Illfang the Kobold Lord moved.
Not with slow steps, nor with a single sword swing, but with a full-body charge...like a red storm of fury just unleashed from its chains.
The Nodachi in his hands, long, heavy, and seemingly defying all laws of physics... gleamed with a blood-red light ready to boil over. A streak of light cut across the air, so sharp it tore through even the icy cold atmosphere of the dungeon.
Then, he swung.
A spinning slash, not aimed at a single person, but at the entire front line.
Illfang rotated his body, the weapon in his hands becoming a scythe of death carving an arc of destruction through dozens of players.
The shock that followed was nearly indescribable.
The first sound was the wind, howling like a torn soul. Then came the shattering of shields, the crunch of breaking armor, and finally, the terrified screams of the frontline Tankers, those who had tried to hold their ground, those who had only managed to step back a few paces before realizing this strike surpassed any speed they had ever seen.
Three of them couldn't react in time.
Caught in the vortex, hurled into the air, their bodies spinning like ragdolls before shattering into thousands of red pixel fragments, falling like ashes beneath the darkened sky.
Another player, though having blocked properly with a shield, was still flung nearly ten meters away, sliding across the stone floor, leaving behind a trail of brutal red. His HP bar plunged to near red-zone from just a single strike.
The entire defensive line collapsed in an instant.
Ren held his breath. He had seen it all from his vantage point, from the outermost line of containment.
He couldn't help but shudder.
Not out of fear... but because of the truth just revealed:
This monster... hadn't even gone all out yet.
And now, with the Nodachi drawn, every previous combat rule had been rewritten. There was no longer a "safe zone," no more "old tactics." All that remained were survival instincts, life-or-death reflexes, and the speed to decide who would fall first.
He glanced at Kirito and Asuna, both gripping their weapons tightly, faces tense, eyes locked on the Boss.
No one said a word.
Because they all understood the same thing:
Even the smallest mistake from now on... would cost a life.
The entire battlefield, in that moment, seemed to be swallowed by a dense fog named... fear.
A cold, numbing emotion that pierced through armor and skin alike, turning every muscle stiff, every step rooted to the icy marble floor beneath them.
One sword swing... just one, was enough to turn three players into trails of red pixelated blood that dissolved into the air, leaving behind eerie, silent voids.
Everything seemed frozen in that moment...as if time had stopped, as if even sound had gone silent, too frightened by the overwhelming power of the monster standing at the center of the battlefield.
The massive Nodachi still burned with the residual glow of the skill just unleashed, waves of heat rising from its iron surface, an iron forged in fury and death.
No one moved. No one screamed. Only wide eyes filled with horror, trembling hands clutching weapons without knowing what to do next.
And then, the Boss moved again.
Giving no one even a second to breathe, ignoring the deaths it had just sown, it raised its blade high overhead, ready to deliver another slash, this time aimed at a player who still hadn't moved, paralyzed in the aftermath of the terrifying scene.
That person... didn't have time to react.
The Nodachi came down, carrying enough force to cleave a boulder in two, and if it hit, there would be nothing left but a cloud of pixels scattered into the wind.
But....
CLANG!!!
The sudden clash of metal rang out, echoing like a wake-up bell through the night of despair.
A figure had dashed in from the side, lightning-fast, piercing through the thick air of fear, throwing himself between death and its victim... it was Diavel.
His left hand raised, holding up a ridiculously small round shield, one from the very start of the game, clearly not enough to guard a full body, yet he still thrust it forward, fully intercepting the reaper's slash with all its weight and velocity.
The impact sent Diavel skidding back over ten steps, his legs carving deep grooves into the stone floor. His shoulders trembled violently from the recoil, his facial muscles twitching in pain as the shockwave tore through his arm and spine...but he remained standing, still unfallen.
And just as the other player...the one who had nearly died, stood stunned, Diavel turned toward them and roared, a furious and desperate determination in his voice:"Don't just stand there!! Surround it! Now!!!"
