Shoujo Grand Summoning

Chapter 746: Game balance preservation

The blue phantoms took no longer than a few seconds to surround Wu Yan.

The phantoms were leering at him with their red eyes that drew lines in the dimly lit area. Wu Yan looked back at them, trying to lock their positions down.

Eek eek

The phantoms were shrieking at him with their gnarly claws peering out from their cloaks. Wu Yan narrowed his eyes and he scanned them.

He can confirm they had three distinct attributes.

- Hitting the body isn't going to work.

- The head is its only weak spot, even needles can tremendously decrease its HP, once struck by a sword skill, the phantoms are very like to die in one hit.

- When the phantoms die, they can place aggro on the killer, making all monsters attack the player, range of this effect is unclear for now...

He steadied himself, lowering his center of gravity, he stomped one time and he flew at the phantoms.

Eek eek

The phantoms also pounced on Wu Yan when he made a move. It looked like they were multiple ghosts hounding Wu Yan from all directions.

Psst

He dashed into the storm of ghosts and he whipped his sword out at one of the phantoms, striking it on the head, making it come out of its illusory dance. Its HP fell to 0.

"Yes, hitting the head is the only type of attack that will work, normal attacks work just as well to one shot the monsters rather than using sword skills. Asuna should be able to kill the phantoms with one sword skill too."

Wu Yan grinned as he turned his attention towards the other phantoms who were dancing around.

About the same time Wu Yan wanted to delete the two monsters, the blue phantoms immediately flew away to make some distance between them. Then, they opened their mouthes wide.

The temperature started dropping drastically when the monsters started charging their attacks. Dark light swirled in their mouthes.

Wu Yan's expression slightly changed. Asuna who was observing from the side also gasped in shock.

"They can use breath attacks!"

"Well, ain't that just great..."

Wu Yan growled.

These phantoms were trick to deal with. But, after obtaining an understanding of their attack patterns, the fights became relatively straightforward.

For exceptional frontliners like Asuna, Kirito and the others, these monsters were easy by labyrinth monster standards, although other players might find these monsters lethal in an encounter.

The green-shelled bugs had low attack, high defense, and paralysis skills.

The phantom monsters were weak in defense and offense but they made up for it by having a smaller hitbox and breath attacks.

The monsters in the 99th-floor's labyrinth were apparently designed with surprise in mind.

The two ghosts shot corrosive lasers at Wu Yan.

The deathly rays stank into the high heavens, Wu Yan dodged it and he used his momentum to close the distance between himself and the phantoms.

He flipped in the air once, jumping over the lasers and the ghosts. He looked at the ghosts when he landed. The next instant, he disappeared and re-appeared behind the monsters.

"Demonic onslaught!"

A sickly green light coated the Heaven Gazer. His sword lit up the room, like a greatsword that threatened to cut the whole space in twain, he swung his sword like a baseball bat at the one phantom closest to him.

Eek eek

Feeling the departure of one of its friends, the phantom lunged at Wu Yan who looked like he was stuck in Post-motion, all while wailing in animosity.

The phantoms were low in intelligence, if it recognized the grin on Wu Yan's face, it probably would have backed away.

"Hiya!"

A figure with almond-brown hair struck the phantom's claws, stopping its attack.

Twaing

The phantom got staggered backwards. Wu Yan recovered and he finished up his attack with another vertical from the Heaven Gazer.

"Vertical!"

His growl came in tandem with a blinding light from the Heaven Gazer, the giant stick of metal smashed the phantom's head into smithereens.

Kapow

The phantom without its head exploded into a rain of data polygons after emitting red data fragments which came from a critical blow to the head.

"Yan..."

Asuna recovered from her Post-motion. She dashed over to Wu Yan after sheathing her sword.

"Really?..."

Wu Yan raised an eyebrow he stuck his nose out.

"Is your buddy that weak?"

Asuna slapped Wu Yan's chest.

"Stop messing around!"

"Okay, fine..."

Wu Yan grabbed Asuna's hand with a serious look.

"Asuna, did you see it?..."

Asuna blinked her eyes in surprise.

"See what?..."

Wu Yan smiled with a sly look.

"Open your map!"

Asuna obediently did just that. She started shouting with an excited tone.

"The unexplored areas are explored for some reason?..."

"You too, huh?..."

Wu Yan rubbed his chin. He mused out loud.

"Then my guess was correct..."

"Your guess?"

"Yeah..."

Wu Yan explained himself.

"Didn't you notice the map clearing up little by little with each monster we took down?"

Asuna's eyes lit up.

"You mean..."

"Yeah!"

Wu Yan crossed his arms.

"Paralysis, breath attacks, and others. These aren't skills labyrinth monsters should have, they are too unfair towards the players. I imagine this is the reward given by Cardinal to balance out the equation!"

"This was my hypothesis, the more monsters we killed, the more areas we explored, this is how we benefited from the unfair monsters placed against us!"

"That means..."

Wu Yan looked at the top of this labyrinth.

"Kill every monster we see! The boss' room will be revealed soon enough!"