"But…"
Asuna spoke with some concern.
But Akimi immediately cut her off and gently reassured her, "Don't worry. In terms of stats, I have the highest out of all the players; in terms of skill, I'm only slightly behind this guy Kirito… And the Water Breathing sword techniques are way more effective than the system's built-in sword skills. I'll be fine."
With that, he patted Asuna on the head and jogged off toward Kibaou—he had to tell him the plan first, otherwise he might issue another blood-pressure-spiking command.
After hearing Akimi's plan, Kibaou stared at him in astonishment, then showed a moment of inner conflict before gritting his teeth and agreeing.
He clenched his fist and punched Akimi lightly on the shoulder, growling, "You better watch yourself! If anything goes wrong and messes up the raid, I'm not letting you off the hook!"
"You really are terrible at being honest, Kibaou… But I'll be careful," Akimi replied casually, shrugging off his harsh tone.
Kibaou simply gave a sharp "Hmph" and muttered, "As long as you know."
Once the plan was settled, Kibaou told everyone to stop targeting the bronze busts and ordered them to go back to attacking the boss as originally intended.
"What about the statues?" someone asked suddenly.
"Hmph. Leave those to the Young master—if he wants to hog all the contribution points by breaking statues, let him. We'll earn contribution just fine by damaging the boss." Kibaou waved dismissively with a look of indifference.
Though he'd made a major misstep earlier, his long-standing authority still held weight.
After a bit of grumbling, the raid members stopped questioning and carried out the new orders.
Once they began executing the revised strategy, the situation gradually began to stabilize, no longer spiraling out of control.
It seemed the boss could only summon four elemental dragons.
The water and lightning dragons continued chasing after Akimi, who was targeting the statues, while the other two dragons tangled with Kibaou and Heathcliff.
Thanks to the Water Breathing's bonus attributes and skill enhancements, Akimi's Agility stat was only about 60 points lower than Argo's, who had invested purely into Agility.
This allowed Akimi to move just slightly faster than the elemental dragons, giving him enough speed to not only destroy the statues but also consistently dodge their attacks.
Meanwhile, on the main raid team's side, Heathcliff had managed to pin down the fire dragon during his offensive, preventing it from threatening the rest of the group.
As for the wooden dragon, the players didn't have a particularly effective counter, but they were able to keep it from killing anyone.
Whenever the wooden dragon wrapped around a player, the surrounding teammates would immediately unleash sword skills to interrupt its attack, stopping it from dealing fatal damage.
By now, it had been over half an hour since the raid team entered the boss room, and the boss's HP had only just dropped past its first bar.
However, thanks to Akimi's relentless efforts, all the surrounding bronze busts had been destroyed.
The moment the final bronze bust was shattered, the boss let out a deafening roar.
The golden light emanating from its scales dimmed, and its defense dropped significantly.
Not only that, but the four summoned elemental dragons shrank noticeably in size as well.
"Huff... Huff…"
Having dodged yet another attack from the elemental dragons, Akimi planted his Nichirin blade into the ground and took several deep breaths—dodging at such high frequency for so long was starting to push the limits of his stamina.
Fortunately, with all the bronze busts destroyed and the elemental dragons weakened, their movements were no longer as fast, making dodging less taxing than before.
Now, when players landed hits on the boss, their attacks finally broke through the dragon scales and inflicted actual wounds.
A full round of coordinated strikes could take off about a tenth of the boss's second HP bar.
The raid's morale soared—everyone's spirits, once dampened by earlier casualties, had begun to recover.
"Great! The boss has no more tricks left!" Kibaou shouted excitedly, pumping his fist.
"Let's keep up the pace and take down the rest of its HP in one go!"
"Ohhh!!"
"This boss isn't so tough after all!"
The players cheered with renewed vigor.
So far, the boss hadn't used any new skills in a while.
Everyone assumed it wouldn't have anything new up its sleeve until it entered its berserk phase, so they let their guard down and began spamming their sword skills in waves against the boss.
Now that he had completed the task of destroying the statues, Akimi rejoined the main group.
However, the two elemental dragons—water and lightning—still had their sights set on him, refusing to back off.
So even while attacking the boss, he had to keep an eye on them.
Despite the raid's apparent success and steady progress, Akimi couldn't shake the nagging sense that something was off—like the boss was still hiding a trump card.
Something explosive, something that could obliterate them in an instant.
And he definitely didn't believe that a boss modeled after a divine dragon would let the raid clear the first phase this easily.
Sure enough, the moment players depleted the boss's first three HP bars, it immediately twisted its body and took to the air.
It let out a long, echoing dragon's roar, and in response, the four elemental dragons gathered in the air at the center of the boss room, slowly fusing together.
A few seconds later, a multicolored elemental dragon appeared—identical in size and appearance to the boss itself.
However, this new elemental dragon now had two full HP bars.
While the players were still stunned by the transformation, the fused elemental dragon had already charged toward them.
Meanwhile, the boss's main body continued circling overhead, showing no intention of landing.
From above, it would periodically rain or breathe ice onto the areas where the players were most densely grouped.
As expected, the results were utterly devastating—devastating for the raid team, that is.
The fused elemental dragon could breathe water, lightning, and fire, and also charge into players with brute force.
At the same time, the airborne boss kept harassing the team like an annoying camper, striking from a safe distance.
This shameless fighting style completely threw the players off.
Their carefully built-up momentum crumbled, and the raid strategy fell into chaos once again.
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