Astral Online: Cursed by the Demon Lord to Become the Strongest Beautiful Girl, I Rapidly Grow and Dominate with Cheat Skills Despite Being the Weakest Profession - Chapter 47
Chapter 47: General Assault Part 2
“Team B, the ?Sonic Sword? is coming!”
At the moment of engagement, the Leviathan General charges forward at an incredible speed, wielding a massive sword.
The sheer presence of a 4-meter-tall giant charging at you with a sword as big as its own body is utterly terrifying.
The four knights standing in the path, without a single one flinching at the approach of the giant, take a stance and apply the ?Reinforce? spell, which strengthens their shields, and the ?Phalanx? spell, which reduces the damage they take by 50% once.
The enormous sword comes crashing down from above.
The knights block the attack with their enhanced shields, sliding back several meters from the impact.
The Leviathan General’s movement momentarily freezes after its attack is halted.
Seizing this opportunity, two attackers dash forward.
“Kuro, let’s go!”
“Right!”
Sora quickly closes the distance from the side using ?Sonic Turn?, then leaps high into the air, slashing the Leviathan General’s back twice with ?Dual Nail II?, which is imbued with wind.
Kuro slightly delays her attack, targeting the joint of the Leviathan General’s left leg with ?Sonic Sword II?, enhanced with Sora’s skill.
These two lightning-fast attacks, benefiting from the back attack bonus and hitting the weak spot, shave off about 30% of one of the enemy’s life bars.
The attack skill imbued with ?Lightning Attribute Enchantment II? counts as a magic attack, so it cannot be reduced.
Additionally, hitting the weak spot must have caused significant pain.
Naturally, the Leviathan General’s attention now turns toward us.
But this was expected.
“Giorl!”
“Team A, activate ?Provocation?!”
Giorl and the others in Team A use their skills to attempt to provoke the boss.
First attempt—missed. Second attempt—missed.
On the third attempt, ?Provocation? succeeds, and the Leviathan General’s gaze shifts away from me and Kuro.
The enemy’s target is forcibly drawn to Team A, who are in a different direction.
The knights’ ?Provocation? is not an all-purpose skill that guarantees the target will focus on them once activated. When facing a boss-class enemy, there’s a high probability the skill will fail.
That’s why the shield squad has to take turns activating the skill, one after another, until someone succeeds, without overlapping and wasting the skill.
And once it’s activated, if it fails, there’s a penalty that lowers the success rate of the next attempt.
That’s why the two who missed earlier won’t be able to use ?Provocation? for at least 90 seconds.
For this reason, the shield squad must consist of at least three or four small teams of at least four members each to rotate effectively.
The top players of ?Astral Online? refer to this strategy as “T-Shift”.
The Leviathan General positions its sword horizontally.
That preparatory movement suggests it’s about to use the thrust skill ?Strike Sword? with its one-handed straight sword.
Judging by the weight of the sword and the monster’s physique, there’s a possibility that blocking the attack might result in the shield being pierced through.
Rather than blocking, evasion takes priority.
“Team A, a thrust skill is coming! Jump to the sides to dodge!”
Following Sora’s command, Giorl and his team immediately jump to the left and right.
A sharp thrust, glowing faintly blue, gouges out the ground where they had just been standing.
“Team A, attack!”
“Roger!”
Following Sora’s command, the knights who had dodged the attack now envelop their swords in wind and a faint light.
Seizing the brief moment of vulnerability after the enemy’s attack, the four knights strike with their ?Sonic Swords?, driving them into the Leviathan General’s flanks from both sides.
As a result, the enemy’s life gauge drops sharply, leaving only 40% remaining.
The Leviathan General let out a roar, took a small step back from Team A, and readied its sword on its shoulder.
That stance is for the dual-strike skill ?Dual Nail? with the one-handed straight sword.
The enemy’s plan is to break their guard with the first strike and then follow up with a second hit.
“Team A, full defense!”
At Sora’s command, Giorl and Team A gather in one spot and raise their shields.
They activate the skills ?Reinforce? and ?Phalanx?.
