistance didn't last even a moment. I glimpsed a streak of golden radiance tracing that line of blue blade — and then the sword pulled through to my left hip. I was in two pieces. My body burst into polygons, and the world went dark—
Sunraku: "SUCCESS — right at the wire! Ultimate secret technique: Self-Resuscitation!!"
The Tear of Rebirth I'd tossed into the air had exhausted its throw energy, succumbed to gravity, and fallen back down — landing square on me as I dissolved into polygons. Given its price tag, I'd gambled on this working without any way to test it — and apparently, "use on self" was indeed possible.
Using every drop of stamina I had, I put distance between Wethermon and myself, then began racing through options for how to deal with the strike that had just bisected me.
(Tensei, or whatever the hell it's called — this is bad.)
I ran my hand over my hip. The waist equipment that should have been there — the Lifestide Sash — was gone. A single hit had destroyed gear that had been nearly pristine until now.
(Gear destruction. Probably armor-piercing too. And I died way too easily... don't tell me — instant death effect?)
It's nothing to brag about, but do you have any idea how many times that blade has cut me down in this fight alone? I can tell the difference in how it feels to be slashed. That wasn't a normal hit. And it wasn't just an overkill via critical, either. It was something far more fundamental — a move designed purely and simply to murder the player. Even if a level-99 player in full defensive gear had raised a shield against that strike, they'd have been split clean in two, same as me — like cutting tofu. I'd rather not think about it, but I should assume that the moment it connects, death is absolute on a system level, no questions asked.
(But that's not the worst part.)
That mysterious paralysis that blocks evasive action. Unless I figure out what triggers it, I can't deal with that final cleaving slash — which is almost certainly the move meant to end this entire battle.
(Even if I self-revive, I've only got two Tears of Rebirth left. Five Divine Life Aids are still untouched, but...)
Self-resurrection isn't some easy technique you can pull off half-heartedly. You have to throw the item upward before you die from an incoming attack — which means you have to judge whether the hit coming at you guarantees death and act accordingly. Either way, until I figure out a way to deal with that attack, I'm going to have to suicide-rush him a few more times, assuming I'll die.
Having reached that conclusion, I looked back at Wethermon the Tombguard — and found him assuming a stance I'd seen roughly one minute ago. Maybe just under.
Wethermon: "Thus, so long as my ultimate remains unsurpassed, this body shall not falter... Clear Sky Conquest."
Sunraku: "Are you telling me it starts over from the top...?!"
Wethermon: "Pyroclastic Dragon."
As I dodged the dragon pillar of fire, I had no choice but to dwell anxiously on just how many times I could actually survive long enough to reach that final blade.