Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds
Chapter 14: Entity303
Dates: Infinityverse Days 368-482
Not long later, we have arrived to the 37th Floor. But something is very different this time. Everything around us looks.. wrong. It's like everything we see has been corrupted in a digital way. The textures are all wrong. Things are floating when they shouldn't be. And the monsters look like they were born in the darkest depths of internet creepypastas. Sinon shudders: "This floor gives me the creeps. Even I can tell this floor is not supposed to look like this.." Kirito is shocked: "What the hell happened to this floor?!" I speak up: "All of textures look like glitched Minecraft textures. The kind that appear when the graphics mess up or the texture of something is gone. There can only be one being responsible for this.. Entity303.." Gameknight replies: "Entity303.. Why did it have to be him?!" "He's after you. He seeks revenge. His hatred is even greater than Herobrine's. If he is anything like Herobrine in the whole many versions of the same person now together as one.. We are about to deal with the most powerful threat other than Quinella and some of the Floor Bosses so far.." A monster comes towards us. It screeches and looks really strange. It's behavior is highly unusual. We watch as it attacks in very odd ways while also radiating pure hatred. Llenn shoots it over and over again until it dies. It took quite a few hits from P Chan. M is concerned: "That is not a good sign. All the monsters on this floor must be just like that. It is not safe to sleep in any inns that exist on this floor." Pito laughs: "I love this weird floor! It's so strange and dangerous!" "You won't be laughing for much longer. If it is true Entity303 is behind this, we're in trouble. Before the launch of Sword Art Online, it was games like Minecraft and Roblox that were popular. Sword Art Online was only a natural evolution from vr games played on the Oculus Rift and other vr devices. Because Minecraft was popular in our world too, I was terrified of Entity303 when I was a kid."
No one moves. Too many of us are on our guard while also taking everything in. It's true the Assault Team continues to grow in membership but not even the newest members dare to make a move. I then notice that distorted versions of characters and characters I recognize from Roblox games are roaming this floor along with the weird monsters. I point this out. We deduce that this floor might have even been merged with some Roblox games beyond the corruption allegedly caused by Entity303. For a few minutes, nothing happens. We all stand in place. That was until the increasingly unbearable silence is broken by the sound of electronic evil laughter as Entity303 appears in the sky right above all of us. He has red eyes and a white and black body. The villain laughs again: "Greetings, Assault Team. I am not just Entity303. I am the combination of all Entity303s within reachable universes. I will destroy you all. Gameknight999, you will be the first to die. I will make you pay for getting in my way in the past and interfering with my creation's plans. Once I take over Aincrad, I will escape in order to destroy Mojang. I will have my revenge! Even though Notch isn't with Mojang anymore, I will still destroy Mojang! And then, once that's done, I'll kill Notch as well! Prepare yourselves! I'm not going to kill any of you right away. I can wait. I want to savor your anguish and enjoy every moment of it." Llenn yells: "What do you mean?!" "I'll tell you! As you can see, this entire floor has been altered by me! The only thing 'normal' is the Floor Boss. Even I couldn't change that creature! No matter because the fun is only about to begin! Let's raise the stakes a little bit! I'm going to make this as miserable and prolonged for all of you as possible! Shadow creatures, seize the targets I ordered you to seize!"
A bunch of shadow monsters appear right away. They swirl around the villain before diving right for various individuals. Diavel, Kizmel, Lisbeth, Heathcliff, Cardinal, Yui, Ghost Gal, Playmaker, Ai, and Gameknight's friends are all kidnapped before our very eyes. We tried to stop this with various attacks but not a single one worked. Entity303 laughs again: "Oh. Now THIS IS REVENGE! I especially hope you are miserable, Gameknight999! After all, you are my nemesis and I hate you infernally! Hahahaha! If you want to see any of these fools ever again, you'll have to follow along to where I'm going! Once I reach my destination, I will make these prisoners suffer the same way I'm going to make you suffer when I kill you in front of them and the rest of your pathetic little Assault Team, user-who-is-not-a-user! You will come to me and when you do, you will perish if you don't happen to die along the way! I'm just relishing the expressions on all of your faces! Resignation is a little boring but I still find it slightly amusing. Anger, sadness, fear.. What delicious emotions to see up and close and personal twist your little faces! All these years of wanting revenge will be worth it! I won't be like the last individuals you crushed! Did you know that after Bowling's death that the Orichalcos came into my possession? I didn't want it so I tossed every part of it off of Aincrad! I sure do hope it 'doesn't' corrupt the land below! Now now, I've said enough for now to get the reactions I wanted! But if you can trail me, I'll make sure to make your blood boil! Hahahaha! Happy seeking and suffering!" Entity303 teleports away with the shadow creatures who kidnapped all those people.
Silica sobs: "No.." Kirito clenches his fists in anger: "We'll get them back! I know we can!" I nod while trying to stay calm for everyone else: "We can do it. We have no other choice. To beat the game, we can't leave anyone behind. That is not the way of the Assault Team. Let's do this. Let's track down Entity303. If we're lucky, we can intercept him somewhere and take the people he kidnapped back from those shadow creatures assuming we can even kill them." Gameknight has the strongest reaction of all of us because he has had this happen to him before. Entity303 pulled the same stunt ages ago by now except without immediately teleporting away. He screams and then, the landscape starts changing wildly. Sinon exclaims: "What the hell is going on here?!" Gameknight manages to calm down enough to reply: "It's happening.. Entity303 is altering the code of this game to add in more content.. This is really bad.. In my reality, he made my Minecraft world have the Twilight Forest mod installed to it.. My dear friends.. All taken away from me.." Eva replies: "You still have all of us. I know that ain't no consolation but trust me, if you need a shoulder to cry on, there's plenty of shoulders to cry on." I nod and offer: "You can even cry on my armored shoulder if that's what you need. I get you kinda look up to armored knights so yeah.." We were in for one hell of a journey. Let me say right away that I won't be writing about any of Floor Boss fights this time. Or at least, I have no plans to. We'll see what happens. I'll just mostly let this flow naturally. Wendelin, the general of Kales'Oh speaks up in concern: "Without Kizmel, Diavel, or Heathcliff, what are we to do?"
