21

After taking care of himself, Diluc joined the girls in bed. By the time he got there, they had already all fell asleep.

He soon joined them as he wiggled in between their unconscious bodies.

After only 5 mins of reflecting on what happened in the bath, his body surrendered to unconsciousness.

He woke up in Anor Londo, in the room where he had killed the spellcaster abomination. Running around a bit and getting used to his adult body again took only a minute.

Next was the Dancer. This was a boss that Diluc was not looking forward to in the slightest. He didn't know if there would be a very effective strategy like Aldrich and was despairing about trying to dodge the dancer's near-unlimited combos.

Nevertheless, he teleported to Vordt's empty boss room and made his way up to where the old lady once sat. Avoiding the knights along the way.

Entering the room, he found the old lady, dead on the ground in front of where she usually would sit.

Knowing what comes next, Diluc readied himself for battle. From the ceiling came a large crawling woman with a sword twice the size of our protagonist, silently and not making noise even with the armor that should be clanking around.

Without a word exchanged between the two of them, Diluc attacked her with the Fume UGS. Although it hit squarely on her abdomen, she hardly flinched and began her own attack.

Much alike a rhythm game, Diluc rolled and side-stepped to the sound of an inaudible beat.

As soon as the dancer was finished with her half of the dance, she allowed him to begin his side.

Again, along with the sound of the beat, Diluc attacked the dancer, his attacks flowing from one to the next without faltering. The dancer didn't seem to care that she was being attacked and seemed happier that Diluc was joining her in this dance than anything.

Their dance of death resulted in a prolonged fight where either would die if they didn't adhere to the beat of their dance. If the dancer attacked when it was Diluc's turn, she would be off balance, giving him a chance to deal some serious damage while Diluc would straight die if he tried to trade attacks.

He seriously didn't know why he subconsciously got swept up by the dance but at this point, he simply moved with his body.

More and more attacks were exchanged. The dancer had still failed to get an attack off on Diluc while he was more in the zone than ever.

This was the first fight where he realized that every battle, he had been in up to this point had a song to their own. Every fight up to this point had a rhythm that had to be obeyed, much alike the game of dark souls that has been likened to rhythm games.

Her sword repeatedly was swung towards Diluc who was elegantly tip-toeing along the line between life and death.

Within time and with a lot of effort, Diluc managed to scrape away more of her health. The giant roared and pulled out another sword, this time from the floor. It had a dark ethereal effect to it.

Immediately after 'summoning' this sword, the dancer began spinning, her two blades slashing all of the air around her like a tornado. Diluc knew it'd be game over if he was hit by this attack.

Rather than approaching her and entering combat, Diluc ran the other direction. He still wanted to learn a bit more about the dancer's fighting style before he felt the warm embrace of death again.

The dancer's tornado seemed to continue for an eternity. Diluc had to run to other sides of the room multiple times until the dancer ceased her dance of death.

As soon as she was finished, Diluc knew it was his turn. He immediately closed the distance and attacked twice. Unfortunately, he was interrupted by a loud bang.

That bang was the sound of the side of the sword bashing his ribs in. The dancer didn't use the blade part but rather used the sword as a shield to bash with. This confusing move that came out of nowhere combined with the fact that the dancer's rhythm had changed, Diluc didn't stand a chance.

His body flew into a pillar, after impacting it and probably breaking even more of his bones, his limb body collapsed on the ground. Even Diluc couldn't do much with his rib cage completely collapsed.

The dancer skipped over to the soon-to-be corpse, once she was looming over him, she raised her first sword over his body. However, before she could end his life, Diluc used the Soul Greatsword spell as a last resort.

The Greatsword shot up and formed right before the dancer. With but a thrust, Diluc was able to hit the dancer. Unfortunately, it did little to no damage. The dancer quickly slashed in response after acknowledging that the slumping human was still a threat.

And like that, Diluc had been returned to the bonfire. And thus began his exhausting fights against the dancer for the night.

By the time he woke up, he had learnt much more about his adversary. The dancer's rhythm had changed which had completely confused Diluc. The fight beforehand was reminiscent of the game, which always had some rhythm aspects to the combat. However, once she went into her second phase, the rhythm was all over the place. There was no safe window to attack in.

Today, Diluc had woken up far earlier than anyone else, the sun showed no signs of showing yet. He got up and decided to go for a walk. The past couple of years have been quite nice however he had been lacking some alone time and there's no time like the present to get some.

Diluc put his earbuds in and left the house.