When the first monster lunged out, Kirito was already standing in front of Sachi.
The light of his swordsmanship illuminated the room. He cleaved open the monster's chest with a single strike, and before the monster was fully stunned, he forcefully turned around, knocking away another axe that was falling towards the shield bearer.
"Back to back! Don't chase!"
The Black Cats barely managed to regroup. But too many monsters poured out of the hidden door. The front line had just blocked one wave when spears thrust in from the gaps behind. Kirito no longer concealed his speed; his black figure darted through the lines, and with each flash of his sword, a monster shattered.
Everyone finally saw clearly how much power he had actually retained in his so-called "filling in" role.
" Kirito, your level..."
"We'll talk about it later!"
He could withstand the attack in front of him, but he couldn't stand next to five people at the same time. The shield bearer's health bar dropped to yellow, but fortunately, two monsters were also approaching in front of her. She remembered Kirito saying that if you're unsure, retreat, but there was no way back.
She gritted her teeth and pointed the gun at the front.
Before the gun could be thrust out, a dull thud suddenly came from behind the hidden door on the right.
That was originally the passage where monsters appeared. Two knife-wielding monsters that were about to enter the room were simultaneously thrown backward and crashed into the stone wall of the passage. Immediately afterward, a figure passed through the still-open hidden door and fell into the trap room.
The sword in Lin Yuan's hand still had a fresh nick.
Hearing the sounds of battle, he didn't try to cut down the fallen stone door. Instead, he followed the wall to find the direction in which the mechanism was operating. The maze sent the subsequent monsters into the room through a side passage, so he rushed in against the direction the monsters had come from.
Kirito only had time to glance at him. "To the right!"
"I saw it."
Lin Yuan walked towards the horde of monsters.
The foremost monster slashed its blade at his neck. He tilted his head to dodge the blade; though there was no light to accelerate his movements with swordsmanship, he was faster than the monster. The blade sliced through its arm from below and then pierced the chest of the second monster.
Before the two bursts of light had even dissipated, he had already crashed into the arms of the third monster.
These monsters' stats were enough to overwhelm the Black Cats, but they couldn't restrain Lin Yuan's body. The blades were no faster in his eyes than on the first floor, and their power was far inferior to the two floor bosses. He didn't need to check their health; he only needed to intercept each attack before it was completed.
Kirito immediately took over the left side. There was no team marker between them, nor did they share vision, yet they naturally divided the room in two. Kirito used his sword skills to clear space for retreat, while Lin Yuan stood between the Black Cats and the hidden door on the right. Not a single monster dared to cross him.
"Raise your shield!" Kirito shouted, "Sachi, stab the left leg!"
Fortunately, his hand was still trembling, but the tip of the spear landed accurately on the monster's knee. The shield bearer took advantage of its loss of balance and rammed into it, while the other two finished it off at the same time. When the monster shattered, they did not cheer, but immediately retreated to their original positions as Kirito had ordered.
Lin Yuan glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, and after confirming that they were still able to move, he did not turn back for them.
The new monster had just stepped out of the hidden door when he switched his sword to a reverse grip. It was a turning technique he had learned months ago in the third layer of the forest, a move he had refined countless times since. With his first strike, he parried the spear, then with a twist of his wrist, the blade sliced into the side of the neck from an angle the opponent couldn't see.
The red light inside the hidden door began to fade.
Kirito saw it and shouted sharply, "Final round!"
He unleashed his full speed, the sword light flashing in succession almost forming a straight line. Lin Yuan had no light effects, yet his sword always struck the target before the light itself. The remaining monsters were pushed from the left and right to the center by the two, Black Cats guarded the last gap, protecting their most severely injured comrade within their formation.
The last monster fell, and the room fell silent.
The heavy stone door slowly rose. The transfer crystal regained its faint light, as if everything that had just happened was merely a mechanism completing its operation according to the rules.
The corridor outside the door was deserted, with only the lingering light of the monsters that Lin Yuan had slashed along the way slowly dissipating.
No one spoke immediately.
The first thing Kirito did after sheathing his sword was to check the health bars of his companions one by one. The shield bearer was in the yellow zone, another had less than half health left, and Yuki's health bar was still above the safe line.
She looked at Kirito, then at the scattered fragments of light on the ground, and finally lowered her hand that was holding the gun.
Lin Yuan wiped the bloodstains off his sword. He had two real wounds on his body, but there was no health bar to show them, and no potion could immediately restore them.
"Can everyone walk?" he asked.
The members of the Black Cats exchanged glances. Some nodded, while others sat on the ground, panting.