Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 15: The Creepy Challenge

Dates: Infinityverse Days 482-519

Before I talk about what happened on Floor 40, let me mention some relevant info about it, some stuff I neglected to add about Floor 39, and possibly regarding Floors 41 & 42 too. On Floor 39, we found the distorted version of the town of Nolfret. It's also where the former headquarters of KoB was in SAO. On Floor 40, we would end up finding the distorted versions of Jaileum and other locations from Aincrad on that floor. They're are prison related. More on this later. The boss was still Bracken the Prison Warden despite all the strange things done to the floor by Entity303. There's nothing Floors 41 and 42 I can also put here. Sorry. So we get to the 40th Floor without any issues. As this was the floor I had most recently played through on SAO: Integral Factor, it's not Kirito who says something about how strange the floor has become. It's me. I say as we look around: "This floor is somehow stranger than the previous floors together. In SAO, this location was a grassy area full of little ruins as well as a large prison. The story quest that's supposed to be on this floor and lead to the gathering of intel about the boss involves working with prison guards to get information and stuff around. If I recall right, it even further requires that something or someone is passed along to someone. Like a whole dangerous operation kind of deal. But I never got to the boss so while it's true I know who it is by the time I end up writing about this floor, it's also true that I couldn't even tell you what its name is." Kirito nods: "I see. I basically remember the same thing. This floor was quite the floor back on SAO with Bracken the Prison Warden as the Floor Boss on this floor. It's hard to believe we're getting close to being halfway up Aincrad at last. Or already.. I'm not sure at this point." Sinon nods: "I get the gist now. Well, this really is even stranger. It's like everything we see is prison themed but warped."

To demonstrate, she clips right through a stone brick wall that's also the body for a passive kraken monster. I sigh: "This is by far the weirdest scene I have ever seen since we got trapped inside of this game. This would be the perfect floor for Entity303 to hold our friends captive." It wasn't much longer until we found the town that was in SAO on the floor all weird too. Myself and some of the others were again on the dune buggy, looking around for our comrades again with The PI on the driver's seat. Just a normal day for the Assault Team. For some reason, the location of the prison has mysteriously moved. We have no idea where it is now so we're also looking for it. The possibility of our friends being there is too likely for the place to be ignored. I'm under the impression it's also where you can eventually get to Bracken the Prison Warden normally. But I don't know that for sure. I never actually went inside of there in Integral Factor. Anyway, we haven't encountered any traps or giant monsters yet. But it's still been super weird. Floating things, weird monsters dressed in orange prison jumpsuits or whatever they are, others dressed in the infamous black and white stripes, monsters covered in handcuffs, buildings and objects that aren't really there(ones we can clip through), and more. Oh and the terrain for the floor is unusually and unnaturally flat like a Minecraft superflat world was overlayed with the entire floor. That made it much easier to travel around in search of what we're looking for. But at the same time, it left a pretty uneasy feeling in all of us. Eva states: "What the hell is going on?! We haven't found any traps or huge monsters yet." M sighs: "This is not a good sign, it is suspicious. Not only that but things are unnaturally quiet. Far too quiet. The monsters aren't even looking at us either. It's as if we aren't here to them. I doubt we will be grinding the monsters on this floor either. With the exp farms, there's little need too after all especially now that even more of them have been constructed."

Silica gets nervous but deep down, we're all nervous so several of us reassure her about that. Myself included. It's best to my honest about this sort of thing after all. A lot ended up happening on the 40th Floor. We had no idea at the time that we would just run into thing after thing after thing starting not long from the moment Silica was able to relax a bit despite her nerves. A few minutes of silence followed until the buggy drives on a completely out of place bump on the terrain. Except it wasn't a bump.. What gave it away was the smell of rotting. The PI stops the buggy. Sinon gets out. We all follow her in doing the same thing. We walk towards the bump. It becomes obviously what it is. It's a body. I cover Silica's eyes immediately as the state of that body is far too gruesome to let someone like her see. M sighs: "I think I'm going to throw up." Sinon widens her eyes: "This was done days ago.. We didn't even unlock the floor until earlier today. How is this possible?" I reply: "Who knows but one thing is clear.. This is the result of a murder. Someone murdered this person and left the corpse out to rot. This is just despicable.." Eva nods: "Not only was it a murder but there's more.. Look!" We see footsteps, dried blood, and.. more bodies. They're all hanging, impaled with crosses. I sigh: "Just when this floor couldn't get any stranger.." Suddenly, we are all teleported out of the blue to a creepy Roblox game that's been corrupted and distorted by Entity303. Our foe appears while laughing: "I'm enjoying making all of you suffer so much! In fact, I'm going to take a page out of what Romeo actually did right when he was your enemy. No, no, he didn't do it right when he was. Not always anyway. Let's play a game! If you can escape this game that is also a whole other dimension, I will give you a hint as to where I've taken your pathetic friends! Does that sound fair to you? If so, make a blood oath by allowing some of your blood to spill on that parchment over there! I have gone ahead and absorbed what I could of all the enemies of yours you have crushed so far! This is one!"