Myself and others who have a lot of experience as BRAINS members sort of step forward. I speak up first due to the fact I have a sharp mind: "We are going to need to reorganize the Assault Team a little bit. Not too much but I suppose it's time that those who aren't already aware are informed about a not so little secret. We'll deal with the consequences of what might happen once we escape this damn game with so many knowing that information properly later. For now, please lend us your ears. This is very important." We explain BRAINS and how we're proposing to change the structure of the Assault Team to match its structure with the squads being the equivalent of BRAINS branches. All squads will act independently and spend a lot of time together. But also, the squad members will regularly shift in order to help foster new connections and opportunities for cooperation. This is how it's going to be. Things are really going to change in a good way. With the restructure, we can expect the Assault Team to become even stronger without gaining or losing any members in the near future. That's even without the presence of those who were kidnapped. To be honest, I always wanted to restructure the Assault Team in this manner but I didn't take action on it with everything that's been going on since we got trapped in this game. Anyway, we didn't stick around to begin the restructure just yet. We now needed to figure out where Entity303 went. The squad I'm a part of ended up being the squad who searches on this floor. That means, we get to look in new and chaotic territory. So with all of that settled for the time being, the Assault Team splits up to search.
Each squad alone should be powerful enough to handle something like an ambush by Laughing Coffin at this point so I'm not too worried about the loss of strength due to the split up. Myself and the others in the squad then press on by running or leaping around. Nagato speaks: "We should further break up into our individual parties." Shikamaru hums: "Maybe that isn't the best idea right now. Instead, we should only split up to where we have 3 groups in close contact with each other. They should be spaced about 20 meters apart and to supplement for not splitting up further, we could all use long distance observational equipment to see things that are far away. Kirito, you have Lisbeth in your party. That means you and your other members can use the minimap to look for our comrades too. That's because Lisbeth's name will show up on the minimap as a green dot. If you don't see a green dot that's not part of a cluster you'll see each other as green dots at, that means that Lisbeth is quite far away. Please keep us posted on that. If you don't see such a green dot, holler so we can begin moving faster and faster until you can see the green dot or someone gets exhausted. If someone gets exhausted, we'll all have to stop. We might as well rest too at that point. As mentioned many times by now, no clearer gets left behind." Kirito nods: "Don't worry. We'll keep everyone posted." I add: "I'll make sure to keep an eye on the minimap. Without paying too much attention to it of course. More importantly. There's something I've been thinking about since Entity303 just left. We may run into the Floor Boss prematurely as usual. We can't handle a Floor Boss this high up in Aincrad with just this large squad alone. We need the entire Assault Team." Creati gives it some thought: "We'll just have to let all of them know if that happens but not engage the boss until they arrive here. Like usual. But still, that makes me think of something as well. I doubt we will be able to search this entire floor in one or even two days..."
Shikamaru nods: "I get what you're saying. This floor is far too big for us to explore all of it in such a short time. Add the fact that we don't know what Entity303 has done now to this floor and we may very well be here for weeks with no sign of Lisbeth and the others anywhere no matter how hard we look." "That's exactly what I was thinking about. If I just had my quirk to use in this game.. I could create a lot of items to help make this search a lot faster and easier. Unfortunately, that's not so. We could search everywhere only to find out Entity303 took them to another floor." I add: "My hunch is that he's taking them to the 45th Floor based on how things have been going regarding when our greatest enemies end up being defeated so far. But we can't be certain. He could have taken them to below Lyusula's castle on the 9th Floor for all we know only for that to be a complete mirage anyway. And then, we'll just find them on the 25th Floor only to be tricked again.. And so on.. And so on.." Shikamaru holds his head: "This is a lot to deal with. We'll get them back but it's going to take some time. Did anyone bring any camping supplies for any reason? We're probably going to be camping a lot before we find our friends." Myself and a few others nod. I speak first: "I'm too cautious not to bring something like camping supplies along. In my world, Covid the disease is spreading wildly with little done to prevent that despite it being designated as a Level 3 Biohazard. I assume that's on a scale of up to 4 or 5. Compared to dealing with trying not to catch that, it's super simple to choose to bring camping supplies even if they're never needed in this death game. I mean, a lot of precautions, masking especially are really easy but that is still even easier." So, with camping supplies checked off the list along with building materials if and when necessary, we head in deeper.
Around us, things get stranger. The only thing that's ordinary is the stability of the ground below us, essential for traveling anywhere on this Floor of Aincrad. Roblox games are blurring and merging together with Minecraft mods and the original version of Floor 37. It's a giant mess. One moment, we're avoiding being hit by mischievous players in Roblox playing various destruction and teardown games. The next, we're walking on the tracks of Rip Ride Rockit on Universal Roblox. I say: "This is really really strange. The minimap is even messing up too. It looks like we can't really depend on it to find our friends at all. It changes with every step that we take. That's a huge problem." Revolver replies: "There's even more troubling information about all of this. The corruption and instability we are seeing here may eventually spread to the lower floors. And with everything Entity303 is adding to this game, he may overload the entire system and cause it to crash, deleting all of us in the process. That would leave our bodies dead or in a comatose state for the rest of however long they end up surviving for." He's right. We really gotta start hurrying up a little bit. If Revolver is right, time is running out already. We look and we look, soon becoming numb to the rapid changes to the scene around us as we continue to move along. For a while, all we see is just that chaos still. However, things start becoming a little more stable. But that wasn't exactly a good thing for us. The thing is that that meant we were about to face a huge challenge that's in the way of us moving forward. One of those origami style papers used to fortune telling or something but made of ice and really big appears. "Pick a number." Eva shouts: "6!" "1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6." A bunch of demons from various worlds appear and attack us.
