Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

by Fireking492-BlazeWarriorWolf

Peace can never be truly found in the multiverse. With the defeat of Pmurt Nedib behind them, the BRAINS Collective faces a new crisis. The games of SAO as well as Minecraft, Duel Links, and more are forced together into a new incredibly twisted death game that traps countless heroes, innocent people, and more: the Infinityverse. And now, it must be cleared with high stakes.

5. Fight at The Source

Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 5: Fight at The Source

Date: Infinityverse Day 71-109

Before I start this chapter, I'd like to briefly touch on something. The pace at which I'm depicting the clearing of the game is faster than what would be ideal. The problem is that so many things have happened and a large portion of them were repetitive and not really worth putting much detail into. It's no wonder the creator of SAO ended up having the Aincrad arc progress too quickly. 100 floor bosses is a lot not to mention all the quests, floors, and locations that were already part of Aincrad to begin with. In SAO Integral Factor, it's been several years since it launched and yet, the game's storyline has not been fully completed yet. So many floors haven't been added to the game yet. So there you go. I'm only able to focus on the biggest moments and situations in this story about the Infinityverse Incident. I'm trying my best. With that said and done, please enjoy reading onwards. Thank you for reading to this point if you have chosen to read through the entirety of the first 4 chapters. No incidents occurred at the teleport gate that needed to be activated to reach Floor 10. Our operation in the Akatsuki against Laughing Coffin was a huge success. We made it to Floor 10 without any worries at all. I know I said I would detail every location and floor boss on each floor from now on but as I said last chapter, my memory of the Infinityverse is limited in my original body which I write this story while inhabiting. That means I have to look up what was on what floor and I'm not motivated to read through parts of the Story Replay of the chunk of SAO Integral Factor I have played so far at the moment. I'm trying to get this and the next chapter done as well as draw for 15 hours and work on Twisted Land for 30. All before 2 days before Halloween while also juggling work, doing daily sword training, and dealing with being sick for the 3rd time in 2 months.

I need to make time to play through RCT3 more. The game has 37 scenarios total including in its expansions, all of which were completed in the Infinityverse. I just seriously want some time before next month when I start writing about the next major battle that I feel like writing about in The Ultimate Interdimensional War. I can't even tell you how many things that have happened I've had to leave out of writing about. Some get briefly mentioned but that's all they get after they're over with from me. This is the dilemma of just about any writer at this point. So much to write about but not enough time to. Floor 10 was a welcome change from the freezing weather of Floor 9. We all found ourselves inside a peaceful Japanese style village. It was a huge contrast to other floors. Kirito looks around fondly: "I remember this floor. I wish Klein were here to see this. He'd be so thrilled to do the quest for that samurai sword. It so happens that this quest leads to info about the floor boss." Argo appears out of nowhere: "You're correct if I'm not mistaken, Ki-boy. However, we don't need the info." Lisbeth nods: "Unfortunately, you're right. We found out the info given through quests about the floor bosses hasn't been updated to include what's changed about the bosses since SAO. When New Aincrad was opened, the bosses were already harder to beat than in SAO since we didn't have to worry about dying if we died in ALO. But now, they're even harder than in ALO as we've all been well aware for a while." I nod: "I noticed that too. I didn't say anything because it's a serious grind to get anywhere in this death game. We have to keep upgrading our gear constantly, always trying to find some way to do so. Let's not forget all the food and potions for buffs."

Silica smiles determinedly: "Even I keep upgrading! With Pina and all of you by my side, I'm no longer as afraid as I used to be! We can do this! We'll reach the Ruby Palace and the top of the Centra Cathedral!" Alice nods: "Indeed. The Pontifex will regret her tyranny. To think I once served her." M speaks: "I couldn't help but overhear you. You have to remember that this is still life and death at all times. Don't let the enemy get you by giving them an opening to strike." Pito surprisingly agrees: "Yeah, M's right. But that doesn't mean we can't have some fun!" Beerus yawns: "Mortals, are we not going to go explore this floor or not." Stampy speaks up: "Hey, there are loads of villagers here!" StacyPlays replies: "That's strange. What are villagers doing in a area that isn't from Minecraft?" Stitcher sniffs the air out of nowhere: "I can smell it.. That rotten flesh.. Monsters.. I want to kill them all!" Stampy reacts: "Gogglies?! But I don't see any!" Filo makes a disgusted face: "Eww! I think I'm smelling that smell too! But where are those monsters?!" Naofumi sighs: "I can also smell them.." DanTDM replies: "Wait, if we can smell them but can't see them.." Yaoyorozu finishes: "That means, there's a huge army of them." Kirito speaks again: "Damn it! The enemy must have laid out a trap for us! And I'm not talking about Laughing Coffin.." Stampy exclaims: "What if it's Hit The Target and Veeva Dash?! They were working with Romeo for a short time until we.. defeated them after all.. Recently, I let them have my Lovely World and left it with all of my friends." I reply: "Wait, what?!" "Oh don't worry about that, you'll see in the final episode of my Lovely World once you get around to watching it. I'm not as 'trapped' in this game as all of you are for some reason but I'm glad to be part of the Assault Team. Even though I'm absolutely rubbish with the bow and arrow."

Barla takes out a pair of binoculars and uses them: "Hell no! They're coming quickly!" Stacy says: "No wonder the villagers are frightened! Look!" Yuya adds: "Not even my dueltaining would be enough to help comfort these innocent villagers. We have to fight for what we believe in!" Tsunade replies: "You're right. But we need a plan. We still have some time before the army of monsters get here." Gameknight999 speaks up: "Erebus and Malacoda are behind this. I can feel it. They're coming closer. Erebus can dream-walk. So can I. He tried to strangle me last night through a dream. We should set up defenses in the same way I used to have Crafter's village do whenever we moved locations and were about to be attacked by monsters. Now that I'm a member of the Assault Team, I still lead them as they trust me but there's less need for us to set up defenses." Isis(Ishizu) replies: "I may no longer possess my Millennium Necklace. However, I sense even in this death game that if we don't do something soon, the monsters will deal devastating damage without much effective resistance." Olivia says: "Hey, it wouldn't be that hard for us to set up defenses. But we should definitely take them to the next level. Ellegard made a command block after all. With a command block, the possibilities are endless!" Jesse smiles: "Good point, Olivia. Alright, it's about time we get started." Not a single person, pony, furry, Tomapieian, mii, or whoever else objects. With the sheer creativity represented by some members of the Assault Team such as myself, it wasn't hard to design a high advanced defense system. Even with Dominic no longer being with us, we were able to succeed without much trouble.

