Arc 1; Ep 5; Tower of the Moon

-March 6, 2024 Floor 56: Pani-

A year has passed and now with the new guild called the Knights of the Blood Oath. When that guild was formed it gained so many people, plus after that we started clearing floors and reached past halfway already. One person who is Asuna, has joined the guild and also became second in command of the guild. Kirito has been called "The Black Swordsman" and Asuna now called "Lightning Flash". I haven't gotten a title of my own, however I just think I wouldn't need to worry about being popular among all of us. Currently right now I am in the 56th Floor Boss meeting with Asuna in charge of the plan.

In the strategy meeting for battling the 56th Floor boss there were many people around, those people being Kirito, Asuna, Sakore, KoB members, HDA members, Klein and his team, as well as Agil. Asuna slammed her hand on the stone with the map getting everyone's attention.

"Lure it to the village! That's how we get the boss." she announces to them and some people were surprised at her plan

"Wait! You can't be serious, if we do then the boss will go after the villagers!" Kirito tells her

"Yes, that's the idea. And while the boss is busy killing NPCs, we can attack it and kill it." She explains

"But their not just objects, NPCs are different than rocks and trees! Look they're-" Kirito was going to continue but gets interrupted

"You think they're alive? Really?" She asks unamused and he was taken back speechless "in this game they are just objects, and unlike us if they are killed they can always respawn." (When she finds out the truth in HR, boy will she regret saying that)

"Sorry, but I'm not cool with it." Kirito replies to her and she glares at him standing straight

"I'm running this operation, ok? In case you forgot, I'm still second-in-command of the Knights of the Blood Oath. You'll obey my orders, like it or not." she tells him and it felt like sparks were flying from their eyes unagreeing with the other. After the meeting was over Sakore wanted to talk to Asuna for a bit, but with her attitude after her argument with Kirito he went against it and left the room and see Kirito and Agil chatting.

"You and the Second-in-Command, you're always getting into it and not in a good way." Agil says to him with a grin

"I guess we just don't click Agil." Kirito tells him

"Really? How can you tell?" Sakore asks sarcastically with his eyes half opened

"Well she took my advice." Kirito says "but who knew she'd join the top guild, and be a floor clearing badass."

-Crossing fields opening-

-April 22, Floor 59-

Next month the Assault Team reached through 3 more floors, Sakore obtained the Iron Steel Blade from the Floor 53 boss drop. his gear is similar to Kirito's with the colors being Dark Blue and Midnight blue colors for Sakore's. He is currently resupplying his items and going to do some leveling out in the fields when a special someone called out to him.

"Hey Sakore!" a familiar voice calls out to him and he sees Philia running over to him. She also looked happy to have found him.

"Philia! Hey long time no see, sorry I haven't been able to chat much. With the assault team now having to reach the higher floors quickly, I always gotta prepare myself at times when needed." He explains to her

"Oh that's fine, however I got big news. Argo has just gotten a lead on the next part for the Astral Quest!" She tells hims

"Oh? Has she? Then you ready to party and take on the next part of this special quest?" Sakore asks and they party once again, with Philia being really excited

"Argo told me that a tower has appeared on the 42nd Floor. Since it is in the afternoon, this is a perfect time to enter the tower since it can only open when it is Nighttime." Philia explains to him

"Well Astral represents Sun, Moon, and Stars. Then I am guessing we are about to take on the Knight of the Moon." Sakore says "Let's go find this tower."

-Floor 42 Lake Shore, Eclipse Tower-

As the pair reach the entrance of the black tower it starts becoming night and the door starts vanishing signalling they can now enter it. Before they could a menu screen popped open signalling a quest to start.

"Another quest? What do we have to do?" Philia asks as Sakore reads the info

"It looks like the tower is a big area, the Knight of the Moon is at the top. However it is locked and we would need to find a special key to open the path to him. It has 5 dungeon floors, where the last being where the Knight is and we have to clear some puzzles to fight a strong enemy for one of the pieces." Sakore explains to her

"This could be a long while." Philia says and they go into the tower. Once they go in they could barely see much except with the blue flames lit on torches. "This looks Ominous here…" the two continue forward to a door and Sakore looked to the left seeing 5 torches lined up oddly. Once they go through the door they are brought into a maze area. "Looks like we have a maze area, let's get through this!" The two try going through the maze and Sakore notices two doors where they took the left door and they were suddenly where they started "What the? Did we go back to where he started?" They closed the door then heard something from behind the door and Sakore opens the door again and see the room they first went through. "What the?! It just changed, what is going on?"

"Wait a minute…" Sakore looks at the torches and remembers the two doors on the other side. "Oh I get it! This is the first puzzle, even if we go through the door we would be brought back here. Though we go through the doors in a certain pattern." They move through the maze again and go through the doors as planned and they got to a different room with an enemy with stairs behind it.

