Massive ballistae fired volleys of bolts, the sharp arrows piercing towards the sky.
Seeing this, Kanna did nothing at first. But those giant bolts seemed to hit an invisible wall around her.
The arrows crashed against the barrier one after another, completely useless, falling down one by one.
A hint of disdain flashed in Kanna's eyes. A beam gathered in her mouth, and almost instantly, it shot out, directly sweeping over those ballistae.
Boom!
Explosions rang out one after another. The ballistae at the outskirts of the Dragon's Lake... and the Army's players manning them suffered heavy casualties!
Witnessing this scene, the players further out all felt a chill.
This kind of power... they had only seen it in Anime and movies.
This completely wasn't SAO's style. SAO wasn't supposed to have magic!
The massive crowd of players naturally couldn't escape Kanna's gaze. She saw the players in the forest, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
Immediately, she began gathering an electric beam in her mouth, aiming it towards the players on the outskirts.
Perhaps for her, this was just a fun game. Like humans looking curiously at ants on the ground, then dripping a few drops of water or placing a stone to block their path.
"This is bad! We need to run!"
The moment they realized Kanna was aiming at them and preparing to fire, they felt a terrible premonition.
Kiriko quickly grabbed the girl next to her, and shouted loudly to Asuna and Kaguya beside her.
"To that slope over there! Run!"
Asuna pulled Kaguya, and Kaguya immediately picked up Shiro. The three quickly followed Kiriko towards the other side of the slope.
But the problem was, Kanna's electric beam arrived in the blink of an eye. Their speed was simply unable to dodge it.
Asuna looked back at Kanna in the sky, watching the electric beam growing larger and larger in her pupils, feeling a sense of despair.
'There's no dodging it. Absolutely no dodging it!'
This wasn't just Asuna's own thought, it was the thought of most people within the beam's range.
"Doryusen: Dragon's Bite!"
A giant ice dragon soared into the sky, roaring, opening its massive maw, and bit down on the electric beam.
The ice dragon was formed from sword aura, essentially a dragon shape created by concentrated sword energy. (T/N: Changing flying slash to sword aura.)
Inside the entire dragon form were countless sharp, substantial energies... Doryusen itself was fundamentally a sword aura slash.
And [Doryusen: Dragon's Bite], developed by Yusei, transformed a single sword aura into multiple strands of sword energy. These energies constantly reflected, cut, vanished, regenerated, and reflected again within the dragon form, finally achieving a continuous, sealed space of sword energy.
Once a target entered the maw of that form, it would be continuously attacked by the sword energy. This was also why the 25th-floor Boss's HP kept dropping continuously.
Kanna's electric beam was, ultimately, just generated energy. And sword aura could actually attack energy itself.
Yusei knew a single sword aura couldn't contend with the electric beam... but what if he used continuous, uninterrupted sword energy attacks?
Soon, Asuna and the others were astonished to see the original electric beam being split apart, decomposed, and finally vanishing.
"This is... Yusei-kun is here!"
Asuna looked at the dissipating dragon-shaped sword aura and electric beam in the sky, a bright light shining in her eyes.
Gaining hope amidst despair was indeed the most thrilling moment.
"This guy, always likes to scare people like this. Couldn't he show up earlier?" Kaguya sighed helplessly.
She subconsciously checked the location shown on her friend list... When she saw Yusei's displayed location, she froze.
Yusei had already taken off his mask and arrived by their side.
Actually, Yusei also felt quite helpless. He originally wanted to contact Kanna secretly, but he hadn't expected those idiots to actually attack Kanna.
Now, the entire SAO's player base had come running. And some idiots from the Army actually wanted to use ballistae to hunt a dragon.
'Ballistae could kill a dragon? How did they even come up with that?'
Because of this, Kanna was provoked and started firing beams wildly. Yusei hadn't wanted to intervene, but seeing Asuna and the others were in the line of fire, he had no choice but to reveal himself early and block this attack.
"Nii!"
Seeing Yusei appear, Shiro immediately pounced towards him. Yusei caught Shiro in his arms.
The siblings acted as if they had been separated for a long time, finally reunited. It was a touching scene.
Asuna and Kiriko were already used to it... used to the deep bond between these siblings.
Especially Kiriko, who still vaguely remembered the strange conversation between Shiro and Yusei on the first day.
'Lolicon... must keep away.'
Kiriko subconsciously took a step to the left, putting a little more distance between herself and Yusei.
Kaguya, who had always been somewhat at odds with Yusei, was now seemingly absent-minded. She rarely didn't pull Yusei away from protecting Shiro.
Asuna looked curiously at Kaguya and noticed her friend was lost in thought, wondering if she hadn't recovered from the danger just now.
Kaguya gradually snapped out of it. Her gaze towards Yusei held an indescribable meaning. She suddenly felt someone looking at her and glanced over.
"Asuna? Why are you staring at me?"
"I saw you were spacing out just now. Are you still scared from the danger earlier?"
Hearing her friend's words, Kaguya immediately became displeased. She placed a hand on the long sword at her waist.
"How could I possibly be scared? Even if it's a dragon, I, Shinomiya Kaguya, will slay it for you to see!"
Yusei, who was holding Shiro, couldn't help but twitch an eyelid upon hearing Kaguya's words.
'Is this... Tosaka Rin in the wrong series?'
Although Kaguya's words sounded domineering, Kanna was a moe young girl who couldn't be harmed.
And... now that he was exposed, how to complete the task was still a problem.
After thinking for a moment, Yusei decided to blend into the crowd and secretly make his way to Kanna.
As for the method, it was still wearing a mask and disguising himself.
Thinking this, Yusei, holding Shiro, quickly said to Asuna and the others:
"This place is a bit dangerous... I can't possibly fight Kanna alone. Shiro and I are going to retreat for now. We'll come back after finding the Dragon Knight. What do you think?"
Asuna, being the raid leader, had ample experience with difficult boss raids and knew now wasn't the time for a direct confrontation.
Hearing Yusei's words, she also felt a temporary retreat to find the Dragon Knight was better.
"Then let's do that. But I can't control these other players. I'll inform the guild leader of our plan. The rest is up to them."