We built defenses around the entire village. Once that was done, people were organized and positioned based on what weapons they specialize in. Marksmen, archers, you name it on the towers we built. Swordsmen around the perimeter. Hammer and axe users concentrated at the gateways that were built. And so on. Even drawbridges were built when possible. When the monsters came, we were ready. They were organized enough to stack on top of each other to get over the wall. Some even dug under it. They weren't going to make defending the village easy for us at all. In fact, it was obvious that they were going to do the opposite. Even with the TNT cannons, our foes were still flooding into the village. And we had to stop them. As time went on, things only got more difficult. More and more monsters. Just about every kind from Minecraft. Drowned, strays, wither skeletons, skeletons, creepers, spiders, cave spiders, slimes, magma cubes, blazes, ghasts, piglins, piglin brutes, endermen(the ones not on our side), guardians, elder guardians, pillagers, evokers, vexes, and zombie villagers. So many types of monsters. Malacoda's laughter is heard above all else. "Hahahaha! You clearers are finished! With the help of a few Laughing Coffin members, we were able to get so many villagers to flee to this village you're all in! We opened a way for them to get to this floor before you could! With the villagers in place, we were intending for all of you to choose to protect them instead of face the monster army head on! You fell for it and did what we wanted you to do! Why did we want you to? Because we have a few surprises for you!" Erebus cackles: "For now, we've set aside our differences. Gameknight999, revenge is mine!" We hear TNT detonate below us. We were unable to get away in time. The village was devastated and so many of us were harmed by the explosion. Nearly all of our defenses get destroyed in the explosions.

Gameknight999 shouts: "No! We just lost so many villagers!" He, his friends, and the surviving villagers do a solemn death salute briefly. Romeo replies: "It's time I get serious about this situation." Within seconds, the village gets repaired and new defenses replace the destroyed ones. Erebus chuckles: "That won't stop us." A bunch of his endermen begin dismantling the new defenses. The long range fighters who were knocked to the ground attempt to stop them but the endermen have fast reaction times and projectiles do nothing against them. I saw part of this with my own eyes as I cut down monster after monster with my sword skills. It turns out I have a few sword skills in the game and just never realized it. I found that out yesterday. They are: Shadow Stab(it's a lot like Piercing Darkness), Wind Blade(temporarily increases my attack and movement speed), Gust Strike(similar to Great Infernal Tornado Slash), and Hunting Slash(not unlike Darkeye Slash). Whenever I fight now, I use the skills often in conjunction with one another. When I focus on a single target, I prefer Shadow Stab and Hunting Slash. Gust Strike and Wind Blade are much better for multiple opponents. I also found out yesterday that pretty much everyone else on the Assault Team has at least 4 skills too, acquired intentionally or not. I suspect that Heathcliff is behind all of this. He is the one who gave Kirito his iconic duo wielding skill after all. "Damn it! There's too many of these monsters! With such a variety pack of enemies, it's hard to cleave through them all with a constant sword flow." Diavel yells: "Don't give up, everyone!" Romeo adds: "I'm going to take care of Malacoda myself. Maybe I'll have some fun while doing so. But we'll see. Won't we?"

The battle just kept on going. It continued to get harder and harder. After a while, my muscles began to burn. "Crap! I can't keep this up for more than about 10 minutes! The weapons most of these monsters are equipped with are making it hard to prevent sustaining heavy damage! As if that weren't enough, I can't use Enhance Armament or Release Recollection because my sword is not a Divine Weapon! This is the best I can do right now even with all the potion and food buffs. Even if I were a part of KoB, the Guild Flag's buffs wouldn't be able to keep me in this fight for much longer than I'm still able to without those buffs." Kirito shouts: "I think we're all going to reach our limits soon! We have to wrap up this battle right now!" We hear Erebus shout: "Gameknight999! Give up! Why won't you give in to me?!" "Erebus, I won't be stopped by you. I will keep going for my friends. For Crafter. For Minecraft!" "Curse you! I'll make certain that you regret saying that to me!" And then, we hear Malacoda yell: "Romeo, you traitor! Why won't you just die? I'm running out of patience for you!" "This is all fun and games for me. You can't defeat an admin. Not by yourself. In fact, I was very surprised that Demonic was able to completely overpower me. I thought my only weakness was the gauntlet Fred made before I killed him. But I was wrong just like with many other things. And because I was wrong, I now see my errors and have sought out to correct them."

Goku shouts: "I'm getting more and more fired up! Bring it on, monsters!" Vegeta scoffs: "You clown! This isn't the time to be excited!" Uraraka yells: "We have to go beyond! Go, Plus Ultra! It's a good thing I can still use Gunhead Martial Arts in this game!" J'onn J'onzz, a member of the Justice League and the only survivor of the extermination of the Martians at the hands of an alien race who stole their shapeshifting powers speaks: "I sense a increased disobedience in the monsters. They are having second thoughts about joining this battle as they watch their brethren get killed off one by one. Despite being trapped inside this game, my telepathic powers were able to remain accessible to me due to being a neural ability that has no effect on any matter." He has green skin, red eyes, and a largely blue superhero costume. I continue to fight alongside the entire Assault Team. We take things to the next level if at all possible. The growing dissent amongst the monsters starts to actually play a role in the tide of battle after another 5 minutes. I had been hearing the fight between Gameknight and Erebus continue in the background up to now. But suddenly, the sounds stop. Erebus screeches: "Monsters, you will destroy the clearers! DO NOT DISOBEY!" Some monsters fall back in line but the others continue to resist. Instead of obeying, they start to retreat and trample some of the other monsters in the process. This allows us to push the monsters back and cut through more and more of them as they grow more and more uneasy. 2 minutes later, we have pushed the monsters out of the village. I'm reaching my limit. Any minute now, I won't be able to move my arm muscles around at all without so much pain from being sore. The muscle fatigue in this game is more related to both avatar stats and someone's mental strength than their actual physical strength.

