Chapter 349: Chapter 204: Reaching the Heavens Part 10 Part 1

「One, two, three…… Yeah, just a little bit more and I’ll have the timing just right!」

This should work. No, it will work! One, because the attacks come at regular intervals with no mix added to them. And two, because at least for now the boss does not have any moves and attacks that may result in player getting killed instantly. In that regard it is easier than Gravekeeper Wezaemon or Nightprowler Luukan.

「Once the twelfth tentacle hits the ground, they will go back after five seconds! If you manage to avoid them at the last possible second, you can attack them for five seconds straight without having to worry about distance or getting hit……!」

While I’m running all over the place, jet black octopus tentacles rain down on me from above, missing me only by centimeters. It’s good thing that my reflexes are so sharp, otherwise it would all end really badly. By the way…… for some reason I can’t feel any fish odor coming from those projectile tentacles.

「No, this is……!」

No, move your body first, think later! The twelve tentacles shoot in a straight line each time, with very little free space in between each projectile, but just enough to be able to avoid them. There is no need for Scorpion Gauntlets right now, Yuzuki’s “Upper Fang” and “Lower Fang” are going to be more than enough to slash away at them. A few seconds later the tentacles turn into magic power fumes and retreat back into the arm of the star that they were ejected from.

Looking towards the magic circle, five out of eight arms of the star and its tentacles were done for. The remaining three are just a matter of time at this point. Although now the strategy seems to be pretty simple and straightforward, if you fail to notice those details about the tentacles and the magic circle, you might as well run around without end, without being able to do anything. But here’s the thing: now that you know what to do, it seems WAY too easy to fight it…… Yeah, of course. There must be even more forms than that.

「This is, the end!」

Mold summons up a magical arrow and shoots it at the last tentacle that was left on the field. As a result of all the tentacle projectiles being destroyed, the last black tentacle retracted back into the magic circle…… But what now? The eight-armed star will disappear? Or maybe destroying ninety eight smaller tentacles will force Kutanid’s main body to emerge?

「THERE IS NO HEIGHT THAT CANNOT BE REACHED. AND EVEN IF AN OBSTICLE LIKE THAT ARISES, HUMANS SHALL CONQUER IT EVENTUALLY……」

It was another part of the boss’s dialogue lines, but its meaning could easily be understood this time around. It was more or less a matter of “Whatever will you do after you have reached your goal here……?”. In most cases in games that would be fixed to a particular quest. And usually in other games it would be possible to re-challenge the boss over and over again, presumably with increased difficulty or in forms of time attacks. There is lots of ways in which you can make this fun.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

「IN ORDER TO CHANGE THE WORLD, IT IS REQUIRED TO FIND AN UNWAVERING CONVICTION IN ONE’S HEART AND NEVER STOP BELIEVING IN IT.」

Alongside those words, the eight-arm star started to shift positions. The patterns around the circle started to change and the surface of the circle itself looked as though it was boiling up. The eight-armed star disappeared, replaced by some convoluted origami figure. The eyes and the tentacles hiding away inside of the circle burst forward into the void, and something follows closely after them, reshaping and transforming. That something started to take more shape with every passing second, it contours smoothing up and increasing in size and form.

Ahh, I knew it. I knew it from the very first moment that I saw the tentacles retracting into the circle that something was wrong in here. Now it all makes sense. Some part of me right now felt like a kindergartener trying to think about quantum physics for trying to come up with solutions how to attack the magic circle.

No, that would be utterly impossible of a thing to do. But now I can think about it for real. What do we know, what to do…… and how to defeat our enemy.

「That magic circle was not remotely controlled by Kutanid or anything like that. It was the magic circle that was hiding Kutanid itself.」

「Huh? So what, does that mean this thing is its final form?」

「Maybe not final, but next one for sure.」

「Here it comes! Right in front of us!」

What falls out from the magic circle is the three dimensional version of the black octopus known as “Kutanid of the Abyss”. Maybe it was because it fell right out of the magic circle, but during its descent and hitting the ground, even though its body was quite gigantic, there were no tremors or even the sense of this thing having any weight at all.

At the same time, Rei brandishes her sledgehammer and rushes forward. As expected, Rei was really thinking up ahead. She must have anticipated that there will be more forms to Kutanid, for she was yet to done her usual white knight armor. But even so, at the very least some sort of caution was required here, since this our first time fighting a monster like that. We would need to confirm its move set first.

「What should we do!?」

「For now we need to see what this thing can do! We bait some of it moves, and if we see an opening for attack, we attack with all that we can! Akitsu Akane, try to focus on close range attacks! Save your ninja tools for later, in case this octopus has more phases up its sleeve!」

「Yes!」

「…… Roger that!」

「Rust, I’m going to cast some buffs on you, then on the others as well……」

「Ah, time for me to pull out all the stops……」

1 COMBO!

「Me, too!」

2 COMBO!

「Umm, I’m grateful, but…… maybe your own buffs would be more than enough here. It would be meaningless if they were not stacking, so……」

3 COMBO!

「Ah, yes……」

Eventually, after Mold finished buffing Rust up he went to buff up everyone else as well, and just like that we were able to move forward with the offensive.

「Rei, this thing surely has tentacle attacks in its repertoire, but are you sure that it is okay for us to just facetank it?」

「Yes, it should be okay as long as it’s me taking the attack. I have a tank class skill called “Collision Counter” for things like that…… I am sure to take some damage, but…… I’ll just have to endure it.」

Judging by its name, it must be an attack that that works as counter once you receive a hit from the enemy. That sounds really nice, right up my alley. Maybe I should take some interest in Tank as a class? But oh well, since I heard that class reset in this game is a real mess to deal with, guess my curiosity will be just that: curiosity.