Reunited, the party made it up to the final layer of the ziggurat. Through a gigantic bronze door was the boss arena, but it stood ajar. Somebody had already come through here before them. MANhera and KuroYasha shook their heads when AFKat looked at them questioningly. They had waited at the bottom of the stairs and backtracked to find them dealing with Babibubebo, so they didn't know anything about it.

  When they pushed the door open, they found the usually dark throne room illuminated by multiple orbs of light. A level 91 Losfar in [Cleric] robes named Sindalfin turned around to them calmly. He was the quintessential high elf design, with combed back long blonde hair, a narrow and long face, long pointy ears, and refined features. His eyes were closed, but he seemed to notice the newcomers anyway.

  And he wasn't the only one. Near the throne stood two more players. One was a tall and lean female level 94 beastman of the Lupino subspecies, named ColdOne. She had the human head option with pointy dog ears, with black skin and piercing light brown eyes, resembling a doberman. A somewhat anachronistic-looking leather jacket from the cash shop covered her top, while her gloves and trousers showed her regular equipment, black plate armor. Two longswords rested on her hips, marking her as a [Swordmaster] like IpponSakura.

  The other was a level 100 cloaked figure with the name Malfeasant. Their stature was short and slender. The hood pulled deep into their face hid all their features, and it was impossible to determine what class they had.

  And on the throne itself sat the Great Necromancer, the level 70 Act 5 boss. He was a towering lich dressed in lavish purple and black robes. A long beard made of gold was grafted directly to his upper and lower jaw. A tall purple hat with crowns layered on top of one another covered his cranium. He looked like the ruler of a far-flung country that disappeared many millennia ago.

  "Your companions?" the undead king inquired in a deep and majestic voice. He was not only sentient but highly intelligent.

  "No. They are here to kill Your Majesty," responded Malfeasant with a distorted voice. If their name weren't on full display, they could have been mixed up with Melthusek, leader of the Assassins Guild. But judging by that appearance, they were one of its members, acting in the leader's interests.

  "Very well. Come, my lieutenants! Serve me in death as you have served me in life!" The Great Necromancer raised his elaborate golden serpent staff without standing up from his throne. Despite his intelligence, he still acted within his programming, unable to recognize the sheer power difference between him and these challengers based on levels.

  The emerald eyes on the serpent staff glowed with necromantic power. From behind the pillars of the throne room stepped forth embalmed soldiers in bronze lamellar armor, wielding halberds with khopesh-like blades. Their health bars were ornamented like those of bosses rather than minions.

  "I should have known that the guy earlier wouldn't be hanging out in this kind of place waiting for other players. He was here with them," AFKat grumbled. She didn't even want to evoke his name.

  "Onepunch MANhera, huh? No wonder Babibubebo couldn't stop you," Malfeasant said as they looked at the half-giant. They opened a personal portal and turned to the Great Necromancer. "We will leave for now. Your Majesty, we will come again when the nuisances are no longer here."

  The implication was that AFKat and her party would kill the act boss, but he didn't seem to understand that. "Very well. I will take care of them."

  "You're not leaving," BlackKokoro suddenly yelled as she unleashed her fastest spell, [Unlimited Power]. But Malfeasant raised their hood to reveal one singular purple eye - they were a cyclops. It glowed with the power of an [Evil Eye] [Assassin], stunning the witch before she could complete her spell.

  TripleBatsuDance put on her mask and cracked her whip at the robed cyclops, but it was blocked by a shield of light. Sindalfin had one hand raised almost casually, looking in their direction with a neutral expression. He was an [Exorcist] [Cleric] just like KuroYasha. Despite being only level 91, his shields were capable of withstanding an aurastacker's attack.

  "Are we fighting here?" MANhera exchanged a look with KuroYasha.

  "The result will be the same, whether we fight or let them leave," the black fox responded with a wave of her sleeve. A barrier array appeared on the ground. Sindalfin noticed and summoned his personal portal to get out. He knew not to challenge a legend with the same class and an inferior build. But KuroYasha's targets were the Great Necromancer's lieutenants. She boxed them out from joining the fight.

