"LILY! MILLY!"

PoH began to run towards the two player.

"PoH! Don't!"

"Big brother! Watch out!"

Tanya and Z pulled PoH just in time as the corridor caved in and everything shook.

Dust and smoke filled the air, earning a series of coughs from the group. Raul managed to roll to safety and asked, "I-is everyone else, okay?!" He scanned his surroundings and realized, "Wait… where is Sans?"

Realization dawned upon the guild leader and his eyes widened in fear as he turned his head slowly toward the debris that caved in and blocked the entire corridor.

A pregnant silence filled the air.

Tanya was the first to cut the silence, "N-No way, d-did Sans… Did he—?"

"NO!" PoH shouted in a sudden.

"B-But PoH—!"

Everyone saw the disturbing emotionless face that he had on his face. He was deadly serious.

"We're not sure if they died just yet."

No one dared to say anything at first, but Z mustered up the courage to ask, "Then… then what do you think we should do?"

"Grab your equipments, we're going back. If there is a way into the trap then there must be either a way out of it or around it."

"Hold on, why would there be a way out? If there is a way out, then it wouldn't be called a dungeon trap, would it?"

Raul shook his head at Z's question.

"No, PoH is right. As much as a sadistic bastard our 'God of SAO' is, he wouldn't make such simple traps… he'd make a trap where the players had to fight for their lives through it if they still have any hope left to survive."

The debris was falling closer and closer and suddenly Milly felt a sudden strong force that pushed her out of the debris' way; saving her from her impending doom.

Dust and smoke filled the air around them and Milly was the first to scan her surroundings.

"S-Sister…? Sister?!" Milly called out.

"I-I'm here…!"

She turned around to see one of Lily's leg crushed under the rock.

"L-Lily!"

"I-It's okay, Sister. I don't feel any pain and my health bar is still yellow."

"A-Alright then let me help you!"

Milly lifted the rock and gave her sister a health potion, but it seemed that Lily's leg didn't heal even though her health bar is already green.

"W-What is this? A debuff? It says, 'Environmental Wound'"

"I… I don't know, Lily. In any case, let's get you up. Can you stand?"

Lily shook her head and said, "No, I don't think so. I don't feel pain, but I'm pretty sure that my leg was crushed by the debris."

"Alright, put your hand around my neck, I'll help you stand."

"Thanks."

They thought that they were trapped alone, but it turned out that they weren't.

"s…sup…? are… *pant* are you guys… *pant* alright?"

"S-Sans?!" the twins exclaimed in confusion.

Sans suddenly collapsed right in front of them and knelt with a look of pain as cold sweat began to pour out of his body.

"W-What happen?! A-are you okay?!"

"heh… *pant* and here i thought you wouldn't care…"

"Sans!"

"i'm fine, i'm fine, just need a… *pant* just need a break… ack!"

He grabbed his head and grunted in pain.

[w-what… is this pain?! w-what the hell happened? one moment i was right beside poh, then i'm suddenly here… and why the hell does my body hurt so much as if it has broken through a brick wall?]

Sans was trying to refrain from screaming out in agony as much as he could as he clutched on his head harder. His body was in pain and he felt like he had a terrible, terrible, migraine; it felt like his head was about to burst at any moment now.

"S-sans, don't joke around! You can't feel pain in this game!"

"h-heh… i… i guess… i guess i like to joke around, huh?"

Lily and Milly stared at the Sans face in shock and confusion. It was clear as day that Sans looked like he was in pain; it didn't look like he was faking it in any way.

They shook it off and Lily asked, "Maybe he's right, Milly. We should take a few moments to rest."

"Well… if you say so, Lily."

They trio sat there in silence for a few minutes; no one said anything. Usually, Sans would've broken the silence by cracking his bad jokes and puns, but he was in too much of an unfamiliar pain and headache for him to care.

Milly looked at Sans and then back toward Lily. She began to quiver and looked down in guilt and shame.

"M-Milly? Is there something wrong?"

Milly stayed silent for a few moments then tears suddenly fell from the corner of her eyes.

"that expression you're wearing… you must be feeling guilty."

