Mel and the rest, including Louise, were locked safely on the dungeon side of the Boss Door when the timer hit zero. An open hole in the ceiling of the boss arena suddenly started howling, and down from the sky came a tornado, which started too small to conceal the Hurricane Harpy, but then grew to what I'd seen from the outside, before.

I stepped forward, and after a moment, the hurricane broke, and the Harpy's three sub-bosses surged out. As before, they all seemed kind of mindless, which was a major disappointment, one I wasn't willing to let go without at least trying.

"Hey!" I put all the force I could into the shout, and the Hurricane Harpy paused, only a light wind barrier springing into existence around her. I pulled the Harpy Birdman's wing out and threw it down on the ground between us. Four sets of harpy eyes eyed the harp, then me. Still not enough? "I met your friend," I snarled. "You really don't give a flying damn about slaughtering men for no reason, do you?"

I could swear there was another Administrator blink moment, and the Hurricane Harpy reared her head back and laughed a shrill, shrieking laugh. After a moment, the three extras threw back their heads as well, and their voices made a perfectly tuned chord as they mocked me.

"Don't you talk to me about men," shrilled the Hurricane Harpy. "No, to you, this is about power, yes? That men should have it, and dominate the women! No, in our world, we will have the power, and we will rule over all men!"

I felt suddenly an enormous pressure in my head, but it passed. There was no status icon, so I didn't know what I had just resisted, but it was probably a charm or domination attack. I grit my teeth and pulled out the Executioner Sword, which I'd thrown the [Hero's Bane] and some damaging auras to, and just slammed it down in front of me.

"Power is power is power," I snapped back. "If you had power but you used it well, I wouldn't give a shit. But that birdman sure as hell didn't look like some spiteful rebel that was put down for his cruelty and malice. It just looks like you are the monsters."

Another Blink. What was this, the Matrix? The Hurricane Harpy raised her nose at me to give me a stinkeye, and the others suddenly had a wilder look in their eyes. Was she making this up on the fly? It's not like I didn't appreciate that, but I wasn't convinced that a little bit of fun play-acting was worth the trouble. After a moment, she gave another shrill kind of laugh, but this one was less sadistic and more sinister.

"Very well, daughters," said the Hurricane Harpy. "This one wants to see the true depths of despair. I will make you regret being born a male!"

Suddenly, the environmental birdmen on the walls scattered, and the eggs cracked and exploded, and a whole horde of Hungry Hordes were born out of them--easily two dozen hordes, but unlike the ones I'd seen, these were featherless and flightless. That number was... actually more than enough to kill me, actually, if they were able to surround me and stop me from getting away. Was this a punishment? Instead of a fair fight, just a deathtrap? A part of my mind which I instantly despised couldn't help but envision Louise at a funeral, talking about how I was so good at handling cocks, but just not good enough.

Then, just as suddenly, four pairs of sunglasses fell out of the skylight, one each landing on a boss or sub-boss' face. That made me nervous, too, of course, but there was still no start to the fi--

"DROP THE BASS!" shrilled the trumpet harpy at full volume, and the Hurricane Harpy's tuba wings let out a distorted hum that transitioned perfectly into the four of them playing what was quite possibly the sickest Dubstep remix of... was that... Those who Fight Further?

It was my turn to cackle into the sky, even as the Hurricane Harpy disappeared into her wind wall. "You DO love me, Administrator!" Somehow, I had not the slightest difficulty slipping into my trance, and although it should have been difficult to double-wield the Executioner's sword, with the sudden mood I was in, I just didn't care, off-handing a Devil's Sword with a manic grin.

My first order of business, same as Mel's group, was to pinch off the French Horn Harpy just in case that area effect was a status inflictor. Rather than getting in range, I threw the Devil's Sword, then the Executioner, then pretty much every other sword I had, before getting knocked back by a blast from the Trombone Harpy. Unlike the earlier fight, in this round she seemed to be actively countering the wind blast from her instrument, and was actually able to contribute.

That was meaningful because the many Hordes, instead of hunting me actively, had turned into a free-roaming tide of violent meat. Although they were mostly restricted to circling the grounds near the walls, some of them climbed the shelves of the wall and leaped in, especially when I was nearby. I forced myself away from them quickly, not quite in a panic, but overcorrected and slipped into the French Horn's zone.

A status defense icon popped up, and I grinned. Because, of course I'd put the aura that included [ Spontaneous Musical Number ] on defense for this fight, and sure enough, that was the zone.

I dispelled the swords that I'd thrown and dived straight at the French Horn Harpy with the Executioner, vaguely aware that I'd taken actually a really big hit to my mana pool from having too many sword out while also using Telekinesis to fly, but I didn't put a lot of thought into it. I was only able to get one good chop in with the blade as I passed by, but I made it a good one, getting a solid strike to her throat with the blade as I passed.

She didn't die. Tough bird. I landed, briefly, and threw the Executioner at her, on the off-chance she was really low after that strike, but it glanced off her wing with minimal effect. And then, the Hordes found me.