We reluctantly follow those instructions. And from that blood, the parchment suddenly has wording appear on it that spells out a death threat from Entity303 to us. Oh, joy. We look around and find ourselves in a room of disassembled puppets that look like the various enemies we have defeated. There's even one of Bowling that accurately shows how he died in detail. Even I shiver a little bit: "I don't like this. And yet, I love horror.." We hear whispers of voices of the various enemies. Sinon looks around further: "It appears our whole squad has been sent here too and that we can't even see 3 of the 4 walls of this room from here. What do we do here? How do we progress further?" I hmm: "Maybe there's some kind of thing we need to find to head to the next room. I don't think there's a door in this entire place because it's so humid in here. It smells like decomposition and other rancid smells in here. If there was a door, I don't think the smell would be this strong. It would be at least slightly better because the door would have to allow some amounts of air to come through it. We have to look further in here." We look around, pushing the creepy puppets around and away, kicking up dust, tossing random items out of the way, whatever we could do to find what we're looking for. Whatever that is. So far, we have found nothing. Not a clue. Nothing. Just more disturbing things such as a shrunken head hanging on an out of place ancient bookshelf. We keep talking to one another in the squad to ease our nerves and narrow down the search. At least 30 minutes pass before something major actually happens. We hear that sound of a really loud chainsaw and then, an ominous silence after it. The lighting was dim in the room up to now. Now, it starts flickering between bright, pitch black, and dim out of nowhere. Ominous music played with an acoustic guitar, organ, and drums suddenly starts being heard as a ghostly chill fills the air. The sound of that chainsaw is heard again. And then, the screams start. I see some of my comrades run right past me as I look under a table for anything.

"What in the?!" That's when I see the health bar of some kind of boss. "Player Destroyer the Armor Breaker" I did not like the sound of that at all. After I see the bar appear, I start hearing some of the creepiest singing I have ever heard. "Hey hey, it's PD. How are you today? Are you ready for me to find you? Are you prepared to have your armor grinded into pieces? Are you ready for me to cut your insides up as you scream in misery? I'm coming for you! If you want to survive, you're going to have to run and hide as you try to escape this room! If you want to escape, you'll have to look everywhere! I'm not going to go easy on you. Every single second, the hourglass counts down to 0. You have until the moment it does to get out of this room. If you don't, you're going to die slowly in miserable ways that are far worse than any ways of death of you could ever imagine in your entire lives! I say it once again! I'm not going to go easy on you! I'm going to hunt all of you down and try to kill you before time runs out! I refuse to let clearers like you escape my room of puppets! These are my puppets and soon, your bodies will join them as my newest puppets! Did you really think this game was going to not be scary? I'm here to make you terrified and to ensure your deaths are as miserable and slow as possible! Once I grind your armor with my chainsaw, I'll make sure to cut your body into many little pieces! There's nothing you can to stop me now. I hope you can scream well because it looks like you're going to die today one way or another!" The sound of the chainsaw gets closer to me. I hear someone try to shoot in that direction but the chainsaw doesn't stop. The boss keeps singing: "Don't worry about Bracken the Prison Warden. Bracken's already dead even though some of your most reckless teammates managed to find them and try to kill them on their own. I delighted in making them scream, grinding their armor, and stealing the kills of them from Bracken before grinding up Bracken the Prison Warden myself!"

More attempts to shoot them with guns prove pointless: "You can shoot me as many times as you like. But you know something? That won't do a thing. Not a thing. I can grind your bullets to dust before I come for your bodies.. And then, your souls will remain trapped here forever! You'll say good night. Good night forever.." I grit my teeth: "They won't stop singing. It's so loud that it matches the volume of the chainsaw which is also matched by the volume of the music. This is bad. They're getting a lot closer to me. None of us can afford to be seen by them. This is just horrifying.. I have an inner darkness but this is far more twisted than anything my inner darkness has said or done. Get trapped in this creepy game long enough and I think even I will lose my sanity on a permanent basis. I have to keep looking with the looming threat of death always lurking around, ready to come for any of us at any moment." I was right. They wouldn't stop singing. I barely managed to avoid being seen by them when they passed by while chasing SHINC down with chainsaw at the ready. I try to use my sword skills on it from behind while it sings and laughs malevolently like never before but I do 0 damage. That's right. Through the damage text on my screen, I am seeing that I'm doing 0 damage. This creature killed the Floor Boss.. I believe that now. I end up running into Marceline and Bubblegun after I move onto looking through several boxes of items. "Hey Swiftdrawer! Good to see you!" "Hey, you two." "Marceline, I still can't believe you're unnerved by the Player Destroyer." "I'm used to this kind of evil from being around my dad. It's not big deal."

I sigh: "Well anyway, we just have to keep working hard to order to get out of this place. That's the only choice we really have right now." Bubblegum nods: "As unnerving this entire room is, we can't get distracted no matter what we see or hear." We all go back to silently looking through every single thing. With so many of us looking, we should be able to find something that will get us out of here before it's too late between the time limit and Player Destroyer. PD is still singing. It's getting creepier and more disturbing as the seconds pass by. "Where is whatever we need to get out of here? What should I be even looking for? Let's see. I need to ignore my surroundings. I have to hide in a good corner to think clearly enough to recall what kinds of things could match what we actually need to get out of here. And then the methods to escape that might be available to us too even if that includes a door as much as I still doubt there is one down here." That's exactly what I do. I think of every single possible method of escape that doesn't involve something myself or the others already have. A key, set of keys, vent, trapdoor, pitfall, crack in the wall, pipes, openings in iron bars, all of them. And with all of that in mind, I resume looking with a more clear idea of what I should be on the lookout for down here in this horrible place. So I'm now searching and searching for anything that could be used to escape. But I still find nothing. All of the books I look at prove to be completely unhelpful. "What the hell am I supposed to do?! I can't find crap down here! Damn it. I gotta keep going. Can't give up." Through messaging, those of us in the room start finding our minimaps updated regarding the room we're in. The intel we exchange broadens our understanding of the room and it wasn't long until I could see a large rectangle on my minimap with walls on all 4 sides. That means, we've managed to map out the entire room by working together.

