Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 19: Paradox's Self Destruction

Date: Days 640-653

On the 52nd floor of Aincrad, there's as stated last time, the ruins of the Cyberse. On the 53rd, there's the damn Restricted Zone where our next run in with Paradox was. Just kidding. On the 54th, there was a fusion of all the Duel Links connected worlds and places where we took down Paradox. Lisbeth replies to my statement: "Paradox's end game must be coming very soon. It's the only explanation! Actually, of course it's coming!" Nothing much actually happened on that floor. We just kind of explored it and did our normal thing. Nothing really bad happened outside of the battle with the Floor Boss in the middle of the destroyed Cyberse. Not even Paradox showed up for any reason whatsoever. However, things got really bad on the 53rd Floor which we managed to reach a week later on Day 647. It's getting close to 2 years since this game started and we just keep getting better and better at preparing for the next floors. At this point, we no longer have to spend days preparing since we are pooling more and more of our various experiences to more effectively survive this death game. In fact, it's getting to a point where every single player is striving to join the Assault Team if they aren't already a part of it or they are striving to at least just get strong enough to survive on other floors. Of course, the young children amongst them are always most looked after as well as the elderly who just get kind of tossed to the scrapheap in many worlds where capitalism is the dominant oppressive economic system. We can now get ready for the next floor in under a day. Our speed has rapidly improved because the whole process of getting ready has been overhauled.

We put more of an emphasis on stocking up on important items as much as possible and more players are getting strong enough to join the Assault Team. Not only that but the Town of Beginnings is currently being rebuilt but better. Once completed, it was once again serve as a hub for low level players to live and survive. Only a small amount of players are now unwilling to try to get stronger by leveling up. Mental health professionals have been a huge help to all of us. Anyway, let's get to what happened in the Restricted Zone on the 53rd Floor. We literally spawned right outside of it after we used the teleport gate required to reach the floor quickly. There are stairs to get up to it of course but those really take some time to climb. It's like the staircases get several steps higher with every floor and I only just noticed it not too long before this point. The gap between the ground of each floor has really been steadily increasing. Ghost Gal speaks up about what we're seeing. She points to the entrance of the Restricted Zone: "There it is, the Restricted Zone. It houses all of the data stored in Link VRAINS and probably serves as storage for this entire death game's data as well along with sensitive Sol Tech information. I'm under the impression that it holds even more secrets now and I intend on finding out what they are." Playmaker replies: "As you know, it won't be easy. Kusanagi was the only person who was able to get me to the middle of it. It was heavily guarded by security features such as guards and even dueling AI. This is going to be very dangerous if what we've been through is any sign."

I nod: "I watched you go through all of that twice. I don't have a good feeling at all about this." Twilight speaks: "Hmm.. This might be our only chance to escape the game early.." Applejack replies: "What in the hay are you talking about, Twilight?" Yui replies: "I can answer that question. Because the Restricted Zone's center is vital to the operation of Link VRAINS even though the world has been redone a number of times, that means it may have a means for us to escape this game as it is tied to the entire game's system. I ran an analysis using my authority level in this world to find information. And yes, it seems we can access the game's system even more directly in the center of the Restricted Zone, including the mass log out command that was used by Heathcliff to end Sword Art Online prematurely because Kirito beat him when he gave him a fair chance against him in a fight." Asuna nods: "That's one of the most well known moments from SAO." Chronos yells: "Are you serious?! We can get out of here early?! This can all end soon?! Yes! I can't wait to return to Duel Academia!" But then, something happens. A bunch of never before seen monsters fly out of the Restricted Zone and ambush us while saying robotically: "Entry into Restricted Zone denied." I draw my sword: "Damn, these things are so numerous that they may actually outnumber us despite the fact the Assault Team has now grown to over 3,000 members, most of whom are here with us right now!" And so, a battle with the monsters begins. We defeat them all but it took a whole hour. Eva speaks: "Finally.. All of those bastards are dead. If that's the welcoming party, we got a long way to go."

Revolver states: "This our chance to get inside but not all of us will be able to because of the limited number of duel boards. You cannot physically walk inside of the Restricted Zone." Kusanagi adds: "He's right, it isn't that simple. If you can't ride a duel board due to not having one or not being able to ride the same one as someone else, you just can't help. Building in there with blocks to allow for travel to the center by walking is too risky to even try." I sigh: "This is a really big issue but at least we can kill 2 birds with one stop. Most of us can focus on exploring this floor, taking on quests, leveling, and looking for the Floor Boss while the rest of us go in there and reach the center in order to attempt to escape this game much sooner than expected. But something tells me no one will have it easy. A lot of our comrades might have to retreat to the 52nd Floor for the time being." As one of those with a duel board, I was obliged to have someone join me on it. I chose Sinon. She accepted and soon, the Assault Team splits up based on who's going in the Restricted Zone and who isn't going into it. Thanks to that, we are soon off. For a while inside of there, we have to keep attacking and destroying enemy after enemy. We also evaded traps like laser beams and moving walls. But eventually, we get surrounded by a bunch of dueling bots who activate their duel disks and speak in unison: "Intruders. Must eliminate with monster cards. Executing operation. Beginning turn." Myself and the other duelists amongst us activate our duel disks in response. I'm amongst those to go first: "Alright! Time to begin my composition!"

