Sword Art Online Integral Factor - The Demon Lord Of Aincrad - On Hiatus -

Chapter 6 - Illfang (edited slightly)

What I remember about the First Floor Boss was how, except for the change of weapons at the end, how basic it was, and that Koharu and the others had secretly tagged along with the boss clearing team despite my best wishes, for a boss, if you got out of the way at every turn, it was probably an easy fight hands down. Then again, every time he lost a health bar, and at the beginning of the fight, he deployed his sentinels which my demon lord sword made short, and indeed, short work. I actually broke one of the sentinels' weapons in half, and in amazement, he looked at me for a second, and then attempted to punch me. Another slice and it was dead, another useless pathetic attempt at claiming another player's life from him. It seemed so easy, like we were going to get through this without a hitch. Then, he revealed a weapon he hadn't used in the beta testing. Diavel had ran toward him, wanting to get the final hit in, but the boss practically reduced him to helplessness in no time flat. As he was about to go in for the final blow, an aura of rage engulfed me and turned my vision red and I ran in there, with the demon sword colliding with Illfang's blade so hard some of the people witnessing it sweared afterward that they saw multiple sparks flying off from the collision. The boss recoiled, knocked off balance, but recovered quickly and went to strike me, but I ducked under his first strike and countered, the demon sword breaking Illfang's blade clean off from the hilt, and it disappeared into a million pixels. "The ****?" someone shouted. "He just broke the boss' blade clean off!" shouted another. Illfang stood and looked at me, dumbfounded. Then, he seemingly realized the truth about me and backed away in fear. As much as I wanted to spare his life, believe me.. the rage still drove me, and I lashed out with a unbelievably powerful attack that sliced what remained of his last health bar, which was nearly at full bar, in a 6 hit combo. The black haired boy from the meeting had ran up, intending to deliver the final blow, but I swung and struck so fast that by the time he got there, I had already defeated the boss, and to be fair, the only other time I would strike so fast would be when in Underworld, I turned those pieces of **** Raios and Humbert into a pile of sliced up body parts over their attempted rape of Ronie and Tiese. My vision returned to normal as I sheathed the sword and breathed a little, as Koharu and Alexis ran up and hugged me. Crawford also walked up to me, his mouth slack jawed. "Richard, how in the world did you do that?! You just ******* broke the boss' blade clean off with that sword!" He yelled. I looked at him, and gave him as much of a shrug as I could, arms busy hugging Koharu and Alexis. Before I could open my mouth though, Kibaou interrupted. "Now what in the world was that you just pulled?" He said, confused and angry. "Trust me, dude" I said back to him. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you how I even got this sword to begin with, so all I could tell you was I saw the boss changed weapons, was caught off guard for a bit, then Diavel went down and was about to die, then I saw red and just dove in there" I replied. Kibaou softened for a bit. "At least that's two people that didn't die today, so in the purpose of giving us hope, thanks" he said, before getting angry and turning to the guy who tried to get the final strike when I defeated Illfang. "Kirito, why did you not go and help him while he was defending Diavel? You must be a beta tester that knew about the boss' secret move and didn't tell anyone! You nearly let Diavel die so you could get the final hit! You traitorous beater!" he yelled at Kirito. Kirito lowered his head, and then smirked, a smirk so off key I must confess I actually shuddered a little at it. "Heh.. a beater.. I like it" Kirito said, and walked toward the stairs leading toward the second floor. Deep down inside, I knew why he had did that. But as much as I felt sorry for him, he had unwittingly protected my secret for now. How long before everyone else besides my friends knew of my secret, though? That is what I thought as I started toward the stairs to the second floor, oblivious to the affectionate looks of both Koharu and Alexis.