I shout: "Damn it! No one pick a number again! That thing is from the Adventure Time universe! It created a lot of havoc and chaos in the Candy Kingdom." One of the demons laughs: "Well, isn't this amusing?!" Another just replies: "I eat all souls." "Pick a number." None of us do. "Pick a number." "Pick a number." "Pick a number." "Pick a number." Lemongrab: "Fine! 127!" "1. 2. 3.." Kirito shouts: "We don't have time for any of this! Let's get out of here! Release Recollection! Starburst Stream!" "Hahaha! I'm going to cut these demons up just like those guys back in Squad Jam!" "Nyehahahaha! I have to say, I'm enjoying all of this chaos. That really isn't exactly like me normally but still. It's true in this situation." We just start moving fast again. That thing and the demons chase after us until we destroy them all with various attacks. Well, the thing didn't get hurt by anything. That was the only problem. It was still counting. "UNACCEPTABLE! DO SOMETHING! DO SOMETHIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG! OR ELSE DUNGEON!" I sigh: "Damn it. What the hell can any of us do that can shatter that thing?" Bubblegum replies: "When I last saw that thing, I synthesized liquid and mentos using my candy powers to blow it up. It was a success." Gameknight exclaims: "Explosion? I can do an explosion! At heart, I'm still a little bit of a griefer. It's what I'm still best at." Ellegard shouts: "We better get something explosive set up and quickly!" Soren speaks: "Anyone got material for a new Formidibomb?" One of those gets crafted with a crafting table before that table gets warped, corrupted, and distorted. It is launched at our foe and activated. The loud boom told us what we needed to know. It worked and so we turned back only to come face to face with the 37th Floor Boss. "Damn it! Time to get the others to come here!" We all begin contacting the others as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, our foe is unwilling to wait on us and prepares to unleash a devastating attack on all of us. Naturally, that's very bad news for us. But we get the messages sent out in time for us to need to dodge which we do so successfully. The FB roars and was about to try again until the corrupted monsters came. It focused on them and began attacking them. One by one, they are ripped apart brutally amongst other causes of intense death. But once they're all gone, the FB turns to us and begins to attack us. We were about to be forced to fight back earlier than we wanted to until the others showed up on time. Batman speaks: "You do not need to be concerned anymore. We're all here now. Some of us have even finished searching through the entirety of 1 or 2 floors for our kidnapped comrades as well as that Entity303. We have had no luck so far but at least, we can cross out some of the lower floors. Each squad has begun a precise and intricate search for one floor each at minimum so far." We fight the Floor Boss. It was an incredibly hard battle because a bunch of corrupted monsters just kept coming to stand in our way. Naturally, that was a big problem. So we had to fight the boss and them at the same time while also experiencing chaotic moment after chaotic moment. Things are still incredibly unstable but it's just a little less now. That little less is what we had talked about recently. We're currently on day 3 of the search. It's Day 371. When the boss was finally beaten, Goku yells: "That was awesome! Great displays of teamwork all around! Yay! I don't like giving speeches. I'm feeling nervous about this but still. Great job, everyone!" After that, the other squads all leave to go to various other floors to continue the search. We spent weeks looking on Floor 37. It is so much bigger than even Floor 25 that eventually, the rest of Assault Team ended up searching on it too. But no luck no matter how high or low we went. We had to face the facts. On Day 419, we accepted that we won't find our comrades on Floor 37.
The teleport gate to go up to 38 was somehow found. By some miracle, it is still functionable and the corruption hasn't spread to the lower floors as of yet if it will at all ever do that. It was nighttime when we got to the 38th Floor which looked different from even the 37th. Tsunade speaks: "It's clear this floor is even worse. We must continue camping on other floors." So that's what we did. We set up camp for the night on the 35th Floor. Things went well until the middle of the night. Myself and others woke up to lots of screaming. I run outside to see more shadow creatures. They kidnap more of our comrades including Silica and Pina. Kirito yells: "Damn it! Not again! Why?!" Entity303 appears again while laughing even harder than last time: "That's right, I'm back to take more of you away! Did you miss me?! I don't care actually! All I care about is the fact that all of you have suffered so much in your desperate efforts to get your friends back. I told you I would make your suffering wrong! That's right, I've been watching you all all along! I have enjoyed hours of misery and entertainment from watching you all! Thanks for that!" Gameknight shouts: "Entity303!! When will this be enough?!" "Not until you find my base will I stop! Hahahaha-" His laugh is cut off by a bunch of things being done to him at once. Inoshikacho work together to pull a trap on our foe while others attack amongst other things. Arrows filled with light magic hit the shadow creatures, killing them, and freeing those who were about to be taken away from us. Instead of being concerned or reacting to pain or anything like that, Entity303 brushes everything off. "I knew you would try something like that. There's not a single thing you can do that I haven't already predicted and created a counter for. I have watched all of you very closely since the launch of this game. I know your strengths and weaknesses. With all of that at my disposal, I will ensure the rest of your pointless lives are full of pain and suffering!"
