Chapter 6
After the party is over,everyone went home with the exception of KYH,Seri and Rin,KYH and Seri don't really mix well together and Haru is racking his head on how is he going to tell her about Sentry's recovery when the time comes,KYH asks how long Haru's training will last and Seri responded with 3 Real World hours or 4 months in BB time,she will at the very least impart the initial skills of the Omega style if it's impossible to teach Haru the essence of the Omega style before the raid,KYH comments that Seri's sword style isn't that well liked among Linkers but she doesn't hate it,the Omega style is a style that maximizes attack power infinitely by concentrating the attack into a single point,according to Seri it has some similarities with 3rd stage Incarnation but it's different and that she'll explain the difference during training,she then asks KYH if she was the one who told Haru about 3rd stage IS to which she replied that it was Graph who is now the 1st seat of Great Wall to Seri's surprise.
KYH asks Seri about why did she return after all these years and asked why she accepted The Disaster,she tells KYH that she'll tell the truth about her return after Cosmos is defeated and reveals that she willingly became the 3rd CD because she feels responsible for the birth of Chrome Disaster even though she could have gotten rid of the armor fragments on her to avoid becoming CD,Blue Knight avoided becoming The 4th CD because he got rid of all the armor fragments after killing Sentry but the Burst Linker who was nicknamed Devourer became the 4th CD because of The Disaster was attracted to the darkness in their hearts and thus automatically transferred to their item storage after failing to take over Knight,Haru confirms that Sentry was not part of the 30 Linkers who betrayed Falcon and Blossom in his vision in V7 but Sentry states it was because she couldn't get there in time to save them,Haru thinks that even if Sentry arrived in time,there was no way she is strong enough at that time to defeat Jormungandr and she would have lost her BB to the maddened Chrome Falcon anyway,he wonders what Sentry has to do with Falcon and Blossom.
(note:the Centaurea in Centaurea Sentry is referring to the Centraurea cornflower,and we know all of Blossom's BB kids are named after flowers including Milady and Oracle,so in other words Sentry is..)
Before Haru and Seri goes to the UNF,Rin takes this chance to tell Haru that she wants to know about his thoughts about her feelings for him and that she wants to hear it from him after the whole Inti deal is over,Haru promises to gives an answer after it's all over(unfortunately,things didn't turn out well because of how everything escalated for the worse at the end of the volume and what happened in V25 did not help things so it's going to be a long while before Rin gets her answer)
Chapter 7
Seri and Haru dived into the UNF in 01:30 AM(3 hours and 30 minutes before the raid),KYH can't go help with his training because she'll get EK'd by Inti since she logged out normally in her previous session and Ash wouldn't much of a help in the training so he's not coming,they dived in the rarely occuring <Salt Lake> Stage which is basically a soggier version of Gyr Abania from FFXIV with more salt water and mountains,Sentry has no problems falling from great heights because her passive Skill <Feather Fall> slows her descent and negates fall damage and she can walk on the corrosive salt lakes because of her <Surface Walk> skill without drowning,Sentry tells him he must not use his Aviation abillity in high altitudes for now because OU likely has eyes monitoring the area within the vicinity of Inti so they have to go to the training ground by foot without getting detected,along the way Sentry tries to get him to be able to run ten steps without sinking in the salt lakes they run into,if he succeeds than he'll get <Surface Walk> as an passive skill but Crow was only able to do 1-2 steps before sinking.
Along the way they see the area where Inti is standing by to see that it's covered by the salt from the water it evaporated,they think that the <Ocean> stage can extinguish it's flames because of the amount of water it has but they don't know what will happen after to Inti if that happens,also Tower and Cerberus's markers are still there with the kings's markers(except Rain) surprisingly enough so they haven't logged in to the UNF to get away from the area yet,Sentry tells him that he needs bypass Inti's flame armor around its body to find the point the Omega style can be used on,the both of them then goes to a rock mountain near the location Seri's apartment is located to find a japanese mansion which is actually Sentry's old Player Home,Parrot Pavillion.
