"That's...a totally different name," Mito gasps. Jaymes' heart drops at that moment, and so does his defense stat as the monster emits a chamber-shaking roar. They all wobble on their legs but maintain their footing along the wall, not stepping on the now rapidly moving lines. The cry also has a secondary effect: debuffing everyone's defense.
"Stick to the plan," Diavel roars, shaking everyone else out of their stupor. "Observe the blue lines, be mindful of the circles coming from the floor and ceiling. When a limb appears, dodge and counterattack!" Around the chamber, the other players respond with fire, not losing morale over Fuscus' appearance and opening move. Diavel then eyes Jaymes, gives him a thumbs-up, then runs along the wall towards his party nearby.
On the other side of the four girls, Kirito gives Nezha some instructions. Once Nezha scurries off to a distance, Kirito faces his party. "I'm going to trigger a line on purpose-get ready to use sword skills!"
"You betcha!"
"All right!"
"Ready!"
"Let's go!"
Jaymes doesn't boast a vocal response to Kirito's plan, but he watches the swordsman watch the lines along the floor as they begin to slow down. Until they do something about the limbs, they have a low chance of bringing down and attacking the head. The room's design and prior gaming experience favor that strategy, and if they had more time, maybe the boss quests would have revealed more of Fuscus' secrets.
"Here we go!" Kirito steps on one of the blue lines, which reacts instantaneously with a circle forming under his right foot. He leaps out of the way just in time to avoid a black arm passing through the floor. At one time, Jaymes' party attack the hand with sword skills. After six powerful lights slash and pierce around it, the hand retreats alongside a fierce roar from the ceiling. Fuscus, its head still poking out the top of the chamber, is unhappy about the attack.
But its first of six health bars is dangerously low.
Preparing to counter, Fuscus' mouth widens, and the strange symbol on top of its head flashes red. But whatever it had planned, it's halted by a flying circular object-Nezha's chakram-that strikes the symbol on point. As the color returns to blue, Fuscus' face shrinks back into the ceiling, its twelve eyes and mouth shutting close.
"Is that it..." Jaymes murmurs to himself. Seeing nothing else was going to happen. Glancing at Kirito, Jaymes takes the plunge by stepping on another line. This time, the circle appears at the ceiling, so he bounces back as a black foot slams down on the floor, then the six hit it with another round of sword skills.
"That's it!" Diavel shouts. "Let's attack in this procedure! Nezha, you watch for its debuff attack and cancel it! We can do this if we watch carefully, got it!"
"Affirmative! We'll try attacking next!"
"We will, too!"
"And us over here!"
"Don't count us out!"
Hafner, Agil, Okotan, and Klein reacted quickly. Aside from Jaymes' party and omitting Nezha, everyone else was scattered from their respective groups into three mixed groups, But that didn't stop any of the twenty-two raiders.
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For ten minutes, the pattern of stepping on a line, avoiding and attacking the limb, and canceling another debuff roar worked in their favor. With all four limbs being attacked, three of Fuscus' six bars of health were wiped out in a matter of ten minutes. It continued until halfway into the fourth health bar. The plan was to regroup and retreat momentarily when a health bar was emptied, but Fuscus hadn't changed attacks, leading to some complacency. And had not Nezha called out, Jaymes admits he would not have noticed that the walls, now lined with the blue lines, were moving.
"Retreat down the stairs." Kirito shouts out. A hard call, but with the walls coming down on them, they have no choice. But there was something Kirito wasn't saying; if everyone left the room, the boss would lose aggro and heal quickly. At least one person would need to stay behind, and the Black Swordsman had volunteered himself.
"But-"
"Go!" Diavel interrupts Hafner's protest, the raid leader sheathing his sword and leading the charge to the staircase.
"Koharu, let's go," Jaymes says. His partner nods and follows the rest towards the stairs with him. With a passing glance to the ceiling, Jaymes looks to the face of the golem monster...except there was no face there at all. Instinctively, he grabs Koharu's wrist. "Wait! The boss...is gone."
