Sword Art Online – Progressive - Volume 8 - Chapter 25

25

DRAGON.

The word came from the Ancient Greek drakon, for serpent, a word that itself came from even further back in the Indo-European family, where it held meanings such as “to see,” “bright,” and “light.”

As for why the word for “to see” evolved into dragon, it was apparently because dragon meant “something with a deadly gaze.” It didn’t make much sense to me when I read this on the internet in elementary school, but now, years later, I finally had the chance to experience what it was those ancients were so afraid of.

“Here comes the gaze! Everyone under level twenty, look down!” I shouted.

Two bloodred eyes flashed at the other end of the huge hall.

It was just light, neither hot nor cold. But an unpleasant freezing sensation raced up my back and prickled my skin all over. A number of players who ignored my warning and looked into the light froze up, affected by a stun effect.

The sources of light were two eyes with crimson irises and vertical slit pupils—the eyes of the seventh-floor boss of Aincrad, Aghyellr the Igneous Wyrm.

As I’d expected, Aghyellr was greatly strengthened since the beta test. One of the new features was the menacing gaze it emitted. It started by widening its wings, then flashing its eyes. If you looked into the light, any player under level 20 was immediately stunned. Asuna and I cleared that hurdle, but the recommended level for the seventh floor, if you accounted for a healthy safety margin, was only level 17, and most of the group was around there. Aside from us, the only 20s were probably Lind, Kibaou, Agil, Argo, and then Kizmel and Kio. If SAO wasn’t a deadly game, you’d probably be able to finish the seventh floor at around level 10 with a lot of luck and ingenuity—and a good five to ten deaths—so it was asking a lot to expect people to be level 20 already.

But of course, the boss wasn’t going to go easy on us.

In the back of the chamber, the massive dragon curved its long neck into an S shape, wings folded. Sparks began to spill from the edges of its closed jaw.

“Here comes the breath! Tanks, prioritize whoever’s stunned!” I shouted again, and the six parties that made up our raid—teams A, B, and C, made up of the DKB, and D, E, and F from the ALS—gathered together, with the shield-bearing players taking positions up front. I was the leader of team G, and Agil was the head of team H, but because neither of our two teams had any shield users, we quickly retreated and hid behind the other parties.

Aghyellr’s neck shot forward like a whip, and it opened its mouth wide.

Fwoom! The air trembled. The orange flames that emerged fanned outward, covering the long and narrow chamber.

As the flame breath hit the tank shields, there was an explosive roar, and the fire billowed upward, causing the experienced and talented frontrunners to shriek. Aghyellr wasn’t the first boss to use a breath attack, but there was something about dragon fire that stirred primeval fears.

And unlike direct attacks, fire could still snake around the sides of the shield blocking it. If a six-person party bunched together as close as possible, they could all just barely fit behind a greatshield, but standing farther back, we still had to deal with the secondary wave of flames.

“Let’s go…right here!”

Asuna, Argo, and I had Kio and Nirrnir surrounded, and on Kizmel’s instruction, we used single-hit sword skills to the left and right against empty air. Four different attack vectors cut through the onrushing flames, neutralizing it. There was still a major cloud of sparks, however, and I couldn’t help but swear, “Ouch!”

The reason that swearing was the worst I had to deal with was thanks to an icon below my HP bar featuring a shield and flames. A flame-resistance buff was extremely valuable in SAO—and we had that thanks to Argo, who pulled out all the Snow Tree Buds in her inventory and sprinkled the entire raid party with their ice water. If not for that, each bout of flame breath, even if blocked by shield and sword, would have taken a good 10 percent of our HP. To our right, the Bro Squad was utilizing a similar tactic, except that it was one person using a wider Two-Handed Sword skill, with the other three ducking behind him to escape the brunt of the fire.

Watching them almost made me want to try out the Two-Handed Sword skill. The rolling wave of flames passed by us and died out. Up front, a voice barked out sharp orders.

“A and C, move up and strike its left leg! D and F, take the right! B and E, pull back and heal! G and H, strike from the sides!”

At those words from Lind, the scimitar-brandishing leader of DKB, a few dozen players roared and charged. He’d been elected primary leader of the raid on a coin toss, and it was perhaps a sign of how crucial this fight was that the ALS’s Kibaou was following those orders without comment.

