Chapter 210: Together Under Heaven — Part Sixteen
My skill build is specialized in mobility above all else.
Arrows flying at me, spears thrusting at me, a cliff at my back, getting driven into a dead end—none of it matters.
If there's no path, I'll use the wall. If there's no wall, I'll use the sky. If they ever implement a way to activate all my skills at once, I'm confident I could even run across the ceiling.
An enormous mass weapon slams down and buries itself in the ground. Fighting Ctarnidd has made one trait of this character painfully clear. Copying our playstyles through the orbs is undeniably powerful and extremely troublesome, but so far not a single one of us has been knocked out.
Part of that is because frontliners like me, Rei-shi, and Akitsu Akane have ways to deal with incoming attacks and are taking the pressure. But more than anything, this situation only works because Ctarnidd itself is "weak."
Sunraku: "Your moves are way too predictable...!"
A greatsword doesn't cut by sharpness so much as crush through things with its weight. Its edge isn't so keen that simply touching it would slice flesh.
Possessed by the Great Asura King, Gravity Zero, Trial Traverse—activate. I jump onto the greatsword's edge and sprint up the blade like a tightrope walker.
Then, with its recast finished, I reactivate the lethal secret art Mirror of Fading. My aggro is left behind as an afterimage halfway up the greatsword while the real me, turned into a phantom, finishes climbing the blade and leaps.
Copying playstyles. Sure, it's strong, and sure, it's a pain in the ass. But Ctarnidd's imitation has no adaptability. It can copy how someone moves and how someone attacks, but it doesn't take those copied actions and apply them through independent thought. It's like a command-based fighting game: its movements fall into patterns.
Trying to memorize eight different pattern sets on the fly through logic alone would be difficult. But learning them by feel rather than logic is possible. In short: practice beats theory.
Sunraku: "That's the third time. Learn already, Ctarnidd."
Flit Float—activate. Upside down, head below and feet above, I leap over Ctarnidd, kick off a foothold of air, and dive from top to bottom. Gravity stacks with the momentum of my jump, turning the fall into attack power as I raise Gilta Brille, both gauntlets wrapped in two different skill effects.
Lethe Vanisher and Agatram—activate. A Luck-referencing fist whose chance to inflict stun and flinch rises when it lands on the head crashes straight into Ctarnidd's brow.
Ctarnidd: "Vu, voooooooo...!"
With a groan that could have been either "vu" or "bo," Ctarnidd's massive body drops to one knee. I use its back like a slide to land, nod to Rei-shi as she charges in, then immediately spring sideways. The next instant, pure white light slams into Ctarnidd's back.
Psyger-0: "Catastrophe...!"
Rei-shi's—more precisely, the ultimate-firepower move Armageddon hidden within her unique equipment, Twinface Armor, and the Divine-Demonic Sword Antinomy in her hands. Against a Unique Monster, that strike is practically indispensable, and to unleash it Rei-shi has to land a total of ten major attacks first.
I'd already taken Emul down from my head and used her as a messenger to notify every party member. She's doing her best in the back line for now, but when the time comes I'll probably have to make her run messages again.
Ctarnidd takes a direct hit to the top of the head and then another huge blast to the back, finally toppling face-first into the ground. Watching a crowd of tiny people swarm a fallen giant and beat the hell out of it is, frankly, quite a sight, but sacrificing appearances for efficiency and a successful clear is an unavoidable fate in games.
Rust: "...I'm out of arrows."
Sunraku: "What!?"
Emul: "Rust says she's out of arrows, wa!"
Looks like Rust is switching over to a Magic Bow, but as long as that burns MP, it won't be long before she runs dry there too...
Mold: "I'm sorry! We're almost out of items!"
Emul: "I'm almost out of magic too, wa!"
Mold: "M-my magic is almost gone too..."
Bad news keeps piling up, telling me at the same time that we're ahead right now and that we'll be at a disadvantage later. Damn it, Ctarnidd, you're way too tough... Its flinch threshold is actually low compared with other Unique Monsters, so we can knock it over pretty often, but that toughness—or rather, the durability of that ultimate fish-ball body probably stitched together from all those monsters—is absurd.
We've been fighting nonstop from the second form all the way to the final form. And while fish can substitute for healing items, we haven't had any real way to compensate for weapon durability. Bit by bit, we're being cornered.
Even I, despite carrying a wide range of weapons, am getting close to the limit. Even Duxram, Blade of Aspiration, which doesn't lose durability from critical hits, has been slowly wearing down. In this game, when a weapon or piece of armor reaches zero durability, it's lost. There seem to be a few unique exceptions that won't disappear, but obviously not everybody has gear like that.