Even my mental strength wasn't able to hold on for much longer at this point. Due to this fact, I was just about done now. Malacoda is defeated by Romeo. Erebus sees this. Since both he and Malacoda are far bigger than ever for some reason now, it was easy to see that. Erebus yells: "This isn't working! Retreat! We're leaving! Gameknight999, I will kill you! The user-who-is-not-a-user will be destroyed one day!" Malacoda objects: "Don't be a fool. We haven't lost yet!" "You were just defeated. And because you were, I'm taking charge of the army alone." "No you won't. You and your endermen aren't as strong as my ghasts and I. You will do as I say and continue fighting along with all of the other monsters." "Not a chance!" Erebus backstabs Malacoda and starts beating him up. Malacoda already lost a lot of hp fighting with Romeo. Now, the enderman's sneak attack was hurting Malacoda even more. The other endermen on their side join Erebus in attacking Malacoda. With their combined efforts, it really wasn't long until Malacoda died. When he died, he dropped a lot of materials and xp. Erebus gleefully gathered all of it. He then shouts: "Forget the retreat. We can still kill them all." After such a brutal betrayal, none of the remaining monsters dared to defy Erebus any longer. They followed his orders without question out of fear that he would do the same exact things to him. He laughs: "So much for Malacoda! Gameknight999, I'm going to kill you now!" He teleports to Gameknight and their fight continues albeit on even less equal footing. As things transpired the way they did, the rest of us still took down monster after monster. However, they became encouraged by both fear and encouragement due to Erebus. Normally, the monsters of Minecraft just fight with anger, hatred, and destruction in their hearts. All of that is plenty fuel for motivation.

But now that they were truly afraid of Erebus and had been influenced by his resolve, it's like they grew 2 levels each. Now that negativity wasn't the only stuff driving them, they started acting smarter and moving faster. I find myself surrounded as the monsters who has retreated earlier without warning return to the battle. And they weren't alone either. They brought many of the Aincrad monsters from Floor 10 along with them. There were once again too many to handle. With the added burden of exhaustion, it was a real challenge to keep fighting now. If the vast majority of all of our powers and abilities hadn't been cut off from us once we got trapped in this death game, wiping out all these foes wouldn't take very long or much effort at all. "Damn these monsters! I can hardly do anything against them at this rate! This is bad! Very bad! What the hell are we supposed to do now against all of these foes with the odds so heavily stacked against us?!" That's when a familiar horse jumps over some monsters and reaches me. "Chocolate, what are you doing here?" My noble steed neighs and begs me to mount her. I do so. And with that, she jumps over the monsters and carries me away from them. "What is this?! I need to fight them! Not flee from them!" She doesn't answer and continues carrying me away from the battle. I sigh in resignation and use the moment to try to recover as much as I can. I eat some food and that's when she turns right around. "Oh so that's what you were doing. Buying me time to recover a bit." Chocolate gives a small nod before carrying me back into battle. This time, I fight mounted on her. That means thrusts and Shadow Stab had to become my main ways to attack the monsters. They weren't expecting to face me or other mounted warriors as armored villagers on horseback show up from somewhere else to join the fight.

They are further joined by other villagers as well as Lyusula(this is how it's actually spelled) and Kales'Oh. Kizmel shouts: "We are here to keep our promise! For now on, we fight to unite the tower!" Wendelin adds: "We are coming together as one to stop a common foe! We will continue for now on as comrades." Erebus laughs: "I can still see you all interfere even as I fight Gameknight999! You really think your presence here will change a thing about this battle?! Hahahaha! In case you haven't noticed, it won't change anything. Instead, all of you will die along with the clearers!" Sinon shouts: "I wouldn't be so sure about that!" Woman Woman adds: "You underestimate not just man but also the might of the Amazons alongside many others!" All Might further adds: "We may be severely limited inside this game. But make no mistake. We will rise to the occasion once more and go beyond even Plus Ultra!" Kirito chooses to aid Gameknight. I watch him yell: "You're done, Erebus! Release Recollection!" Now that Kirito has his Night Sky Sword back thanks to my Artist's Eye, things are really happening. Erebus gasps as the sword's true power begins to turn him into a gigantic tree before our very eyes. But once he becomes a tree, his original form immediately bursts from the tree. It's true that the tree crushed many monsters to death but it wasn't enough to contain Erebus. Gameknight exclaims: "How are you still alive, Erebus?!" "No one can ever defeat me! Kill me once, I come back. Kill me twice, I return to kill you!" The remaining monsters start being overwhelmed as the Integrity Knights finally use their Incarnate Abilities to deal damage and our newly joined allies push hard into their ranks. It also helps that guns are being made for more and more GGO players who are part of the Assault Team. Pretty much all of them are made with the same kind of materials including ones I conjured using Artist's Eye.