Each bot was easy to defeat. The trouble was they just kept coming but the duel never stopped. It was like doing a whole of duel ghouls at once who just kept getting back up after losing but worse. I was feeling so exhausted by the time we finally defeated all of them. Spectre shouts: "Watch out! There's something big coming!" To our horror, it was the 53rd Floor Boss. I shout: "Damn it! We can't beat that thing on our own at least not without knowing everything about it. We are amongst the top players in the Assault Team but our chances of victory are slim. I seriously doubt that's not the case.." Soulburner staggers: "This is really bad.. How do we even beat this boss without the support of our other comrades?" Ai sweats: "Our monsters won't be enough to allow us to win! I just know it! Look at its health! Hell, I can even see all of its other stats too! Glitch! It's the toughest Floor Boss by far, even tougher than the 50th! We can't win!" Magnus shouts: "Why don't we just blow up that thing already?!" Ellegaard shakes her head: "It won't be that easy. Building with blocks is out of the question nor can the RCT3 park guests be sent here to help us out." Twilight speaks: "If we can't beat it with attack power or TNT.. We just have to outsmart or outfly it." Kirito yells: "Would that even work?! The boss is acting in a way I don't remember it ever doing! It never fought above void space! It just didn't! And anything else I remember about it won't be enough to help us beat it!" Argo chuckles: "Nyehahahaha! I think we should still try to outfly it! If we can get to the center, we can at least fight it while standing on solid ground! It's very difficult to fight a Floor Boss while flying around!"

Gameknight sighs: "But won't that mean we'll have to face it while also avoiding the other traps and challenges in here?" Asuka smirks: "Like this isn't the first time a lot of us have had to evade an enemy along with obstacles.." Jesse nods: "I certainly have experienced my fair share of that sort of thing." Ghost Gal adds: "We were lucky enough to come to have as many duel boards as we are using. Otherwise, this whole thing would be even more difficult." And so, we just end up flying towards the center while dodging obstacles and attacks by the Floor Boss who was clearly only getting more and more agitated as the seconds passed by what we were now doing. Somehow, we all made it in one piece to the center after what felt like a really long time of dealing with all of that. And now, the 53rd Floor Boss is even angrier than it already has become. I sigh: "Damn, this is going to be a tough fight now that we can actually fight it safely, isn't it?" Ghost Gal replies: "Not necessarily. This may be the most dangerous place to have a boss fight in the entire death game. The ground we are on is too small for us to move freely and it may be possible for the boss to accidentally damage the terminal that exists here. We may inadvertently trap ourselves in this game forever by causing it to completely shut down, never to start back up ever again." Many of us feel tense after hearing that, myself included but I choose to try to stay calm instead in order to fight against the Floor Boss more effectively. Thus, I prepare to attack with all I have now but keep in mind the fact that we really are very crowded into this area. What's worse is that all of the other foes we evaded earlier have come to join on on trying to kill all of us for good,

This situation has been turned into a true crisis and nightmare. Even with the likes of Yui and Romeo with us, all of us are pretty much sitting ducks here. It's so hard to actually move my muscles so I can swing with my sword. In no time at all, our foes completely overwhelm us. There's little we can do to try to fight back. And it only got worse as the damage we were taking now is really high. It soon became apparent that melee weapons are useless here even against enemies bold enough to hit us from close range instead of from some distance away due to their abilities to fly around freely or use their own duel boards to fight on. So our only options were ranged weapons. Diavel shouted out loud about that, confirming I wasn't the only one to realize that. Communication has been very difficult since we got here due to the crowding and all of the enemies around us. I pull out one of my guns and slide my sword into its scabbard. From there, I begin to fire at the enemy. Healers do what they can to keep themselves along with all of us alive. The only reason none of us have died yet is we were able to organize ourselves into a crowded formation but a formation nonetheless. It was a variant of our most common formation. That was really helpful for us. Moving on, we just kept shooting as much as we could in order to defeat our foes. Slowly, their numbers dwindled and with the help of our still summoned duel monsters, we eventually got rid of all of them except for the 53rd Floor Boss. But after turning the tides the way we did, we felt the confidence and determination we needed to pull off a miracle by defeating the boss all by ourselves without the backing of most of the Assault Team.

It's true us top players in the Assault Team have been performing the best by far in battles with the Floor Bosses. However, the other clearers have been crucial as a backbone we depended on in order to survive. After about 5 hours since we entered the Restricted Zone, we managed to pull off a win against the Floor Boss, causing it to shatter into polygons before our eyes. The victory screen is shown and things settle down. Crafter speaks: "We have won but it's clear we must reduce the crowding here now." Monet adds: "That's right! Let's build!" Those of us who have blocks are allowed to move to the edge of the ground to expand it out with a lot of blocks. 20 minutes later, we had ample room to stand on. Axel speaks: "Hey, don't you think this area would react strongly to us building here with so many blocks?" Pinkie Pie laughs: "Oh, silly! We trashed all of its security! Don't you see?!" Biara adds: "And now, myself and the others who can access the game's system have shut down this area's remaining security defenses. No passcode is needed to access the terminal that is present here." Zaizen adds: "But we have to be careful. There may be something that we had no idea about still left guarding what we are seeking." He, Biara, Ghost Gal, Yui, and the others who can hack into or easily access the game's systems on their own head to the terminal in order to work together to access it. We watch them work only for 2 familiar faces to appear and attack. Lightning speaks: "We will not allow you to leave this game just yet. In fact, we will kill all of you right here." Windy smiles: "That's right! It's going to be fun! So fun!" Oh yeah, I forgot they ended up showing up.

