Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds

Chapter 33: Confronting the Pontifex

Date: Infinityverse Days 1058-1102

Sanya yells: "We have no time for this!" Bevel adds: "Its time to put into a newly created plan to end this battle right here and now!" Bowling laughs once again: "You can't! It won't work!" Argo snickers: "Ehehehehe! Are ya sure about that!" Myself and the others move back as far away from the enemy as we can. And then, some comrades who hadn't originally come here with us act. It's time to stop focusing so much on fighting head on. It's time to get a lot more explosive just like many times before now. From the sky, TNT rains down on our foes and explodes, causing many to be killed instantly. The villain is horrified: "What is all of this?! What have you done to my army?!" "We prepared an excellent plan for defeating enemy armies and it's time that we test it out on ya! Isn't that right, Asu?!" Asuna nods: "We didn't come as unprepared as you think, Bowling! We knew the likes of you might try something like this on us." "You did? How could you have known?!" Kakashi speaks: "It was obvious given how things have played out as of late. It was only a matter of time until you tried something like this again but on a bigger scale than on the 88th Floor." Our foes recover and prepare to attack us until all of us duelists activate our duel disks and summon monster after monster to get them. "It's time for my latest composition to be completed on this canvas of a duel field! I may be a knight, trained well to fight and protect and kill if need be. But right now. It is time for you to face my creativity! I set the Pendulum Scale!" "Unite and fight! I'll keep saying it as many times as needed!" "I create the circuit that links the known to the unknown!" Hundreds of monsters appear in seconds and immediately attack what's left of our foes.

Some of the enemy forces are quickly wiped out but we're not done just yet. The others act as well. Far range fighters pick 'em off at a distance while close range fighters tank or fight against Bowling at close quarters. The villain yells: "You think this will work?! I'll show you that you're wrong! You still can't hold a candle to my power nor the power of the rest of my-" The rest of his army is decimated before his very eyes and with them all out of the way, we use everything we've learned in this game up to now to completely overwhelm and outsmart Bowling. He was unable to do a thing as we pelted him with attacks, techniques, and tricks. This is it. We're getting rid of the last revived villain we had beaten before in this game who ended up coming under the service of Quinella. And there's no holding back. We are giving it everything we have and have even called upon every other player and NPC who hadn't been in the battle to join us. Our combined power destroyed the Seal of Orichalcos itself, giving us more room to bring down Bowling who stood no chance against all of us put in the same location. The entire player base and every NPC anyone befriended or allied with up to now were all gathered to defeat Bowling now. Before such a force, even he was easily killed off. He died screaming just as he has before in the past. That put an end to him and his army once and for all. To think that his forces could do almost nothing against us in the end. It's really ironic that that is how things have ended up going when at first, they were completely overwhelming us to begin with. But our plans were not something any of them saw coming and that's how we managed to fight them off and win.

Now that they're all dead, we all work together to kill the 95th Floor Boss who hadn't become as evolved as Dorz'l did so it was less difficult to defeat it for obvious reasons. When that was done, it was only 3 days after we killed Bowling and his underlings. So now, it's day 1061. And we are basically 3 years and a month into this game. That's a very long time to be trapped in a game. We are developing ways to fight against the Arcana System's future attempts to keep us trapped in this game as we speak whenever we have time to do so. The investigation on missing players was carried out weeks ago and ended once it turned out that Quinella was behind it as some of the foes we faced between then and now were those missing players and we were forced to kill them. That reality didn't hit until we finally fought through more of the Central Cathedral and made it to the teleport gate to the 96th Floor. But we had no time to dwell on it much. We were now marathoning as hard as we possibly could. Within a few days, the 96th Floor Boss was taken out but now, we had a problem. We had to leave behind some of our comrades on the way to the 96th to hold off the foes who tried to block our way up the Central Cathedral. The rush has been so urgent that we have barely paid attention to such things as the floor of that tower Alice originally guarded and fought against Kirito on before nearly falling to her doom alongside him. Those comrades have yet to catch up to us and we've had to limit how many of us are on each floor because there's enough of us to destabilize parts of the entire tower if the weight we add to any floor gets too high. As far as we know, there have been around at least 200,000 individuals trapped in this game. No one knows the total. So yeah. Most of them are just on standby across the entire game thus far right now with about 2,000 of us going up the tower in groups. And about 30,000 players have died since the whole resurrection thing happened.

