"There's more than one?! Don't you think that someone would catch something like that?!" Nexoo exclaims looking at a few data files. "Why did you create so many of them? For what purpose is there?"
"To occupy Nexus and his allies. And to make sure that I can replicate the code without attracting someone's attention." The figure says as he looks through a monitor and opens up, revealing three figures, each with similar weapons to what Nexoo had. There was a fourth figure which confused Nexoo.
"Huh? The last guy just has a Divination. That weapon ain't shit. What's up with that?" Nexoo asks.
"That one is a special case. He's meant to guard a certain area that had appeared." The figure says, shaking their heads. "It is a stage in my plan… A backup in case something goes wrong."
"You're a cautious one…" Nexoo says before looking at the four figures. "These are also A.I. as well?"
"Yes. However, they have been programmed with a code that I created and tested. So that way, this would work to my favor." The figure takes off their hood revealing a rather mature-looking individual with straight black hair and glasses. "What I have here, is something that I WILL see to light."
"Hmph. As you say, mate… You know. From the whole time that we're with each other, you never bother to give me a name to call you." Nexoo looks over at the figure. "It's getting rather annoying, calling you by just "hey, you"."
"You never bothered to ask me. For an A.i., you're rather dumb." The figure says looking at Nexoo. "But fair enough. You will call me Galath."
Facing Oneself
By: NexusMHX
Chapter 7: The Unrelenting
Yuuki clashes with a boar-like creature with her longsword with a grunt as it engulfed in energy. She unleashes Vertical Square, slashing a vertical square at the boar's chest. The boar explodes into a cloud of pixels, slowly disappearing into the sky.
"That's another one… These enemies are way stronger. Especially after what happened after the last update." Yuuki lets out a grunt. She looks at her exp box which shows a rather dramatic amount of exp gain compared to other mobs. "And they're giving out more exp. Ain't that helpful for how much harder they're getting."
"Yuuki!" Nexus flies towards Yuuki before slowly descending on the ground with his controller. "There you are. I've been looking all over for you."
"Oh. I was just dealing with a few monsters." Yuuki says rather casually as she puts her sword away. "So what's up?"
"Well… The fact is that something came up. Apparently, I saw a few figures enter the temple that Lisbeth and Silica were talking about." Nexus crosses his arms. "And I felt that something was off. So thought I come here and grab my favorite tag partner and check it out. Ya in?"
"Nexus," Yuuki says while crossing her arms. "The fact that you think that I would ever decline. I'm rather hurt by that you know?"
"Aheh. I just thought that you might have been busy or something." Yu says scratching his cheek with a chuckle. "Anyways. Follow me. You've never been there before, correct?"
"Yeah, I've never been to the desert area… I've been busy doing other things." Yuuki says as both of them start flying towards the teleport gate.
"Oh, that's right. The others play this game, now. Ain't that, right? Tecchi and Jun told me just the other day." Nexus says with a small smile. He uses his controller to control his flight as he tries to keep up with Yuuki.
"Yeah. Sorry that I didn't tell you. It's just that, it has been so long since we last played with each other. It's kind of the reason why I'm not hanging around with you and the others recently." Yuuki apologizes.
"Nah. It's fine. I don't care how you spend your time, all I care about is that you're alright." Nexus says with a calm smile as he sees the teleport gate surrounded by a few players who were prepared. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. The hell is all this?"
"Oi! There he is! Get him!" The group of players yells out as Nexus takes out his sword with Yuuki doing the same.
"This is like… the fourth time this has happened." Nexus says rather irritated. None of the players was relatively high level. Their strategy was like a boss fight, have a bunch of people group up together and take down one stronger enemy.
One of the players, a gnome takes out his massive axe and slams it straight at Nexus, pushing his way down. A few of the sorcerers prepared a few spells to attack Nexus while he was pinned down. Yuuki did try to stop them before getting pushed back by a few other players.
"You're rather strong in duels... But against a group of us, you stand no chance! Why are you even helping him?" One of the players says clashing blades with Yuuki.
"I know that he's innocent! You're blindly following what other people are saying! Not even giving him a chance to explain himself!" Yuuki grunts, slicing the player's blade away.
"You can say that… but aren't you also blindly following what Nexus is saying? You're no better than us. For all we know, he could be doing all of this chaos." The gnome says pinning Nexus to the floor. "It could be his retaliation to everyone that thought of him wrong!"
