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Mystic Knight 13 - :black102: Black Harder
Welcome back, let's just jump right into the finale.
The stairway Twintania was guarding leads to the obligatory psychedelic crystalline dungeon. Gilgamesh guards the first teleporter panel.
Guard isn't quite the right word. Occupying the general vicinity and flailing in a complete panic at everything that comes near is more to the point.
Eventually we drain him back to sanity. Maybe there is a thing to that old medieval bloodletting practice.
YEEEESSSS!
SHUT UP or I'll kill you like all the rest!
You can come with, please.
Of course I'd have to kill you, but I wouldn't enjoy it that much
With Gilgamesh out of the way we can progress. The final stretch is pretty linear, the offshoots are usually visible as you snake around, and mostly useless aside from the one with Shinryu.
Shouldn't have run from this, it's a very rare encounter, and it'd have been gotten me a lot of money if I remember right.
The Necromancer does the same thing as the Fairy Walk after we saw the Giant Mirror; randomly zombifies the dead. I could have broke him, don't know about the Chimera guy since !Flee always triggered when I tried to target it.
If you can't kill these guys in one hit :coughbreakcough: then run. They counter attacks with Mind Blast. They do Mind Blast as a normal thing. They love Mind Blast. They're a pain to run from, but they're even worse to fight if you can't cheese them. Even though Winged Shoes grant immunity to paralyze, that's still 300-400 HP of damage per jerk per turn.
The Crystelles absorb everything but seem to be equipped with tissue paper armor.
As mentioned, the jerk decides its a great idea to give him and the Mindflayer another target to whiff their damage on, rather than feasting on Mihnwu's juicy brain and reanimating the hollow husk afterwards.
I tried Necrophobe multiple times, but couldn't beat him, even with my final levels. The barriers aren't too bad if they favor Holy rather than Flare. But Necrophobe himself kept doing Maelstrom/physical one-two combo for the kill.
So let's ignore that jerk. Instead let's fight the evil spirit who was imprisoned in a tree, became a tree, became a 40 foot tall giant knight, then has become a tree again.
So you do consent to me chopping you down?
He's become so powerful now, he has conquered the Void, and has not just become a doom tree, but the Giant Mirror too.
Bal Castle goes.
And Boko's Haotiful Girlfriend.
Nothing of value was lost in Mihnwu's Secret Underground Volcano Lair.
And finally us. Why he didn't do that earlier when he started shotgunning voids around the planet who knows.
For being an eldritch abyss of madness, the Void sure looks pretty. Also full of stars.
It's that time again, where the power of friendship overcomes the evil spell of doom.
And we get spit back out.
Suddenly I have some non-descript J-pop song playing in my head while ridiculous things happen.
And I guess King Tycoon has become an Honorary Dawn Warrior, or maybe he left them before they became famous?
Yeah yeah werewolf.
So here's the first form of the final Boss. For this Mihnwu is going with the Chicken Knife, Aegis Shield, Crystal Helm (since there's nothing better), Black Garb and Hermes Sandals.
I'd have loved to go with the Bone Mail, but Exdeath suddenly remembered he can cast Holy and Mihnwu needs a reliable way to heal back to full without sacrificing pure damage.
Exdeath hits hard and his magic is nastier. Thankfully one of his really nasty tricks is nullified by the Aegis Shield. White Hole is an attack that inflicts Break and Death with alarming accuracy. A normal run would need someone to cure both ailments to bring them back into battle.
The Chicken Knife at full power is obscene. Alert readers may be shocked to see how much more damaging this is than the Enhancer, despite only being 25% stronger on paper.
The trick is that daggers have a different damage equation. One that factors Agility into the multiplier. Instead of the multiplier being (Lv*ATT)/128+2, it's (Lv(ATT+AGI))/128+ something or other. Since Mihnwu had descent speed to begin with, combined with the boosts from all his equipment, it means his damage is more than double what you'd expect.
This is the end of the first attempt. Flare hurts.
So the second attempt begins, but instead of flare I go with drain sword to keep health topped off.
Except one of his turns has the chance to cast Doom. Just 33% odds on a later turn, but doing less than 10% of his total HP means if it doesn't show up the first time, it'll probably show up the second.