Thanks to all of this, we slowly begin to x out places that have already been explored. The minimap shows literally everything except all players on it so we are easily able to x out the places that have already been explored. The narrowing down would have been a problem if it weren't for the fact that we had some of our comrades keep PD distracted from finding out that we're coordinating to search the entire room. Hours must have gone by. PD is now singing a different but worse tune: "Time is almost up. Time is almost up. I still haven't killed any of you but that's okay because I will kill all of you in the end. There's no hope for you. You can't escape. You're all going to die. Prepare to be-" They are interrupted by a barrage of attacks as objects are tossed towards the walls all over. Sinon shouts: "Hey PD! We figured your room out. You are what we need to escape!" "Lies! All lies! I will kill all of you right here and now! Prepare to die painfully and miserably! You think that just because you're attacking me while doing no damage, that you will be able to escape this room before time runs out! I don't think so! You are the dumbest players I have ever seen up close in person! That's not how it works!" I don't know what's exactly going on. I don't get how PD is the key to getting us out here so I just keep releasing attack after attack in case something good actually happens. Several minutes pass and I'm sweating from all of my fear but I still keep going for as long as I can." That's when I hear The Rat take something and laugh about it. It doesn't take long for PD to scream instead of sing: "Who took my necklace?! Give it back and I will kill you last for being honest with me for once!" "Nyehahahaha! Not a chance!" I hear something get thrown to the ground. Seconds later, a trapdoor opens beneath me and I fall right in and slide down through a chamber of absolute death and horror. What I saw in there was beyond words and shook me to the core. After the slide ended, I found myself standing in front of a cheery modern grocery store.

It looks like it would belong in any media that takes place in the modern day. The music inside can be heard from outside. It's a song from the Roblox game Retail Tycoon. One I'm quite familiar with. The others have all arrived already too. Once we're all standing in front of it, Player Destroyer the Armor Grinder busts through a wall to try to kill us all only for a supermassive volcano to appear along with a tsunami, a asteroid, a blood moon, and other apocalyptic things. Together, they terrify PD: "I don't want any part of this! I forgot about this place! The retail hell/apocalypse room! I'm going to go! You clearers have fun screaming here! Bye! See you never!" And they run back the way they came. Around us, an angry mob appears. They are desperately trying to get inside the store. "LET US IN! THE END IS NEAR! THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE! LET US IN! LET US IN!" Tsunade frowns: "I see. It looks like surviving this room will require somehow getting inside of there. Its doors are locked tight. Each member of that angry mob has a field boss health bar." Shikamaru sighs: "It's obvious that we have to go inside another way." Llenn speaks up: "I saw a sewer entrance!" I sigh: "Guess there's no choice. The sewers are the most smelly of locations. They smell so bad that I've smelled the stench from them while walking on sidewalk near sewer covers." We end up entering the sewer entrance we saw. It doesn't take long for us to break into the grocery store's back room. There's lots and lots of boxes back there. Sinon speaks: "We're inside. What now?" Laval exclaims: "I say we look throughout the front of the store! After all, I know from visiting other universes that grocery stores are full of all kinds of things! The way to escape must be in here somewhere!" Eris cautions: "Dont get so excited, Laval. After all, there could be many traps as well and who knows, we might see the store change in appearance before our eyes to become much worse.."

Cragger laughs: "Even if that happens, we'll still get through this alright! Right?!" "I hope so.." We end up agreeing to go into the public space of the store. Strangely, there's no employees. But that's not the big concern as the angry mob are still trying to bust in. The doors and windows are on the verge of breaking. We're being stared at by them with serious killing intent. This is a really bad situation to say the least. Just when they're about to bust down the doors, the asteroid crashes and obliterates all of them along with the windows and doors. It was a gruesome scene. But then, things just got even worse. The grocery store expands and becomes a lot creepier. The lights start flickering. All of the music becomes distorted. The shelves become chaotic and disorganized. The place doesn't look like a grocery store anymore. No, it's scarier than Killmart, the haunted house at Kings Island by a factor of 100. We are teleported to the entrance of it. On the outside, nothing about it has changed. But once we step back inside, it really is like a whole other world as things have changed even further now. Over the intercom, someone starts singing to an even creepier song than in the last room: "What's that? You're new to this store. This is your first time coming here. Let me introduce myself. I am Butcher the Manager. How are you doing? Are you fine? Because if you came here to be fine, you've come to the wrong store. The last customers who came in are already dead. Their bodies are stuffed inside many banana peels. If you don't know what you're looking for, give a holler and I'll 'help' you. Help you. Help you. Help you." Bugs begin infesting the walls and ceiling. I dodge the spit of some bugs. And almost step on a lot of dune beetles.

A bunch of us scream out loud. Reluctantly, Tsunade speaks: "We need to split up to find what we're looking for. Don't holler for help. Butcher will come if you do." And so, we then split up to look around the store. I look for whatever the produce section has turned into over morbid fascination about the whole stuffing bodies into banana peels thing. That and I wanted to warn the others of that if it's true that's what happened to the last customers who entered the store. And sure enough, where there should be bananas and other fruits based on the signage for the aisle, there's stuffed banana peels. I don't look at them for long. I message some of the others about them instead of doing so. I hope that will prevent people from having nightmares about them once we get out of this horrible thing. I keep looking around in produce. Maybe fruit won't be the means of our escape but with the chaos of the store's current state, I know I won't just find oranges and strawberries in the area surrounding the you know whats. But in my search, I find nothing but bugs, death, creepy objects, and shriveled up Earth fruit with killer flies fighting over them. I sigh: "This place really is wrong on so many levels. I don't want to imagine the bathrooms or the pets area.. And I'm the one who loves horror here." I mostly stay silent especially when I start hearing the sound of an axe being sharpened along with pounding footsteps from the floor above us. So it's as their name implied. The manager is also a butcher but not one who works at a slaughterhouse. Instead, they're a butcher who cuts up.. people.. Nope. I don't like that. As I keep looking around the place, I find the bodies of the employees. The state of them is something I simply refuse to write about. It's too graphic. You can watch a r rated horror movie for the level of graphic detail I saw.

