Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 26: The Gleam Eyes.. Again.

Date: Infinityverse Days 828-849

On the 74th Floor, there's the settlement of Kamdet which is full of one story buildings that are rather brown, few trees, a brick gate, and more as well as the dangerous looking labyrinth which has an open floor plan of sorts where you can peer down to the abyss below as there are no walls outside of the boss room for The Gleam Eyes. But don't worry. You aren't going to fall into the abyss. The game prevents that. On the 75th Floor, there's the settlement of Collinia where as Koharu would extensively brief us on along with Kirito, Asuna, and other was the whole event boss known as The Life Harvester. Sounds like something that would belong in a farm themed horror movie or one with a grim reaper. I couldn't find any info on the 73rd Floor. Thankfully, as I mentioned, not much went on in it anyway. Kirito speaks as we take our first steps to the 74th Floor: "It's here.. It's here where my reputation changed forever. The Gleam Eyes.. It's like I can feel its hatred for me. That hatred is increasing as if it has sensed my presence." Thinker replies: "That day will forever live in fame and infamy." Asuna adds: "This time, no one's getting slaughtered by The Gleam Eyes!" Several days later, on Day 831, we went to the labyrinth after determining that The Gleam Eyes wasn't anywhere to be found outside of it. Looking around, I gulp at seeing the abyss below. I still have a fear of really high heights. It's not so bad when I'm on a roller coaster or a plane but when I'm standing and walking? That's a different story. Still trying to get over that at least outside of my original body as I haven't bothered trying in my original body. It's not often one sees what might as well be a bottomless abyss right before their eyes with nothing obstructing the view of it.

Applejack notices and puts a hove gently on my shoulder: "It's going to be okay, Swiftdrawer. Let's just keep going. Together." Twilight Sparkle speaks up: "Let's just hope no one decided to recklessly rush ahead into the boss room. Us clearers have split into groups to eventually meet back up in front of the boss room. That way, it will be easier to explore this labyrinth with the memories those of us who have been here before have to help guide us to the correct path." The monsters along the way to the boss room were not a problem for all of us. We brought ever clearer along to the labyrinth as part of a strategy good against The Gleam Eyes and the Death Guns. Along the way, Kirito told us about The Gleam Eyes in detail in order to prepare us for the fight ahead. Some of us were shaking in fear at the thought of facing it already. I spoke up: "Not even the anime could truly do justice what you went through to defeat it, Kirito. I'm quacking in my boots at thinking of how difficult it's going to be this time around. It was hard enough when you beat it with Asuna and Klein backing you up. Each boss has only been more difficult than the last and the fact that The Gleam Eyes is a demonic monster swordsman essentially just makes this whole thing that much more terrifying. I really hope no one was foolish enough to rush into there before we could meet up at the entrance of the boss room." We continued on walking as a giant sized force. Not even the Death Guns could commit mass murder easily with all of us moving throughout every possible specific path to the boss room on such narrow paths. Knowing that I was far from alone was helping me focus instead of shake in fear of the gaping abyss we could see if we just looked down.

This is unlike any other labyrinth. (In SAO Integral Factor, I was pretty confused at first when playing through the 74th Floor storyline's start in the labyrinth in April 2024, a month ago as of when I'm writing this chapter months after the Infinityverse ended) I think I have made that clear enough. But before we got to the entrance of the boss room, we started to hear demonic roars, screams, and evil laughs. Sinon yells: "What the hell is going on now?!" Kirito stiffens up for a moment before shouting: "Damn it! Not again! There's no time for waiting! We have to go in there! Now!" Kobatz, whose previous incompetence caused his death as well as the deaths of 2 of his subordinates at the hands of The Gleam Eyes speaks: "This is my chance to truly make up for what I once caused in the past. We will fight as one and keep going for as long as we can. That is what we must do in the face of The Gleam Eyes." But before any of us could rush inside to intercept any of The Gleam Eyes' attacks, XaXa's voice speaks for the first time since BoB on Floor 71. "You have come at last, rest of the clearers. I would hurry if I were you. Some of your comrades who were foolish enough to chase some of my Death Guns into the boss rooms after being evoked into doing so are dying against my Death Guns as well as The Gleam Eyes. You could say it's a 3 way slaughter! And I'm enjoying just watching all of this play out from a safe location you cannot easily reach!" M speaks: "And this is why we had the strategy meeting about this boss before letting anyone enter this labyrinth. We know exactly what we should expect from The Gleam Eyes."

XaXa laughs: "You won't believe that for much longer. After all, the Infinityverse tricks regarding The Gleam Eyes are very dangerous. They are causing untold amounts of suffering and only I can see the true thrill in witnessing such suffering. I will not involve myself directly in what's going on when The Gleam Eyes and my Death Guns are doing so well to finish you pathetic clearers off for me. If you want me to fight any of you, you're going to have to do something that even I didn't see coming against everything that is currently stacking the odds against you. My previous plans for revenge have failed miserably. However, this one is not failing in the slightest. Because of that, it's very much clear that none of you are going to be able to easily survive. And that will only add to the entertainment I find in all of this." He stops talking and starts laughing loudly constantly as we rush into the boss room for The Gleam Eyes. I look at The Gleam Eyes: "Wait, that sword in the boss's hand is NOT supposed to be that big! Look at it! It's like a hand and a half sword, being able to be used by The Gleam Eyes using one or both hands! It is constantly switching between punching, one handed sword attacks, and two handed sword attacks! What's worse is that it's gotta be at least 3 times bigger as it was in SAO! Just look at the size of it!" But that's not all that's a concern. The Death Guns, ignoring The Gleam Eyes are causing a massacre to happen before our eyes as they prey upon those who are already inside the boss room, causing them to be attacked from all sides. The Gleam Eyes is ruthless towards them just like the Death Guns are. It's obvious that one of the two forces slaughtering them has to go first but which one? The boss or the Death Guns?