Our foe teleports the 38th Floor Boss to us and fuses it with a bunch of corrupted monsters: "You go have fun with this! When you're ready to face me at my base, we'll have our fun together! That's if any of you can survive long enough to see things get better." Now, the 38th Floor Boss is far more dangerous than most of the other FBs we have faced so far. Sinon shouts: "Don't let your guard down! Just one mistake is enough to cause you immense pain and suffering. Stay still if you are able to!" The boss lunges at all of us. Silica exclaims right as Entity303 leaves without actually taking anyone away: "I won't just stand still! I'm going to fight for this world and all who live in it!" And so, we all end up getting deep into the boss fight. The pain I experience fighting while trying to protect everyone around me was greater than it had been in a long time. I could feel my insides practically burn up. "I won't give up! I won't give in! I don't care if this means I will have to get my armor repaired again! I just want to sleep and to do that, we need to win against this damn Floor Boss! I'm so tired right now that I'm really pissed off aboit having my sleep interrupted by Entity303! And I'm also pissed that this boss is keeping all of us awake even longer. I was even having a dream somehow weirder than this floor! I don't just fight to escape this game and protect others and the multiverse. Right now, I also fight to be able to go back to sleep faster!" After I shout this out, the battle only gets tougher. The boss starts attacking harder and harder and summons familiars that it clearly never did be for in previous iterations of Aincrad. I just keep on taking as much damage as possible while attacking with all of my might alongside the others. Kirito shouts: 'We still have such a long way to go to win this fight! We have to keep going in order to survive!" I add: "That's right! We can't afford to get distracted by anything! Haaaaaaa!"
The familiars aren't that hard to beat, they're just more annoying than anything. That's all there is to them. The problem however is in the fact Heathcliff was kidnapped. Without him around, we're all taking even more damage than we would otherwise. During Floor Boss battles, he's up there along with me, Liten, and others playing the role of tank at least some of the time. Because he can't be killed, any damage done to him means nothing but he can't take on all of the damage. He's only one person after all. But still, that doesn't deter us at all. With some of our comrades being held captive who knows where, we're only more motivated to fight. So that's exactly what we do. We keep giving it our all. The Floor Boss roars in anger over all of this. That doesn't intimidate us in the least. By now, pretty much every single one of us is used to this kind of situation, even the newest members have some experience in this matter. "Ha! Ha! I won't let you hurt those kids! They were brave enough to choose to join us and I won't allow their lives to be forfeit. Especially not this soon! Kids are supposed to be the future of the worlds they come from. I won't let you trample on them like how the Republicans and other far right monsters are!" I keep on taking damage and going through healing potion after healing potion no matter how much it hurts. It also helps I keep drinking potions for buffs every so often and that my armor got a Lisbeth repair and upgrade before she was kidnapped. I've been doing what I can to keep it in good shape with some help.
It's still far from very broken even now. The fight continues on and on. It felt like it would just drag on forever. Finally, I was barely able to stand, much less swing with my sword when the boss died. Silica sees my condition as the boss shatters: "Swiftdrawer! Please don't die!" "I'll be okay. *consumes several healing items* See? I'm used to this kind of situation. I've said that multiple times before but it doesn't hurt to say it again. I'm used to suffering to some degree every waking moment even if it's just feelings that are floating around in my subconsciousness." After we celebrate the win over the boss, we head back to sleep where we are as soon as possible. Because we're staying on the 35th Floor, there were no more threats to worry about. The next morning, we eat and then set out for searching through the 38th Floor again. Once there, Sinon speaks: "So, we managed to teleport right where we left off. That's good. But still, it will be difficult to figure out where we have or haven't gone yet as always. We'll have to rely on our memories from yesterday again." I nod: "It's good to bring that up as a reminder every so often. We don't want to forget all about that after all. If we did that, that would spell trouble for all of us." And so, we get to moving forward once again. It doesn't take long for us to run into a classic troll bridge with a troll standing guard. The modern equivalent of that is the toll booths on highways in the US. They should just call those toll booths, troll booths because if it weren't for the refusal to pay taxes by the wealthiest people, toll booths wouldn't be as need as much I don't think. Anyway, the troll speaks: "Halt! This may be the best way to cross in this general area. However, I can't allow you to cross unless YOU CAN DEFEAT ME!"
The troll attacks us suddenly. M speaks: "It appears this troll has the strength of a field boss. We can take it but it won't be easy to." He was right. I step forward: "I'll take on all of the damage I can! I won't let any of you experience needless pain caused by Entity303's meddling! Haaaaaaa!" I get the attention of our foe by running in and stabbing their left leg: "Hey you! Come get a piece of fully armored knight me!" I normally don't make such taunts but I really needed to piss them off quickly. They roar and start focusing on me. I keep their attention on me by attacking with my sword as well as dodging, tanking attacks, and blocking some of the hits coming my way or towards others. The troll gets angrier and angrier with me as the damage they take only increases as I keep the insults rolling. I truly have no desire to allow them to hurt my comrades. When the battle is finally over, I'm a battered mess again but still alive. "How was that, you damn troll? We could have settled things peacefully but you wanted to kill us all so badly that any chance of reasoning with you immediately evaporated." Before we can even take one step on the troll bridge, we see a boss bar appear. Gameknight shouts: "It can't be! The boss bar says The King!" I reply: "There's no way we can defeat that king dragon from the OreSpawn mod. We have to get out of here as quickly as possible and tell the others not to come over here." We all pull out teleport crystals and use them to backtrack far enough to avoid The King before messaging our comrades about our discovery. That was too close. If we hadn't teleported when we did, I bet we would have all died instantly due to The King stomping the ground or something.