The hardware section was next to the produce section. Stepping into the section after having just scoured the shelves in produce for anything useful, I knew I was walking into one big danger zone. Right at that moment, someone shouted: "Please help me! AAAAAAAAA!" I heard the sounds of goblin like creatures laughing from aisles over as the axe sharpening stops and the footsteps get heavier. They start getting closer while also echoing through the store. That implies Butcher the Manager is coming downstairs. As they are a boss just like Player Destroyer, that means we got a serious nightmare on our hands again. I begin looking through hardware to find anything that could possibly get us out of here. I end up taking various tools. The only problems are that the manager is coming this way and the tools are heavily rusted. So rusted that they make me think of my hope that I won't really have to deal with rust regarding my metal swords and armor in my room in my original body. Anyway, what's more important right now is that things go well here to where we don't lose anyone in this room either. Once I get all of the tools that may prove helpful, I look for a place to hide. Even with how chaotic this store is, it's a hell of a lot harder to hide in here because no matter what way they're positioned, store shelves are still store shelves and you can't exactly hide underneath them. You could try hiding by aisle hopping but a killer would still find you in the end in that situation. From what I've observed, the only areas of a grocery store where you could hide underneath stuff for sale are produce, bakery, and maybe part of pets too? Look, I'm not exactly a grocery store enthusiast. I'm not someone who has to get groceries every week at the moment and never have been in my life.

In the back of a grocery store, there's more places to hide at least sometimes. Something interesting I know about regarding such an area is of the cardboard crushing device known as a baler. You never know what kind of things you end up learning as you live your life after all. I hear the manager start singing after they get to the person who shouted: "Hello there, dear customer. I see you're in trouble. *the sounds of someone desperately fighting off monsters is heard* You're struggling. You don't know what to do about what you need to find. It's not here, whatever it is. Allow me to show you where to go. Or if you're interested, you can first try out our newest service free of charge! It's our service that kills you for your organs! Fun, right?!" Now, that's just plain twisted and wrong on so many levels. I stay hidden where I am. And where is that? Well, it's below an oversized vaccum cleaner on the edge between appliances and hardware. I don't think I'm going to be found and I hope that we are able to get out of this store soon. It's bad enough in my world with all the people going to grocery stores unmasked. But this? This is even worse than that. Retail hell indeed. Honestly, I think this store is worse than what happened in the retail hell horror film Black Friday. I honestly stay in hiding until the manager sounds far enough away before continuing the search. We were in there for hours. Many of us nearly died at the hands of our foe. But by working together, anyone who was nearly killed was dragged away before that could happen. What a horrifying place this store is. I really don't like being here at all. ..Just wanted to say that again honestly.

I had to hide a lot. I made sure to eat and drink enough for my body's needs. All while making sure not to be spotted. As I looked around, I also tried whatever I found useful on any possible means of escape I could find. It was obvious from the getgo that the doors we entered through would not let us out. That would have been far too easy. The creepy singing by the manager went on and on for all that time and only got worse just like with Player Killer's singing. But finally, I hear someone yell: "I found a way out!" As relieving as that was, that was also worrying because now, the manager will be after them and all of us by extension. They must be confident in the escape route. I sigh and hope that this is the case as myself and the others beginning moving towards where they shouted from. In fact, they shouted several more times to make it easy for us to find them. That helped a lot. When we did find them, I see them hanging out in the baler. The heavy footsteps are getting louder and louder. Llenn immediately sweat drops and facepalms: "What are you doing, Pito?" I didn't recognize Putohui at first. Pito smiles and waves: "I have found our escape route!" I turn ghostly white and anime fall to the ground: "Seriously?! You do realize that not only is this NOT the time for jokes but you are inside of a baler. If someone presses the mechanism to activate it, you will die." Pito stands up and grins even more: "I wasn't kidding! Look!" Some of us including me quickly look where she was. We see a big hole where the bottom of the baler should be. Argo laughs: "Nyehahahaha. I gotta admit to ya, everyone. I was partially behind this. I couldn't believe that causing a collapse with a whole lot of cardboard and other items would actually work."

Kirito exclaims: "Damn it! That boss is almost here! We have to get out of here! I saw them completely destroy the greeting card shelves in one hit and dent the wall 5 meters away without even touching it!" Butcher sings: "Don't leave just yet! We're doing a spontaneous day of Black Friday deals now! Hurry while it lasts! Trust me, the deals are so good that you will die for saving so much money!" We all begin jumping down the baler. That also required first destroying the whole baler itself because we couldn't simply walk and then jump with most of the baler in the way of doing so that simply. With that out of the way, we began jumping in large numbers. By the time we heard Butcher sing about wanting to kill us all, we had all begun our underground escape. I don't know how much longer it took but eventually, we made it to a room with an entrance that had "FINAL ROOM" painted in bright red letters on it. Totally not threatening. We walk in only to find the rest of the Assault Team. Behind us, the door closes abruptly. Cid laughs: "Oh! Now everyone is here! Alpha, you were right on Entity303 taking all of us to somewhere within this scary game! I bet this is when the fun REALLY begins!" Eva looks around: "I have a bad feeling about this, ladies." The other members of SHINC nod in agreement before drawing their guns. I draw my sword. Eventually, all of us have drawn our respective favorite weapons to use.