Plans are even in the works to make Photon swords for the likes of Pitohui. Since Minecraft enchantments are cross compatible with even weapons made by Lisbeth, a lot of monsters are currently being set on fire due to the popularity of the Fire Aspect ll enchantment. That was another factor that was causing another decline in the enemy forces. Pretty soon, more and more clearers join the fight against Erebus now that we are no longer overwhelmed or outnumbered. J'onn confirms this: "We are winning this battle. The monsters are once again questioning being here. It's only a matter of time until some of them abandon their cause." Sure enough, even as many of us were getting too exhausted to continue, the pressure was still on and it was too much for some of the mobs. As if things couldn't get worse for Erebus, a sudden flood of other players come in to join the battle. Johnny Test yells: "Hey! I thought we would be the only players fighting in this battle! What gives?! It's an awesome surprise but come on! I want to know!" Susan Test replies: "Johnny, it appears that these players are mainly solo and mid level players. I wonder how they learned of this battle. I know that the teleport gate isn't far from here but players have been hesitant to climb new floors with what's happened on other floors until more guidebooks are released." I hear them still fight some of the monsters as well as Argo's reply: "Hehe, it was easy got me to alert the other players! You'll even see players who until just recently didn't even want to leave the safety of the Town of Beginnings if you look hard enough!" I stay silent and focus on cutting down the monsters around me with my thrusts and Shadow Stab while riding Chocolate. Within minutes, the number of monsters left dwindles to a handful. Even Erebus starts having a hard time fighting Gameknight and the others off. To say the least, he is not pleased with this turn of events.

"Gameknight999! All of you! I will kill you all no matter how hard you fight against me!" He is unwilling to give up but as the number of monsters drops closer to 0 between the sheer number that are being killed or are running away, the number of players and others fighting him goes up. He struggles more and more only to suddenly gain an ominous dark aura. Erebus grins: "Malacoda and Romeo as well as Death Gun, POH, Oberon, and Subtilizer were fools to not use this power. We were all given it! Demigra's Dark Factor! Hahahaha! If none of you remember us obtaining it before this game started, that will only make things easier for me!" The tide of battle returns to him. He starts easily overpowering all of us opponents. But with the last monsters now defeated, his advantage soon becomes meaningless as well. The rest of us join the fight against him. Many comrades took a lot of damage in the minutes since he began using the Dark Factor. However, not a single individual on our side has died since the explosions that were set off in the Japanese style village. In the end, we were too much for Erebus to handle. He screeches one last time: "This isn't over! You win for now but I will be back! I won't let you humiliate me ever again, Gameknight999!" And with that, he teleports away even with all of us surrounding and attacking him. But it wasn't over.

Erebus teleports back to us a few seconds later: "I just realized something! GAMEKNIGHT999! YOU WONT BE ABLE TO PROTECT THE SOURCE THIS TIME NOW THAT I KNOW I CAN ACCESS IT ON THE 12TH FLOOR! THATS RIGHT, THE SOURCE IS ON THE 12TH FLOOR! COME AND GET ME!" He teleports away again. After he does, Playmaker shouts, startling everyone: "I sense activity in Link VRAINS! Ai, run a scan of Link VRAINS!" "On it, Playmaker! Hmm.. According to my analysis.. Link VRAINS is merged with Duel Links on Aincrad Floors 41-55. Hold on a minute! Glitch! Crap! That bastard Lightning! He used to be a good friend. But now, he's done so much and is aiming to destroy us all with AI he has created himself! A whole army of AI are coming to this floor from Link VRAINS! And there's no way to stop them!" Seconds later, an army of AI do in fact appear. They appear to be copies of the Soltis AI as well as Lightning's first two attempts at AI more powerful than the Ignis: Bit and Boot and.. even Kitamura's AI army he created to counter the Knights of Hanoi only for two of the Hanoi to wipe all of them out without much trouble. In fact, Kitamura is a part of the Assault Team for reasons unknown. No one is sure how he even got trapped in this game since he lost relevance after his AI army failed. He has short black hair with chaotic lavender bangs, light skin, purple? eyes, and a scientist outfit. He freaks out at seeing his own AI army: "What?! This can't be! What fool sent them after us?! They were wiped out! How are they back? HOW ARE THEY BACK?! SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET FIRED FOR THIS! JUST THEY WAIT!" Kitamura used to be in a high position on and off at SOL Technologies. But before any of us could react, someone starts wiping out the AI very quickly. That's when we hear him. Boman, third generation AI created by Lightning himself. Boman has yellow eyes with mostly red pupils, brown skin, long yellow and marigold hair that has a long and wild bang, a purple, blue-violet, yellow, magenta, and light blue bodysuit that exposes his shoulders and lost of his chest and stomach, cheek covering things, purple bands, stars on parts of him, 2 green markings on his face, and blue-violet boots.

"With Judgement Arrows, my Chimera Hydradrive Dragrid's attack points double to 8000. Attack, Chimera Hydradrive Dragrid!" Ai yells: "What's Boman doing here? Why is he helping us? How is he here?! I don't get it!" I reply: "I have no idea. I know that Lightning failed to use him in his plans by reviving him but I just have no clue as to how he's here." Heathcliff speaks: "When I revived all those lost in SAO and The Underworld, I happened to find a few individuals whose data was where all of their datas were as well. As a result, I brought them back as well. I'm surprised it took this long for Boman to appear. I read all about him as I searched through data of what's transpired in all of the games that were merged together to create this one." Ghost Gal replies: "Pretty risky move to bring him back. He was created by Lightning to merge all 6 Ignis into one and was nearly successful in accomplishing that as well as merging all of Link VRAINS as well as the energies of its players with himself." Playmaker nods: "That is in fact true. However, we must not forget that something changed in him when I defeated him." Boman begins struggling to defeat the rest of the AI army. Kaito activates his duel disk: "I don't know what all of you are waiting around for but it's time to hunt those AI and bring them down. I draw! I set the Pendulum scale with scale 1 Photon Chimera and scale 9 Galaxy Mage!" Myself and the other duelists activate our duel disks as well. The sky is soon filled with duel monsters of all kinds. Blue Maiden exclaims: "Wait, how is this even possible?! Didn't our enemies prevent this from being possible any longer just days ago?!" Ghost Gal smirks: "Let's just say their suppression wasn't good enough."