"I am not that frickin petty!" Nexus takes out his knife, slicing the gnome's eye with a purple light. He sees the sorcerers shooting their attacks as he uses the gnome to protect him from some. However, the gnome's hp didn't last long enough. After he exploded into pixels, Nexus takes a few of the magic blows, bringing his health to yellow and knocking him back.
Nexus tosses his knife at one of the sorcerers, stopping his incantation before taking out his one-handed sword. It glows a light blue color as he gets ready to charge straight at them.
'Vorpal Blade. One of my more professionally made sword skills… An eight-hit AOE sword skill that temporarily stuns an enemy. However, it requires a small period to charge and if I'm hit, the skill automatically ends.' Nexus looks straight at his opponents who were now trying to charge another spell.
"What the hell is he doing?" One of the player's questions looking over at Nexus.
"Hey. You should be paying attention to me!" Yuuki says jumping back a bit as her sword engulfs in bright purple light.
"Huh?!" The players look over at Yuuki before screaming in fear.
"Mother Rosario!" Yuuki stabs four times at one of the players, as he explodes into pixels. She spins around before thrusting six times at another player. They also exploded into pixels. Yuuki turns around one more and shoots a massive impact that makes one last sword player explode into pixels.
"That was from one sword skill?! That was eleven hits!" The sorcerers exclaim before looking over at Nexus.
"Vorpal Blade!" Nexus runs around the group of sorcerers before slicing at multiple different angles, at high speeds. He jumps back before spinning around before giving out a massive slice before jumping back. He swings his sword as the group of sorcerers explode into pixels simultaneously.
There was one last player looking at both Nexus and Yuuki. Their face turns rather pale before running towards the teleport gate and teleports away.
"Eugh… This is getting more annoying every single time." Nexus lets out a sigh. He rubs his neck with a groan. "Honestly… Every single time, a player comes at me, it's really pissing me off!"
Nexus throws his sword, piercing a bit of stone. He lets out a loud yell of frustration before dropping to the ground, banging his fist on the dirt.
"Every single time! Like everyone is treating me like dirt!" Nexus bangs the ground. Yuuki kneels down to comfort him, holding him in a tight grasp. Nexus remains silent before finally muttering in a soft voice. "In Aincrad… I knew the consequences of my choices. But this. I can't handle everyone hating me… The persecution in-game and outside… I don't know what to do."
"Outside? What do you mean by that?" Yuuki looks over at Nexus with a worried look. "Are you saying that people are harassing you?"
"I… " Nexus stutters a bit before shaking his head trying to avoid the question. "It's fine. Let's just hurry over. Teleport Wellgunde."
The two teleports to the desert island with a massive gust of hot, dry wind blew their face. Nexus lets out a cough as Yuuki stands up. She wanted to say something but decided against it. Nexus looked like he wasn't in the mood, nor willing to talk about the subject.
Yuuki clenches her fist into a ball in frustration, unable to help Nexus he would he even let her try. She opens up her wings and zooms towards the temple. Nexus felt close behind, slowly falling behind with his constant reliance on the controller.
Nexus and Yuuki land a bit away from the temple to see that a few guards blocking the entrance. The guards looked out of place, they were fantasy creatures, horsemen, trolls, ogres, but none of them really felt like the style of fantasy compared to Alfheim Online.
"I've never seen them before… What are they?" Yuuki questions as Nexus eyes glowed yellow.
"I have a low leveled trace skill. But I should be able to identify their level and name." Nexus tries to scan the figures, to find that their level is around 150, giving an estimate due to his low trace skill, but their names were just popped up as "error". "What the hell? It's just listed as error?"
"Is it another glitch? Another problem?" Yuuki questions with Nexus looking over. His eyes turn normal as he lets out a groan of pain for using the skill for a long time..
"It's getting ever more confusing. Something is definitely wrong. The system says that they're monsters… yet they look so realistic." Nexus says taking out his one hand sword. "Let's go ask a few questions."
Nexus and Yuuki make their way towards the creatures. The creatures turn their heads and turned immediately aggro as two of them charged straight at the two players.
"Take one each!" Nexus says, jumping over an incoming blow from a mace. His sword engulfs in light and Nexus slices a few times, though he realizes that his blows were barely doing any damage at all. He lands behind the massive troll as it swung its mace, multiple times, with Nexus constantly dodging.
Suddenly, Nexus engulfs his blade in light and smacks the mace back with Slant, knocking the creature back. An aura glows around the massive troll. Nexus slices four more times which suddenly dealing more damage from before. So before anything else happens, he activated Horizontal Square, slicing four times making a square formation around him. He goes for another strike, only for the creature to get into a sudden defensive position that Nexus couldn't penetrate. The troll suddenly slams their mace at Nexus, scraping his sides as he jumps back.
