Red One reacted swiftly, dodging the Dead End Butcher's leaping cleave. Its tremendous force smashed a cracked crater into the level ground.
Having dodged the blow, Red One instantly closed in on the Dead End Butcher faster than it could react, then thrust his spear, punching a small hole in its flank.
The Dead End Butcher swatted at him with its free hand, but Red One dodged that too.
After that, the Dead End Butcher attacked with broad, sweeping movements, swinging the enormous spear-shaped weapon in its hand like a giant club without any technique. Yet Red One dodged every blow and even stabbed it several more times.
With the Dead End Butcher's enormous size and its simple, blatantly obvious windups, Red One could hardly fail to predict the trajectory of every attack.
After the Dead End Butcher had all but destroyed the surrounding ground, Red One, for some reason, bent backward to dodge another sweep, then stood in place and assumed a spear-throwing stance.
He planted his feet sideways, gestured with his left hand to aim at the enormous Ethereal target before him, and held his spear in a reverse grip in his left hand, pointing it straight at the core between the Dead End Butcher's shoulders.
All the nozzles on the spear's propulsion system had opened, and the shaft's temperature was steadily rising. Rain evaporated instantly on contact with it; it seemed to be warming up.
The Dead End Butcher paid no heed to any of that. After its sweeping strike, it gripped the butt of its spear in one hand, preparing to swing it in a full arc from back to front and top to bottom, smashing it down on the motionless Red One's head.
But just as the enormous spear swung above its head, an iron cable as thick as a little finger, gleaming with a metallic sheen, flew in from behind and instantly wound tightly around the spearhead.
Only after several forceful attempts failed to budge the enormous spear did the Dead End Butcher grow puzzled and look back.
Blue Two was gripping the iron cable binding the enormous spear with one hand, while his other hand held a cable wound around several load-bearing pillars. His feet had also gouged skid marks several centimeters deep into the ground.
Red One: "Took you long enough, Blue Two!"
Blue Two: "Took a bit of a detour... but now, it's electrotherapy time."
As he finished speaking, great swathes of blue-white current flashed all over Blue Two, instantly burning out the colored lights hanging on him. At the same time, the high-voltage current traveled along the iron cable to the enormous spear, then into the Dead End Butcher.
The Dead End Butcher was electrocuted, the current rampaging through its body and forcing it to drop its weapon.
But unidentified attacks followed one after another. Two large yellow circular discs flew toward the Dead End Butcher, their edges ringed with sharp teeth spinning at high speed.
After circling the Dead End Butcher several times, the discs precisely swept once around its knee joints, pressed close against them. The Dead End Butcher immediately lost its footing and was forced to its knees, bracing both hands against the ground to barely hold its body up.
Yellow Three stood on a raised platform, watching the Dead End Butcher below. He caught the returning discs on the backs of his hands and shook both arms, retracting the exposed teeth and turning them back into round shields.
Yellow Three: "Restrained. Opening."
"Good. Now, let me finish you off!"
The Dead End Butcher watched the "little red man" before it throw the spear he had been charging for so long, and instinctively dodged.
But there was no way it could dodge using only its two arms. Trailing a long plume of exhaust and warping the air, the red spear instantly pierced the Dead End Butcher's body. The force lingering in its body sent it flying backward.
It finally crashed into a building, and the already tottering structure could no longer hold up. It collapsed with a thunderous crash, burying it.
"Haven't used that move in a while. Looks like my aim was a little off..."
Having recalled his spear, Red One narrowed his eyes at the Dead End Butcher buried beneath the building, its condition unknown, and muttered.
"Red One, what's wrong with you? How did you miss a target that steady?"
Blue Two walked over as he spoke, pulling off the broken colored lights. The retracted iron cable hovered and coiled beside him like a flying serpent, occasionally flashing with a few blue arcs.
Red One: "Uh... that's because this damn rain is so heavy it threw off my aim!"
"Dead End Butcher. Ether reaction. Increasing."
Yellow Three had also come up beside Red One and spoke.
Blue Two: "Hmm, looks like the boss is entering phase two."
Just as he finished speaking, two long arms with pointed fingers suddenly shot out of the rubble pinning down the Dead End Butcher and pushed hard against the ground.
The Dead End Butcher's enormous body rose from the ground. Then it leaped hard with both hands and feet, landing before the three in a single bound. Spreading its two pairs of hands, one large and one small, it let out a prebattle roar at them.
Red One: "Well, well! A boss really is different in phase two. That's quite a boost in presence!"
Blue Two: "Let's hurry. If we keep dragging this out, we'll run out of time."
Yellow Three: "Suggestion. We. Fuse."
As the three spoke, they dodged the Dead End Butcher's various incoming attacks.
Red One: "Oh, right, forgot about that old geezer. When was the last time he took over, again?"
Blue Two: "Never mind that for now. If you want to fuse, let's fuse. I'm not all that interested anymore."
Red One: "All right, then. Let's leave this job to him."
As they spoke, the three gathered together again, took their positions, and struck some very chuunibyou transformation poses.
Red One: "Red Knight!"
Blue Two: "Blue... Green Knight!"
Yellow Three: "Yellow Knight!"
"Starlight, converge!" x3
As their words fell, all three burst out of their clothes, their mechanical bodies breaking into a vast spread of parts that dodged the Dead End Butcher's charge and flew into the air.
Red, blue, and yellow arcs flashed between the parts as they assembled and fitted together in a chaotic yet orderly manner.
Their hairs stood upright in the air like fine needles. Their three faces fitted together in midair, forming a new face with an even more futuristic look.
Their weapons were not left out either. With a few parts assembling and transforming, the spear became a new lance; the two shields fitted together to form a larger shield; and assembled pointed cones attached themselves to both ends of the iron cable.
The parts scattered through the air finally assembled into a new body, two meters tall and powerfully built, forming close-fitting, streamlined armor.
For now, his body bore four colors-black, red, blue, and yellow-mixed with jumbled drawings that gave him a comical look.
Once the body had finished assembling, the face made of parts fitted precisely back onto the head. The hairs scattered through the air seemed to gain minds of their own, inserting themselves into the new head as though they had found where they belonged, finally forming a thick mane of long hair.
Immediately afterward, a powerful current transformed the body, unifying the previously disordered colors. With a sizzle, the drawings on its surface were instantly stripped away.
His entire color scheme changed from its previous jumble to predominantly black with gray accents, making him look colder and more imposing.
At the same time, his eyes turned a striking black and red, exuding an aura that made hearts tremble.
At last, a brand-new warrior, tall, straight-backed, and brawny, was freshly unveiled. He held a black-and-red lance in his right hand and wore a black-and-gray round shield on his left, with a lifelike gray iron cable laced with lightning hanging from his body.
He hovered motionlessly in place, rapidly receiving information about the current situation through the terminal. After taking a few brief seconds to understand what was happening, he muttered angrily:
"Hmph! Three lazy fools..."