End Online: Volume 5 (3 page)

We do our utmost to flank the enemies while picking them off one
or two at a time. This isn’t the fastest or the most honorable method, but it
is effective.

We walk up a staircase along the side of the wall to a second
story balcony running the circumference of the room. The zombies on the balcony
are the most dangerous ones yet, not due to them being stronger than the rest,
but because when they stumble they fall down the narrow staircase at maximum
speed and are extremely difficult to dodge.

Along the balcony, there are several doors leading to elsewhere
in the cathedral. Matrix and I enter each and every one before moving onto the
next. Some doors end in small rooms, and we are lucky to find an ornamental
chest containing some crafting materials in one, and a level 180 long sword and
shield set which radiates with a faint blue light. These items are ‘Unique’ and
of considerable value to other players.

I plan to put the sword and shield up for auction when I get the
chance for a bit of extra money. I’m not as excited to sell equipment as Lost
is, but that is mainly due to the concern that items I list for sale never
gather much interest. I can’t help but sigh at my bad luck.

“Big Bro, what’s wrong?” Matrix asks me after noticing my sigh.

“Hah, it’s nothing. I’m just reflecting on a few things.”

“I see… umm, you would tell me if there was anything wrong,
wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would, little bro!”

Seeing Matrix’s expression relax, I continue leading us through
the dungeon, one room at a time. Several hours pass by and there are still
several areas that we have not explored. Entering through a large double door
inlaid with more rust than iron, we find ourselves in a small corridor-like
room that is no more than ten meters wide and forty meters long. The strangest
part of the room is that the walls have decayed twice as much as the rest of
the structure.

My mind is slow to process the change in atmosphere before the
door behind me silently closes and locks. There isn’t a single zombie in this
room, but suddenly a large amount of purple-black smoke drifts down from the
ceiling before coalescing. Smoke continues to pour into the room without any
sign of slowing down, yet the condensed mass at the other side of the room is
gradually shrinking.

It isn’t long before the densest concentration of purple-black
smoke begins to become solid. I watch as a slim, meter and a half tall figure
takes shape. The smoke suddenly stops flooding the room, and as the figure absorbs
the last of the gas in the air it opens two red eyes and looks directly at us.

‘It’s a boss! But it is so small. How strange,’
 I think to myself while studying the enemy.

“Big bro, that isn’t the, umm, final boss of the dungeon, is
it?”

“No, I don’t believe it is. This should be some form of
sub-boss. Be careful, I don’t think this enemy will be as slow as all the
‘Noxious Guards’ throughout the dungeon.”

Matrix nods his head in response. I don’t have an analysis skill
like Lost so I can’t tell what level the boss is, but I am quite adept at
comparing their strength against ours and determining our chance of winning.

The boss suddenly moves, dashing toward us at a frightening
speed. Matrix moves to engage the boss directly while I move around the side to
flank it. With my high dexterity and all the bonuses from the ‘Grand Elven
Highbow’, nearly every single one of my arrows should hit.

I fire off three arrows in quick succession and gape in surprise
as two out of the three miss. I recover and attack with another two arrows
before the boss reaches Matrix and find that again, only one arrow hits the
target.

I notice that the boss moves with a strange rhythm, first moving
fast, then slow, and once again moving fast.  This process continues to
repeat itself at a consistent pace, yet it is still difficult to keep track of.

The boss creates a long purple-black whip in its hand out of the
same condensed gas its body is formed from. It swings the weapon toward Matrix
who prepares to raise his sword and parry the tendril like whip. The boss’s
strange movements catch Matrix completely off guard as the whip arches toward
him slowly at first, before the speed of the attack dramatically increases. As
a result, Matrix completely misses the chance to parry the attack and is hit
across the shoulder.

A small sonic boom erupts from where the tip of the whip cracked
across Matrix’s chest and even at a distance I feel the shockwave that follows.
Matrix, unable to parry and at ground zero, is blown back and into the wall ten
meters behind him.

‘Not good!
’ My instincts
start screaming toward me about how low our chances of victory are. 
‘We
barely have a 20% chance of victory at best!’

“Matrix! Are you okay?!” I call out to my little brother, who
remains sitting against the wall where he fell.

“Yeah, big bro! I’m fine! Just, umm, a little surprised!”

“He moves with a strange rhythm which interchanges between fast
and slow, be careful!”

“Okay!”

The boss turns toward me and approaches thanks to my shouts
attracting its attention, but Matrix quickly stands up and activates a sacred
art to draw its aggro again.

Trying to match my attack with the boss’s movements, I launch
another three arrows at it. Two out of three arrows hit this time which is
certainly better than before, but still somewhat lacking.

Rather than trying to parry the whip attacks, Mason focuses
completely on dodging out of the the whip’s trajectory, chanting his magic at
the same time.

“Flame waves in the wind as the wind nourishes the fire. The
cycle of Yin and Yang becomes complete at the tip of the sword and extends
forth. Flame Waves!”

Matrix’s sword slashes through the air with pinpoint precision.
As it swings, flames lick the blade of the weapon and fly from the swordpoint
as a blade of flame. The blade of flame cuts through the air in the same
direction that the sword swings, creating a line of red sparks and sharp flames
from Mason to the boss. He swings the sword several times in succession, each
creating its own flame blade.

