A/N: Romani will be changed to Roman. I knew that I kind of screwed this part when I've started reading FGO's story...

*****

"Heh. This reminds me of some memories..."

Bits of memories flashed in Roman's mind as he traced the labyrinth's wall with his hand. As the King of Mages that lived through the Age of Gods, he visited some magus' workshop. Though, they almost look and feel as exactly as this 26th Floor labyrinth, with them being dreary and such.

Riddled with tons of traps and bounded fields, most magi wouldn't dare invade it.

Of course, his former workshop doesn't look like this. At least, it looked more of an intellectual's room filled with books and other magical stuff. 

"Tsk. Tsk. The creator of this game did take his time setting up the perfect ambience for labyrinths."

"Should be his perfectionism." Kouzuki replied as she stared at the distant chimeras crawling in the ground. 

The 25th Floor labyrinth is also dubbed "Alchemist's Workshop" due to the fact that slimes and chimeras populated the place. The labyrinth boss is still unknown, but the players speculate that it should be an evolved chimera of sorts.

Easily finishing off the remaining chimeras, they soon arrived in front of the boss room.

The door in front of them is more than a dozen meters tall. Intricate carvings are designed in front of it while two golden handles are in its middle. 

"Do you need to rest first?"

"No, I'm all fine."

"I'm opening this thing then..."

With a single push, the boss room's entrance was opened. As soon as they got in, the door closed by itself.

The insides of the room is surprisingly dark and dim until a rainbow light swept through the entire room, making it as bright as day. At the far end of this room is this labyrinth's boss, a basilisk.

Mostly black in color, it walked on all fours with a sharp horn in its forehead. Its long tail has a prism-shaped end, something used to unleash its deadly poison stored inside its body.

"A basilisk."

"The one from the myths?"

"That's right. Be careful to not look at its eyes directly. That, and its poison."

Roman explained it the way he usually does, the precise way. Since they always get interrupted during the time he talks, with some monsters suddenly attacking Ritsuka every time, he does it the most precise way. 

"Alright."

At this moment, the basilisk opened up its eyes before releasing a loud growl.

"We'll do as planned."

"Remember that I'll cast the healing magecraft at my own discretion."

Nodding, he unsheathed his sword made out from black iron. Its grip is adorned with golden patterns while a white jewel is present in the middle of its guard.

As he charged straight at it, four different elements manifested out of thin air. It fused in an extremely fast speed, creating a four-colored energy beam.

After executing <<Rage Spike>> and slashing at its throat, Roman immediately dodged the mouth that tried to bite him off. Behind him, the beam went straight to its open mouth, shaving off one of its HP bars by half. 

However, such attack consumed nearly half of his mana reserves.

'A good one, thankfully.' 

As the former King of Magecraft and the current Grand Caster, casting such elemental magecraft is an easy feat for him - or not. When he became an ordinary human, he lost both his Clairvoyance and Magic Circuits as a result. He knew of the upcoming disaster when he became a human, yet he is powerless to do anything about it.

Thankfully, his friends got his back and helped him. Marisbury, in particular, created Chaldea just for this. This gave Roman the opportunity that he needed to uproot this future calamity. When the bombing on the command room happened, he knew that it had started. 

Before that, he could only be pessimistic as he knew less about the said calamity. Only by hiding his identity and having the chance to meet 'Solomon' in person would he be able to use his trump card. Though, this paid off in a way that his identity wasn't revealed when Lev revealed that he's a Demon Pillar.

Boom-!

The basilisk's tail whipped the floor near him, prompting him to dash sideways. While he dodged, he used <<Sharp Nail>> to cut its tail by slashing diagonally thrice - similar to the "X" shape.

(A/N: The cuts are left diagonal->right diagonal->left diagonal)

Meanwhile, Kouzuki finished the big spell that she was preparing. A huge flame pillar rose up from below the basilisk as it spun slightly like a tornado. This brought the basilisk up into the air as the flame pillar disappeared.

By this time, one of its five HP bars are fully depleted.

The basilisk began to free-fall to the ground, which the two took advantage once more. Kouzuki turned the surrounding 'Air' into 'Carbon Metal' with her Alteration Magecraft before turning it into pikes that aimed at its huge body.

Roman used the <<Horizontal Strike>> skill, a four-hit sword skill, forming a "4" shaped cut in its stomach. When it fell to the ground, they damaged it once more, nearly depleting its second HP bar. 

As it stood up and gained its momentum, things became harder, however.

The basilisk spewed out a bubbly green liquid. This is its poison - a very lethal kind that would inflict a 'Poisoned' status to the ones who made contact with it. Their HP would continuously decrease under this state, unless they drink an antidote potion.

The next twenty minutes were spent with Roman dodging the said poisons while inflicting damage using his magecraft and sword skills. The same goes for Kouzuki who fired off one spells after another behind the front line.

Her spells did great damage to the basilisk, especially her flame magecraft. To its poison, her flame is simply a huge counter against it. A few times, she evaporated the incoming poison at Roman, giving it an opening for him to attack.

Of course, the A.I. behind the basilisk isn't dumb enough as it began dodging Kouzuki's attacks when only its final HP bar is left. The moment it reached the final bar, its pupils shone with golden light. Roman sensed something with his instincts, thus he got away from it early on.

Still, he received the 'stun' status for two seconds. Though, he stayed calm since he knew that someone got his back this time, too.

As expected, Kouzuki formed black barriers formed by carbon metal that is based on Shiro's Exia - the E-carbon. Up to date, it is the strongest material that she had encountered, thus she saved its composition when she performed a structural analysis on it during the time in the lounge.

The dozes of barriers weakened and slowed down the momentum of its sharp tail, giving enough time for Roman to be out of the 'stun' state and dodge it perfectly.

"Thanks." He said as he performed the same move as earlier - his mana reserves refilled in the duration of their fight. Once again, it successfully hit the basilisk as it lowered the final HP bar by a fifth.

The two attacked the basilisk who is in its last straws calmly. When another ten minutes passed, its body plopped sideways to the floor as it slowly turned into digital fragments.

"Phew. That paralysis attack is surely troublesome."

"Just as what you'd expect from a floor boss."

During its last stand, the paralysis gave them the biggest troubles. It simply didn't give them any early signs, only a golden glow in its eyes before it shortly executes the skill. If there are other players, they could've just used <<Switch>> and direct the boss' aggro to them, but they're only two people. What's more, Kouzuki is a mage...

Just as they were about to leave the room and head for the next floor, the door of the boss room opened.

*****

Fact #16: The power-scaling of Arknights' canon is actually quite ridiculous. One such example is Amiya, a Demon Lord. She has 15 seals (10 on her hands, 2 on her wrists, one on her neck, and the other two on her legs). When she unsealed two, she can immediately destroy an entire city. We can only guess what happens when all 15 are released. On the other hand, we have Skadi slicing mountains in one hit, an old man (Hellagur) who fought Patriot and lived, some remnants of a god that can bend reality, and so on...