Asuna and I were usually treated as “miscellaneous” members during boss battles, but since we were offering special rewards this time, we were allowed to give orders to the raid as special supervisors. I’d told them I would give the guild flag or Sword of Volupta to whichever guild “helped more”—which was intentionally vague and undefined because I wanted to avoid a simple competition to inflict more damage—and that instruction had brought us this unexpected bonus honor.

But for now, I was only speaking up to warn about the boss’s special moves. Lind was doing fine ordering the group’s attacks. And honestly, when it came to keeping tabs on the HP levels of each party and moving them forward and back, he was a better leader than I was. Despite their bickering, Lind and Kibaou were both proving themselves to be good learners.

The attackers surged toward Aghyellr’s front feet and began to hack at the beast while it was slowed after the breath attack. Aghyellr was over thirty feet long, and its head was twelve feet off the ground in a normal stance, so the usual strategy against monsters of this size was to attack their feet and get them to lower their heads. That was how we’d beaten Aghyellr in the beta, in fact.

Our teams weren’t just standing around, either. We followed the leader’s orders, the four of us aside from Kio (carrying Nirrnir) racing at full speed toward the left side of Aghyellr from our perspective and slamming our sword skills into the beast’s unguarded flank.

Two or three seconds later, the Bro Squad’s giant axes and hammers were smashing at the right side of the boss. In our second group attack, we eliminated the first of Aghyellr’s six HP bars.

The Irrational Cube from the sixth floor only had a single bar, so six seemed like an endless slog, but this boss didn’t have any complex puzzle gimmicks like that cube did, and the dragon’s defense wasn’t boosted up as high as I feared. If we could take out one whole HP bar in two rounds of offense, that meant ten more attack chances to finish the other five bars. Not that it’s going to be that simple, I thought, just as Aghyellr recovered from its sluggishness and emitted a metallic roar.

“Arm attack…left!”

The DKB attackers around the left-front leg—the right leg, from Aghyellr’s perspective—quickly retreated. The arm lifted high into the air and slammed into the ground like a piece of heavy demolition equipment, creating huge cracks in the ground. Nobody was hit directly, but three or four of them were swallowed up by shock waves that were impossible to avoid, losing about 20 percent HP.

“Now comes the right!” I continued, and it was the ALS’s turn to back away. A ferocious rumble shook the entire boss chamber. The hit could be fatal if inflicted directly, but it was such a slow and obvious attack that nobody talented and dedicated enough to be a raid party melee fighter could fail to dodge it.

While it swung its arms, teams G and H continued to attack its sides, grinding down over a third of the second HP bar. The DPS numbers for Asuna, Argo, and the Bro Squad were top of the class among the group, but it was Kizmel’s attack power that was truly outrageous. Even with a replacement weapon, her single-attack sword skills inflicted as much damage as two-part, two-handed skills.

But it’s too dangerous to get greedy, I reminded myself, right as Lind cried, “Everyone withdraw!!”

He must have caught some lead-in movement of the dragon’s head, which I couldn’t see from my position. We rushed straight for the rear of the chamber, the sound of myriad scales sliding and scraping behind us. I glanced over my shoulder as I ran and caught sight of Aghyellr’s huge body curled into a C shape.

Then a tail like a tree trunk swung forth and pulverized the stone walls to the left and right. Dust clouded the area, hiding the dragon’s body. An omnidirectional tail attack was something new since the beta. The first time it used it in the fight, it caught three people, taking 70 percent of their health in one hit.

With everyone safely out of range, Lind gave the order for the damaged parties to switch with the parties who had been staying back and recovering with potions. Next would be another menacing gaze, followed by another breath attack, I guessed. As long as we avoided the gaze, we could deal with the flame breath.

“At this rate, we might not even need to use that sword,” Asuna whispered. I glanced over at the Sword of Eventide in my right hand.

She was referring to the Sword of Volupta, the weapon we’d gone to such lengths to gain in order to motivate the DKB and ALS—and to use as an ace up our sleeve against Aghyellr—but it was still in my inventory. It was registered to my quick-change setting, but I didn’t want to equip it if possible. That was because, earlier in the labyrinth, Kio had explained the downside behind those broken specs, and they were worse than I could have imagined.

