After the light of the Corridor Crystal faded, everyone slowly opened their eyes.
What came into view was a vast, empty chamber, and at its far end stood an “archway.”
The room looked fairly normal, not much different from the previous boss rooms—just a little more sinister.
But soon, the raiding group players realized they were wrong.
This room was anything but normal—
Not long after their teleportation finished, more bursts of light appeared around them.
But it wasn’t other people entering the boss room—it was the glow that came when monsters spawned.
In an instant, monsters spread out across the chamber like chess pieces on a board, surrounding the players at the center.
Seeing the sheer number and variety of monsters before them, quite a few players couldn’t help swallowing nervously.
Still, they were all elites among players.
Though the situation was tricky, it wasn’t hopeless, and they quickly steadied their stances.
“Don’t let your guard down. This isn’t some low-level grinding area—if I’m not mistaken, we’re standing inside the boss chamber.”
Heathcliff’s calm voice rose as he scanned the surroundings.
As he spoke, he drew a particularly long one-handed sword from behind his shield.
At that moment, a piercing roar echoed out, and a massive bone-cleaver spun through the air from the depths of the chamber, slamming into the floor.
Pinned to the ground beneath it was a freshly spawned monster.
The boss of the 40th floor, the Giant Rat Warden, Grinnell, then leapt down beside the cleaver, his crimson eyes glaring at the raiding party.
“Don’t panic! Teams A and D, attack from the front and rear. Teams C and F, hold defense and provide support. Teams B, E, G, and H—take care of the other monsters and the boss’s guards!” Heathcliff gave his orders in a composed, orderly manner.
“When attacking, don’t get greedy with your strikes—focus on dodging the boss’s blows as much as possible.”
No one objected to the arrangement.
They immediately sprang into action, moving into position and picking their targets according to Heathcliff’s plan.
“Commence attack!”
At Heathcliff’s command, he swung his long sword and charged forward, leading the assault on the boss himself.
In an instant, the battlefield descended into chaos.
Akimi surveyed the scene, his heart calm and steady.
These monsters were far fewer than the ones during PoH’s ambush, and there weren’t any powerful creatures like the Mid-Autumn Rabbit among them.
Honestly, they posed little threat.
If it weren’t for the bad timing, he would’ve thanked PoH for the gift of this monster-farming arena.
“Water Breathing, Sixth Form: Whirlpool!”
Surging currents erupted, hurling away the monsters surrounding Akimi and carving countless shallow wounds into their bodies.
He followed up with Fouth Form: Striking Tide, finishing them all off in one sweep.
Not far away, Asuna, Kirito, and the others swiftly cut down the enemies near them and moved on to clear other areas.
It had to be said—Kirito really was impressive.
Even just using system sword skills, he could almost keep pace with Akimi and Asuna.
His monster-slaying speed was only a step behind theirs.
Compared to him, Klein and Agil were noticeably slower, to say nothing of the Knights of the Blood Oath or the Divine Dragon Alliance.
Ten minutes into the raid, the ordinary monsters in the boss chamber had mostly been cleared out, and the Jailer Rats had just been taken care of by Akimi and Asuna in one round.
Although these mobs weren’t difficult to fight, the conditions of Akimi and the others had declined somewhat—after all, the boss chamber still contained quite a number of cage traps.
Fortunately, the raid group was large enough, and members were able to cover each other, so they hadn’t lost the means to continue the raid.
However, Teams A and C, which were clashing head-on with Grinnell, were in far worse shape.
Their HP had dropped to about half.
Only Heathcliff was faring better, with his HP down by just a quarter.
On top of that, each of the Knights of the Blood Oath and the Divine Dragon Alliance had one unlucky member who got caught in a trap and then took a direct hit from the boss.
Their HP had dropped to less than half, forcing them to retreat to the back and chug potions.
Even so, the results weren’t bad.
Two of Grinnell’s five HP bars had already been emptied, and the third was down by half.
At this rate, Grinnell was turning out to be one of the weaker bosses in the recent floors, even with the stage advantage and PoH’s underhanded tricks.
Its abilities were indeed powerful, but also relatively easy to counter—so long as the tanks in the party kept the aggro locked, it practically had no chance to trigger its execution skill.
Still, everyone knew it wasn’t time to relax yet.
After all, the boss hadn’t entered its second phase—who knew what tricks it might pull?
Under Heathcliff’s steady command, the raid progressed very smoothly.
Before long, Grinnell’s third HP bar was nearly depleted; meanwhile, the other monsters were kept under control thanks to Akimi and the others clearing them out, staying within a safe range.
Although a few players were locked down by traps in succession, leaving their status in poor condition, overall the situation wasn’t serious.
At the current pace, they would need at most another ten minutes to complete the raid.
When Grinnell’s third HP bar was finally emptied, it let out a furious roar, forcing back the nearby players with a whirling slash, then drew the iron chain from its waist and hooked it into the ring at the end of its Bone-Cleaving Blade.
The moment Grinnell’s roar echoed, flashes of light filled the area again—the spawn glow of monsters.
The Jailer Rats, which Akimi and the others had just defeated, respawned directly, and this time twenty of them appeared at once.
Clearly, the battle had entered its second phase.
Having just finished off a small fry, Akimi narrowed his eyes slightly at the chain-blade in Grinnell’s hands and muttered, “A chain blade, huh? That’ll make defending a lot harder.”
But soon, everyone realized that the boss’s second-phase attacks weren’t just hard to guard against because of the chain blade—
Now, any time Grinnell landed a hit on a player, it would immediately trigger an execution.
And the speed was absurd: from the moment it grabbed a player to the moment of execution, the entire process took less than ten seconds.
If Heathcliff hadn’t activated a sword skill to forcibly interrupt Grinnell’s movements, the raid would already have claimed its first casualty.
— The end of the Chapter–
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