I sigh: "I don't like retreating from a battle but that battle would have not been one we could have won. If we had unlimited lives in this game or could be revived, I would have risked suffering in order to keep The King occupied while also learning its moves and going from there. But this game is on a mode beyond hardcore mode so that risk wouldn't have been worth it at all. It's true we could get a set of rare armor from killing The King as well as an egg for a pet known as The Prince but too many of us on the Assault Team would have paid the price. Even just losing one person to get all that stuff would be too great of a price." We start moving in a diagonal direction in order to avoid the area The King is in. That's when someone gets the idea that that area we were just in may be where our comrades are being held. However, that theory is quickly put to bed. Gameknight says: "Entity303 doesn't make things that impossible. He wants to see us all suffer. We don't suffer if a boss instantly kills us off." We keep moving forward from there. We run into a whole bunch of traps that were probably set by Entity303. From the others in the Assault Team, we heard similar stories of nutty situations and traps and all that stuff. It seems that Entity303 really has outsmarted us in every sense of the word. Damn it, this really sucks. I sigh: "It looks like Entity303 is just treating all of this like it's a game." The others nod as we continue to move onwards. We pass through so many bizarre versions of familiar places. Even a bizarre version of Justice League's Watchtower that's submerged into a lake of slime and fire. Inside, we had to fight a bunch of robotic demonic zombies crossed with serial killers. We just kept going despite all of the challenges though until we managed to somehow catch up with Entity303. Reminded of the chase he had to go through in the Twilight Forest, Gameknight says: "We have to be careful! He might lead us into more traps!"
While riding a demonic beast with a cage holding our comrades attached to part of it, Entity303 turns around and smiles menacingly at us: "Oh, so you've managed to catch up to me?! Congratulations but this little chase is far from over! Hahahaha! In fact, I'm not actually here!" He and the others suddenly vanish. Sakura yells: "It was an illusion!" Wendelin replies: "That shouldn't be possible.. After all, the magic of Aincrad has been maintaining its form since the Great Separation. Kizmel stated on a previous floor that she wished that we could use the power of the Sacred Trees. At the time, she temporarily forgot that we cannot and so I did. However, it is the magic of the Sacred Trees that keeps Aincrad afloat. Without the trees to keep it afloat, Aincrad and all on it would be destroyed. The Cathedral containing them has been closed off permanently with the destruction of the keys to open it. Or that's what I'd think but after fighting alongside you human warriors and others, I know better than to be confident the Cathedral will stay closed for eternity. Our enemies would not try to open the Cathedral unless they wanted to completely destroy all of us in a matter of moments. They want us to suffer. All of them do. It would only happen if they became desperate enough to wipe out all of us." Merja, a major Lyusulan nods: "You are right but something is troubling me. Ever since Entity303 kidnapped some of our friends, something hasn't felt right in Aincrad. It's not just because of the corrupt on this floor and the previous one." I nod: "I think we can all feel it deep down. The Orichalcos was cast to the surface. Our primary foe at the moment hinted of the possibility that it will somehow taint Aincrad as well. But it would take something truly strange for it to make its way back up here."
At this point, it's clear that things aren't so simple with what Entity303 has done. Back to the situation at hand, it looks like we have fallen for a huge trap. This is really bad. The bosses of the Twilight Forest, the Wither Storm, and other monsters have surrounded us. "Damn it! We're trapped! I'm trying my teleport crystal but nothing is happening. Gameknight, you are the only person guaranteed to survive as Entity303 wants to make you suffer the most. And by having us all die while you live on, he would accomplish just that once again. Step up and fight. These bastards won't kill you. He won't let them." I then charge forward with some of the others. I go after the Naga strategically. After all, with its fast speed and willingness to go all over the place, it could be killed by attacks launched by the other bosses that fail to hit us. The Naga soon dies because of this. This gives Uraraka a great idea: "Everyone! We have to get the bosses to keep hurting each other!" Using ourselves as bait, we piss off the bosses further. The current goal is to get the Wither Storm to try to kill all of the other bosses. So we position ourselves in optimal ways to kill that off. As a result, it isn't long before the bosses accidentally get the Wither Storm, incurring its wrath as a result. With it being the strongest boss by far, we knew it would kill all the other bosses so we begun to focus on attacking it as well. As much as it wanted to kill us, the attacks of the other bosses were far too powerful for it to be able to pay much attention of any of our own attacks. It continues to fight and fight until all of the other bosses are dead. The Hydra took the longest for it to kill but when it did, it turned its attention back on us. Ivor yells: "I'm no longer afraid of you! I may have originally created you but I will help make sure you die again for good for the 3rd time! We will stop you!"
Olivia nods vigorously: "That's right! We'll be able to take you down now that you've been weakened so much at this point!" Jesse rallies us: "Don't give up, everyone! We can do this!" Ellegard nods: "With our strengths and brainpower, we can overcome this obstacle!" 2 hours later, we're all pretty badly hurt but the Wither Storm is finally dead once again. It took another hour for us to recover enough to continue the search. After that, we keep passing through Roblox challenges after Roblox challenges especially as we continue forward. But then, we all receive a distress message from Floor 1. We teleport there immediately only to find something truly vile. Some kind of strange tree has broken through the streets of the Town of Beginnings. Its wood is black with familiar green stones embedded into it. Idrehendis speaks: "The corruption of the Orichalcos has returned to this land through causing the growth of that tree on the ground to continue far beyond normal. This is not good. We must do something about this at once." We start attacking it only for nothing to happen except for its branches attacking all of us and dealing heavy damage. I shout: "Damn it! That really hurt! We gotta put an end to this tree as soon as possible! Entity303 knew this would happen. Thats safe to say for certain." I was right about that. Our foe briefly appears again: "I know you will uproot this new Orichalcos Tree but it's going to cost you dearly! See you later for my revenge, Gameknight999! Hahahahahaha!" He then vanishes right after that in time for the tree to become more aggressive and grow eyes. It starts making a lot of noise as it attacks everyone and everything in sight. The only reason no one has died yet is because all of us cleaners responded and came here.
