The Branded Tower

The Red Strix stormed inside the reformation centers and swiftly destroyed the crusader droid guards. They bashed doors down until they found rooms with rows of unconscious players, where syringe-wielding scientists walked across to sentence them to their doom. As the UICA commandos shot the sinister executioners down in real life, the players in Mivangeline's army stopped disappearing, foiling Maika's Protocol Arcanum. They rested until their health recovered.

"All HP restored to the maximum, Commander!" Ampyria reported.

Mivangeline looked at the open Ascension Gate Diabolos and then looked at Shien, who nodded to her. "Very good. Let's move!"

The army marched into the Branded Tower. When they entered, Ascension Gate Diabolos closed its fangs behind them. Everyone looked at the giant circular staircase that ascended above their heads in a spiral. The red walls had blue computer chips that flickered on and off in a breathing rhythm. Mivangeline signaled the tank players and riot troopers up front and back as they climbed the giant staircase.

!Warning!

!Deadly Virus Detected!

The floor opened into a burning pit of lava. Something enormous climbed out with its three talons. The long legs were all attached to a giant boombox with two antennae encircled by a Saturn-shaped ring equipped with three rotating laser cannons.

"It's the tripod that blasted us off the wartram!" Elysia exclaimed.

DJ Atomos Tripod

Level 468

HP: [468,550/468,550]

Trait 1: Farraday Aegis

"Move! Move!" Mivangeline yelled at the panicked players.

Everyone scrambled up the cylindrical tower as the tripod grappled onto the stairs. Its Saturn ring rotated, firing long lasers above. Pieces of the stairs crumbled, leaving players to fall into the lava pit. The army fired at the tripod from above, but the antennae created an electromagnetic barrier that nullified all damage.

"Farraday Aegis is a periodic shield that activates every five seconds!" Phoenicia warned. "It will be difficult to maintain consistent damage."

"We don't have to beat it! We just need to get to the boss room safely," Mivangeline turned to Ampyria. "I need you to scout how long the top is."

Ampyria nodded as she flew up the tower with the police droids. After soaring a distance, a series of giant blast doors closed above them. The police droids' firepower couldn't scratch it.

"We have a problem! There's a bunch of blast doors that block our way! Us droids will have to get rid of them the hard way," Ampyria reported as the police droids pulled out torches and drills to burn the seams.

"We need to hurry! Cause that thing's catching up to us!" Ritom flashed his flamethrower at the tripod's talon to slow it down.

Everyone else did their best to slow the tripod's advance. The air vibrated as the tripod bent its legs, preparing to jump at the party.

"Ampyria! Open the door now!" Mivangeline and the players scampered up the stairs.

"We're clear!" Ampyria and the droids busted through.

The players ran for their lives as the tripod jumped, using its talons to crush the stairs and send the slower players into the lava abyss.

"Again! Same sequence! We must work faster to avoid the tripod's next jump attack!" Mivangeline announced as Ampyria's droid forces worked on the next blast doors.

***

"Move out! It's going to blow!" Covinski yelled.

As the SHRIKE retreated from the superweapon, Dorian's virus caused the Samsara Crinoid to self-destruct in a catastrophic explosion. From the crumbling structure, a Federation dropship crash-landed beside the SHRIKE. Startled, the soldiers aimed their guns at the doors.

"Hold your fire!" Sergeant Misshia signaled as Isrina, Misuna, and Dorian scrambled out.

"Sergeant! General!" Isrina carried Dorian's unconscious body. "Dorian did it! The truth is out!"

"Amen to that!" Covinski held his fist high as the soldiers cheered. "About darn time we retake this country!"

An enraged Kyrinna walked out with a blue scar shaped like the Sanskrit word for ice and clapped her hands. "Panthereal Shiva: Enlightenment of Bodhisattva!"

The SHRIKE was blown away as a colossal ice buddha arose from the wreckage of the Samsara Crinoid.

"We've located Choro Emplexion!" Cyroid walked out. "Annihilate the UICA, and capture Shien for the Revelation Concerto!"

Kyrinna and Azuroid obeyed as the ice buddha carried them towards the UICA base. Cyroid's red goggles lit bright red to fire a scorching laser to blow up the SHRIKE tanks.

"No! Not my Little Chickadee!" Isrina chased Kyrinna but stopped when she remembered Misuna and Dorian.

"Go! I'll take care of Dorian," Misuna assured.

"Thank you," Isrina nodded before leaving.

As Cyroid drew his cybernetic glaive to cut down the SHRIKE, Covinski ordered Misuna and Sergeant Misshia to lead the wounded away.

"Hey, you! Finally fighting your own battle for once, eh?" Covinski provoked Cyroid. "We know about Sarin Alpha! Gassing young kids instead of grown men like me? What a coward you are!"

"You dare mock a superior machine!" Cyroid fell for the taunt. "Your chances of defeating me in a duel is 0%!"

***

"Get the President out of here!" Captain Arius ordered as the Red Strix carried Forroway. "General Saitori! We have a problem. Zentroid is in the White House!"

No response.

"Our communications are jammed!" Magnus led the squadron past the wicked portraits.

"Boo!" A tentacle grabbed a soldier by the neck.

The soldier squealed as the rest of the squad fired at the elusive PC with a man-eating abdomen. Arius and Magnus did their best to escort Forroway through the dark halls while Zentroid snuck on the Red Strix one by one with guerilla tactics. Screaming and the crunching of bones and organs echoed as Forroway shuddered at the blood-stained smiley faces of George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and other previous US presidents. They all stared at him with enlarged eyes, laughing.

