22 minutes had passed since the raid started, and Hrafnheim, Goliath of the Cold, was finally reaching the end of its third health bar.
As the frontliners had learned, Hrafnheim hit hard and was dangerously intelligent. It always seemed to know which player was the weak link, and targeted them with scary precision. The tanks were working overtime to block its pinpoint 'assassinations' in the form of ice spears that always shot at defenseless players with deadly accuracy.
No one had died, but the unsaid 'yet' in that sentence hung over the Assault Team's heads like a guillotine blade waiting to fall.
Round floors were no joke. While the frontliners had managed to overcome them without losses before, those were the exceptions, not the norm.
Drifter scanned the battlefield, all the while holding back a grimace. He had tried to use his halberd to shield Silica from an ice hammer, and the dull ache spreading over the left side of his body refused to disperse.
It was cold in the boss room. The sudden drops in temperature served as a valuable warning to the frontliners when the boss was about to launch a big attack, but the cold seemingly refused to vanish afterwards. By now, every breath the players took resulted in a miniature cloud, and a thin mist rose from the frigid ground.
All of it served as a sign that the hardest part of the raid was about to begin. When Hrafnheim's third HP bar only had a few percents left, the Assault Team retreated without even needing Drifter's command.
"Sinon."
"Hm. Bowstring Soprano."
Purple electricity seemed to crackle around the tip of the archer's arrow right before she let it fly.
Almost as if teleporting, the projectile disappeared from Sinon's bow the moment she let go of the string, and sunk into Hrafnheim's blind eye, with only the end of the feathered shaft exposed.
It was enough to make the third HP bar of the boss disappear, and the fourth grow in size, taking its place.
"Here it comes..."
Drifter heard Kirito muttering under his breath next to him as the Black Swordsman crossed both of his swords in a defensive posture.
Getting information about a boss' second phase was exceedingly rare, and, unfortunately, they hadn't lucked out this time. They were going in completely blind.
The frontliners refrained from attacking while the boss went still and then started swaying in place. They took the chance to replenish their HP and stamina, and those who needed it went to Liz for some rushed repairs.
Hrafnheim, Goliath of the Cold, let it happen. It was occupied undergoing a transformation.
Steam started to be emitted from its body, and, under the wide-eyed gazes of the frontliners, its pale blue skin rippled and darkened into a deep blue, nearly black.
At the same time, the feathered cloak over the boss' shoulders, seemingly purely aesthetic until this very moment, gained a life of its own. It started floating, before taking the shape of two massive black wings sprouting from Hrafnheim's back.
The already pale hair of the boss turned snow-white, ondulating through the air like it was alive and, consequently, revealing the eye that had been hidden until now - a smooth golden globe with streaks of blue radiating from the pupil.
And finally, to complete the ensemble, Hrafnheim clapped its hands together, before very slowly pulling them apart. As it did that, a weapon started to take shape.
"Oh..."
Drifter felt greed clawing at his heart as he looked upon the magnificent spear Hrafnheim had just conjured.
It was a thing of beauty. About three meters long, its shape was deceptively simple. It didn't have an ornate guard or rich embellishments. It was just a clean, deadly line from butt to tip.
And yet, Drifter found it impossible to look away.
The shaft was an intermingled loop of sinful black ice and its pure, nearly transparent counterpart, with no way of telling where one ended and the other began. Faint wisps of frost bled from its surface, curling lazily into the air before vanishing, almost as if the spear was breathing.
The tip was no different. It wasn't a metal blade, nor even a traditional spearhead, but a long, tapered spike of crystal-clear ice. Again, it had no unnecessary additions, just the pure intent to kill.
Drifter swallowed. He wanted that spear. He needed it. If it didn't drop as the final item, he was going to find Kayaba, beat him up, and make him code it into the game just so he could have it.
He wasn't the only one who felt that way, all the other spear-users - and Liz - were greedily eyeing the weapon to the point they almost forgot the ongoing boss raid.
'Almost' being the keyword. After shaking his head to clear it of untoward thoughts - for now - Drifter raised his own spear. Hrafnheim was getting ready to act.
The beautiful duality in its hands, emanating frigid - literally - killing intent, was pointed at the Assault Team, and Drifter's eyes narrowed when he saw the pose the boss took.
"Careful, everyone. It knows how to use it."
Hearing those words come from Broken Spear Drifter's mouth had the entire Assault Team tensing. That sort of acknowledgement coming from SAO's Grandmaster of the Spear meant far more than simply what it sounded like.
Drifter's own thoughts were somewhere along those lines. The way Hrafnheim was holding its weapon told him it planned to lunge forward, mayhaps with a skill similar to Rage Spike.
He was right.
A minute passed as the frontliners and boss stared at each other, Hrafnheim's revealed golden eye somewhat more unnerving than its blind gaze from before.
Then, just as suddenly as that first wave of icicles, the boss moved.
Hrafnheim beat its wings once, and disappeared from its previous position. While Drifter blinked in shock at the empty space where the boss once resided, he heard a familiar voice, laced with pain.
"Argh!"
His head snapping to the left, Drifter saw Hrafnheim standing in front Asuna. How the boss got there, the Reaver didn't know nor cared. His focus was on the spear buried in Asuna's guts.
"Asuna!"
Kirito and half a dozen other voices shouted her name, but Drifter and the others closest to her were already in motion.
Screeching Bisection, one of Infinite Spear's sub-skills, cut a red streak through the air, aiming to do exactly what its name implied and split the boss in two.