The enlarged shields of the four knights absorb the heavy first strike and withstand the second strike as well.
“Wha-!? Whoa!!”
Although their HP is reduced by about 30%, the fact that they endured two normally unblockable strikes leaves Giorl and his team in awe.
Sora feels a slight sense of pride.
Before the battle began, she had granted them a maximum of five enhancement skill slots.
One of these was ?Wind Attribute Enchantment II?, which can be applied to up to ten attacks.
The remaining four slots were stacked with ?Defense Power Boost Enchantment?.
This will allow them to greatly reduce the damage they receive, up to five times.
The process of drinking dozens of foul-tasting magic potions was tough, but because of it, the unit now had combat strength surpassing even the elite members of the top clans.
“Kuro, one strong strike!”
“Got it!”
Sora and Kuro move to the Leviathan General’s sides, readying their swords horizontally before leaping.
Timing their attacks, they simultaneously thrust their ?Strike Sword II? skills, enveloped in blue wind, deep into the Leviathan General’s exposed flanks from both sides.
‘GROOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!!’
The critical hit damage instantly takes out another life bar, leaving the Leviathan General with only one remaining.
The Leviathan General suddenly took a deep breath.
Its large chest swelled.
In this situation, there’s only one trigger skill that comes to mind.
“Everyone fall back! A ?Poison Mist? is coming!”
As Sora shouted, the Leviathan General released not one, but two waves of ?Venom Mist? from its mouth instead of ?Poison Mist?.
Sora, who had somewhat anticipated this, managed to nullify both instances with ?Status Ailment Resistance II?, and the four layers of resistance-boosting skills, but the other members weren’t so lucky.
Thanks to the four layers of resistance buffs, Kuro managed to avoid being poisoned by the first wave.
However, ?Venom Mist? applies poison twice.
Even if the first attack was blocked, the second wave hit, inflicting the poison status.
The other knights, who didn’t have any resistance buffs, were hit with a level 2 poison.
At the edge of her vision, Sora could see their HP dropping by 5 points every second.
…This is bad. At this rate, the knights will be wiped out first.
However, there’s no item available at this early stage to cure poison.
This further heightened the threat posed by the Leviathan-type enemy.
Sora then looked toward Aria, the only one present capable of curing poison.
“Knights, fall back to the line where Aria is and fortify your defense!”
“Sora-sama!?”
Giorl exclaimed in surprise.
They still wanted to fight.
That was probably what they were thinking, but Sora shook her head in disagreement.
“Kuro can handle the poison with some potions, even if she doesn’t detoxify right away, but we can’t ignore the knights taking 5 damage per second. Besides, unlike us, if you die, you don’t come back, right?”
“…Understood. Everyone, fall back to Lady Aria without breaking formation!”
As the Leviathan General roared and tried to pursue the retreating knights, Sora intervened.
“Not happening!”
Sora’s ?Sonic Sword II? collided with the Leviathan General’s ?Sonic Sword?, slightly altering its trajectory.
The Leviathan General’s sword missed the knights by a narrow margin.
“Kuro, A-Shift!”
Sora shouted, and Kuro responded by slashing the Leviathan General’s side with ?Sonic Sword II?.
The enemy’s HP dropped, but only by a few millimeters.
It was clearly less effective than before.
It’s possible that the second HP bar has more total health than the first.
As she quickly returned to Sora’s side using ?Sonic Turn?, Sora gave her instructions.
“Kuro, I’ll take the enemy’s attack. You time it and execute the A-Shift.”
A-Shift stands for “Assault Shift”.
In ?Astral Online?, this refers to a tactic where one player takes the enemy’s attack, creating an opening for the other to counter with a skill.
Normally, this strategy is executed with a four-person team, but in this situation, they had to make do with just the two of them.
“We can win this, Kuro. Let’s go.”
“…Yeah!”
After a brief pause, Kuro nodded with a smile.
Given that they were the strongest duo in ?Astral Online?, taking down that last HP bar wasn’t impossible.
The silver-haired and black-haired girls stood side by side, facing off against the formidable Leviathan General, just the two of them.