Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 5: Fight at The Source

Date: Infinityverse Day 71-109

Before I start this chapter, I'd like to briefly touch on something. The pace at which I'm depicting the clearing of the game is faster than what would be ideal. The problem is that so many things have happened and a large portion of them were repetitive and not really worth putting much detail into. It's no wonder the creator of SAO ended up having the Aincrad arc progress too quickly. 100 floor bosses is a lot not to mention all the quests, floors, and locations that were already part of Aincrad to begin with. In SAO Integral Factor, it's been several years since it launched and yet, the game's storyline has not been fully completed yet. So many floors haven't been added to the game yet. So there you go. I'm only able to focus on the biggest moments and situations in this story about the Infinityverse Incident. I'm trying my best. With that said and done, please enjoy reading onwards. Thank you for reading to this point if you have chosen to read through the entirety of the first 4 chapters. No incidents occurred at the teleport gate that needed to be activated to reach Floor 10. Our operation in the Akatsuki against Laughing Coffin was a huge success. We made it to Floor 10 without any worries at all. I know I said I would detail every location and floor boss on each floor from now on but as I said last chapter, my memory of the Infinityverse is limited in my original body which I write this story while inhabiting. That means I have to look up what was on what floor and I'm not motivated to read through parts of the Story Replay of the chunk of SAO Integral Factor I have played so far at the moment. I'm trying to get this and the next chapter done as well as draw for 15 hours and work on Twisted Land for 30. All before 2 days before Halloween while also juggling work, doing daily sword training, and dealing with being sick for the 3rd time in 2 months.

I need to make time to play through RCT3 more. The game has 37 scenarios total including in its expansions, all of which were completed in the Infinityverse. I just seriously want some time before next month when I start writing about the next major battle that I feel like writing about in The Ultimate Interdimensional War. I can't even tell you how many things that have happened I've had to leave out of writing about. Some get briefly mentioned but that's all they get after they're over with from me. This is the dilemma of just about any writer at this point. So much to write about but not enough time to. Floor 10 was a welcome change from the freezing weather of Floor 9. We all found ourselves inside a peaceful Japanese style village. It was a huge contrast to other floors. Kirito looks around fondly: "I remember this floor. I wish Klein were here to see this. He'd be so thrilled to do the quest for that samurai sword. It so happens that this quest leads to info about the floor boss." Argo appears out of nowhere: "You're correct if I'm not mistaken, Ki-boy. However, we don't need the info." Lisbeth nods: "Unfortunately, you're right. We found out the info given through quests about the floor bosses hasn't been updated to include what's changed about the bosses since SAO. When New Aincrad was opened, the bosses were already harder to beat than in SAO since we didn't have to worry about dying if we died in ALO. But now, they're even harder than in ALO as we've all been well aware for a while." I nod: "I noticed that too. I didn't say anything because it's a serious grind to get anywhere in this death game. We have to keep upgrading our gear constantly, always trying to find some way to do so. Let's not forget all the food and potions for buffs."

Silica smiles determinedly: "Even I keep upgrading! With Pina and all of you by my side, I'm no longer as afraid as I used to be! We can do this! We'll reach the Ruby Palace and the top of the Centra Cathedral!" Alice nods: "Indeed. The Pontifex will regret her tyranny. To think I once served her." M speaks: "I couldn't help but overhear you. You have to remember that this is still life and death at all times. Don't let the enemy get you by giving them an opening to strike." Pito surprisingly agrees: "Yeah, M's right. But that doesn't mean we can't have some fun!" Beerus yawns: "Mortals, are we not going to go explore this floor or not." Stampy speaks up: "Hey, there are loads of villagers here!" StacyPlays replies: "That's strange. What are villagers doing in a area that isn't from Minecraft?" Stitcher sniffs the air out of nowhere: "I can smell it.. That rotten flesh.. Monsters.. I want to kill them all!" Stampy reacts: "Gogglies?! But I don't see any!" Filo makes a disgusted face: "Eww! I think I'm smelling that smell too! But where are those monsters?!" Naofumi sighs: "I can also smell them.." DanTDM replies: "Wait, if we can smell them but can't see them.." Yaoyorozu finishes: "That means, there's a huge army of them." Kirito speaks again: "Damn it! The enemy must have laid out a trap for us! And I'm not talking about Laughing Coffin.." Stampy exclaims: "What if it's Hit The Target and Veeva Dash?! They were working with Romeo for a short time until we.. defeated them after all.. Recently, I let them have my Lovely World and left it with all of my friends." I reply: "Wait, what?!" "Oh don't worry about that, you'll see in the final episode of my Lovely World once you get around to watching it. I'm not as 'trapped' in this game as all of you are for some reason but I'm glad to be part of the Assault Team. Even though I'm absolutely rubbish with the bow and arrow."