Soulburner activates his duel disk again: "I don't think so! If you want to kill us, you'll have to defeat me in a duel!" I add: "And me as well." Aki speaks up: "Don't forget me!" The other duelists who aren't busy at the moment speak the same thing. Lightning scoffs: "Very well, humans and other creatures. For now, we will let you be. Your defiance and this location make this a moment not ideal for me to take my revenge. After you defeat Paradox, we will be waiting. I do not care about them at all. He is only a foolish human turned robot to me. He is no threat to my abilities. I have lost interest in working with the likes of him. Don Thousand may not agree with those of us who have come to this game to make all of you suffer while seeking revenge. We have abandoned working together as one as our interests just do not fit well together." And with that, they're gone. Just like that. Meanwhile, Ghost Gal and the others get the terminal to work successfully. We just watch them work for the most part as they each pull up different monitors around themselves to split up the searching evenly. Thanks to all of this, it wasn't long until Yui found the command she spoke of. She says: "Everyone! I've found it, the potential ticket to ending this death game right now and sending all of us along with those of us who have perished out of this world." Ghost Gal adds: "There are many other important things we have found. With just a few commands, we can make all players reach the maximum level instantly amongst other things. But I suspect that executing any command won't be so easy for us. The enemy likely expected us to do all of this once we reached this floor from the beginning."

I sigh: "To make matters harder, we have no idea what kind of hidden traps there are in all of that coding." Yui speaks again: "Then we must test executing a command. How about we test the one that grants all players a buff of our choice?" No one objects so she tries it out only to be confronted by some kind of coded cyber monster. It gives her a hard time until she manages to beat it. It took another 20 minutes to be able to execute the log out all players command but once it did, everything went dark for a few moments. When color returned to my vision, I find myself in Twisted Land. It's worth noting that a command to undo the merging of virtual worlds that formed the death game was also executed. I look around in joy: "There's nothing that doesn't belong around here! We've done it! The Infinityverse is over! I see the normal sky above Twisted Land without anything floating high above it. I can no longer access any windows from that game. It's over. Finally over!" Some of my comrades: the ones I went to Twisted Land with the day we got sucked into the death game along with it show up. Blaze hugs me: "Swift!" "..No way! You're back!" I was so happy. So relieved. Blaze really is back. It's so hard to believe and yet, it's true.. Barla appears and shouts: "Hell yeah! You've done it y'all! It's over and we're back!" Someone who wasn't sucked into the game appears. It's Metron from the DCAU. He speaks: "I just saw the Justice League reappear in our universe and have chosen to visit other universes to confirm if what I was seeing was real or not. Even someone like me can be fooled by illusions."

That confirms it. We've escaped the game. I smile: "Finally.. Things are now back to being better.. I'm so relieved and happy. I can't state that enough. I think we should spend the day here. Who's up for riding the new longest coaster here with me?!" But the celebration didn't last long as monsters suddenly surrounded us on all sides. Barla and the others fade away. "No. It can't be.. We're still trapped in the Infinityverse?! This trick.. It was used in Ready Player One as well.." The scene changes back to the center of the Restricted Zone. But not before all of the damn monsters left me for dead. My vision was now filled with a flashing red on and off. Once the scene changed, I saw most of the others had experienced pretty much the same thing. This was really really bad. I was now trembling and sweating heavily as I began to die faster and faster. I had to drink so many hp potions just to keep myself alive. When I finally recovered, I noticed the deathly silence that had fallen. None of us are currently feeling up to uttering a single word after all of that. We are so shocked and horrified by what just happened. I truly had no words to describe how I felt about all of this. It was Yui who broke the silence: "Everyone, you're okay now. What you just experienced is over." Ghost Gal replies: "We have to gleam as much information as we can from this terminal while we still can.. The system is trying to log us out.. The security here is coming back online.. I've never experienced anything so frightening before in all my time in virtual worlds.." She and the others who were accessing the terminal before scramble to get as much information as they could while also trying to execute any command that could help us out except for the log out one so that way, we wouldn't fall for its deception again.

All of that was way too much to deal with. I'm still shaking a bit from it. But still, I watch them work their skills to get what they can done. We help them kill more cyber monsters summoned whenever they interacted with something considered sensitive by the game's system. Every single player's hp was reset to 100%. All of us were given a 2 hour speed buff. All currently spawned monsters on this floor were reduced to 1 hp. But then, the system actually fought back aggressively and ejected Ghost Gal and the others, nearly killing them in the process. Biara weakly speaks: "We weren't able to gather any new information except that Paradox will try to wipe us out with a grand plan on the next floor.." We all spent the rest of the day recovering before grinding the next day and all that. 2 days after that, on Day 680, we moved onto the 53rd Floor. If we keep up this pace now that it's started, we will beat this game in under 200 days from now but I'm not getting my hopes up. We look around and in fact see a fusion of all previous Duel Links/Link VRAINS areas we have encountered along with the Cyberse. We can hear Paradox's voice laugh: "Welcome, foolish clearers to your end! You do remember how Entity303 messed up a lot of floors in the past, right?! Well, I have done that too but only to this floor. In fact, I activate Malefic World to make that apparent!" Now, Malefic World has completely altered the appearance of everything on this floor. "Welcome to the 54th Floor! I'm going to put everything I have into destroying all of you here! Prepare to experience agony like you never have before!" Around us, all kinds of monsters from all the previous floors along with all of the villain's Malefics begin to appear en masse.

