The battle lasted for over an hour.
Throughout that time, Leo and Ais gave everything they had in a running battle against Udaeus and its newly awakened combat mode. Its immense strength sent them flying again and again, and its pitch-black greatsword drove them back even when they barely evaded it. Still wrapped in starlight and powerful wind, they continued charging at Udaeus.
Meteors flew one after another, striking Udaeus across its body and knocking it backward. The golden figure swept past on powerful winds, repeatedly unleashing sword techniques capable of cutting through anything. They shattered Udaeus's bones and left its wails echoing through the chamber.
To defeat this powerful Floor Boss, Leo and Ais both threw in everything they had, fighting as if they were burning their very lives.
Over that stretch Leo's Mind came close to running dry more times than he could count, and not only had he all but used up the Magic Potions he carried, he'd gone through Elixir after Elixir too.
Ais fought drenched in blood from head to toe, ignoring the enormous strain that excessive use of her magic placed on her body as she summoned the powerful wind again and again.
The two fought even more desperately than when they'd faced the female-form monster together on Floor 50. Each time they were sent flying, they climbed back up and charged again, wringing another attack from exhausted minds and bodies. Anyone could see how hard they were pushing themselves.
In a fight that truly seemed to burn through life and soul, Tiona, Tione, and Lefiya couldn't intervene directly. They could only deal with the endlessly emerging Spartoi so the lesser monsters wouldn't distract Leo and Ais.
With a thunderous roar and violent tremor, a terrifying shockwave swept through the Hall of the Throne once more, pulverizing everything.
Its core joints at shoulder, elbow, and wrist flared one after another as Udaeus brought down the black greatsword yet again, unleashing its killing blow and destroying everything in sight.
Leo and Ais, who dodged the direct hit, were like little boats teetering in a huge wave, swept up in the shockwave and inevitably blown flying again, one smashing through every black stake still standing in his path, the other slamming bodily into the ground and gouging out a crater.
But Leo and Ais not only didn't lose heart over it, their eyes instead lit up with an unprecedented sharpness.
"Now's the time!"
The thought flashed through both their minds at once.
They'd been waiting for Udaeus to release the magic stored throughout its body again and send its core joints into their dim cooldown state.
By this point in the fight, the two of them had noticed it too: every time it entered this state, Udaeus's movements turned sluggish, like an overheated engine that needed to cool down, unable to make any overly violent movements.
So now was the best chance to bring the curtain down on this battle.
"Meteor Dance!"
Leo burned his Mind wildly, pouring nearly all the little that remained into this one strike, sending a giant magic circle spinning out.
A meteor a full several meters across flew forth, and under Leo's control it compressed, its front end turning sharp and long, the whole of it thinning, becoming a keen spear of meteor-light that shed a brilliant glow.
The meteor-spear was blindingly fast. In a single flash it reduced the near-hundred meters between Leo and Udaeus to zero, as if it had pierced straight through space itself, and struck Udaeus's chest with a thunderous crash.
The roar rang out, starlight burst, and the meteor-spear's force smashed apart every bone across Udaeus's chest, exposing the giant magic stone once more.
Seeing this, Ais left Udaeus's agonized wail behind, kicked off, and shattered the ground beneath her feet.
"Awaken."
The powerful wind became rolling currents that swept around her blood-soaked body.
"Sweep forth."
Ais unleashed the maximum output of Ariel too, making the strong wind wrapped around her surge in an instant, becoming a raging hurricane that blew everything away.
The mass of wind wrapped around both Ais and Desperate in her hand.
Lil Rafaga!
This was the thrusting technique unleashed by wrapping Ariel around Desperate and concentrating the wind to a single point.
Back then, in the battle with the female-form monster on Floor 50, the last attack Ais unleashed had been this very move.
This was Ais's finishing move too, her full-force ultimate technique.
The hurricane erupted like a tornado, becoming a vortex that tore through the air as it raced forward.
Udaeus roared. Of course it wasn't about to bare its neck for the blade. Facing that storm that broke through everything as it came, it chose to fire off all its remaining black stakes, forming an immense sword-mountain that bore down on Ais.
The storm-flash and the giant sword-mountain crashed together, bursting out an astonishing shockwave and setting the whole chamber trembling.
Ais gritted her teeth, gave a voiceless cry, and put all her strength into the sword in her hand, shattering the giant sword-mountain.
The giant sword-mountain broke apart, scattering fragments through the air.