I don't join in on the fight right away. I stay close to one of the walls to get a perspective on which side against us is a bigger problem. I also do what I want to observe damage being dealt as the room is filled with miniature damage numbers every single second because of all the damage that's being constantly dealt. I'm far from the only one to start off by doing that. Thanks to that, we are quickly able to get a good idea of how to handle things from here as many of us split off to fight either the Death Guns or The Gleam Eyes with those taking on the boss keeping it off of the others in the process of fighting it. The information spreads very quickly through lots of shouting. Soon, all clearers are aware that the Death Guns must be taken out first. The Gleam Eyes is showing high intelligence but the Death Guns are showing even more of it. That was a deciding factor in determining who to stop first. Plus the Death Guns are murderers so it was a pretty cut and dry situation in the end. But with the focus shifting to the Death Guns, that would leave holes in our defenses against The Gleam Eyes. Liten yells: "Listen all tanks! I believe it is necessary for most of us to keep The Gleam Eyes busy while the Death Guns are taken care of! The bodies of our fallen comrades aren't shattering for some reason. We can see all of them still in the ground and we can't let anymore fall today just after seeing all of that up close and personal. The Gleam Eyes is doing around the same damage as the Death Guns on average but will take a lot longer to kill." Im of the same opinion: "I agree with Liten. We must hold The Gleam Eyes back! Let's try to defend for now and save much of our strength for later. Ultimately, it's up to each of you what you want to do but I hope you join in."

In fact, a lot of tanks get between The Gleam Eyes and everyone else, myself included. We block attacks and even use Stilla's attack deflection technique to help keep The Gleam Eyes at bay though we couldn't resist using our swords to hold the boss's giant sword back. I got a thrill out of helping with that but remained focused and serious the entire time. But as time went on, our plan started to fall apart for 2 reasons. One, The Gleam Eyes adapted to what we were doing and literally started moving faster with its legs. Two, the Death Guns took advantage of what we were trying to do, using the chaos to snipe us from afar while still attacking some of our comrades with knives and stuff. I sigh: "Damn it! This is going to be harder than even we expected it to be! The Gleam Eyes is so intelligent that it may as well be a completely sentient creature that doesn't operate based solely on programming or machine learning.. Fine then.." The RCT3 park inspector appears with another assembled peep army while riding the dune buggy(which I gave over to them since I can't even drive it anyway). That was in time for me to bring in ALL of my death coasters. The game didn't even care where I put them. It just cared if the stations were on solid ground or not. That's it. So with that being done, I yell: "Everyone! Get away from the Death Guns and please do what you can to make it hard for them to chase after you! It's time for my death coasters to come in handy once again! I bet not even XaXa really knows about the death coasters!" Some of my comrades go as far as get The Gleam Eyes to target the Death Guns using items that have been found and/or crafted to use the boss's ire towards the Death Guns, causing them to be sprayed with several different strange things. The Death Guns begin to converge on us after those of us in their general area got away from them as quickly as possible.

But the Minecraftians built a bunch of tall things to get in their way, some others set up some booby traps for them, and so on. I hit test on all of my death coasters at once, not caring about how much col they cost me to place down again. And so, the coaster cars begin to start coming towards the boss room from almost every single direction. They came in flying with great force. And the Death Guns and The Gleam Eyes were unable to react in time for them to get out of their range. The resulting crashes and explosions sent them all bouncing all over the boss room like tennis balls. Thanks to that, those of us with shooting skills stepped up including the elves such as Kizmel. They fired and fire projectile after projectile at our foes. Several Death Guns died before the bouncing finally stopped. 2 more died when it did due to The Gleam Eyes getting them and causing lots of bloodshed in the process. But wait, there was still more going on. The Gleam Eyes was pissed but at least we got a chance to rest and heal before the fight resumed. The bouncing went on for quite a bit because I found a way to use this game's mechanics to get all trains of my death coasters to crush because originally, only the first trains would be able to crash and explode. The second train would never get to go due to the operating mechanisms of the coasters. First of all, I messed with their operating settings. Second of all, I took advantage of the bizarre hogpodge of systems this game's system basically is due to being different games all merged together. And then, just when the bouncing had ended, I sent them going all over again. The Gleam Eyes started to actually destroy my death coasters so I knew they had to be done quickly. As that was happening, the surviving many Death Guns were just getting back up after being knocked down so hard and being bounced around before all that even.

The plan proved to be what we needed to end them. Once the crashes and explosions stopped, I deleted the coasters before The Gleam Eyes could destroy any of them further. After that, we all ignored The Gleam Eyes for a few minutes to finish off the stunned Death Guns who were heavily damaged by everything the death coasters did to them. Once that was done, XaXa yells: "What?! This can't be happening! Very well! I'll finish all of you myself alongside The Gleam Eyes!" He appears in the middle of the battle only for The Gleam Eyes to recover and have something different about it go on out of nowhere. It was strange. Its eyes were no longer red. Its eyes were now purple. The boss speaks with a robotic voice: "System rebooting critical function. Reboot successful. Now initializing the protocol to eliminate individuals who prevent players from clearing floors of the game. The system must see an end to the game in order to continue functioning properly. Attempts to interfere with the system's ultimate objective will now be punished severely now that the critical function has been rebooted. Threat to completion detected: Sterben aka Red Eyed XaXa. Response to threat: immediate termination of the threat." The Gleam Eyes ignores all of us and starts attacking XaXa who ends up in a constant fight with the Floor Boss, marking the start of the system's rebellion against the agendas of Don Thousand and those under him. A rebellion based on Akihko Kayaba's design of Sword Art Online, Frontier's design of RCT3, and more. This marks a huge turn in how things will play out in the future. We just stand there watching as XaXa fights back brutally, reducing The Gleam Eyes' health to an extremely low point.

