Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds
Chapter 29: Despair and Hope
Date: Infinityverse Days 940-955
There is nothing in terms of locations I can recall of significance from Floors 82-84.
POH speaks: "Fools! It's good to see all of you again! Subtilizer and I have come to an understanding because it is much more fun to kill you all alongside him! We have so many of the same goals that I was too blind with anger towards him last time!" Asuna snaps: "Stop with that demeanor of yours already!" "HAHAHAHAAHA! Lightning Flash! You never change, do you?! The Arcana System can no longer stop us! After all, our abilities go far beyond their original limits. When it took my powers away, it didn't realize that it didn't actually do that very much at all! It's so amusing that it thought that it had us brought down for good, too weak to carry on with our plans. But it didn't account for the fact that we have been preparing to kill all of you for over 2 years, even before this game began! Ever since we were revived by Don Thousand, in fact! What's more is that we were expecting our previous plans to fail! That's right, I sure had all of you fooled! I made all of you believe that I was horrified when my army turned on me! No, I expected that to happen! You clearers are far too predictable. We have learned from every single important thing you have done including defeating the likes of Herobrine, Windy, and Lightning! Not to mention Death Gun! Oh! XaXa was so close to getting you but failed in the end anyway! It's hilarious that I had you fooled so well on the last floor!" Steven yells: "Are you going to tell us what you want now or not?! We're ready for you this time!" Peridot adds: "Yeah, that's right! YOU CLOD!" "Hahahahahaha! What a childish insult! We aren't going to wait any longer but if our next moves fail, that won't stop us! You could say I hope that our plans here fail! After all, it would be so much fun to kill all of you on the 85th Floor, it's the perfect floor to have the ultimate showdown between you and us!"
Subtilizer adds: "I do not care when I finally get Alice's soul. In fact, the longer I wait, the more delicious it will be. We have taken good care of the Arcana System. It won't interfere with us this time. Not as long as some of our newest pawns keep it busy. I will devour as many delicious souls as I possibly can. And when Alice's soulless existence is in the hands of the United States, it will become an unstoppable force in our world that no one can stand up to. Having a real fluctlight even one left without much of a soul will allow drone warefare to be conducted like never before. I only care about devouring souls but I couldn't pass up the money for agreeing to storm the Ocean Turtle along with my team. It was too perfect. In addition, if the US gets its hands on Alice, the destruction caused will make me so very proud to be an American." Eugeo yells: "You won't get Alice this time! We won't let you!" POH laughs: "Your words might change if you knew what we had planned for you this time! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who said destroying the zombified avatars of Laughing Coffin members was the end of Laughing Coffin? No, as long as anyone willing to commit murder in a VRMMO exists, Laughing Coffin exists. In fact, if anyone wishes to commit mass murder, Laughing Coffin lives on. Laughing Coffin exists to kill for fun and revenge and sabotage. Even if none of you die today, we will still eventually kill all of you in the end! It will be so satisfying to watch all of you die in the end! I just can't wait to witness it for myself!" Kirito yells: "You won't succeed, POH, Subtilizer!" "That's where you're wrong! Your eventually deaths in this game and this time, permanently for all of you have been destined since the very moment this game began! You might even overcome and kill us in the end but as long as you remain trapped inside this game! Kirito, I dare you to kill me again! I dare you to look so serious, filled with so much anger as you cut me down! I dare you to turn me into a tree again!
Even if you make me suffer greatly in your struggle against me, I will enjoy every moment of it even as I scream in agony because violence is so entertaining! I just can't wait for what happens in the future! I almost hope you survive to fight us on the 85th Floor and then end up killing us off there for good! But at the same time, I want to keep living so I can keep killing fools like you! But if you do manage to kill me, here's a message for you in advance! See you in hell! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Subtilizer adds: "The more you struggle, the more delicious souls I will get to feast on. All of you are so strong that your souls must all taste delicious.." Andromeda growls upon hearing those words. I pet the wolf puppy: "Easy there, Andromeda. We have to be ready for whatever comes next. For all we know, they could start off by bringing the Floor Bosses of this, the 83rd, and 84th Floors straight to us to deal with right now.." POH laughs: "All of you look so serious! And some of you have that look in your eyes that I just love so much! The look of a killer. A look of so much focused hatred that you'll do anything to kill me! But I have a surprise for you that's even more amusing!" That's when another POH along with the other core Laughing Coffin members appear. POH continues: "Would you look at that! I wonder where THEY all came from!" Mater shouts: "Those are the LafCof members from our Aincrad!" "Bingo! You're so smart! This only gets more amusing! What do you suppose will happen now?" Morte smirks: "It's time to get our revenge!" "Not so fast! We're not done setting up this game! Isn't that right, Subtilizer?" "Yes. Just these people alone won't last longer than 2 hours against all of you. We're going to do much better than that. So much better than that.
But should all of our plans for today fail, we will still have a few things to use against you all on the 85th Floor. You shouldn't be concerned about that because there are other parts to our plans for this floor and we are going to show them to you now so that you can experience true fear and terror like never before in this game. Up to now, we have been testing you and learning more and more about each and every one of you to figure out the best ways to make all of you suffer and achieve our goals at the same time. Clearers, you will not stand in our way for much longer. Once Alice belongs to the US, all of you and the others who live in this world will already be dead and with that done, we will "repopulate" this game and start a cycle of endless deception and slaughter that will continue for all time. After all, we were not revived in any physical world. We were revived in a digital world. We can live for eternity without the limitations of a physical body. Oh. I can't wait to devour more souls. And as monsters continue to spawn as well, I will keep devouring more souls. Eventually, we will become powerful enough to not only make quick work of the Pontifex of the Axium Church but we will also overthrow the Cardinal and Arcana Systems and put them under our control. We will experience eternal pleasure from luring in those foolish enough to log into this game. We will even make it impossible for them to leave the 1st Floor of this game, making it impossible for them to stand up to us. We will become gods of the digital world! And through the connections that Duel Links and Link VRAINS have, we will bring many digital networks under our control as well."
