Lord Emphynixyion, the Branded Phoenix

Lord Emphynixyion, the Branded Phoenix

Level 799

HP: [799,999/799,999]

Trait 1: Pianissimo 001

Trait 2: Orbital Crescendo

Trait 3: Cognitohazard Staccato

"The final boss has 799,999?" Ritom squeaked. "That's a lot of nines."

"I never saw an enemy with three traits!" Knavus exclaimed.

Emphynixyion perched on a skyscraper, opening its beak to reveal a giant megaphone inside. It shrieked a painful, blaring air raid siren that made everyone's ears bleed.

"It hurts!" Naivern covered her ears. "What the? Our HP!"

The players checked their profiles in horror to see their HP dropped to one.

Shien Niang

Level 188

HP: [1/178,475]

-Terrorphobia-

"Pianissimo 001! That trait lowers all HP to one!" Phoenicia warned. "Terrorphobia prevents healing for one minute!"

"Hide in the buildings!" Mivangeline ordered.

As the players dispersed into the ruined skyscrapers, the phoenix landed on the corpse-filled terrain. It groomed its feathers and rotated its head in different directions like a real bird. Emphynixyion bounced like a sparrow, but its giant talons strangely didn't make a sound despite its immense size.

The phoenix's megaphone chirped ominous emergency alert sounds through its pulsating vocal cord as it hunted the hiding players. Emphynixyion pecked at the buildings, chomping on anyone it spotted. Everyone hid in terror, hoping the horrific minute of anti-heal would end as the giant bird hopped throughout the city. Emphynixyion was the bird, and everyone else was the bugs.

As Shien hid in a hotel lobby with Mivangeline, he covered his mouth when Emphynixyion dragged a player to the ground and held him down with its talons. Emphynixyion pecked and chewed into the screaming man, too similar to how a real-life chickadee would eat a caterpillar. Shien's heart pounded as the final boss disturbingly acted like any real-life bird with accuracy.

When Mivangeline noticed Elysia and Enshiron hiding in the other building beside them, she hand-signaled to Enshiron. Once the minute is over, shoot Vampiric Zephyr to heal us. Then, gather the nearby players to heal them with items.

Birds are not like that! Shien cringed when the boss howled emergency alert systems. That's not a bird or boss! It's a monster!

Mivangeline hugged Shien, trying her best to comfort him without making noise. Shien faced away and vomited.

Oh, crap! She panicked, looking at the windows to see if the phoenix heard them.

"I'm sorry," Shien coughed.

He looked at a window to see an enormous treble and bass clef eye staring at him. Shien shrieked as Emphynixyion cocked its head with bird-like curiosity before pecking through the window to catch its next prey.

"Avian Form: Shoebill Thunderforce!" Mivangeline launched a hard knuckle into Emphynixyion's blue beak.

The phoenix tumbled and screamed emergency sirens, wiping its beak with its wing. Finally, the minute that felt like hours of terror ended. Enshiron rushed behind the final boss and fired Vampiric Zephyr to heal all nearby allies. The blood arrow crashed into Emphynixyion, making it tumble into a ruined hospital.

"Thank God we have you, Enshiron!" Mivangeline shouted through her speakerphone. "It's time to counterattack!"

The players joined Enshiron to gun down the horrific final boss, using his Nebula's Communal to heal each other and doing their best to save the Eonspace Brews for last. Elysia and Ritom jumped onto Emphynixyion's violin belly and slashed it with the other swordsmen.

"Shien, you okay?" Mivangeline asked.

"I'm sorry," Shien wept. "I gave away our position."

"I know, but we survived!"

Shien's hands shook. "I want to be strong enough to protect you, but I've never been scared like this!"

Mivangeline quickly checked on the party to see their progress. Emphynixyion hopped away from the attacking players as Ritom burnt its wings with his flamethrower.

Shien held his hyperventilating chest. "A-am I worthy to be with a girl as pretty as you?"