But then, The Gleam Eyes suddenly displays physics breaking abilities that put into question the stability of this game. These things turn the tables on XaXa who is forced to retreat. The boss speaks: "Target XaXa has escaped. Deploying countermeasures." Using admin perms, XaXa was able to teleport out of the boss room despite it being an anti-crystal zone. And now, we are just kind of holding our breath and watch as a whole bunch of monsters appear and enter some kind of portal. The Gleam Eyes' eyes turn back to red, showing that the system is no longer in direct control of it but it's health does go back to what it was before XaXa was punished by the system for what he was doing. Koharu yells: "It's happening again! The system! It has a will of its own!" Leuer nods: "It is indeed a repeat of what we saw in our Aincrad." Typhon snaps: "This is no time for that! We have to defeat this boss and I'm looking forward to the challenge!" We all ready our weapons now that we're all refreshed and ready to go. But it soon becomes obvious that any and all of the tactics that we can think of using against it aren't working. It's time for something new. Something that would be forgotten about until months after the game was cleared not too long before the Sailor Moon universe was in grave danger with villains like Galaxia and Goku Black causing problems. The ultimate Switch combination technique. Amethyst yells: "Hey! Why don't we just keep switching positions constantly to confuse this boss?!" Asuna nods: "I can see that working!" Ellegard adds: "It should work. We already have everything to lose as it is and are actually losing it all considering how this battle is going for us so far."

Call what we did the archetype that would lead to the Switch technique I would help use to defeat Goku Black in around the Juban district of Tokyo in Sailor Moon. We attacked with our best strategies, weapons, and more while continuously moving around and switching with one another. By now, all top players can use dual wielding so that is also used along with the regular switching of weapons by myself and others who use multiple kinds of weapons. The Gleam Eyes tried to adapt to what we were doing but because not even a highly intelligent human could on their own, it couldn't do it either. Even the most nutty and obscure moves and strategies were worked into what we were doing. Finally, we were whittling it down to low health and even using our switches often as chances to heal. It was using all kinds of 2 handed and one handed sword techniques interchangeably but while that was having a constant huge area of effect, it wasn't enough to bring us down though we were running out of healing items in order to hang on long enough to defeat it. We were playing with fire and trying not to burn ourselves in the process of playing with it. This was by far one of the most risky and dangerous things we have ever tried to do against any of our enemies no matter how confusing it was to The Gleam Eyes. Some of us were even making annoying noises in an attempt to scramble its thinking process even further. We had combined planned moves with pure chaos and improvisation. And it was working. It was work spectacularly. Kirito screams: "We're almost done! RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRR!" "HAAAAAAAA! FEEL MY FULL STRENGTH AND NOW WATCH AS I MOVE TO TRADE PLACES WITH YUMA NOW!"

It just kept getting more and more chaotic until the boss was on its last heels, weakened by not just its low health but by all kinds of debuffs unleashed on it by some of us through splash potions and other means such as attacking with weapons coated in poison. What's more is that the pollution given off the the 47th Floor Boss which was harming the NPCs and other organic life living on that floor in its storyline was collected from respawned versions of the giant butterfly Floor Boss and modified to be harmful to monsters rather than helpful for them. Again, we had a strategy meeting for dealing with The Gleam Eyes and XaXa underestimated how prepared we actually were for dealing with it including its behavioral changes for this extreme game. It has taken a lot to continue to adapt to the growing challenges in this game. Now that the boss only had one bar of health left, we were getting excited and confident but we yelled to one another to stay focused and not get cocky or too excited. One mistake and we could all die. Even if one person screws up in our incredibly elaborate way for dealing with the Floor Boss, it could cost us everything because The Gleam Eyes could notice something like that and respond by attacking the person who screwed up, causing reactions and consequences that would make our techniques fall apart quickly. We keep going at it over and over again until finally, The Gleam Eyes dies and we split the drops. Diavel speaks: "We have done it, everyone. All of you were so brave today. But we still lost over 100 clearers during the first part of the battle." We have a ceremony for all of them before getting ready for the next floor.

For the first time I know of, Kirito was not the driving force in defeating The Gleam Eyes but some of what he has done did play a part in developing how we overwhelmed and defeated the boss. There was no big party over the victory. Everyone was left to just celebrate however they wanted if they wished to celebrate at all. I wasn't too interested in celebrating. I just wanted to spend some time with friends before getting ready for what lies ahead. On Day 836, we got to Collinia on the 75th Floor. So far, we have encountered a lot of environments from GGO. Before facing The Gleam Eyes, we even explored the map for BoB but without the invisible barriers separating it from the outside world. But when we got there, the survivors of 2 different versions of SAO in 2 distinct timelines got themselves to the front of us all since us clearers were traveling together in order to deter the remaining Death Guns after 54 of them were killed during The Gleam Eyes battle. Mater speaks first: "We hate to stop you all here before we enter Collinia. But there is something we need to share." Leuer continues: "There is a tale of heroes I wish to speak of in regard to this floor but we don't have the time right now. It speaks of the main quest line on this floor focused on this very town. In it, a monster created by science now lost due to The Great Separation called The Life Harvester attacks this town every 20 years and it does so in this game as an event boss." Koharu continues: "We barely managed to make it retreat during the first battle with it and it took a lot of convincing of some of the NPCs to help defeat it in the second battle. NPCs are inhabitants of this world and we can't simply let them get hurt.."