"Huh? What do you...how?" Koharu's eyes roam from the ceiling to the circumference of the room. By now, Asuna had taken notice of Fuscus' absence and called it to Kirito and Mito's attention. But Jaymes couldn't locate the blocky head of the boss. Not on the moving walls nor between the rapidly moving lines racing along the floor, ceiling, and walls.
They haven't defeated it, so where did the face go? Did it move to-
"No, Shiba!"
Liten's metallic voice rings out, and Jaymes' eyes lock in on Shivata, who's with Hafner at the stairs. But that's not what's eye-catching. Underneath Shivata, where the staircase should have been, is replaced with the mouth and face of Fuscus the Vacant Colossus. Confused and frozen by the new development, it's Hafner who explains what the hell happened as he tries yanking Shivata out of the monster's mouth. "The stairs...turned into its mouth!"
SAO, at its core, is a fair game. Forget the two most dangerous elements of the game (there are no revival items, and death here means death in the real world), and it is no different than any other video game. Everyone in the game has a fair chance of encountering quests, leveling up, enhancing their craft, and the boss battles are escapable. That was Jaymes' understanding; at least previous experience has proven that the raiders could escape back through the doors of the boss chamber. The last floor had a slight change to the rule-the flooded room could only be opened from the outside-but not once was escape impossible.
Until now.
While watching Diavel, Agil, and a few others hack at Fuscus' face to save Shivata (with little to no damage applied to Fuscus), Jaymes stands with his group with his focus on the battle in case the limbs reappear. He previously thought that the limbs were phase one of the fight, then they'll tackle the face. If the situation were to change, they'd prepare for it. It was working when they only thought the boss was the disconnected arms, face, and legs. But the walls and change of location...
"Damn...what's the deal with this boss and all the appearing and disappearing?" Kirito growls.
"So that's what they mean by Vacant Colossus," Asuna responds with a gasp. "Vacant means empty, and colossus means giant statue...I think it's referring to the entire chamber. This room is the boss of the fifth floor."
Mito grits her teeth. "So we're fighting this entire room? That's crazy, even for a magical golem!"
"What do we do, Jaymes?"
Koharu's whimper sparks action into Jaymes' tongue. He doesn't know what to do now, but that's for later. The first thing on his mind is saving Shivata. Looking at the blue-haired swordsman, he yells, "Diavel! The sigil on the head! Strike it!"
Diavel's head shakes back and forth. "It's not there!"
"H-huh?" No, that doesn't make sense. From the Hebrew legends to modern fairytales, golems are created from the earth, and their attachment to "life" is a sigil carved or drawn on their bodies. The removal or destruction of the sigil means the end for the golem. To further this, all the golems they fought leading up to the boss had the sigils too.
"J-Jaymes..." Koharu's voice now stutters and struggles to come from her throat, and her left-hand holds the sleeve. He glances at her, seeing her frightened face. The face he reaffirmed three hours ago to protect along with Kirito, Asuna, Mito, Argo, and everyone here, but hers most of all. Seeing her afraid resurfaces his nervousness before entering the labyrinth, causing the Flame Shield and the sword named Imperial to weigh down his body.
In just six days, he would make it to his sixteenth birthday. He hadn't planned on telling Koharu or anyone, believing it wouldn't be right to celebrate such a day when they have other things like progressing the game, but now he regrets that decision just as much as he regrets not doing more for the girls on Christmas. Hell, he doesn't recall any New Year's plans beyond what they're doing now.
Then the unexpected happens. "I won't let you...kill Shibaaaaaaaa!" Liten, with a great roar, leaps into the jaw of Fuscus and willingly joins Shivata inside. At this moment, the golem's teeth break Shivata's armor, bursting them into blue shards of light, but they chimp down on Liten's armored gauntlets before they get to the flesh of Shivata's avatar.
"What! Licchan, why would you do that?"
The brave woman looks up to her partner while holding the teeth back with her hands. "B-because I'm a tank! It's my job to protect others!"
"Honestly...I'm scared. But I promised Sachi I'd fight and I'd live. And...I'd protect you."
"Hey, that's my line. Just don't trip over your feet again."
"Oh, not that again!"