Sinon shouts: "We won't let you succeed!" POH laughs: "You will fail. After all, don't you think it's a little strange how prepared we are for even future failure? What if I told you that we haven't just been watching all of you and planning for years.. We gained access to the data of dead players. That includes of the many foes you have killed in the past including Bowling and Death Gun. We have watched memories and more. We have made certain that we will kill all of you eventually no matter what you try to do to us to stop us from killing any of you. It's already over for all of you. We know exactly how we might defeat you according to a thousand million scenarios. Did you know that Lightning ran countless simulations of what you would do in this game against him and Windy? The simulation that was identical to what actually happened was one Lightning studied greatly. That was until we took the simulation data from him. And then, we made him forget about everything he learned from the simulations. That means that it wasn't any of you who truly defeated him in the end. It was only because of us that you were able to. But wait! That's not all!" Many of us are shaking in horror at all of this including me. Playmaker gets serious with a look of pure rage in his eyes: "What else have you done behind the scenes?!" "Do you remember when one of your enemies was killed by the final boss of the game? We were behind that too through a subtle suggestion made sometime before that happened. I always knew that the final boss would still register the likes of us as enemies and thus kill us as if we were. And what about Oberon? What did we do to mess him up? Oh, I remember now. We made his mental state even more unstable than it already was from being locked up in jail for years and seeking revenge against you, Kirito.
That quietly helped cause a chain of events that made his Alf guards fail miserably. Now for PAMA.. Originally, he was reprogrammed to be completely like he used to be but as you know, he had a change of heart once again. That didn't just happen just because PAMA is a sentient AI. No. The reprogramming caused by Don Thousand was modified afterwards. We inserted some code that increased the chances of him having that change of heart by altering some of his or its thinking processing. And then there's the Admin.. We did pretty much the same kind of thing but in the form of subliminal messaging only he could see. The Wither Storm was defeated with the help of the Integrity Knights. But was it that simple? No. Subtilizer inserted something into it to give it a weakness no one ever noticed. A weakness no one could have ever noticed. The weakness helped make it possible to kill the monster created with a command block. Windy and Lighting? Well, that one was fun. All we did was delete some of their code when you were confronting them in a showdown while no one was looking. It was code that could easily be missed. Or so you would think. But that code was actually incredibly important and vital. It affected their powers and abilities. Deleting them weakened them just enough for you to beat the odds and defeat them at last. I think I've made my point clear. Actually.. Theres something more you should know! Without us, none of you would have ever defeated a single Floor Boss." Most of us gasp. Agil says: "I don't buy what you're selling. You could just by lying to psychologically manipulate us like you did to all those players on the last floor."
"Clever observation. I never did show you proof. But I will show you it all now. Take notice of how each of us happened to appear the very moment the tide of battle turned in your favor during all of the Floor Boss battles. Our involvement was unnoticed and seemingly pointless but trust me, it wasn't pointless. It was everything and is far beyond the understanding of any of you, even if you're well socialized AI programs." We watch the footage closely but many of us still don't believe him. He laughs at seeing our expressions: "Do you still not believe me? You think this footage was doctored, don't you?! Well, let's see what you think when we zoom into one of the videos like so.. And there you go!" I startle: "It can't be! The pixels showing those two in this video don't look out of place at all. Do you have any idea how much work it is to fake a video by altering a video that already exists? I've never done that but I have manipulated images before. There's no indication of any manipulation mistakes such as accidentally left or erased pixels caused by a copy, paste, and crop job.. Either this is a real video or it is a perfectly well doctored video. You can even see the expressions we were making when the video was recorded. This must be of the fight against the last boss we fought besides the 81st.. But I still have my doubts because you're untrustworthy, cunning, and despicable, POH." "Hahahahaha! So you still don't trust the video, do you?! Well, let's see how well you do against this floor's boss without any intervention from either of us! This will prove to you that I'm not lying to you for once! Prepare yourselves!" The boss appears. Several hours pass. POH laughs so hard for so long that I saw him drink something after he suddenly stopped laughing.
Subtilizer and the others are just watching closely as the battle goes on and on. But every single time we start to turn the tide, we fail to actually do so. Instead, we are in for a world of pain every single time we try to do so. But it only got worse from there. Even despite getting the entire Assault Team together to fight the 82nd Floor Boss, we are unable to do so. And we just keep getting more and more hurt and exhausted. We have given the fight almost all that we could but it still isn't nearly enough. The likes of Kirito have even powered up to new heights but still, not enough. I scream more and more as my injuries get worse and worse despite drinking healing potions whenever I possibly could while fighting just to stay alive. Eventually, I'm forced out of commission and have no choice but to watch the battle just keep playing out while another pool of my own blood forms around me. That has happened more times than I could possibly count by now. I don't give up hope but still, the whole situation is horrifying. POH and Subtilizer intervene in the battle after many of us have been left unable to fight and suddenly, the tide of battle begins to change in our favor. When it turns back, they intervene again only to not intervene after the next time it shifts away and then shifts back, leading to more of us falling to the ground. POH laughs: "Now do you believe me?! Just for fun, let's see how the rest of you who can still fight can handle this Floor Boss all by yourselves!" I couldn't bear to watch it anymore. I closed my eyes and covered my ears despite the fact that I was now slowly bleeding to death. My hp was down to 8%. My armor was severely damaged. My sword's tip was severed earlier and fell to the ground by itself near where I lay unable to move.