Chapter 8
Sentry tells Crow to pay attention to the southeast of her mansion,a cherry blossom tree will spawn there depending on the Stage(the tree doesn't spawn in the <Salt Lake> stage) and he can use its spawn and despawning to keep track how many weeks he'll spend on his training because Stage Transitions happens at the end of every BB week,Haru equips Lucid Blade and Sentry equips Claiomh Solais,a western longsword named after the legendary Celtic sword,Crow is surprised at Sentry's weapon because he thought she used a japanese sword and Sentry tells him this is just one of the 12 swords she possesses including long and short swords,before they begin Crow asks how many BPs Sentry has after ressurrection and Sentry tells him she has 90 left after using 10 to enter the UNF,when Brain Burst was reinstalled she got the initial 100 BP just like every new Linkers,Haru offers to donate some of his points in case she's in danger of losing BB again but Sentry tells him she can hunt Enemies to get more BPs during Crow's break time and that she used up something irreplaceable in the process of her resurrection so there's more conditions to restore of a Burst Linker using her method.
Anyway the training begins with Sentry attacking first by cutting off Crow's left shoulder armor before he even noticed,Sentry tells him that this is not an Abillity,Skill or Incarnate attack,she just found the right time and cut his armor normally.before Sentry demostrates it again,Haru asked if Beast(the manifestation of Falcon's hatred and rage) used the theory of "enlarging subtle things infinitely" instead of the Omega style and Sentry confirms it so even though it inherited her sword skills,it couldn't use the Omega style the 3rd CD and evert CD afterwards was actually weaker than they were supposed to be.In the second round Haru attacks first by attempting to slash her left shoulder but Sentry dissolved herself by somehow blending with the world itself so Haru ended up falling into the water,he continues his attack 10 times but in the end he couldn't even make scratch on her.
Sentry then tells him that they will be taking a snack break before resuming,Crow asks Sentry how she dissolved herself and she asks how does he see in Brain Burst he replied with his eyes but Sentry questions if the principles of seeing in RL are the same in BB,HAru realizes what he is seeing are processed using the quantum light circuit and not his brain and Sentry comments that in that sense,the eyes on Duel Avatars are just ornaments.Sentry tells him that the battles in BB are processed by the Main Visualizer by making predictions on what will happen and returns its influence on the players by basing it on their consciousness but not even it can keep up when the battles accelerates to high speeds so there's going to be delays when that happens,she tells him that if he understands the mechanism of future prediction,he can consciously deviate it.Crow asks if that involves using Incarnation and Sentry confirms it,while the Omega style is a theoretical style that uses the Imagination control system like IS,it's method of use is the opposite of IS,in other words while the Incarnate System is used to bring about an image in the quantum circuit,the Omega style removes the image.
Sentry then asks him what would happen if the image of her was removed in the quantum circuit and Crow states that the system would not be able to predict what will happen,Sentry then states that the system is only capable of predicting a mistake in an instant but that's enough to get a head start over it and tells him that when he failed to cut her,it's because the image of her shown by the system was made thin,Crow then asks if the image can be removed completely and points out that she can't move if she does that,Sentry reminds him that when she dissolved herself she wasn't moving and Crow realizes the loophole,Sentry says that dissolving herself has the effect of "moving" but not physical movement but by removing the image oneself from the quantum circuit to reduce one's consciousness to nothing and becoming one with the world this is one of the meanings of the Omega style,<Synthesis>,Haru thinks the idea of erasing one's consciousness is a hard idea to grasp and thinks it's too hard for him to do whether he's fighting for fun or enemies but Sentry tells him he'll eventually learn <Synthesis> to reach <Extreme> to able to perform the sword style properly,Crow asks if there are other sword styles in the accelerated world and Sentry lists out 3 of the famous ones,Knight's Infinity style of which he teached to Cobalt and Mangan,Graphite"s Ain style(Aincrad style,huh Edge) of which Lotus is user of and Platinum Cavalier's Flying style.
90 days passed in the UNF,and Crow still couldn't get a scratch on Sentry who invites him to take a drink with her during the <Heian> stage,Crow laments his slow progress but Sentry tells him his progression is fine and that despite her talk of finding disciples,this is actually her first time actually teaching someone,she asks him if he seriously thought if he could catch up to her level in just in 3 months and he tells her he doesn't and he couldn't perform a slash of even 1 cm using the Omega style,Sentry tells him that his win condition for the training is to perform a 1 cm slash using the Omega style against her which is enough to cut off her arm,if he thinks that he can't keep up with Sentry's training then she won't force him to continue but Crow decides to continue.
