Chapter 37: Yo what the ****, sis!?
"GGRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
With a ferocious roar, Gaius leaped forward and thrusts his sword at Himeji's shield.
"Guh! F-Fortress!"
Himeji stood her ground against the attack. However, that was only for a moment before her arms were flung back.
"Eh?"
Not expecting her defenses to be overpowered, the brief moment of daze she gave herself allowed Gaius to go in for the second strike, swinging his blade at her throat.
"Oh no you don't!"
Fortunately, just like how Himeji had her back, Hikari does as well. Standing in between her friend and the enemy's blade, she placed her sword against it and yelled.
"Mikiri Counter!"
Gaius's blade was deflected. And Gaius himself was wide open.
Swiftly changing her stance right after that, Hikari delivers her own thrust attack to the boss's chest.
"Blade Stance, Sixth Form: Swallowtail Sting."
"GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
Gaius bellowed in agony as his HP dropped significantly. However, it has yet to reach the point where his second phase would be activated.
Mikiri Counter. One of the skills that Hikari had bought at the skill store in Arialight.
It was her first time using it in battle. And yet, she performed it well without practice and even followed it up with an attack.
That being said, however...
"Uh oh."
Her sword is now stuck in Gaius's chest as she seemingly struggles to pull it out of him.
"GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRR...."
Gaius growled, looking at his foe, and raised his sword high up, ready to drop it down onto her.
Then, he does that.
But once again, Himeji came to the rescue. Using her own newly acquired skills from the skill store.
"Heavy Charge!"
Himeji tackles Gaius, just as he was about to swing his blade down. Forcefully pushing him away from Hikari and helping her pull her sword out in the process, as she continued charging like a rhino, all the way to the wall behind him. Slamming him against it which dropped his HP by a bit.
After saving her friend, Himeji then backed away. But not before using another skill.
"Provoking Shout!" she yelled. Taunting Gaius into paying attention to her which allowed Hikari to once again deliver another attack.
"Blade Stance, Second Form: Crescent Moon Slash!"
Hikari backflips as she strikes. Her sword moved in a perfect circular motion as it sliced Gaius's HP away again.
Gaius threw a quick counterattack, but Hikari was able to dodge it. She then retreated back to Himeji, not wanting to stay close to the boss after what had almost happened twice already.
In the course of the battle, Hikari and Himeji had adjusted to the boss fairly quickly as they have gotten used to the attacks he had shown to them so far.
"Hahahahahaha! This is so fun! Gaius is a freaking deadly speed demon. I'm surprised you managed to save me twice back then, HimeHime."
"Yeah... I'm surprised as well. I was only able to do that because you were close though."
"Welp. No time for talks. Here he comes again!"
"GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Gaius charged towards them once more with a banging roar.
Himeji sees him approaching and was prepared to hold her ground.
However, what she and Hikari did not expect was the boss suddenly slowing down right before Himeji's shield, as he dragged his longsword into the ground and proceeded to dig up a cloud of dust and dirt into both of their faces.
"Ah! What the!?"
"I can't see!"
Even I, back here, was surprised. For it was the first time I had seen Gaius make this move.
But thinking about it, maybe it was because I didn't give him an opportunity to perform it back when Bane and I faced him.
Regardless, I continued eating my chips as I have no intention on helping those two since they, or Hikari, didn't want me to.
If anything, I was kind of curious to see how they will get out of this predicament.
So as I crunch on another chip, Hikari flew out of the smokescreen and crashed into the wall.
Oof... That's got to hurt.
"You alright there?" I asked, seeing as Hikari's HP was sent immediately to the red from that hit alone.
"Yeah... I'm fine, sis. No need to... Huh!?" Hikari expressed a surprised look as she looked at me.
"Yo what the ****, sis!?"
"Lumina. Language."
"Oops, sorry. Wait... That's not the point!" she got and pointed at me. "Are you eating potato chips right now!?" she loudly asked.
"Yes." I blatantly replied. "I made them while you two were fighting. More importantly..." I then changed the subject. "Should you be chatting with me right now?"
"Ah."
Hikari then remembered that she was in the middle of a boss fight and returned her attention to it. However, when she turned, Gaius sprinted out of the smokescreen he'd created to pursue Hikari whom he had sent flying to the wall. Closing the gap between them in an instant as he swung his sword at her.
In response to the attack, Hikari uses skill of hers.