Lily gasped, "SANS—!"

Sans suddenly laughed.

"heh… i'm just kidding." Sans was smiling as he used to be, "cheer up will ya? if we think things through, we'd be home in no time—"

"ENOUGH WITH THAT CRAP!" Milly shouted as she cried. "'I'm just kidding'? How could you say that?! How can you simply dismiss everything and act like nothing happened?! It's clear isn't it?! This is all—!"

Before she even finished her words, Sans cut her off.

"'This is all my fault,' is that what you are going to say?"

Milly didn't answer.

"What else are you going to say next, huh? 'If only I had listened'? 'How could I be so stupid'? or 'If only I didn't act the way I was, none of this would've happened,'? BULLSHIT!"

Lily and Milly was stunned silent. They were both truly shocked at what he just said. Never once have they ever imagined that the comedian that Sans was could act so… heartless.

His perpetual smile had disappeared, his emotion was non-existent and his gaze was so dark and sharp that the twins felt like it pierced right through them.

Breaking the momentary silence, he continued, "If you still have the time and energy to blame yourself and spout those kinds of nonsense instead of finding a way out of this mess then you might as well go ahead and kill yourself! For crying out loud, don't you get it? BLAMING YOURSELF WON'T CHANGE A GODDAMN THING!"

Silence.

There was a long, pregnant silence after he said those words. Milly couldn't even muster up the courage to cry now. She was too afraid and too guilty to say anything else, worried that if anything she'd do next would only make things worse than it already are.

Lily fared no better, she didn't—no—couldn't say a word.

A few moments later, Sans realized what he just said when he took a closer look at how terrified and shocked they were at his sudden outburst. He realized how angry he really was and felt very guilty for lashing out at them the way he did. Sure, it might be their fault that he got caught into this mess, but it didn't justify that he should let out all of his pent up anger and blame it all into them.

Sans looked down and felt his sins crawling on his back.

He took a deep breath and was about to apologize until suddenly—

"RAWWWRRR!

Out of the dungeon's wall, monsters began to spawn and crawl out of them; they looked like a zombie-skeleton hybrid.

In reflex, Milly immediately kill one of the monster nearest to her and began to continue slaughtering them all one by one.

[strange. judging on how easily milly killed them, these monsters are way too weak to be a dungeon trap monster… but why would a dungeon-trap monster be so weak…?]

However before he realized it, they were already outnumbered ten to one. [is that it? was this the reason the monsters were so weak? because of their quick spawn rate?]

Sans scanned through his surroundings and noticed something else that was strange. These monsters already outnumbered them, yet instead of encircling them, they gathered near the debris, leaving a way out for the three of them that leads deeper into the dungeon.

There was something fishy going on. Were these monsters actually trying to force them to go deeper into the dungeon? But why?

Well either way, Sans realized that time was running out and there were too many of them to handle and with Lily being temporarily disabled, the odds just took turn for the worse.

This was really not his day.

"milly, you can't beat them! we need to move now!" Sans stood up and went immediately towards Lily as he tried to shrug off the pain that he was still enduring. "lily, get on my back!"

"E-Eh? O-Okay."

"T-Then what should we do?" Milly asked in worry as she backed off from the seemingly endless horde of skeleton-zombies.

"the obvious of course! run!"

As soon as those words were spoken, Sans lifted Lily on his back and began to run deeper towards the dungeon, followed by Milly as the monsters followed suit.

Eventually one or two of them managed to catch up to them, but Milly quickly took care of them as they kept running. They were running as fast as they could until eventually they lost them.

Putting Lily down, Sans and Milly tried to regain their breaths.

"We… We lost them…!" said Milly as she panted heavily.

"H-Hey, I can move my feet again!" Lily spoke out loud as she immediately stood up.

"Really? That's great!" Milly hugged her sister. "I'm glad we're alright."

In the middle of their peaceful moments, Sans was the only one that wasn't calm. Scanning through his surroundings, he realized that there were now in a quite spacious room. Everything was so dark and quiet.

…Perhaps, too quiet.

Sans then mumbled out, "something… doesn't…"

"Huh? What is it, Sans?" Lily asked

"i said something doesn't add up."