Chapter 9
Fast forward to 5 RL minutes before the raid,and the Dualis are beginning to dive into the UNF,they talk about how they're not sure which one is a trap:Cosmos being the only one in the matching list or Inti,they considered Pierette's words of doing both the raid and assaulting OU and that it doesn't really matter which one they do first which is why they went along with GW's proposal to defeat Inti first,usually they log in 1 minute before meetings but this time they'll dive 10 seconds before the raid as agreed in the meeting,Koto/Cobalt wonders if Crow will come and Yuki/Mangan trusts him to participate,in the name of the Infinity Style founded by Blue Knight,they vow to succeed and proceeds to dive into the UNF.
They dived during the Moonlight stage which while isn't a Water stage,doesn't have any hazards so it's fine,they then went to the Ministry of Defense where members of other coloured Legions have gathered,one of the younger Leonidz(the Legion polar opposite of NN in terms of gender ratio where most of its members are guys) members,Cerulean Runner doesn't want to rest until the raid starts but Mangan tells him to rest so he can fight to the fullest later on,Runner obliges and goes to fanboying with Frost Horn about their favorite Heliosphere members with permission from Mangan to get their autographs.Mangan goes to greet Raker and asked if Crow has arrived yet,she tells her no but they trust that he'll come in time,suddenly a Beast level crustacean Enemy,<Flame Blower> appears chasing after 2 members of GW and 1 Leonidz member,Rain saves the Legion members while the lieutenants prepares to fight the Beast-level Enemy before Crow arrives cuts open part of the Enemy's shell with the Omega style which Cobalt recognizes from when she and Mangan first met Sentry when they first entered the UNF,the Enemy then gets bombarded with artillery damage with quickly kills it after its skin is exposed,Crow apologizes for taking so long to arrive because Sentry made him do follow-up lessons and Raker tells him to decline next time so he won't be late,Current thinks Crow's swordmanship has reached the level of a Legion lieutenant but Crow tells her that he's not at that level yet despite what he did,Cobalt asks him to take a rest until the raid starts and Mangan tells him that she is looking forward to his performance in the raid.
Chapter 10
1 hour left before the raid starts,the other NN members(Pile,Bell and the Elements) wants Crow to sleep for a while especially since he just finished his training but Crow doesn't want to oversleep and miss the moment the raid group goes to fight Inti Raker tells him that his mental state can't be mantained for a hour if he goes on like this and that taking a rest won't get rid of it,after some prodding he concedes and sleeps in Maiden's lap for 50 minutes to wake up to the entire 96-man raid gathering including Magenta,the Paquet trio and Heir,Sentry decided to go back to RL instead of participating because making her return public would cause too much uproar.Crow apologized to Heir because he wanted him to be the attacker by applying heat resistance to The Infinity but did it for his Lucid Blade instead.Heir tells him it's okay because he didn't do it out of malice and he already learned about what happened from Mr Smith and Pile can see that Crow was training hard to be the main attacker and none of the Burst Linkers gathered has no objections about Crow being the main attacker so it's fine.
July 23 0500 AM
The 96-Man Raid Group from all of the coloured Legions have gathered in 4 rows with each having 24 Burst Linkers to begin the Inti raid,Leopard and Salticid(from the Traces of Prominence side story) has scouted ahead to inform that there is no Large Enemies in the road ahead,they didn't detect any OU members surveying the area but even if there was any members that found out about the raid group and logged out to get reinforcements,they still need at least 10 RL seconds to do so which is 2:46:48 in BB and since the Inti raid strategy is intended to be a short term battle,they'll have more than enough time to bail out the kings and escape if they succeed.As the Raid Group marches forth in the <Moonlight> stage,Current gets reminded of the fateful day 2 years ago where NN marched to raid the Imperial Palace in the <Aurora> Stage only to get wiped in 2 minutes but Crow,Raker and Maiden comforts her that this time,it will be different.
The Raid Group arrives in area where Inti is on,Crow remembers when the twins told his part in the raid plan before they marched,it involves using Lime Bell's time reversal abillity to create a temporary invincible period for Crow to breakthrough Inti's flame coating to destroy its core,according to them Lime Bell's time reversal only lasts for 73 seconds with 7 Burst Linkers supplying her with their Special Attack Gauge after testing and that if Crow can't destroy Inti's core in 60 seconds,he has to retreat and they have to revise the attack plan in the case he falls into EK.