As if that weren't enough, the villain appears high into the sky before splitting into countless duplicates of himself. Through all of them, Paradox laughs: "I hear some of my previous foes have split themselves into many duplicates of themselves against those of you they were fighting! I have chosen to do the same as well as unleash an army far greater than Herobrine ever could create! Hahahaha! I will kill all of you and destroy this world before leaving this digital prison to destroy ALL other games too! I am not concerned that Don Thousand will use his forces to try to crush me for betraying him. He is no threat to me thanks to the power of my Malefics! Malefic Black Rose Dragon, show them all what I mean!" The corrupted signer dragon attacks all of us before targeting Aki specifically just as Paradox's clones begin to attack all of us along with all of the other monsters. What's going on can be best described as pure chaos. I draw my sword again and prepare to counter Paradox's attacks. He laughs: "Even if you somehow defeat me, there's plenty of mes left to destroy all of you with along with all of my monsters and Malefics! Face it, you're finished no matter what you do!" "I don't give a damn about your threats! Haaaaa! Take this!" I use all 4 of my sword skills in this game to attack but he simply tanks them before blasting me with an energy blast, taking about 10% of my hp away in an instant. "Hahahaha! Now do you see how hopeless it is to try to defeat me?!" "I won't give up! Haaaaa! I'm far from done. I've suffered too much to let you beat me!"

The villain only laughs again as he easily counters more of my attacks with flinching. "I took a page out of Entity303's methods and studied all of you closely in secret. Therefore, I know all of your moves!" "So that's it, huh? I guess I should change my tactics then and switch to my other weapon build." "What are you talking about?!" Malefic Blackwing Dragon attacks me but I roll out of the way and switch to a dagger. Paradox widens his eyes as I also kick away some Aincrad monsters along with monsters from some of the other worlds that were forced together with it to create this death game to begin with. I don't give up even with the odds stacked against me. My dagger skills shock Paradox over and over again because I don't often use a dagger in this game." "Ha! Ha! Eat this!" His attack patterns don't change since his Malefics and other monsters keep giving me a hard time anyway. Thus, I am still taking a lot of damage even as the Paradox clone gradually starts taking more and more damage and weakens. I even stab his mask so hard that it splits into 2. I'm just barely evading everything that's been thrown at me. This is a true fight for survival and I just don't know how I will ever end up making out of this alive. This is a situation I never expected to become so damn difficult not to mention almost completely overwhelming. I'm barely hanging on as more and more of my hp is lost despite my best efforts to evade and tank. My armor is somehow not nearly enough to protect me as if Paradox's monsters have abilities that allow them to ignore plate armor or something like that.

But when I managed to beat the clone, things get a little easier until I almost run out of hp. When that happened, I was forced to run away and recover in a hiding place. I knew I couldn't stay there for long. THEY would find me eventually so I downed hp potions as quickly as I possibly could. Thanks to that, I was ready for the monsters who found and attacked me. I defeated them all but was almost killed by a Malefic. I was forced to recover again before running back to where most of my comrades still were fighting. I help Kirito, Silica, and Pina deal with a different Paradox clone. Kirito yells: "That's another down! But there's so many of them! Damn it! Will Paradox even try to do anything else to us?!" I reply: "He will once he grows tired of the way things are now!" Silica nods: "I won't be afraid of him!" Paradox laughs through all of his clones again: "Once again, all of you really amuse me with your words of hope when all hope for you was lost the moment you were trapped inside this game! You may have defeated some of the others who were tasked by Don Thousand to make sure you never beat this game but I will be the one who puts all of you in your graves because you will not get past me!" That doesn't deter us one bit. It takes everything we have but us clearers beat all of the clones and somehow managed to avoid losing anyone to the monsters and Malefics who just kept attacking us. Someone yells: "Now for the other enemies!" Petra yells: "We have to focus on bringing down those Malefics one by one! The other monsters are only strong in number! We can take them!" Paradox reforms into his original form before greatly increasing his size: "Foolish! How soon you forget that I'm still here! I will be cause your dooms!"

Sinon replies: "We still aren't afraid of you. We've been through countless challenges and hard times. We won't let you shake our resolves. Not this time." "Impossible! Fine! Maybe I should just crush all of you literally myself! On all of you, I activate the spell card Shrink!" Manjome fights back: "I don't think so! Go, Despell!" Paradox fails to shrink all of us but laughs while maintaining his now giant size. We won't let him push us around so easily. Those of us who are duelists activate our duel disks again and begin to lead a counter to him and all of his summons. Kaiba shouts: "I activate Enemy Controller! For the rest of my turn, your Malefic Truth Dragon will be mine!" "No! How dare you! Kaiba, I should have killed you a long time ago! Now, I will rectify that wrong!" I briefly watch as Kaiba commands Paradox's ace to wipe out as many other Malefics as possible. A bunch of them end up quickly being destroyed as a result. Since a turn is sometimes considered to equal a minute when cards are used in a battle that isn't a duel, the dragon returns to Paradox's control after a minute. But in that minute, a lot of Malefics were defeated. Many of us are empowered by what just happened to attack even harder with more vigor. Thanks to that, a lot of the monsters are wiped out while the fastest of us keep Paradox busy, angry, and distracted. He is currently too occupied to think about actually crushing all of us with his increased size. But then, the speedsters are unable to keep Paradox busy because he outsmarts them by commanding most of his Malefics to attack them.

