The Black Swordsman

Chapter 26: The Nightmare Fairy, Akumu Pt. 3

So, this is the boss of this floor...a literal dragon? I thought to myself as I stared up at the intimidating beast in front of me that was nearly finished charging up its breath attack. On second thought...

I checked the dragon's health and realized that the bosses' name was "The Nightmare Fairy, Akumu" and that he only had 2% health left. I then recalled that each of the previous bosses had a special ability that they saved for when they were low on health.

This must be his, then...it's one hell of an ability...to be able to transform like this, that is. To be honest, I can't believe that Lisbeth was able to handle one of the bosses by herself. Not only that, she was able to get it down to 2% without any help from me or the others. Asuna always did talk about how much potential she had. Shit, if we had her on the front lines back in SAO...

"Kirito, be careful", warned Lisbeth from behind, causing me to refocus on my current situation.

"Right", I answered as I changed by stance and held both of my swords in front of me, causing them to glow. "Get behind me, Lisbeth", I ordered as I began spinning both of my swords in front of me as quickly as I could which was activating a weapon defense skill named "Spinning Shield."

Lisbeth, despite having a look of doubt on her face followed my instructions and got behind me.

"Lisbeth, this should be able to block the majority of this attack", I hypothesized. "While I'm blocking the attack, do you think you can get up close attack while he's distracted by me? I know it's pretty scary fighting something this big but—"

"Don't worry about that, Kirito", Lisbeth interrupted, smiling. "I'm not scared in the slightest. I got this."

I couldn't help but return her a smile after hearing her confidence and then focused all of my attention onto the weapon defense skill which I knew I had to give everything I had to buy Lisbeth as much time as possible.

Ok, here it comes, I thought to myself, prepared.

Akumu's fire and shadow breath attack blasted from the creature's mouth, directly at me and the insanely powerful surge was enough to push me back but the spinning of my blades, that were acting as shields, was able to deflect most of the attack right back Akumu, himself. Luckily, another one of my gambles paid off as well because the part of the breath attack that was deflected back at Akumu caused the massive dragon some damage, dropping his health to 1%. As soon as the breath attack was over, I returned my swords to my sides and started panting from exhaustion. The attack only did about 10% damage to my health but it took a lot of energy to execute such a strong defensive skill, especially against such a powerful attack. If I hadn't have blocked it the way I did, it most likely could have taken me out...one single attack...it was a scary thought.

Okay, my part was a success. Now, it's up to you, Lisbeth. You got this.

My eyes focused on and followed Lisbeth as she was able to reach Akumu without him noticing, her mace glowing pink from the activation of her sword skill.

"Damn it, when did you get so close?" asked Akumu, finally noticing how close Lisbeth was to him. "I won't let you get any closer!"

"That's perfectly fine with me", claimed Lisbeth as she kicked off of the floor of the castle and instead of hitting Akumu, himself, lifted the mace above her head and smashed the weapon into the floor of the castle with as much force as she could produce, causing a giant lightning bolt to strike Akumu, dealing massive damage to him. This was the one-handed weapon skill called "Lightning Fall", a rare move that could be learned in SAO. I was genuinely surprised that Lisbeth knew about it and was curious where she learned it.