His command rang out, shattering the paralysis that bound the surviving players, like a slash cutting through the fog of the nightmare that engulfed the battlefield.
One player took a step. Then another... Then the whole group behind Diavel began to move, first clumsily, then quickly regaining formation, as if they had all just awakened together from a suffocating daze.
They no longer had time to tremble. No more time to grieve.
If they remained still, then that death just now… would only be the beginning.
The battlefield, which just seconds ago had been a frozen painting of fear and death, now trembled once more with the familiar rhythm of steel clashing against steel, of coordinated shouts, and of pounding footsteps surrounding the target.
The sound of blades rang out again, echoing throughout the cavernous dome like the drumbeats of war urging them forward, like a declaration: "We are still alive, and we have not given up."
Everything seemed to return to order, even if only on the surface.
Like a combat gear that seemed shattered by the sheer weight of fear, but with a single jolt from solitary courage, began to turn again, screeching with the dry rasp of metal and the sound of resolve.
"Everyone! Watch out when it uses its AoE skill!"
Diavel's shout rang out amidst the blood and steel, his voice no longer as clear as before, worn down by the pain gnawing at every muscle in the arm that had just blocked a deadly blow.
Yet even if his voice cracked, the will within remained sharp as a blade.
He gritted his teeth, left hand gripping the almost-broken shield from the impact, while his right moved constantly, deflecting every chained strike from a Boss that had grown twice as dangerous in its final phase.
Illfang was no longer a mere mid-tier boss. It had become a whirlwind of violence, with speed, damage, and skill pushed to their very limits.
But it was in that very moment that the others began to move.
The players who had once retreated had now regained their rhythm. They didn't charge in recklessly, but step by step, they closed in, tightening the encirclement from all sides.
Tanks spread out in a curved formation, enough to draw aggro without blocking sight lines. DPS flanked from the sides like the wind, blades and daggers gleaming as skills fired off in rapid succession.
The support units in the rear kept running a constant race, both to prevent the Sentinels from closing in and to rotate in for those whose health had dropped too low.
No one said another word. There was no room left for rallying cries.
Each person, each position, each skill... all meshed together like a machine freshly oiled.
But even though the formation had been restored, even though the clashing of steel once more echoed across the field like the frantic heartbeat of a dying body... everything was still slipping out of control.
Illfang the Kobold Lord was no longer a mere floor-one boss. It was a living nightmare. A true killing machine.
Its nodachi spun through the air like a streak of blood, each slash unleashed at a speed almost impossible to track with the naked eye.
Its attack range was absurdly wide. The damage wasn't always lethal, but each hit inflicted a short paralysis effect… and in a fight like this, even a brief delay was enough to send someone out of the game forever.
Team B were the first to pay the price.
They were the shield, the living wall between the Boss and the main attack groups.
But in less than ten seconds, a single spin and a sweeping AoE attack wiped them out like a row of toppled dominoes, nearly ten players frozen in place, eyes wide, swords dropping from limp hands, their bodies locked in place by the system as if awaiting a verdict that needed no words.
A formation, frozen. Right at the eye of the storm. And Illfang, its crimson eyes gleaming, had begun to spin its blade once more.
There was no more time to wait.
"Move! Leave the outer ring behind!" Asuna's voice rang out sharp as snapping steel, and in that instant, Ren understood exactly what she meant.
No one gave the order. No one decided. But all of them knew: if no one replaced Team B, the Boss would tear through the defense line. And the entire raid would collapse in an instant.
Ren accelerated. No looking back. Not a word spoken.
The Sentinels behind them, the ones originally assigned to Teams E and F...were now left behind. Along with the entire original strategy.
Kirito charged in from the right. Asuna from the left. Ren straight down the middle.
Three of them. Against a deathstorm. No one had the breath left to ask whether what they were about to do was right. No one had time left for doubt or fear.
Because even a second's delay, even a moment's hesitation, would mean ten lives lost. Then twenty. Then the entire raid.
And so they plunged in, straight through the death zone surrounding the Boss, taking the place of those who could no longer rise.