Meanwhile, Yuuki came at Hrafnheim from the other side with a Six-Pointed Star, her twin swords glowing azure as the six-hit slashing combo tried to make mincemeat of the boss' arm, and Vallerk used the basic, but always effective, Shield Bash to force it away from the fencer.
Neither of the three skills hit. Hrafnheim's black wings beat again, and it once more disappeared.
"Fuck! Teleportation?!"
"Asuna, are you okay?!"
"Eyes open! There has to be a pattern and cooldown! Find it!"
As Asuna doubled over, holding her stomach and trembling from the pain, Drifter forced down his urge to check on his friend, letting Kirito and Yuuki do so, and started directing the battle again.
"Sinon, track it! Yuna, Del Din and Coral Howl!"
Sinon's Searching was the best in SAO, and, while Drifter wasn't sure it would be of any use against teleportation, they had to try. As for his songbird, the two melodies he named applied fear and confusion debuffs respectively, and he hoped they might stagger the boss and interrupt its teleportation.
Even as he shouted his commands, however, Drifter was spinning in place, searching for Hrafnheim.
He found the boss twenty meters away, spear locked with Heathcliff's sword as monster and player seemed to be evenly matched.
"Get off, you beast!"
Same as before, Hrafnheim vanished the moment Godfree's axe came close to it, appearing amidst a group of DKB players and sweeping at them.
"Ack!"
"Ugh!"
Two of them screamed when Hrafnheim's spear sent them flying, both missing a good chunk of their health and, in one case, a hand.
But this time, when the surrounding frontliners retaliated, Hrafnheim didn't teleport away, instead electing to block the incoming attacks with the shaft of its spear.
"Its on cooldown! Clock it!"
Drifter immediately saw the change in pattern for what it was. Hrafnheim could complete three teleport jumps in a row before it was force to wait. Now they just needed to know how long it took to recharge.
And while they waited...
"Kill that fucker!"
It wasn't Drifter who shouted it, but the spearmaster agreed with the roaring player. Kirito, after the momentary panic from seeing Asuna hurt passed, was already charging at Hrafnheim, and the other Reavers, guild master included, weren't far behind.
Despite its relatively small size when compared to other bosses, and the undeniable skill it showed with the spear, there was little the boss could do to defend against a hundred frontliners taking turns to attack it, half a dozen at a time. Wounds started to pile up quickly, and the fourth HP bar depleted at a visible rate, but Hrafnheim took its pound of flesh in return.
Players were thrown aside or had no option but to retreat with their HP bordering on red after just a handful of exchanges. Severed limbs flew every which way, each signaling a player who would be out of combat for at least 15 minutes before they regenerated.
By the time Drifter reached Hrafnheim, two dozen players, including Kirito and a handful of other Reavers, had been forced to step back, though the boss had lost a sizable chunk of its HP.
At Drifter's best guess, in its second phase Hrafnheim lost some of its defense in exchange for increased attack power, alongside trading its magic and range for the spear it held.
One which it wielded with a lot of skill too. Its attacks were swift as a viper, but heavier than a charging bull. The power behind them was no joke.
At least that was how it felt when they traded blows, Drifter's spear sliding along Hrafnheim's and puncturing a hole through the boss' chest, but not without the Reaver receiving one of his own on his shoulder.
"Ha!"
Exhaling, Drifter ignored the pain as best he could, and positioned his palm about halfway up the shaft of his spear, using his bodyweight to press down, thus shoving both his weapon, and the boss' trapped beneath it, towards the ground.
Hrafnheim lost its footing, stumbling half a step forward, and Drifter grinned with enough teeth to send shivers down the spines of anyone watching the battle.
The Reaver's spear rose up in one smooth movement, the butt smacking the underside of Hrafnheim's chin with a bone-cracking 'SNAP!' that nearly forced the boss off its feet.
And that was before Drifter switched around the position of his hands, spinning his spear a full 180 degrees and carving a deep groove across Hrafnheim's belly and chest.
The Reaver only regretted that none of his attacks were in ideal positioning to launch any skills, thus limiting his damage output, but watching Hrafnheim wrench its spear from the ground and take a cautious step back was very satisfying.
The boss was skilled with its spear, yes. And the advanced AI that let it know when to retreat was a hassle, not to mention the teleportation, which would surely be a bitch to deal with. All of that made Hrafnheim a very dangerous foe indeed.
But when it came to pure spear arts, Drifter was better, and he took no small amount of pleasure in proving that.
A quick glance at the top left of his vision, and Drifter decided he still had it in him for one more attack.
Taking advantage of the boss' decision to retreat, which, while it allowed Hrafnheim to deal with more attacks from a handful of other frontliners, also let Drifter gather his bearings, the spearmaster crouched and narrowed his eyes.
As if sensing the danger, Hrafnheim smashed away the players bothering it, and fixed Drifter with a cold glare from its golden eye. Its spear quickly rose in a defensive stance when it saw the blue glow around the Reaver.
It was hard to tell how much that helped when Drifter's Split Stream collided with Hrafnheim, painting a red line that went from the top of its left knee all the way to its shoulder.
Were Hrafnheim a player and not a boss, it would undoubtedly have lost an arm, and maybe even a leg. Split Stream was Drifter's strongest skill, bar none, but it took nearly 3 seconds to activate, a length of time no player would ever grant him in a duel. It was only usable in situations like this, where others could distract the target long enough for him to prepare.
But what an effect it had. Hrafnheim's fourth health meter went straight from a healthy green to a dangerous yellow, nearly 10% of it vanishing in a split-second.
Drifter savored the look of surprise on the boss' face, one which was, unknown to him, mirrored by Heathcliff, just before Hrafnheim used its teleportation once more to pop to somewhere else in the battlefield.