Chapter 461: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part Thirty-Eight

SF-Zoo Tank: "Let’s go! Formation Full Burst!!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Part of me wants to hold out a little longer!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "But landing this on Siegwurm would be pretty hard, wouldn’t it?"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Good point!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Then this is our only chance! Let’s make it flashy!!"

Five tanks stood as the backbone of SF-Zoo, shielding the ten backline players behind them.

They could not compare with Josette, the Maximum Defense: Defense Holder, but they possessed exceptionally high physical defense, seamless coordination between all five members—and one more trump card.

SF-Zoo Tank: "Hey! Everyone, get behind us!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "You’ll get caught in it!"

The five players scattered.

With their lower halves completely exposed, they looked rather ridiculous, but everyone who had fought against Bryleinyego knew exactly how much they had contributed.

By the time the five tanks had positioned themselves around Bryleinyego and the lesser dragons, every other player had escaped beyond the encirclement.

SF-Zoo Tank: "The signal! Uh, when the Director isn’t here... Right! Throw a smoke bomb straight up!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "There’s the smoke! Five!!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Four!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Three!"

The five tanks divided the enemies’ aggro with brilliant precision, forcing the lesser dragons to swirl inward and remain trapped inside the formation.

Then, the instant all five countdowns reached zero—

SF-Zoo Tank: "Let’s goooo...!!"

SF-Zoo Tanks: "Accumulated Retribution: Retaliate!!"

If Hot-Blooded Gate: Thermopylae was the ultimate result of pushing magical defense to its absolute limit, then the pinnacle of raising physical defense beyond the breaking point was Accumulated Retribution: Retaliate—one of the most powerful counter Skills currently known.

Some Skills returned the damage their user received.

Others returned twice that damage or strengthened the user according to how much damage they had taken.

There were many passive Skills built around receiving an enemy’s attack, but the reason Retaliate ranked among the very best lay in its range.

Bryleinyego: "Wha—gugyaaah!!?"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Push it in! Keep pushing!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "How is this not magic?!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Ogoogogogo! If I let my guard down, I’m gonna get launched backward...!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Fugyaaah!"

SF-Zoo Tank: "Someone already got launched!!"

Shock waves erupted from the five raised shields, catching the lesser dragons within them and crushing Bryleinyego at the center from five different directions.

Retaliate released a shock wave from the user’s shield based on the total damage they had received between the beginning of the battle and the moment of activation.

The battle had already dragged on for several hours.

Furthermore, because they were fighting within the special conditions of the final-battle phase, the system continued to treat them as being in combat even after they logged out.

That ruling produced a level of power not even the five tanks had anticipated.

The shock waves were far too powerful.

The recoil felt as though each tank were holding up a jet engine, sending them flying one after another.

Even after accounting for that, the immense pressure pulverized some of the lesser dragons and left others close to destruction, while firmly pinning down Bryleinyego itself.

Bryleinyego: "DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE MEEEE!!"

But Bryleinyego was not fragile enough to be finished off by only five players.

Its frog-like hind legs bent deeply, then launched its body high into the air, beyond the reach of the shock waves.

With their target having escaped into the sky—and with the tanks unable to fully control the force they were releasing—all five either cancelled or ended Retaliate.

Bryleinyego’s gigantic body then slammed back down onto the ground.

Bryleinyego: "I’ll never forgive you...! Five... There were five of youuu... I’ll hunt you down and chew every last one of you to piecesss...!!"

Argent Owl: "You really are stupid, Bryleinyego. Crushing your own children underfoot defeats the whole purpose."

Bryleinyego: "Gerororo! I can simply make more childreeen... Huh?"

Argent Owl: "No, no. I’m saying you were stupid for destroying your own pawns right now. Ketzo! Do we need a countdown?!"

Oikatzo: "We’ll match each other—and we can match each other...!!"

Being able to produce an endless supply of lesser dragons was not the same as being able to produce more of them immediately.

Furthermore, although Bryleinyego had transformed into a mass of flesh, its sensory organs were still located within the dragon’s upper body fused to its tongue.

That had become a fatal disadvantage.

Oikatzo: "We’re out of stock, but I’ll give you one last special before closing!"

Argent Owl: "Leaving your tongue hanging outside was mistake number two!"

They began moving at different times, yet by the moment they closed in, the two destroyers had perfectly synchronized themselves.

One unleashed a fist.