They died outside of boss fights for the most part but I was too busy to notice that much. They have died mostly during this whole situation Quinella started and I hate it. Because those comrades who stayed behind to fight enemies in our way have not caught up yet, that means that we are in for it and they may have been killed or are recovering somewhere, unable to fight alongside us for now. That worry is only going to get worse as time goes on and more of us urge the others to move along while we handle whatever enemy is in the way of us moving up the tower. But most urgently, we can't give up here no matter what we face. Along the way up the final stretch of the tower, we quickly run into 3 Integrity Knights. I step forward: "Asuna, Kirito, Sinon, Llenn, everyone. Go ahead. I'll take care of them but not by myself. No way can I do that on my own." Bray does too: "You can count on us. We shall catch up as soon as we can." Pirate Blaster adds: "Arr! Worry yourselves not! We WILL catch up! It's a promise and we're going to keep it no matter what it takes!" Heathcliff replies: "We're counting on you to keep your word." The others then head up. Myself, Bray, Pirate Blaster, and others who prominently reside in Mii World get ready to fight our foes. Each is from Ragnarok The Animation. It appears Quinella has found better individuals to serve her compared to before. There's Zephyr, Melopsum, and the Ant Hell ant queen Maya. Zephyr laughs: "I will show all of you the ultimate truth! Let's begin! Firestorm!" I tank it and willing take all of the damage. Melopsum laughs: "I'll show you why I hate humans so much and why monsters and humans cannot coexist!" The Maya actually speaks: "I will find who killed my successor!" Zephyr laughs: "Do you still believe that my dear Takius was behind your successor's death? I'm the one who made Takius do it!" "It was you?! Then you're the one I have to kill!"

Maya lays eggs that hatch into angry ants who attack everyone in sight, friend or foe. Herbsalvin speaks: "Their falling out is not helping us here. We must act together. Swift, my knight, I will not allow you to tank all by yourself again!" My lover and fellow knight rushes to my side as we focus on killing the ants in an act of self defense. That continued even as Zephyr destroyed many of them with his magic and Melopsum managed to mutate all of the ants into truly dangerous creatures. Our lives are in so much danger now that it's unthinkable that they are in this much danger. Barla yells: "We are losing! What the hell are we supposed to do in a situation like this?!" Dominic yawns: "No more holding anything back. We must stop neglecting the ALO magic we have all learned and take to the skies with the wings we have because of this game. For so many battles, we have completely forgotten our wings over and over again. This time, we have to actually use them to get out of this alive!" He's right. We get into the air as fast as possible, allowing us to turn things around on the ants. Before long, we have killed most of them off and Zephyr kills the Maya, annoying Melopsum in the process of doing so. Zephyr laughs: "It's all going to plan! I don't care about actually killing any of you! In fact, I'm just here to waste your time so that Lady Quinella can crush whoever manages to make it to her chambers after making it past the others including the Senate of the Axiom Church!" Melopsum replies: "That wasn't part of the plan! Why do you defy direct orders to kill any who try to get past this floor?" "It's the only way to maintain the ultimate truth! That's why! It's all part of my ambition which will serve to further the goals of our master!" "Fine. But we're talking about this once we kill all of these fools." "Very well. I'll concede to you for now! It's time for all of you fools to die! It's a shame my dear Takius ran ahead to move further up this tower but oh well! I'll have a reunion with her soon enough!"

Carlos chuckles: "But that will never happen! Hehehehe! We're going to get you!" We start coordinating our attacks to stop both villains who were originally reformed shortly before they died in their world. Now that they've been brought to this world, all of that has been undone. They prove to be difficult to deal with. Melopsum alone wouldn't have been so bad because she was never as much of an active fighter, opting instead to manipulate monsters from the shadows while Zephyr manipulated from the shadows too but eventually became more active by using his magic in battles. We were struggling against them despite all of this because of how Quinella and Don Thousand have buffed them. Flying above them doesn't make a difference. Zephyr can still attack us even if we're flying due to the range his magic has. "FIRESTORM! METEOR STORM! HAHAHAHAHAHA! ISNT THIS GREAT?! THE ULTIMATE TRUTH WILL LIVE FOREVER!" We fought and we fought, giving it all we have until we broke through Zephyr's defenses and turn his relative inexperience in close quarters combat against him. SAO prioritizes swords over any other weapon so that only made things easier for those of us who used swords. Once we got Zephyr pinned down, it became a lot easier to defeat both villains. Once we did, they died because we were forced to bring them down that completely. With all of that taken care of, we panted a lot and healed with a lot of items. I groan: "I'm so tired. My entire body still hurts from that. We need to rest before we dare move up to any level above this one. I know there's an elevator Kirito and Alice were able to use the last time they pursued Quinella here but I don't think we'll have the option of using that."