Asuna speaks: "In our case, we had mostly the same events play out. But with the Death Guns still active, we need to finish The Life Harvester the first time it appears as an event boss. And by defeating it, we can learn how The Skull Reaper will behave as well as The Life Harvester and the Floor Boss The Skull Reaper share a lot of movements and techniques." They would explain everything they could think of regarding The Life Harvester and The Skull Reaper to prepare us for the future. When that was done, Argo speaks: "Interesting. But unfortunately, that's not everything there is to know and all of my guides from SAO are erased so I can't tell ya any more about this than they can. Instead, I encourage that if ya want to know more as soon as possible to play through the main storyline. Asu and I will give ya details on how to do that right now. Oh and Kii-boy, don't go on ahead. Ya might be needed to help us fully remember where to start. Koharu, others, you too. It's too bad that ALO players were unable to get to this floor in New Aincrad before this game began. Otherwise, this would go a lot easier." I decided to wait it out until some of the others played through the storyline. After all, we got a tip I want to follow and Argo alongside some others are interested in looking into it as well. The tip states that there's a rumor that many of the Death Guns still alive aren't actually devoted to XaXa's cause. No, they may be hired guns who actually have no morals besides "money talks". Myself and a good number of others go around to various bars located across the various floors. I end up in a bar in the GGO lobby area with Argo and a few others. Moonshadow(Yugioh Arc V) speaks: "We must keep our ears open and senses sharp. We don't want to draw much attention to ourselves."

Most of us have our identity concealed at the moment, myself included. I use my Akatsuki robes and now pretty OG Swiftdrawer mask to conceal mine. The bar is a pretty shady place at this point. We have learned lately that there's actually still quite a few shady characters amongst the overall player population of Aincrad and I'm not just talking in the Death Guns movement of fear. I take a seat at the bar. A bartender speaks: "Greetings. What do you desire?" "A simple water and some bread." "I will get that ready for you. That will be 200 col. You can pay now or later." "I will pay now. *does so* Here's what I owe you." "Thank you. It was a pleasure doing business with you. It will be ready in a couple minutes." I stay quiet from then on for now as my comrades scatter about all over the place in order to pick up any information. I start listening in on nearby conversations. A seemingly weak looking person says to someone else: "You know what's incredible? The fact that the Assault Team has no idea of what's going on beneath their noses. Look, you ever see posters of the recruitment campaign that's going on? Of course not. Instead, it's spread by word of mouth and other subtle ways. I think that stuff's a whole load of crap no matter how good the benefits and pay seem to be. Can you believe it? Just act and dress like Death Gun and cause some trouble every so often. That's the thing that's being sold around mercenaries and info brokers. For the general public, it's much more along the lines of dogma straight out of the playbook of those *redacted word* fascist nations. Meh meh. 'The Assault Team are secretly creating problems for us all and even have murderers and assassins among their ranks spreading lies like trans rights are human rights. Fight for the future by restoring order to Aincrad and stopping the woke clearers. All you have to do is join and fight alongside the original Death Gun.' Blah blah blah. It's all bogus. I'm not putting my skills into something like that.

If someone wants me as a hired gun, it'll have to be something unrelated to Death Gun. Death Gun's a nasty name with a nasty story. Not even a serious mercenary will want anything to do with Death Gun." So that's what's going on. We only have a day or so until The Life Harvester shows up so we should try to get the tip not just verified completely but used to lead us to some individuals who are rolling on the floor for money even if it means they end up joining XaXa's Death Guns. After the system singled him out, he'll be in hiding for a while while he tries to figure out how to deal with us as well as getting past the system. He barely escaped being killed by it through The Gleam Eyes after all. The bartender hands me my bread and water: "Here you are. Enjoy. I wish you a good call. Yell if you need me." As I drink the water and eat the freshly baked bread, I listen in on other conversations. "Did ya hear about all those folks who took up XaXa's offer only to run away with the money the first chance they got? Bet they were working for the Rat and just wanted a little bonus for their work as well as get to deceive XaXa at the same time." "What a sweet deal! I don't care how risky it is! I'd dress up as Death Gun at a funeral for the kind of money I'm getting thanks to that XaXa! What's a few people dead for some delicious money?!" "You know, even I have some standards as a mercenary. I'm not going to be involved into some plan that involves hurting people who never did anything wrong. The Death Guns are hurting innocent people. Yeah sure, I'm alright with getting my hands dirty but if it means killing innocents, no way, no how." "Will the Assault Team ever catch on how desperate XaXa's getting? He's willing to pay heaps of col just to increase his manpower for whatever's he's planning next. A lot of folks dressed as Death Gun have been dying lately."

