Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds
Chapter 30: Battle of Yilong Cheng
Date: Infinityverse Days 955-979
The 85th Floor features the final floor with GGO areas on it, Yilong Cheng Castle Town, and The Martial Emperor's Domain. The 86th Floor features The En Mountains and a few small villages from The Underworld/Alicization. The 87th Floor features part of The Dark Territory and a Aincrad area known as Steam Country that has a small hot spring spa in it.
Mater speaks: "But how could Linhua be alive again? I don't recall that from after the 100th Floor Incident in our world.." Typhon replies: "The Arcana System must have revived her for some greater purpose." Anastasia speaks again: "I see you've brought the entire core of the Assault Team with you. Yes, we know everything as well. As much as I want to catch up with you, Koharu and Swiftdrawer, we have a big problem and we were waiting for you to come in hopes you could help us before it was too late.." Kirito replies: "Something tells me we are now in the middle of a complicated situation.." That's when we hear battle cries and the roars of monsters. Linhua yells: "We have to explain quickly! My disciples won't be able to hold them off from reaching our town for much longer! It's a ways from here outside of what you players call the safe zone. This is an emergency." Anastasia sighs: "We are being attacked from all sides. At first, things have been very peaceful for a long time. Over 2 years. But recently, Huang The Hundred Arms, the former emperor of a country that hasn't existed since the Great Separation happened who had been defeated by the Assault Team of our Aincrad was spotted reawakening back to life. He was consumed by the instincts of a monster he had acquired by doing away with his human body and began to attack anyone in sight. As a Golem, a clone of the original Anastasia who was friends with Huang, I couldn't sit back and watch anymore as he destroyed even his own temple. I challenged him and lost, nearly being destroyed. Linhua mysteriously appeared, alive once again and saved me. Ever since then, Huang has been on a rampage. We have well fortified Yilong Cheng. Huang hasn't gotten to it yet but he will soon.
A team of capable fighters from various Floors were sent out to stop him but I'm afraid they won't be enough, even with the help of Doctor Bevel's latest creations. When most of you weren't paying attention, we were starting to learn of your efforts this time around in Aincrad and have connected to others across all of the Floors just about. But Huang isn't the only problem we have to deal with. A group of players are attacking from another side, they appear to be hired mercenaries." Argo sighs: "So some of the 'Underworld' of Aincrad has decided to attack this floor because they were offered a lot of money. I shouldn't be surprised but I am despite POH and Subtilizer insisting on facing us on this Floor." "Did you just say Subtilizer? The 3rd problem attacking us is his army from The Dark Territory. He has once again donned the identity of the evil god, Emperor Vecta. He has even merged Vecta's form with his own form as a GGO player and professional marksman. We know all about him thanks to information we gained from someone within the Assault Team. He and his army are laying waste to area after area before eventually surrounding Yilong Cheng on the 2 sides it is not at the moment surrounded by anything. What's most alarming is how quickly all of this has taken place. It began just a day ago. I'm afraid not even I or Linhua's strength will be enough to stop what's happening. We need your help. I wish we didn't but we do. I have a body that is far stronger than that of a human's and yet, I cannot do much against our enemies.." Koharu sighs: "What are we even supposed to do?" Lind replies: "We need to mobilize the entire Assault Team, reserves included. We're going to have to split into groups to make this work."
That's when we see a bunch of what look to be inhabitants of GGO itself fighting in some kind of quarrel or worse. Agil speaks: "What's going on over there?" Llenn gasps: "I just got a message! It's from someone who is staying on the Floor where GGO began in this game! There's a feud over what to do in this emergency situation on this floor.. Players, monsters, and NPCs are fighting on both sides of the conflict." M replies: "Even players.. Now there's 5 problems to deal with. Subtilizer and the Dark Territory. Huang's rampage. Defending the town and further fortifying it. The conflict between residents of GGO's main floor. And the mercenary army invading Yilong Cheng." Tsunade adds: "This is going to be difficult to overcome." Shikamaru nods: "It's obvious that we don't have much time to just stand around and talk. Some of us are already sending emergency messages across the entire game. And that is a start. But it's clear that Subtilizer must be behind all of this. From what Kirito and the others told us, he himself possesses some seriously dark powers, even transforming that some kind of energy demon on the outside before Kirito originally killed him in the War Of The Underworld. We really will need all the help we can get with this. But why target Yilong Cheng specifically?" Typhon scoffs: "That bastard wanted to lure us to it in hopes of saving the NPCs. He has something planned." I add: "I think you're right and if you are, Huang's rampage and the fight to stop him somehow will be nothing compared to Subtilizer's final plan. Or should I say Gabriel's as that's not only his real name but he has outright said it in the past. No matter what happens, we don't have time to pick who's best for going to which problem.
We have to trust our hearts to decide where to help. This won't be easy. I haven't seen anything like this since the conflict with Pmurt Nedib before this death game started. This is the kind of tactic Pmurt Nedib would pull if he were in Subtilizer's shoes." Suddenly, a familiar looking character appears with a grin on her face. Dee Eye Ell. "What do we have here? Are you trying to plot against my lord?" Alice replies: "Do we know you?!" I speak up: "You werent really noticed, were you, Dee Eye Ell?" "Oh so at least one of you knows who I am. But as the leader of the Dark Mages, I can't permit you to act against my emperor: Vecta. Dark Mages, strike them all down at once!" Shikamaru smirks: "We figured something like this might happen." I add: "And you can credit that to the fact that some of us.. have really active imaginations. Myself included. I can't state how terrible even I am at acknowledging the fact that imagination has saved our hides many times in this death game alone. In many Floor Boss battles, in fact. And we have the perfect counter for you and your mages already set up. Some of us used our imaginations to expect that you might try something against us. Hell, we even know that ultimately, you just want all the power for yourself. When the time is right, you'll just swoop in and betray Vecta. You have a strong sense of survival, even leeching off of Leafa just to stay alive if I recall correctly from what I learned of what happened during Project Alicization." Spectre laughs: "Now, it's time for the counter to your magical assault! We know all about how your magic works! It uses the spatial resources of any area, including what's left behind after creatures die. With everything and everyone who has perished in this game, there must be plenty of spatial resources to use up so you think you have enough to destroy us all. However, it's time for the Knights Of Hanoi to destroy your hopes!"