The already dim lighting of the room goes out without warning. The creepiest music I had ever heard up until that point begins playing loudly before quieting down for no reason. Spotlights turn on and focus on something. It's a Roblox guest. But why are they focusing on a Roblox guest? Big Cheese speaks: "That's not just any Roblox guest. That's Guest 666." Guest 666 starts laughing very loudly and speaks in a demonic voice: "Welcome to my domain: the FINAL ROOM! Floor 40 of Aincrad is the final floor for Roblox. Therefore, I have partnered up with Entity303. Why? Because he made an offer I couldn't refuse. And now, all of you except for Gameknight999 will die. Prepare yourselves for it's time for you to all die slowly and painfully! For too long, you clearers have bullied the guardian beasts in the Celestial Tower by defeating and killing them all! I won't let you get away with doing that ever again! But that's not the only reason I want to kill you all besides the User-who-is-not-a-user. I am admin in every game I play and yet, I still haven't come to dominate the Infinityverse. That won't do. When I crush you all, I will take the helm as the most powerful force in Aincrad! And then, I'll just keep gaining power until I rule this world and other worlds beyond it! Hahahaha! Attack if you dare but know this. Attacking me is a death sentence for each and every one of you who attempts to do so. I suggest you choose your words and actions wisely if you don't want to die first." Llenn yells: "Like hell we'll listen to you! Everyone, it looks we have to fight this guy. Let's give it everything we got!" Guest 666 laughs again: "If that's how you want to play the game, I will play that way too and win through it!.

And now, we are fighting Guest 666 in a Floor Boss battle like situation. As much as I would like to write more about that, there's some other things I'd rather cover over it despite that sadly. That's just how it is I guess. Anyway, Guest 666 was eventually driven into a figurative and literal corner: "I must be dreaming! I am Guest 666! I am all powerful! You're not winning! I am! That's the only way this can be happening! Hahahahaha! I'm winning but it looks like I'm-" Bang. Bang. Bang. Guest 666's head is shot off by an unseen gunman. He dies instantly. Sinon speaks: "We won. Guest 666 is dead. That should mean we can finally get out of this place and return to Floor 40 to continue the search for our friends. I bet it's Day 485 by now. That's not good if I'm right. In case any of you were wondering, that wasn't me who landed the last kill." A familiar voice distorted by a creepy mask speaks: "It was me who killed Guest 666 with those gunshots." Death Gun steps out of the shadows. Silica shivers. Cid laughs again: "And who invited you here?! Let me guess, your little friends at Laughing Coffin?!" Orochimaru speaks up: "I did." Tsunade looks at him: "Why in the world would you think it would be a good idea to bring him here?!" "Oh, Tsunade. As feisty as ever, I see. It's rather simple. I anticipated we may face a tough boss at the end of this game so I made preparations. If things got really intense, I would have someone finish off the boss for us. Things got far too dangerous for even my liking so HE finished Guest 666 off for us as I told him to do if it got as hard as it ended up being anyway. Now, I know you're confused as to why he would ever agree to go along with my plan. This will be easy to explain. Listen well. I gave him something he couldn't refuse. I held him hostage with data of all of his wrongdoings. I heard he had found himself a few 'friends' in the Assault Team. All to gather info that could be useful for him and Laughing Coffin later. But he didn't get much out of them."

Sakura demands: "What are you getting at?!" "Heh. What I'm getting at is also simple. I bribed him. After all. Laughing Coffin aren't the only ones interested in as they say on modern Earths, 'dirt'. Because of various individuals here, I know all about Death Gun, his previous identity as Red Eyed XaXa, and more. That kind of information could cause him to not only lose friends but also make it harder for him to roam Aincrad without anyone fleeing or trying to detain him." Death Gun stares coldly at the sannin: "We made our deal. As long as you keep quiet about what you know about me, I will continue to assist you until you escape this game. If you break our deal, I will kill you first and then, the rest of the Assault Team one by one." Orochimaru just laughs: "Oh don't worry, I won't tell." A doorway appears. We all go through it and end up back on Floor 40. Death Gun glares at Orochimaru: "I will kill you next time I see you for blackmailing me. I will leave for now." He teleports away with a quick teleport crystal usage. Cid laughs again. He stops when Entity303 appears. The villain grins widely: "Well done. You have survived THE GAME without losing anyone. As promised, I will give you a hint as to where I locked away your friends. All you have to do is catch up to me!" He teleports away. Shikamaru yells: "Damn it! He slipped away again! Where the hell did he go?!" Peridot points over in the distance: "The clod is over there now. No, he's a little further away now on an oversized demonic beast." Wendelin proclaims: "We have to go after him!" Yaoyorozu speaks: "Hey, shouldn't we split up to try to surround him?" Ino nods: "That's the best option we have for doing things right now."