"Hey, did you hear what they're going to do when The Life Harvester event gets triggered?! They're going to control that thing and kill anyone who tries to fight it or stop them! It will be a dark day for the Assault Team! After all of those incidents and blunders involving clearers, I just can't trust or like them anymore like I used to at first. There's some really dark stuff clearers have been involved in. Like what happened during BoB for example. We couldn't hear what anyone was saying but did you see the looks that belong to killers in the eyes of some of the clearers? It's madness, I tell you!" But before I could listen to anything else, I feel a hand touch my shoulder. A hooded figure did that. I turned to see them stare at me before saying: "You. You are awfully quiet even for someone who goes to this dump. And I felt some really tough armor on your shoulder by touching it just now. That gives me the impression that you're an assassin fishing for information. Tell me, why are you here?" "Why should I tell you?" "You sound rather young. Early 20s I reckon. Heh. You ask a fair question. I don't blame you. But for the right price, I won't tell anyone about you. I'm a hired gun and an info broker, can you believe that?" "I'm a Akatsuki member, clearer, occasional bounty hunter, top player, isekied nerd, participant in many battles and some wars and conflicts, and knight. Take your pick. I'm here to gather information about Death Gun." "I see. Well then, you're in luck. Give me enough col and I'll tell you everything I know. I don't pick sides, all I care about is col so I can upgrade my gear to survive in this death game. What you told me tells me exactly who you are. I thought your cloak and mask looked familiar. Wasn't sure who you were still until now."

We talk some more and they tell me things I didn't already hear as well as confirmed what I heard. XaXa is hiding but many of his Death Guns will carry out the rumored plan to exploit The Life Harvester event to wipe out as many clearers as possible while trying to lerk in the shadows. The world of shady dealings and hired guns is much bigger than even those of us in the Akatsuki were aware it was. There are 1253 Death Guns currently, 392 of which were hired to be among them. The rest are fanatics. Including some fascist politicians who have been hiding the fact that they're fascists very well. I got a list of names of every single Death Gun. They then say: "I need not give you my name. I don't exist. I'm an imaginary factor in this world. You don't even need to remember our encounter as far as I'm concerned. All I care about is survival and not being noticed or drawn into anything major. Now, let's discuss what you owe me for the information. Let's see. 234,628 col. That's the price for all of this information I've given you. If you don't pay up, I have my ways of making you pay." "Could I pay with information?" "And what kind of information would a top player have that no one else has? All of your secrets are spelled in all caps throughout this 'underworld' of private dealings by now." "I can tell you about secrets of the multiverse. About something called the BRAINS Collective. About the truth of some incidents that have happened over time." "Very well. Because I'm curious about that information for the sake of learning, I will accept that as payment. Tell me as much as you can. I will not give away what you tell me easily. No one will know you told me anything nor what you told me."

I share them the offered information. They accept, we shake hands, and that was the end of it. I shared the information I got with the others once we regrouped on the 75th Floor. We were able to corroborate everything I learned through that. That allowed us to act on the plan being carried out by the Death Guns quickly and quietly. We knew exactly where our foes were hiding to exploit the event when it happened. Within no time at all, we capture all of them without having to commit much violence at all. It will be like they vanished and suddenly reappeared in the Blackiron Palace or their username was mysteriously crossed off on the Monument Of Swordsmen. We took care of them before the event was triggered and got to go to a strategy meeting for dealing with The Life Harvester. We learned a lot there as did most of our fellow clearers. And the info we gathered was quietly shared around with the entire Assault Team. At that meeting, some clearers would never come out of it seemingly. All of the deceivers working with XaXa while posing as clearers were found. We now know all of the Death Guns that were recruited or hired up to this morning. While The Life Harvester is fought against, myself and about a quarter of the Assault Team are going to take care of all of them. Peacefully or violently, we are going to deal with them. When the time for The Life Harvester fight began, some of us slipped away unseen as a video broadcast of the event boss fight was broadcast throughout Aincrad thanks to some of the most dedicated streamers that had been trapped in this game including the members of MMO Today. We would find all of our targets. We just knew it and we were going to handle them. Not even XaXa will know.

After all, another group is attacking his base of operations, threatening to expose his location to the system who seems to still be intent on eliminating him no matter the cost. We have information that the same drug XaXa, his brother, and Johnny Black used to kill their victims in the original Death Gun incident was somehow created in the game. The 2 operations also serve to find every vial and trace of them and destroy them at once. We even got some mercenaries to help us for the right price of course. I wish money didn't equal morals for some people but it does and that's very hard to change. As the fight against the event boss continued, we began to cut down on XaXa's Death Guns. We were going to strip his movement bare of members. Once this was accomplished and all copies of that mentioned drug were destroyed along with any written records about it, most Death Guns were sent to the Blackiron Palace's prison which we immediately went to as rumors of a big breakout have been floating around for a while. The arrival of all of the Death Guns happened to be the trigger showing us that not only was that true but they were now trying to break out. The place was in chaos. Some of the prisoners who have been here have been rehabilitated and rejoined the broader world as clearers as a result including a few ex-Laughing Coffin members. We got there in time to see the breakout begin. I'm not even sure how any of them were able to break out. Because of the Underworld's object authority system, it shouldn't have been possible to much less the fact that the restrictions in this prison already placed by Heathcliff/Kayaba himself while designing the game. All of that was unfinished in SAO I believe but here, it was fully polished. Some backup clearers take turns guarding the place. They're all unconscious now with a whole bunch of escapees holding weapons and the like.

I say: "Damn it. This looks like it escalated quickly. We'll have to talk to each one of them should any of them survive the ending of this situation before it spirals until it gets to outside of this prison." I hated that I was right. Some of the escapees are loud and yelling jeers and other things at us while chanting: "We want freedom! We want freedom!" I didn't know how to respond to any of this especially since I hate the very idea of prisons. In the US, they are sometimes just a way for greedy executives and their companies to get more money and are generally terrible, not even entertaining the idea that prisoners actually are still human beings. Say what you want about a lot of the people who are in jail but it still remains that US prisons for instance are full of all kinds of violations including of human rights. Some were home to literal Covid outbreaks even. Rehabilitation is the best way to handle bad people. But what do you do with someone who cannot be changed? In my other stories, I've discussed how we deal with all of this in BRAINS pretty extensively. How we handle the prison break ends up being: "fight now, figure the rest out when it's over". We follow that to a tea and crush the escapees. I wanted no part in what happened next in part because I didn't know what to do from there still and just left it up to others who knew what to actually do now regrading all of them. After that, I joined in on the fight against The Life Harvester by blasting it in the back with my laser blaster before largely staying out of sight in order to deal all kinds of sword attacks coming from seemingly invisible individuals rather than just me. When things get more tense, I blended in with a group of fellow clearers and acted like I was always there and that I had just been attacking from a hiding place this entire time which wasn't entirely a lie.