That means that we all have a chance of surviving this battle with such an evil tree that makes the Evil Treant Floor Boss seem like child's play by comparison. Anyway, now that things have come to this, we are forced to give it our all while also getting weaker players to evacuate as quickly as possible. Some of us stepped out of the battle to safely lead away all of those players towards the town of Tolbana. The tree hasn't grown large enough to destroy more than just the Town of Beginnings yet. Things really aren't looking good all things considered but we aren't going to give up here either. It takes us hours to pull it off but in the midst of a sea of blood gathering on the ground, the tree finally dies. How? Some of us ran down it until we reached the bottom of it and found its heart so to speak. The heart was tough to kill but after taking a lot of our hits, it finally died. Seeing the roots of the tree below us begin to grow unstable, we used our teleport crystals to return to Floor 1 ASAP. Once there, Kirito shouts: "There's about to be timber!" The eyes and the stones on the tree turn to solid gray rock before our very eyes. We even watch the tree finish collapsing and nearly drag down Aincrad with it. When that happened, we saw something else happen too to stop Aincrad from crushing into the world below. The spirits of a white and a black tree appear as branches to pull Aincrad further up and away from the collapsing tree. What we didn't know was that the Orichalcos threat was still not over yet. Some of us looked down through the hole the tree made to stare at what was left on the surface of it. That's when something even worse began to take place. The remaining of the tree clumped together into a huge egg of some kind.
I shout: "This is bad! Whatever is growing in there will be very powerful.." Varon grits his teeth: "Not more Orichalcos trouble!" After a few seconds, something burst out of that huge egg. The being who is known as The Great Leviathan in the Yugioh DM English dub. It is bigger than several Floors combined if not more. It roars at us and starts doing something unexpected. With its power, something opens up in the sky. And things come out of it. Wendelin looks tense: "..Are those.. souls?!" Yugi shouts: "Those must be the souls of the players and monsters who have died so far! With all those souls, that huge monster could become practically unstoppable! We have to do something!" Biara replies: "With most of those who could hack into the game and/or have admin permissions on our side kidnapped plus no magic, we can't do anything to stop this." Blue Maiden activates her duel disk: "If we can't stop it, we must fight it! It won't be long before it regains its true power and then some more." Go nods: "That is all we can do at this point." I activate my duel disk too: "I just hope we're allowed by the Cardinal System to summon monsters with our duel disks. That might be the only way other than with bows and guns that we can fight this true monster. Even the Wither Storm isn't as scary as it is." Yusei shouts passionately: "May our bonds get us through this battle just like the ones that have come before this one! I summon Junk Synchron and Speed Warrior!" "Don't forget about me! I fuse Burstinitrix with Avion to form Flame Wingman!" "I summon Goblindbergh and Gogogo Golem! Now with these 2 monsters, I build the Overlay Network!" "I summon this trio of artists react to help me create my composition!" "I summon Magnarokket Dragon and Dimension Dragon to manifest my circuit." "I tune Dark Resonator with Vice Dragon!" "I activate Fusion in order to Fusion summon! Come forth, Sevens Road Paladin!"
"Odd Eyes Pendulum Dragon! It's showtime!" "I tribute these 2 monsters in order to summon a cosmic scourge! *chant is finished* Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon!" "Yuma stinks. I overlay my Wind Up monsters in order to Xyz summon Wind Up Zenmeister." "I sacrifice Alpha, Beta, and Gamma in order to summon.. *Ra's summoning chant* Appear, Winged Dragon of Ra!" Naruto grins: "Now this is more like it! Let's back them up however we can!" Our foe roars aggressively. I smirk: "We aren't going to let you win." "Yami Ruler! Prepare to attack!" "I'm curious to see how this will turn out in the end. Go, my Maximum Monster!" "Fairy Cheer Girl! Let's do this!" "Dreadnought! Let's steamroll this evil creature!" "Blade Armor Ninja! Prepare to strike!" "Silent Swordsman, Silent Magician!" "Gouki Suprex returns to help me mash up my circuit once again!" All of our monsters attack at once. The elves fire arrow after arrow while the GGO players light up our foe with their bullets. Eva shouts: "Come on ladies, let's show this Orichalcos God what we're made of!" Kara Oki starts singing: "Allow the power of my music to inflict harm on our foe!" Major Smythe shouts: "I will watch the behavior of this great beast closely!" I start firing at our foe with my gun: "Who said I couldn't fight alongside the monsters I summoned? My sword skills can't reach it so this is all I can do to help with the assault besides shielding others from taking damage!" Kirito yells: "I'll try to turn this beast back into part of a tree with THIS! Night Sky Sword.. Release Recollection! This is for Eugeo and everyone else we've lost in this terrible game!" Yuna also sings in order to provide us all buffs once again. Shikamaru yells: "Be careful! It's about to fire an attack with its breath!" Major Smythe confirms this: "It's beginning to open its mouth slowly." Gelina is passionate: "We Minecraftians still have magic! We have to use it! I cast Fireball!"