Still, I don't believe Ctarnidd is going down while Rei-shi and I are both still holding our trump cards. And there's one more thing worrying me...
Psyger-0: "Sunraku-san... I can... do it...!"
Damn it. Now that I think about it, why does everyone naturally try to leave the decision to me? I want to be the one at the front, not the one leading everybody else... Argh. Do I do it? Do I have any choice but to do it?
The thing I'm worried about is a phenomenon common to boss enemies: damage getting stopped at a fixed HP threshold. Maybe an event starts immediately afterward, maybe the boss shifts into another form... Whatever the reason, there are system traps in this world where you can deal 10,000 damage to an enemy with 100 HP and still only shave off 50.
If Ctarnidd has something like that too, we'll plunge straight into a disadvantage. But if we keep dragging this out, we'll get bled dry anyway... Screw it. Whatever happens, happens!
Sunraku: "Alright... let's make the final push! Rei-shi and I are going all in, so everyone else back off and get ready to follow up!"
Akitsu Akane: "Sunraku-san! Shouldn't I join you too!?"
Sunraku: "No. Akitsu Akane, you're our insurance if something goes wrong. Stay in reserve."
Akitsu Akane: "Right!"
Sunraku: "Brace yourself, Ctarnidd... Exceed Charge!"
Coming up to the surface was your mistake, Ctarnidd. Gilta Brille has been bathing in moonlight this whole time.
That moonlight pouring down has been raising the power of this attack all along. You're already in your final form, so don't you dare have some weird damage stopper hidden in there.
Gilta Brille transforms, and its golden cores shine as they prepare to release destructive energy. Maybe getting that massive body made Ctarnidd's brain go full musclehead, because it raises a fist as though it plans to crush me first.
Sunraku: "I'll take your flank—Reject!"
I move first. Ctarnidd reaches me first. But just before the punch from its right arm lands, I twist around the left foot I'd planted forward, bring my right foot up, shift my axis from left to right, and rotate my whole body.
I slip past Ctarnidd's straight punch like meshing gears turning around each other, then step into range of its left flank.
Output: 120 percent. Enough firepower that I'm prepared to wreck myself with it... and even if there is a damage stopper, this should at least guarantee that Rei-shi's follow-up can still deal damage.
Compared with areas protected by abdominal muscle and bone, the flank is poorly defended. My body blow lands, and the instant the concealed needle in my right fist punches into Ctarnidd's side, erosion and destruction turn into impact and send violent convulsions through its body.
Sunraku: "If you've got a hidden trump card... then hurry up and spit it out alreadyyyy!!"
Burst.
Ctarnidd's flank caves out in a spray of crystal fragments. The shockwave launches my body away so violently it's almost funny. As I'm sent flying, I can see cracks running through both gauntlets and black smoke pouring from them—obvious signs that something is badly wrong.
Sunraku: "If I'm flying upward, that's perfect... Araba! Heeelp!"
Araba: "How can you shout something that pathetic with so much confidence...?"
The recoil has already reduced me to 1 HP. If I smash into the ground now, I'll die, so all I need is for someone to catch me in midair.
I'd already had Araba prove that Ctarnidd's inversion effect lets him swim even where there is no water. So Araba swims through the air and catches me, and although I'm still sitting at 1 HP, I manage to hang on.
Sunraku: "What happened to Ctarnidd!?"
Who gives a damn about my HP right now? What about Rei-shi's attack? What about Ctarnidd after taking mine? I force my wavering vision back into focus and look down below.
Ctarnidd: "VoooooooooooaaaaaaAAAAAAA!!!"
Psyger-0: "—Sing the End of the Beginning... k—Armageddon!!"
Ctarnidd, its flank blown open, has unfurled an enormous pitch-black tentacle from its back—the same kind of tentacle that dragged us down into the depths of the sea seven days ago. And against it crashes a spiral of destruction where white and black cross and intertwine.
Ctarnidd — "All right, final stretch. Time to get serious."
• Giant Tentacles
Once the HP of Ctarnidd's Imagination Form falls below a certain point, enormous tentacles deploy from the eight orbs. The moment this state begins, the orbs stop copying player playstyles, but honestly, this is even more troublesome. Why? Because a single swing of one tentacle can half-destroy the colosseum.
That said, they're slow, their openings are huge, and there are safe zones, so dealing with them is actually fairly straightforward... except there are eight of them, which means the larger the party, the greater the chance that somebody gets hit.