Level 50 is just too low. I need more health to keep up the offensive. If you attempt to leave after Exdeath did his second mini-apocalypse, the laws of time and space twist around so you don't have to deal with Time Kompression or blue circles blocking off towns.
I was weighing the choice between Black Garb and the slightly more defensive Crystal Mail. At the moment, and for the next few levels the boosts to agility and strength the Garb gives is enough to roll over into a new multiplier. Not that big of a deal when Flare Sword is doing about 20% of his health either way, but the agility lets you sneak in healing between hard hits.
I flirt with Crystal mail on a few attempts, but like they say, when you go Garb, you never go blarb.
And another elixir. Hi Potions just won't cut it 90% of the time.
Have I told you lately that I love Break?
Even the Shoat Recolors can be petrified 
I doubt the Dragon can, again, I always run, either intentionally or because of the chicken knife.
Synchronized Shoryuken should be an Olympic Event.
2 Levels, not enough to eat a physical and flare without healing, but a little more breathing room can't hurt.
After triggering the cut scene again I walk back to save, and burn the top two summons out of the Magic Lamp. In a normal Fiesta run, I'd throw Bahamut, Leviathan, and Odin all in the first round, but I don't have the time to do that here funneling through one character.
The first few failures were mostly just feeling things through. But now I'm breaking out Mihnwu's secret weapon; spreadsheets. From the damage I listed under the first form, you can tell I started with Drain again.
Or if you hate math, you can just see it on the next screenshot I took. Plebian.
My mouse cursor is hiding the "8". That's not a 3. So I switched back to Flare. Like the final World 2 fight, Exdeath has a pissy mode, so damage must be dealt fast.
And it was in this try. I should also mention that it seems the chicken knife eliminates damage variability (that 12% variance for swords, or 0-3 points for other daggers). The only variability you get with this is if the Chicken Knife decides to waste a turn.
Now for the real fight. Neo-Exdeath has a lot of nasty tricks and
Huh, never mind, well thanks for readi-
Oh that's right, he's got multiple targets, but at least that killed one.
The lower left target (The skeleton man and/or the topless chick wearing the American Flag) is now dead. If I didn't throw out a fast Zantetzuken, I'd run the risk of Meteo. Plus it has the highest HP of the four.
The Top-Center target (The Red Lion, who like the King of Red Lions is technically a dragon for damage bonus purposes) is the second most dangerous. While Meteo would be almost certainly fatal, this target does this.
Grand Cross converts sparkles, lightning and weird beachballs into one random status effect for each character, including instant death.
Second attempt, the first form didn't do anything special. The Top-right target (Japanese Doctor Manhattan) is the third most dangerous. This was him wasting a turn on Dispel, rather than wailing out a VacuumWave for ~2500 or 1300 for a regular physical hit.
Running too fast and loose got Mihnwu killed again.
On paper, the Tree boss has 49001 HP, but by my math he dies before that, my estimates frequently showed him dying while still having around 400 HP. Perhaps he has a Sol Cannon script or something?
Neo-Exdeath's attacks aren't too fast on their own, but with 3 of them going in rapid succession can make things intense.
This was a lucky roll. While its your turn the shades disappear, so I didn't know Mihnwu didn't escape unscathed until after entering in the command.
Missed it by that much.
That won't happen again I hope
Now I survive it by that much. Plus...
It triggers Magic Shell. I can't remember if Grand Cross is impacted by Shell, but I know something that is.
Not that, but glad to avoid it for once.
This, Almagest is the skill of the center-bottom target (the skeletal dragon thing). I could have laid into him with Break Blade. But Almagest even without Shell is the safest thing in the fight. 1600 HP isn't trouble unless it's followed up by a Vacuum Wave.
This is holy elemental, so even if I used the Bone Mail and survived the first round, this would be dangerous. Even though the Bone Mail would help against a lot of Grand Cross's tricks, it wouldn't outweight the Holy vulnerability.
And another Grand Cross, what evil will you inflict on me now, monster?
Berserk, 
if only I had known it'd be berserk, I'd have switched from Flare sword to Drain and stood a sliver of a chance.
It doesn't end well.
On this run I manage to kill the Grand Cross part.