I was still most confident with the twin Devil's Swords, and did a fighting retreat against the Hordes, but I was only able to off maybe a horde or two's worth of chickens before another part of the surging tide appeared behind me. Unwilling to stress my mana pool too far, I appeared the Boots of Air Dash instead of spending the effort to actively levitate, and hopped backwards towards the wall. It would only give me a moment, but...

That advance had left me further from the French Horn, and the nearest harpy was the Trumpet, whose constant stream of sharp-edged noise had mostly been missing as long as I kept moving. I tapped the boots again to go up and over her stream of distorted high notes, and gave her a good smash to the forehead with the Executioner as I passed just to punish her for standing still.

And then, for reasons that took me honestly too long to figure out, the Hurricane Harpy's wind-wall faded, as the song hit a bass-heavy portion. In the shock of the moment, I almost didn't realize that there was a whole new trouble brewing--the bass was now shooting air out of the ground, which would likely make it hard to land on the ground safely, but it was also buoying up the Hungry Hordes, allowing them to cycle through the entire airspace of the room as though they were mindless flying enemies instead of mindless grounded ones.

But to hell with that problem, if the wall was down, it was time to attack.

I ended up regretting it severely, as a whole stream of turkey-chickens smashed into me from behind not more than five seconds after I got into position, so I had to refocus and reposition. These airborne Hordes, at least, were not able to navigate, instead forming bands that criss-crossed the room, powered by momentum and hatred and nothing else. I glanced around, finding a place I could maneuver to and safely attack the Hurricane... but...

But it was a non-critical zone, at her hip. At most I could go for joints that she didn't use, as a flying enemy--legs, hips, lower back. No, that was no good. If the sub-bosses were surviving several hits from a rare weapon from the last boss of the previous dungeon, the main boss was going to have health to spare.

After a long moment of examining the room, with a heavy sigh, I did some very quick ability management and appeared the Fallen Angel's Halo, its abilities stripped to be only a Strife aura. As I suspected, that aura had two major consequences in this fight: the Hungry Hordes within range started damaging themselves, and the band--the Hurricane Harpy at least, since she was the only one in range--started playing out of sync. I didn't want the band to play out of sync, because I was enjoying the hell out of the music, but... I guess not dying was also important.

Still, that didn't solve my problem in the short term. No, I decided, all I could really do was shoot myself past the harpy's weakpoints, trying to hit a couple times in a single pass, and reverse momentum to do it again. I got three passes before the music shifted and the wind wall came back up, and suffered a couple different attacks from the Horde as I miscalculated or was beset by wind currents I didn't anticipate.

The wind wall, though, had a pleasant surprise to it, because it actively scattered the Hordes closest to the Hurricane Harpy. Those Hordes also just so happened to be mostly inflicted with Strife, so the scattered birds turned on other hordes as well as the sub-bosses.

Anyway, yeah, it also flung me across the room, and I impacted the wall and it hurt my back more than a little bit, though well below critical. I popped a healing potion and shrugged off the pain, trying not to think about it. In a fight like this, instead of actively watching my health, I just would take a restorative whenever I think I've gotten more damage than the potion would heal. Not like there was no danger, but... in a fight like that, dying... I dunno. Seemed like dying would be okay, too. It was a heck of a way to go, better than I'd see anywhere else, probably.

I threw myself off the wall and towards the French Horn again.

The next stretch of the fight was mostly repeats, as no new patterns emerged until the second of the sub-bosses fell--I'd gotten the French Horn and the Trombone, neither of which had any mechanic I hadn't yet seen, and got a few more hits on the Hurricane in the middle. During Mel's fight, the two-thirds mark was also a transition to a second phase; it was unneeded in this fight since the Hurricane was already leaving herself vulnerable at intervals, but I did appreciate that the wind wall finally went away for good. What I appreciated less was that the variant Harpsichord Harpy that descended from the sky with her own pair of sunglasses--instead of pianos, she had electronic keyboards, and the identifier over her head said "Trance Busting Synthesizer Harpy," and she hovered immediately overhead of the Hurricane Harpy, mostly out of reach of my attacks unless I went out of my way.

The name frankly didn't actually give me the chills, which was a mistake, because the moment she started playing, I fell out of that thin line of focus that let me abuse my Telekinesis skill, and I absolutely positively could not get it back; I couldn't even get close. Whatever that bird's effect, it directly countered an ability that as far as I could otherwise tell, the System didn't even recognize.

I hated her immediately, but I had no shortage of trouble to deal with. With the wind wall permanently gone, the Hungry Horde was doing its airborne waves of death thing again, but more importantly, I could not land on the ground for the rest of the fight without being knocked back up, ass over teakettle for my troubles, the constant bass from the Harpy boss doing little to no damage but making it damn near impossible to recover any semblance of poise or catch my breath. My only option was to latch onto a wall, but as soon as I did that, the Horde would shift its patterns so that a tidal wave would come after me.

Still, I bounced around the walls for a good minute or two, trying to figure the best way to rip the Synth Harpy a new one. In Mel's fight, the sub-boss that had been alive when they beat the boss had vanished for, I assumed, no experience and no loot, and I was not going to take the chance of missing loot for any of these, least of all the sub boss that hadn't even been there in the regular fight.