Barla takes out a pair of binoculars and uses them: "Hell no! They're coming quickly!" Stacy says: "No wonder the villagers are frightened! Look!" Yuya adds: "Not even my dueltaining would be enough to help comfort these innocent villagers. We have to fight for what we believe in!" Tsunade replies: "You're right. But we need a plan. We still have some time before the army of monsters get here." Gameknight999 speaks up: "Erebus and Malacoda are behind this. I can feel it. They're coming closer. Erebus can dream-walk. So can I. He tried to strangle me last night through a dream. We should set up defenses in the same way I used to have Crafter's village do whenever we moved locations and were about to be attacked by monsters. Now that I'm a member of the Assault Team, I still lead them as they trust me but there's less need for us to set up defenses." Isis(Ishizu) replies: "I may no longer possess my Millennium Necklace. However, I sense even in this death game that if we don't do something soon, the monsters will deal devastating damage without much effective resistance." Olivia says: "Hey, it wouldn't be that hard for us to set up defenses. But we should definitely take them to the next level. Ellegard made a command block after all. With a command block, the possibilities are endless!" Jesse smiles: "Good point, Olivia. Alright, it's about time we get started." Not a single person, pony, furry, Tomapieian, mii, or whoever else objects. With the sheer creativity represented by some members of the Assault Team such as myself, it wasn't hard to design a high advanced defense system. Even with Dominic no longer being with us, we were able to succeed without much trouble.

We built defenses around the entire village. Once that was done, people were organized and positioned based on what weapons they specialize in. Marksmen, archers, you name it on the towers we built. Swordsmen around the perimeter. Hammer and axe users concentrated at the gateways that were built. And so on. Even drawbridges were built when possible. When the monsters came, we were ready. They were organized enough to stack on top of each other to get over the wall. Some even dug under it. They weren't going to make defending the village easy for us at all. In fact, it was obvious that they were going to do the opposite. Even with the TNT cannons, our foes were still flooding into the village. And we had to stop them. As time went on, things only got more difficult. More and more monsters. Just about every kind from Minecraft. Drowned, strays, wither skeletons, skeletons, creepers, spiders, cave spiders, slimes, magma cubes, blazes, ghasts, piglins, piglin brutes, endermen(the ones not on our side), guardians, elder guardians, pillagers, evokers, vexes, and zombie villagers. So many types of monsters. Malacoda's laughter is heard above all else. "Hahahaha! You clearers are finished! With the help of a few Laughing Coffin members, we were able to get so many villagers to flee to this village you're all in! We opened a way for them to get to this floor before you could! With the villagers in place, we were intending for all of you to choose to protect them instead of face the monster army head on! You fell for it and did what we wanted you to do! Why did we want you to? Because we have a few surprises for you!" Erebus cackles: "For now, we've set aside our differences. Gameknight999, revenge is mine!" We hear TNT detonate below us. We were unable to get away in time. The village was devastated and so many of us were harmed by the explosion. Nearly all of our defenses get destroyed in the explosions.