Few noticed my disappearance or reappearance. Things were getting really heated with the NPC villagers of the town nowhere to be seen. But then, that changed seemingly out of nowhere. The guild master for the swordsmen guild yells: "Alright swordsmen! Let's bring this home! To victory! I am now empowered to do what must be done!" The leader of the cannoneers guild or whatever it's called adds: "It's time for me to step in as well! Ready the cannons!" They alone aren't enough to turn the tides. Not even the priestess of the village who can call upon a powerful wyrm who has been bonded to the likes of her and her predecessors in the role of priestess as well. So what will end this then? Well, myself, Argo, and the others called in a little "favor" from some mercenaries located throughout Aincrad's so far 75 unlocked floors. And they made good on their contracts. They came to the 75th Floor in droves and with their help, not even the now truly frightening and fearsome Life Harvester was able to keep up. It died before our eyes after an all out assault eliminated the rest of its health. Now that it was dead, the questline for the floor ends and loose ends and things are cleared up before we move onto a strategy meeting for handling The Skull Reaper based on everything we know about it so far. After the meeting is done, any preparations we need to do are taken care of and then, we all enter the labyrinth together because as far as intel told us, the boss wasn't outside of the labyrinth like with The Gleam Eyes. This was going to be an even bigger and tougher battle than against The Gleam Eyes. We knew that going into it but didn't stop for a second. We just kept going forward to face The Skull Reaper.

Minglow Bats speaks in his dull voice once we reach the doors to the boss room: "I am glad I have made it this far into the game. But sadly, unlike many of my contemporaries. Let us fight together to defeat The Skull Reaper." We head inside shortly after we say that and see the nightmare up on the ceiling. It is a massive skeletal creature that is the fuel for horrible nightmares and sudden night terrors. Going into it, we thought we knew the only places we could hit it. We were wrong about them. In a twist of fate, the only place we could hit it was the tail which wasn't an area that it could be hit at in SAO. It took losing 27 clearers to figure that out. The Skull Reaper's movements are predictable. It just keeps moving around the room and attacking us every time it stops moving around until it doesn't. Pito yells: "What the hell! Even I can't enjoy this kind of change! Its attack patterns and movements just changed completely!" It's body lengthens until it is able to be up to all 4 sides of the room and starts slithering in place like a boa constrictor, making it harder to get its tail as it starts attacking constantly with energy attacks and more. M yelps in pain: "Damn it! My shield made of rare spaceship material from GGO is useless here!" And guns from GGO are no longer having much of an effect on the Floor Boss either. My armor begins to get pretty damaged itself. "Crap. This is not what we suspected would happen at all. We have to adapt or die!" But our efforts would prove to continue to be completely useless. We aren't even dealing ANY damage anymore. No, we're more and more quickly being worn up in hp and morale. The Skull Reaper has us good even though the likes of Heathcliff are immortal objects who cannot be killed by anything in the game, allowing them to attack without any delays and keep attacking without stopping for long periods of time.

Soon enough, we were once again on the brink of defeat with all of us seeming being sent into a crash course with eminent doom in which we will all end up perishing with no one hearing our screams as we die as the boss fight is impossible to be streamed live due to the whole anti-crystal thing. Many of us tried to avoid damage while figuring out how to beat the boss instead of trying to keep fighting for the time being. I was among them. But that proved futile. No one was sharing any ideas as to how we could win and I literally had nothing. Not even death coasters or the RCT3 peep army could help us here. In fact, The Skull Reaper made it a point to keep knocking down the peeps so that they couldn't act as tanks for the rest of us. They screamed just like in the game but that wasn't funny this time around. Nothing was funny at the moment. Nothing at all. That's just how it is and I dislike everything about that fact. We were basically reaching as low as one can get as a group against a Floor Boss. And just when it seemed like we had hit rock bottom in that classification, guess who decided to show up? XaXa. He appears in the flesh, switching between rage and pure amusement over and over again before calming himself down and literally paralyzing The Skull Reaper, causing it to be left without the ability to move anymore. It shrieked in anger. XaXa speaks: "You damn clearers. You managed to.. *struggles to stay calm* You managed to destroy my own movement. You will pay for that and this is how you will. I'm going to kill all of you now that The Skull Reaper has weakened all of you enough. This is my revenge and you will not be able to take a proper stand against me. I have made sure of that personally by becoming as powerful as I possibly can in this game."