Those words were the final statements spoken between Koharu and Jaymes before fighting Illfang the Kobold Lord, and for some reason, seeing Liten and Shivata replays that scene in his head. Without warning to Koharu or himself, Jaymes removes his right arm from Koharu's grasp and slaps his chest hard. It stings, but it reminds him of his purpose. "Get it together, Joshua," he murmurs to himself. "You're an experienced gamer. Use the information presented before you, figure out the puzzle...and win this game and bring her home."
The information presented before him? Fuscus can move its head around the room. No, as Asuna noted earlier, it's safe to say this room is Fuscus. But forget that for now-Fuscus is nothing more than a golem. Like all golems, its weak point is the symbol that binds its existence. It used to be on the head...so if the head, hands, and feet can move around in space...
"It's on the limbs."
"You think so too?" Kirito says as if he came to the same conclusion. Jaymes nods in response, then Kirito looks to the group in the center of the room. "Do whatever you can to avoid the lines, guys! if you can't help it, then climb up on the boss' face!"
Jaymes doesn't wait on Kirito when he faces the girls and Nezha to issue orders. "Mito, Asuna, we're going to step on the lines and draw the limbs intentionally. Koharu, Argo, and Nezha stay back and use your eyes. Look for the symbol that was on Fuscus' face and attack it!"
"Got it!"
"You bet!"
"I'll try!"
"On it!"
"Right!"
"Let's do this!" Jaymes, Kirito, Asuna, and Mito wait for the lines to slow down. Each waited until a line crossed before them, then stepped on it. Once a circle appeared from above or below, they moved out of the way. Kirito and Mito drew out Fuscus' left and right arm; Jaymes and Asuna got the right and left leg.
As the right limb slammed down, Jaymes began orbiting it, searching for the complex pattern all around the black leg. But he double-checked and triple-checked before the leg started to rise back in the air. No one else had called out the same for their limb. Was he wrong? And if he was...
"I found iiiiit!" screams Nezha, pointing up to the floating left limb. On the back of it is the symbol, though it is twelve feet and counting as the limb returns to the ceiling. Acting first, Kirito sprints towards the limb while placing the Sword of Eventide over his shoulder. He's going to use Sonic Leap to cross the distance if possible.
"Duck, Kii-boy!" Before he can get into the pre-motion for the skill, Kirito ducks on command, and off of him bounces Argo the Rat. With agility that rivals Koharu, the informant flies toward the limb, baring her right claw at the peak of her jump. It glows purple, and the symbol shoots her little body forward as a charging sword skill, Acute Vault, takes over her movement. As she gets close, she leaves three red slashes diagonally across the blue sigil.
In response, Fuscus bellows a pained howl so great it pops Shivata and Liten out of its mouth. After seeing Liten's armor suffer damage but remain intact, Jaymes turns his attention to the retreating Fuscus, whose face sinks into the floor and vanishes. The stairs return, but that doesn't concern Jaymes as his eyes get ahead of Fuscus, beating the golem's face back to the center of the ceiling. It flashes all twelve eyes and begins to chuckle down at them. In Jaymes' mind, the golem knew their attack was desperate.
"Tsk... It still has a fight in it. Let's not lose this momentum."
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Now that they knew the extended pattern. Jaymes and his comrades continued the fight without any significant injuries. Fuscus did make them stumble around a bit with numerous random sensory debuffs, such as reduced vision or hearing. Those with impairments fell victim to the stomps or grab attacks.
But they kept up their energy, and eventually, the impromptu group of players held off Fuscus for thirty more minutes. By 8:05 pm, one hour after beginning the fight against Fuscus, they reached the sixth and final health bar and the critical junction of the battle.
"Vwohhhhh!" Fuscus, now in rage mode, roars its loudest roar yet. Its eyes turn red, and the players steel themselves for the final attack pattern. While the others prepare themselves by checking their items, Jaymes and his partner keep their eyes on the room.
The first change is the blue lines. They no longer crisscross the entire room but begin to race from the center of the floor by the staircase to the walls and the ceiling to Fuscus. Once they reach the head, they circle around it before the head falls from the ceiling. Four circles appear, releasing the hands and feet, but they don't come to the ground this time. Instead, they fall slowly and in alignment with the head, extending towards it. The hands grow into elbows and shoulders, the feet into knees and hips, and they connect with the head at a blocky torso.