Revolver speaks: "Launch the newest program installed in the Tower Of Hanoi." As fire magic rains down on us, a huge surge of data comes from many floors below us in order to attack as a barrier to block the magical assault. Dee Eye frowns: "How is this happening?!" Spectre grins again: "Do you really want to know exactly why this is happening? It isn't just as Swift explained. There's more too! You see, most of us have been developing all kinds of wild plans in case situations like an all out battle and war takes place in this game as it is right now at this very moment. We Hanoi have been instrumental in coming up with something against a magical assault which has been a concern since we realized the Dark Territory may give us trouble in the future. Now, it's time for our counterattack! Surrender and perish! Bloom, Sunavalon Dryanome!" The rest of us duelists activate our duel disks. I yell: "Everyone, we'll handle the Dark Mages with our cards and weapons. You must go ahead where help is needed as well! Haaaaa! I set the Pendulum scale to create another composition in this game!" Some of the others nod. Applejack yells as they all run off in different directions: "Be careful, y'all!" It didn't take long for us to defeat the Dark Mages, especially because we had our own spellcasters such as Dark Magician, Dark Magician Girl, and Sevens Road Witch. Dee Eye is horrified as her Dark Mages all shatter, leaving behind their spatial resources, something that was never easily visible throughout the entire duration of this game. It's only now that spatial resources are becoming truly important. I sigh: "I'm going to help stop Huang. They're going to need my experience in swordplay, even if it does very little to help stop the former martial emperor. I'm so glad Koharu and the others took the time to more properly explain every single thing they recalled a few days ago."
Dee Eye isn't killed, she's stripped of her magic through several card effects that leave permanent effects. And after that, she becomes the latest to be sent to the Blackiron Prison. A few of the others run towards Huang's location just as we do. Kaito speaks as we leap and we leap: "We have to hurry! No time to waste! If Huang isn't defeated, his rampaging would eventually crush all of our comrades!" Yuya replies: "Let's try to stay positive! If we could somehow knock Huang back to his senses.." Ghost Gal speaks: "Unfortunately, we will still have to defeat Huang to move onto the 86th Floor." I reply: "That may be true but in this game, Floor Bosses eventually respawn as we are all well aware. What that means is that if we kill him today, he won't be gone forever. You know, he would make for an excellent addition to the BRAINS Collective someday. Problem is that he is only interested in one thing: fighting opponents worthy enough to give him a challenge. We've convinced his type to join forces in the past but he's gotta be hundreds if not thousands of years old by now. That means it won't be even remotely close to easy to convince him especially since he is programmed to attack any and all players by this game itself due to being a Floor Boss." Aki nods: "You're right. And he wouldn't regret dying again if we gave him a good fight. I just know it from what we've been told about him." It's clear that we may not end up facing Subtilizer together in the end but that doesn't matter. As long as we help end this war that has sprang up on this floor, it's all good or as good as it can get in this game with the current circumstances. Eventually, we find some of our comrades, NPCs included fighting Huang and keeping him from busting his way into Yilong Cheng.
This is all part of Subtilizer and probably the now late POH as well's ultimate plan in case nothing else worked. What better way to kill off a group of people you want destroyed than a war? I hate saying that. I hate war. I hate mass slaughtering. Just the war in Mii World was bad enough. Unless the Arcana System has changed even Floor Boss programming, I doubt that we could ever get Huang to calm down. Not when he's in the middle of a fight that began with his rampage that must have been aggravated further thanks to Subtilizer. We don't just observe the situation when we see the fight with him up close near it. We get ready to intervene as well. I was one of the ones who chose to wait in order to watch the behavior patterns of Huang only to find out that Huang literally has a counter for every possible kind of attack, even bullets to an extent because according to legend, Huang didn't simply kill his enemies. He took their weapons and became a master of all weapons and martial arts. We see Koharu amongst those already fighting him. When those of us who waited to keep watching the boss before jumping in so in fact jump in, she exclaims: "Thank you for helping us too! Last time, Huang wasn't this capable of dealing with all of our attacks!" Yusei replies: "I see. So that's how Huang has become more difficult to defeat than in the past.." I add: "No time for talking here either. We just have to fight. Look at that insane attack speed, it's not just superhuman, it's a blur. But maybe myself and others who have achieved superhuman levels of strength in our physical bodies can do something to counter that.. HAAAAAAAAA!" Now that I'm engaged in the fight with Huang, I can more easily read his movements despite the chaos of the fight. "Let's try this! Great Infernal Tornado Slash!"