  WolfGodKotaro targeted Malfeasant with Dalgander's partial summon to break the crowd control on BlackKokoro. He was under no illusion that he could ever hope to stand up against a level 100 player with a proper build. But if he could make them break eye contact, he would have done his part.

  It worked as he had planned. Malfeasant noticed the summoning particles under their feet and looked down before dodging in the nick of time. BlackKokoro started moving again, but she had to recast her spell. ColdOne drew her two longswords and charged forward. She must have been very sure of her skills if she dared to move toward MANhera.

  However, she had judged the situation correctly. The towering half-giant had her arms crossed and seemed to have decided to only stand by and watch. Instead, IpponSakura stepped into ColdOne's path. The samurai girl took a low stance and signaled that she would cut her down if she took one step closer.

  ColdOne didn't seem to take her seriously and continued onward undeterred. When her boots entered IpponSakura's range, she unleashed a flurry of slashes too fast to see. But ColdOne matched all of them one for one. She was a [Swordmaster], not a [Duelist], so she didn't have access to [Counter Stance]. Instead, she had used the same deflection technique as IpponSakura. She was a dexterity stacker.

  The two [Swordmasters] exchanged blindingly fast flurries of attacks that tore up the very air around them. They seemed evenly matched, with the occasional slash making it through and leaving behind shallow cuts on their faces and bodies. The first to break the deadlock was IpponSakura. She stepped back with a [Parting Strike], and ColdOne deflected it almost casually.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The samurai girl took on the [Iaijutsu] stance, which could only be performed with a single weapon. The Lupino recognized it and took her own stance. Unlike the strength-stacking Oni, she didn't have a massive health pool or a high regeneration rate. Her survivability came from deflection and evasion.

  IpponSakura realized that ColdOne took on the [Final Dance] stance. It was the [Swordmaster]'s ultimate attack, with a long cooldown but massive damage potential. It unlocked the user's evasion chance cap for one second before throwing the combined damage dodged this way back in an area in five spinning slashes. The Oni couldn't use it because she had little in the way of evasion.

  She stopped and maintained her stance, and ColdOne did the same. They were at an impasse, although IpponSakura could break it from her side. As long as she didn't attack, the Lupino would have to wait in the [Final Dance] stance. But the Oni could decide to return to an exchange of blows if she wanted.

  "Your friends left you," said AFKat, interrupting their deadlock. ColdOne glanced back and noticed that Sindalfin and Malfeasant had taken their personal portals and escaped without even telling her. "What will you do?"

  For a moment, the Lupino toyed with the idea of taking them all on. But she knew that it would only be a waste of gold, if not time. After all, if MANhera or KuroYasha joined, she would be dead in a second. She summoned her personal portal behind her and jumped back into it wordlessly. Her eyes remained focused on IpponSakura, and a smile flickered over her lips before she disappeared.

  The samurai girl undid her stance as the portal disappeared and sighed. But then she noticed that her mouth was curled into a smile, too. She had finally met somebody who could go toe to toe with her on her playing field. She looked forward to their paths crossing again.

  "After that, this will feel anticlimactic," said TripleBatsuDance with a glance at the Great Necromancer as KuroYasha undid her barrier. He was a level 70 boss, well within oneshot territory for BlackKokoro. Much like the bosses they faced on the way up here, each of his phases would go down in a single spell.

  "[Unlimited Power]!" The witch didn't seem to care, as she unleashed her spell at the lieutenants. They all went down within a few ticks, and the act boss's health bar finally appeared. The Great Necromancer stood up from his throne and threw off his robes to reveal golden scale armor covering his entire body. He wasn't just a spellcaster but also a warrior. He drew a curved sword and stepped down from the elevated throne platform to face the intruders.

  BlackKokoro aimed her staff at him and cast [Monochromatic Storm]. A sphere of inky black particles swirled around the boss and ticked down his health rapidly. It reached a quarter, and he staggered. But he caught himself before falling onto his knee and slammed down his serpent staff. Chariots drawn by two rotting horses each appeared in the alcoves of the throne room. Bronze pikes were couched between them, held by zombie charioteers in lavish armor. On a hidden signal, they all started moving at once.

