"Were they spawn-camped?!" Kiriko could hardly believe what she was seeing.
The Tree Sentinels had struck down almost the instant those people revived.
There had been no chance to counterattack at all!
"Could this be that highly intelligent autonomous AI from the promotional material?!"
Kiriko immediately thought of one of Sword Art Online's selling points—BOSSes with independent intelligence.
The four members of the second team had lost two lives in an instant.
"We need to go draw them away!" Diabel shouted urgently.
"I'm going—"
Asuna was the first to rush forward.
"Thud—"
Parry Counter instantly blocked the Tree Sentinel's attack.
"Urgh—ah!!"
The four members of the second team hurriedly retreated.
"This is bad, their formation's fallen apart!"
The moment Kiriko saw the fleeing second team, she realized the problem.
—Having lost their means of saving their lives, they began backing away in panic.
Clearly, they had lost the courage to continue attacking.
"What do we do..." Diabel was drenched in cold sweat as well.
Should they retreat?
If they retreated, all their efforts would go to waste.
But if they stayed, they would likely lose more members.
And if they retreated—could they really get away from two Tree Sentinels?
"Hey, what are you doing?!"
The player wielding a battle axe immediately noticed that two members of the second team had taken out bone shards and begun channeling.
"We have no revives left. We're retreating now!"
"Yeah, retreat first! Let's retreat first!"
"Asuna—!"
Kiriko wanted badly to go over, but she immediately realized that the Tree Sentinel on this side had already latched onto her.
"Damn it, was that deliberate?!"
Diabel immediately made a decision. "We'll take down this Tree Sentinel first, then go support the others! If Asuna's first health bar is emptied, we'll switch someone in to take her