"Vwoooooaaa!" It roars again as it transforms into a proper golem, but it hovers in the air. That roar did have an immediate effect, though. The walls around them shake for a moment, then start glowing green, and within that green are hundreds of red lights that begin moving from the walls to the floor like an untamed wave.
"Stone monsters," Koharu says. "Golems are coming out of the walls!"
"We're surrounded. This definitely isn't good." Agil's assessment is correct. The golems are coming in droves, and Fuscus glances down from the air. It doesn't seem in a hurry to finish the twenty-two off itself, but rather let its minions do the job.
"Everyone, calm down!" Diavel commands. "Meet up in the center, and we'll take them down one by one! Tanks on defense, DPS on attacking! Argo will control the mobs! If we do our jobs right, there's no enemy that can't be beaten!" He says that, but there's something off about him. He looks...tense, but not because of the mobs.
"Roger that! Everyone, over here!" Agil and his Bro Squad lead the race to the room's center and form a circle under Fuscus' feet. The golems follow, surrounding them on all sides and forcing them to fight. The small golems aren't tough, but their numbers give them strength. Because of that, no more than two golems can attack a single player. the players hold them off from advancing any further with teamwork.
While that goes on, Jaymes cannot help but think about what he noticed about Diavel. Right now, he speaks with Argo, so the warrior tunes his sense of hearing to that conversation. "Hey, Argo. See that lever on the wall? That wasn't there during the beta. See what I'm talking about?"
"On the wall? Oh, that's like the ones we saw in the underground dungeon! When we pulled them and solved a puzzle, we opened the chamber's ceiling and exposed the zombie monster to sunlight. But I don't think it'll serve the same purpose here... When did you notice the lever?"
"Long ago, but I didn't think it served a purpose until now. Given how it slightly protrudes from the wall, you'd be forgiven for not noticing it. It might be the key for this moment. I have an idea... Ahem! Tanks, no, everyone with shield skills! Pull the aggro of the smaller golems! Open up a path to the wall."
"What for?" Shivata asks.
"There's a lever on that wall. If someone pulls it, it should yank the floor away and eliminate the golems. But whatever you guys do, don't move from this spot."
"Okay. You guys with shields heard him! If you have a taunt skill, use it! Let's make a path!" Liten, Jaymes, and Shivata, through some weird synchronization, raise their right arms and push out their left arms. Their shields glow silver and emit a bell-ringing sound. Using a shield skill called Threatening Roar, they move as many golems as possible away from the path in front of Diavel, enough for him to half a partially cleared path.
While the fighting resumes, Jaymes keeps his eyes on the running knight. "Why is Diavel acting as a decoy? He might be right about the lever, but...something isn't right. The whole thing, how Diavel suddenly started acting strange, throws Jaymes off. That feeling bugs Jaymes as Diavel reaches the lever but doesn't pull it down immediately. Why is he hesitating? The longer he does so, the longer they'll have to fight. "Diavel! You can drop them now..."
"There's a lever on that wall. If someone pulls it, it should yank the floor away and get rid of the golems. But whatever you guys do, don't move from this spot."
An oddly specific order...because it is as it sounds. As far as the players know, there's only one layer below this room: the stairs between this room and the corridor below. The rest of the chamber doesn't have an immediate bottom for several layers, if at all. There are only two highly probable safe spots; the center of the room and the right above the stairs.
The lever is in neither place.
"...Diavel! You can't pull the lever! If you do-"
"Hey, Jaymes," Diavel interrupts as he turns to Jaymes. His face is the definition of confidence, but his voice betrays him. It wavers with indecision, with fear, with fright. "I've got a favor to ask. Until now, you've been supporting the front with the boss hunt. If...I don't return...I want you to continue the fighting."
"No way," Argo gasps, shocked by her sudden realization. "The floor...will drop everywhere. But the only ground underneath this room is the stairs right here..." Everyone else comes to the same realization Jaymes did moments before, all eyes turning on Diavel.
"Diavel! Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Don't pull that lever!"
"You can't... You can't die on us like that!"