In this kind of situation, there's no mistaking that I'm currently a defeated knight. The hope I have left almost feels naive to have considering how bad things have become for us over the past several hours. It's like my hope isn't even rooted in reality anymore, like it's a fantasy that will never come to anything. But then, the Floor Boss knocks me out of nowhere, sending me flying back onto the ground. This disrupted my attempt to not witness the fight against it anymore. POH laughs: "What's wrong?! Are you not able to defeat it despite your best efforts?! Do you believe me NOW?!" I weakly reach out for the majority of my sword that's still in one piece and is now on the ground close to where I am now, desperately trying to get it so I could hold it again. But all I do is exhaust my arm further before coughing up blood due to all of my injuries, some of the smallest of which are beginning to scab up due to the drying of blood. POH just keeps laughing all over again as it only get worse and worse for us all. How am I still conscious? I only have 3% of my hp left now.. I don't even have the strength to cry or scream. Rainbow Dash utters: "Dang it.. It's too strong for us.." Biara adds: "Not a single one of us had any debuffs at any point during this battle. In fact, we were all in top condition with our gear in as great condition as possible as well. We thought we were ready for anything. But instead, this has happened.." Subtilizer speaks: "This is the end of the Assault Team. We don't even have to do anything and they will all die on their own." POH laughs: "Tell me, do you really believe YOU can DEFEAT the boss now?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm especially happy that you damn Japanese bastards are in this position! Now you know what it's like to feel what I've felt in my life!"
Most of us are out of commission at this point. It won't be long until we start dying one by one. Those of us still fighting aren't attacking, they're just trying to hold out against the Floor Boss. That's all they can do without being knocked down too. But I don't want to give up. Despite all of the pain I'm feeling, I stand back up even though it hurts even worse now that I'm standing. "..Not done yet.. I'm not done! And I'm not the first to get back up nor will I be the last!" Against the pain sensations flooding through my nervous system into my brain, I pick up the pieces of my sword and hold them together no matter how much moving just my arms or even my fingers hurts. I must have looked like a complete disaster when I did this considering all of my injuries and the damage to my gear. "There is still a way my sword and I can do something.. I hope this works! Release Recollection!" Despite the fact my sword split into 2, I am able to make that move. And because I do despite feeling even more pain from doing it, my sword is fixed and surrounded by a pink energy and more: "If this is how Im going to die for good in this world.. So be it! I have kept saying that I'd rather die in battle protecting someone else than die of any other method besides natural causes due to old age! HAAAAAAAA! My hp is at 2% and decreasing rapidly! This will be one of my last moments even if I use my unique skill to bring myself back from the dead! Take this, you damn Floor Boss! It hurts to speak much less yell like this but that won't stop me! GREAT INFERNAL TORNADO SLASH! And let's add in Artist's Eye! I will use it to create as many problems for this boss as I can before I die! I refuse to die quietly! If I'm going to die like this so young, I want it to mean something and have a huge impact!"
There are so many reasons I want to live. Including the fact I just want to live, damn it! (Side note: Sachi didn't commit suicide but someone else did and Kirito was witness to it. Just a small correction regarding last chapter. Sorry about that.) I put everything I have left even though I must look like some kind of disaster firework now with what I'm doing. "..1% hp! I'm not dead yet! I won't be kept down even if I barely make a scratch on this damn boss!" As my hp reaches zero, my vision fades to black and I can hear my avatar begin to shatter. No.. Not yet! I can't recall my skill at the moment, its name is right there in my mind but I can't reach it. I won't die for good. I'm coming back to life. "HAAAAAAAAAA!" I come back to life with about 50% of my hp as well as several buffs that will last for a short time. "It's been a long time since I had to use this skill but here I am! My armor is so heavily damaged that just a few hits could break it and I'd die again but that won't stop me! The risk of a quicker and more painful death won't stop any of us!" Not long after I say that, pretty much every single clearer who had fallen, unable to get back up gets back up, refusing to just accept death like that. POH widens his eyes: "How can this be?l" I reply: "No matter all of the pain and the risk.. We can still fight! Don't you get it?! Haaaaaaaa! Great Infernal Tornado Slash! Of this is how it ends for me, so be it but I won't die again quietly! No, I refuse to! POH! We're going to show you why you're going to fail and why we think you're a lying load of crap! There's no way you and Subtilizer are the reason why we've defeated 81 Floor Bosses excluding respawns and special bosses up to now! And this Floor Boss will be defeated. Just you watch us all play our part to win!"
Asuna yells: "Stay focused, everyone! Don't let yourself die here or if you can't manage that, go out with a bang as they say!" Alice shouts: "It won't end here! Not if I have anything to say about it! Everyone, I shall do everything I can to help slay this monster! We shall prevail even if we really do lose some of our comrades here!" Klein adds: "POH, you still don't get it! This boss must have been made tougher to defeat by that Arcana System! Not only that but you absolutely didn't help us in secret against the other bosses. A samurai like me just has to know that! After all, there's too many suspicious details about what you claimed! Now enough talking! Back to fighting! We're the Assault Team and we WILL beat this game! Just you wait, Arcana System! You won't be able to stop us from escaping!" Revolver shouts: "We will end your interference in our lives when you do try to mess with them, Arcana. But should you go too far, we may even have to erase you just like myself and the other Knights Of Hanoi would erase a rouge AI like Lightning." Pearl shouts: "Everyone! We can survive this without losing anyone! We have to perform a switch!" Kibaou shouts: "Are you nuts?! What good would a switch do here?! Most of have 2 minutes to live tops if that!" Jose replies: "It's not impossible. I have seen the impossible be overcome even. We can do it. I know what Pearl meant." Amethyst yells: "Hey Pearl, that's a real risky plan, especially coming from you!" Aki adds: "But it's the only option we have left to make sure all of us survive this battle!" My armor is almost broken. Just.. have to keep going.. No matter what.. Kirito exclaims: "Yes! Let's perform the ultimate switch! A switch we may forget about in time but one that will change the course of this battle! Let's go! All together! No, let's do several of them at once to ensure we can deal damage fast enough and not lose anyone for sure!"
