Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

"No, no, no, it might be okay if it were a boss on another floor, but it's not suitable for you to fight this boss." Sorin quickly rejected Yuna's volunteer suggestion. "This boss requires a lot of movement, and the margin for error is relatively low. You can't just run around singing and giving us buffs at the same time, can you?"

The idea is good. If Yuna could fight alongside Sorin, it would likely greatly enhance his combat power, and having such a buffing character would also help with the progress of the strategy. However, this boss requires precise positioning, and its ultimate attack has a map-wide attack. If Yuna dies in the boss battle, Sorin will have nowhere to turn for help.

"It's okay, I wouldn't wear clothes that are inconvenient to move in during battle." Yuna's voice was still gentle, but it also carried a hint of determination. "Besides, Sorin, when did you get the idea that... I can't fight head-on?"

Only then did Sorin sense a sharp aura emanating from the girl before him—a confidence that only someone who frequently battles monsters could display.

"How could I forget? In D&D, the bard is a combat spellcaster class..." he muttered to himself. "Alright then, if you really want to come, wait for me at the Great Hall in the city center tomorrow at noon."

The meal didn't take long, even though Solin tried his best to eat slowly, time still seemed to fly by in his mind. It wasn't until he dropped Yuna off at her place and was about to head home that he realized something was wrong.

"Why do I keep having this feeling that I'm being followed..." Solin muttered to himself. "Wait, this place should be a white zone, right? Why do I feel so uneasy without any anti-scanning measures in place?"

However, lacking any enemy detection skills, he remained rooted to the spot after a long while, unable to pinpoint the source of the spying sensation. He had no choice but to turn back, planning to inquire about it later. Meanwhile, not far away, several men hiding in roadside haystacks were so terrified they didn't dare utter a sound.

"Is the chairman that amazing? He can guess that someone is following him without even needing to search for him?" one of the guys in ninja clothes whispered to his companion.

“I’m more concerned about the relationship between that girl and the president than that,” another voice said. “Also, stop crowding in there. The president’s gone. Why do you all think of that haystack every time he looks this way?”

"Brother, didn't you see this haystack nearby?" the third voice retorted.

"What I mean is, why is your first reaction always to hide in the haystacks! Are you guys from the Brotherhood too?"

"Don't ask. If you do, the answer is always the same: Nothing is true, everything is permitted."

—The next day, second floor of the city center convention hall in Zumford. —

This time, the Aincrad Liberation Army and the Dragoon Regiment each contributed a team, with the rest being Thorin's men. However, since the "Legendary Heroes" were not present this time, the raid didn't actually have as many as forty-eight people.

"So there aren't any special items for boss battles, right Kirito?" Sorin glanced at the players in the conference hall, then looked at Kirito standing beside him. "And what about my surprise?"

"We'll tell you about the surprise later. After completing the faction quest, all we got was the information that the boss battle requires a large amount of antidote. This should be considered a special item for boss battles. During the closed beta, we could completely tank the boss on the third floor, but we probably can't do that with this." Kirito said, while casting a curious glance at the girl standing to Sorin's left.

Yuna has changed her look. Her original clean white dress has been replaced with a simple white and green leather armor. A rapier and a metallic flute are hanging at her waist. Her persona has changed from a delicate songstress to a bard from Serena, and she rolls her agility and charm to the maximum when she goes out.

Actually, it wasn't just him; many people were curious about who this girl, who had never appeared in the strategy group, was. However, the members of Edelweiss mostly connected this girl with Solin's inexplicable remarks in the guild channel last night, and then exchanged knowing smiles.

“Let’s just consider this boss an enhanced version of the one from the closed beta. Now listen up, everyone, this is the first boss with mechanics we’ve encountered, so it might be quite difficult. I hope you’re all mentally prepared.” Solin ignored the members who were engrossed in gossiping about their guild leader and instead spread out a simple diagram of the boss room in the middle of the conference table, pointing to it and explaining, “The boss’s name is the Demon Tree Spirit Nereus. In the first phase, this boss will spew poison in several random areas on the ground. Stepping on the poison will inflict a debuff called [Venom], which stacks one layer per second within the poison area. Remember the locations of these poison areas; the number of poison-spraying areas equals the number of teams entering the boss room.”