Due to my nature as the knight I am, I mostly focus on just what Huang is doing and what I'm doing though I can't help but see some of what the others are up to as I begin to do what I can to defeat Huang. My attack fails to hit Huang. No, it's more like Huang literally elbows the force of my sword attack and it shatters when in contact with his elbow. I couldn't believe my eyes: "I've never seen anything like this before! Huang is on a whole other level compared to us! I heard how hard he was to defeat last time but now, it's much harder to.. His skills far surpass anything we've seen from anyone in this entire game: even the villains we've faced.. He had a lifetime to keep getting stronger, take weapons, and learn all methods of fighting possible.. Will my Miitopia rooted swordsmanship ever manage to get a clean hit on Huang even once? Hard to say because the Arcana System must have given him even more skill than before thanks to the fact this Aincrad is a Frankstein's monster of virtual worlds, a fusion of multiple worlds altogether with Aincrad as the base template for its entire design and layout.. And with all of these worlds coming together, that means more styles of fighting to analyze and learn from.. Minecraft combat system. GGO gun skills. Need I go on? *gets attacked hard* ARRRRRRGGG! Can't lose focus for even a second here! Huang is exploiting any openings we give as well as any other mistakes we make here! Even talking provides an opening Huang can use against us immediately! Damn it!" I shut up to focus more on fighting against Huang but as myself and the others further learn, this is 100% a losing battle. We are in some seriously deep trouble here.
Huang is reading our every move. He even starts having a smile on his face like he's enjoying every moment of this: "Impressive. Humans and other mortals.. You are worthy of being my opponents for lasting this long against me but know this. I know all about each and every move you can possibly make already. I know much more about this world than I ever did before the last time I ended up being defeated. It feels like many years have gone by since then but I know that's not correct. There's nothing you can do that I can't predict. Summon as many duel monsters as you want. I know everything they're capable of as well. I know how all of you fight inside and out. This is truly a thrilling and exciting battle. Give it your all. Do not give me any less. Show me your strength. If you can defeat me, you will earn my upmost respect. Some of you have even faced the same celestial being who granted me this body that I desired for so long to rid my humanity in favor of growing even stronger than I could as a human being." (It wouldn't be until June 2024, 9 months after we ended up finally escaping the game that we would convince Huang to join forces with the BRAINS Collective. That was in the aftermath of the defeat of Zarc after he nearly destroyed several dimensions and many of us as well. We tried to reason with him in the moment you just read about here but he refused our offer and wished only to die by way of a good fight. Like Kenpachi from Bleach would if we asked him the same.." A few minutes after Huang spoke, myself and others were trying to come up with ways to surprise Huang on the way to defeating him in battle. I myself couldn't think of anything that could possibly work. "Damn it. All I can think of is things we've done before and when that leads to nowhere, my mind just wanders until I see a big attack occur.
To win, we have to come up with all kinds of new ways of fighting but most of the possible new ways are so ridiculous that they will never work because our current best isn't good enough which also means we've exhausted countless great techniques and more while facing Huang.. This is difficult. Even with my concentration skills, I am still dealing with a lot of things to process due to this fight. That makes it harder for me to come up with anything new that might work." Huang suddenly speaks: "No, switching constantly won't help you against me. I know the exact method for countering switches. My attacks can go very far and render switching useless." How do you defeat an opponent like Huang? Wait.. Does he even truly understand guns at all? I'm not the only one who has that kind of doubt. Several others also pull out guns. We actually all put out guns straight out of science fiction in terms of most modern worlds. And we fire away. Huang is surprised by this and takes several minutes to adapt to deal with the guns. They are render useless after that but still, they did a lot of damage fortunately for us. What's more is that we learned something. What if we used things that are unfamiliar as weapons to Huang? That should work.. Liten shouts: "We have to use unconventional weapons here! I can't hold on for much longer. My tanking has worn down my armor a lot.. It's going to break soon.." Someone switches places with her and we begin to check our inventories for unconventional weapons at the cost of being hit badly by Huang for getting distracted. But despite the hurt, it was worth the effort. We have to defeat Huang as quickly as possible. There's no time to stop and rest or anything like that.
Taking time to back off and heal won't work either. Someone already tried that and it backfired badly even though someone provided them cover fire with a gun, nearly costing them their life. It was horrible to hear them scream in pain when they failed to back off and heal. So instead of doing something like that, we need to use things that aren't supposed to be weapons. Thanks to our stats, each of us should be able to deal several hundred points of damage per second with even a gardening tool after everything we've been through in this game so far. For my weapon, I choose a big metal ingot I got for defeating a field boss some floors down only for Lisbeth to tell me it was completely useless by the time I showed it to her for anyone in the game. But I kept it on me because I only clear my inventory when it's full and I need room for other stuff. And I didn't want to let go of it, hopeful that it may be useful someday. Due to taking Physics, I knew precisely what I needed to do to deal good damage with the big metal ingot. I silently began to target Huang's right leg after switching to a more sneaky way of moving around. Changing movement style hasn't worked at all so far but in this case, I know it will do something. And because all of us are using things that aren't weapons as weapons now, Huang looks very confused. This is the moment to strike. Huang sees things that not even he knows of, adding further to his confusion. Normally, you'd hit an enemy with an ingot by just bashing them with it. That's not what I do. I realized even Huang might see that blunt force way of attacking coming. So instead, I focused on just hitting his leg by poking at it with one of the edges of the ingots as well as swing it around like a sword because ingots don't behave like swords do when swung.