Mel nods: "We're right. We aren't in any condition to fight nor can we leave this place to rest somewhere safer without possibly causing huge problems for ourselves and the others. I am not as experienced in this death game as you are given that I was only recently trapped in here but even I can see that." We just sit on the ground and rest for a while before we get back up and run up the stairs to the next floor. We see another battle raging on when we arrive. It's the GGO players along with the VRAINS duelists fighting against some dangerous AI apparently. Blood Sheppard shouts: "We will eliminate you!" All of us join in without a second thought, helping put it to an end by the time the night falls upon day 1061 of this game. We had to camp out on the floor we were on with some of us guarding in shifts to make sure we could actually get some sleep. The next few days were a lot of running, resting, and fighting before we found Kirito and the others trying to bust open a really big door. Klein complains: "Damn it! Nothing is working! We have been here for days just trying to get past this door and the more we've tried to, the more enemies have tried to kill us!" Argo nods: "Yeah. I wasn't expecting anything like this." Eugeo exclaims: "It's even tougher than the Giga Cedar! Generations of my family barely made a dent in that tree!" Lisbeth frowns: "We have tried everything we could possibly try but not a single thing has made a dent in it." Myself, my closest friends, and various others have finally made it up here only to hear all of these things being said. Pito exclaims: "Have you tried blowing it up?!" Sinon replies: "Many times." Nya yells: "Have you tried going around or above or below it to get past it?" Agil sighs: "Yeah, we did. And more. But still, nothing has changed in the several days that we've been here other than how we're doing. Starting to run out of supplies here."

Dominic speaks: "Let me look at that door. Maybe I can find a way past it." He opens the window on its stats. "Nap causation. It requires a huge object authority level to open. And it has unlimited durability." Hatsume laughs: "Then why don't we just destroy the floor below it to make it fall through the floor below us right now?!" Argo sighs once again: "Tried that too. But the floor can't be destroyed. Not even with 10 stacks of TNT. In fact, nothing around us can be destroyed. We almost died trying to blow everything up around us." Shikamaru looks at the door and all around it closely: "There's nothing to get inside there through another way." Kirito speaks: "We tried breaking an outer wall so we could climb to find another way inside what's behind this door: the Senate. I remember it well. But still, climbing would be too risky due to the fact that you can't climb up here for the bottom floor even if the game didn't split up this tower with the skies and grounds of each floor it runs through here. There's the big garden in the way of doing so not that many floors down from this one. We tried to climb from that floor too but it didn't work either. Anything that somehow gets destroyed in this tower is regenerated too quickly for us to get past." Cardinal speaks: "I believe I know a way to get all of us past this door. As long as Quinella hasn't taken over my library, it should be a simple matter to open a gate to it and from inside of it, we can open a old gate I placed in the Senate a very long time ago to get inside and bypass the door entirely. But we have to be careful. Who knows what could be waiting for us even in the library." She does just that and we follow her inside to end up inside her huge library where nothing seems to be out of place in the slightest.

It just feels really abandoned and dusty. Cardinal sighs: "It looks like no one has even tried to keep it from falling apart ever since I died in the Underworld. Quinella knows about this place but it's the only place her power can't-" A violent shake interrupts her. Bercouli yells: "What was that?!" It happens again and again and again but suddenly ceases. A few seconds later, a figure appears before us. Koharu glares at them: "Its Notte!" Notte scowls: "Long time no see.. I would prefer to be meeting you under circumstances where I punish you for violating the rules. However, something just happened and I blame it on all of you!" Typhon scoffs: "You're one of the two who are part of Magna Arcana in our Aincrad. You have caused all of us there a lot of trouble." "I don't care about your anger or complaints! Quinella has taken over the Arcana System and it's the fault of all of you! I just know it! What's more is that she also took control of the Cardinal System. But this time, it's not so simple as that. She plans on forcing everyone in this world to obey her Taboo Index and I'm willing to let bygones be bygones for now until she is brought down. Until she is, I will be sticking with all of you. Oh and if you're wondering about my friend, she banished him from this world and I'm going to make her undo what she did!" Mater frowns: "How do we know if we can trust you?" "*sigh* Is it really that hard for you to trust me? Fine! Look, I'll cut you a deal as much as I hate to make it. I will not stop 10 of you Assault Team members from leaving this game through a portal on the 100th Floor that will appear as soon as An Incarnation Of The Radius is defeated. I will also tell you something you might not know.