As for Kio, she was still carrying Nirrnir strapped to her back with those leather cords. We tried to convince her to wait outside the boss chamber with her mistress, but she insisted, and we had to give in and allow her to come with us. But with the boss’s attacks demanding more dynamic forward-and-backward movement, and her burden leaving her unable to sprint, Kio was having trouble taking part in any of the offense.

She recognized her struggle, too, and gripped her estoc with obvious frustration. “I’m sorry…I was hoping I would prove to be useful…”

“Don’t worry. Your job is to protect Lady Nirr,” I replied at once, patting the maid’s arm. “If you waited outside the chamber, there was a possibility that several powerful monsters could have spawned all at once. As long as you stay near the door, none of the attacks will reach you aside from the flame breath, and we’ll be there to protect you from that. Our goal isn’t to defeat the dragon but to save Nirrnir’s life with its blood, right?” I said, speaking as fast as I could to save time. Kio looked me in the face and bobbed her head.

Up ahead, Lind shouted, “Here comes the gaze!”

Through the clearing haze of dust, I could see Aghyellr’s wings stretching wide.

It seemed that the boss’s attack pattern was fixed: gaze, flame breath, front leg attacks, tail attack. As long as you dealt with the gaze and the tail attack properly, we could push all the way through the fifth HP bar. It might change up its style on the last bar, like some previous bosses, but as long as we kept everyone’s HP up, we should be able to withstand its near-death frantic mode.

I squeezed the hilt of my trusty sword and glared back into the crimson glow of Aghyellr’s eyes. Do your worst, you scaly bastard!

From that point forward, the battle played out largely as I expected.

When we reached the fourth HP bar, meaning we’d finished off half of its health reserve, Aghyellr threw in a curveball by blowing fire three times consecutively, causing the majority of the frontline fighters to lose over 30 percent HP, but Lind and Kibaou deftly worked the groups into a healing rotation, and we were able to recover.

From that point on, the regular pattern resumed, and we took down the fourth bar, then the fifth. Forty minutes after the battle began, we reached the sixth and final HP bar of Aghyellr the Igneous Wyrm.

“Watch out for different attack patterns! Focus on guarding until you receive the order to attack!” Lind called out. The raid party turtled up on defense, with the tanks at the front. Agil’s team and ours held weapons up to block whatever unknown attack came next.

“Gwurrrrrl…”

Aghyellr growled in the very back of the chamber, low and long. It was deeper than its previous utterances, which put me in mind of a rage like oil threatening to ignite and explode.

The walls and floor were shattered all over from dozens of impacts from arms and tail, and pieces of rubble littered the ground. In fact, the buildup of obstacles had made it harder to approach the dragon’s flanks, but pretty soon, I suspected, we’d be able to disable its legs. If its head fell down to the floor, we should be able to press a full attack that would take out the last bar.

Suddenly, Aghyellr’s growling stopped. The wings spread to the sides.

“The gaze! It might be powered up! Everyone, look down, including level twenty and up!” Lind shouted. I recognized his logic and gave up on staring it back, looking at my feet instead. Asuna and Kizmel did the same on either side of me. The gaze effect activated about three seconds after the wings moved; I counted down the seconds in my head.

One, two…

“No! It’s not!” shouted Argo, the first to notice. There was a flapping sound now.

“…?!”

I looked up to see Aghyellr floating toward the ceiling, beating its wings powerfully.

Even in the beta, Aghyellr had never flown—no boss monster had, in fact. Fuscus the Vacant Colossus from the fifth floor had its face stuck to the ceiling of the chamber, and the Irrational Cube from the sixth floor had floated ten feet high above the ground, but neither of them were really “flying.”

Neither I nor anyone else in the raid knew what to do in the moment, so we froze.

“H-hey…he’s flyin’! What’s the plan, Lind?!” Kibaou demanded at last, but Lind was still stuck in place. Even I couldn’t tell what the best course of action would be yet.

Aghyellr rose nearly forty feet to the ceiling in a blink, and then its eyes flashed red.

The gaze attack!

“Aaaah!”

“Aieeee!”