"Every time the boss loses 10% of its health, it will charge at a random tank. Blocking this charge will grant a buff that increases the health of the entire team. The boss will switch phases every time its health drops by 25%. In the second phase, everyone must find the nearest location where the boss previously spat poison and stand together as a team."

In the second phase, the venom will spread from the previous area to the entire boss room. Only the areas where the venom remained are safe. At this time, the boss will launch large wooden spikes at these safe areas, and each team's tank must block these wooden spikes.

After this phase ends, everyone's "Venom" debuff will be reset to zero. Everyone must immediately leave this area while avoiding the second venom spit, and so on.

"What a complex mechanism," Asuna exclaimed as she listened to Sorin's description. "Compared to it, the kobold boss on the first floor is really a pushover."

"Stop joking, this is also a wooden stake, the mechanism is not complicated at all." Solin calmly shook his head, this was indeed not a problem for him who was well-informed. "Mr. Diabel and Mr. Fang Wang's teams should have front-line members who can withstand the second phase of the spike attack, so I will not make any more arrangements."

The team arrangement wasn't too difficult this time, because when Sorin arranged the teams for clearing the dungeon area, he had already assigned front-line characters to each team, and the three new recruits had replaced Kirito, Asuna, and Sorin respectively.

So now the entire RAID consists of the King of Fangs team, the Diabel team, Edelweiss teams 1-5, and the additional Sorin, Kirito, Asuna, and Yuna, for a total of 46 people in eight teams, which is not far from a full RAID.

"Yura, you're the main tank again this time, okay?" Solin asked, turning around to see Yura smile at him and reply, "Pretty good~"

"I have a question for you, Yura. How old are you this year?" Sorin suppressed the urge to punch him and asked in a low voice.

"24 years old, a student."

"roll."

45. Never expect to avoid having bad teammates during a boss battle.

The third level of the maze area, at the entrance to the Boss's room.

"This boss is quite difficult, so I'll be using voice commands more frequently and providing less commentary," Solin explained to his viewers at the end. "Everyone, please take your positions in the boss room first, and wait for me to finish the countdown before Yura engages."

After saying that, he pushed open the door to the Boss room, waited for everyone to be in position near the Boss, placed a five-second countdown marker on Nerius's head, and then turned to Yuna and instructed, "You don't need to attack from close range for a while. Just find a poison circle and stand next to us to buff us. You can start attacking after the first second phase."

"I understand." Yuna nodded seriously, nervously gripping the flute in her hand, raising it to her lips, and testing the sound briefly.

At this moment, Solin's bullet screen was filled with nothing but "KKSK" messages, interspersed with some random comments such as "Finally, I saw the girl!" So Solin simply minimized the bullet screen assistant and dragged it to the upper right corner, focusing all his energy on the boss battle.

The five-second countdown was quick. With a melodious flute sound, Yura charged ahead and reached Nelius's feet (let's just assume it has feet). The tower shield struck Nelius heavily, simultaneously pulling everyone in the RAID into battle mode.

Originally, each boss fight had a different background music; for example, the background music for the previous Taurus family was "Proof of Heroism." However, after Yuna joined the party, the original background music was removed and replaced by Yuna's flute music.

"Game of Thrones... I haven't watched it in ages since it ended, and it's amazing to hear those familiar voices here." Thorin sighed quietly, watching Nereus spray large amounts of venom in eight different locations after his brief stun ended. "Everyone, take a moment to memorize the locations. Each team should mark their assigned spot with a different marker, so the two teams don't end up running into each other!"

This task was handled by the team captains. Sorin glanced at Yuna's position and then directly placed the red marker representing his team on it. Edelweiss Team 2's captain, Agil, had also set his sights on that spot, but upon seeing Sorin's marker and Yuna standing nearby playing the flute, he understood and marked another empty Venom circle.

Yuna watched Sorin, who was personally tending to Nelius's toes, with some nervousness. However, her greatest contribution in this boss fight was simply buffing the entire raid. The buffs she could currently provide included [Sound of Rejuvenation], which increased health regeneration; [Sharp Concerto], which increased weapon damage; and [Gale Rhythm], which enhanced attack and movement speed. Each buff required a 30-second performance to activate, but lasted for a total of ten minutes.