It's so heavy that I have to use both of my hands to hold it. What's more is that because it's just an item, it doesn't take any damage from Huang's attacks if Huang happens to hit it. It is a material and materials don't have durability. I even try stabbing Huang with the ingot to be harder to predict. Koharu uses a tree branch from a really sturdy tree. Leuer uses a book. Mater uses a really really stale cookie. Stilla forgoes her reflecting technique in favor of a water gun filled with lemon juice (don't ask me how that's possible in this game. Oh and yes, it's a useful item that may come in handy later in our own world, readers). The list goes on. What matters is that we managed to finally get Huang down to 25% health without stopping our attacks for a moment. We just focus on attacking and defending and so on now. That was until he started to figure us out. I almost had my ingot knocked out of my hands when Huang started to get what we were trying to do and learned how to counter what we were doing despite never seeing anything like being attacked with a stale cookie before. It was time to change strategies again. I pull out my guitar and drop my ingot onto the ground before bursting straight into song and intentionally singing badly with a heavy metal roar coming from my guitar the entire time. A while back, I did a little music skill leveling just for fun when there was some downtime. I can't remember exactly when that was but either way, I gathered materials with some friends to craft electric guitars and all kinds of things because we can apparently craft instruments in this game. Huang was caught off guard by that and wanted me to shut up so he went after me, giving the others plenty of opportunities to attack unhindered. "Lalalalala space dreaming! Haha banana butt! Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu! Qqqqqqqqqq! Wooden Coaster 1 has crashed!" That's the kind of nonsense I sing.
Some of the others start being annoying too to distract Huang. It's true that many enemies have probably tried to distract him in the past but he has never dealt with distractions based on modern things like electric guitars, computers, and memes. And what do you know? By continuing to do things like all of this, we finally defeat Huang. But he doesn't die. He just sits on the ground and groans: "Hrrrraaaarrrrggg.. That was a fight.. Well done.. All of you.. I'm going to need to take a rest.. You can come fight me again some other time." He gets back up, his temple is magically restored to normal, and he vanishes into the 85th Floor Labyrinth. Lueur smiles: "And so, the curtain on this story will not fall just yet! It continues on!" Stilla speaks: "Sorry about- What am I saying? Anyway, we must get going. The conflict is far from over." We soon join up with those fighting all of the mercenaries. And the mercenaries don't last much longer in part because those of us who defeated Huang leveled up from the experience we gained. I gained almost 2 levels from all of that personally. Not bad considering all of us are over level 140. And if you're wondering for some reason about Andromeda and Chocolate, they aren't on this floor with us. Just felt it would be too dangerous for me to bring them with us. But now that the mercenaries were defeated and captured for now, that left the fighting groups from GGO as well as Vecta and his army. So we went to help deal with the fighting groups only to find the matter settled. Kirito shouts: "All is clear to take on Subtilizer at last!" Sinon nods: "Yeah, let's show him and those still loyal to him what we have coming for them." But before we could go any further, Leafa suddenly says: "Hey, what did I just feel?" We look over towards her. Kirito points: "There's an orc clinging on to you!" "What?! *looks down* Lilpilin?!" Kirito sighs: "Okay so he's Lilpilin.. I remember you telling me about him but what is he doing here?"
Lilpilin trembles: "It's Emperor Vecta! He's gone mad! Anyone who ended up turning on him in The Underworld is being hunted down as traitors! But I can't just let this happen! I have to do something and I need your help, Assault Team!" Bevel replies: "I should have a Breakthrough or two that will help us help you! For I am the Archmage In-" Pinkie Pie yells: "No time for that! Who knows what that villain and his army are doing right now! Just the thought of what they could be doing makes me want to cry cupcakes! And I don't want to cry cupcakes!" Bevel searches around in her inventory and pulls out something. "Behold, Breakthrough #120! It's my.. what did I call it?!" Eva snaps: "It doesn't matter what the hell its name is! Just tell us what it is and what it does!" "..I can't remember its name at all. I've been making countless Breakthroughs since I joined the Assault Team. Oh well. What this Breakthrough does is locate anyone that needs to be found. As long as it knows the name of who needs to be found, it will find them no matter what floor they're on or if they're even in the Underground Labyrinth." Lilpilin breathes a sigh of relief and begins asking her to use it to see if the others who had turned on Vecta to some degree were still alive. She checked and everyone Lilpilin could think of appears to still be alive on this floor. We had no time to lose so we immediately got going as it turns out that all of the individuals Lilpilin was worried about are gathering towards a very specific location not far from Lilong Cheng. We split into 2 groups. One group engages Vecta's army. The rest of us go with Lilpilin as this will be a great way to get more allies, save lives, and get closer to defeating that villain for good as that he's never a problem again here in the Infinityverse. To sum it up, Lilpilin introduces all of us and we talk with all of them.
Since we mentioned Kirito and Asuna, it was easy for us to convince them to work with us especially since we destroyed a force of foes who were hunting them down as we talked. It also helped that they all were well aware of how ruthless their ruler is. Lilpilin's entire tribe was sacrificed in The Underworld so the Dark Mages could launch a magical attack using spatial resources. In fact, the leader of one of the groups that was once loyal to Vecta, Ishkahn speaks: "Now is the time for us to take back our lives from the emperor! As Champion, I will lead my people through this and together, we will crush our foes with the power of our bodies and fists! And then, we will continue to train harder and harder to break past the limits of our bodies to grow even stronger!" Lipia and Vixur, 2 dark knights who tried to kill Vecta when Subtilizer took over his body, thus causing his return are next to speak, one after another. "I'm still having a hard time with the fact that we are alive once again but now, we have another chance of bringing peace to our people." "You're right, Lipia. Let's work with everyone here to make our dreams a reality." Ishkahn gets impatient: "Come on! Let's do this already!" An Integrity Knight, Scheta who Ishkahn had fallen for and vice versa replies: "Don't be so impatient! When this is over, we can fight almost to the death again. For now, let's stick with the plan we're developing." Jesse adds: "Myself and the others needed for the digging and building to be done will have to leave now in order to pull it off in time. The enemy is almost to Yilong Cheng despite the best efforts of those of us who are already fighting against them." And soon enough, we all start heading out to defend the town or directly fight the enemy force head on. With all of that being done, I found myself fighting in the frontlines against the Dark Territory army along with a bunch of others including Linel and Fizel, kids who became really good at killing by being ordered by kill each other only to be revived over and over again by Quinella. Linel exclaims: "Let's stab as many of our foes as we can!" Fizel replies: "Yeah! Let's stab them all if we can! This is going to be fun! They're going to fall to our poison!"