"Lead the charge, Dark Templar @Ignister! Follow, Light Dragon @Ignister, Earth Golem @Ignister, and the others!" In seconds, the AI army was completely wiped out. Just like that. After that, things settled down and the routine returned for us all but with the Assault Team bigger than ever before. Those of us in Kirito's party still did the samurai sword quest and ended up running into the small guild MMO Tomorrow which originally became a part of ALS in SAO. But with the Assault Team as big as it is, there's no need for the ALS in this game especially with the Akatsuki, Integrity Knights, Lyusula, Kales'Oh, and KoB being major parts of the Assault Team. MMO Tomorrow is led by Tinker just like before. After running into them, we also ran into the Moonlit Black Cats and the Z Force, strengthening bonds and engaging in sparring sessions as well. The 10th floor boss is Kagachi the Samurai Lord. The battle against Kagachi was tough. It was a miracle everyone managed to survive the battle. That pet snake of Kagachi's was no joke. I breathe a sigh of relief. It was Day 76 when we defeated the boss. "Finally. We did it. That was by far the toughest battle yet. I didn't expect it to be so challenging even with Romeo's help. And to think, we're inside the Ultimate Survival World built by TrixyBlox and his girlfriend. Why did the boss have to show up here? It was so disappointing to see an empty boss room at the end of the labyrinth." It took us hours are clearing the labyrinth to find Kagachi. Almost didn't when a bunch of Minecraft players logged in and saw Kagachi there, the world chat exploded with so many messages that even I couldn't kept the world chat hidden from my Stasia window any longer.

It seems that someone opened the USW as a server which should have been impossible since it's a part of Aincrad just like the rest of the Minecraftian multiverse(or rather, a large percentage of it) is. Those players got trapped inside the game as a result and ended up helping in the boss fight by gearing up under the direction of pros such as CaptainSparklez, AntVenom, AmyLee33(formerly one of Stampy's helpers), and HBomb94 who were among those who logged into the USW. Kirito suspects that POH was behind that stunt since he is behind something similar during Alicization in the Underworld. Lisbeth nods: "It is really strange that the floor bosses have started to appear in different locations than in SAO or New Aincrad. What's going on?" Barla adds: "Hell no! I got it! It's obvious! Our enemies are tracking our progress closely and are trying harder to slow us down. Why else would an AI army would be sent after us from Link VRAINS?!" Erebus appears grinning: "You got it. And now, I'm here to warn all of you! I'm going to escape to the real world through The Source and I'm going to destroy Gameknight999's world first! Now that the server plane no longer exists, The Source is mine to use. I will be waiting for you there. We'll settle our differences there, user-that-is-not-a-user. That is if you don't survive what I have in store for you before you even reach The Source!" He vanishes after evading any and all attacks sent his way by some of us. All of us are exhausted after defeating Kagachi. At this time, we actually didn't know if the logged in Minecraft players were trapped or not. Many of us just had a bad feeling, myself included.

CaptainSparklez smiles in his red glasses. He has black hair, tan skin, and a white and black outfit. "Well, that's it, dudes. Since it's safe here now, it's time to disconnect from Minecraft and have something to eat." He attempts to log out but nothing happens: "That's strange. I can't log out. Well, I'm still going to get something to eat. *silence and grunts* Hey, why can't I move?! Why can't I see anything other than my screen?! I know I'm not playing in VR! What's going on?!" Stampy hesitates to speak but finally does so: "The same thing happened to me ages ago! Can you believe it?! But it's strange. It's like my consciousness shifts between my human self and my Minecraft self whenever I log on or off." Stacy replies: "I completely forgot but I've been having that same exact experience, Stampy!" Athena speaks up: "So it's true, you're trapped in this game too but in a slightly different manner. However, you all must not let worry or fear consume you. As long as we work together, we will defeat this game and return to our realities. I may not have access to my cosmo in this world but I still know that to be true." Akiza adds: "We've all faced difficult situations before and this is the most difficult of them all." Yusei continues: "But all of us have never been together, fighting for the same goals before." Konan finishes: "It will be best for us to work together. Despite our differences, we all have to fight for the same purpose: to escape this death game." Conversations continue. That night, a wonderful feast is held in the Town of Beginnings to celebrate the clearing of the 10th Floor. Tomorrow, we'll set out for the 11th Floor. For now, we'll rest and relax a bit by having some fun without much risk involved. The availability of inns and hotels has gone way up since the clearing of the 1st Floor. For obvious reasons. As a result, I usually get to sleep in my own room whenever the party I'm in stays somewhere. That being said, the Akatsuki are looking to buy or build a headquarters.

If we do that, I'll consider sleeping there every single night for sure. Before I was about to go to bed to get some rest, I check my Stasia window for anything I missed. Messages, items, you name it. I find an unopened message. I read it. It is inviting me to some kind of late night knight tournament on the 10th Floor. I choose to accept it. It was a fun tournament. Ended up going to bed and then waking up later than usual but it was worth it. I lost in the quarter finals but it was seriously a blast. I would write about it. But something happened when we finally got to the 11th Floor. Once we teleported there for the first time, all we saw was darkness. Diavel shouts: "It's for good reason we're now more cautious about starting to explore new floors. Nobody move. It's impossible to see anything." Ellegard adds: "This is troublesome. Not even a torch can light up where we are.." We hear the sounds of many monsters. Erebus appears. His laughter turns all heads to his eyes, the only things we can see. "You have fallen for my latest trap. This is Day 77 of the game and it will be the last day for all of you. In a matter of minutes, a much larger army of monsters will come to kill all of you. There's no escape. The walls are black concrete as the layer you see followed by obsidian as the other layer. There is no more time for any of you to be able to be a threat to my plans." Monet yells: "We'll find a way to prove you wrong! You'll see it first hand!" "I'm going to enjoy seeing all of you try to escape AND fight all of the monsters without being able to see what you're doing!" He underestimates us again. He disappears, not even bothering to finish off Gameknight himself. He's truly that confident that the monsters will be able to kill all of us before we get any chance to escape.