  They left little space in the room that wasn't covered by their charge. It was considered an environmental effect rather than summoned minions, so they couldn't be attacked or blocked. TripleBatsuDance took BlackKokoro's hand and pulled her into a safe spot. KuroYasha floated up into the air. MANhera picked WolfGodKotaro up by his collar and lifted him over her head, then tanked it alongside AFKat and IpponSakura.

  The Great Necromancer's health bar became unlocked after the phase transition, and before he could take a step forward, BlackKokoro activated [Supreme Devastation], detonating the lingering elemental status effects still on him from the [Monochromatic Storm] earlier. Once again, his entire phase was skipped before he could do a thing. And once again, he stopped himself from dropping to one knee.

  This time, his lieutenants were raised again. The chariots were also summoned in the alcoves for another charge. And archers appeared in the gallery, raining down arrows. TripleBatsuDance performed a waltz-like dance with BlackKokoro as she unleashed [Unlimited Power] all around her. They avoided the chariots and arrow fire while taking out the lieutenants within a few seconds.

  Phase transitions usually involved summoning minions or doing area-of-effect attacks. In later transitions, they were combined. And all of them happened simultaneously during the final phase. Cerebella the Final Core had been a teaching moment for new players, and here, they saw it in action.

  The archers continued firing as the Great Necromancer entered his third phase. The moment his health could be damaged, BlackKokoro cast a [Light of Creation] on him. The time-lapse of a galaxy's birth to its final collapse into a black hole covered the entire boss room and ticked down the boss's health to the next phase transition even before the spell fully ran its course. Her damage was as absurd as ever.

  Finally, the king fell onto one knee before realizing his failure. He let out a ghostly howl that echoed through the palace. The entire building came to life, and countless limbs grasped at the players inside it, slowing them to a crawl. TripleBatsuDance's auras didn't protect against environmental slowing effects, and she exchanged a look with BlackKokoro. "Uhh, I forgot about this."

  To everybody's surprise, she opened a portal to town. Then, a single arrow from the gallery struck her, and she died on the spot. Despite slurring her words and generally appearing sluggish, BlackKokoro was quick-witted. When a player died, they could choose to respawn in town or at the start of the region they died in. Without a portal, she would have had to climb the entire Crawling Mausoleum from the bottom alone.

  Her body disappeared, but she didn't come back through the portal yet. Everybody not busy surviving the onslaught of boss effects stared at it in anticipation. They realized she was biding her time until the phase transition ended, since she would likely be struck again if she came in right away.

  Finally, the simultaneous chariot charge ended, and it turned into a recurring stage hazard happening at specific intervals. The rain of arrows also slowed to occasional shots that could be evaded more easily. The lieutenants stayed raised, guarding their king as he stood back up and raised his sword. Only the slowing ground effect of grasping hands remained, making the fight much harder than before.

  "Is she not coming back?" WolfGodKotaro wondered, dangling from MANhera's arm. She kept him off the ground even now, wading through the hands with her slow resistance as a [Giant Bloodline] [Berserker].

  Right when he finished his question, BlackKokoro appeared from the portal and yelled a new spell: "[Cosmic Equilibrium]!"

  A crack in reality formed over the Great Necromancer's chest. His health dropped to zero almost instantly. But even as his health bar disappeared, the spell expanded and revealed darkness beyond anything the players had seen before. The spell's visual effects used to be limited by the VR goggles players could buy. But now that the game had turned into reality, it could display skills as they were intended.

  Everybody stared as the Great Necromancer's body collapsed into the darkness, fading into nothingness. His lieutenants, the chariots, and the archers in the gallery fell apart the instant their summoner died, but their bodies were also pulled into the expanding spell. Finally, the rift closed like the eye of a cosmic being, leaving an empty throne room.

  "Never do that in an enclosed space again," muttered AFKat as she stared at the aftermath of BlackKokoro's spell wide-eyed. The witch nodded in agreement.

  She started to scare herself. But one part of her enjoyed the power she held. She wanted to see how far the [Voidweaver] subclass could truly go.