Our foe wasn't expecting us t put up such a strong resistance. As a result, we are able to overwhelm it more and more especially since Romeo and PAMA were not captured. PAMA has been gathering a bunch of monsters to control but this time with jetpacks. So now, there's a bunch of jetpacking monsters that are landing on our foe to attack it by order of PAMA. Romeo is in the sky attacking the god as well. With all of our efforts, we are able to wipe it out completely in the end. I breathe a sigh of relief: "I'm so glad that that's over. Now, we can get back to what we were doing before as soon as we heal the wounded, mourn the fallen, and rebuild this area." It took us several more days to do all of that. Once that was over, we accepted some new members into the Assault Team including ex-Laughing Coffin members. I even helped perform another raid on Laughing Coffin in order to take more from them. They lose more members and we end up learning about all of the plans they currently have for the future. But none are quite as evil as the plans of Project 2025, a document devised by notable far right groups and figures to make a game plan for what a Republican president must do if one is able to win in the 2024 US Presidential Election(Donald Trump). With that said, it's a relief that we at least can now return to searching for our kidnapped comrades. And that's exactly what we do. Over the next weeks, we kept looking on Floor 38. It was only on Day 467 that we were able to move onto the next floor. Many of us were by then starting to get tired of how long searching each floor was taking. Even I was starting to myself. I sigh: "It's taken us such a long time to get to this point. We are almost a third of the way through year 2 of this damn death game. Something needs to change. I don't want to be still looking when year 3 comes for our missing comrades. That's just not good enough. The sooner we get out of this game, the better."
Kirito nods: "I completely agree. Asuna is still being held captive by that bastard.. The more time we have to spend looking, the longer Asuna will be trapped! Damn it!" Shikamaru sighs: "We need to come up with some kind of game plan in order to speed up the search. It's too dangerous to ask low or mid level players to join the search considering everything we've been through since we started searching the floor below us." The PI nods: "You are correct. However, I may have a solution. We are able to look wherever we go easily. Our skills in observation have been sharpened due to the urgency to find our missing comrades. That means, we should be able to search while moving faster by vehicle without missing anything as we keep looking." I nod: "So long as we can procure vehicles that are able to not crash into whatever weird crap we end up seeing moving forward.. We'll be able to do that." Soon enough, it is decided that we will begin gathering up vehicles that can handle all kinds of terrain. Surprisingly, the dune buggy I'm still carrying around applies to that specific category. I was not expecting that at all. So, I got it out and the PI and I made sure as many of us could fit on it as possible before they put the pedal to the metal. The strangest part of this whole search is the passiveness of most of the monsters we've encountered. We see them. They see us. But they don't even bother trying to attack us. What is going on with them? We can't afford to try to find that out right now for obvious reasons. But we will stay on guard around them in case that passiveness ends up leading to something bad in the future such as an ambush by all of the passive monsters we saw. With the dune buggy, we are able to travel several times faster than we were before. That was really helpful as it showed us that the search would take far less time for this floor(39) when compared to 37 and 38. We didn't start heading out to keep searching until we made certain that every single clearer was able to drive or ride a moving vehicle of some kind with decent speed.
So where did all of the other vehicles come from? They were built, found, or crafted by various clearers in as short of a time as possible. It helped that a bunch has already been found or made in the past for various reasons. It was such a relief when we could finally start looking again. Because vehicles apparently have unlimited durability as we discovered through Muscleman and High Five Ghost digging a new crash pit on Floor 2 before crashing vehicle after vehicle in it, we didn't have to worry about them getting damaged whenever we ran into something. If a vehicle got stuck, its owner could just easily call it back into their inventory. That was something that Romeo's most recent hack into the game itself was responsible for making possible. What a serious relief. Beyond that, we could now focus on looking around a lot faster. We look and we look. We run into all kinds of things as usual for several days. It was starting to get a little bit tedious. But then, it stopped getting tedious with the appearance of Mobzilla. The PI immediately turns the buggy away from Mobzilla. "We can't teleport anywhere while riding this buggy. If we exited it, we would die." I sigh: "Damn it. Now Mobzilla is chasing right after us and trying to fry us with its breath. Can things get any worse?" A wishing well appears. A mysterious droid like creature drops a golden nugget in it. Hundreds of blocks of TNT spawn in and blow it up and the surrounding area. We just barely miss getting caught in the blast. I exclaim: "If anyone sees a lucky block, don't touch it. We don't know what it will do. It could give us a lot of riches but the risk ain't worth it right now. We don't have time to stop to open just one. Mobzilla is gaining on us. Can this buggy move any faster?"
The PI nods. And so, they slam the accelerator down, causing the buggy to go speeds no buggy has gone before. We drive off the map before it can even load in what's below us and almost start falling to our deaths by buggy crash because of that. But stuff loads in just in time. The PI slows it back down to the speed it was going before. Now, Mobzilla is only a small dot in the distance. Sinon breaths: "That was too close." I nod: "I agree but now, let's keep looking. The entire area we skipped over will be searched by others eventually so I'm not too worried about that." We keep looking throughout the entire 39th Floor to no avail. We couldn't even find the Floor Boss despite checking where it would have normally spawned. M speaks: "It appears that they aren't on this floor either. But where is the Floor Boss?" We hear the roar of the 39th Floor Boss. Argo speaks: "There it is. If we are to search Floor 40, we'll need to win this fight! Let's do this! I will offer support anyway I can. Nyehahahaha!" And so, we have to fight the boss now. Thankfully, it's Day 476 so it really only took a few days to go through the entire floor. The boss proved to be the toughest one yet but we were ready. As time has gone by, we have gotten better at keeping vital items on hand as well as making more of them. But this battle proves to be very different as some of us kept driving around the vehicles while the far range fighters stayed on them as passengers and began attacking from a range while riding them. I leaped off the dune buggy to join the frontal force in the fight. "Again, I will protect all of you the best I can! Don't worry about me or my armor! Just keep doing what you're doing. If I have to give my life in this battle, I will do so! Haaaaaa!" The boss turns out to be extremely and incredibly aggressive. It just keeps attacking all of us at full force. It's hard to even stay standing after taking just one hit from its wrath.