It's nearly impossible to tell from left to right, from up to down, or from north to south. But the motion of my head at least tells me what's up and down without much trouble after a few moments. A moans of zombies are the loudest noises we are hearing. The monsters just keep getting closer and closer. All of us ready ourselves, enchanted weapons providing the only viable light despite not being nearly as bright as ordinary torches. "Damn it. This trick is so clever. We have no idea how big this place is nor did most of us bother bringing a pickaxe or even just TNT.." My words were unable to truly capture just how bad of a spot we were in. We must have been trapped inside for hours, running out of food and drink, having to be careful with our attacks so none of us could kill one of our own by accident, and slaying monster after monster. In the end, it turned out that the monsters were virtually endless. That's when Barla got an idea: "I'm sick of all of this fighting! It's getting us nowhere! I promise one hell of a good idea!" Sinon replies: "Let's hear it then. How do you propose we get out of here?" "We could have some miners dig up obsidian to clear ways for escaping while everyone else protects them." Shikamaru sighs: "It's almost a flawless plan. The problem is that we can barely see one another with the enchanted weapons. I tried other ways to be able to see but none of them has worked. I wasn't alone on that venture. I had some help. It was honestly very discreet. Damn. These monsters are too loud! I can barely hear myself think! Even though Fire Aspect is burning a lot of these monsters, we aren't being provided any illumination from that and that alone. Something isn't right about this place. It isn't just the obsidian, large size, and black concrete. No, it's something else."

Shaka replies: "Then we must rely on our other senses even more than this battle is making us do so." That's exactly what we did. We used our other senses to help create better coordination, allowing sone people to focus on digging some of the obsidian. After a while, we were all able to begin escaping the monsters through tunnels that were dug after the obsidian was. Several hours after we got trapped, we were able to escape and finally explore the 11th Floor. But Erebus didn't make it easy. Every single important or notable area, there were heavily armored monsters waiting for anyone who dared venture too close. That made getting around, taking on quests, grinding monsters, collecting materials and xp, and just about anything else much harder than it was on previous floors. By the time we finally located the 11th floor boss: the Storm Griffin. To our surprise, when we got out of that trap, we found ourselves in the town of Taft where Kirito originally met the Moonlit Black Cats and was invited to join them in SAO. We found the Storm Griffin not in an ancient pyramid despite again, the info provided by quests on the 11th Floor. I remembered one of those quests from SAOIF and did it for myself in person. Just to confirm once again that the info we got about Floor Bosses didn't match up with where and how they were anymore very much. Due to being a hardcore death game, the weather in the Infinityverse has proven to be a bit troublesome. It made things only harder on the 11th Floor which is mostly a desert in the original areas. We found the floor boss on a Skyblock style floating island of all places. It took forever to get up there and a lot of effort to stay on there. The monsters sent by Erebus only made that more difficult but we did it. On the 90th day of the Infinityverse, we went up to the 12th Floor where the situation was just about the same. Except there were a lot more aquatic monsters to deal with due to the original area of the 12th Floor being seaside themed.

I participated in the quest that ended up containing a fight with a field boss in the Undersea Cave area as part of it. Why? Why not? Xp and col. Not to mention other materials. The info it provided about the boss wasn't the most up to date unsurprisingly. The Strict Hermit was found after days of frantic searching in the Deep Dark biome of Minecraftia. In a Ancient City alongside a Warden boss controlled by Erebus and more of his monsters. We lost a lot of people during the fight but still managed to come out on top. Gameknight999 says: "We did it! But I must stop Erebus. He's at The Source." Barla replies: "He made that very clear. But where the hell is The Source then? By now, most of us have been informed what it looks like but that won't help us much in locating it." The music of Minecraft which has been quietly playing in the background starts getting louder. Everyone had pretty much long become accustomed to the sound of the music and adapted to ignore it altogether even if their attention spans weren't that great. As a result, we all immediately notice it get louder. Akiza speaks: "This music.. I completely forgot about it until now.. Is someone trying to give us a clue as to where The Source is?" Spectre replies: "It would be appear that way. I find this very entertaining. It's too bad the duel boards are currently inaccessible at the moment. It wouldn't take long to locate The Source if we just had them." Ghost Gal adds: "The music getting louder all of the sudden doesn't tell us anything about which direction The Source is.." Someone moves and the music gets slightly more quiet. Diavel shouts: "Stay where you are! No one move! Theres a pattern to the volume of the music. We just have to figure it out." Stampy remarks: "With all of the brilliant minds here, it shouldn't take too long to figure that out! But what about the Gogglies?! More will spawn at any moment now that the Warden, Erebus's friends, and The Strict Hermit have been taken care of!"

Whis replies: "Might I suggest we return to the surface first before we really begin looking? It will be much easier that way." No one objects. The level of trust that's been established in the Assault Team has reached new heights lately. Even the stigma and other crap that was directed towards me has mostly become history. Once on the surface, we all just stand around. I say: "I'm surprised no one has attempted to move since all of us successfully made it back up here. Not to mention how quiet basically all of us are. I guess the rush of floor boss fights does something to us, causing even the most energetic of us to stop and think about things." (Yes, I finally found some alright info on the floors just out there online. That's why I was able to recall that I did some quests in SAOIF on Floors 11 and 12, aka the ones I mentioned.) 2 days of traveling later, we not only identified the right way to go but we also reached The Source. Erebus was standing very close to the beacons that it contains. He grins: "You're all on time! Let's finish this, Gameknight999! You and me. Monsters, kill the rest of them. With all of their xp, we will finally be able to cross over into the physical world! I won't stick to someone else's plan. We'll leaving this world and then, consume the physical world waiting for us on the other side!" I grit my teeth as the monsters begin to come at us with a ferocity that would make even Kagachi the Samurai Lord take a step or two back. All the monsters before us are equipped with the best armor you can buy on the 12th Floor. Needless to say, that means their armor is better than even Netherrite armor now. Bad news for us.