Diavel, hand still on the lever, keeps his eyes on Jaymes despite the protests. "Jaymes! You never gave me an answer that day after the first meeting. So can I have it? Please?"
"You're an ex-beta tester, right?"
"...Yeah, I am."
"I thought so. Well, here's a secret. So am I. I've been up higher than Floor 2. And what Kibaou said...is right. The minute this death game started, I...should've stayed to help. But I knew I couldn't protect everyone alone. And I thought, what if saving one person meant someone else dies? I couldn't handle the burden and ran. So I decided I want to unite the top players, clear this floor, and reach the next level. I want to lead us to victory over all 100 floors and save everyone! That's my purpose here and my cause! And I'd like your help."
"But...all I can is protect Koharu, and I'm barely doing that. Why ask me this?"
"For that alone. Instead of running away from others like most beta players, you choose to protect another even if it risks your life. That's why I know I can ask you this. So please, think about it."
"I..." Jaymes grits his teeth, hiding his face behind his shield. "I cannot say I can save everyone. I cannot say I'll make it to the end. I only want to protect her and die doing that... But recently, I found reasons to survive beyond Koharu." Jaymes lifts his head, staring back at Diavel with a determined expression. "I'll do it. I'll help you. I'll help lead everyone to Floor 100 and save everyone. I will help you bring everyone home."
Diavel, his body relaxing, breathes a sigh of relief as he pulls down the lever. "Then, Jaymes, I leave the rest to you." The floor quickly recedes into the wall, revealing a pit of darkness everywhere. Even the stairs higher up in the chamber vanished, leaving nothing but a pit of darkness around the sole platform that makes up the room's center. Not a single golem escapes the darkness.
And neither does Diavel.
From the moment he pulled down the lever, Jaymes' eyes lingered on the knight's status bar. Silently he wished for an increased roll of luck. He prayed to God for divine intervention. He hoped Akihiko Kayaba would grace them with one moment of relief. But his luck stat isn't abnormally high, God has denied his prayer, and Kayaba is still the bastard he's always been. The moment Diavel's health bar vanished and the floor returned to normal, Jaymes knew that the man responsible for their being here today, who he once saved from death, had finally fallen. The first casualty of the boss raids.
"That... That can't be... Diavel is..."
If only he were stronger...
"No way... No way..."
If only ALS hadn't come up with their ridiculous plot to claim the Guild Flag...
"Diavel... You just came back..."
If only Morte and his group hadn't deceived ALS...
"What do we do now?"
If only the man in the poncho, who must be the 'boss" Morte and all in league with him follow, wasn't a sick bastard who got his jimmies off in hurting others...
"Retreat!" Kirito's cry shakes everyone out of their stupor. The remaining twenty-one players rush to the walls as the thirty-foot-tall golem lands in the center of the room. The blue lines that course through its body become blood-red. It roars a third time, waving its hammer-like arms in rage.
But its anger is incomparable to Jaymes. Tightening his grip on his red-tipped longsword, Jaymes points it at Fuscus in a similar manner that Diavel pointed his own blade towards Illfang long ago. Fighting both tears and temper, his voice rattles between breaking and venom as he speaks. "You heard Diavel. He said to finish this fight and make it to Floor 100. He wanted us, whether ALS, DKB, or unaffiliated, to work together and beat this heartless game. Like everyone in this game, he knows the risks of fighting are high, but he said screw it and assemble us together in Tolbana. He ignited a flame of hope that has to be carried to the very end...and as the one who carries that in his stead, I'll ask this of all of you. One last push. one more round...let's beat the hell out of this bastard and ring in the new year in his place. Are you with me?"
"Always." The first person to respond shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it was so immediate. Jaymes turns his head slightly as the girl with black hair joins his side, her Bullstar dagger glinting in the low-lit room. Yet her green eyes, usually filled with kindness or occasionally sadness, burns with an emerald rage. "Let's do this...for Diavel."
"Jaymes and Koharu are right." To Jaymes' left comes Kirito and Asuna, weapons held at the ready. "For Diavel."
"We'll win this...for Diavel!"
"For Diavel!" becomes the chant as the remaining seventeen players grab their weapons and charge toward the daunting golem one final time.