"Shien! Don't say such things!" Mivangeline shook him. "It's okay to be scared. We all do! Don't feel ashamed. I don't think anything less of you at all!"

She briefly glanced at Emphynixyion flying into the sky as Esarin shot smoke into its tail feathers.

"Girls made fun of me because I'm short and can't handle horror movies. They told me that only wild pigs would marry me-"

"Shien! The devil is a liar!" Mivangeline silenced her distressed boyfriend with a tightened embrace. "Don't listen to those voices. You must renounce them!"

"I see beauty in you! So does Jesus!" She declared. "Don't forget, we made a pinky promise, right?"

"Y-yes," Shien's heart relaxed as Mivangeline wiped his tears. "The date we promised..."

"Listen, we have a battle to win. Remember, you're fearfully knitted together by God! You're not an accident! I love you! Jesus loves you! Got it? Let's fight the good fight!"

Mivangeline clutched onto his hand. "When we are weak, God is our protector! Stay strong with me!"

"Okay, Mivange," Shien nodded. "I'll do my best!"

"Where did that death bird go?" Ritom looked around. "Maybe Elysia's scary face did the trick!"

"Hey, I'm right here!" Elysia snapped. "I'm not scary! I'm pretty!"

When Mivangeline and Shien returned to the open field with the others, Emphynixyion was gone.

"Commander, it retreated into the sky!" Knavus reported. "Look out!"

Emphynixyion crashed through the atmosphere in sphere mode. The players fled the crash zone as the phoenix smashed a crater. The deathly sphere bounced up and down to crush the players.

"You can't be a bird and a basketball!" Elysia wailed as the bouncing asteroid jumped after her. "That's not fair!"

"Not good. Orbital Crescendo heals the boss too!" Ampyria threw dice at the boss.

"We can't let it. Keep attacking!" Mivangeline and Shien chased after Emphynixyion. "Shien, you can stop healing abilities. Can you hit it?"

"I can try."

"Help!" Elysia cried as the sphere rolled on the ground like a bowling ball. "Was it something I said? Why is it after me?"

Shien pulled Elysia out of Emphynixyion's way and slammed his clarinet staff onto the boss, but it cracked in half.

"I can't stop it!" Shien shuddered as Emphynixyion ricocheted between buildings like a pinball.

As the final boss flattened players into bloody pancakes, everyone else fired at the phoenix in vain.

So Emphynixyion's sphere mode is invincible. Mivangeline observed.

Soon, the phoenix slowly opened its bright wings with a shining blue light.

"Not this again! Don't look!" Mivangeline warned.

The players covered their eyes from the dangerous alchemic symbols that shone from the boss' Cognitohazard Staccato. When the light stopped, the players fired until Emphynixyion blared its air raid siren to reduce everyone's HP to one. The army retreated into the buildings again while Emphynixyion hopped on the ground to hunt.

This sequence again? Mivangeline signaled Enshiron to stay close for coordination. I get it! This boss attacks in the same pattern. First, pianissimo, crescendo, then staccato, and again! It's like a music score.

Shien squirmed when Emphynixyion chirped its emergency alarms. Mivangeline held his hand and typed something on a muted keyboard. She swiped it to Shien, saying:

We'll be okay. I'll protect you, and you protect me, alright?

He nodded as Mivangeline sent messages to the rest of the party.

The order of the three traits depicts Emphynixyion's attack pattern: pianissimo, crescendo, staccato, and repeat. It's invincible in crescendo form and it goes to pianissimo right after staccato. We must attack during the pianissimo stage.

Mivangeline then thought of an idea when she spotted Phoenicia and her group of police droids. She sent a message to them:

Let's lure Emphynixyion into a trap. Fill that lobby with detonators and make a noise to attract it. The explosion should cause the structure to trap Emphynixyion in a bottleneck for everyone to attack.

