Dusk (BL Light Novel)

As I nodded along to myself, accepting the situation in my own way, the boss’s HP hit 13%. Whether 13% was a trigger threshold or not, a brand-new gimmick we’d never seen before finally began casting.
Golden-bordered and sky-blue-bordered AoEs began appearing all over the ground in rapid succession, slightly staggered. It was as if some unseen entity was carefully drawing them one by one—each ring blooming along a white line until they filled the floor completely.

Unlike the Day and Night phase AoEs we’d seen before, this new pattern was an entangled mess with barely a scrap of open space. As if screaming “Final Phase,” the design showed no mercy.
[Party] Honeybread: Is this a wipe mechanic?
[Party] Retaking: Just in case,

[Party] Retaking: keep DPSing
Following Retaking’s lead—this could very well be a wipe mechanic—I kept pumping in damage while scanning the AoE-covered ground with my eyes. If it wasn’t a wipe, there had to be a safe zone buried somewhere under all these overlapping tiles, and I needed to find it.
Multiple gold sun-tile overlaps turned a dark scarlet hue. Stacked moon tiles took on a deep navy color. And where both elements overlapped, depending on which was dominant, the colors blended into murky green or deep brown.

The entire floor had been neatly painted in overlapping, chaotic hues—so dense and thorough it was hard to call it “white marble” anymore.
The casting bar was rising at a steady, not-quite-slow pace and had passed the halfway mark when something caught my eye in the chaos—one small patch of bright sky-blue, the original color of a moon tile, standing out untouched amidst the layered patterns.
I moved my fingers quickly, dashing toward the sky-blue tile behind the boss using my mobility skill. The cast was nearly complete.

Retaking noticed me making a move and ran toward my side—then abruptly changed direction, using his dodge to veer toward the opposite end of the arena.
Glancing over, I saw what he’d found: a narrow golden spot with only a single layer of sun tile—just large enough for one character to stand. Retaking carefully adjusted his position to avoid standing off-center and began casting an attack with ease, seemingly confident.
Somehow, by a miracle, we’d each managed to find our own safe zones during this brand-new gimmick. The cast finished, and the boss opened both arms wide. Its previously soft, curtain-like wings now stretched straight and rigid.

They were transparent and white—pure in color, without a single pattern—which made them feel even more mystical, even noble.
As the wings spread, they brushed against the ornate accessory that usually created the auto-attack orbs. The once-solid-looking ornament shattered into glimmering fragments.
At that moment, every AoE on the ground swapped color—sun tiles became moon tiles, and moon tiles became sun.

I’d been standing on a moon tile. But when the colors flipped, I was suddenly on a sun tile. Because I was standing on the opposite element, my HP dropped by more than half in one go. Retaking’s health was cut down in a similar way. It was definitely percentage-based damage.
More than the health loss itself, what worried me was the debuff bar. If these tiles stacked status effects like before, we were in trouble. Thankfully, this particular gimmick didn’t seem to apply the Burn or Chill debuffs. My stack count remained unchanged. Instead, a new debuff popped up: [Open Wound].
I activated my mouse and hovered over the debuff: “Attack speed reduced.”

[Party] Honeybread: Got attack speed down
[Party] Retaking: Me too…
[Party] Retaking: This was a fakeout
[Party] Honeybread: fr

Still, when I actually used a skill, the difference didn’t feel huge. On a normal day, I’d squeeze in four skills, but now I could land only three—just short of normal. It was unfamiliar but not unbearable.
It looked like a wipe, but all it really did was apply a mild attack speed debuff? That’s it?
Maybe. But knowing the kinds of gimmicks this fight had thrown at us so far… I had my doubts.

The boss’s HP had just dipped to 8%. If it didn’t immediately throw out a wipe here, we basically had the clear in the bag. But was the DPS check really this generous?
Part of me felt suspicious, convinced this wasn’t the end. But with the finish line in sight, my heart pounded anyway. I mean, this was the main story dungeon—maybe they made the DPS check easier on purpose to balance out the hellish mechanics.
[Party] Retaking: We’re actually gonna clear this, huh?

[Party] Honeybread: Stop jinxing it
[Party] Honeybread: please;
[Party] Retaking: I’m serious

[Party] Retaking: I’ve got a good feeling
[Party] Honeybread: I like “Chocochip” too
[Party] Retaking: ?

[Party] Honeybread: now shut up and DPS
That was our last exchange. After that, both of us silently entered final burst mode. I emptied out every high-damage skill I’d been saving with long cooldowns—no more saving anything for later. There was no later. This was it.
As we DPSed, the background music subtly changed. Up until now it had been smooth, with a few static pops here and there—but now, as the boss’s health dropped, a jagged, distorted interference crept in.

It sounded like tinnitus… or maybe an untuned radio… or maybe both.
Ignoring the slightly grating audio, I dumped everything I had into ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) the boss. Its HP dropped to 5%. That’s when it finally moved again, as if waiting for that very moment.
The final boss stared at us with eyes that felt both searing hot and freezing cold, then slowly closed its eyes. Its wings began to tremble.

The already-translucent wings, which shimmered faintly with the background behind them, began to ripple—glitching with chromatic aberration, distorting into something uncanny. And then, slowly, they began to change.
Their new shape was familiar. So familiar that if someone handed me a pencil and paper, I could sketch them from memory.
No doubt about it. Those were our wings—mine and Retaking’s.

Each one had been copied exactly. One on the left, one on the right. The black base, the red and yellow lines forming an eye-like motif, the long purple dot as a highlight—it was a flawless replica of the custom wing design I’d created.
I stared at my own and Retaking’s duplicated wings, trying to figure out what it meant. And three seconds later, I gave up. I wasn’t Retaking, and I sure as hell didn’t know what it was trying to say.
Besides flight or gliding, wings in this game were mostly cosmetic—just a form of personal flair. What was the point of copying them?

The boss finally showed a sign of fatigue, gritting its teeth and raising one hand to stir the air—its fingers twitching like it was typing or tickling something invisible. That movement triggered what was clearly the final cast.
Because of the attack speed debuff, our DPS slowed significantly compared to the previous phase. What seemed like a guaranteed clear now felt uncertain—the damage wasn’t high enough to say for sure whether we’d beat the cast or not.
Like someone seeing their life flash before their eyes, I was suddenly plagued by regrets: If I’d been more focused during that earlier phase, I could’ve squeezed in another skill. Maybe two.

I kept my fingers calm and pressed my skills methodically, but inside, I was panicking. I even tried a desperate, stupid idea: What if the cast bar itself is a fake? Like the earlier mechanics? What if you’re supposed to break it somehow?
So I enabled my mouse and clicked the cast bar like a lunatic.
Naturally, the bar didn’t budge no matter how much I clicked. Boss cast bars don’t care what kind of dumb shit you try with a mouse.

Still, all that effort wasn’t for nothing. By the time the cast bar reached halfway, the boss’s HP had dropped to 2%.
Starting from 5% and shaving off 3% by halfway—that was a good sign. At this pace, we just might be able to squeeze out a clear. Just barely.