The other troll slams what seemed to be a stone pillar at Yuuki. She jumps up, and lands on the pillar and lands a few strikes that do minimal damage. She jumps over the trolls head, slicing at different angles. She lands on the ground and readies and parries a few strikes from the troll. She took the initiative of activating Mother Rosario and used the OSS straight at the massive troll, killing it with the massive hit count and damage.
"Why can't I hit it?!" Nexus exclaims as he slams his blade, parrying blows with the troll. Yuuki takes notice of this as she tries to help Nexus only for a massive blue barrier to surround the two figures.
"What?!" Yuuki says before turning left to see a knight, with a horse for a head charging straight at her with a battle-ax. Her blade glows purple as she spins around to counter the attack, before being kicked away.
"Oi! The hell that you think that you're doing?!" Nexus slams the massive club away as the blue aura glows around the troll. "There! Slant!"
Nexus's blade charges red as he pierces the massive troll with all of his might, cutting it in half. The creature explodes into pixels. Nexus turns around to see Yuuki was dealing with the horse warrior as he tries to jump in, only to be blocked by the same barrier that blocked Yuuki earlier.
"Can you only fight these in one versus one battle?!" A sword pierces Nexus's stomach before he had a chance to think any more about it. He looks behind him slowly to see one of the mobs had randomly turned aggro on him.
"Nexus!" Yuuki blocks an attack before the aura pops up as she slices a few times, with the monster exploding into pixels.
"D-Don't worry about me right now! Go ahead and get inside! I'll take care of this thin and join you!" Nexus gets kicked away from the blade. He slams on a small hill of sand. "These monsters... are definitely not normal. You gotta find what's inside."
"What about you? I'm not going to leave you behind!" Yuuki counters with Nexus shaking his head.
"It's fine! He's aggro at me. Just hurry up and get inside." Nexus chants a small spell that slowly heals him as he stands up, looking at the warrior. "Three bars of health? What the heck is this nonsense? Just hurry up. This is going to take a while."
"Alright. You better take him down!" Yuuki heads on inside the temple to see a few cells that were lit up with a specialized light mechanism. It looked more like technology rather than magic. She looked rather confused as she looks inside the cell to see, both a treasure chest and a monster that was similar to the ones that were outside.
Yuuki tried to open the doors, but they wouldn't budge. A symbol appeared on the door, revealing an interesting looking sword that caught her interest. She turns around to see three more cells, one requiring a helm, a piece of armor, and a shield. They all looked off to her so she ignores it for now as she sees a hole in the wall.
"This place is really weird. It's like this place is meant for a technical type of game, rather than a fantasy game. What is all of this?" Yuuki walks through the hole to see a figure in a golden suit of armor standing near a pit. 'A player? How did they get here with all of those creatures in the front, being severely aggro?'
The figure looks over at Yuuki and takes out a sword and shield, with the same tone of color as their armor.
"Hey! Hold on a second!" Yuuki takes out her sword to block the incoming strike. "Are you a monster?"
"You shouldn't have come here." The figure said, slams their sword at Yuuki who walks back slowly. She blocks each attack while gritting her teeth. "You are in an area where your god does not allow you to be."
"God? What are you talking about?! Nobody has the right to call themselves God!" Yuuki exclaims slamming her sword, knocking the figure back as the blue aura surrounds it. There she takes the initiative of letting out as many attacks as she possibly cans before being smacked away but the figure's shield. 'The window is shorter compared to the others?'
"You blasphemer! You dare attack against the one that rules supreme!" The knight yells out in anger, something that seemed both, genuine and fake.
The knight rushes towards Yuuki while she's still mid-air slicing her a few times as she sprouts her wings to gain some stability to minimize the number of hits she took. Her health was already yellow from the other fights as it falls to orange, as she starts dodging the blows mid-air with her speed, trying to zoom in for slices only to be blocked.
Her blade engulfs in purple light as she slams her sword at the massive knight, as the blue aura surrounds him once again. She stabs with her Mother Rosario OSS, doing about a fifth of their health before they were able to recover. The knight jumps into the air and bashes Yuuki, trying to crush her as her HP slowly drops. Once she was in the red, the knight pulled back and swung their sword to deal the finishing blow.
"Spend your time in hell!" The knight swings their sword, only to have Yuuki barely dodge it before drinking a potion raising her health back to yellow.