The group is split into the main attacker,coordination group and the anti-Enemy Group,the attacker is responsible for destroying Inti's core,coordination group is responsible for supporting the attacker and drawing Inti's Hate to them,and the Anti-Enemy Group is responsible for killing any Enemies that gets drawn into the area because the use of the Incarnate System is needed for the raid and they are attracted to it.there are also the liaisions for the Kings whose purpose is to inform them to log in after Inti's death is confirmed,Ash is responsible for Lotus so he's not raiding.
The raid starts with the buffers from each row including Maiden buffing each of the rows and the group rushes to the park(no battle cry surprisingly enough,they just raised their weapons and began rushing when the buffs got applied),Inti responds by the turning the ground into lava once they enter its aggro range but the coordination group responds by using their IS to protect the group at this point Crow flies to Inti with Bell supporting him but because Inti's heat is melting Crow a little faster than Citron Call Mode 1 can reverse his time,the invincibillity period will only last for 40 seconds.
Crow spots The Luminary crown of thorns that is restraining Inti,he considers destroying it instead but he realizes that Cosmos could have enhanced The Luminary with Physical Attack Immunity along with Fire Damage Immunity so he abandons that line of thought because the Omega sword style is not an Incarnate attack style so it's still bound by the system rules and thus useless,Crow manages to get through the fire armor surrounding Inti to see it's true body:a 15 diameter glowing sphere.Lucid Blade is slowly melting from the heat so Crow goes to stab Inti to find out to his surprise that Inti only has 1 health bar,even the Einhejar OU tamed from the Valhalla dungeon has more bars than it with 4 health bars.While using Lucid Blade to pinpoint where he should use the Omega style on,he identifies that Inti's core is more durable than the tungsten ball he used to practice the Omega Style with(which means Inti is even harder than even Cerberus's physical defenses as a Metal Color),the durabillity of which made penetrating the flame armor look easy in comparison,he fails to pinpoint the first time and only has 2 more chances as his health bar reduced to 70%,Crow then remembers KYH who is depending on him to escape Inti's EK and Sentry whose words of encouragement drives him to focus his consciousness to 1 point on the upper curved point of Inti's core(Omega style's attack amplification only works on curved points so it's useless on flat points) and successfully cuts the core in half with The Luminary thorn crown shattering in response but the energy Inti generated didn't dissipate and instead spiralled upward to dye the sky red,Inti's core shattered when its health dropped to zero to signal its destruction just like all Enemies,Haru got a lot of BP and items from killing Inti but he can't check his storage at this point and the points and the items will be divided among the Legion members who participated in the raid.While thinking about how to divide the spoils,Crow realized Lucid Blade got damaged from killing Inti and the damage won't be fixed until his next login so he has to survive without it until the operation succeeds to prevent it from taking more damage.
Lime Bell restores Crow and the support team's health after Inti was defeated,because of the use of IS skills by the coordination group,large amounts of Small and Large Enemies are converging to their area,no Beast-level Enemies was drawn in but the Anti-Enemy Group now has to work to thinning the numbers until the kings are saved or things will get troublesome,the liaisions has seen Inti's death and has now logged out to inform them that they can log in safely,the fastest the Kings can log in to the UNF is 2 RW seconds so the Raid Group has thin out the Enemy numbers in 30 BB minutes before the first king logs in and gets rescued.
Chapter 11
If the elites of all 6 Coloured Legions were here in the fight against the 20+ Enemies converging on them right now it would take almost 20 minutes to kill all of the 20+ Enemies that can be cut into less than 5 minutes if they all of the elites used Incarnate attacks but that would lure in more Enemies so the Raid Group has to kill the enemies one by one using normal attacks and skills without IS and the number of Enemies gets slowly thinned with some Large enemies retreating.
Crow neglected to review his hand-to-hand training during his training with Sentry so he gets exhausted after helping the Raid Group drive off the Enemies,Heir is amazed at Crow's performance with the Omega style and asks him if could do the same thing he did one day,in his exhaustion Crow accidentally tells Heir to continuously swing his sword for hours like he did earlier in the volume instead of telling him the <Synthesis> and <Extreme> essences of the Omega style which causes Heir to enthusiastically plan the same thing later to Crow's dismay,Raker tells him to pick up Lotus and they go to the wreckage of the stadium where Inti's lava is slowly cooling down and they noticed that Vise and Cerberus's markers are gone which means they have escaped between the beginning of Crow's training and the raid.