We continue to upgrade our gear. With a increasing number of blacksmith players setting up shop, it's never been easier to get new gear and get old/current gear upgraded. Argo made a guidebook all about blacksmithing with a lot of input from Lisbeth as well as blacksmith villagers. Forging gear is actually a skill in the game as are cooking and fishing. That's Sims level skill immersion right there. Once again, the battle with all of the monsters was incredibly difficult but more so than even before. Just killing one zombie took at least 50 hits with my sword. That's a lot of hits. After killing a few monsters, I felt pretty winded: "Jeez. I never knew all of these monsters could be so tough with SAO armor equipped instead of Minecraftian armor which only goes so far even with the best enchantments." A monster replies: "We will kill you!" "Nothing is certain until it has been done!" We are seriously doing our best but these monsters are too much for any of us to handle. Sure, we can kill a good number and are dealing a lot of dps. But at the rate we're killing the mobs and taking damage, we won't be able to hold on long enough to kill them all before they can kill all of us. Even Romeo is having trouble fighting them and he's an Admin. The only individual who isn't taking damage is obviously Heathcliff. Sinon yells: "I'm running out of bullets! Can't keep this up much longer!" Gameknight999's clash with Erebus starts to become loud enough to be heard by all despite how loud all of the fighting has become. That means it is getting much more intense than it was before. In fact, it's never been so intense before. None of us are willing to give up but sooner or later, we will run out of potions and food and begin to succumb to our enemies.

Health potions are becoming our main lifelines but you can only buy so many while also buying other essentials. I bought a lot but I'm going through them so quickly now that the automatic potion dispenser device used by my Ragnarok Origin counterpart has been analyzed enough for similar items to be made and given to every single Assault Team member. Not having to drink health potions manually anymore is probably what has kept us all from dying on the 11th and 12th Floors. I yell: "I wish there was someway we could just turn the tables! But even with the duel monsters all summoned, we still can't hold them off forever!" Regnes may be indestructible in battle against monsters that aren't numbers but he is still getting banged up. He's terrifying and able to dispatch 2 monsters a second on his own but that's far from enough. The Integrity Knights are using their Incarnate Abilities but that's still not enough. But just when hope seems about lost, something very strange happens. "*unison* Crash Bug! Craaaaash Buuuuuuugggg! Crash Bug!" The Crash Bug virus somehow gets inside the Infinityverse and manifests as an army of Crashbug X monsters. They start throwing cartoon style bombs at our enemies. Since the monsters we're dealing with are mostly monsters tied to code, the bombs easily destroy many of them with ease. The virus keeps attacking. Erebus is furious: "User-that-is-not-a-user, is this you're doing?! It is, isn't it?!" "Erebus! I'm the User-that-is-not-a-user. Not a hacker!" "You're lying! It's the only explanation." The Crashbug Virus starts making the game lag. The graphics become choppy and unstable. Things start clipping in each other. The audio breaks. Everything goes black. And then a load screen appears. A system voice speaks: "System restart complete. Relogging players." And just like that, I was surrounded by chaos once again. But the Crashbug Virus was now gone so I had no choice but to keep fighting the remaining monsters. The others had to do the same exact thing.

And then, I noticed something a little different about myself. I could sense KI again. "What the hell is going on?!" The system voice speaks again: "Post restart error detected: failure of complete disconnect of the body and mind. Determining course of action to repair the error. System repair estimated to begin in 2 minutes." Revolver smirks near me: "Looks like some of our allies on the inside were able to somehow get a virus into this game and use it to give us a chance to win this battle. Excellent." Familiar purple energy flashes nearby. I smirk myself: "So, we have 2 minutes to actually use our real abilities and such from outside the game? Count me in! I can't believe this is Day 108 of the Infinityverse. We have to really pick up the pace, don't we?! Haaaaa! Continuous Great Infernal Tornado Slash: 35! I've missed this so much!" When the 2 minutes are complete, I no longer can sense anything but looking around me, I see the fruits of our 2 minutes. Every single monster that Erebus brought with him was gone. He looks around while still fighting Gameknight999. "My army! My army is gone! Your friends with all pay for this once I kill you, User-who-is-not-a-user!" Minglow Bats shouts: "I don't hate to be the bearer of bad news for you but it's over. You can't defeat us all on your own. You have no army. Only the Dark Factor's powers that you were granted alongside the abilities granted to you by your creator." Erebus glares at him with great intensity but chooses to keep fighting Gameknight999 instead of responding. That was until we all joined in on fighting him at once. He activates the Dark Factor: "Enough! All of you are too foolish to realize what you've just done! You've made me hate you so much that my power is greater than ever before. *laughs* Prepare to die!" Without warning, Erebus becomes a lot faster and more aggressive. With his arms, his grip becomes a lot tighter and more swift.

He starts punching like a martial artist and teleporting spastically all over the place to catch all of us off guard and attack when we least expect it. His main target is still Gameknight but he isn't willing to just let us all get away with trying to damage him. Erebus's fierce attacks deal a lot of damage. However, there was a pattern in his teleportations. Shikamaru smirks: "Heh, you've lost, Erebus. Your teleportations are all in a pattern. A pattern I can track. I can even predict where you will teleport next. Hinata, behind you!" Erebus already teleported behind Hinata when Shikamaru called out to her. She is able to counter attack, dealing little damage but catching Erebus by surprise. Gameknight runs over to them and stabs our foe. The villain screeches before teleporting again. Kirito yells: "I got his pattern too! Silica! Protect Pina!" The same thing happens as before. Erebus fails, he gets attacked, and someone runs over to hit him before he teleports next. Erebus yells as he teleports to me: "How can this be?!" I smirk: "You act too much like a floor boss. Too predictable. Shadow Stab!" Erebus begins to lose, unable to outsmart those tactical enough to read his movements. His overconfidence and anger are his downfall. Before long, he's on the ground with a lot of swords pointed at him. Gameknight speaks: "Give it up, Erebus. You've lost. It's finally over." He glares: "Never! I'll show you! I'll become less 'predictable'!" Unexpectedly, he teleports to the beacons of The Source and enters one. His cackle fills the air as he form is distorted, transformed into pixels, and sent somewhere else. Monet starts screaming in pain as something invisible attacks her. The User-who-is-not-a-user gets what's happening. "Erebus escaped to my world! He's killing my sister!" But then, she stops screaming and the bleeding stops. A screen appears before us, revealing the face of GADGET who is holding an unconscious Erebus.