The rest of us who were focused on bringing the Malefics down with weapons and our own monsters are forced to give chase and bear witness as several of our comrades die from the full wrath of the Malefics. Atemu shouts: "Damn it! We must not let their deaths be in vain! It's time to fight even harder! I banish 1 light and 1 dark monster from my graveyard in order to summon Black Luster Soldier Envoy Of The Beginning!" I shout: "Through a regiment of well practiced card plays, I now summon the best artists in my deck! Here they come!" And now, a whole army of really powerful monsters appear before us all. Paradox didn't see that coming so the rest of his Malefics were soon destroyed easily. "No! This can't be happening! Curse you all! If you want to play like that, I will play like that too! Take this! I activate my newest unique skill! Technological Sabotage! With it, I will shut down all of your duel disks until this battle is over! Not only that but I think I will merge myself in a way no one up to now has done so in this game!" To our horror, images of what look like every single kind of monster and boss any of us have fought against in this game appear in the air around Paradox. He laughs: "See this?! This is the power I have gained since agreeing to join in this game to hurt all of you after I was revived again! And that's not all for you will now see what I really can do now! No longer are my abilities restricted to Shadow Duels, time travel, and control, change, and steal monsters! Those abilities alone were not nearly enough to destroy Duel Monsters! Now that I have evolved to have more than just them, you will see just how outmatched you really are! I have now gained the power I have needed for so long! Hahahahaha!"

And just like that, the villain does in fact merge with all of them to create a fusion whose power looks unconquerable. Eva yells: "Damn it! Look at that health bar!" Ai screams: "No! No! No! His stats are so massive that the game can't even properly display them as more than just multiple 9s for each one! His power exceeds the game's counting limit for stats! This can't be!" Tsunade speaks: "What power.." Paradox grins: "Now you see how insignificant all of you are even together against the likes of me! This is the end, Assault Team but I'm not going to let you all be destroyed so easily! No, I want to enjoy this! For now, I will allow you to try to deal as much damage as you can within the next 5 minutes! That will be more than enough time for all of you to sink into pure despair with no hope of even coming a little close to defeating me!" And so, we all attack with everything we have despite the fact he shut down all of the duel disks, preventing us from using our monsters to help us fight him. It just keeps getting worse. None of my attacks do any damage. All that I could hear was expressions of frustration, fear, anger, and despair along with Paradox's laughs and constant weapon attacks. Finally, Paradox easily knocks us back, bringing each of us down to 1 hp in the process. Kirito yells: "Damn it! We're all one hit away from being killed!" Paradox replies: "That's right! But if you think I'm just going to kill all of you right now, you're mistaken! I want to watch you struggle! I want to see all of you fail over and over to do anything against me as the pain and despair forces to keep you crying out again and again!"

I clench my teeth: "There's nothing we can do against him.. No ordinary moves in this game nor skills do anything to him now. He has fused with just about every enemy he possibly could. I don't see how we can win but I just know we will. We will escape this nightmare of a game. There must be a way for us to defeat him.." Argo speaks up: "Ya know, this game is full of many quests that involve items you can only get because of them. On the 35th Floor, there's a poison that can be created with incredibly rare materials. I will do everything I can to find a way to win." Sinon speaks: "Hold on. Did you say the 35th Floor? I did the quest to make that poison in case I ever needed it. If physical attacks, bullets, and weapon skills can't do anything to Paradox, could status effects work?" Paradox interrupts: "I can hear everything you say! It's hopeless! Nothing you do will change your current situation! I will kill all of you in the end no matter how hard you try to beat me! I will keep letting you live until I feel satisfied with what I've put you through or tire of waiting to just put all of you out of your pathetic misery! That's right! You still only live because I am letting you. Take as long as you want to get what you need to attempt to kill me. But know this, it will prove pointless but will be entertaining for me to see you try!" Pretty much all of us sigh. Lisbeth speaks: "Sinon, can I see that poison? I was going to do the quest to get it myself but something happened that made me do otherwise. I wanted to complete the quest just so I could try to make a poisoned weapon." The sniper nods, takes it out, and hands it over.

I choose to wander around to see where I could help. Each of us has by now consumed enough hp potions to recover our full health points as pointless as that was in the face of the fused Paradox. The only thing it did was stop us from bleeding, mend our wounds, and stop the pain. Paradox didn't seem to care that we did that. It's like seeing our struggles was more than enough to keep him happy as if the pain we were experiencing was just an added bonus to him. I find myself looking around at what others were coming up with. Axel speaks to Magnus and some others: "Maybe explosions could work this time around. If we crafted enough Formidibombs, we could probably deal a lot of damage to big ugly over there." Magnus nods: "We can unleash some many explosions! After all, explosives do hurt exponentially more the more explosive they are!" Olivia sighs: "I don't think that will be enough to do much of anything." "Well, what do you suggest then, Olivia?" "We could use redstone as a base for unleashing all kinds of methods that could kill someone like him at once. Dispensers with arrows. TNT cannons with those Formidibombs.. So many possibilities." Soren speaks: "I hate to interrupt but getting materials for even just one of those takes time. Time we don't have." Ellegaard sighs: "I hate to say it but Soren's right. I do not think Paradox has the patience needed to wait on us to create several Formidibombs to use against him." I walk elsewhere to Stampy and co. He says: "What if all of us clearers aimed to attack the same specific part of Paradox at once?" I reply: "It's a sound idea but the problem is his defense is off the charts. Beyond even the game's comprehension to display correctly. Our combined DPS wouldn't be enough."