Gameknight999 shouts: "No! We just lost so many villagers!" He, his friends, and the surviving villagers do a solemn death salute briefly. Romeo replies: "It's time I get serious about this situation." Within seconds, the village gets repaired and new defenses replace the destroyed ones. Erebus chuckles: "That won't stop us." A bunch of his endermen begin dismantling the new defenses. The long range fighters who were knocked to the ground attempt to stop them but the endermen have fast reaction times and projectiles do nothing against them. I saw part of this with my own eyes as I cut down monster after monster with my sword skills. It turns out I have a few sword skills in the game and just never realized it. I found that out yesterday. They are: Shadow Stab(it's a lot like Piercing Darkness), Wind Blade(temporarily increases my attack and movement speed), Gust Strike(similar to Great Infernal Tornado Slash), and Hunting Slash(not unlike Darkeye Slash). Whenever I fight now, I use the skills often in conjunction with one another. When I focus on a single target, I prefer Shadow Stab and Hunting Slash. Gust Strike and Wind Blade are much better for multiple opponents. I also found out yesterday that pretty much everyone else on the Assault Team has at least 4 skills too, acquired intentionally or not. I suspect that Heathcliff is behind all of this. He is the one who gave Kirito his iconic duo wielding skill after all. "Damn it! There's too many of these monsters! With such a variety pack of enemies, it's hard to cleave through them all with a constant sword flow." Diavel yells: "Don't give up, everyone!" Romeo adds: "I'm going to take care of Malacoda myself. Maybe I'll have some fun while doing so. But we'll see. Won't we?"

The battle just kept on going. It continued to get harder and harder. After a while, my muscles began to burn. "Crap! I can't keep this up for more than about 10 minutes! The weapons most of these monsters are equipped with are making it hard to prevent sustaining heavy damage! As if that weren't enough, I can't use Enhance Armament or Release Recollection because my sword is not a Divine Weapon! This is the best I can do right now even with all the potion and food buffs. Even if I were a part of KoB, the Guild Flag's buffs wouldn't be able to keep me in this fight for much longer than I'm still able to without those buffs." Kirito shouts: "I think we're all going to reach our limits soon! We have to wrap up this battle right now!" We hear Erebus shout: "Gameknight999! Give up! Why won't you give in to me?!" "Erebus, I won't be stopped by you. I will keep going for my friends. For Crafter. For Minecraft!" "Curse you! I'll make certain that you regret saying that to me!" And then, we hear Malacoda yell: "Romeo, you traitor! Why won't you just die? I'm running out of patience for you!" "This is all fun and games for me. You can't defeat an admin. Not by yourself. In fact, I was very surprised that Demonic was able to completely overpower me. I thought my only weakness was the gauntlet Fred made before I killed him. But I was wrong just like with many other things. And because I was wrong, I now see my errors and have sought out to correct them."

Goku shouts: "I'm getting more and more fired up! Bring it on, monsters!" Vegeta scoffs: "You clown! This isn't the time to be excited!" Uraraka yells: "We have to go beyond! Go, Plus Ultra! It's a good thing I can still use Gunhead Martial Arts in this game!" J'onn J'onzz, a member of the Justice League and the only survivor of the extermination of the Martians at the hands of an alien race who stole their shapeshifting powers speaks: "I sense a increased disobedience in the monsters. They are having second thoughts about joining this battle as they watch their brethren get killed off one by one. Despite being trapped inside this game, my telepathic powers were able to remain accessible to me due to being a neural ability that has no effect on any matter." He has green skin, red eyes, and a largely blue superhero costume. I continue to fight alongside the entire Assault Team. We take things to the next level if at all possible. The growing dissent amongst the monsters starts to actually play a role in the tide of battle after another 5 minutes. I had been hearing the fight between Gameknight and Erebus continue in the background up to now. But suddenly, the sounds stop. Erebus screeches: "Monsters, you will destroy the clearers! DO NOT DISOBEY!" Some monsters fall back in line but the others continue to resist. Instead of obeying, they start to retreat and trample some of the other monsters in the process. This allows us to push the monsters back and cut through more and more of them as they grow more and more uneasy. 2 minutes later, we have pushed the monsters out of the village. I'm reaching my limit. Any minute now, I won't be able to move my arm muscles around at all without so much pain from being sore. The muscle fatigue in this game is more related to both avatar stats and someone's mental strength than their actual physical strength.