Eraser Head just gives a simple nod while having his normal facial expression. To seal the deal, Eris nods vigorously. And with that, it is officially decided as most of us had already expressed approval for the plan. Myself and the others on the same squad chase Entity303 from the most predictable path. The one where we follow his entire trail. And we do it on our various vehicles. It took hours of driving, experiencing strange things, surviving dangerous situations, encountering more giant boss monsters, and more but finally, we caught up to Entity303. He just laughs as he continues forward only for the others to catch up too and surround him. Laval shouts: "You lose! Now give us the hint already!" Worriz nods: "I'm dying to know! I just want to howl about it!" Gorzan speaks: "Calm down and be at ease. Entity303 will now tell us the hint unless this is just another one of his tricks." The Entity303 we see just vanishes. Ino shouts: "Damn it! He got us again! He's tricking AND tormenting us!" Petra raises her golden sword: "We'll get to him in time! He won't be able to evade us like this forever!" Eris nods: "That's right! He can outsmart and trick us as many times as he wants to. However, our minds when all put together completely overshadow his mind! We can do this!" Crooler speaks up: "That Entity303 isn't the only one who can use tricks. I have a terrible past of being the same way." Scorm exclaims: "Good! Then we will get to squish our enemy soon enough! I can't wait!" PIXAL speaks too: "I have already pinpointed the exact direction he's going. *points* We will find him that way." Lloyd breathes a sigh of relief: "Thanks, PIXAL. And yes, he can't keep doing this with us forever. It will end someday." Rogar suddenly speaks up in a smart voice as the Rhino Legend Beast is nearby because they got somehow sucked into this damn game as well.

"Based on the direction he's going as well as his behavior, the theme of this floor, and other factors, I can predict the same location he may be headed for when accounting for all variables. I just need to draw a map of this floor. *does so* Here we are and here they were a few seconds ago. I believe.. Yes yes.. The prison structure was relocated and based on all of the information I have.. Aha! I believe he is headed towards that prison structure which has moved to this location on this floor. Even with how chaotic in layout this floor has become, I still can't miss anything at the moment when it comes to what I need to perform my calculations." Yaoyorozu, Shikamaru, myself, Wendelin, and others help verify that the calculations were all true in the end. And it turns out that Rogar is right. His prediction is flawless. There's almost no way it's wrong. I wasn't able to help much with the verification but that's okay with me to be honest. I'm just glad that things are moving this smoothly. We quickly depart for that location while moving as quickly as possible. In time, we reach the location. Sinon shouts: "This is the right place. We're here. But Entity303 is not in sight. He must have gone inside already. Let's find him!" No one objects. We enter the place as quickly as possible while making sure some of our numbers stay outside to keep watch as well as to prevent the place for becoming too crowded. We look and we look until we find a hidden door. It leads to some kind of medieval style torture room with Lisbeth and the others all tied up. Cid was about to laugh but changes his mind: "Even I find this troubling. To think that Entity303 would be as twisted as to.." Alpha shouts: "Lord Shadow! This is a trap!"

Moon Shadow nods: "I thought it was. Thankfully, I have measures to counter that. I've had to learn to rely on such techniques not just back when I was a mere student of the ninja way of dueling. But it was also during the time I joined Reiji and the others as one of The Lancers to travel the dimensions to stop Leo Akaba." Kara Oki shouts: "That's right! This trap isn't going to work on-" The scene around us changes to something even worse. Entity303 appears: "That was no ordinary trap that could be dispelled by a ninja duelist. No, it was much more than that. And now that all of you have walked right into my trap, I will now make the User-who-is-not-a-user watch as all of you die while he remains bond to a chair that's just up there as you can see. Enjoy your deaths! I have tired of dealing with all of you! You have proven to be far more annoying than I thought you would be." What the hell are we supposed to do against this kind of trick. Bracken the Prison Warden is apparently not dead and comes to the area we're in to attack Entity303. "What is the meaning of this?! I thought Player Destroyer killed you! Why are you after me?!" The boss doesn't say anything back. It just keeps attacking Entity303. While that happens, the others who hadn't gotten trapped like we did are able to successfully rescue us as Entity303 struggles against the 40th Floor Boss and is forced to retreat while yelling: "I have run out of time for doing what I wanted to do! Now I have to go back to my base to plan out what I'm going to do next to torment all of you clearers! You were lucky today but that luck will run out before next time! Just you wait! Just you wait!" Bracken turns its attention to all of us once he's gone. It was only slightly weakened from pummeling Entity303 for a bit. It took us hours to defeat the boss but when we did, Lavertus speaks: "Now that we have taken down that prison warden, that makes me think of something. There's no way they're on this floor given the fact that Entity303 led us here of all places. I don't believe they could possibly be here."

The next 16 days are focused on the following things: searching, healing, repairing, upgrading, recruiting, and other important functions to the Assault Team. Shadow Garden and the Akatsuki perform multiple covert operations. On Day 501, we did get to the 43rd Floor. But that's a story for next chapter. Instead, I want to focus on an operation that was still covert but involved the entire Assault Team. How and why? Simple. It was time for us to eradicate Laughing Coffin. We were going to bring them down in basically the same way they were brought down originally in SAO. Recently, they've made a full recovery from the previous raids and reports have come from all floors up to 35 or so that Laughing Coffin has been causing a lot of problems. They have sabotaged player merchants, robbed solo players, tortured parties of low and mid level players, and more. They haven't killed anyone but that's only because they're really enjoying keeping their victims alive for now to the point they want to even enjoy hearing their victims speak with tears in their eyes about what was done to them. In other words, things were getting really awful. With all of us clearers focused on finding our friends, they saw an opportunity to create mass destruction and suffering in a short time. That was the last straw for us. We in the Akatsuki could no longer put up with their crap. In a strategy meeting on Day 499, Konan suddenly speaks up: "It's time we did something together about Laughing Coffin. We in the Akatsuki have been ruining them over and over again with covert missions. But it's no longer enough for us to do just that to them. With all the pain they've caused recently, there's only one thing we should do now: dismantle the entire murder guild by force."