I manage to do that but it still hurt a lot. Gritting my teeth, I begin fighting harder as a counter to this. But, things got even harder. The boss starts expanding its range somehow to target those of us driving or riding those vehicles. Some of us fighting head on shout: "Hey you boss! We're still here! Kill us instead if you can!" This gets its attention mostly back on us. We fight and we fight. I hold my tongue as I experience more and more pain while defending the others: particularly the youngest/least experienced(some of the kids like Mater are more than capable of handling themselves fine) among us. This is what it means to fight on the frontlines in Aincrad as a member of the Assault Team. "Haaaaaa! Haaaaaaaaa! We can do this!" Hours of fighting later in the midst of a chaotic landscape that keeps changing and introducing all kinds of different smaller threats to slow us down and throw us off, the boss screams and finally gets killed off. After it shatters, most of us cheer. But the cheering stops when a familiar villain appears on the same demonic creature and whatnot as in that illusion. Entity303 laughs: "Well done, you have managed to finally get this far without losing many of your members. Even I'm impressed but that just makes me that much more motivated to get all of you to suffer! I will have my revenge, Gameknight999! I have prepared a special surprise for all of you! I do hope you enjoy it so much that it kills you! Literally! Ta-ta for now! I have some even more foolish humans to kill now!" He leaves before anyone can say anything only for a bunch of familiar enemies to appear. Every single Floor Boss we have faced so far. Wendelin sweats heavily: "This can't be.. All of the guardians of the Celestial Tower that we've fought so far.. They're all here. We can't fight all of them at once.."
Romeo changes the area around us to form chains to chain up all of the FBs. He exclaims: "Attack them already! Hurry up! I can't hold them down for long! This isn't a game I enjoy playing you know!" Many of us bellow war cries. Others like me just simply nod before getting ready for battle. I quickly get straight to using my sword to help crush the first FB. That doesn't take very long. In fact, the first 15 bosses were push overs for us at this point. It was the other ones that we were having trouble with. The remaining bosses are bosses that even we despite previously beating will have a lot of trouble dealing with now. I shout: "Don't give in! Fight these damn bastards and don't stop for anything! Let's do this! For Aincrad!" "*unison* For Aincrad!" Yuna again sings to provide us buffs as we start getting very serious about all of this. We spend hours and hours fighting, depleting our personal inventories of healing items, food, and more in the process. We have a surplus of food due to all the bases we've had set up along with all the farms on the Minecraft floors but still.. We did not think we would need to use all of our remaining food to survive this ultimate boss battle with 39 Floor Bosses. The fact that we managed to survive without losing anyone is something I still don't understand. But at any case, we did it. We beat all of the bosses again. I collapse to the ground in exhaustion once it's over. "Damn it. That was so incredibly hard that my brain refuses to recall most of the battle. It's like all of that will just be blocked from my memory permanently now. That was truly nuts." Sinon nods: "That is a battle we cannot afford to forget." Kirito yawns: "After all of this, I think we need not just a few days before we go to the next floor. We also need a day to relax before doing that." Many of the other clearers end up agreeing with that kind of thing. In a majority vote in favor, we choose to have all clearers spend the next day relaxing.
Once it was morning back on Floor 35 again, I was almost tempted to take my armor off but chose not to until I was convinced to go to a new player built hot springs on the floor. "Alright, you got me. Just this once, I'll take my armor off outside of when I really need to or I'm about to shower." I don't take it off until we get to the changing rooms at the hot springs. It's a typical Japanese style structure. I take my armor off as well as just about everything else and put it all in my inventory. I then go into the main hot spring pool itself and start soaking in all of that steamy water. "Aaaaaa.. This is far nicer than I ever imagined it to be. And I've been in small artificial spas a number of times at hotels in my world." Kirito looks over at me: "Damn, you really have a lot of muscle." "Yeah, I do. All that intense training in the real version of this body paid off. Not to mention all of those battles where I severely hurt or been killed myself through the overexertion of my muscles." "Thats hardcore." "Yeah. It is. To tell you the truth, in my original body, my muscles besides my leg muscles don't even compare to the muscles you see here. I can only lift up to about 50 pounds there. As you can also see, I've seen my fair share of brutal fights." We keep talking to each other along with some of the others for a while. When we stop talking, I start just thinking while continuing to soak in that hot spring water. I feel so at ease that I close my eyes and nearly fall asleep multiple times but manage to keep myself awake. "So nice.. This is so nice.. It's like every single strain I've developed while surviving this game is going away. All the aches, the blisters, the lingering soreness, the fatigue, the grime, it's all going away. I only get out when I start feeling uncomfortable from being inside of the pool for so long. I made sure to wrap a towel around my crotch before I went into the pool so that I'm not exposed around literal minors which would be a huge problem. So when I get out, no complications related to that sort of thing are able to occur.
I go sit down at a bench after putting on some robes provided by the players running the place to just think and relax as well as read a book for a while. When I finish the book, I change back into my usual attire. "My muscles feel so loose now. It's like they've been completely renewed. I'm ready to prepare for the next floor over the next few days starting tomorrow morning for sure." A few days later, I stand at the ready to go up to Floor 40 with the rest of the Assault Team. I am fully relaxed while also raring to go. It is now Day 482. To be continued..