Even my mental strength wasn't able to hold on for much longer at this point. Due to this fact, I was just about done now. Malacoda is defeated by Romeo. Erebus sees this. Since both he and Malacoda are far bigger than ever for some reason now, it was easy to see that. Erebus yells: "This isn't working! Retreat! We're leaving! Gameknight999, I will kill you! The user-who-is-not-a-user will be destroyed one day!" Malacoda objects: "Don't be a fool. We haven't lost yet!" "You were just defeated. And because you were, I'm taking charge of the army alone." "No you won't. You and your endermen aren't as strong as my ghasts and I. You will do as I say and continue fighting along with all of the other monsters." "Not a chance!" Erebus backstabs Malacoda and starts beating him up. Malacoda already lost a lot of hp fighting with Romeo. Now, the enderman's sneak attack was hurting Malacoda even more. The other endermen on their side join Erebus in attacking Malacoda. With their combined efforts, it really wasn't long until Malacoda died. When he died, he dropped a lot of materials and xp. Erebus gleefully gathered all of it. He then shouts: "Forget the retreat. We can still kill them all." After such a brutal betrayal, none of the remaining monsters dared to defy Erebus any longer. They followed his orders without question out of fear that he would do the same exact things to him. He laughs: "So much for Malacoda! Gameknight999, I'm going to kill you now!" He teleports to Gameknight and their fight continues albeit on even less equal footing. As things transpired the way they did, the rest of us still took down monster after monster. However, they became encouraged by both fear and encouragement due to Erebus. Normally, the monsters of Minecraft just fight with anger, hatred, and destruction in their hearts. All of that is plenty fuel for motivation.

But now that they were truly afraid of Erebus and had been influenced by his resolve, it's like they grew 2 levels each. Now that negativity wasn't the only stuff driving them, they started acting smarter and moving faster. I find myself surrounded as the monsters who has retreated earlier without warning return to the battle. And they weren't alone either. They brought many of the Aincrad monsters from Floor 10 along with them. There were once again too many to handle. With the added burden of exhaustion, it was a real challenge to keep fighting now. If the vast majority of all of our powers and abilities hadn't been cut off from us once we got trapped in this death game, wiping out all these foes wouldn't take very long or much effort at all. "Damn these monsters! I can hardly do anything against them at this rate! This is bad! Very bad! What the hell are we supposed to do now against all of these foes with the odds so heavily stacked against us?!" That's when a familiar horse jumps over some monsters and reaches me. "Chocolate, what are you doing here?" My noble steed neighs and begs me to mount her. I do so. And with that, she jumps over the monsters and carries me away from them. "What is this?! I need to fight them! Not flee from them!" She doesn't answer and continues carrying me away from the battle. I sigh in resignation and use the moment to try to recover as much as I can. I eat some food and that's when she turns right around. "Oh so that's what you were doing. Buying me time to recover a bit." Chocolate gives a small nod before carrying me back into battle. This time, I fight mounted on her. That means thrusts and Shadow Stab had to become my main ways to attack the monsters. They weren't expecting to face me or other mounted warriors as armored villagers on horseback show up from somewhere else to join the fight.

They are further joined by other villagers as well as Lyusula(this is how it's actually spelled) and Kales'Oh. Kizmel shouts: "We are here to keep our promise! For now on, we fight to unite the tower!" Wendelin adds: "We are coming together as one to stop a common foe! We will continue for now on as comrades." Erebus laughs: "I can still see you all interfere even as I fight Gameknight999! You really think your presence here will change a thing about this battle?! Hahahaha! In case you haven't noticed, it won't change anything. Instead, all of you will die along with the clearers!" Sinon shouts: "I wouldn't be so sure about that!" Woman Woman adds: "You underestimate not just man but also the might of the Amazons alongside many others!" All Might further adds: "We may be severely limited inside this game. But make no mistake. We will rise to the occasion once more and go beyond even Plus Ultra!" Kirito chooses to aid Gameknight. I watch him yell: "You're done, Erebus! Release Recollection!" Now that Kirito has his Night Sky Sword back thanks to my Artist's Eye, things are really happening. Erebus gasps as the sword's true power begins to turn him into a gigantic tree before our very eyes. But once he becomes a tree, his original form immediately bursts from the tree. It's true that the tree crushed many monsters to death but it wasn't enough to contain Erebus. Gameknight exclaims: "How are you still alive, Erebus?!" "No one can ever defeat me! Kill me once, I come back. Kill me twice, I return to kill you!" The remaining monsters start being overwhelmed as the Integrity Knights finally use their Incarnate Abilities to deal damage and our newly joined allies push hard into their ranks. It also helps that guns are being made for more and more GGO players who are part