Pretty much every single top ranking Assault Team member sets off the next day for Laughing Coffin's new new new new headquarters, myself included. Unlike last time the Assault Team destroyed Laughing Coffin, POH didn't leak the location of his guild's hideout and thrilled in watching the slaughterfest that happened as a result of that. We teleport to the closest spot to it as we can. Since the last raids, it has moved locations and is now inside of a bastion/nether fortress combination in the Nether. The perfect place to put a headquarters for such a vile group that closely mirrors the desires and intentions of the Republican Party alongside other malevolent groups like the Proud Boys, Putin's regime, the ISIS terrorist group, Israel's government, Germany's rising 21st century far right, and more. We walk from there as a single united force. Wendelin speaks: "Human warriors and others, the conflict with Laughing Coffin has mostly been your problem. But still, you have the full support of Kales'Oh and Lyusula in this matter like all matters since the 9th Floor. We will fight together and if we must, kill our targets. Aincrad is our home that we share regardless of creed, nationality, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, skin tone, or anything else! For Aincrad!" "*unison* For Aincrad!" At first, we approach the headquarters quietly and discreetly. It took us a total of an hour of walking to get us to its entrance. Deidara chuckles: "This is going to be quite explosive. I can feel it. I can't wait to create a masterpiece of artistic destruction here today." I speak: "Keep your voice down. We have to begin the operation by performing discreet actions such as slipping in while no one is watching." Sinon nods: "We can't afford to mess this up. Keep your eyes and ears peeled. This could go south at any moment."

We continue moving quietly, some of us slip inside, others scatter around the place. All that's left now is for someone to unleash the signal. It isn't long before that happens. The signal is also a huge distraction. It's.. a Bop It Game modified to be loud enough for all of us to hear it no matter where we are in or around the base. "Bop It! Bop It! Shake it!" I'm too serious to laugh even at that right now. This operation is real business. Some of the LC members are distracted by the Bop It game. They're the first ones to be killed or captured. We all memorized the profiles of each top and dangerous member of Laughing Coffin. Those are the only ones we kill outright. The rest live and get jailed or reformed. That's the plan with them, at least. I really dislike the prospect of jailing people even now but it it's necessary in this death game sadly. Anyway, with some of the LC members already dead or captured, I whisper: "This is going well. Let's get further in here while they're distracted still." Taking out all of the guards by killing them or sending them to the Blackiron Palace using teleport crystals was easy enough. Once more of us got inside, it became clear that things were about to get a lot harder for us. Due to this, we choose to split up further than we aand lurk in the shadows and other good spots. All in order to avoid detection. I end up going alone as do most of us. This is very much unlike the original operation to wipe out the murder guild in SAO. I slip into one of their rooms which looks to be some kind of planning room. In there, some LC members are discussing things. I kill or teleport each and every one of them away. It wasn't long before someone raised the alarm. I heard a foe yell: "We have intruders! It's THE ASSAULT TEAM! They've come for us all!" I heard POH reply: "Damn it! I didn't want this to happen now! I would have made this happen later but also set up a trap to kill the entire Assault Team!" I'm spotted and forced to emerge from the shadows. "It's Swiftdrawer! Isn't that one part of the Akatsuki? We've had suspicions that the Akatsuki were behind past raids!"

I come out and attack the first LC member I see: "So you figured out I was lurking. Somewhat impressive considering the fact my helmet is pure black. But still, this is the end for y'all! Laughing Coffin is done!" My opponent parries my sword attacks: "Hahahaha! Is that what you think?! News flash: that's not how it's going to work!" "Why not?" "Our numbers are far superior! You can defeat and kill as many of us as you'd like but eventually, you'll find yourself with a weapon stabbing right through you!" "Oh, is that all? I've been preparing mentally and secretly for this kind of operation during some of my time over many days. With that in mind, I doubt you'll be able to bring me down as easily as you think!" I must have brought down a 100 foes within the next few minutes. I end up linking up with the others in some kind of main room area. But there's no POH or Death Gun to be found. Sinon shouts: "POH and Death Gun have disappeared! If I had to guess, they retreated by using their subordinates as diversions! They'll be coming for us eventually!" Eva nods and adds: "Gotta hand it to them. That was a clever slip but it's not one we didn't expect! If they want to hide, they can go right ahead. We'll deal with and defeat both of them eventually. One way or another." Seiya shouts: "We can do this! We fight for everyone who has ever suffered because of Laughing Coffin! This is our time to avenge those who have died at the hands of our foes! I'm going to put my all into this! Just watch me! And I know the rest of us feel the same way!" A Laughing Coffin member laughs: "You fools think you can defeat us just like that?! Think again! You're going to all die here together!"

Orochimaru chuckles: "As expected of Laughing Coffin, they completely underestimate us. I'll show you all the fruits of my latest tests and experiments!" Coming from him, that's a serious threat. We keep fighting and fighting. More and more Laughing Coffin members fall but they just keep coming. I feel a small amount of exhaustion: "Damn, I think we underestimated them as well. But still, that's no reason to give up. We just have to expect the worst and the unexpected and hope for the best. Haaaaaaa!" Goku shouts: "Oh yeah! Now this is a challenge! I'm getting fired up! Take this and this and this!" A LC member cries out: "They're too strong for us! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Another laughs before killing them: "Fool. The vanguard is now here. These clearers are going to meet their maker. Not only that but I believe it's almost time for us to kill our prisoners.." Prisoners? They still have captives despite all the efforts to help every single one of their victims? This is really bad. "Damn it! I'm going to find those captives! We have taken the floor plans of this base in other operations. I should be able to use the minimap in conjunction with my memory of the layout to find them. Get out of my way, you bastards!" I don't even bother killing or capturing at the moment. I just knock as many LC members as possible only to bump into a group of them I couldn't get past. But Pito knocks them out of the way with her Photon sword: "Hey, Swiftdrawer! Don't think you're the only one who will be saving the prisoners! I volunteered as well and so have several others! We'll get them no matter what!" I nod and so, we eventually get to where they are being held captive. Every single LC member we encounter is shot or pushed aside for now. When we get where we needed to go, we see a bunch of prison cells with some captives inside. One of them looks awfully familiar. Out of curiosity, I walk towards the cell they're being held to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, I was right. It is exactly who I thought it was.

