There are no monsters of any single type on the 96th floor.
In the first corridor, armored spearmen will force players to retreat in a straight line with their thrusts; chain-blade monsters hiding behind stone pillars will then block the left and right sides; finally, the greatsword guards will wait for the target to lose their footing before launching a heavy attack from the front.
They seemed to know what each other would do.
The first reconnaissance team was forced to retreat after only traversing two corridors.
Lin Yuan and Kirito entered the maze the next day.
When the spear thrust at him from the front, Lin Yuan did not use his newly perfected sudden advance technique. Instead, he stepped to the left in a zigzag motion, dodging the spearhead as if facing a chain blade.
The chain blade hidden behind the stone pillar appeared ahead of schedule.
Lin Yuan was supposed to parry outwards with " Nameless," but he suddenly stopped and used the second strike of his heavy armor guard to press the force into the hilt. He only completed his second strike the moment the chain blade wrapped around the blade.
The chain was taut in the opposite direction.
Kirito burst out from behind Lin Yuan, his twin swords sweeping along the sides of the chains and striking the monster hidden behind the stone pillar.
The heavy sword-wielding guard then landed.
Lin Yuan did not turn around.
He judged the direction of the greatsword from the tremors in the ground and used the taut chains to pull himself forward. The black blade struck the spot where he had just been standing, while Kirito used his left sword, which was delayed by half a beat, to slice through the guard's knee armor.
The three monsters shattered one after another.
Kirito's experience bar moved forward again.
He sheathed his twin swords and looked at Lin Yuan: "You didn't use any of the monster's fighting style just now."
"They won't attack in just one way."
"So you changed the order of the actions?"
Lin Yuan looked down at " Nameless ".
The spear guard's thrust, the chain blade's turn, and the heavy-armored swordsman's second strike were all separate techniques. When they actually clashed just now, he didn't think about which one to use, but let the result of the previous moment determine his next move.
When the enemy blocked his path, he turned.
When the enemy changed direction, he stopped.
He used the enemy's pause to escape.
"It's not about changing the order," Lin Yuan said. "There shouldn't have been an order in the first place."
After the boss on the 96th floor was discovered, Lin Yuan and Kirito followed the raid team into the room as usual. Lin Yuan used the moves he had just dismantled to disrupt the boss's defense, while Kirito looked for an opening to attack from the changed sword path. Together with the raid team, the two of them defeated the boss.
The front line has entered the ninety-seventh level.
The monsters on this floor will record the sword techniques the player has just used. When the same move appears a second time, they will block it in advance; if it is repeated three times in a row, they will even launch a counterattack at the start of the move.
Players relying on fixed sword skills found progress extremely difficult.
For the first time, Lin Yuan walked ahead of everyone else.
He had no skill names, nor any standard movements prescribed by the system. The first sword strike came down from his right shoulder, but when he made the same starting move the second time, the sword turned into a straight thrust halfway through; the third time, he still raised his right shoulder, but what actually moved were his feet.
The monster made three incorrect defensive moves in a row.
" Nameless " cuts them in completely different directions.
"What exactly are they remembering?" someone asked from behind.
Kirito looked at the fallen monster. "They can only remember what has already happened."
Lin Yuan hadn't even decided on his next sword strike before he actually unleashed it.
The 97th floor was cleared in eleven days. The boss could block sword techniques that had already appeared, so Lin Yuan kept changing his attacks, while Kirito used different rhythms with his left and right swords to complete the final combo. Neither of them missed a single battle.
The boss on the ninety-eighth floor is like a collection of all the monsters from before.
It has six arms, each wielding a spear, chain, greatsword, scimitar, warhammer, and heavy shield. Any player who gets close will face at least three attacks simultaneously.
In their first encounter, the shield formation was forced back to the doorway.
Heathcliff blocked the heavy sword, Kirito and Asuna held off the spear and scimitar, but the rest of them were unable to get past the blockade formed by chains and warhammers.
Lin Yuan stepped out from behind the formation.
The chains flew towards him first.
He met the chains with " Nameless," using the exact same attack he had used to kill the labyrinth monster earlier. The Boss immediately raised its heavy shield, blocking the straight thrust that Lin Yuan had chosen last time.
The sword did not pierce through.
Lin Yuan used the chains to pull him and changed his pace, bypassing the heavy shield from the outside. The spear immediately blocked his path, and he suddenly stopped in his charge, letting the spear tip pass over his chest.
The warhammer fell from above.
This time, Lin Yuan did not dodge.
" Nameless " deflected the force of the hammer by sticking to the surface, and its body spun from the impact, causing the sword's edge, which was originally pointing outwards, to slash along an arc toward the wrist holding the shield.
The heavy shield slipped from his grasp and hit the ground.
"It's open!" Diabel shouted.
Kirito instantly escaped the spear's range, his twin swords slicing through the gap created by Lin Yuan. The Boss used his curved blade to defend, but Lin Yuan's next strike had already become a delayed attack, like that of a heavily armored guard.
The first strike was merely a collision.
It wasn't until the second strike that the curved blade was completely pushed away.
Kirito's sixteen-hit combo landed entirely on the Boss's chest. Asuna and the raiding team followed up with attacks from both sides, and the six-armed Boss's health quickly dropped to red.
It attempted to raise the remaining weapons.
Lin Yuan stood in the center of the six attack trajectories, holding only a sword.
Thrust, horizontal slash, pause, zigzag, leverage.
No two swords used the same trajectory.
All six weapons went astray in succession.
The final line of defense was sliced open from the center by " Nameless," and Kirito's twin swords crossed and pierced through the Boss's body.
Health bar reduced to zero.
The door to the ninety-ninth floor opened amidst the shards of light.
When Lin Yuan sheathed his sword, he still hadn't named the sword technique he had just used.
It's not that it doesn't need a name, but rather that this sword technique hasn't fully taken shape yet. The current variations can only break through the six-armed Boss's defense; the final strike that can bring all the sword paths together has not yet been found.