"Blade Stance, Third Form: Whirling Gale!"
As she suddenly spun in a quick motion, Gaius's blade was redirected into the ground next to her feet. Taking the opportunity, Hikari then held her sword straight up and followed up her counter with another move.
"Blade Stance, First Form: Teardrop Slash."
With a straight and single vertical slice down Gaius's body, his HP almost... just almost... reaches its halfway point.
Gaius, after taking the attack, quickly swings his sword from the ground up at Hikari's head. However, seeing it coming, Hikari strafed to the side just a bit and avoided the sudden counterattack.
With her HP in the red now, she quickly got out of there. Gaius tried to pursue, but that's when Himeji swooped in and bashed him against the wall with her Shield Bash skill.
As a result of her swift action, Gaius was finally at half health, which means....
"Here it comes."
"Err... what the...?"
As soon as Himeji backed away from the boss, Gaius's second phase began to initiate. Surprising both Hikari and Himeji who did not know about it, whereas I, who do, casually stuffed more potato chips into my mouth.
Staring at Hikari who then turned to me, she uttered out, asking. "Why did you not tell us that he has a phase two?"
"Because you didn't want me to. Remember?"
And now, you reap what you sow, my dear sister.
Hikari watched Gaius transform and his HP became full. Realising that she and Himeji may not be able to deal with him on their own, she turned to me again and, in the most polite way from her, asked.
"Sis... Help."
"No." I immediately replied, taking another potato chip from my bowl and ate it.
But then, Himeji begged me as well.
"Mama, please help us." she said. Prompting me to keep the chips into my inventory as I got off Bane's back.
"High Wisdom. Multi-Magic Amplification. Multi-Magic Booster. Now... let's go, Bane."
"Skreeeeeeeeeeeeee~!"
As soon as Gaius's second phase transformation ended, we charged at him. Noticing us approaching, Gaius leaped into the air and was about to swing his sword down onto me.
"Moon Walk."
Right before his attack completes, I teleported out of the path while Bane tanked it with its body as my good buddy then wrapped itself around the sword, locking Gaius in place while I came up behind him, placing my staff on his back.
"Multi-Explosion!"
With a point-blank range attack of my strongest spell, the boss suffered an enormous amount of damage as his HP seemed to have dropped drastically from the sound of the pain he's receiving, despite being in his second phase.
But I did not care, as I followed up my onslaught with another Multi-Explosion, now that I got just enough MP to perform two.
And boom! Gaius's HP dropped again. All the way to... zero? Wait, what!?
Gaius dropped to his knees, turned around to face us and said, "Thank you..." before fading away.
"Huh?"
"Wha—"
"No way..."
"Skreee...?"
Did I.... Did I just two-shot Gaius?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Congratulations! You have defeated the Dungeon Boss: Fallen Knight, Gaius.]
Exp gained: 7,719
Gold obtained: 200,000
Item(s) gained: [Bloodsoaked Armour], [Lumen Stone]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hikari, Himeji and I stared at our notification screen in disbelief. Whereas Bane wrapped itself around me and started rubbing its head on my cheek while I stood still like a statue, due to the shock of what had just happened.
Bit by bit, I was processing how in the world I managed to do that. Then, there was only one answer I could think of that could have caused such a thing to happen.
Don't tell me...
"Multi-High Wisdom."
I multi-casted one of my buff skills and checked my current Max MP. And what do you know, it increased way more than it should be.
My Max MP, which should have been around two thousand something after the use of High Wisdom, has just now reached five digits.
Then, I used High Wisdom again without the Multi-Casting and saw that my Max MP became what it should have been instead.
Yup... This does it.
Multi-Casting a buff skill would cause the effect to stack instead of replacing the already existing effect that is in place. In other words, I had unknowingly boosted my damage output and attack speed when I multi-casted Magic Amplification and Magic Booster. Which would explain why my Multi-Aqua Shot one-shotted those groups of undead monsters at that time, and why the next one was casted so quickly in a short interval.
"Sis... what the **** just happened?"
I turned around and looked at Hikari and Himeji who were staring at me blankly in utter confusion.
They had asked me for help, but I don't think anyone would have expected this anti-climatic ending to the fight.
I didn't even bother pointing out Hikari's language and simply answered her question.
"I think I've just won the game."
"This isn't a lottery, Mama." Himeji surprisingly retorted.