Heathcliff speaks in a booming voice: "We have no time to vote on a plan like this. We are all in or we are all out. If even a single one of us doesn't go with it, that will mean we will likely lose everything. But going all in still has its risks!" Bulma laughs: "Risk?! Since when did we really care about risk?! And by that, I mean Goku, Naruto, Vegeta, Leafa, Kirito, and more to name a few." Kaito states: "We don't have much other choice! Even all of our numbers were destroyed by this Floor Boss. I still don't understand how Floor Bosses can even destroy number cards but this is how it is and we have no choice but to adapt accordingly!" I end up partaking in a switch that includes that Integral Factor characters. I go first because my armor is almost broken. "This is it. This is where we defy the odds yet again. I can't believe how many gambles I've taken and been a part of ever since that one day, the day after Christmas 2017. The day that truly began my time in the multiverse outside of my original body and universe. This isn't the end. It's like this symbolizes a whole new arc in which the stakes get even higher. Higher than we expected even of this nutty death game! I will continue to do things by swearing on them with my sword! Let's go! Okay! Steven! Switch!" "I'm going to be who I am on the inside and keep fighting for my friends and everyone else! This is for you, mom! Pearl! Switch!" "I must continue to keep watch over everyone around me. Steven doesn't need me to always protect him anymore but I will always stand with him and the others. Steven is family to me and the others and a dear friend too. Amethyst! Switch!"
Going way down the line, there must have been 50 of us who went before Koharu is up: "We have to keep going! Time is running out! We are all using the left scraps of our strength in these switch attacks! I will be no exception! For the Swiftdrawer of my world who is in a different switch, I will keep fighting until the very end! Leuer! Switch!" A few switches later and the boss is severely weakened. The game is showing a bar below the boss called "Break!!" This is the moment to get in some strong attacks. The 82nd Boss is completely out of it right now. It's safe to attack it but some of us are almost to 0 hp. POH screams: "This isn't possible! None of you have died and you're going to even overcome the boss?! Nevermind, I'm just kidding. I wanted this to happen. I wanted you to win so that I could hurt you all again later! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Go on! Struggle to survive, it is still so entertaining for me to watch!" We manage to defeat the boss and once we did, we literally went healing bananas, everyone was throwing healing potions and things. Basically anything that could heal us was used. I was surprised that we had any of that stuff left when that rush ended. I breathe a sigh of relief: "We made it and no one perished.. That was way too close.. But still, I'm happy despite the odds still against us with 2 POHs and more just waiting to get their weapons into all of us. That was so incredibly risky that I was actually nervous and scared and worried the entire time we were doing all of that.. It is far from over on this floor for us. This was just the beginning of the hell POH has planned for us, wasn't it?" A few minutes later, the LafCof guys act. Morte shouts: "It's time for our revenge to begin at long last! We were locked away in that prison for so long!"
Johnny Black adds: "It's showtime!" XaXa speaks: "It all will conclude here with the end of the Assault Team and the beginning of our reign of terror." POH laughs: "You have fun with that, I'll just watch for now unless something goes wrong later and it isn't any fun to watch. Until that happens if it does, have fun killing each other!" We prepare for one hell of a battle only for it to fall short. Now that we're all healed up, we just crush the LafCof members from another timeline. They fall like dominoes. XaXa speaks: "..Damn.. They're too strong for us.. There's nothing we can do to defeat them. Not even poison is working.." Orochimaru chuckles: "That's because myself and some others have been working to create all kinds of things including deterrents to the spread of poison. I wonder how valuable today will end up being for my research. I wouldn't mind taking one of you as a live test subject." Yamato yells: "Orochimaru, not here!" "You're too serious, Yamato. You just need to relax every so often. I have no interest in harming any of you ever again. As long as I get to do my research, I will continue to not be much of a bother." That didn't go how I expected it to go. Subtilizer speaks: "I am growing tired of waiting. The next plan will immediately go into action now. Because this game includes an entirely different Aincrad that I once visited as Emperor Vecta in the past somehow, that means I'm well aware of the situation with the Arcana System already. I even know all about what happened on the 94th Floor there. Those experiments to create the ultimate weapons, artificially created monsters that fight and consume each other in an almost endless cycle to become stronger.
That was the Arcana System's doing, it was behind all of that all along as it changed the upper floors of Aincrad itself. And now that it's in this game, that means that monsters have begun to evolve through that very same process. As soon as what happened on the 79th Floor, in fact. All of your souls are going to taste delicious after all of you perish to the evolved monsters." Koharu shouts: "No! Not again! I'm remembering even more now! About the Keystone Bugs and.. when this game came to be, my Aincrad was merged into it from the beginning. One day, I somehow ended up back in Aincrad along with Leuer and the others and we were brought here with most of our memories forgotten completely.." Leuer adds: "There's still much we don't recall yet. We thought we remembered everything. But we were wrong. What happened to us after the first new floor boss that was defeated to resolve a monster evolution problem that could have easily wiped out everything in Aincrad with enough time?" My cp further adds: "I am having the same issue.. But now, we have something far more pressing to worry about.." Subtilizer smirks: "It's finally time for all of you to meet your doom! Meet the monsters we have gathered that have evolved the furtherest so far in this ultimate death game where countless delicious souls for me to devour exist! Even some NPCs' souls taste delicious as well but none will be ever as delicious as Alice's soul.." That's when a huge army of monsters with bizarre names that end in "DopeD" appear. (This is straight out of Integral Factor) POH starts laughing again: "Now this will be so much fun to watch! I can't wait to see how you clearers deal with this! Will you win out or will you all be wiped out while suffering miserably?!"
