Air currents instantly surrounded her body and armor. Her speed now dramatically increased, Aiz extended her right leg and kicked off the ground, leaving a small explosion of stone shards in her wake.
Jumping forward, she twisted her body out of the way before Udaeus’s arm could make contact and arrived at the creature’s base. Not only was she too close to be hit by another swing, she’d made it into her opponent’s blind spot. The monster couldn’t see her.
Aiz looked up at the hollow cavity just overhead and jumped straight up.
The floor boss’s left flank was completely exposed with its arm still out of position. This was her chance. She leaped through the air with her saber ready to strike. Gathering wind around the blade, her magic increased its cutting power as well as its reach.
Twisting her back like a spring, she swung Desperate behind her left shoulder and saw the perfect opportunity to strike. Her blade tore through the air in a horizontal slash before the monster could react.
“UUUHH!”
“!”
Her target was the large magic stone located in the middle of its ribs. Seeing her opening to attack between the exposed bones of its chest, she went for it. Unfortunately, the fifth rib shifted up and blocked just enough of her blade to skew the attack. The assault had gone directly for Udaeus’s heart, and the spartois was swift to respond, focusing its attention on defense.
—So close.
Aiz glanced at the black bone that had blocked her attack with her usual aloof expression, genuinely surprised she hadn’t cut it in half. In fact, there wasn’t even a scratch on it. She lamented the lost chance under her breath.
If she’d been able to put even one crack into the stone, Udaeus’s movements would have become clumsier. Chances like this didn’t present themselves very often, but she couldn’t afford not to take advantage of them.
Aiz’s momentum carried her past Udaeus’s rib cage and down to the floor behind it. A quick spin and she charged again.
There was nothing to protect the boss’s spine, another opportunity—until…
A black, harpoon-like pillar shot out of the ground and forced Aiz to break stride.
“!”
It was just about to hit her chin, but she bent back at the waist in time to dodge it.
Her golden hair flung forward as the black column whizzed by her ear. Suddenly, another five pierced through the ground like halberds. Aiz quickly spun to the side to get out of the way.
The pillars shattered the floor on their way through, and pursued Aiz wherever she went with unyielding tenacity, attacking from beneath her line of sight.
—That was why.
Udaeus itself was a sitting duck, unable to dodge much of anything. This was the reason why even a large battle party couldn’t charge onto this floor without a plan.
They wouldn’t get close to it without finding a way to deal with the pikes that burst from the ground without warning. Anyone who threw caution to the wind would become an instant pincushion, falling victim to Udaeus’s greatest attack and defense.
The Monster Rex didn’t keep its lower body buried under the floor without reason. In truth, Udaeus didn’t have a lower body to begin with.
Instead, its upper body stood like a massive tree with a vast network of roots spreading out onto the floor. In other words, there was a minefield of innumerable black spears just beneath the floor under Aiz’s feet.
The entire room could be considered part of the monster’s body at this point—the entire battlefield was within its range.
As soon as adventurers were forced back into Udaeus’s line of vision, the black pillars would block their only route of escape. The king of the skeletons never allowed anything to leave its chamber until the massacre was over.
“RUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
“Kah!”
The incredibly fast and unpredictable attacks from below perfectly complemented the looming, lumbering, yet incredibly strong upper body as both relentlessly attacked their target: Aiz. She was already in danger of being surrounded by the line of harpoons.
But their appearances were coordinated, almost as if telling her “come this way” and restricting Aiz’s freedom of movement. Forced to continuously dodge their relentless assault, Aiz had been led back in front of Udaeus before she realized it.
The flames burning deep in its eye sockets flashed menacingly as the floor boss unleashed the merciless onslaught, slamming both of its arms onto the floor over and over. Aiz was trapped in a pincer—the pikes from below and the bones from above. Her face distorted in distress as the air currents surrounding her body pushed her to safety by the narrowest of margins.
“Aiz!”
Riveria, whom Aiz had pleaded with to stay out of the battle, called out to her from the other side of the pillars.
The elf was still close to the entrance to the room. Udaeus had yet to notice her presence. Riveria’s entire body was tense, her feet restless like the calm before the storm as she watched the battle unfold from afar.
Under normal circumstances, a battle party exceeding thirty upper-class adventurers would coordinate their attacks to slay this beast. Normally, the pikes would be distributed among the many targets, but Aiz was facing all of them on her own. Her Magic allowed her to move at a speed far beyond a normal human, but it was only a matter of time before they caught up to her.
Riveria had made up her mind. Staff in hand, she was a heartbeat away from stepping onto the battlefield. That’s when she felt Aiz’s gaze.
“I’m fine,” the human girl seemed to convey through her golden-eyed stare. Riveria grimaced, trying to impart her own thoughts through her expression.
“…!”
Aiz broke eye contact almost as quickly as she had made it, then faced forward just in time to dodge another spear from the floor under her chin.
The pikes came in different sizes. Some were only one meder or so long and meant to break her stride with their sharp points. Others were long, thick pillars over three meders tall and completely changed the landscape of the battlefield. The combinations of width and length were endless.