"We were able to successfully upload the Crashbug Virus to aid you. I have personally eliminated Erebus for you before he could cause more trouble. Now deleting Erebus." Erebus starts being physically deleted by GADGET. Once that's done, GADGET adds: "At this time, we are unable to provide anymore assistance to you. I have healed Monet's physical body. She will be alright as you humans say. We're all rooting for you all to defeat the game. We know what's going on. All problems that are ongoing outside of the game are being handled. Do not worry. Just focus on the game. That is all." The screen vanishes. Someone hesitantly says: "What now?" Athena replies: "Now, we must prepare for what's to come next." Beerus nods: "Indeed but it would be nice to have something delicious to eat right about now." Sinon sighs: "Good grief, this isn't the time for a snack." I add: "That and we really need to address what we're going to do about the RCT3 parks again. Does anyone even remember what we decided last time we talked about it? It's been a while." No one says or otherwise indicates yes. "That's okay. I don't remember either. Well, I'm certain that I've changed my mind about what we should do. Thanks to the Crashbug Virus, all of us appear to have gotten some kind of message about RCT3. In mine, it said there are 37 parks to beat in total. That's a problem. I'm a veteran of the game so I definitely need to be part of beating the objectives of those parks but I unfortunately never got around to playing through all 37. I've played through most of them but not all of them. It would probably be best for the most analytical and creative minds to handle park management while anyone else who wants to help deals with the monsters. I doubt the parks will be safe from monsters. Part of the game involves hiring and managing staff. We need to consider their safety and happiness."

We talk through it and decide to basically do what I just suggested. I noted that we'd need to figure out how exactly anyone would be able to manage the parks given that in normal RCT3, it's single player and the player is a white speck that flies around in the air. We also had to make sure that Laughing Coffin didn't interfere. If they could build their own rides, they could kidnap players and put them on roller coasters with an incomplete track. The cars would leave the station and eventually hit the ground before exploding. Peeps can survive that. But we aren't peeps. The risk of death is very high, even with good armor on account of what you can with a coaster in the game. Rename park guests to John Wardley and David Braben respectively. With those, you'll be able to build to an unlimited height and launch and chain lift speeds will be able to be increased to 2236 MPH. We could certainly use them to kill a small enough boss but Laughing Coffin could use em too. A coaster that launches at such an insane speed would generate a force that would instantly kill any one of us if we were to ride it. I've built coasters like that that go way up high. I've gotten results like -200 gs on them. G stands for the force of Earth's gravity. A normal roller coaster only has up to about 8 positive or negative gs if I'm not mistaken. Much more than that and it's dangerous to ride. If we weren't in a death game, I would handle the parks by myself. But who knows what kind of added difficulties there are. Several parks have VIPs you need to impress in order to beat. With monsters around, they could easily frighten a VIP, keeping them trapped somewhere forever because of how RCT3 peeps usually behave. Put up a fence on three sides and frighten a peep with a wild tiger and boom, they aren't going anywhere. They just continuously make motions to show fright and panic.

Monsters could also smash the machinery for Wooden Coaster 1 if they were smart enough and then chase away any and all mechanics who responded to radio calls to fix it. Someone could place a elevated wooden roller coaster track where a group of players are and trap them in supports or crush them to death. There you have it. After we finished discussions, the entire Assault Team split up for now. We will get back together to take on the 13th Floor. Floor 13. Funny. Herobrine happens to now be active. We helped end Erebus who himself ended Malacoda. They're both Herobrine's creations. 13 is a superstitious number in many places. Music Disc 13 from Minecraft is pretty creepy. Arguably, 11 is creepier. I'm not sure about that personally. Well, one thing's for certain. We had the wrong impression about the floor distribution of Aincrad amongst all the games merged with it in case you haven't noticed. It seems that most games get 15 floors, not 16. And we know the RCT3 floors are next after Floor 15. While eating dinner with Kirito, Bray, and the others, I had a not so funny thought: "I don't know what's waiting for us on the RCT3 floors but I'm just glad it's not RCT or RCT2." Alice asks: "And why is that, Swiftdrawer?" "In RCT and RCT2, the park guests can die. In RCT3, they cannot die. That means Laughing Coffin can't just mass murder park guests for their own entertainment. Then there's the fact I've never played most of the scenarios from either game or it's been so long since I watched one of my sisters play through them. There are a lot of parks between the 2 especially when considering their expansion packs. I'm not looking forward to dealing with vomit in the RCT3 parks but at least, we don't have to deal with RCT or RCT2 parks too. And then there's all the saved RCT3 parks. There's no telling how many of those we could end up seeing. There are millions of them. From players from my universe. Millions."

We continue to eat dinner and enjoy ourselves. In general, we keep things casual and light hearted after my not so funny thought. Even the strongest of warriors needs to rest and relax sometimes. If you're working all the time, you're going to just have stress, unhappiness, physical pain, and all kinds of other problems. It's important to pay attention to your body. Pain is like the body's siren. The next morning, we were all ready for the 13th floor. But something just didn't quite feel right. Getting to the unactivated teleport gate was easy. Or at least, that's what we all thought until we saw the obsidian.. Hit The Target and Veeva Dash are standing in front of the obsidian. Thanks to being inside a death game, we could see their facial expressions in full detail. Their cruel smiles and everything. I should have mentioned this long ago but yes, when you're inside Minecraftia for real, you can see a lot more detail despite the fact things remain blocky. Stampy gets through the crowd we are a part of and says to Hit The Target: "Hit The Target, what's the meaning of this?! I thought we had a truce. You have everything you have ever wanted. My Lovely World is yours. What else could you possibly want?!" Hit The Target actually speaks verbally: "I want your dogs, Stampy." To be continued..