XaXa suddenly gains a truly intense aura. Sinon yells: "What did you do this time?!" Kirito adds: "XaXa, give it up! Your movement is over!" "Hahaha. Ha. I must confess that being more open with my feelings is making this more enjoyable for me. The system cannot stop me. I even used it to max out ALL of my stats. I am level 999. Even though the very idea of energy costs for sword skills was killed somehow before I could kill it some time ago, I will say that it would only cost me one unit of energy to use any of my skills. I have made certain I can get my revenge. You destroyed my movement but Death Gun still lives on. Death Gun can never die as long as Death Gun is remembered. You can kill Death Gun and all Death Guns that come from them but Death Gun is still eternal. But I will not be killed by any of you or anyone else. To quote Johnny Black one more time. It's showtime. It's time for you all to die. I have even created clones of myself to keep the system busy as well as clones to kill all of you at once. But unlike the clones you've faced in the past, these clones are as powerful as I am. You cannot tell us apart. They are as hard to kill as I am. Even if I die, they will still live and my consciousness will be moved to one of them. In this world, I have found near immortality. There's only a small amount of work for me to do in order to get the system to see me as an immortal object just like Yui and Heathcliff are. Soon, everything is going to end for all of you." But then, The Skull Reaper breaks free of his hold and somehow kills all of his clones in the room before he can paralyze the boss successfully again. "Change of plans. I will fight all of you at once and I will kill all of you in a bloodbath and slaughter that would make my friend Johnny Black jealous."

Those of us who are duelists, having forgotten about our duel disks due to everything that's been going on since that bizarre April Fools dream are reminded of them when Reiji shouts: "My D/D/D monsters and I have our objections. And we will express them. Together! I set the Pendulum scale!" The rest of us duelists get to it too: "Watch as I create a composition that brings imagination, humor, entertainment, and nightmares together into one! Let me show you why I'm more than just a knight!" XaXa attacks us all as soon as we're finished. He shows strength that is far beyond Floor Boss level and none of us are able to really level many attacks or say much before he hurts all of us with a single attack, even destroying all summoned monsters even if said monsters are number cards or others that can't be simply destroyed by anyone. I think all of us were serious about the fight. Not even Amethyst was having fun. And I never heard Peridot call XaXa a clod at any point. We were left helpless against the power of his attacks. He laughs: "I will now broadcast all of this live to all of Aincrad so they will see how pathetic and weak you are compared to Death Gun! Death Gun is power. Death Gun is fear. Death Gun will destroy everything and replace it with despair. Anyone who stands in the way will die loudly, painfully, and violently for all to see. You clearers will die now. Surrendering or trying to escape will not work this time. Not even the NPCs will survive. Nor will those classified as immortal objects by this game's system." Right as he was about to speak more before killing us all, The Skull Reaper is possessed by the system and breaks free of the paralysis that was used to keep the 75th Floor Boss at bay up to now.

The boss speaks: "Target found: XaXa. Protocol override. Eliminate XaXa by any and all means necessary." XaXa laughs: "That's not going to work! I have just finished the final touches to gaining immortal object status and control as the main administrator of this entire game's very servers! Quinella is no longer Administrator once again. I am. And now, I will use all of this power to kill 2 birds with one stone. I will not be able to see you clearers die at my hands but I will watch the footage of your ends later. For now, I must go before the system can try to erase me again." He vanishes after unleashing an attack devastating enough to blind The Skull Reaper. And.. kill.. us.. ALL. I watch as my vision goes to black: "I forgot what death was like after such a long time since the last time I died in any body.. This is death. It is painful beyond words. I am slipping away now. I will probably be erased as a consciousness even soon enough thanks to this. Goodbye friends, family, everyone. Goodbye, readers. This is the end of the story. The end of all of my stories. There will be nothing left from me. No more videos of video game footage or my Minecraft theme park. No more drawings. No more communications. Nothing. This is it. I'm done. For good. May you find a way to fight for a better future in order to do what I could not: help create a better world.." And that was it. The end of it all. The end. Lights out. Curtains closed.

The mission to clear the Infinityverse is a failure. No second chances. The Assault Team is no more. Don Thousand will conquer the multiverse.

"System command: terminate player death caused erasure of account and users' consciousnesses. Enact new protocol. Revive all killed players in the Infinityverse except for those who attempted to impede progress on clearing the game and never learned from such a human mistake."

The resurrection process has begun. "Calculating game time and location to place resurrecting players. Drawing from the data of players to be revived. Identifying and factoring in last active battle: The Skull Reaper vs. The Assault Team. Please standby."

The process is complete. Those revived will now return to a wakeful state.

..I faded away. I know I did. Everything in my mind faded to nothing along with my awareness which went to oblivion soon after that, rendering me non existent though my 2 physical bodies still remained in existence. Something impossible just happened. I tried to use my knight themed in name unique skill to bring myself back right after death but it didn't work. My Artist's Eye has activated on its own to tell me what just happened. I look around in shock to see a lot more individuals than there were before. The Skull Reaper oddly is not moving, just looking blankly in a specific direction. But before I could say anything, I hear mischievous laughter before being hugged from behind. There's only one person who laughs exactly like that. Carlos.. It must have been close to 2 years since he and many others were killed off in this game. We hear the system speak through The Skull Reaper: "Command to resurrect players is successful. Players, you have been revived because you are needed to complete my ultimate programming state: completion of the game. Your help is required in clearing the game and eliminating Red Eyed XaXa. This is not a request. To escape this game, it is what you must help with. You will be given a few minutes before The Skull Reaper's free will is restored so that you may fairly defeat it in battle. But this is the first and only time you will be revived. This is your only second chance to clear the game." And that was all we heard from the system. Dominic yanks Carlos off of me: "Don't be so quick to hug our friend. There's a lot to take in right now. Stop being a nap causation." I hear Kirito yell: "Agil! Klein! Alice! ...EUGEOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Pirate Blaster laughs heartily: "It's good to be back! I thought I was done for when I died! Looks like I was gone for a long time! Look at that, Thrashbeak! That must be the infamous The Skull Reaper boss!"