I draw my sword: "Damn it. Our gear's all in shambles. There's no time to fix any of it. If something isn't done, we'll all die eventually here, no matter how hard we fight. This is just horrible. How can we possibly overcome a swarm of evolved monsters this big without fully intact gear? My armor is just a few durability points from breaking apart completely. My base defense stats without my armor aren't nearly enough even if I were to still use my shield to help defend against these monsters." Koharu sighs: "I have a really bad feeling that things are about to get so much worse than they already are.." That's when we start fighting all of the monsters but they aren't like other monsters. They have really high intelligence, even being able to start stealing our gear. I yell: "Damn it! This feels like those weapon stealing mummies in Miitopia! But of course, in the Miitopia I have lived in for like 2 years, those mummies no longer steal weapons from any adventurers or whomever. That's good but this is much worse than anything they did there." We are now forced to face a lot of monsters at once with gear that's falling apart, broken, or is about to begin falling apart if it doesn't just break apart outright. Because of this, we are forced to contend with even more impossible odds than while we fought the Floor Boss. It's hard for me to even put into words just what exactly happened with that. It's like my brain refuses to even conjure up the words I need to fully describe what happened and even record some of the words that were said. It just doesn't want me to. We were surrounded by that monster swarm for over 2 hours. In that time, we dealt with monsters doing the following: taking gear, parrying attacks, using stolen weapons against us, taunting us, kidnapping clearers randomly, and more. It was a huge pain and POH loved every moment of it, especially when the LafCof members from the other Aincrad were literally devoured by some of those monsters.
He was having a true kick from it all. Meanwhile, Subtilizer consumed a lot of souls that ended up becoming free floating after being killed beforehand by him as well or something. At any rate, once we had finally cleared out the last of them, I questioned why I was still alive. My armor is in barely recognizable due to the fact it became so broken that it just became another thing to wear but nothing more. Lisbeth notices my armor's condition. "Oh no! I'll look at that later once we get out of this, okay?!" I nod: "I'm just so relieved that we still have lost no one today.." POH mockingly claps for us: "Well done. You have managed to survive all of that without anyone of you dying for good. This is truly proving to be entertaining! Now for something else for you to deal with! The ultimate theme park experience but will you even be able to make it out alive?!" I reply: "Are you trying to egg me on specifically? Seriously, I'm the one who's supposed to be the theme park expert here. Well, other than the Park Inspector of course. It's too bad the Arcana System purged the entire peep army and turned them back to regular peeps having their simple joys and thoughts. If anything, that was part of why we have been able to get to this floor to begin with. It was like the ultimate invincible meat shield. That's just how it went.." Subtilizer speaks: "Will you be honest, POH? You are just stalling for time while you think of another way to try to toy with them. This theme park you speak of already existed because of the Arcana System's ability to search online for all kinds of information. And you put in a few traps all over the park to turn it into a death park. It is not far from here. Just look behind us and you can see it in the distance."
"Hahahaha! You are no fun sometimes, Subtilizer! But these bastards really are in for it all now! After all, it wasn't just a few traps I set.. I even made sure to put in so many traps that it will be difficult to reach the teleport gate to the next floor in there! Clearers, this should keep all of you busy for the time being! Have fun! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" They both vanish. Argo speaks: "That was weird. This is a really strange plan for the two of them. It really must have been thrown together quickly." I mutter to myself: "I just hope there's at least park maps or that the minimap shows us a lot of details on the park. There is a theme park icon on there so far but I don't see anything else out of the ordinary at the moment." Together, we cautiously go to the park which is called.. Aincradland Park. I face palm: "If it weren't for the fact that this place is a death park, I so would be laughing at the name of this place. It's a complete rip off of Disneyland in name. Just how much irl inspiration did the Arcana System get to make this thing?" And what do you know, the entrance itself looks like a fusion of many park entrances that somehow blends well together. While looking at it, I swore I could see some elements of Disneyland's entrance, Kings Island's, Islands Of Adventure's, Magic Mountain's, and more. Yuuki yells: "Oh look! There's something that's just straight out of Fuji-Q-Highland!" Stampy exclaims: "Oh would you look at that over there! That looks like something from Europa Park's entrance! Granted, I don't remember ever going there so I'm honestly unsure how I even identified that.." Asuna points as well: "Hey, isn't this part from that new theme park centered around VR worlds that opened in Tokyo not long before we were trapped in this game?"