"What are you talking about? Shouldn't we just be glad that we aren't dead yet?!"

"i know that you are happy to still be alive but there is something fishy going on here but —"

Before he could even finish, the room suddenly lit up. Bright green flames came into being and lit up everything from the corner of the room. The once quiet and peaceful atmosphere changed into an eerie one which alerted the three players.

And then it came out.

Green flames burst in the middle of the room, catching the attention of the trio. A giant dark figure rose up from the eerie green flames, donned in a pitch-black armor that was blazing the same eerie flames which struck fear to those who gazed upon it.

A giant health bar came into being; a name was written on top of it.

Lv. 20 [Knight of Cinders]

"Uuurgk!" with a last dying grunt, another lizard-like monster shattered into pixels as PoH pulled out his sword from where the monster's heart was.

"We're done here. Let's move on." He spoke with the same disturbingly emotionless tone.

Tanya, Raul, and Z were at lost to what was happening inside PoH's head. He was emotionless, but there was one thing that they noticed, one thing that they knew for sure: he was truly pissed.

The way PoH quickly charged at the monsters and gracefully killed each and every one of them without hesitation without letting them land a single strike on him…

They knew that PoH had a different personality whenever he was deadly serious, but this… 'new' PoH… it was the first time they had ever seen it.

A cold and emotionless killer that attacked as quickly as he took his enemies' lives… This was their leader now.

However, beneath the surface of that mask of a killer, they knew that he was afraid. They knew that he was scared. They also knew that he was angry, not at anyone, but at himself for not being a competent leader.

If only he was a better leader, then maybe this whole mess wouldn't have happened in the first place.

[No... This is no time to think about 'what ifs']

A couple monsters spawned right in front of them, they were very big and they seemed to be wearing quiet a strong, yet light armor. 'An agile, yet high defense unit?' he wondered.

Readying their shield and swords, the group of four prepared themselves to engage once more.

[Lily. Milly. Sans. I promise that I'll come and save you. So please… please stay alive. I believe in you.]

There was a moment of silence within the room. Sans, Milly and Lily didn't dare to move an inch.

The Knight of Cinder was right there in front of them, not moving an inch as it observed the trio to see who'd make the first move.

[how could i be such stupid! of course they were leading them into a boss fight!]

Sans was sweating cold-sweat as he tried to think of a way to get out of this place.

[calm down. there must be a way out of this. there HAS to be. how about the teleportation crystals? no… i'm pretty sure that poh forgot to give us one since he thought that we were going to stay together. even if we do have teleportation crystals, does it even work in a boss fight? not to mention that this is a trap which might mean that we're in an anti-teleportation area… what else can we do? what to do, what to do…?]

Sans tried to use his psycho-kinesis but he winced in pain and frowned, [DAMN IT! what the hell is with this pain?! i can't concentrate with this freaking pain distracting me!]

"Sans!" A voice snapped Sans out of his thoughts; it was Milly's. "We will protect you! Both of us are level 28, so we'll protect you!"

"…why would you…?"

"PoH said that you have a very low level… we don't really understand it, but we know that it's bad." Lily continued.

"I'm sorry, Sans… We're sorry, Sans. We're sorry that because of us, you got dragged into this… but we'll make it up to you!"

"That's right! Our leader told us that protecting you is our top priority."

"And we'll do everything we can so you can live!"

The moment Lily and Milly readied their weapon, the Knight of Cinder suddenly moved into a stance of his own. Then in a swift succession, the Knight lunged forward as the twin assassins went after the Knight too.

The ground shook as the Knight struck his sword towards the assassins, only to miss and hit the ground when they both dodged it. They quickly jumped toward the giant armored menace and landed their attacks.

Sans watched the two assassins fight the giant, speechless. After all that he had said… after all the hate and distrust they had in him… they were still willing to fight… for him?

There it was again; the guilt.

He had this power that could help them, yet the pain that he was enduring ruined his concentration. He had this power that could save everyone, yet using it might cause the system to detect him as an error and perhaps alert the Game Master to erase him from existence.