Screams erupted from all over the chamber. Everyone in the raid party looked the dragon full in the eyes. Everyone under level 20—which was 90 percent of the group—was going to fall to the floor, stunned.

A stun was different from paralysis. It only lasted about three seconds, but three seconds was an agonizing lifetime right now, because Aghyellr was most likely about to…

“It’s going to breathe fire!!” Kizmel shouted, just as it opened its massive jaw and belched a mass of solid flames.

Unlike the previous breath attack, which fanned outward, this was a fireball about three feet across. A curtain of sparks sprayed from the sphere as it hurtled toward the center of the chamber. That was no simple ball-shaped mass of fire.

“Protect Nirrnir!” I shouted, covering Kio from behind where she stood in shock. Kizmel, Asuna, and Argo followed me, pressing in.

Just get through this, everyone! I willed to my fellow raid members, preparing for the shock.

Half a second later, the ball made contact with the floor—and caused a mammoth explosion.

First came the shock wave, then a wall of red flames a split second later. Clumped up together, we did our best to hold our ground, but it was impossible to withstand. We were tossed backward as though slapped by a giant hand and flew directly into the wall.

“Urgh…”

It felt like my body was going to be shattered to pieces. I willed my eyes to stay open so I could focus on not my HP bar, but Nirrnir’s.

There had been only 10 percent left, and the damage of the impact instantly gouged away more, putting her under 5 percent. We’d avoided instant death, but that was only because Kio was able to turn her body to take the brunt of the impact herself just before hitting the wall. In fact, she’d taken so much damage that she went all the way down to 30 percent, and an unconscious icon appeared.

Asuna’s HP was at 60 percent. Argo was at 50. Kizmel and I were at 70.

A heavy rumble passed through the floor. Aghyellr had concluded its hovering and landed in the center of the floor. The shock wave of the explosion slammed nearly every stunned raid member against the walls, where they collapsed atop each other. After a quick check of our HP list on the left side of my vision, I could see that no one had died instantly, but everyone was wounded. Many of them had only 20 or 30 percent remaining.

“Goaaahhhh!” Aghyellr roared triumphantly in the center of the room. It curved its neck to look at where Lind and team A were collapsed. All of them were deeply wounded; a single swipe from the dragon’s claws would finish them off.

“Urgh…” I groaned, trying to get to my feet, when I heard a faint voice.

“Kirito, stand me up.”

I looked to my right, feeling the breath catch in my throat.

Behind Kio’s back, where she slumped unconscious against the wall, Nirrnir’s eyes were open, just slightly, and staring at me. Up close, the crimson irises pierced my own.

“Hurry.”

Her voice was a barely audible rasp, but there was a stately command to it that was impossible to refuse.

I nodded, then used my sword to cut the straps holding her down, circling my free hand around her tiny body so we could stand together. The others were recovering from the shock of the impact and were looking at us in stunned silence.

Nirrnir left my arm to stand on her own, faltering slightly. She undid the clasp of the cloak and let it fall to the floor. Her long golden hair danced in the gusting, swirling aftermath the explosion had left behind.

In the distance, the fire dragon was taking step after step toward Lind’s group. It was barely ten yards away from them.

“Kirito, give me Falhari’s sword,” Nirrnir said, reaching toward me.

Deep in my heart, I knew this was coming. There was no other way out of this harrowing disaster in the making.

But Nirrnir only had 5 percent of her HP remaining…and because she had awoken from the comatose state the lobelia flower poison caused, the continual damage of the silver poisoning had resumed. She surely had less than a minute before it was all over.

Feeling like my insides were being torn to pieces, I opened my window and pressed the QUICK CHANGE button. The Sword of Eventide was wreathed in a white effect and vanished, replaced by the Sword of Volupta, a longsword of platinum and gold.

I held it out by the hilt and set the handle in Nirrnir’s hand.

Her little fingers curled around the red leather of the grip.

Immediately, the white jewel set into the pommel shone crimson. An invisible energy pushed back against my hand, causing me to stumble a few steps back. Nirrnir’s blond hair and black summer dress began to swell and swirl in the sudden gust of wind that rose, spiraling, from the floor.

The crimson light moved up the golden ridge on the flat of the blade and lit it up just as brightly.