The storm flashed past, cutting through the flying debris, aimed straight at the magic stone in Udaeus's chest.
Because it had burst out all its Magic, Udaeus now had no way to quickly repair its chest bones and shield the magic stone, which drew a frantic, furious roar from it.
The pitch-black greatsword was swung down heavily, colliding once more with the hurricane-clad Ais.
After a muffled crash, the pitch-black greatsword went flying. Ais finally reached her limit as well. Unable to sustain the magic, she lost every trace of wind around her.
"It's not over yet!"
Her vision already dyed red, Ais ignored her screaming body and the failure of her magic, and leapt for Udaeus's chest.
Her finishing move blocked?
No matter!
Her magic lost its effect?
No matter!
As long as she still held a sword in hand, as long as she hadn't fallen, she could still fight!
"I... can still fight!"
What surfaced in her mind wasn't the mysterious woman who had shaken her, but something far more distant.
Back then, she wasn't yet the Sword Princess.
Back then, she wasn't yet the city's strongest female swordsman.
Back then she couldn't even swing a sword all that well, was far younger than she was now, and her face wasn't forever expressionless like a doll's, but that of a little girl who laughed and skipped about.
Back then there were still those two people at her side, those two immensely important people.
One was a hero who wasn't good with words but would show her a clumsy smile, who would shoulder a silver sword and walk toward the battlefield... her "father."
One was someone who looked even younger, even more childish than her, but always told her stories and gathered her into an embrace, someone she could rely on... her "mother."
Back then she had them, and was without a doubt happy, joyful.
But all of it vanished completely the day that "Black Dragon" appeared.
That was a hateful monster.
That was the enemy she hated.
From that day on, the girl swore she would grow stronger, stronger than anyone, and then take revenge on that monster.
This hatred had been searing her all along, and would never be forgotten.
When that mysterious woman called her "Aria," it awakened this long-sealed hatred once more.
"Aria," this was a name she would never forget, the name of her "mother."
So she remembered the hatred, and remembered the helplessness of back then, and remembered the obsession with growing stronger.
If that was so...
"How could I fall here...!"
Ais leapt into Udaeus's chest, raised her silver saber, and brought it slashing down toward the heart-like magic stone.
Udaeus panicked, and even as it let out a frantic roar it raised its hand, reaching for Ais where she was at its chest.
Ais paid it no heed and still brought her saber slashing down.
At the critical moment, a hum sounded and a comet came racing in.
"Get lost!"
The starlight scattered, and Leo, his Mind spent, appeared behind Ais too, hacking with all his might, swinging the Dragon Fang Sword at that giant bone hand.
Like metal striking metal, the bone hand was knocked aside by the Dragon Fang Sword's all-out slash, losing its last chance to strike back.
The silver saber in Ais's hand fell home, cutting into the blue magic stone and running it through.
Udaeus let out a dying scream.
The magic stone in its chest blazed brighter than ever, like a bomb about to go off, raising the terrible possibility that it meant to take everyone with it.
Ais pressed Desperate down with all her strength, driving it deeper through the magic stone, but couldn't stop that explosive radiance.
But Ais wasn't the only one here.
"Don't even think about it!"
Leo wheeled around, moved to Ais's side, raised the Dragon Fang Sword high, and brought it slashing down.
The blade of his sword sank deep into the magic stone, but because the blade was on the shorter side, the wound it made was even smaller than the one from Ais's Desperate.
"Then let's add this to it!"
Leo released the sword, clenched his hand into a fist, and punched the pommel.
As Leo's fist came down, the Dragon Fang Sword was driven savagely into the magic stone, running the whole giant stone through.
Countless fissures raced across the magic stone, and its flickering light dimmed.
Ais summoned the last of her strength too, gripped Desperate's hilt in both hands, and with a shout thrust down hard.
The fissures on the magic stone spread violently at once, sending shard after shard of magic stone bursting off it.
Soon the badly damaged magic stone shuddered and burst apart.
In that instant, Udaeus's roar cut off abruptly.
Every other sound in the chamber vanished with it.
The giant Skeleton King's hands slowly drooped, and the eerie fire in its eyes gradually faded.
Then its giant body scattered into ash, leaving only the pitch-black greatsword embedded in the ground.
Leo and Ais dropped from the cloud of ash. The instant they hit the ground, both lost consciousness.
Leo faintly heard the voices of Lefiya and the others, and their scrambling footsteps running toward him, then he closed his eyes and sank completely into darkness.
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