The other unleashed a leg.

Each swung the weapon that allowed them to bring out their greatest power.

Oikatzo: "Violent Vortex Barrage!!"

Argent Owl: "Demon Strike Leg Sever!!"

Bryleinyego: "G-Giiiih...?!"

A relentless barrage, launched through an unbroken series of circular motions, battered Bryleinyego’s right cheek.

A roundhouse kick, its power honed and concentrated into a single strike, buried itself in the dragon’s left cheek.

Player: "Aim for its mouth!"

Player: "Spawn-kill every lesser dragon it makes!"

Player: "The legs! Attack its legs and take away its mobility!!"

In Shangri-La Frontier, damage and flinching were not necessarily the same thing.

Its AI was so advanced—capable of making decisions almost indistinguishable from those of a real living creature—that the simple fact of being struck on both cheeks was enough to make Bryleinyego’s massive body freeze.

The members of SF-Zoo raced across the battlefield, spreading the order to hold it in place.

The other players might not have understood the full plan, but they realized that Bryleinyego needed to be restrained and unleashed a concentrated assault upon it.

Whenever it tried to open its mouth, magic immediately struck it.

Whenever it barely managed to produce another lesser dragon, an even greater wave of violence crushed the creature at once.

Bryleinyego: "CURSE YOU... CURSE YOUUU... GEREREREREEEE!!!"

Player: "It jumped!!"

Player: "It’s coming back down! Run!!"

Even while being bombarded across its entire body and leaving its tongue exposed, Bryleinyego launched its massive form into the air once again.

Lesser dragons produced at the worst possible moment spilled from the corners of its mouth.

The damage effects pouring from its entire body were caught by the game’s gravity calculations and streamed higher and higher.

Bryleinyego: "DIEEEEEEEEE!!!"

It writhed slightly in midair to adjust its trajectory.

The white mass of flesh began to fall toward the ground on a course guaranteed to crush several players.

It fell—

And fell—

And fell...

Animalia: "Idiot... Thirty seconds."

Bryleinyego: "Huh?"

It did not reach the ground.

Two gnarled hands slid up from beneath the earth, caught the mass of flesh, and tightened around it.

They were hands that seized the living.

Hands steeped in death.

Hands that held any life firmly in place.

Bryleinyego: "GIGEGGEGOGOGOBBOAAAAAH!!!?"

Animalia: "Deathgrip of the Underworld: Hands of Tartarus! I bought you the time you needed!"

The hands squeezed Bryleinyego with the force of a vise, as though crushing a steamed bun.

The tongue protruding from the corner of its mouth—and the dragon’s upper body fused to its tip—screamed in agony.

Normally, Animalia deliberately reduced the crushing force as much as possible to avoid making monsters suffer unnecessarily.

Not this time.

The mass of flesh shrieked and thrashed as it was crushed by strength that seemed to grip life itself.

Animalia: "Well?! How are you planning to finish this?!"

Deep Throater: "Uhehehehe... Attack magic falls outside The Desire’s effect, but li’l ol’ me right now... Heheh—I, as I am now, can do something like this...!!"

The Desire activated.

The mystical staff amplified its wielder’s magic to whatever level of power they desired.

The spell it multiplied fortyfold was Add Spell.

It was a simple spell for increasing magical power, one that any magic-class player could learn early in the game.

Deep Throater: "A thunderous ovation, you might say... Supreme Ovation: Empyreo Cheer!!"

A star-like radiance erupted from The Desire and enveloped Deep Throater.

Although The Desire had interpreted the spell’s limits rather generously, the multiplied magic still retained the original spell’s properties.

Just as Add Spell was meant to do, it increased the power of the next spell its caster used.

Ordinarily, however, the backlash from using The Desire would prevent Deep Throater from changing equipment.

Attack magic should also have been unusable because of The Desire’s own restrictions.

Or so it should have been.

Deep Throater had obtained the Hand of Craving by defeating the raid monster Great Red Devourer.

It sacrificed accessory slots to increase the number of equipment slots available.

In other words—

A second wand burst into flame.

Deep Throater: "Who knew there was another use for it besides playing with three spots at once..."

Deep Throater: "An enlarged Flame Arrow... I’ll insert it nice and hard...!!"

Alongside the filthy joke, a flaming arrow swollen to dozens of times its normal size launched forward like a ballista bolt.

[Natsume-chan...]