Sorin originally planned to have Yuna apply the buffs at the entrance and then wait there, but Yuna said that she could only apply these buffs while in battle, so Sorin had no choice but to let her participate in the battle in a real way.

Sorin originally didn't want to take this boss, whose mechanics were extremely simple, so seriously. However, there had been instances on the previous level where team members panicked because they were under the gaze and didn't follow the plan, almost causing a team wipe. As a result, he wasn't entirely sure that his team could definitely defeat Nerius.

He stood at Nereus's feet, endlessly cycling between attacking and switching weapons. His [Weapon Master] skill, highly specialized for damage output, kept him at the top of the raid's DPS, nearly accounting for 20% of the team's total damage. This was only possible because the main tank was Yura, a specialized shield warrior; otherwise, he probably would have already pulled aggro.

Of course, there was another damage dealer that Sorin hadn't expected: Asuna. Her weapon seemed to have changed, and every time she hit Nelius, she could visibly reduce his health bar, making Sorin almost suspect that she wasn't cutting Nelius but a giant rooster-like fish monster.

Nelius's health was dropping rapidly. It had already launched two attacks, both of which were blocked by Diabel and the main tank of Edelweiss Team 5, thus increasing the entire raid's health by 30%. Of course, some players accidentally stepped into the poison's area of ​​effect, but fortunately, thanks to the significant poison resistance boost from antidotes, they didn't lose too much health and remained within a safe range.

"Everyone stop! Yura! Pull the boss to the edge of your team's pit and attack. Everyone else, stop attacking and get ready at the edge of the pit!" Sorin, who was still controlling his output and watching Nerius's health bar, shouted when the health bar reached 76%. "Everyone stop attacking and get ready to step into the pit. Yura, pull the boss to the edge of your team's pit and attack to enter the second phase!"

However, an unexpected event occurred. Despite Sorin's repeated calls to stop, one player on the Fang King's side still managed to land a sword skill, bringing Nelius's health down to the critical 75%. The gelatinous venom within the venom circles instantly spread outwards, covering the entire boss room in just one second.

"Which idiot is that?! Everyone drink the antidote! Yuna, heal! Get back in position!" Sorin yelled, then turned and ran to where Yuna was standing, drinking an antidote as he did so. "All tanks, get into position and prepare to block! He's going to shoot... he shot, he shot, damn it! He shot me!"

At this point, no one cared how bad Sorin's lines were. Almost everyone was doing their best to run to the previously marked locations. Fortunately, they didn't run into any disarray. If they had run into disarray and left no tanks in a certain venom circle, an entire squad might have died.

Even so, many people entered the circle with low health after being hit by several layers of the [Violent Poison] debuff. With the poison resistance bonus from the antidote and the support of Yuna's Resurrection Voice, they barely survived immediately, but their health continued to drop.

Sorin raised his shield and stood in front of Yuna, blocking three spikes that flew towards him at breakneck speed, his health dropping to a critical level. Fortunately, Nelius's fourth spike changed its target, otherwise he might have been instantly killed by the fourth spike, losing all his health.

"Sorin!" Yuna called out urgently, but she couldn't help Sorin right now, since the spike could instantly kill players who weren't equipped with shields.

"I'm fine, you keep applying all the buffs, and go back to attack after the poison wears off... Why the hell does this kind of crap always happen when fighting a boss?"

After eight rounds of spiked attacks, the spikes fell from the shields to the ground, absorbing the venom. They absorbed all the venom in just five seconds before flying back into Nerius's body. At that moment, the phantoms of a dark elf and a forest elf appeared directly above the boss room. These phantoms waved their hands, sending down white specks of light that fell upon everyone. Upon contact with these specks, the [Venom] debuff on the players disappeared.

"Anyone with less than half health, find a safe spot and heal yourself. The rest of you, focus on the boss." After this incident, Solin's tone suddenly turned somewhat unfriendly. "Next time I tell you to stop, could you please cancel the sword skill you're using? Can you even understand human speech?"

No one responded to him. Perhaps the guy who had greedily landed a hit was a little guilty and didn't say anything. However, Solin remembered that person. He had to make things clear at this moment, otherwise, having a teammate like that would basically mean a wipe when facing more difficult bosses in the future.

