Defense specialization versus demon combat.
A slight adjustment.
The demon charges toward Maple, striking with immense force.
Maple cannot react in time and takes the blow with her body.
"Good! No damage!"
Yet the demon's attack fails to wound Maple's body.
However.
"Hmm?"
Red-black chains wrap around Maple's body. It is easy to imagine they are a result of the demon's assault.
"What is this...?"
As Maple wonders, the demon attacks again.
Maple cannot avoid this strike either and takes it directly.
"The chains are multiplying...!"
Maple concludes, for now, that the chains are harmful. She decides to push the demon's attack away.
"【Fur Growth】!"
A pure white ball of fur appears on the desolate gray earth.
Maple retreats into the wool, evading the demon's attack while checking the chains.
“Hmm… 【Chained】… First time encountering this status effect.”
Maple examines the status effect in detail.
【Chained】 lasts up to five instances. After five instances, all abilities drop by twenty-five percent.
“So I’ve taken it twice already… that means a ten percent reduction.”
【Chained】 has a two-minute duration per stage. With two stages applied, it will take four minutes to resolve.
“So I’ll stay here.”
Maple waits inside the wool until the chains vanish. Once gone, she emerges from the top of the woolen sphere and calls out to Shiroppu, launching her into the sky as usual.
“【Gigantification】!”
She levitates Shiroppu to a height of ten meters, tilting her face downward at an angle.
Maple sees the demon striking her wool and shouts to Shiroppu.
“【Spirit Cannon】!”
Responding to Maple’s voice, a thick beam of light lances down from far above.
A one-sided attack from a height beyond the demon’s reach.
It scatters light across the earth, swallowing the demon whole.
“Mmm… tough… only a tenth of its health gone.”
Indeed, here she can unleash full power. The demon continues attacking Maple without flinching.
Maple considers burying herself in wool once more.
“Should I extend just my arms and summon the Poison Dragon (Hydra)? But demons might not be affected by poison…”
If she becomes a Poison Ball, Shiroppu can no longer carry her. She would be trapped here.
That must be avoided. Handling poison requires caution.
Maple extends her head and the crescent moon from the side, waiting for the demon.
The demon strikes Maple’s head—yet her head deflects even blades.
A fist cannot land a true blow.
“Spirit Cannon!”
The poison dragon unleashed from the crescent moon engulfs the demon and hurls it back.
“Still no effect from poison.”
No additional poison damage, but impact damage from the dragon’s strike registers.
Better than nothing, certainly.
“Leave it to Shiroppu.”
Having been bound by a curse, Maple retreats back into the wool for safety.
The demon’s HP bar dips below half, thanks to the Spirit Cannon’s attacks, occurring every few moments.
“Spirit Cannon!”
Shiroppu’s Spirit Cannon consumes the demon.
At the same instant, the demon’s HP bar finally falls below half.
“Guh... Tch! Crush it! Crush it!”
Black light envelops the demon’s body. It swells. Its form shifts.
Limbs stretch, muscles bulge, and additional limbs sprout.
The neck elongates. The face vanishes. Only a massive mouth, dripping saliva, remains atop the head.
The grotesque black demon screams.
“Gurrrl... Ggeeeaaah!”
“K-Kinda sickening...!”
Even Maple, unshaken by most horrors, finds this monster’s appearance repulsive.
“Geggegge! Aaah!”
From its mouth, pitch-black flames erupt.
They engulf Maple. The wool burns away completely.
“Huh!? This wool actually burns!?”
Of course it burns. Wool burns. No matter how high her defense, the material’s nature remains unchanged.
The wall of wool shielding Maple vanishes. Maple falls to the ground.
The demon looms, mouth wide open.
Maple tries to flee, too late.
"Aaah."
"Ahh..."
Maple is swallowed whole, headfirst.
The great shield and short dagger fall to the ground.
"Ghiihiihiihii!"
The demon laughs, a grotesque sound, pleased.
Inside, Maple slides through a narrow space.
"Ugh... tight...! Uwah!?!"
The ground vanishes beneath her. She plunges into liquid with a splash.
Maple clutches something that floats.
"Ugh... is this the inside of a stomach?... Wait—my armor is melting!?"
Panicked, Maple soon realizes she does not melt. She calms. She observes her surroundings.
—Hmm... no way to attack. Ah, no, not quite right.
Maple murmurs.
When creating this boss, the administrators had set the full swallow attack to a high-power move.
Even after being swallowed, she continues to take severe damage, and finally falls into a pool of deadly poison.
Even if she survives the poison pool through occasional contractions of the stomach, she will be crushed.
A heavy shield, slow of foot, must evade the swift enemy's all-consuming strike through skill alone.
Maple breached it head-on, her high defense and 【Poison Null】 rendering the assault ineffective.
The great shield bears no damage from three men’s worth of strikes—nothing more than lukewarm water where it fell.
The bathwater had cooled slightly.
Yet at this final point, where survival was never expected, Maple grows stronger as her armor melts away.
“Eaten, but if we defeat it, we’ll be able to leave, right?”
She swims toward the writhing wall of flesh, her body sinking into the pool of poison.
After the demon’s transformation, she resembles a full-furred monster from Monster Hunter, but with wings removed and extra legs added.