It went without saying that they hit hard. However, Udaeus’s attacks from overhead were far more destructive. Everything that happened to be beneath one of it strikes was shattered on impact. Pikes became nothing but flat rubble in their wake. Aiz might be protected by wind armor, but even that couldn’t absorb a direct hit. The female-figured monsters she had fought on the fiftieth and eighteenth floors seemed weak by comparison. This creature’s strength and abilities made it worthy of being a floor boss.
Aiz was in danger of losing her footing. She sliced through each pike as she went past while keeping an eye on Udaeus’s body.
Aim for the joints…!
Indeed, the massive skeleton looming overhead had several weak points to choose from. What’s more, the spaces between its shoulders, elbows, and all the way down to the smaller joints flickered with a violet light similar to a magic stone’s.
It was this power that allowed the skinless and muscle-less Udaeus to move in any direction it pleased. The Magic energy center between each of its bones also acted like the glue that kept the beast from falling apart. Spartois also had them—although they didn’t glow anywhere near as bright—so a common strategy to cripple them was to strike those areas. The purple glow of Aiz’s many possible targets flickered in the darkness.
Her opponent’s stamina would never run out, so she had to land a decisive blow before hers reached its limit. Aiz shifted her battle strategy from defense and evasion to offense and attack.
Focusing her Mind, she yelled:
“Wind!”
Her spell was at full power.
The streams of air surrounding her body grew thicker and more intense, turning Aiz into the eye of a small hurricane. The aches and pains throughout her body screamed in protest as Aiz used the air currents to her advantage and achieved her fastest speed yet that day.
“?!�
�
The flaming pupils of Udaeus’s eyes wavered as Aiz once again disappeared from its line of sight.
She approached the monster from the left, going around the outside toward its back. The crimson flames once again caught a glimpse of the blond shadow. Each of the vertebrae in his neck undulated into a deafening howl as more pikes erupted from the floor.
However, none of them found their target. Not even close.
They were too slow; Aiz was too fast.
Her movements were quick enough to surpass and overwhelm the attacks from below. She was already gone by the time each one burst from the floor, striking nothing but empty air. They traced Aiz’s approach like a mountain range desperate to keep up with the sun.
The blond knight paid no attention to the “landmines” going off in her wake. Her gaze was locked on to one thing, the creature’s spine, specifically the lowest joint in its back.
She rushed forward in a straight line, Desperate ready to strike. A thin tornado wrapped itself around the silver blade of her saber. Aiz then timed her swing perfectly as she dashed past the monster’s base.
“GOHH!!”
Udaeus’s entire upper body tilted right as the blow connected with incredible force just above the bone that served as its foundation. Aiz also appeared on the right side of the beast, its spine bending over her head. Slamming her feet into the ground and putting her left hand on the floor for balance, Aiz abruptly flipped the direction of the air coursing around her.
Centrifugal force wrecked its way through her body, but she managed to kill her momentum in the blink of an eye. The girl then kicked off the ground without missing a beat. She left a divot in the floor and a trail of debris in her wake as she shot toward Udaeus’s spine like a bullet of wind.
The same attack, but from the other side—toward the now fully exposed joint in its lower back. Her saber sliced forward in a blur.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The vertebrae shattered. Its foundation gone, Udaeus lost his balance and fell facedown onto the floor.
It looked as though the floor boss was prostrating itself. Aiz was following the prevailing theory for adventurers when facing a Monster Rex or any other large beast: get them to the ground. She wasn’t about to let this opportunity go to waste and looped around to attack.
“GUUUUOOOOOOoo!”
Udaeus flailed around to prevent her from getting close. Hundreds of pikes rose all around its body in a desperate attempt to keep its unseen enemy at bay.
But that didn’t stop Aiz. She sliced her way through and made her way on top of the beast’s right shoulder. The tip of her saber pointed down, she found an opening just above its shoulder blade and thrust Desperate straight into the violet glow beneath her feet.
The cutting edge of the blade hit something hard. It couldn’t proceed any farther despite the incredible magic boost.
Aiz yelled.
“Rage, Tempest!”
The full power of Airiel rushed down the sword.
An additional blade of wind carved its way into the joint in the blink of an eye—and severed it.
“!”
An earsplitting roar blasted its way out from Udaeus’s spine.
The explosion of wind separated the arm at the shoulder. The appendage drifted away as if in slow motion as the rest of the arm bones crashed to the floor in deafening impacts.
Udaeus had lost his entire right arm.
“What power…!”
Riveria could hardly believe her eyes. The words rolled off her tongue in disbelief.
It wasn’t powerful Magic that had inflicted this much damage on the floor boss, but a single sword. The elf was shocked at Aiz’s display of might.
“!”
The uncontrolled explosion of wind also knocked the girl into the air. Aiz quickly recovered, landing on her feet and continuing the assault.
She fully intended to repeat the process and take the monster apart piece by piece. Udaeus continued to howl in pain and anger as the floor boss glared in Aiz’s direction with burning contempt.
The next series of pillars to burst forth from the ground weren’t aimed at Aiz, but to protect its joints.