I was too confident though, and chose to switch to drain sword for reliable healing over ending the fight faster.
It worked quite well for a bit, but instead of taking out the remaining 2 targets in 7 or 8 successful attacks each, it'd take the drain sword 15 or so.
Can this get any worse? 
Curses, did I just type that (I say, by typing, about 20 hours after knowing what happened and still typed it anyway).
[missing screenshot of the third meteor hit doing about 800 damage, thereby making it mathematically possible for survival and giving me a fraction of a second of hope.png]
That happened twice. That's what happens if you deign let him live long while under 10000 HP. I was also running the Cyrstal Mail here, so while before he was dying with 400 or so HP left, he seemed to survive until I depleted his HP when I took away the extra multipliers.
I didn't mention it the first time I killed the Grand Cross part, but these guys, even if they give the text prompt saying "the something of somewhere is adjective" there is a chance they ignore doing their doom attack. The two times I killed the Red Lion he didn't cast Grand Cross despite having been given every opportunity thanks to !Flee 
The background fading grey briefly means a target has died.
The HP of the form is #Value!
I'm fighting under an auspicious star. Thank you Fusui.
The Almagest part has some evasion, making it more hectic than I wanted.
Remember when I said Hi Potions are useless 90% of the time? Technically it still was since I'd have survived with 51 HP after a Vacuum Wave, but still, a very close call.
Its at this point, with Almagest at around 6000 HP and VacuumWave at 1000 that I switch tactics. If I don't kill them simultaneously, the survivor can do any of the fun tricks of his dead partners. Meteo and Grand Cross come back on the table. Mihnwu will not suffer that to happen.
Those *tinks* always bring joy to my heart.
And a wild haymaker goes wide.
I'll wave you you jerk 
Even though I know it's not actually happening since I know the script, I switch from the tiny damage of the air knife doing about 500 points of damage a hit back to a drain chicken knife, which will drop Almagest to around 1000 HP once it hits.
And there it is, I switch back from the Chicken Knife to the Air Knife for the last attack.
We haven't seen anything beyond Odin.
This was one World 3 sidequest I skipped (that and Gogo), because it wasn't much of a sidequest to begin with.
Syldra gave up her soul to become a summon to help Faris, despite the fact Faris is beyond help.
Despite the name and the graphical appearance, this is an air elemental attack, so Air Knife boosted it. The boost was unnecessary, but NED needed to die hard.
Final Level - 53
Deaths to Tree - 7
Deaths to NED - 5
Stuff happens, the party shoryukens the crystal shards so hard they reform into crystals.
And the rest. Don't need to care about the other people.
Then the force ghosts turn into a dragon because the power of love?
FFV has "different endings" depending on who survived. You'd need to stretch your definition of "different" to justify actively trying to see all the possible variants. It all ends the same in the end.
After carrying these loads for hours, Mihnwu can't do it any more.
By default, Kirle will send the note, unless she's dead, and she is.
The Heir is whatever shopkeep I sold the Excalibur to.
Chocobabies
This reminds me of Kain at the end of FFIV for some reason.
Let's think back to happier times, like when Lenna was self destructive.
Or when Kirle blew the stuffing out of a wall in a sky fortress. Which in order for her to reach she'd have to have jumped from a supersonic meteor and landed on through the fortress.
Or when she hadokened the big bad.
The power of love friendship cheese brings our friends back to life, but not Galuf, or Tycoon, or anyone else because.
Don't be too hasty, the Void may have just belched out their corpses, looks like they're still pining for the fjords.
Let us correct this aberration by traipsing through the North Mountain flowers.
Because the last time we did that was a smashing shattering success.
Kirle gets to fly the force ghost dragon.
More birds for Walker!
Kind of surprising how much more detail is crammed into the sprites when they're about twice as large.
Kirle looks terrified, but if dragons are anything like tigers, you dare not get off.
And here's the last screen before VBA froze. I think since this is technically a battle, the game seized since Kirle was still forced dead. Lesson to everyone else, you might need to disable the kill everyone cheat once NED dies.
Grand Total of Boss Deaths - 75 (plus maybe 5 or so from Karlboss, 1 from Shiva, 4 from Necrophobe
Thanks for reading, it was fun trying this out.