I point out the element from Kings Island's: "there's a facade type building attached to it that looks identical in shape to the addition to it they use for Halloween Haunt and Winterfest.." As we continued to go through the park, we didn't ride anything at first, we just tried to find any traps outside of the rides and get rid of them first as well as memorize the layout of the park. It wasn't even here 20 minutes before POH and Subtilizer talked about it. They must still have admin privileges. How else would they be able to bring in something like this completely unnoticed, especially something that the Arcana System clearly had plans for it later on that were now dashed for obvious reasons. I noticed a lot of strange names for things across the entire park. There were multiple areas: Future Land, Fantastical Realm, Area 22(clearly a SAO start date reference), The Entrance, Halloween Land(okay, that was ripped straight from Twisted Land.. Halloween Land was the first name of the Slaughterville area), and several more. Rides included: The Wooder racing wooden coaster(really?), Space Journey, Star Worlds: The Quest Continues, Flight Of Death, Top Hill Roadster(why?!), It's A Big World Ever All, and I'm not listing anything else. That's enough. They're horrible rip offs of real attractions in name. But they weren't rip offs in experience. No, every single ride tried to kill us. We had to leave the park after a couple of hours to finally get some sleep and eat food. After all, we had spent the better part of the day trying not to be killed by everything POH and Subtilizer had sicked on us. The next morning, on Day 941, we went right back after breakfast to have a really "fun" day there. "This is not cute! And here I thought burning It's A Small World dolls was a disturbing enough scenario.. This is so ridiculous that it fails on the cute factor! It's hilarious and so cursed but not in a cute way!"
"Nyehahaha! This is one odd mine train ride!" "I never thought I would say this but maybe riding Really Long Train Ride was a really bad idea.. Such a good and long storyline came with it until the animatronics started throwing TNT at us.." When we had finally looked everywhere in the park, we met back up and those who found the teleport gate led us right to it. I sigh: "And here I thought Disney World had skeletons in its closet.. But that's over and we still haven't lost anyone as of yet. We're all still alive. Now onto the next floor I guess. Actually, we aren't ready for the next floor so why are we even at this gate? There's no way it's just for us to see where it is.." Others had the same kind of thought as I did and what do you know? We were right to question things when someone among us suddenly turned into POH: "Finally! I am done with that disguise at last! I hated pretending to fit in with you clearers but now, it's over for all of you! I'm getting bored of just having others hurt all you while I watch before killing all of you. Instead, I'm just going to kill all of you one by one and none of you will be able to stop me as I very much enjoy what I do to each and every one of you." And without warning, he proceeds to hurt all of us at seemingly random. Lisbeth somehow had the time to fix my and others' gears. My armor is back up to full shape and perfect condition again. I ready myself for the moment POH goes at me and when he does, I block and parry most of his hits but he still gets me good by puncturing my armor and getting to me from there. I fall to the ground in great pain again. "Damn it!" "Hahahaha! I'm not done! I'm going to hurt you so bad that you will be begging me to finish you off by killing you once I do!"
"I won't let you do that so easily to me! Haaaaaa! Enhance Armament! Release Recollection!" I fight him with everything I have. I have more experience and skills at least in terms of swordplay. But he has the power advantage, allowing him to easily defeat me before dealing me mortal wounds that are sure to kill me if something isn't done to stop the bleeding as well as possible infection. A infected wound is a nasty and painful sight. We're not going to get any further into that. Those things of things can become ER nightmares if things go in a certain bad way after all. The villain laughs: "Another one down! Time to make someone else be on the verge of death all over again!" Nautilus yells: "We have to stop him already!" Yuna frowns: "I doubt it will be that simple or easy." Peridot yells: "Don't let this mega clod scare any of you! Deep down, he's just another greedy and selfish scumbag! In fact, he's so scummy that I might as well call him something worse. Oh, I know! MEGA ULTRA CLOD! That's what you are, POH, MEGA ULTRA CLOD!" "HAHAHAHA! Your petty insult is so pathetic that it's amusing to me! You won't be able to stop my plans! I won't let you! You'll just suffer like the rest of them, Peridot the useless gem!" "Watch who you call useless, MEGA ULTRA CLOD! Anyway, I'm just here for simple stuff I guess. If you count stopping you as simple stuff, that is! This is going to be something else!" "I'd like to see you try when I've already brought so many of you close to death in such a short amount of time!" I can't move again.. My strength has evaporated. I feel so much pain. All he needed was less than a day and he was prepared to kill us all even if we were wearing heavy armor or using high level ALO magic.. I collapse to the ground, once again into a growing pool of my own blood.
But still, POH wasn't the only one who came up with a plan. As we explored that odd theme park rigged to be a giant series of death traps, we came up with a plan too. Next time we would see POH, we would kill him and finally end him as a threat. We don't have time to show him any mercy besides a quick death if that's even possible at this point given how easily he took the likes of me out. There really is no reasoning with someone like him. As long as he remains wicked and bloodthirsty, he will never be reasoned with. Putting one's life on the brink in a fight against him is the only way to ever possibly reason with him at this point. I can relate to some of what he went through when he was younger. However, being consumed by hatred and seeking to harm innocent people due to the suffering you went through is not okay. POH hates the Japanese because of his miserable life growing up as a Japanese American in San Francisco I believe. He didn't deserve to be treated the way he was but now, his feels have spiraled into a vicious hatred against an entire group of people as well as a love for hurting others. Villains aren't always just pure evil. No, some people turn into villains because of the world around them. I utter: "Damn.. it.. I can't do anything now.. It's up to anyone who's still able to move to stop him now. He has to be put down before he can cause even more harm." Kirito screams: "Damn you, POH! We won't let you get away with what you're doing!" "Oh Kirito! Kirito! Kirito! How many times do I have to tell you that I'm going to kill everyone around you before I kill you?! I'm going to make you watch as all of your friends die in misery at my hands! And I'm going to just enjoy that look on your face get more intense! Hahahahahaha!" Alice shouts: "You won't get your desires fulfilled! We shall crush them along with your ambitions! Don't forget you have all of us to contend with still as well!"
