After the door to the ninety-first floor opened, the raiding team did not immediately enter.
The fourteen dead on the seventy-fifth floor remain in everyone's memory, and the sword strike from the heavily armored giant on the ninetieth floor proves that the closer one gets to the top, the more likely past experience will become useless.
The advance team spent six days mapping out the route and another three days confirming the monsters' attack range. Only after all three retreat routes were marked on the map did Diabel organize the first formal exploration.
The walkthrough has slowed down.
However, the number of casualties did not continue to rise.
Upon arriving at the Boss room, Lin Yuan encountered an armored monster capable of splitting a longsword into two short blades.
That's not a skill that players can directly imitate.
When the monster separates its weapons, it first uses a heavy slash with its right hand to force the target to block, while its left-hand short blade pauses for half a beat before stabbing towards the ribs from out of sight.
Lin Yuan looked at it three times before drawing his sword.
He did not wait for the second short blade.
As the right-hand greatsword fell, " Nameless " slid forward along the spine of the blade, piercing the breastplate before the monster could finish dismantling.
The armored monster shattered.
However, Lin Yuan kept its weapon techniques.
A few days later, Lin Yuan demonstrated it once in the courtyard of the eleventh floor using two tree branches. Kirito stood opposite him, and after watching the first demonstration, he pulled out " The Elucidator " and " The Dark Repulser ".
"Left hand a little later?"
"It's not too late," Lin Yuan said. "Your right hand makes the opponent think the defense is over, but your left hand is just beginning."
Kirito tried more than ten times.
Initially, the left sword was deliberately slowed down, but then the rhythm of the two hands gradually diverged. " The Elucidator " could complete a full slash first, while " The Dark Repulser " remained in an inconspicuous position.
By the time the left sword appeared, the target had no time to change their defense.
Lin Yuan also gained something new from Kirito's changes.
He only had one sword, which was not enough to leave two sword paths at the same time, so he used the sword's edge and his footsteps to deceive his opponent. The longsword approached from the front, but his body moved to the side along the zigzag line left by the chain-blade monster.
When the two clashed again, neither could predict the next strike based solely on their initial move.
In the 91st floor boss battle, Heathcliff blocked the front, while Lin Yuan and Kirito broke through from the flanks respectively. On the 92nd floor, the two also followed the raid team into the boss room, with Lin Yuan responsible for intercepting area attacks and Kirito taking on the main damage output.
On the ninety-third floor, they stood together at the front line once again. The four-armed statue could wield both a longsword and a warhammer simultaneously, and ordinary shield formations could not cover both directions.
Lin Yuan stood alone in front of it.
As the longsword fell, he used the " Nameless " technique to deflect it by sticking to the blade; the warhammer struck from the side, and he used the recoil from the first impact to switch to the " No Interval " technique.
The twelve strikes unfolded sequentially along the four arms.
Lin Yuan didn't sever the weapon, but instead deflected all the statue's attacks away from the group behind him. Kirito seized the opportunity to unleash Dual Blades from behind, Asuna and the other players focused their attacks on the legs.
Even as the stone statue knelt, Lin Yuan remained standing in front of it.
"The higher we go, the bigger the gap between him and us becomes," someone in the back row whispered.
No one objected.
The ninety-fourth floor is a mountainous area where snow falls all year round.
The snow concealed the monster's footsteps and caused a brief delay for players before they could activate their sword skills. Lin Yuan was not affected by character stat adjustments, but his feet would still sink into the snow.
He and Kirito spent two days changing their footwork.
Lin Yuan no longer strives to land firmly on every step, but instead propels his body forward to the next spot before his feet sink into the ground. Kirito cannot completely imitate this, but he relies on his agility to shorten the distance of his steps, creating a more dense and continuous movement.
In the 94th floor boss battle, the two passed through the icy impact that covered half the battlefield and severed the boss's legs one after the other.
This time, the expedition team suffered no casualties.
The number of monsters on the 95th floor has actually decreased.
The maze is almost silent, with only heavy stone doors dividing the path into separate rooms. Each time a door is opened, the player must eliminate enemies within the enclosed space to proceed.
The raiding team took twenty-seven days to reach the Boss room.
No one rushed to open the door.
Weapon durability, recovery items, retreat order, and substitute positions were repeatedly confirmed. Heathcliff was responsible for frontal defense, Diabel was responsible for mobilizing the team, and Kirito and Asuna were responsible for the main attacks.
Lin Yuan was still positioned outside the formation.
He was responsible for plugging any gaps that appeared.
The battle lasted for two hours.
Lin Yuan did not use " Mountain Severance," relying solely on " No Interval " and the footwork he had learned along the way to intercept attacks. Kirito's level advantage became fully apparent during the prolonged battle; while other players had to take turns healing, he consistently maintained the most dangerous distance.
Heathcliff's cross shield never left his front.
He no longer displayed the same level of judgment that preceded the attack, as he had on the 90th floor. Every block, retreat, and counterattack he made was befitting of a top-tier player.
Lin Yuan did not look away, nor did he mention the step to the ninetieth floor to anyone.
When the last health bar was emptied, forty-three raiders were still standing in the boss room.
The doors leading to the ninety-sixth floor slowly opened.
Kirito sheathed his swords and looked up. "Only five floors left."
Lin Yuan walked past him.
The two stepped into the light of the ninety-sixth floor.