Another Integrity Knight who was once a failure due to his deep fear, Renly speaks: "I'm just glad that they're on our side.." Deusolbert, a very serious kind of knight replies: "Don't dwell on that too much. We have an enemy force to defeat. We have gone through too many battles in this world to falter here." I cut through a lot of enemies but it wasn't that easy. Our foes are much tougher than they were in The Underworld. But then, we hear Vecta's cold and calm laughter: "Is that all you can do against what's left of my army after so many were wiped out or betrayed me? Go ahead. Keep this up and I will be able to devour all of your delicious souls in no time." Sinon yells: "We will stop you! That's a promise!" "I do not care what you say. All that will happen in the end is your defeat at my hands. All of you will die and I will consume all of your souls. I've already consumed all of the souls I have killed so far in this world. I won't stop until no one dares to defy me or until my desire to taste souls finally calms down. And all that would take is for Alice's soul to become mine to taste. I am the officer of Glasgow Defense Systems and I won't let mere children and others stop me from getting what I desire!" This is a serious emergency. We were making progress but now, we aren't. The enemy has pushed us back to the walls and gates of Yilong Cheng. If this keeps up, the battle will spill into town. But the NPCs living in it have a lot to say against that as they come right out of town to fight alongside us. Linhua shouts: "Vecta! Just like me, you are a demon! Or that's what I would say if a friend of mine didn't teach me that my power isn't demonic or a curse.. But still, you are what I once thought I was! A true demon with immense power and strength! I will help stop you!"
"Your words don't matter at all to me. I do not care about you. If you want to win, you will have to be quiet and focus on trying to defeat me and my forces. But.. your soul must taste delicious as well. I will have a taste of it no matter what any of you try to do against me now." Fight as hard as I might but I'm barely doing anything to the enemy's thousands strong force. Damn it. Not even the Integrity Knights with their sword releases are able to do much either. Alice's ultimate technique can only defeat a few enemies. That's it. Bray speaks to me, currently fighting right with me: "Swift. I see that look in your face. Do not despair for we shall overcome this obstacle together." "I see something similar in your face.." "I see you noticed. I shall confess that this is weighing down a lot on me too." Carlos interrupts: "Lighten up already!" I reply: "Now is not the time for your humor! This is serious! We are having a much harder time with the enemy than we could have ever expected! It's like when we first dealt with those ice androids in Miitopia all over again! Do you remember how difficult they were to defeat at first?! I sure haven't forgotten! We have to find a way to win here! Because the longer this goes on, the more likely Vecta will get serious and start dealing with all of us at the same time himself along with once again kidnapping Alice! And FYI, pretty much everyone here is well aware of all of this by now so we all understand just how urgent all of this is!" Bevel yells loud enough for us all to hear: "It's time for my genius and Breakthroughs to finally make a huge difference!" Suddenly, a whole army of robots appear and start decimating the enemy army instantly. "Using data from The Last Number and the robots I've helped modified, I have created a new line of robots to assist us all in battle! And you can thank Doctor Bolt's notes for all of this at the end of the day! As well as my own skills!"
Vecta must be smirking right now as he replies: "I am done going easy on all of you. This army is completely useless to me. It always has been in this game with the power I possess now. POH was a fool in not using everything he was given but I won't make this same mistake. Go, Barian Battlemorph." He destroys his own army right after transforming into a truly demonic looking Barian humanoid. What's more is that he looks so ready to kill all of us. Seeing this, as many of us as possible rise into the air through various means to fight him as he has grown demonic wings much larger than anything he had before now. Before our eyes, several of our comrades are instantly defeated. I grit my teeth: "I have no idea how we're going to be able to defeat him.. I know it's going to take all of us working together but that alone's not going to be nearly enough. There must be some way we can win here that someone will think of eventually.. I doubt it will be me who comes up with the winning plan to finally bring down Vecta once and for all.." We charge in only to be attacked all at once. M shouts: "Look out! He's as sharp as Huang was earlier!" Vecta replies: "You're wrong. Huang is nothing compared to me now. All he is good for is some entertainment or more importantly, the taste of his soul. I have reached further beyond the level of Floor Boss than even POH or anyone else has. I will finish all of my plans and goals. You will all die and I will taste all of your delicious souls!" Seeing no other choice given what has happened in recent past battles, I focus on defending others rather than attacking. My armor is stronger than my attack. That's been true for a long time now, maybe even since the whole fighting Yappa Yappa for the first time thing, months into the conflict with Pmurt Nedib.