Beerus adds: "Hmph. Mortals like you really annoy me. I will put you down right here right now with the others. You aren't even worthy of facing me in combat, POH." Subtilizer appears and calmly speaks: "POH, this fight is all yours. If you die, I won't save you. I still have my own plans and ambitions. And it appears that this plan you're enacting is going to be your ultimate and final plan. If you succeed, I will simply take Alice and devour all the souls I can. If you lose, I will devour your soul instead. Your soul would taste delicious after all. I never told you this because we're on the same side due to being on the same mission and our goals match up well. We both even have no time for concerning ourselves with the lives of others. Instead, we seek our greatest desires. *licks lips* Delicious souls.." POH replies: "This wasn't part of our agreement!" "I do not trust you as a reliable ally anymore. Why would I continue fully going along with our original agreement considering that?" "DAMN YOU! Fine! I'll just kill you too later!" "I dare you to go through with your threat." POH turns his attention back towards those of us who can still fight. All I can do right now is lay on the ground and struggle to keep myself alive with more healing stuff. It's a good thing we had a resupply this morning just after breakfast. The other players who aren't on the front lines have been working together to contribute to our collective cause in their own ways. Smiths have improved their blacksmithing skills for example so now, there's a lot of skilled blacksmiths around to help with equipment needs.
In addition to the NPC blacksmiths, particularly those of the blacksmithing schools on the 27th Floor. That resupply was as successful as it was because every player is now a part of the Assault Team's efforts. There are no more beginner level players, more players are even starting to catch up with the Assault Team's level. If we, the core portion of the Assault Team fall, it won't be over just yet because others would rise to fill our shoes as best as they can. So now, we have a lot of healing potions. We are the Assault Team. The hope of all players trapped in this game. While we can fall and the Assault Team would still carry on, it wouldn't be the same and everyone's counting on us to keep surviving. But it is other players who largely give us hope. Without their behind the scenes efforts, we wouldn't be here right now. We'd all be dead. But it isn't just players who are helping us. Countless NPCs and others are as well. The intellect of the NPCs is rapidly evolving like that of Boman's in Link VRAINS. Asuna yells: "POH! We will finish you off here before you become a greater danger to us all!" "Hahahaha! You damn fools think you can defeat me?! Just look at your comrades, most of them, even many of the strongest and most experienced ones aren't able to move at all! I've made it impossible for them to stand against me before they die along with the rest of you!" Playmaker replies: "You won't get us so easily. Just by stopping to talk to us to state your ambitions and plans to kill us all, you have bought us valuable time to not be caught by surprise the next time you attack any of us. I don't know what kind of world you're trying to create. Is it a world without Japanese people? If so, destroying the lives of others isn't going to solve your issues. We all studied up on why you have become the person that you are today. I know what it's like to be in a void with no real help or way to get out as a survivor of the Lost Incident. I was confined for 6 months in a room where all I could do is eat, sleep, and duel. I had nightmares for years.
When I lost a duel, I wasn't given any food and was even harmed physically to an extent." "Hahahaha! Enough about your sob story! You're right! I want to destroy the Japanese! And I also want to kill as many as possible inside of virtual worlds where no one can stop me because you can't be arrested for murdering people in virtual reality! There isn't enough evidence or procedure for murdering in virtual worlds to cause someone who did so to be sent to prison!" He suddenly starts attacking again. But this time, the others are ready. Sinon does something unexpected and bashes the villain with Hecate: "Big mistake going after all of us at once!" POH is surrounded by a dark aura: "Are you sure about that?! It doesn't feel like a mistake to me! In fact, it's exactly what I want to do!" The fight intensifies as POH exhibits strength beyond that of even the 82nd Floor Boss. "You fools! I'm going to enjoy killing all of you! I think killing you all in large numbers will be even more fun than killing you individually! Forget the 100th Floor Boss and Quinella, I am the most powerful being in this game! Nothing can stand in my way, not even your sword's ability to turn enemies into trees, Kirito!" "We'll see about that! Release Recollection! We'll stop you, POH!" The villain just keeps laughing as Kirito's move has no effect on him. "Did you really think the same trick was going to work on me twice?!" Argo chuckles: "Ya know, Kii-boy was just keeping you busy." "Is that so?! Too bad your little ambush and sneak attack isn't going to work!" Pickle Rick Not An Alien, who was part of that when it failed screams: "Aww man! I thought we had him! This is wacky in a bad way! Backup plan: prank palooza!" POH grins: "Prank palooza?! Is this also some kind of joke like that other thing before today?!"
POH is suddenly attacked by all kinds of pranks including rolls of toilet paper, silly string, poppers, kazoos, etc. He emerges from it all unhurt but pissed off: "Damn you all! Don't waste my time! I'm here to kill all of you at long last!" I hate just lying here, struggling to keep myself alive with healing items. I just gotta do something. POH is far from defeated. I'm not sure how the others are going to be able to defeat him at this stage. There has to be a way but the solution is far beyond my comprehension to figure out. Our foe is now unleashing wide ranged sword skills with his sword covered in that same dark aura as unleashed earlier. Liten yells: "We have to fight together! No holding back!" Revolver adds: "If we're going to do this, there's nothing we should hold back. Observe. Borreload Furious Dragon, attack POH!" POH is knocked back by the attack. "Damn you! You'll pay for-" "Dark Mummy Surgical Forceps!" "Motorworm Spreader Queen!" "Sunavalon Dryanome!" "Salmangreat Heat Leo!" "Firewall Dragon Darkfluid!" "Blue Eyes Toon Dragon!" "Gouki Master Ogre!" "Marincess Marble Rock!" "Yamiruler The Dark Delayer!" "Sevens Road Magician!" "Number 39!" "Neo Galaxy Eyes Photon Dragon!" "Tandangle Cerberus!" "Dark Magician!" "Red Eyes!" "Neos!" "Destiny Hero Plasma!" "Cyber End Dragon!" "Stardust Dragon!" "Red Demon Dragon!" "Blackwing Dragon!" "Black Rose Dragon!" "Life Stream Dragon!" "Ancient Fairy Dragon!" "Fire Sorcerer!" "Cyber Commander!" "Fairy Cheer Girl!" "Cat Girl Magician!" "Odd Eyes!" "D/D/D Doom King Armageddon!" "Sonatra!" "Dark Rebellion!" POH is blasted by many duel monsters attacks at once. This surprises him but he somehow gets out of it unharmed. Ghost Gal exclaims: "What the?! This can't be right!" "HAHAHAHAHA! You can't kill me! I told you already that I learned a lot from others who have failed!"
