AUTHOR'S NOTE
Please read the author's thoughts section of this chapter at the end, I talk a bit about some stuff that happens in this chapter and also my plans for the future of the fic. I made sure to mark when it gets spoiler-y, so you can read it without fear of that.
////// START OF THE CHAPTER //////
Whatever Kayaba's initial intentions with the Mirror Shades had been, the players, after a couple days of working out the rules behind the mobs' copying ability, actually found them to be quite useful.
The Shades were weaker, and not as versatile, as the ones they copied - or, at least, that held true for the frontliners. They still posed quite the challenge for lower level players.
However, the mobs mimicked everything the players did, including their skills, though only after they used it first. They were the perfect opponents for those seeking to improve.
Drifter himself had made liberal use of them over the past few days. Sure, if he went all-out he could kill a Mirror Shade easily. But, by holding back just a little, he was faced with an enemy that fought exactly the same as he did - flaws included.
Even the Reaver leader, whose spearmanship was nearly immaculate, had found a couple mistakes that were easily fixable, though he had never noticed them before, simply because he had never faced anyone skillful enough to take advantage of them.
The overall improvement, though not significant, gave him the peace of mind that those openings wouldn't be used against him in the future.
He even had to wonder if that had, perhaps, been Kayaba's intention all along.
The Assault Team had pretty much exhausted their reservatory of frontliners. Anyone who was going to join them had already done so.
In other words, the 105 players they had now had to be enough to clear Sword Art Online. But with over 30 floors left to go, including one sure-death and the final floor, which would no doubt be on another level entirely, that number was bound to be... reduced.
It wasn't a thought Drifter had shared with anyone, not even Yuna, but it was one which crossed his mind frequently.
The spearmaster had no doubt they would reach the last floor. All he hoped was that they were still in the 3 digits when they did, otherwise things were going to be very complicated.
And maybe, he pondered, Kayaba had wised up to the fact that, should too many fall before that, his most prized creation might go forever unfinished.
The Mirror Shades might be there to help the frontliners improve as much as they were supposed to learn from them. If the Assault Team couldn't grow in terms of numbers, then they would have to do it by raising their individual combat power.
After all, what Kayaba wanted in the end wasn't to slaughter a broken down gaggle of frontliners, but a heroic battle worthy of legends - or at least, that's what Drifter hoped.
But whether he was correct about Kayaba's intentions or not, the clock kept ticking. Right now, 4 days after the opening of the 66th floor, Reaver's Requiem had pushed past the territory of the Mirror Shades, and were faced with a new type of enemy.
They were dogs - Prism Hounds, to be particular. The game designer seemed to have a predilection for canines.
But other than their name and being vaguely shaped like dogs, the Prism Hounds didn't look much like one.
They were made of glass, obviously, but it was a deep silver shade, sometimes grey depending on the light. And they were all broken.
Fractured might be the better word for it, actually. Full of sharp edges and deadly shards sticking out of their glass bodies, each of them a weapon in their own right - something Drifter found out the hard way when one of the mobs brushed against him and left a dozen tiny, but painful, scratches all over his chest.
It felt like what he imagined being thrown through a window would be like.
And the damn thing was agile too! It weaved between the Reavers, clawing at an arm here, bitting at a foot there.
And that was before the group discovered that the first word in the mobs' name wasn't there just to be pretty.
Drifter had just put a hole through the neck of the Prism Hound with a Snake Bite, bringing it down to whereabouts 15% HP. That was when it started to glow.
Not a subtle glow either, no. The mob started flashing in red, green, blue, yellow, and more - all the colors of the rainbow and a couple extras for good measure.
"Get back!"
Every instinct Drifter had cultivated over the last two and a half years screamed at him to run away, and so he did.
The spearmaster went so far as to use Rage Spike to put some distance between himself and the mob.
It still wasn't quite enough. The Prism Hound growled at Drifter, baring its crystal-like teeth. And then it exploded.
There was no fire or a big boom. Just an ear-piercing noise of glass breaking before a thousand shards of what had once been the mob flew in every direction.
"Argh!"
A couple of them struck Drifter's back, and he screamed. They weren't large, but they punctured deep, each shard like a perfectly formed crystal dart.
It hurt like hell. The Reaver felt at least four punching through his armor like it was made of paper, each of them the focal point of a tiny wave of burning pain.
"Drifter!"
Yuna and Nautilus were upon him instantly, the songstress gripping his arm while the ash-haired player pulled out the shards embedded in his back and broke a Healing Crystal on his chest. Almost immediately, Drifter felt the pain recede as his health recovered. Thank the gods for small mercies.
"Ugh... Fuck me. Anyone else got hit?"
He sucked air through gritted teeth as he spoke, the phantom pain still sending spikes through his body. One of the shards had been far too close for comfort to his spine, and the intensity of pain in SAO was nothing if not realistic when it came to the location of injuries.
"We are alright, Drifter, you were the only one close enough to it."
Asuna touched his shoulder, concern still evident on her face, and Drifter forced out a smile.
Kissing Yuna on the side of the head, he straightened his back and spun his spear to show everyone he was okay now. Then he got right back to business.