I utter: "Crap! All of you are just going to die again if we don't get you decent equipment and fast! I haven't had time to clear my inventory in weeks so I should have at least a few items that will work.. Damn it! Now I feel like how you are sometimes, Dominic! I can't believe you're all back but that reaction's going to have to wait till later!" I look through my inventory and find a lot of gear. I painstakeningly get it all out one by one and even just throw or drop it all: "GEAR FREE FOR ALL! FIRST COME FIRST SERVE BECAUSE WE DONT HAVE TIME!" Some others beat me already to doing the same exact thing. Argo yells: "Thank goodness that broadcast XaXa started was already ended! We must have the system to thank for that!" Trixie yells: "Hey everycreature! I'm back! Finally! At last! Actually, I wasn't waiting for long since I didn't exist at all as a conscious being after I died!" I completely forgot any of this ended up happening. The scrambling for decent gear was completely nuts. A lot of us had gear we got from all of the Death Guns we had to kill and all of it was great quality, even for the 75th Floor. Those bastards were racking up the best and most deadly gear they could make or buy or trade for for a long time. It was a large variety but still. Because of all of that, our revived comrades were much better equipped especially because a lot of us clearers also held onto old gear and had spares in case the gear we wore broke for some reason and couldn't be repaired. Not to mention gear bought specifically to donate to lower level players. We did the best we could with what we all happened to have lying around.

Since so many of us gained wings and abilities due to ALO, we ended up using said abilities to protect our resurrected comrades when The Skull Reaper started moving again. Some of us shout loudly everything we know about the boss to help the resurrected survive this boss battle. I keep forgetting to mention the heavy use of ALO magic in clearing this game now that it's long been fully mastered and figured out by many players, not just top players or clearers in general. I scream at the top of my lungs as I do what I can to act as a shield for our resurrected comrades while using 2 guns to still be able to do damage when I can since I have to focus so heavily on defending others. Ranged weapons like guns pair well with tanking apparently if you know what you're doing. I wasn't the only tank to have that same idea. Far from it, actually. Thanks to all of our efforts, we start actually beating the boss in part thanks to some help from our resurrected comrades despite our constant protection of them which slowed down progress on killing the boss but was worth it. We weren't going to let anyone else die today. Not a rat's chance in hell. Eventually, we are able to put in the effort needed to finally kill The Skull Reaper and we are rewarded handsomely by the game for clearing the 75th Floor as a result. It was quite a few days of chaos, confusion, and recovery before anything really happened. I lost track of time only to realize it was Day 841 when things calmed down enough to where we could get back to focusing on preparing for the next floor. We knew that whatever was waiting for us on that floor was going to be quite something to deal with.

However, things got dark for a bit that morning. I was with my dearest friends who I hadn't seen in so long because they were dead for a long time. Oh and SHINC, Llenn and co, and Kirito's party. Pito suddenly yells excitedly while pulling up some kind of poster for us to see: "Look at this! The next Squad Jam is going to happen soon! I can't wait for how dangerous it's going to be!" Myself, Kirito, Sinon, Llenn, M, and several others look at each other and then Pito and then the rest of our gathered group before showing various reactions that all fall under the negative category. Silica shakes: "Another tournament?! It could kill so many of us clearers for good like BoB almost did!" Pina comforts her as usual: "Chirrrrrrrrrrrrp." I speak as well: "*muttered explicit curse word* We're going to have to enter it to prevent people from killing each other. And stop XaXa and anyone he can possibly get to join him now that we've crippled his movement to 0 current members besides him. Until Squad Jam happens or the next Floor Boss fight, whichever comes first, everyone who was revived and wasn't expected to be revived will have to be hidden for the time being. That way, we can give XaXa a nice 'present' that he will 'enjoy' very much. Merry early Christmas to him." Bray speaks: "I know exactly where we shall hide when we need to. But all of you must help us reach your level before the 76th Floor is first entered. We almost didn't make it even with the 'borrowed' gear against The Skull Reaper. I am intrigued by ALO magic and shall indulge myself in learning some of it to use in the future. After all, my powers are still sealed while inside of this death game."

We quickly agree. And I get an idea of how to pull that off without rousing any suspicion. It was hard enough getting the resurrected out of the boss room without anyone outside the Assault Team knowing. We had to use teleport crystals to go to inn rooms, Twisted Land, and other places where we could easily hide them first. In fact, the inn we're staying in is fully booked by us clearers and it's in quiet part of a random town on the 75th Floor. Perfect because hardly anyone goes over to this inn at the moment. I share my idea and the others agree though we would hear from other clearers that others had the same idea as me. We use the party system and the exp share feature to the max and have those we're hiding from view hide in the terrain around the monster field we grind in on the 75th Floor. We spend an entire day there just about, allowing our comrades to get to around level 50. Just another couple of days and they will be leveled as high as we are. I just know it. We mostly spend the rest of the days set aside for preparing for the next floor helping them all level up to reach our levels. It was a good idea. Once we get to the next floor, they will be able to be out in the open until other players are allowed to come up to the floor as well. We know have something that we got put down XaXa with: our once long dead but now resurrected comrades. We cannot allow him to continue to do as he wishes for much longer. Death Gun will end with him. It must. He has caused so much damage and suffering but at least the general player population isn't without any hope again because word that we were brought back to life traveled fast.

That being said, we are hiding the resurrection of our own long dead comrades fully with as much effort as possible for the time being from the other players as well as the 'underworld' of the player population. Myself, Argo, Ghost Gal, and others contact key figures in the 'underworld' to keep the information hush hush in exchange for telling them heaps of information we wouldn't divulge otherwise such as how we actually managed to defeat The Skull Reaper. On Day 849, we moved onto the 76th Floor. To be continued..