"Wow you were right!" Philia says amazed

"Let's take on the monster first so we can continue onward." Sakore tells her and they take on the monster and defeat it easily and it drops a plate with a picture of the New Moon. "This is the first one, now let's go upward." They go up the stairs and once they got to the next floor there were four areas with monsters and up ahead was the second enemy but there was no path to it and the four spots with not very strong monsters they solve the puzzle that gave them pieces to make a path to the next enemy and take it down gaining the second one. They take the stairs upward to the third floor of the tower, once getting to the floor a ghost person was in front of them and there was no floor, it was all black. Although the ghost moved in a strange path when Sakore realized the path is possibly invisible or they have to take a correct path and they follow the same path and get to the room with the next enemy and they were able to take it down. With that being cleared they go upstairs and go through the door leading in a large square room that has a small amount of water with a little island in the center with a tree and a door on the other side (If you know what this area references to, extra points to you.)

"There is the door, but isn't there supposed to be a tough enemy in here?" Philia asks as the two walk over to the door across the small island and stopping halfway passed the island seeing the door sealed by a symbol "nothing, that is odd…"

"Why does this seem familiar?" Sakore asks and suddenly looks down to see if his reflection can be seen. However there was no reflection of him or Philia making him realize the place and draw out his sword and Philia looked at him confused until they looked behind them to see two black shadow figures of both of them and names appeared over the two -Dark Player- with the red cursor and a health bar. "Looks like we are fighting clones of ourselves."

"This is crazy!" Philia says as the two clones run towards them and they have their weapons ready and block their clones attack. "Having to fight myself is strange!" She continues blocking her clones attacks

"Just stay focused, your clone knows everything you have learned for battle so try to outsmart yourself!" Sakore tells her as he blocks an attack from his clone. He rebounds and does the Horizontal Square sword skill getting the HP of his clone down a bit though his clone hits with a Slant and does a big amount of damage "damn at this rate I might have a difficult time to try and beat a copy of myself!" Sakore and his clone continued clashing blades hoping to strike the other. Sakore was able to strike getting his clone down to yellow though he got hit getting his HP barely to yellow. It almost seemed to be a stalemate between the two. However what wasn't expected was Philia attacking his clone from behind.

"Sakore, finish off my clone it's almost finished while I'll distract yours!" She tells him and sees her HP at Yellow and he looks seeing her clone in red going after her. Sakore decided to be quick going at her clone and use a Slant causing it to not be able to defend in time which it's HP drops down completely and it bursts. Once done he turns to where Philia is facing his clone and sees Philia at red which caused him to hurry and use a new sword skill to get a full his on his clone which brought the HP gauge all the way down and causes the clone to burst into pieces. Once the clones were finished the room changes to a basic room inside the tower and the seal on the door disappears and they get the last piece.

"Philia are you alright?" He asks her giving her a potion to restore her HP. Deeply inside he was worried that he almost lost her.

"Yea, it was a close call getting hit." She tells him and she drinks the potion to get fully healed. "Well luckily we got through the four floors so let's go up and take on the Knight of the Moon." Sakore was worried about how this will go, so he makes a promise to protect her.

They get to the top floor seeing a floor panel of the different shades of the moon however there were only four empty spots, the pieces they obtained were of the floor panel, they put the Full Moon, two Half Moons, and New moon in the slots causing the area to change making it all brighter and on one side was a knight in silver armor wielding an Axe weapon.

"Congratulations warriors. You have reached up to the top of the Eclipse Tower. Now your challenge is me, Lunar the Knight of the Moon." it spoke lifting the weapon, having the name appear and three health bars also

"Alright Philia, you ready to take on the second one?" Sakore asks her as they draw out their weapons.

"Yup, and I am pumped to get to the end of this!" She says and Sakore takes the first go charging at the knight who goes for a vertical attack when Sakore got close, but he knew using a heavy weapon like that can strike slow at times so he was able to dodge it and strike it. The knight goes for another swing though Sakore rebounded it having Philia go in and stab their opponent doing damage, with the attack patterns they were able to fend off against the Knight and defeat him.

"Well done warriors, you have cleared the trials of the Moon and Stars. Seek the Knight of the Sun to claim the last piece of the path to become Astral Warriors." The knight spoke and they get the Moon Medallion and a piece of equipment for the top part of their figure -Coat of the Moonlight-

"And that clears part two of our Astral quest." Sakore says and the extra quest of the Eclipse Tower says it has been completed and gives the two a decent amount of Col and Exp.

"We're almost done, oh boy I can barely contain my excitement!" Philia says happily. "I've enjoyed this adventure with you Sakore, you really are an amazing guy."

"I wouldn't think I'm that good." He replies while blushing from her compliment. "But anyway, looks like we can go and give Argo the news for this." The two return to town explaining the current events that happened and will soon find the Astral Quest finally coming to an end.

That is that chapter, so the next one is going to finish the Astral Quest for where Sakore gets his own title. I got reviews of you guys wanting him to get Dual Blades. That will be in the Lost Song Arc when starts getting set for the skill. Also do you want Sakore to have a rival when he begins starting ALO? If you do tell me in the comments what you want his rival to wield as his weapon, and give out name suggestions and what race he could be, credits to what sounds good for name and race. Anyway thanks to my readers enjoying my SAO story while my MDGVII is on Hiatus until I get more Poll votes in.

Next Time; the Astral Swordsman