But there was nothing obvious. I could fly with telekinesis, but mana use was a hell of a lot higher using the skill "normally" instead of in that... trace, or whatever. That was stupid, and I hated it. I knew that I could do it. I knew that I could. Even the Administrator had said that...

...that it wasn't a system skill? Did I need to be able to sense things, to be in that trance, to use the True version of the skill? Was that required... or was I just clinging to the only way I knew how? In the end, although I tried a time or two, I accomplished absolutely nothing except looking like a damn fool. I'd need to experiment when I could concentrate, not, you know, when I couldn't.

Instead, I used the Boots of Air Dash to try to reduce the mana usage, and activated Telekinesis in bursts instead of keeping it active, but while I got a couple good hits on the Synth Harpy, it was clear that it would take a while, with her hanging mostly out of reach.

I circled for another minute, reviewing my abilities, before a thought struck me--a nasty thought, but maybe a good one for me, if it worked. I appeared a broach that had a skill booster on it, and tried making for the Trumpet Harpy. Instead of pounding her with the sword, I reached out with my hand, trying desperately to activate a skill that I had a booster for but no skill levels in, as I grabbed the trumpet.

The trumpet phased through the Harpy's body, and her music stopped as she squawked in protest, as I barely succeeded at using a skill from a piece of joke equipment Harry had gotten me--a whip that stripped people of their equipment. It consumed more mana than I expected, but it definitely did work on a boss like this, although I guess the trumpet was a non-item part of her character in some technical sense, because it slipped out of my grasp immediately after I let up on the skill, phasing through my own fingers like it was ethereal, and the Trumpet Harpy dived for as it fell towards the ground. I cursed and reversed direction, landing two more good hits on her as I passed by, but after a long moment, the high notes of the song came back into focus.

Of course, even if the skill would work on the Trumpet, both the Synthesizer and Hurricane harpies were mostly using their wing-instruments, and I doubted that those would pop off quite so cleanly, but it was an idea for the next fight, if I dared repeat this god-awful mess again. I was already getting pretty damn tired and more than a little ticked off by the fight, and I was down three of my ten healing potions, which also had a frustrating minute-long cooldown. In short, I thought as I popped another one, I'd live, but it was a pain in the ass fight, and I'd not had time to check the loot to see if it was worth it.

A bit more work took the Trumpet Harpy out for good, which didn't cause any other shift to the battlefield, and by that time the Strife aura and some passing attacks by me had whittled down the Hungry Hordes to a far more manageable level. As I reviewed my abilities again looking for an in against the Synthesizer, my thoughts drifted to the rare drop from the previous boss--the Hellfire Nega-knuckles--which had a signature active ability of a "Ten-yard punch". I hadn't actually absorbed the things, since I'd been distracted with Jenna and Mel's group after that, but...

But, I mean, I guess people can just use equipment. Weird thought.

I slipped the things on, the feel of actual, physical, dungeon-tainted metal against my hands feeling like a weird mix of strangely impersonal and weirdly fizzy pressure. When I went looking for the Ten-yard Punch, instead of it being an intuitive link to a skill or ability I had within me, it was just... kind of a button, with an intuition of how I had to line up my hands to designate a target. For practice, since the Hurricane was a much larger target, I started with her.

The active ability did everything it claimed to do, of course--I basically teleported forwards into the bird, gravity and open space be damned, and delivered a strong punch, one that reminded me very clearly that I had no training in unarmed combat and that my hands were used to swords and not knuckle weapons. It's not like they hurt me, but it was... weird, and not something I was used to.

I also didn't quite hit exactly where I thought I was aiming, so I did another two tests before using the same technique to reach the Synthesizer. As I'd hoped, it was more mana-efficient than combining air steps and telekinesis, and I was able to pull out the Executioner and take a couple swipes at it, then another couple at the Hurricane as I went down.

It took a frustrating five more rounds of that before the Synthesizer finally fell, enough that I was worried the Hurricane might fall first and deprive me of loot, so I stopped taking the free hits against her. As it turned out I needn't have bothered, because apparently the Administrator cranked up the health pool on that bitch quite a bit.

On the plus side, killing the Synthesizer removed the what-the-hell-ever it was that was preventing me from using my better Telekinesis skill. And with all the sub-bosses and most of the hordes dead, the battle was basically over, at least from a tactical point of view. I didn't take the time to clear out every last element of the Hordes, but I did perch on the wall and kill a bunch just for stress relief and to recover some of my mana.

By the time I landed the last blow, I was ready for it to be over. Relatively high health be damned, I was covered with scratches, my ears were hurting like hell, my mental state was out of whack... but, I also couldn't help smiling. The battle--one I got by provoking the administrator--was sure as hell the scariest and deadliest thing I'd fought in a long time, and I'd proven once again that it was no fucking coincidence that I was making it through this shit alone.

I raised my Executioner's Sword to the sky and let out a scream of victory as the last of the Hordes vanished into nothingness.