"Looks like a 7 meters explosion radius, 3 seconds countdown from when it starts shining?"
"Sounds about right."
"Be on the lookout for it from now on. Sinon, message Griselda, Kizmel, and Ran. They took their parties elsewhere, but they might run into these Prism Hounds. Kirito, can you pass it along to Argo?"
"Sure thing, Drifter."
The spearmaster nodded, then gazed into the distance, where he could already see more Prism Hounds, mostly solitary, but in small packs of two or three every now and then.
"Well, this is going to be a pain."
He hoped the rest of his Reavers were having better luck.
---------------------
"Motherfucker!"
One didn't need to speak English to know what Agil was saying. Though, the fact he actually reverted to his native language when he had spent the last couple years speaking nothing but fluent Japanese, certainly went lengths to demonstrate his current state of mind.
The Merchant Warrior was glaring at the empty air in front of him, where just second before a Refraction Stalker stood, with his giant axe buried in its head.
The Stalkers belonged to the type of mob Agil hated the most: ambushers. And he had been so occupied dueling a Mirror Shade in his image that he didn't notice the creature creeping up on him.
The result was the glaring red cut about halfway up his forearm - everything below that was missing.
"Agil!"
Griselda, who was leading the party made up of Agil, Wolv, Silica, Sachi, and Tetsuo, rushed over, grabbing the merchant's arm and looking him over.
She didn't ask if he was okay, because that would be a stupid, if understandable, question. By this point, all of them were familiar with the pain setting in SAO, and pretty much all of them knew what it felt like to lose a limb too.
But more than her worry at seeing a party member and friend hurt, Griselda was feeling guilt.
"I'm so sorry, Agil! We were keeping an eye out-- I thought we were but... it came outta nowhere."
The giant of a man waved off her apologies with an easy, though pained, smile.
"Don't sweat it, Gris, it isn't your fault, any of you. I'm the one who asked for a one-on-one fight with the Shade. I've been trying a new technique that-- well, it doesn't matter. But..."
Agil narrowed his eyes at the ground, as if trying to peer through the glass to the floor below.
"That thing didn't come out of nowhere. It was here the entire time."
"What?"
Griselda and the other Reavers blinked. From their point of view, the Refraction Stalker had appeared out of thin air, an amalgamation of shapes that instantly sliced through Agil's hand, only to immediately be cut down with one retaliatory hit of his axe.
But the Merchant Warrior shook his head at their confusion.
"You couldn't see it 'cause I was blocking your sight, but I saw it clearly. A part of the ground right in front of me just... detached."
Rather, it had unfolded like layered sheets of a translucent glass origami. Paper thin geometric planes that overlapped so densely, each catching and reflecting light at a different angle, that Agil couldn't make out any definite shape for the mob.
"We should warn the others. Though that thing was the very definition of a glass cannon, if it catches someone with low HP..."
Agil didn't complete his sentence, but they all understood what he left unsaid.
----------------------
At the very opposite end of the 66th floor, a group of players wearing bright red armor, led by a man with equally attention catching hair, was meeting the last of the four mob types to inhabit this slice of Aincrad.
"Son of a--"
"Get down!"
The Assault Team's Redblade, holder of the Unique Skill Battoujutsu and leader of the frontline guild Fuurinkazan, Klein, almost smashed his teeth out as he threw himself to the ground to avoid a spinning sawblade of death.
"Does that bastard never run out things to throw?!"
Rolling to the side to dodge another projectile, which carved a deep groove into the glass ground of the floor, sending up a shower of sparks, Klein pushed himself up and held his katana with both hands.
"Setting Sun!"
The single-edged blade glowed a deep orange, and Klein's figure blurred, disappearing from his previous position in an incredible burst of speed.
"Ha!"
To the untrained eye, it looked almost as if the samurai had teleported, his katana slicing through a lizard-like glass creature, severing its head clean off its shoulders.
"Hah... Fuckin' finally! What an asshole of a mob!"
The redhead cursed freely, even going so far as to spit at the swirling shards of the mob. His anger only intensified when he turned around and saw the state his guildmates were in.
Issin was staring at his left hand - minus three fingers - in annoyance. Kunimittz was already distributing Healing Crystals and checking the loot, but his HP still blinked in yellow. Dynamm had three crisscrossing red lines across his chest. And Dale--
Dale had taken one of the spinning blades right to the fucking head. The player was still starring blankly at nothing.
"Fucking bastards... Lense Archers? What kinda shitty name is that even? When I get my hands on Kayaba..."
Throat burning with anger, Klein kept uttering familiar curses, which his friends ignored with practiced ease.
Kunimittz looked at the sky and sighed.
"I hope the others are having a better go at this floor than us."
That seemed to be the prevalent thought amongst clearers and frontliners today.
--------------------
In the outside world, Yuuki Shouzou winced at the sight of the Reaver Vallerk getting hit point-blank by a Prism Hound's self-detonation.
Then his gaze shifted to another set of screens in his office. His fingers drummed on his desk, and he stared pensively at the depiction of a towering white-golden tree. Three letters were emblazoned on the trunk in shining silver.
ALO