"There's only one God. And the one you worship is definitely not him!" Yuuki lets out a smug smile as she raises her sword to face her foe.
"Hmph. Your faith has been sealed with those words. I will make sure that you all burn for what you say." The knight says as a red aura surrounds him. He throws away his sword and shield and runs towards a broken pillar and picks it up, wielding it against Yuuki.
"Eh?! What the hell is with this guy!? Is he actually a player?!" Yuuki questions to herself, thinking about the blue aura. "Wait a second… Is he an NPC boss?"
"..." The knight places the pillar next to him. "So you figured that out… that I'm an AI?"
"Wait. You're actually an AI?" Yuuki questions as the knight nods.
"My name is Terrovax. I'm an artificial intelligence, just like your comrades, Strea and Yui. I was created for the sole purpose of protecting this temple and its secrets from those who are trying to infiltrate this place." The knight known as Terrovax states. "However. Now that I told you, my role in all of this. I cannot allow you to leave here alive."
"If you're an A.I., you know that killing me won't result in anything. I could be resurrected or respawn in a safe zone! So I don't see the point here." Yuuki doesn't let her guard down even though Terrovax had a rather calm expression.
"Figured… You, humans, are rather simple-minded." Terrovax grabs hold onto the pillars and ready himself, facing Yuuki. "As you will come to see. Your fate was sealed… the moment you entered these ruins."
"I'm not just going to just let you kill me!" Yuuki yells out as Terrovax charges straight at her. Terrovax swings the pillar with speed that made Yuuki only able to dodge the heavy blows coming after her. She dodges a few more times, easily dodging the slow strikes from Terrovax. Suddenly a blue aura surrounds Terrovax which Yuuki easily takes advantage of.
At this point, Yuuki understood the process has become rather linear when it came to fighting these new foes. She had to patiently wait for her opponents to attack until a blue aura engulfs her. Only then is when she is able to do actual damage.
Yuuki uses Vertical Square to knock Terrovax back to give herself a bit of breathing room from all of her dodging before starting her own assault with her blade. She was only able to attack for about 10 seconds, doing a tenth of Terrovax's health bar. She had to jump back as Terrovax started to attack again. He throws the pillar at Yuuki, forcing her to dodge away, only for Terrovax to speed in with his discarded blade and slashes her in the chest bringing her health to red again. A few slabs of the wall fall and lands on Yuuki bringing her health even closer to death.
'Dang it… I can't move.' Yuuki struggles to move the heavy stones off of her. Terrovax slowly makes his way towards Yuuki with his sword ready.
"I told you. Your fate was sealed the moment you entered these ruins. When you awaken… It will be an honor to have you on our side." Terrovax chuckles as he stabs Yuuki into the chest as her health slowly drops ever closer to zero.
'What do you mean by that?' Yuuki questions to herself as she explodes into pixels. Terrovax looks at the small ember that remained only for a bright light to surround the ember.
"What?" Terrovax questions as the ember start to take form once again. Yuuki opens her eyes to see herself standing over the stones that were holding her down. "I killed you! Your hp dropped to zero! So tell me, how you are still alive?"
"That would be my doing!" Terrovax looked over to see Leafa standing at the entrance of the room with a smug look on her face. "A Sylph?! So you used a resurrection spell with your ally. Very well. The end is no different! Once I kill you two, my work will be done!"
Terrovax leaps towards Leafa with insane speeds, only to be countered by Yuuki.
"You caught me off-guard during our last fight! That wasn't fair at all!" Yuuki pushes Terrovax back while readying her sword. "You fight better than most ALO players that I've met… With the stats of a Boss Enemy. I'm going to defeat you now!"
"Hmph. Then I will defeat you again and take care of your companion." Terrovax readies his blade, pointing it at Yuuki.
"Nexus told me about the situation. I can't help you anymore, but good luck. I'm going to go check out that door." Leafa sprouts at her wings. Yuuki nods slowly, getting into her fighting stance. Leafa flies closer to the door with Terrovax trying to intercept her. Yuuki jumps in the air and slams her blade, making Terrovax defend himself.
"Impudent brat!" Terrovax pushes Yuuki away before turning around to see the door opening in front of him.
"What the heck is all of this?!" Leafa walks into the door to see six pedestals sitting in a room that looked too technologically advanced for the genre of the game. She looks around to see a pedestal that each look like a weapon of a certain shape could be inserted into. "This cannot be part of Alfheim Online… What the heck is this place?"