Phoenicia's droids snuck to the lobby of their building, positioning the bombs at the support pillars. After quietly fleeing the bomb site, Phoenicia rolled a giant rock onto the floor to attract the boss. Emphynixyion giddily hopped to the building and stretched its head into the lobby to investigate, but was greeted with a welcoming boom instead. The skyscraper toppled into the giant bird, leaving it wide open for attack. Mivangeline gave the word to all players to attack.

The Commander turned to her boyfriend. "Shien! Use your Plasmodium Phalanxes so the boss can't heal with Orbital Crescendo!"

He jumped with Mivangeline onto the monstrosity to pummel its violin belly with rolling punches, inflicting Antijuvenoid Prozosis. After taking massive damage, the phoenix hissed and flapped through the heavy debris as everyone fell back.

When Terrorphobia ended, the boss shoved its talons to catch two players before soaring up, ending their screams by crushing them and dropping their bodies from above. Like a meteor, the phoenix entered invincible sphere mode and bounced onto the ground, but was unable to heal due to Shien's trait.

Emphynixyion is the composer and the three traits are the movements. My mom always said that in each song, you can understand the composer if you understand the music he wrote. Mivangeline rolled out of the way as the phoenix's sphere mode pinballed by. We'll keep the same strategy for now. We attack during pianissimo and Shien stops the healing before the crescendo phase happens.

***

As Saitori cut a crusader droid in half, Maika watched her and the Red Strix from afar.

"Maika! Get over here!" Saitori yelled.

The Colonel grinned as she walked away. Saitori and the Red Strix chased her into the President's executive office. As Maika went inside, two automatic sentries guarded the entrance. The commandos shielded themselves and chucked detonators to blow up the automated guns. Saitori bolted into the room in a hurry to catch Maika. The door behind the General closed, separating her from her squad. White Death guards surrounded the Red Strix, using their martial arts and bo staff technique to battle.

"Let them be," Maika sat in Forroway's chair with her legs on the table. "I thought we could catch up as Shin-Kaminari sisters."

"What's left to catch up, you rose weed?" Saitori pointed her swords at Maika. "You don't belong in that chair. Forroway does! Now get the frick out of that seat before I drag you out myself!"

"Whoa, what an attitude! But that's what you always were. Ferocious, yeah. That's why you're Amitonyx's favorite. Why you two were together for so long until you betrayed our clan."

Saitori growled as Maika looked outside the windows where the UICA birds and Federation shark aircraft brawled.

"He and I taught you how to live in the streets after the Yakuza killed our families. We taught you how to steal food from the rich and to kill when people spat at us," Maika twirled her rose. "We treated you like our own when the world abandoned us to rot in the trash cans! This is how you thank me and Amitonyx, your husband?"

"Amitonyx is no longer my husband. He did teach us to hate those who wore better clothes than us, but I learned that not everyone in the higher class is evil. Cecilius was a wealthy man, but he didn't spit at me. He housed me!"

"So did Fanghui! He understood everything we'd been through! We labored our building skills for people to accept us. Yet, we only got laughed at and tomatoes thrown at us! Fanghui was the only person who saw us more than street rats!"

The Colonel shed tears as a UICA cardinal fighter shot a missile at a sailfish drone, making it crash into the glass windows and explode.

"Why, Saitori? Fanghui gave us rooftops to protect us from the rain and the stormy nights. He gave us food when we were hungry and defended us when people hurt us. Fanghui comforted us like his children when we cried. And you left despite all he did for us?"

"Fanghui was a man of his word, and he gave us a life of abundance. I didn't want to leave until I realized Fanghui's rage against the Vulpi. Don't you see, Maika? He wants to end all Vulpi just because they look like the ones who killed his family! We need to stop building terrible machines for Fanghui! Please, Maika. It's not too late."

"The Shin-Kaminari is indebted to Fanghui for doing what the world denied us, food, shelter, care, a place in this world," Maika's rose extended into a thin rapier. "So am I. I'm sorry it has to be this way."

"Then, I'll do what I must," Saitori said before striking the first blow against Maika's rose blade.