Stacy sighs: "This is really a problem bigger than we first thought, isn't it?" DanTDM nods: "But at least he's actually giving us time to actually develop measures to fight against him with. He must be very entertained with our struggles now." Trayarus speaks and Dan translates: "Trayarus just said we should use science against him." Uraraka joins us: "Science? That could work." Daichi also joins us: "Science is how we understand what's beyond our respective worlds so it's worth a shot. There's all kinds of devices that can be created to use against Paradox." I then end up exiting the conversation: "Thanks for the talk, y'all. I'm going to go my own way for a bit and try something I just came up with. Though I do wonder what would happen if we clearers spread out across all 54 Floors including this one. That could buy some time. There's nothing saying we can't just split up across Aincrad and make Paradox hunt us all down to kill us." With that said, I give some of my comrades more thinking to do as I use a teleport crystal to go to the RCT3 sandbox park I used to create my death coaster design in. I grin: "This should be fun. With the unlimited height cheat in play and the high performance of this game, it should be possible to create a coaster tall enough to reach Paradox from here. In fact, I should consult with the PI in order to increase such a coaster's speed to over a million miles per hour despite it not being a small coaster with a infinite loop of speed increase arrangement going on. I never could figure out how to make the speed reach such an absurd amount. This is going to take hours upon hours but it's so worth a try! It's time for me to go for it. There's no denying that."

Over 12 hours later, I have completed it and laugh: "Ahahahaha! My newest monstrosity is complete! As long as Paradox stays on the 54th Floor, I will be able to nail him with this truly nightmarish roller coaster! It goes through a long segment of straight track to increase its speed to a speed even I'm not sure of. It was instantly reach the top of the incomprehensibly tall hill before the track becomes straight again, making the coaster train immediately go for Paradox. But that's not all. I selected the coaster type that I can make the most rows and trains with in this game and made the station really long. It will be one train after another! Maximum wait time between trains is only 10 seconds! Time to go back up to that floor without being in coaster building mode while flying around!" I thank the PI for their help before going back to THAT floor. And when I do, I see Paradox still amused in the midst of all kinds of things designed to try to kill him. My coaster is probably amongst the most bananas of them. I yawn: "Damn it. I'm so hungry and tired now. I need to take care of that before I can test my coaster on Paradox. I know it will work because of the fact that 5000 feet of height along with 17 loops takes many cycles of coaster going around before it slows the coaster car down to less than half of 2236 MPH. I know that from a coaster I made months before getting stuck inside this death game." And so, I end up staying at an inn on the 54th Floor and meet up with my fellow party members there. We share rooms and a nice dinner with the all too present fear of Paradox's power looming overhead. It feels so strange to do all of these things knowingly full well that Paradox can easily just kill all of us whenever he feels like it but I still slept well that night. When it was morning, we met back up with our comrades where Paradox was. Paradox laughs: "Are you pathetic clearers ready to try to kill me again?!"

He gets a lot of defiant expressions in response. I just cackle mischievously. I've kept the window for my newest death coaster open this entire game. Despite not being at any RCT3 park, I know I can get the coaster to run since I kept that window open this entire time though I nearly closed it out of habit more times than I can even count. I hear a lot of individuals speak at once before saying: "Alright, time for the debut of my newest death coaster. It's so tall that it goes through floor after floor of Aincrad. I knew it would clip through given that coasters clip through scenery items in RCT3 and objects are programmed differently in different games. That also applies to terrain. Now then, it's almost time for the test to start!" Right as a whole bunch of Minecraftian and scientific things are activated to try to damage Paradox alongside a number of clearers beginning to attack him with poisoned weapons, I test my coaster. I didn't even see the coaster pass by. It was a blur that was invisible to all of us. I didnt even hear the damn thing. The train just kind of rammed into Paradox and he seemingly disappeared. Llenn yells: "Where the hell did that monster go?!" Pito laughs: "It looks like Swift's nutty coaster actually did something!" Paradox then reappears with only a tiny sliver of his health gone. I stagger: "What the hell?! All of that only caused him to lose such a microscopic amount of health?!" Jonouchi steps forward: "I got this! I'll stop Paradox with Defusion!" Nothing happens. Paradox laughs: "Pathetic clearers! Didn't you know that I'm immune to card effects and really fast objects have little to no effect on me?!"

I yell: "Damn it! Damn it! At this point, I have no clue as to what could possibly end Paradox unless we get him stuck somewhere where he slowly dies by taking damage constantly.. But what could even manage to accomplish something like that? My death coaster almost did nothing! I spent like 12 hours on that thing! I put so much effort into it!" All of the other attempted ways to kill Paradox fail at doing much as well. A lot of us are shell shocked to see such epic fails happen right in front of us. The villain laughs once more: "Oh and did I mention that your duel disks are still subject to my unique skill? You can't summon any monsters against me anymore still!" I curse quietly to myself. Diavel speaks: "It is time for the backup plan to buy more time! We must all split off to hide throughout Aincrad." Paradox couldn't help but laugh incredibly hard: "You think something that childish will work against me?! Think again! You will have to try much harder than that to find a way to defeat me!" But before he was about to say something about losing what was left of his patience before announcing he intended to kill us all now, we all scatter. I found out later that I wasn't the only one to propose splitting up all over Aincrad. I teleport to Twisted Land with a teleport crystal. "He knows I am building this park. What he may not know is that there are some hidden locations where one can hide from an enemy quite well. Now which hidden location should I head to? So many choices. But I think I got it. I'm so glad I ended up kind of setting the default gamemode here to Adventure after we cleared the floor of Aincrad this park is on right now."