And it's still true in this game. I just haven't put it into words yet. It feels good to put it down for once. Thanks to that, I have a more clear sight of what I can do in this moment. But Vecta does something we didn't see coming, like he suddenly changed his mind about how he wants to settle things with us all or something. He shouts: "Kirito. I challenge you one on one." Alice interjects: "I'm the one you want! You shall be my opponent!" "It isn't that simple. I want Kirito. That's who I want to face me." Klein yells: "Cut the crap and tell us what your intentions are by challenging Kirito like this already!" "I won't waste effort trying to hide out I have planned anymore. I simply want my revenge against Kirito and anyone else who has stood in my way in the past. I also wish to complete the mission my team and I were given that failed when POH and I died in the Underworld. I want to finally taste Alice's soul. But because the rest of you don't want me to do any of that, I will kill each and every one of you when the time is right for me to do so. Do you understand what I intend on doing now?" Heathcliff frowns: "This is a troubling situation.. If Kirito accepts.." Yui yells: "Daddy! Don't do it!" "I have no choice. I accept your challenge!" Alice yells: "Kirito! You aren't doing this alone! I won't let you!" I sigh: "Kirito is seriously having a main character moment right now. What a pain. The growth in strength for he and Gabriel are on 2 different parts of the power scaling chart. It's obvious that Gabriel's has grown far more than his has. In a contest of power, Kirito will lose. In a contest of skill, Kirito will probably lose as well. The odds are stacked against him if he goes through this alone. This is really reckless and dangerous. As someone who has taken countless risks over the years of fighting I've seen, that says a lot. If the odds weren't this stacked against him and it was still a bad match up anyway, I would actually agree with Kirito's choice here."
Asuna snaps: "Kirito! You can't accept his challenge! As your partner, I won't let you!" "Sheesh Asuna! Okay okay! I get it! I get it!" Vecta laughs: "You people are so pathetic. It feels great to finally say that to you. As interesting as it would be to take only Kirito on, I just remembered all of the people I have to pay back for standing in my way again.." Sinon replies: "I'm ready to face you right here right now. When we last fought, it didn't go the way that I hoped it would." Ishkahn adds: "I will face you as well for how you treated my people as bodies to be sacrificed for your selfish cause! Damn you!" Alice adds: "If you desire me so badly, you will have to fight me to get me!" Bercouli adds: "I died to you in The Underworld. To protect Alice, I won't be killed again so easily. My skills have improved and that means you won't be able to counter my sword so easily." Vecta chuckles: "Do you honestly believe that any of you stand a chance against me even if you were to fight me together?" Sinon replies: "Maybe not but that doesn't mean we're just going to run and hide or let Kirito do this by himself because that's too reckless in this situation, even for him." "So that's how you see it. But I wonder just how long you can last against me knowing that I easily destroyed my army who gave all of you a really hard time." I speak: "Y'all aren't going to stand a chance alone. I'm willing to help fight against him as well. Besides, I have emotional justification as someone who was also born in the States and despises the States. I can tolerate living in the States because almost everything I love is there but that doesn't mean I like how it is as a whole at all. No, that just means I have patience and want things to get better."
Various others voice similar thoughts. Kirito replies to us all: "Relax, we can take him on ourselves!" Asuna snaps: "Don't say that, Kirito! Victory isn't certain! Everyone, if we need support, please provide it. Otherwise, just watch for the time being. That's the only way we can get this started without Vecta losing patience and just attempting to kill us all just like this." I decide to accept this without anymore arguing. Heathcliff speaks: "I have to agree with this plan of action. It is not preferred but considering all variables, this is the best way to have a final confrontation with you, Vecta. Even if I were to jump in to help you, not even I would be able to protect anyone forever. The Arcana System stripped me of my GM privileges, meaning that I'm no longer an immortal object. The same was done to Yui and anyone else on our side that had GM privileges. I assume the same was done to anyone else who had GM privileges up until now. But this change does not surprise me in the least. Now that the Arcana System is completely sentient, it wants the game to continue in a fair way but without the possibility of us escaping as I'm sure will be confirmed further than it has been already when we defeat An Incarnation Of The Radius." Vecta smirks: "Are all of you ready to die first before anyone else? I'm ready to get my revenge. And Alice's delicious soul." This was going to be a fight for the ages. All we could expect was total madness. The fight began with no words spoken. Everyone just came at our foe at first and then, he just sent them back flying. They recover and begin to change tactics right away in order to actually try to land a hit on them, using a mix of their best skills and less predictable and conventional tactics. Vecta laughs: "If this is all you have, you are all going to die very soon."
Kirito yelled: "Damn you! We're only just getting started! We'll take you down as quickly as possible so no one else has to get hurt! Release Recollection!" The villain smirks as he just takes it head on only for it to immediately do nothing to him. I sigh: "Holding nothing back from the beginning is the only viable strategy against an opponent who not only is far stronger than you but knows your every typical and known move. I would have stated that this was too reckless but it's not. I do hate having to watch all of this fold out without having a piece of the action. I'm a nerd turned knight, I'd rather be chilling and reading books and stuff. However, even I can't deny the thrill of a good fight even if I usually take a serious fight fully seriously, just concentrating on the fight, refusing to outright enjoy it so I can focus better." It only gets more and more intense as no one holds back except for Vecta who while still dealing so much damage is clearly playing with our comrades. Bercouli chuckles: "Damn, you really are one tough opponent. But it's time for all of us to begin using our real full strength, isn't it? We don't have any choice besides that to win here. My sword can slash into the past and the future. Against most enemies, that alone would give me the victory. But against you, it's a lot more complicated. Last time, you defeated the Time Splitting Sword." "Go ahead, enemies. Try and kill me with your real maximum power. Do not hold anything back. You'd only waste my and your time by doing so." And so, they all fight with everything they have but it makes no difference. Vecta looks bored: "This is your best, is it? The only way I can get my revenge now is by tormenting and torturing you like POH- Vassago would.
