The heavy-armored giant's second sword strike did not target Lin Yuan.
It changed its grip and swept horizontally towards the gap.
Kirito accelerated first, and both swords struck the side of the greatsword simultaneously. Sparks from the collision obscured the view, but the black greatsword only deflected slightly, still carrying enough force to overturn those in front of it as it continued forward.
Lin Yuan did not try to block the sword's edge.
He moved close to the Boss's arm, pressing down on the area beneath the bracers with " Nameless," pushing the greatsword's trajectory upwards further.
The blade grazed over their heads.
"Attack the right arm!" Diabel ordered.
Asuna and Klein led two squads to flank from the side. A series of sword strikes landed on the seams of the heavy armor, and the boss's right arm durability bar began to drop.
The heavily armored giant suddenly released one of his hands.
The fist, covered in iron armor, slammed down.
Lin Yuan stepped back, while Kirito blocked the punch with his crossed swords. The impact sent him flying backward. Asuna broke away from the attack team and caught him; both of them landed with their HP dropping simultaneously.
The next moment, the black greatsword stuck in the ground trembled.
There were no sword skill effects or new attack animations.
A force, however, spread along the ground.
Players who had just completed their sword techniques were still stunned, unable to even raise their weapons, when they were simultaneously knocked over by an unseen impact. Several players' HP dropped from green to yellow, and the attack from the right side was instantly halted.
Lin Yuan was the only one on the right who hadn't fallen.
As the shockwave reached his feet, he plunged the Nameless Sword into a crevice in the rock. His body slid back half a step in the impact, but he remained standing in front of the overturned player. He could clearly feel the first tremor coming from the greatsword hitting the ground, but the second only appeared after the Boss lowered his shoulders again.
There was a brief beat between the two.
"Get away from the sword!" Lin Yuan shouted.
The heavily armored giant drew his greatsword and slashed at the ground once more.
The players retreated.
As the sword fell, the stone slab cracked in all directions. Some people saw that the impact had ended and immediately prepared to step forward, but Lin Yuan remained standing in place.
"It's not over yet."
The Boss's shoulder armor slumped down.
The second shockwave then exploded along the ground. Players who had already heard the warning leaped up in advance, and the impact swept past their feet without breaking their formation again.
"A two-stage attack without any visual effects?" Klein looked at the cracked stone slab after landing.
"It's not a sword technique," Lin Yuan said, "It's that it presses the weight of the armor and body into the sword a second time."
Lin Yuan stared at the Boss's shoulders. "Watch its center of gravity, not its sword."
The shield warriors no longer took the heavy sword head-on, and the attacking teams began to wait for the second shockwave to end.
Instead of slamming the greatsword completely into the ground, it lifted it up again the instant the blade touched the stone slab. The second shock the players were waiting for didn't occur; instead, the boss took advantage of their pause to sweep across their flanks.
"It will cancel the second shot!" Asuna shouted.
"It's not canceled."
Lin Yuan saw that the Boss's hind legs were still planted firmly on the ground.
Kirito, to the right!
Without asking any questions, Kirito immediately rushed in from the right side of the Boss.
The armored giant's shoulder turned towards him, and all the power that had been gathered in his hind legs was channeled into a sweeping motion. The black greatsword suddenly accelerated, its speed nearly twice as fast as the first round.
But Lin Yuan had already taken the sudden stepping technique he learned from the spear guards and was already standing on the sword path.
Nameless clung to the side of the greatsword. The force was enough to shatter three heavy shields, but he changed his footing three times in succession, following the momentum of the sword, and swept the blade into the air like a chain.
The black greatsword grazed past Lin Yuan's side and crashed into a distant wall. Kirito slipped through the gap he had forcibly created, his twin swords gleaming.
One fast, one slow.
" The Elucidator " first strikes the right knee, drawing the boss's attention downwards; " The Dark Repulser " delays by half a beat, prying upwards from the armor seam.
"Attack the right leg!" Diabel seized the opportunity.
The light of sword techniques fell from different directions.
The Boss swung his fist to drive away the attacker, but Lin Yuan had already pressed himself into the crack. " Nameless " swung continuously along the broken armor plates, each strike using the recoil from the previous one.
No Interval.
The twelve strikes were not concentrated at the same point, but rather advanced sequentially along the connection between the kneeplate and legplate.
With the final strike, the entire right kneeplate shattered outwards.
The heavily armored giant lost its balance and slammed its knee into the ground.
"One person knocked the 90th floor boss to its knees..." someone in the back row exclaimed.
It plunged its greatsword into the stone slab, attempting to use the weapon to stand up again. Lin Yuan felt the familiar tremor and immediately retreated.
"Second beat!"
The raiding party simultaneously leaped away.
A delayed oscillation swept across the hall.
Only Heathcliff did not jump.
Before the Boss's shoulders sank, he had already retracted the cross shield he was pressing against the ground and taken a step back. He was just out of range when the second shockwave swept past the shield tip.
Based on their positioning, Heathcliff couldn't possibly sense the ground changes earlier than Lin Yuan. However, top-tier players might be able to anticipate these changes from the boss's sword-gripping gesture.
"Don't stop!" Heathcliff had already raised his shield again. "It can't stand up."
Kirito and Asuna bypassed his shield, their twin swords and rapier striking the Boss's breastplate simultaneously. Agil, Klein, and the rest of the attacking team followed closely behind, cracks quickly covering the entire heavy armor.
Lin Yuan did not rush ahead of everyone else.
He blocked the Boss's final swing of the arm, leaving a clear window for attack from behind.
More than ten sword techniques fell simultaneously.
The last health bar was emptied by the combined efforts.
The heavily armored giant disintegrated as it knelt on one knee, its black armor shattering into countless fragments.
The door to the ninety-first floor opened.
Lin Yuan put away " Nameless," his gaze lingering for a moment on Heathcliff's cross shield.
He then continued upwards with the expedition team.