"You're a failure! Good for nothing!"

"You're not worthy to lead this country. America is crumbling thanks to you!"

"Disgrace to the Founding Fathers! You dare call yourself a leader?"

"Maybe they're right," Forroway wept as the presidents' heads exploded with wiggling worms that chuckled with their many mouths. "I failed to preserve Democracy, and now this war will cost America everything. I'm a terrible President."

"Don't listen to them!" Magnus shot the computerized portraits down. "You helped us investigate the truth, right? Truth is something worth fighting for!"

"Zentroid! You coward!" Arius shouted as the evil PC snatched another soldier away.

"What's the matter? Why don't you like my game?" A pair of giant unblinking eyes looked at them. "It's time to play another game! Want to play skin peeling or ripping spines? Weee!"

The Red Strix fled from the rampaging monster across carpets stained with limbs and organs, lost in Zentroid's demented playground.

***

DJ Atomos Tripod

Level 468

HP: [326,839/468,550]

"It's no good! That shield is too OP!" Ruddigus' flaming cards were blocked by the tripod's barrier.

"Clear!" Ampyria shouted as the police droids opened the last pair of blast doors to reveal a passageway. "I see a way out!"

The air vibrated, meaning the tripod was about to jump at them again.

"Go! Go! Go!" Mivangeline pushed everyone up.

As the army trampled off the stairs into the hallway, the tripod pounced and crunched its talons on the last stairs. Mivangeline tripped and held on to the edge, but Shien grabbed her up before the tripod could stomp on her. Blast doors separated the passageway from the tripod, leaving the tripod to knock on the doors in frustration.

"We made it," Elysia took a breather.

"The final boss is just ahead," Mivangeline pointed into the quiet hall of cathedral windows shining with the art of a phoenix. "Enshiron, take this."

She gave him an Eonspace Brew and ordered the rest to get close. As Enshiron took the powerful healing item, he healed along with everyone else thanks to his Nebula's Communal trait.

"We don't have much of those left. So we need to be careful," Ritom analyzed the army's item storage.

"What's wrong, Mivange?" Shien held his girlfriend's hand.

She breathed rapidly. "It's just... we're so close. But I'm a bit nervous. Everyone heard rumors about the DJ boss, but nobody has ever seen it compared to Dosigma and Kuroyurei."

"I know, but we can do this together! We trust you because you're the only one who took us this far in the game!"

Mivangeline nodded to Shien, her friends, and the players. "If we're ready, let's go!"

The army walked into the elegant cathedral halls with phoenix statues until disk drones busted through the windows and circled the group.

"We don't have time for this!" Mivangeline chucked a drone into another. "We have to get out of this cathedral!"

They ran for their lives as the angry drones bumbled about with machine guns firing. Soon, they saw a bright light and charged into what they hoped was the boss room. As they fled, the cathedral doors closed behind them and disappeared into a vortex. Mivangeline and the players analyzed the battlefield, anticipating the same empty, infinite boss room and a swagger boss intro theme. However, they were wrong.

Instead, the battlefield was an apocalyptic city with tattered skyscrapers, piles of ransacked houses, and eyeless corpses. The sky was infested with black holes that devoured nearby planets.

"What kind of boss room is this?" Shien looked at the corpses. "What happened to their eyes?

The bodies leaned their hands on the wall as if they had written something before they died. They wrote in blood:

Don't Look!

The Wings Burn!

Without any boss intro music, a warning tab emerged in silence.

!Warning!

!Deadly Virus Detected!

"This feels weird," Naivern boosted everyone's stats. "The environment is not like the other boss rooms."

"What's that?" Ritom pointed at the giant sphere that approached them from the sky. "Is that a moon?"

"I don't think that's a moon!" Mivangeline noticed the sphere crashing through the fiery atmosphere. "Use the buildings for cover!"

The group split behind the ruins, aiming their guns at the sphere that shone with jagged cybernetic glyphs written in perfect 90-degree angles. Soon, the sphere was just above the ruined city. It was much more massive than Dosigma and Kuroyurei. The glyphs shone as it slowly opened.

"Don't look. The wings burn. What does it all mean?" Mivangeline tried to understand until she noticed a hot blue light emerge from the sphere. "Everyone! Look away from the wings!"

"Why?" Shien blinked. "It's so pretty. Like a bluebird."

"This is not bird time, Shien!" Mivangeline dragged her boyfriend from the light and covered his eyes. "Remember the blood warnings? Don't look!"

The players who listened looked away from the beautiful light unharmed. However, those who didn't listen watched the phoenix emerge with its bright angelic wings made of cathedral organ pipe feathers flickering with hot triangular alchemic symbols. Their jaws dropped from the beauty as their eyes melted into magma, causing instant death. When the dangerous alchemic symbols vanished, everyone looked at the godlike boss with wings that steamed to cool down.

It was a colossal machine phoenix as big as a giant asteroid with a purple unicorn horn above its blue beak and four horns. The right eye was a purple treble clef, and the left was a bass clef. The phoenix's belly was brown with curved violin holes and strings in the middle. Its feet were lyres with clarinet ligatures as talons while the tail had cathedral organ pipes as feathers like the wings. The wing bones above the pipe feathers were decorated with flute keys and trumpet valves. Everyone shuddered at the largest stat lines they'd ever seen in Syanic Earth.