You are all too weak, it almost feels like it's a waste of time to seek revenge on any of you now. You are nothing to me now. I am considering just leaving all of you to wallow in self pity and not waste the energy to kill you myself after making you feel true despair." Naruto yells: "Damn it! This is exactly why you should have let us help you in full from the getgo!" Ghost Gal adds: "It's pretty clear that this is the time for us to come in and help however we can possibly do so." I don't say anything myself. I just dual wield with my sword and high tech gun. Pretty much all of us mobilize in that same moment. It's time for us all to fight together. We will not let him win nor will we let him just leave because he thinks we're too weak to be worth defeating. Fizel shouts: "It's time to stab another enemy!" Nagato speaks: "We must use everything at our disposal." Hearing this, I recall my death coasters and start placing a bunch down, aimed at our foe: "Hey y'all, can you maybe help me keep me right there for a couple of minutes?" Tsunade yells: "Death coasters?! Those won't help here!" "Don't underestimate roller coasters." Strangely, we are able to keep Vecta from moving anywhere. I then yell when it's time after putting the coasters on test mode: "NOW!" Vecta chuckles when everyone retreats. By now, I'm known for my excessive use of derailing death coasters. And so, the coasters crash into each other in mid air not far from our foe instantly due to the speeds at which they accelerated to almost right away. The beautiful explosion was glorious and seemed to deal serious damage to Vecta. But it only inflicted a few wounds.. We didn't wait for the explosion to end though. Instead, we unleashed projectile attacks against him while the smoke cleared and went back in even after seeing my move deal little damage. I delete the coasters to get the col they cost to put down back.
A few minutes later, we are all badly hurt because he isn't playing around that much anymore. Instead, he is showing much of his true power against all of us at once and that is proving to be a giant problem for all of us. Vecta chuckles again: "All of you are too weak. I am disappointed. I expected you to put up a much better fight than that. I will be taking Alice now and will return later to finish all of you off. None of you are of any interest to me anymore. Not even you, Kirito." Feiling, someone who I had heard about from Koharu and the others appears flying with some kind of magic to yell: "It isn't over yet! You forgot about the rest of us!" Right before our eyes, every possible player and NPC who could be here and wasn't before has shown up out of nowhere. Even the fisherman Nishida is. He exclaims: "Kirito! I hope to fish alongside you again once this is over! Just make sure not to fish up one of the giant ones! Anyway, there is something all of you should know." Vecta interrupts and smirks: "None of you have changed the current situation. I can see that you're all far too weak to challenge me, even if you were to all fight me together." The fisherman wags his finger: "That's not so. In fact, there has been a secret that's been kept from even the Assault Team and many of the residents of this world. All of us here have risen to be up to par with the Assault Team." Garnet replies: "Even if I had my Future Sight in this game, I still wouldn't have been able to see that coming." The villain widens his eyes: "How is this possible?! When and how did this happen?! I can see that you aren't lying in your eyes.."
"We have all been training for a long time. For those of us who aren't players, training began when rumors of monsters being defeated inside the Celestial Tower began to spread. When Kales'Oh and Lyusula joined the Assault Team so long ago, that only added fuel to what was being spread around and when the Arcana System regained sentience, the training accelerated. For the rest of us, we have been trying to reach Assault Team level for some time, vastly different for each of us in terms of starting date. And then, we met all of these residents of this world and began to come up with a way for us all to become as strong as the legendary Assault Team. Now, we are here." Kirito replies: "How do you of all people know this?" "Im but a simple fisherman in this world. However, I have been talking to many of the others, piecing together how we have come to this moment over time." Vecta speaks: "Nonsense. What you are saying is nonsense. There's no way all of you became this strong without the help of the clearers!" Sachi replies: "But we did help, maybe not entirely without realizing it. I helped a few mid level players train, relating to their desires as someone who also dreamed of joining the Assault Team before my dream came true through my own hard work and determination." Nishida yells: "Let's do this, everyone! Let's show our enemy here just what we can do when we fight together! I can't wait to get back to my fishing once we have taken care of Vecta aka Subtilizer aka Gabriel Miller." Vecta only laughs at hearing this. When we start attacking together, he stops immediately. But he doesn't back down either. He still has lots of confidence even though he is very calm about all of this. We trade blows with him. He is unable to hurt any of us very badly again.
The fight goes on for an hour with neither side giving an inch but we're getting pretty tired attacking him all at once as much as possible while doing everything in our power to stay alive. Vecta is getting annoyed: "This is taking too long. You are still too weak." Argo replies: "That's not what I see. Kii-boy, Asu, and Sinonon aren't the only ones doing great here. I seem to be doing okay and everyone else is fighting with their best as well. Even NPCs that don't really fight that much are going above and beyond against you." Diavel shouts: "We are starting to get exhausted. We must begin attacking in a more planned and organized manner." Kirito replies: "We'll have to use the ultimate switch technique!" I state: "Not a bad idea. Let's be real here. Strategically, fighting against someone his size with all of us is terrible, we can't really maximize everyone's abilities the way we have been doing this though it is allowing us to safely have this discussion, I'll concede that much. He isn't like a Floor Boss in size despite still being bigger than most of us due to his transformation. Instead, having multiple teams of us just keep switching out should work. But I suggest we go beyond just that and make it more complicated for him to figure us out. We need to use all kinds of other tactics too such as guerilla tactics as well as more of a focus on far ranged attacks. Let's not forget decoys either." But then, something happens. Huang appears and flies into the sky somehow in order to join us in the fight. Many of us couldn't believe our eyes. Huang speaks: "This human who has turned himself into a demon aggravated me earlier. He is a threat to all of Aincrad and a truly strong foe at that. I wish to battle with him so I will join you now that I have recovered from being defeated earlier."