With less than 10 minutes in BB time before the kings log in to the UNF,Crow looks up to the night sky and sees Inti's residual energy lingering after its death,even though the energy is halved the amount of energy is still large and somehow lingered more than 20 minutes after Inti's death,Maiden asks Raker if she knows about any case of an Enemy's energy lasting this long this long after its death and Raker says she doesn't know but thinks the phenomenon is because Inti is somehow special.Crow thinks there was a similar phenomenon not too long ago and remembers the time when Metatron's first form died and how her 2nd form materialized,he then realized the possibility that the Inti he killed was just its first form and that the energy converging in the sky will soon materialize its 2nd form but he doesn't understand why it needed more than 20 minutes to form while Metatron only needed a few seconds,he attempts to tell the Raid Group to run away but it's too late,the center of the energy vortex burst with red light rushing to the pit where the Kings's markers are to create 2 pillars which joined together after growing into 50 meters and 2 slightly thinner pillars formed the air to join the other pillar after it had grown into 100 meters and the light converges into a pyramidal prostution until it disappears.
No one knows what exactly the 100-meter giant that materialized from Inti's energy is until the giant roared and made slight movements that shook the ground and air,it is at this moment everyone realized that the giant is an Enemy,what Crow killed is actually just a shell that sealed away the true body of Inti.It's too late to run away because they'll draw its aggro to them and not even the commanders of the Raid Group,Cobalt and Mangan knows what to do.At the moment when all hope is lost,just like a meteor a silver streak hit the giant's head and formed a crown of thorns on it,Heir realizes that the light is The Luminary attempting to control the giant who tried to resist by tearing off the crown but more of the silver streaks hit the giant from the moon,forming crowns on its arms and three more hit the giant again in the body,chest,and waist until which cause it to fall silent.Against the background of the night sky,something falls and lands on the giant's left shoulder:a Pegasus-type enemy with 2 Duel Avatars on it:a knight in silver armor,1st seat of the Seven Dwarves <Bashful> Platinum Cavalier and an F-type Duel Avatar with golden hair wearing a luxurious dress brighter than the moon with both the crown and scepter pieces of The Luminary:<Transient Eternity> White Cosmos who Sky Raker identifies the identity of.
Crow couldn't understand what Cosmos is doing,is she trying to tame the giant for OU or to save the Burst Linkers who would have been annihilated by it?,in a voice as sweet as a girl and noble as a saint,Cosmos thanks Crow for breaking the egg she failed many times to crack,she was a little surprised but also happy,because the giant became stronger.Crow was shocked about Cosmos's statement of him breaking an egg to which Cosmos replied that the Enemy named Inti was nothing more than an egg that contains all the distortions of the world,the moment it hatches will signal the end of the world and she will introduce it to everyone:Super-class Enemy <Tezcatlipoca,God of the End>,a name that Crow for some reason strangely recognizes.Aster Vine is baffled by this because Inti who originated from Incan myth and Tezcatlipoca from Aztec myth has no connection with each other to which Cosmos said that the names in this world has no meaning,nearly all of the nouns in this world are just randomly spliced up by the system including their names.
Crow realizes that Cosmos isn't taming Tezcatlipoca to save them,and as if to confirm his realization Cosmos states she will give a thank-you gift to the Raid Group by demonstrating Tezcatlipoca's power,by waving her scepter Tezcatlipoca spreads out its hand to the Raid Group as Cobalt ordered their retreat but it is too late:black circles formed in the palm of its hand which increased the gravity around the Raid Group that sank them to the ground except Raker but even then her wheelchair is slowly breaking down from the pressure.
As the group is resisting the increase in gravity,Tezcatlipoca faces away from them to go to the pit,Crow realizes what is going to happen and screams to KYH to not come to the UNF,one by one the EK'd Kings logged in beginning with Radio,then Grandee,then Thorn,then Knight and finally Lotus,as Tezcatlipoca's left hand radiates a red light towards them,Cosmos ends the book saying:
"It's a pity to see you again after a long time,but to say goodbye right away.Farewell,my friend(Grandee?),Farewell,my child(Lotus),you all worked hard until the very end"