Forty-six, a traitor?

Fortunately, the troublemaker from the Tooth King team learned his lesson after Sorin scolded him, and didn't cause any problems during the subsequent boss battle. Sorin, who was more worried about Yuna, stood beside her while attacking the boss, slowing down his attack pace slightly, ready to save the day at any crucial moment. However, in the end, he wasn't given a chance to be a hero.

Yuna was very aware of her own damage output capabilities, and her action mode was to avoid mistakes rather than seek merit; more precisely, she didn't aim for high damage output but rather to avoid being greedy for attacks. Thanks to the tank's (MT) maneuvering, she didn't take much damage. Even so, the two buffs she cast during breaks in the battle, [Sharp Concerto] and [Gale Rhythm], significantly increased the entire raid's damage, allowing Nelius's progress to be completed much faster than Sorin had predicted.

Thus, Nelius's two full-screen ultimate attacks at 50% and 25% health failed to achieve the desired effect. Sorin had initially guessed that Nelius might cause some trouble when its health reached 10%, so when its health dropped to 11%, he again ordered the entire team to stop attacking. Following the previously assigned pattern, Yura pulled Nelius away to finish off the remaining 1% of its health alone, while the others stood near the poison circle, ready to enter at any time.

As expected, Nelius's last desperate struggle resulted in nothing more than unleashing another full-screen ultimate attack before being hacked to death by the swarm of players. Thorin, true to his guild's reputation, has not missed a single boss's LA (Lower Alter) yet, and this time the reward for Nelius's LA is a katana called [Phantom Light].

"A poison-elemental boss dropped an ice-elemental sword, what's going on?" Solin examined the [Phantom Light]'s icy blue appearance and uniquely shaped gauntlets, immediately thinking of the only ice-elemental katana in Monster Hunter World—and coincidentally, they even shared the same name. He then reactivated the chat assistant, and a flood of comments instantly obscured his view, mostly expressing sympathy for the streamer being let down by incompetent teammates. He didn't pay much attention, as this wasn't the time to concern himself with such trivial matters.

This is the third time such chaos has occurred during a boss fight due to human error, and this time it's more serious than the previous two. It appears the entire raid is only at low health, but this is only possible because Yuna played [Sound of Resurrection]. If that healing buff were removed, many players would have died in the first area-of-effect attack.

Solin knew that if this problem wasn't resolved quickly, and a similar accident occurred in the next boss battle, it could very well result in deaths. This was something he didn't want to see, because at this juncture, every death would significantly reduce the team's raiding capabilities and also dampen the morale they had built up so far through smooth sailing.

He stared intently at the one-handed axe player from the Tooth King team who had just caused trouble, then walked up to him. The player wore a mask that covered the lower half of his face, was thin, and his exposed eyes were also fixed on Solin, with an eerie light in them.

"King Ya, I'll set aside everything else, but if you can't manage your own people, you shouldn't be in the boss raid." Solin shifted his gaze from the man to King Ya, his tone icy. "I don't want the next boss raid to have people like this who don't understand commands and ruin the whole raid."

Ya Wang remained silent for a long time. He also felt that Suolin's words made sense, because he had also barely survived in the circle with low health in the previous situation. However, a player from Ya Wang's team suddenly said something that broke the strange atmosphere. But this was, after all, his teammate, and it didn't feel right to let Suolin use such a forceful method to persuade him to quit.

In other words, only he himself could get rid of his guild members, while Sorin couldn't, or rather, it wasn't quite appropriate for Sorin to accompany this stern-faced man. However, the next moment, Ya Wang realized that he didn't seem to need to worry about this issue anymore.

"Don't worry about me, Mr. Ya Wang. I'll just leave this guild..." He said deliberately in a disappointed and dejected tone, took off the robe that represented the [Aincrad Liberation Army], left Ya Wang's group, and slowly walked towards Sorin, stopping beside him.

“This isn’t the last time… I hope you can resolve this every time, Chairman Solin…” He lowered his voice, hissing like a cobra, “It’s show time…”

After leaving behind this cryptic remark, the man departed the boss room. Not towards the staircase, but towards the maze area. Only Solin heard his words, and Solin himself didn't know how to explain the situation. He simply felt the man was quite strange.