"I definitely cannot let you live after this. You have seen way too much!"
"It's rude to turn your eyes away from an opponent!" Yuuki stabs multiple parts of Terrovax's back while he was looking away. While the damage was very small, it caught his attention as he charges straight at Yuuki. He lets out an onslaught of slices, moving his feet forward, bringing him closer to Yuuki, not giving her enough room to dodge or block properly.
Yuuki was constantly on guard before starting to attack even though the blue aura didn't surround her foe. Each attack that was lashed out at Yuuki was either blocked or parried. This helped Yuuki keep her footing as she starts pushing Terrovax back. The aura surrounds him with one parry as she unleashes a fierce combo, wasting no time at all before activating Mother Rosario. She stabs multiple times up in front before jumping over Terrovax, stabbing more around the head area before unleashing the final blow charging her strength before unleashing it at Terrovax knocking him into a wall with only a sliver of health left.
Yuuki walks over to Terrovax and points her blade at his neck. Terrovax grunts as he looks up at the swordswoman. "Tsk. You bested me. Hurry up and kill me. I'll die and never return."
"Before all of that. You're going to explain exactly what was in that room? What was the significance of it that you had to protect it? Where can I find this so-called "god" of yours?" Yuuki questions.
"... Very well." Terrovax adjusts himself. "That room is a room that possesses an item that is meant as a backup in case something were to go wrong."
"Exactly what is going to go wrong?"
"I was not given that information… Nor where my lord is located. However… You saw the items slots?" Yuuki slowly nods. "Those are called… The Infinity Weapons. There are six weapons that my lord has made. A few people have fallen victim to this… with real-world injuries."
"Real-world injuries?!" Yuuki exclaims before Terrovax takes out a piece of paper and hands it to Yuuki. "This is the locations of where they are… Honestly. He expected that Nexus was going to be able to defeat me. He wanted to confront him."
"Confront him…" Yuuki reaches for the paper as Terrovax reaches forward stabbing himself. "What are you!?"
"I do not want the suffering for my failure… At least with this. I have comfort." Terrovax says before exploding in pixels. Yuuki was taken back by this as Leafa walks over to her.
"Yuuki…" Leafa comments.
"He was like a human being. With emotions… fear, pride, frustration. He was like Yui and Strea. It feels… like I just killed someone." Yuuki drops down to the ground, letting out heavy breathes with Leafa dropping down to help her friend. "Eugh... I feel like puking. I don't know how to feel..."
"I know it hurts. Take a deep breath." Leafa pats Yuuki's back to help calm her. Footsteps could be heard walking into the entrance of the cave. Both of them look over to see Nexus slowly walking to the two while leaning on Stream. He had one leg and one arm which baffled the two.
"What happened to you?!" Yuuki exclaims with Nexus chuckles.
"They got backup… All the mobs got backed up by stupid players… And let me tell you. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Strea." Nexus lets out a sigh as Strea lays him on the wall. "Thanks, Strea. You've been a big help for me."
"It was nothing. I'm just glad that I came when I did." Strea smiles.
"Yeah. Once Strea saved me for a bit. I gave Leafa a quick message to come help you." Nexus says with Yuuki nods slowly.
"Yeah. I revived Yuuki while she was fighting some boss." Leafa states.
"His name was Terrovax. He… was like Strea and Yui. An A.I. that was self-aware of their predicament." Strea was taken aback by this, seeing as there was more like her. "Then Leafa and I found something from him? A map of other people like him."
Yuuki quickly explains what she learned from Terrovax. She opens up the map to reveal locations in the main overworld of Alfheim Online, with two locations being in locations that no one knew of.
"There are four of them… We should tell this to the others." Leafa states with everyone nodding in agreement.
"Then let's go meet with Kirito and the others!" Strea said picking up Nexus under her arms suddenly.
"Oi oi! Strea! What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!" Nexus yells out before being carried away. Yuuki and Leafa couldn't help but smile a bit before following the two.
Wassup my homies! This is NexusMHX here with another chapter of Facing Oneself. So I somewhat made this chapter have Yuuki be the priority of this chapter. And just to let you all know this, Yuuki only lost at first because she was low on health, to begin with. She would have won otherwise. There will be more to think about in the next chapter. So yeah. This arc has a special battle system that takes countering, dodging into consideration. It may be less realistic but prolongs and intensifies the fights. In any case. I already made this chapter longer then it needed to be. This is NexusMHX signing off! Stay Classy!