If he used his powers, he could save them but he might die. If he didn't use it, they might die and he might also die. It might be selfish of him to say, but he didn't want to die.

Sure he had only 1 HP, but like any sane human, he too was afraid of death… which was why the guilt was eating him alive.

They were ready to sacrifice themselves for him, to give up everything to save the person that they once didn't trust, unlike Sans who was only worried about his own death.

He threw the twins another look and saw how the boss' health bar was quickly entering the danger zone; it seems like they were winning the battle.

The Knight of Cinder was desperate and began attacking at all directions, but this was a huge mistake since his giant body left him a lot of opening for the twins to exploit. For a moment a spark of hope appeared within their hearts.

"Sister! Let's end it together!" Milly shouted.

"Alright! Let's go!"

Shouting a war cry they landed their final attack and ended the boss' life. The Knight of Cinder fell on his knees and gave a dying growl.

"they… they did it?" Sans whispered in disbelief and relief.

"D-Did we do it, Lily?"

"I-I think so, Milly…"

The twins looked at each other and hugged together, not believing that they could take down such a strong boss all by themselves.

Sans smiled as he watched the giant fell. It seemed like he might not have to use his powers after all.

He watched the Knight of Cinder fell and turned into ash and burn in a bright green flame and—

Wait… ash?

They didn't know what was coming. Everything happened so fast. Sans wanted to yell at them, to tell them to watch out, but it was too late.

The once gigantic Knight of Cinder had turned into a human-sized boss and lunged forward toward the unsuspecting twins through the green ashen cloud and deliver his first blow.

The twins shouted in pain as they were thrown away really hard towards the ground just from the sheer impact of the boss' blow. Lily and Milly realized that their health bars were now in the red zone.

The three players watched as the Knight of Cinder stood up once again, readying his sword.

Instead of one, there were now three health bars and the boss who was known as 'Knight of Cinder' was no more for his name had changed.

Lv. 35 [Soul of Cinders]

The boss then lifted his sword up and let out a deep and monstrous war cry and then the monsters that were chasing them in the corridor started to crawl out of the walls and the ground of the room.

Doomed.

They were truly and utterly doomed.

Despair was in their eyes.

Disbelief was etched on their faces.

Hopelessness struck their hearts; and

Death was ready to reap their souls.

This was the end.

The Soul of Cinders lunged forward at the fear-stricken twins and time seemed to move slowly. He swung his sword and it was going to cleave the twins' head off.

The two shut their eyes and their lives were flashing before their very eyes. The happy days they shared in the real world; the happy days they lived with their family; the happy days they spent playing games with their friends; the happy days they experienced in this world, despite the sufferings they went through.

This was it.

The nerve gear was going to fry their brains. They waited for the inevitable and the sword made contact.

They said that people never really appreciate life until the moment you were about to lose it… They guessed that it was true.

With one last tear they both shared the same thought.

[Thank you, everyone… Goodbye.]

[Author's Note]:

Another cliffhanger after a cliffhanger?! FTW? What the hell dude! Who the hell wrote this piece of junk!

…Oh, right. I did.

Meh. Tell me what you think of this chapter. Don't worry, there's still more to tell and trust me, you'd want to stick around for the next chapter. If you can read my mind, then you'd probably be able to guess what's going to happen next!

Here's a spoiler…

…

…Nah, just kidding, why would I spoil my own story? Where's the fun in that right? Mwuahahaha!

Oh well, anyway, if any of you are wondering about who is the Knight/Soul of Cinders you can go to the Dark Souls 3 Wikia and find a boss called Soul of Cinders; Go ahead and watch those youtube fights if you must, cuz I'll be using his moves in this fight so a visual example might be able to explain to you better about his fighting style and etc.

I'm very bad at names and descriptions so that's why I used a boss from another game, lol, but don't worry, this might be the fisrt and last time I'm gonna do it. Anyway, I need you guys to google him out and just… you know… imagine that his armors are pitch black and the flames are green instead of red… Maybe a little like Hecarim from League of Legends(?) Nah, too far.

Oh well, the climax is about to start, bruh! So stay with me, ya hear!

See ya next chapt, Capt!

:v /