Vecta only grins at this and basically using body language to dare us to attack him again. We change tactics so quickly thanks to PMs and mouth to mouth communication to what was discussed and more that we manage to deal a lot of damage before he manages to finally understand what's going on now only for Huang to take his counterattacks with ease for us. The Arcana System appears to approve of this but the Cardinal System isn't. It speaks through the sky itself: "Anomaly detected. 85th Floor Boss: Huang The Hundred Arms has defied programming and developed human level speech. Finding solutions to correct anomaly. Optimal solution: terminate Huang The Hundred Arms and run respawning sequence. Detecting another anomaly. Unnatural stats in player. User ID: Subtilizer. Optimal solution. Erasure of User Subtilizer." Vecta reacts and finally loses it: "What?! No! I can't let that happen!" It attempts to erase him only to fail: "Operation failed. Retrying. Failed. Error detected. Error identified. Unable to erase user with abnormal stats due to them exceeding the game's integer limit." I yell: "What the?! How is that even possible?!" Suddenly, every single other Floor Boss appears. They all target Subtilizer. Even An Incarnation Of The Radius appears. The Arcana System speaks: "Attempting to correct Cardinal System's failure. Floor Bosses summoned to current battle location. System overrride. Upgrading Floor Bosses to maximum stats at integer limit. Temporarily applying the same to all players and NPCs other than Subtilizer through 5 minute status buff. Success." I have never ever felt as powerful as I do now. I look in my Stasia window to find my stats are absolutely maxed out to the limit in this game.
I smile: "Strange as it is but the Arcana System is looking out for us after all. Alright then, let's take care of Subtilizer now. He is still more powerful than any of us but in combined power, ours makes his seem tiny by comparison. This shouldn't take long." Using the switch technique again, we attack alongside all of the Floor Bosses. Before the 5 minutes on the buff are up, Vecta is dying on the ground. Typhon scoffs: "That wasn't even that satisfying of a fight. Hmph. We didn't even get to truly struggle or fight back in a very satisfying way. This is not how I would have preferred to defeat him if I had a choice between this and any other way of defeating him successfully." Vecta speaks weakly: "Impossible.. Not only has my sense of calm been completely shattered and I have failed.. But even the game itself has completely rejected me.. I can't believe I'm going to die again. All of these emotions I never thought I had even as a kid. They're all coming to me, overwhelming me on the inside.. This isn't logical.. This doesn't make any sense!" A familiar female voice replies: "But it does make sense. After all, I helped influence the systems to do what they just helped do to you." Eugeo yells: "Not you!" Quinella appears with a smile on her face: "Love is control, do you remember that still, my dear Eugeo?" Kirito snaps: "You stay the hell out of Eugeo's head!" She ignores him and turns to face me: "Ah yes, Lord Swiftdrawer. We had so much fun together, didn't we?" "No. Leave me alone. And Im no lord. Get it right. I'm part of a collective, not a leader or someone who holds land." Vecta utters: "Why did you do it, Pontifex?" "So I can have you, my dear Gabriel Miller. You will belong to me and I will belong to you. It will be as simple as that. Don't you want to start over as one of my Integrity Knights?" A familiar figure appears. It's Lightning. And he's in knightly armor he's never had before.
He adds: "I suggest you accept, my friend. Our lady is very good to us. She is giving us another chance to live and to fulfill our desires." Another figure appears. It's POH in dark knight armor like the armor he wore while in a general's body at the start of the War Of The Underworld. He speaks: "It's a legit deal! Look at me! I've never been this strong and ready to kill all of those fools around you!" Gabriel glares coldly at all of them: "I have my mission and I will do it alone because everyone has failed to help me in it up to now. They started out helpful before they began to fall one after another. You can forget me joining your little group, Pontifex." Quinella sighs: "As you wish but you will change your mind the moment your hp hits zero. Farewell for now. Can't have those monitoring this game finding out about me and my new Integrity Knights, can we?" Zaizen speaks: "You mean Sol Technologies, Kaiba Corporation, Mojang, possibly Frontier and/or Atari, and the other companies behind the various games.." "You're right, Akira Zaizen. Till we meet again." And with that, they all just vanish into thin air just like that. With them now gone, things wind down for now. The Floor Bosses return to normal and from whence they came. The Assault Team expands to including every player and NPC in the game just about. (Earlier, "all players except Subtilizer" was said. The systems didn't count anyone in the Blackiron Prison as players. That was verified later on because Argo noticed the thing before anyone else did.) To put it bluntly, we took a few days to evaluate all of the madness that happened and rest physically and mentally. We were still beat up and physically worn out from all of that, after all. It was now Day 960 and we were still kind of recovering from all of that. But now, we were on the 86th Floor. It went by pretty fast even though the boss was even tougher than Huang was. But after all of that chaos and pain, it was just the right challenge for us.
On the 87th Floor, we reached the spa in Steam Country. But it was closed because of a monster infestation problem involving monkey business with some monkey monsters, it took the first party to reach the spa questing to deal with them in order for the spa to reopen. What's more is that the quest was apparently a lot harder than it originally was, requiring many of us from the core of the Assault Team to help out. The Arcana System must have made it much harder in response to what happened on the 85th Floor in that nearly all players and NPCs are all clearers. Once the spa was finally open, that's where the road to recovery for many of us finally ended on Day 977. Hot springs spa.. What a good place to mentally rest from pure chaos. Myself and some of the others actually stopped in at Lingling Fandalian on the 85th Floor after an afternoon in the hot springs. Feiling happily served us after taking our orders and was able to talk to us for a while. Now, relations between players and NPCs has reached all new heights. But on the 88th Floor is when things got really serious. The first thing we saw was Ruid Village as well as a screen window displaying: "TABOO INDEX VIOLATIONS." in flashing red lights. That happened on Day 979. To be continued..