The blade, which looked like platinum silver, turned a partially translucent black, like gilt melting and evaporating.

Yet the sword could not possibly have been made of silver. Only a Lord of the Night could draw out its true power—it was a vampire’s weapon.

The moment the sword’s tip took on its true color, the crimson flashed even brighter on the pommel and ridge. Aghyellr, sensing something was happening, stopped moving forward and swiveled its head around to look this way.

Nirrnir promptly pulled back the shining red sword with both hands and swung it forward with a piercing cry.

“Haaaaaa!!”

The scarlet blade of energy cut through the stone floor ahead of her and flew onward with shocking speed toward Aghyellr. But just before it split the beast’s scaly snout, the fire dragon leaped sideways with uncommon agility for its size. The slash passed it with a heavy zrunn! but severed Aghyellr’s left arm and wing at the root.

The sixth HP bar drained. It hit 70 percent, 60, 50—and then stopped.

“…I failed,” Nirrnir whispered. The Sword of Volupta slid from her hands and made a strange sound as it fell to the floor.

Her little body slumped over like a puppet with no one controlling its strings; I held out my hands to support her. She had 3 percent of her HP remaining.

“Nirrnir!!”

I went down to a knee and cradled her head. Her closed lids fluttered and opened very slightly.

“Please, Kirito. Take Kio and run.”

“Nirrnir…”

“Don’t bother with me. At least save Kio…” the girl rasped, the light in her crimson eyes wavering, flickering, then pooling in small droplets.

Her remaining HP was 2 percent.

In the distance, Aghyellr was roaring with fury. But I paid the dragon no heed—my mind was busy racing.

How to save Nirrnir, Kio, the girls, and all the other players here? There had to be a way. Had to, had to, had to…

“Please…”

Nirrnir’s voice was nothing but exhaled air now. Behind her thin lips gleamed white teeth…no, fangs.

Suddenly, I realized the only option I could take.

“Nirrnir, drink my blood!!”

“……”

The dying girl’s eyes opened just a bit more. Her HP amount was down to 1 percent.

“…No. If I do that, you will—”

“I don’t care! It’s the only way! I’m not going to regret it! So please…take my blood!!”

I stared into her eyes from just inches away, pleading with her, then lifted her head and pressed her mouth to the left side of my neck.

Her lips trembled against my skin with deep hesitation and distress.

But then they opened wider, and two sharp fangs pierced deep into my neck.

There was no sense of pain in SAO. A sword could chop off one of your hands or feet, and all you’d feel was an unpleasant numbness. But strangely enough, just this once, I felt a sensation of pain, purely honed, colder than ice, and yet somehow sweet, all over my body.

Nirrnir’s mouth and throat worked furiously, drinking all the blood flowing from my neck without missing a drop. When I dripped blood on the Scyia map from my finger, it was only a visual effect without physical form, but I could feel hot, thick liquid passing through my skin.

The girl’s HP bar, with its 1 percent remaining, began to quiver. The continual damage of the silver poisoning was battling the recovery effect of her vampirism. Without the actual dragon blood, I couldn’t purify the poison in her veins, but as long as this overpowered the damage, I could buy Nirrnir a few more minutes—or perhaps even longer.

Please…please work! I prayed, glancing briefly at my own HP bar, which was already under halfway. Obviously, there was no point if I died, so if I couldn’t neutralize Nirrnir’s poison by the time I reached 10 percent, Asuna or Argo would have to take my place. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The floor trembled irregularly. Aghyellr was approaching. With the loss of its left wing and arm, it couldn’t run normally, but it would surely reach us within thirty seconds…no, twenty.

I’m not going to make it in time, I lamented.

“Draw its attention! Hold it back!” shouted a rich baritone that filled the hall. I saw Agil and his companions charging toward Aghyellr from the right side. They’d all lost more than 30 percent HP, but there was no hint of fear in the way they brandished their two-handed weapons and struck at the dragon’s leg.

They must have volunteered to buy time, trusting that I had some miraculous, do-or-die plan in mind. I couldn’t leave them out there to die—but Nirrnir’s HP bar still wasn’t showing any signs of increasing.

My HP sank under 30 percent, approaching twenty. Was the gain from my blood perfectly equivalent to the continual damage of the poison? Even still, I couldn’t just give up…

At that very moment, someone grabbed my right shoulder and called out a command in a loud, determined voice.