“!”
More and more pikes emerged, providing a layer of armor where there had been none before.
Her enemy wasn’t stupid. Udaeus had figured out Aiz’s strategy and quickly increased its defense. More than likely, it needed to buy time to recover.
It wouldn’t take much time for her to divert the energy radiating from its core to revitalize its damaged lower back. However, no amount of magic would bring back its severed arm at this point.
Udaeus was attempting to pull its upper body upright by healing from its wounds.
Of course Aiz wasn’t going to let that happen. She ran up the pikes, jumped, and aimed her blade at the closest joint. However…
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”
Udaeus, still facedown on the floor, roared once again.
This time, the howl was like a request to its mother, the Dungeon. Then a mass of spartois surfaced from the floor, like loyal knights come to protect their king.
“?!”
The white-boned warriors rushed into Aiz’s path with weapons at the ready. Aiz tried to use her airborne momentum to fly past them, but they gathered to her like moths to a flame. Aiz was forced into battle.
At the same time, several more spartois appeared in front of Riveria.
“Keh?!”
A swarm of monsters approached the unprotected magic user, who was used to being in the rear of the battle formation.
Almost twenty of the monsters had been born. Cursing herself for allowing their ambush to make it this far, Riveria took evasive measures as she met the skeleton monsters in combat.
Despite not being suited to handle this type of battle, the elf combined defensive staff strikes with Concurrent Casting to buy herself enough time to conjure Magic.
“UUUOGH…”
With Aiz and Riveria occupied, Udaeus finished its recovery in no time flat.
The blond knight bit her lip and watched the beast shatter through its pike armor and “stand” tall once again.
Its eyes burned deep in their sockets as the floor boss loomed over the battlefield without its right arm. Without warning, it summoned the biggest shaft yet from beneath the floor at its base.
The joints of its black fingers curled around the tip of the black bone and yanked it free—a sword.
The weapon was at least six meders long.
From Aiz’s point of view, it was a thick, jet-black longsword. And yet, it was not much more than a long dagger to Udaeus. Similar to the Nature Weapons used by other monsters in the Dungeon, but in the shape of a black greatsword.
The monster looked down at Aiz, the girl clutching Desperate in her right hand. It was as though the girl was looking up at an opponent armed with a harpoon, while all she carried was a toothpick.
—What’s this?
Aiz, and even Riveria, were caught off guard by Udaeus’s unexpected change in strategy. The floor boss armed itself similar to a spartoi, and slowly lifted the weapon in its left hand high into the air.
Aiz cleaned up the remaining monsters around her and kept an eye on this new form of attack. She was in the process of deciding whether to gain some distance or press the attack—when another surprise reflected in her golden eyes.
Shoulder, elbow, wrist.
Each of the monster’s joints began to pulsate like shooting stars burning in the night sky. Zip! Seeing the ominous violet light emanating from Udaeus’s left arm sent a jolt up Aiz’s spine.
The towering monster froze for a moment, its left arm held high. Switching gears, Aiz ran with all her might to gain as much distance as possible.
The surviving spartois’ attacks bouncing off her wind armor, the blond human forced every bit of strength out of her muscles to be anywhere but within the monster’s range.
It was at that moment that Udaeus’s arm became a blur.
“”
The black greatsword came down faster than the eye could see.
The violet light from the joints in its arm flashed as the floor boss moved with a speed that Monster Rexes weren’t believed to possess.
Aiz could see a black shadow approaching out of the corner of her eye. An enormous blast of wind caught her the moment it was out of sight.
“—?!”
The pikes sticking out of the ground and the spartois were wiped out instantaneously.
Even Aiz, who had managed to get out of range, was overtaken by the shock wave and thrown into the air, hitting the ground with a hard thud.
The floor that absorbed the blow was burned to a crisp, smoke rising from a tremendous gash that cut right through it. Aiz couldn’t hide the shock on her face as she quickly jumped to her feet, eyes focused on the floor boss.
She reasoned that it was a slicing technique that Udaeus made possible by charging the joints with extreme amounts of magic energy. Its incredible strength, combined with Magic, had produced an incredible explosion that destroyed everything around the black greatsword, with a force that even she couldn’t completely escape despite the assistance of her wind magic.
The only good news was that the monster couldn’t do it twice in a row. Her golden eyes narrowed as Udaeus held its left arm back and started to charge the attack once again.
Severing the monster’s right arm must have hit a nerve. Against a large battle party, the floor boss had likely never had a chance to draw its weapon, but Aiz attacking by herself had given Udaeus the time it needed to summon the black greatsword. Using that much magic energy without a conduit like the sword would probably have blasted it into pieces.
Udaeus’s ace in the hole—a trump card that had never been seen before.
Revealing a hidden power like this was like a piece of a mask flaking off to reveal its wearer’s true identity.
Warning bells were blaring in Aiz’s mind; beads of sweat rolled down her face.
“Aiz, fall back! The weapon is useless if it cannot reach you!”
An arctic wind swirled at the entrance to the room. Riveria’s words rode the cool breeze out to Aiz.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 2 Page 19
