Alphard covered herself with her chitin shield and braced for impact. Instead of eating her, the worm reared up and sought to crush her under its enormous girth. The monster’s body crashed down on Alphard and she felt her shield let loose an ominous groan. Without warning, the shield’s durability gave out and shattered into billions of shining shards. In the split second between the shield giving away and the Boss crushing Alphard, Kimi sprang in and sunk her rapier into the beast repeatedly. The worm reared back in an attempt to shake the girl loose and Alphard rolled out from under it. Escaping backwards, Alphard quickly drank a health potion, her last one. 

As Alphard recovered from her ordeal, Jason sprang in to assist Kimi. He leapt far into the air and unleashed a special Sword Art uniquely designed to be used during a jump. <Defiler> began to glow with a shining blue light as <Orbital Drop> activated. The blow smashed deeply onto the crown of the worm’s head. Jason was rewarded with watching a full eighth of its health drop. The second step of the art was a short leap backwards. Jason’s enhanced mobility turned this hop into a great leap that ate up distance like a hungry teen. The unfortunate side effect of this Sword Art was that it had an obscenely long cooldown time. Jason was frozen in place and would be for fifteen more seconds. 

Alphard then took her turn in covering her teammate. She charged the Boss’ flank, sinking her scythe deep into the monster’s side. She then ran up towards its maw, drawing the blade along with her. The resulting gash was wide, but it seemed to barely do any damage. In light of this, Alphard brought out her javelin and used a recently acquired Art, <Greater Thrown Weapon> the lance flew true and buried itself completely into the wound she had just made. [i]well, that’s one javelin I won’t be getting back[/i] she thought. At precisely that moment, Suto and Nero arrived to offer their support. “Hey boys, welcome to the fight! Took you long enough, though!”