That should be enough to stop Paradox from destroying the park in search of me if he ever figures out I'm hiding here. That's not too likely. I end up hiding in one of the rooms of Expedition Of The Tukan Pyramid: Pharaonic Rage and sending a message in an Assault Team chat inviting people to join me in it. It is the new longest coaster in Twisted Land. Without being able to destroy anything, Paradox wouldn't be able to physically fit in the coaster's tunnels unless he shrunk so the only ways he could otherwise get to us would be to teleport to us or somehow defy the rules of Adventure Mode. If he shrunk to find us, he would eventually find us or so he would think because the coaster itself is like 12 minutes long. Walking the whole length of it takes even longer than that. If we knew he was coming towards us one way, we could go the other. Hours pass. It becomes nighttime but nothing major has happened. However, Argo messages all of us: "Nyehahahaha! I know what we can do to defeat Paradox! Make the 100th Floor Boss, An Incarnation Of The Radius deal with him!" And so, we all just kind of teleport to a meeting place even Paradox wouldn't even think of looking around the area of for us. Argo explains after a lot of us express our doubts. Like, how in the hell are we supposed to get him to the 100th Floor Boss or vice versa? I really have no idea plus I'm worried that it won't be enough to defeat our enemy. Argo just chuckles at all of our concerns. "Don't ya worry about it! It's actually quite easy to understand. Did you know that there was a certain piece of information that was ignored back when some of us went to the Restricted Zone on the 53rd Floor?"

She gets a lot of reactions. Revolver frowns: "What do you mean by 'ignored piece of information'? We looked through everything we could." Argo laughs: "Hey Ki-boy, would you like to explain that?" Kirito nods: "Argo hired me, Sinon, and the others to help her with something. We managed to get back to the center of the Restricted Zone and there, Argo managed to hack into the terminal by herself." Ghost Gal speaks: "Argo, you hacked into that by yourself? Impressive especially since the terminal once didn't need to be hacked into to be accessed when Playmaker sought out to get to it during the Hanoi crisis." "Yeah, all of you managed to weaken its security and the system never fixed the damage you dealt to the security. It's like it malfunctioned long enough to count it as still fully operational during the last time it looked over the entire game and the game's files for any errors it needed to fix. Anyway, I checked the files of the Floor Bosses before the system spotted us and came across something troubling. An Incarnation Of The Radius isn't just a key to keeping Aincrad stable. It also has stats that the system can't display properly. Just like with Paradox's stats. And its health is even more than Paradox's as if our enemies made its original power multiplied by itself twice over. Not only do we know that far in advance now but we can use that against Paradox." Ai points out: "But we can't lure or teleport Paradox there! We aren't even close to being able to access the Ruby Palace where that monster awaits us to destroy us all!" Argo chuckles again: "You know, Paradox's ultimate plan for us was to destroy the game. He could make us all watch him do that. But he can't destroy the game unless he fights that Floor Boss.."

Pito grins: "I see what you're getting at! If someone lets it slip that An Incarnation Of The Radius is key to keeping the game stable.." M speaks: "Wait.. What if Paradox already knows that? He could just be toying with us even more than we have come to understand." Argo replies: "If he did, wouldn't he have gone to face it already? He would first have to gain more power from enemies on higher floors." Diavel speaks up: "Has anyone seen him lately?" Asuna nods: "Haven't you heard? He's tracking us down." Argo chuckles: "He said in the past he wants us to watch as this world is destroyed. He has also ironically said he wants us to be destroyed before he destroys the game a couple of times. We know he enjoys destroying things and people at the same time. That means he may be looking for us AND is fighting An Incarnation Of The Radius RIGHT NOW. He could have made a clone of himself to find us while he goes after the boss or more accurately, focuses on absorbing the powers of higher floor monsters. That may mean we're already too late to stop him.." But then, we feel some kind of powerful energy. Paradox finds us and grins: "Time to kill all of you! You can't hide from me anymore! Do you have any idea how irritating it has been to spend all of my time and energy on finding all of you? At first, you were apart but then, you came back together. I'm going to enjoy killing all of you!" Rainbow Dash replies: "Hey you! Don't you want to keep us alive to see you destroy this game if you can even manage to do that or something?!" "Oh little Rainbow Dash. Thank you for reminding me.. You clearers have stood in my way over and over again.. Because of that, you have made it more difficult to figure out sure fire ways to destroy this game.."

Argo speaks again: "In that case.. Do you know of the only way to guarantee the destruction of this game? If you don't, your plan to end all of us is pointless because you had to make sure you could destroy this game while killing us at the same time." "*anger noises* For some reason, SOME THINGS have been preventing me from figuring out the true weakness of this world!" "Nyehahahaha! I shouldn't be telling you this but you have to kill An Incarnation Of The Radius to have any chance of destroying this game." "Are you deceiving me in any way? Because if you are, I will make sure you die at my hands first before anyone else!" "No. Because even though you now know how to be able to destroy this game.. It won't do you any good because you can't defeat the final boss of Aincrad." Paradox laughs: "I can't wait to prove you wrong! You are going to regret doing this!" Before he vanished, I could have sworn I saw something get tossed onto his back from an unknown source. Suddenly, some kind of display appears, showing Paradox break through every single barrier that the game has in place for floors that haven't been beaten yet. He eventually gets up to the 100th Floor. Ivor cheers: "Yes, our new spy equipment is working perfectly!" Paradox destroys the doors that lead to the inside of the Ruby Palace. With that done, he walks in with a smirk on his face. "An Incarnation Of The Radius, prepare to die!" The boss roars at him. It has the appearance of a giant statue with a woman's face on it and multiple arms along with a generally terrifying look going on.