Koharu has pale skin, green eyes, roughly shoulder length straight black hair, and an armor/skirt outfit combination. She looks up at me: "Swiftdrawer?! Is that you?! Were you sent to this other Aincrad the same way I was?!" "Ah, I see I look similar enough to the Swiftdrawer you know for you to mistake my identity. My apologies but I'm not the Swiftdrawer of your world. As you can see, my armor is completely different although it shares in being mostly red/black. Come with us for now, we're going to get you out of here." "Not my Swiftdrawer?! That can't be true!" "Are you sure? Look closer at my appearance. I'm a fully fledged knight. I even wear a helmet with a knight visor." "..So it's true.. No.. My friend.." "It will be alright. We'll get you back to your Swiftdrawer once we clear this hardcore death game. We're past Floors 30-39." The operation was a huge success in the end. We managed to crush Laughing Coffin with only POH and Death Gun still at large. All of their prisoners were freed and we took all of their stuff. Now, most of them are dead while the rest are in prison, are rehabilitated, or are being rehabilitated. I should now bring up what happened when we went to the 41st Floor because I forgot that once we left Floor 40, we were done with Roblox games. What awaited us next was Link VRAINS/Duel Links. Floors 41 and 42 were still messed up but because of Duel Links/Link VRAINS, it wasn't as bad. In fact, when we got to 41, we saw a merge of Link VRAINS's lobby with the first area of the 41st Floor of Aincrad. Revolver looks around: "This is an interesting development. We can now expect speed duels to resume here. This is going to be quite something else, I must say." Spectre grins: "Oh, this is going to be so much fun! It shouldn't take as long to search this floor with all of the areas that are just empty space! I do have to wonder if the restricted zone was brought into this game.. That's where the core of Link VRAINS resides after all." Biara nods: "It should be present but we can't rule out the possibility that it's even more dangerous now."

Zaizen further speaks up: "I dont have a good feeling about being here. I'm reminded of everything that has happened so far. Is it possible that Entity303 has taken our comrades to the restricted zone or Tower of Hanoi? Yes, it is. We have to consider those possibilities." A data storm begins occurring. Entity303 appears and laughs: "I hope you enjoy this floor because it's even more dangerous than the previous floors! Watch your step or you'll fall so far that you'll be erased before you can even reach the ground!" He then vanishes again. Roboppi looks around: "I wonder where my former kingdom is.." Blood Sheppard stares at him: "Don't remind me about how you managed to crush me and Ghost Gal not long before you ended up losing your rationality and violated your own programming." "..." Faust speaks as well: "I didn't expect to have such an unfriendly welcome back to this place. Let's hope we don't have to face any raid bosses for the time being." That's when Raid Duel Boss Primo appears: "You pests will now be destroyed. This may not be Neo Domino City but this place still must be destroyed in order to save the future. But I'm not just interested in doing that. I'm also interested in crushing all of you!" Aporia speaks up: "You are a counterpart of one of my components. Hear me, the future has already been saved. I have accepted my despair and changed to become a better person." "You're not the real Aporia. I refuse to listen to you." Blue Maiden grits her teeth: "I remember the chaos this raid boss created in Duel Links. I don't want to see that happen again!" Primo laughs: "Sorry but I'm about to turn this world of Aincrad upside down! Go, my drones! Go destroy all of these pests as I watch in amusement! Except for Yusei Fudo. I'll destroy him myself."

Us duelists activate our duel disks. Yuzu exclaims: "We can't allow Primo to get away with this! We must fight! Other clearers, stand back. We can take these foes with our monsters, spells, and traps!" I nod: "It's time to prove the power of the heart of the cards once again." A fierce battle ensues, leading to Primo's eventual defeat after several more battles with him. "Nooooo! This is impossible! This can't be happening! Nooooo! ..I see.. This is the end for me.. I failed you.. Z-One.." His body shatters into pieces which quickly vanish. A lot of that kind of thing happened on the rest of the floor as well as 42. We fought 2 other raid bosses as well as pretty much every other villainous duelist who had some kind of event themed around them in Duel Links. For example. We fought hordes of the Supreme King's army before finally dueling and defeating him in the end with efforts led by Judai, O'Brien, Hassleberry, and Jim. Right now, I'm just waiting to go up to the 43rd Floor. We're well prepared for it. Interestingly, it seems that every floor we go up now, we'll stumble right into the lobby area for one of the Duel Worlds in Duel Links with the exception of the 41st Floor of course. That's because on the 42nd Floor, we found ourselves standing in a fusion of the lobby for the DM Duel World and the original 42nd Floor of Aincrad. In case you were wondering, we still don't have really any leads on where our missing comrades are. By the time we're ready for the 43rd Floor, it is Day 519. The Tower Of Hanoi/old Link VRAINS and restricted zone haven't been located yet strangely enough. We're assuming that they're on higher floors along with Mirror VRAINS, the original Cyberse, and Windy's fake Cyberse. It's likely that those 3 will be what we stumble right into on some of the floors above.

Either way, we have come this far and we aren't going to give up on beating this game. No matter how hard and impossible this game may feel, we just cant stop for anything besides helping each other out, preparing for the next floors, taking care of needs, and resting every so often. To be continued..