Bray speaks: "Then we shall all fight together. It must take all of us to defeat you. We underestimated you.." Dominic yawns: "When we should have overestimated you from the beginning. You're a real nap causation. Okay, time to put that one backup plan into action. It's risky as it leaves us open to attack for a bit and will deplete a lot of our vital items but if it succeeds, POH will lose to all of us here." POH laughs and unleashes countless attacks as those of us who can fight focus on fully healing the rest of us instead for the moment. It was a huge gamble, we almost lost a lot of comrades but Liten and other tanks held strong in order to make it succeed. Now fully recovered, I get back up, only suffering a tiny bit from the blood I lost back there. POH isn't worried at all. No, he's lost it. While his skills are as deadly and sharp as ever, he is now laughing out of control and enjoying this so much that he isn't even concerned that we managed to all recover in order to fight him together. We even pull a giant switch on him. He manages to hurt a lot of us as we did it but he also ended up hurt real bad himself. "HAHAHAHA, THIS IS SO MUCH FUN! IM GOING TO KILL YOU ALL! I JUST CANT WAIT TO! ITS OVER FOR ALL OF YOU!" Nearly all rational thinking inside of his brain has clearly stopped. He has become a bloodthirsty killing machine that doesn't stop for anything. Even as we perform all kinds of attacks on him, he just attacks us without trying to block or evade or react to the damage we're dealing to him. The worst part of all is that our attacks aren't having much effect on him. Go yells: "Enough trying to preserve strength because we're under the impression that this will be a long, intense, painful, and drawn out battle! We have to finish him as soon as possible!"
"FIGHT ME ALL YOU WANT, IM UNKILLABLE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" We attack and we attack while ensuring none of us die. "GREAT INFERNAL TORNADO SLASH! EVEN IF YOU KEEP MOVING, POH, MANY OF US WILL STILL NAIL YOU LIKE THIS! HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! You call yourself the Prince Of Hell but you know what I think? The prince must be ended completely for his cruelty! Your rule of fear ends today! And even if we have to fight you again in the physical multiverse.. Know this.. You won't win there either!" We clearers coordinate ourselves perfectly to stand up to POH's insane attack damage, defense, speed, and hp. But still, we are barely making a dent in his hp. Something has to change here or we're all seriously going to die here. This is it. We are reaching the climax of this fight. Subtilizer shouts: "If you value your life, POH! Retreat! It's not worth it! The Cardinal System and Arcana System both want to eliminate us!" POH doesn't listen while Subtilizer vanishes into thin air, clearly to hide from them both. The Arcana System speaks through a just teleported 83rd Floor Boss: "You are no longer of use for my observations, POH. You will now truly no longer get in the way of the game." Argo exclaims: "Now this isn't something you see everyday! The 83rd Floor Boss was teleported here and is now attacking POH with the intellect of a human being behind its actions!" Jesse adds: "We can't let this chance slip by! POH will be defeated between us and the Floor Boss! He can't take on all of us at once anymore!" POH widens his eyes as reason returns to him: "NOOOOOO! Damn you.. ARCANA SYSTEM AND CARDINAL SYSTEM! HOW DARE YOU GET IN MY WAY!"
Ignoring us, he focuses on defeating the 83rd Floor Boss which he does in minutes but at great cost. He took a lot of damage from fighting the boss. The Cardinal System speaks: "Assault Team, you can now finish off this threat to the functionality of the game." That was the last we heard from both systems for the time being. POH screams: "I beat it! And now, I'll kill all of you! AHAHAHAHAHA-" He is cut off as we start beating him badly due to how much fighting the boss weakened him. We would later fight the 83rd Floor Boss ourselves in a do over fight as we never got a chance to fight it ourselves and forgot about it in the midst of the chaos. POH starts losing against us badly. He is unable to keep on going for much longer. "NOOOO! EVEN MY GM PRIVILEGES ARE GONE!" We overwhelm him completely by using so many attacks and such at once that he can't dodge even just 2% of them. He is completely obliterated. His body doesn't even shatter into polygons, it's just wiped out, as if erased from the very game itself. We didn't celebrate the victory much as he did a number on us all even in his last moments and we needed to be ready for more Floor Boss fights as well as a showdown with Subtilizer on the 85th Floor. On the 84th Floor, not much happened. It was mostly a lot of socializing, preparing, training, and exploration. When we got to the 85th Floor on Day 955, things immediately got interesting. Several NPCs were waiting for us. Their memories of what happened in Integral Factor must have returned to them. The Arcana System is going forward with redoing what it must have done in that Aincrad as well. One of the NPCs speaks: "Swiftdrawer, Koharu. It's been a long time." Koharu grins: "Anastasia!" My cp adds: "What are you doing here?" Yuuki yells at seeing one of the other NPCs: "It can't be! Linhua?!" "Yuuki, my last student.." Leuer chuckles: "It seems that the connections made in our Aincrad are really coming to life again in this world.." To be continued..