[Traitor!]

This person has serious problems; the streamer should be careful.

And so, the third-floor boss room, which should have been filled with cheers and celebrations for successfully conquering it, fell into a deathly silence. Although many present were also angry about the player's fatal mistake, this turn of events was still unexpected. At least some of the more lenient players still believed that while the player's mistake was significant, it wasn't enough to warrant leaving the guild for it.

"Let's go up first. At least we need to let the people below know we've succeeded." Solin's face was ashen as he forced himself to calm down. Regardless of that guy's purpose, he had at least successfully sown discord between Solin and some people. Given his preconceived notions, it would be too late for Solin to directly point out what was wrong with that person. So, after saying this, he was the first to walk up the stairs to the fourth floor.

Kirito and Asuna immediately followed Sorin as soon as they saw him leave, followed by Yuna, who had just realized what had happened. After them came the other members of the Edelweiss Guild. Of course, by the time they reached the stairwell door, Sorin had already walked up about two floors of stairs in the building.

“Let’s talk about it in detail when we get back to the lodgings tonight. That guy was acting strangely just now,” Solin said in a deep voice. “It wasn’t a mistake; it was intentional. He wanted to wipe out the whole team. If Yuna hadn’t joined the team this time, that full-screen ultimate move could have wiped out at least half of them. Even I would have died in that wave.”

"By the way, Solin, that guy's weapon..." Kirito thought carefully about the one-handed axe the man was carrying, "Did you see his ID just now?"

“No, I plan to go back and ask Ya-Wang,” Sorin said, then glanced at Kirito. “Do you have any leads?”

"It's just that I saw someone in a previous faction mission who could switch between a one-handed sword and a one-handed axe, and that guy happened to be using a one-handed axe..." Kirito thought carefully for a while before answering the question. "It's worth mentioning that he appeared in both the Fang King's and Diabel's teams. In Diabel's team, he was a swordsman wearing a chainmail hood."

“Interesting… In that case, we need to investigate further. After all, his ID hasn’t been revealed yet, so we’ll have to arrange a meeting with Mr. Ya Wang later.”

47. The Inner World and the Outer World (Part Two)

Harbin, Harbin University of Technology Campus 1, Xuefu MTG Club.

"Old Mexican... calm down... listen to me, the current situation is that only one citizen of the Republic is trapped in this thing. Although it can be considered a diplomatic issue, it's not enough to trigger Article 5, is it? And you motherfucker, don't smoke here, or I'll kill you if you burn the cards."

The speaker was still the middle-aged man often referred to as Brother Liu, and in front of him stood a man with a straight posture, wearing the uniform of the People's Liberation Army.

“Liu Ziyang, back then at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University of London, how many people were involved? They triggered Article 5 after it was reported, and sent us there, even though I didn't participate in that mission.” He started off with a gloomy face, then suddenly became agitated, saying, “This is clearly a major incident involving ten thousand people trapped! I don't understand why the Japanese government is still stalling. If it were just ten thousand Japanese people, I wouldn't bother with it, but the problem is, my son is in there! These idiots!”

"Don't you have two colleagues who took the SAT? Ask them. What the hell are you doing coming to me?" Liu Ziyang became agitated as he heard the man's excited tone. "I'm just a member of the Security Bureau. I can't do anything to those little devils. At most, I can arrange for that doctor to get the [system] set up for your son. What can I do?"

"...You haven't told anyone else about the [system] besides the doctor, have you?" He calmed down after hearing Liu Ziyang's words and asked in a deep voice, "If I go back to see Mr. Jiang Xia now, my vacation will basically be over. I wanted to take this opportunity to relax."

"Do I look like the kind of person who talks too much, old Mexican? If you want to relax... there's a rotation this afternoon, are you coming?"

"We'll talk about this afternoon's business later. First, give me two boxes of the new series to enjoy." He rubbed his hands together and pointed to the box next to the counter. "If there's [system], that would be much easier. To be frank, that thing is just a crappy game. I don't believe my son can die in there."

“But are you really not going to contact Xiao Mo? Even if I contact her for you, that would be fine. You two… haven’t seen each other for at least twenty years, right?” Liu Ziyang stood up, picked up the utility knife on the table, opened a box, and took out two large, colorful boxes.