“Heal!!”

A pink glow surrounded my body. My HP bar, which had been close to 10 percent, instantly shot back to full, all the way to the right.

After a brief instant of shock, I realized what had happened. Asuna used our one healing crystal, the one we’d picked up from the Verdian Lancer Beetle, on me.

Healing crystals had no effect on a Lord of the Night. But even still, the healing power that melted into my blood seemed to confer some kind of effect to her…

Rather than jittering in place back and forth, Nirrnir’s HP bar finally, just barely, began to increase instead.

Her mouth let go of my neck, and her hoarse voice sounded in my ear. “Thank you. I will be fine now.”

Nirrnir had recovered a bit of color in her cheeks, and she gave me a brave smile, clearly withstanding a lot of pain.

“The dragon, Kirito. You can do it now.”

I nodded and stood up straight, still holding Nirrnir around the side. Beneath my full HP bar, there was an icon I’d never seen before.

It was an image of crimson fangs over a black background. I didn’t need to look at my status window to know what it signified.

All of a sudden, I was overcome with a strange sensation.

The warmth was draining from my skin—from my insides. I wasn’t chilly. It was like my body temperature itself had gone cold. Although I couldn’t see it myself, I was sure my skin must have gone extremely pale.

There was a strange, tickling sensation inside my mouth, and my upper canines suddenly sharpened. My vision was oddly clear and crisp, allowing me a very sharp view all the way to the far end of the previously gloomy chamber.

Fortunately, I wasn’t struck with any sudden thoughts like, I must have blood! That was obvious, of course; the NerveGear could control my bodily senses, but it couldn’t control my thoughts. Still, I couldn’t help but be a bit relieved.

I spun on my heel and handed Nirrnir over to Asuna. My partner gave me a piercing upward gaze but took the little girl anyway and stepped back. I sent her a look of apology, then picked the Sword of Volupta up off the ground.

It seemed to stick to my palm, fitting right in. I squeezed hard, and the blade glowed red again. Beneath my HP bar, three new icons appeared. My guess was that they represented poison nullification, HP regeneration, and increased critical hit rate.

The true name of the semitranslucent, obsidian-like sword was Doleful Nocturne, according to Kio; Asuna filled me in on the meaning of the words, which was something like “mournful night song.” As the pamphlet at the casino claimed, it gave the wielder three extremely powerful buffs, but at the penalty of your soul power—meaning that it absorbed your accumulated experience points. Most likely, the real name and appearance had been hidden to conceal the fact that it was a terrifyingly wicked sword.

Only one kind of person could wield this sword without the downsides: a Dominus Nocte, or Lord of the Night. I opened my window just to check and did not notice my experience points going down. In other words, by allowing Nirrnir to suck my blood, I had also become a Lord of the Night—just like the ancient hero Falhari, who used this sword to slay the water dragon, Zariegha.

Was there a way for me to turn human again, or would I be like this forever? That was a question I didn’t need to answer at the moment. As I told Nirrnir, this was the only way to save everyone. I didn’t have an ounce of regret over my choice.

I gave the sword a light swing. Now that it was taking its true form, the feeling of flimsiness I got the first time I held the weapon was gone, replaced by a hefty strength that reminded me of my old friend, the Anneal Blade.

With both hands on the long grip, I hoisted the weapon high overhead. I wouldn’t be able to activate any One-Handed Sword skills, but instead…

“Agil, get back!” I shouted, drawing the attention of the Bro Squad from where they stood keeping Aghyellr occupied. They gaped at the sight of me and quickly retreated.

With all my strength, I swung the sword straight down and promptly flipped my wrists to continue sideways. The brilliant red slash formed a cross-shaped shock wave that flew forward.

Dodge that one, if you can! I taunted the dragon. Aghyellr’s right wing extended in another attempt to slide out of the way.

But the cross slash hit it right at the base of its neck, easily cutting it loose from the torso. Its long neck writhed like a great snake in the air, body and arm spinning backward with the force of the blow.

An explosion of blue flames erupted all the way to the ceiling, and Aghyellr the Igneous Wyrm’s body split into pieces.