The Ruby Palace's inside looks like that of a great tree or something. Or rather, the tree is part of the boss. The walls of the massive palace are magnificent and there's plenty of levels of walkable area all around the cleared out arena portion of the palace. Paradox attacks and deals a lot of damage. The DPS is off the charts but An Incarnation Of The Radius is far from defeated. In fact, it only gets more aggressive as it starts to hit a lot harder than it did before. Paradox staggers: "It can't be! I should be the strongest being in this whole game by now! But you! You aren't dead yet! How could you be strong enough to stand up to me as I am now?! So be it! I merge myself with all of my-" He attempts to fuse with his Malefics but fails as the boss attacks him with a suddenly frenzy of attacks that cause him to lose his arms. Argo speaks: "What do ya know? We're seeing his self destruction right before our eyes." Yep, his own arrogance is what caused him to be crushed like this. Paradox now has no one to blame but himself. He tries to fight back with what he still has but it's useless. Paradox is going to die. I feel kind of sad because he would make for a great ally to have but it's too late for him now. We can't try to save him in order to reform him. We haven't even cleared this floor yet because we haven't even seen its boss at all so far. And so, Paradox quickly gets killed off brutally by the 100th Floor Boss, putting all of his plans and goals into the grave with him. He is no longer a threat to us or anyone. His time is over. We end up cheering together before we hear the roar of a different floor boss. Yui exclaims: "It's here! The Floor Boss of this floor has found us and is set on killing all of us. We must begin fighting it immediately!"

Paradox is forgotten about for a while as we get into position to fight the boss. But can you believe that we hid in such an obvious spot from Paradox? We hid right behind where he was before we split up. It was such an obvious spot that it ended up being the perfect place to hide until he figured it out and found us all as a result. Moving on, we know have to contend with this boss. But after dealing with Paradox, we felt really good about fighting this boss. Compared to him, this boss will be easy. Okay, still difficult to handle but at least not nearly impossible to. I ready my sword for the upteenth time and am amongst those to remind everyone to get into formation to best handle this boss in particular. Those who have faced it before yell loudly about what it was like in the past so we could at least be ready for some of what it ended up doing. That helped us eventually secure the win despite the fact most of us were getting really tired from being up for so long as well as fighting this boss. I'm even more tired and hungry than I was yesterday. That being said, we don't give up no matter what our bodies need. We need to survive in order to be able to satisfy the needs of our bodies after all. That's just how it naturally works. Really obvious stuff. As soon as we beat the boss, we just kind of split the loot and headed to various places to sleep and all that. The next morning, I woke up feeling really good. I willingly slept in after a late dinner last night. I'm now ready for whatever is going to happen next. And I know all of my comrades feel the same exact way. I go with my fellow party members to the dining area of the inn we're still staying at.

We talk about last night's events. Sinon speaks: "To think that Paradox would end up shooting himself in the foot at the end." Argo chuckles: "Nyehahahaha! You can thank me for that! Actually, you don't have to. Anyway, we should grind a lot today to make sure we're level enough for the next floor. It's too bad I couldn't do much in gathering information about quests on this floor but I've had some contacts investigate the various quests for me. They'll be paid handsomely once they turn in their information. The same goes for the monsters and minor bosses of this floor. If I can't investigate something on my own if at all, I allows make sure to get some others to at least join my investigation or outright investigate for me if it's not possible for me to investigate what I need investigated. This floor's guidebook will be out as soon as tomorrow! I can promise you that much!" Kirito speaks: "And this is why you're still called the Rat." "Ya got it, Kii-boy." And so, we have a lively discussion throughout the entirety of breakfast before heading out to do some grinding along with other parties. The raid party feature that allows various groups to fight Floor Bosses in this game has been increasingly used as a way to try to better share grinding spots for exp. We discovered ages ago that party members share exp when grinding monsters. If you kill a monster in a party, your partymates will get about 70% of the exp you did so long as you're hunting in a area that isn't home to a safe zone or Floor Boss. That has helped a lot over time. I can't believe I missed that detail for as long as I did. Oh well. But that's that.

The whole day was spent grinding as well as getting ready for the 55th Floor. We knew that Lightning and Windy were waiting for us there. With Paradox gone, it's their turn to cause trouble for all of us. At some point, it was discovered using the raid party feature outside of boss battles makes it so that when you are in the same area in a region of the game as one or more parties are, a slight exp share is added. You kill a monster and members of the other party or parties get 5-10% of the same exp from your kill. So it takes a lot for it to really help out but it's better than nothing. That's probably a function Heathcliff added sometime before he was tragically killed during that power struggle nonsense. The day after that, we went straight to the 55th Floor with the other top 300 members of the Assault Team. We reduced the number of members who go up first in order to make things run more smoothly for us. The rest of them would get to come up an hour after us and once the boss was cleared, the rest of the players would be able to go up to the floor too. Looking around, we found ourselves inside a certain castle. Ai tenses: "It's Lightning's castle! But wasn't it in the distance in the sky on another floor?! What's going on?! I don't get this at all!" Lightning and Windy appear with smiles on their faces. Lightning basically never smiles so his smile was disturbing as innocent as it seemed. He speaks: "Welcome Assault Team to my new castle. You will listen to my demands and fulfill them if you ever want to clear this and any floors above this one. Otherwise, you will be trapped inside this castle that is a fusion of my original castle and the Golden Castle of Stromberg." A lot of our expressions turn to shock as we suddenly find ourselves unable to move. Windy laughs: "I hope you choose not to! It will be so much more fun that way! Yes oh yes it will!" *To be continued..*