My eyebrows knit together as I stand there motionless and mouth
agape after hearing his ridiculous, self-made poetry. He has been doing this
ever since we were trying to do something different to have my videos stand out
from the rest and become more popular. The first two videos with his shameless
chanting showed some results, but there was nothing after that.

Despite how many times I tell him to cut it out, he still
persists. He is so proficient in magic that he doesn’t even need to call out
the chant at all. He could save himself a great deal of time if he simply
listens to me and starts using magic silently.

Matrix’s flame blades pass through the boss with little
resistance, most likely due to the fact that it is made from a condensed gas.
At least the boss takes damage, it’s health bar becoming visible despite still
appearing to be full.

Matrix holds the boss’s attention consistently, healing himself
when needed, dodging rather than attempting to parry, and occasionally
responding with a long distance magic attack. My accuracy continues to increase
as well, with nine out of ten arrows now hitting the boss.

Half of my of arrows are gone, stuck all along the walls after
passing through the boss. There is even an arrow sticking out of Matrix’s hip
which, despite his understanding, I feel incredibly guilty about.

I decide I will call the boss ‘Gas Child’ for easy reference.
His health finally falls below half and the visible health bar turns orange. At
this point, there is a distinctive change. He suddenly enlarges and his form
vanishes as he disperses. Even the health bar vanishes from sight as the area
begins to fill with purple-black smoke. Smoke fills every corner of the room,
attacking both Matrix and I at the same time and leaving no room to dodge. The
damage to my health isn’t too bad, but a message appears that causes my chest
to constrict.

Disregarding all the nearly broken equipment, the two items that
actually broke are the most devastating. Broken items are automatically
unequipped and placed back in the player inventory. The problem is that once an
item’s durability reaches zero, they are considered to be beyond repair.

The smoke suddenly shifts, rapidly gathering together to reform
‘Gas Child’. I don’t immediately realize it, but the boss is gathering its body
in a completely different location from where it dispersed. When the smoke
clears enough, I see where the boss is reforming.

I nock an arrow, and my bow glows a pale blue as I prepare to
release my ‘Piercer’ sacred art as soon as Gas Child becomes solid. In the
space of a few breaths, the boss reforms its body again and brandishes its
whip, but I don’t fire. The boss is directly behind Matrix!

My little brother is standing there dumbfounded, not because he
doesn’t know where the boss is, but because all his armor and even his weapon
have broken. He is standing there in nothing but the casual clothes which are
normally under his armor.

‘Damn it, Matrix! How many times have I told you that you need
to maintain your weapon and armor in good repair!’ 
I inwardly curse, understanding that all his equipment has broken
due to their durability being at half.

Matrix stands there stupidly, looking down at his bare hands as
the boss flicks its wrist and delivers a whip lash to Matrix’s back. The strike
creates a deafening shockwave that sends me sliding back several meters. Poor
Matrix flies several tens of meters before hitting a wall and becoming a corpse
on the ground. The attack dealt critical damage, and without a single shred of
armor for protection, he died instantly.

I barely have time to curse before ‘Gas Child’ automatically
targets me and attacks with his whip. I begin to raise my bow to defend against
the attack, using the ‘Grand Elven Bow’s’ ability to be used as a shield,
before remembering that it is nearly broken.

I jump to the side in an attempt to dodge, but my speed is not
as fast as Matrix’s. The whip follows its characteristic trait of fluctuating
in speed, lashing at me nearly instantly. I feel a wind brush past me as I
narrowly dodge, before a shockwave buffets my body and sends me flying several meters
away. The game doesn’t permit players to feel any significant pain, but the
rotating of my vision as I tumble is enough to nauseate me.

The attack takes just over a third off of my health, leaving my
limbs feeling a little heavier than before. Standing up slowly, I see that the
boss is steadily approaching me. I realize that when facing straight on, it is
incredibly difficult to capture the timing of the boss’s movements.

I nock two arrows and hastily release them at the enemy. My
accuracy improves dramatically thanks to the target not moving sideways. I
quickly use the sacred art ‘Wind Piercer’, firing an arrow of wind at the boss
before retreating.

My concentration wavers as I see the boss falter and become
unsteady from the wind based attack. His health visibly drops a fraction from
the attack as well.

The attack also seems to cause ‘Gas Child’ to rage, his speed
explosively increasing as he leaps toward me. The whip in his hand strikes
toward me while circling around itself. I attempt to dodge the whip again, but
it seems to track my movements and make dodging impossible. The whip gathers
around my body before tightly binding me.

Trapped by the purple-black whip wrapped around me, all my
struggles to free myself are fruitless. With another flick of his wrist, the
boss lifts me up with his whip and swings me around himself. My vision blurs
slightly and I feel the semi-solid whip release me. The next thing I notice is
a dull itch on the back of my head and shoulders.

I can vaguely feel the wall behind me, but my limbs refuse to
move no matter how hard I struggle and my mind is still reeling from the flight
and slow to respond. As my head clears and my focus sharpens, I see the boss
standing a few meters away from me. His whip comes swinging down once more and
then everything turns black with a single message.