Quinella is behind the door problem you have been dealing with. She wants to make all of you waste your time and energy while she finishes becoming all powerful and taking control of this entire world. Now that both systems are under her control, all she needs to do now is stop all of you and take over the systems of the other games that were brought together with Aincrad. And then, no one will able to stop her. I'm willing to put aside our differences as much as I despise doing it if it means she dies! Do you get it now?! DO YOU GET IT?!" All of us nod. We are now able to focus more on our common foe from now on. As a result, we are soon able to get inside the Senate thanks to Cardinal. Immediately, alarms flash brightly as the dead looking figures of the Senate members suddenly regain physical bodies and actual life. And then, a creature who looks like some kind of jester appears and laughs at us. Alice yells: "It's you! Chief Elder of the Axiom Church, Chudelkin!" Chudelkin replies: "It's been a long time, Alice! I'm here to help see to it that you and your friends never get to disturb my lady! As second in command just behind her, it's my responsibility to ensure the plan to kill all of you here goes smoothly! Should you somehow get past all of us, my lady will still be more than ready to finish you off herself! She would have done so months ago herself. But because she has to sleep so often, she can't spend much time doing anything else! And I, Chudelkin will ensure that there's no chance of her being forced to face any of you! This is going to be a lot of fun! I just can't wait to see the expressions on your faces as you realize that there's no way you're getting past me or us!"

Someone suddenly tries to kill him with a huge axe. It's Klaus of Beyblade's Team Excalibur: "All of you, those of us just now arriving will take care of the Senate! It'll take all of you to stop Quinella! Go! Go! Go! I'll show them the power I possess of the Axe Of Destruction with my strength put at the limit's edge! Just leave this to me and the others! Hurry up!" Alice replies: "You shall not leave any of you behind! We must do this all together!" Chudelkin just mocks her: "So you refuse to skip past us, huh? It's too bad we aren't going to let you live anyway!" I go at one of the Senate members but find only difficulty and pain as a result despite facing them with so many others at the same time. But then, a huge explosion rocks the entire Senate Chamber as other comrades appear, having somehow busted their way inside of here. Scorm from Chima yells: "We will squish these Senate members! Let the squishing begin!" Sailor Moon exclaims: "It's time to end this! We need to let as many of us get past these enemies while the rest of us handle them!" Chudelkin cackles: "That's not going to happen! Have a taste of my FIRE MAG-" He is cut off as a bunch of ALO players cast spells on him specifically. He screams as the battle devolves into pure chaos and he takes a lot of damage. PIXAL yells: "We already discussed who should confront Quinella! All of you who were chosen to deal with her need to go upstairs immediately!" Myself and many others such as Kirito, Alice, Eugeo, Naruto, Konan, Nagato, Deku, Uraraka, All Might, Goku, Bulma, Beerus, Whis, Kirito's group, Heathcliff, Romeo/The Admin, Jesse, PAMA, Minglow Bats, Scar Basiltomato, Blaze, and Dr. Bonesbane all start running towards the way to reach Quinella's chamber from here. Chudelkin gets back up and tries to get us: "Get back here! You aren't going-"

Kaito and others attack him. The Photon duelist glares at him: "Aren't going where?" Placido smirks: "It is you who isn't going anywhere, Chudelkin. You pest, let me hear you scream like a dying bee!" Pinkie Pie smiles at the villain: "We're going to have some fun together!" The last thing I heard was Chudelkin's screams of pain and terror as we made it to Quinella's chambers. Alice, Eugeo, Kirito, Cardinal, and Bercouli are in the front of our group: being the ones with the most business with her while the likes of me are not far behind them in that regard. Quinella is sleeping or rather, she was until she abruptly wakes up and smiles at all of us. "So you have finally arrived here to stop me. It took all of you long enough. But if I'm going to fight all of you, I'm going to first explain all of my plans in detail so I can make you see that it's hopeless to stop me. The teleport gate to the 97th Floor is located here in this room but now that I control the Cardinal and Arcana Systems, I won't allow it to activate no matter what you do to it or me." Kirito demands: "Stop wasting time! We know what you want, Administrator! And soon, we'll kill you for everything you've done!" "Hahahahaha! Your words mean nothing against the power I now wield. I will soon control this entire game and everything in it. It won't be long until the Taboo Index makes it impossible for any NPC or other resident of this world besides you players to resist me. Any who disobey will lose their right eye and be punished severely. Any violation of the index means execution unless I can make use of any of the sinners who still choose to break the Taboo Index."

I glare at the villain: "I have words I want to say to you but I'm going to hold off for now until I emotionally mean them as well. All I'm going to say is that we will do everything in our power to stop you. You won't control or use me again. You messed me up but that's only one of the many horrible deeds you have done in the name of your selfish interests. You even killed the 4 guardian dragons who once protected the Human Empire in all directions. You're partially responsible for the War Of the Underworld that occurred shortly after your death. The list of your deeds is incredibly lengthy. You do not deserve anyone's mercy." "I had so much fun with you all that time ago. It's a shame that Im going to have to kill you just like all of the rest. I will revive my sword golem once the time to battle arrives. With it being made out of 300 people as well as the memories I stole from my original Integrity Knights, it will be only just the beginning. When all of you are dead, I will use your bodies to create more sword golems before they disappear. In time, your precious Assault Team will all be turned into sword golems as well as with the others who live in this world. I will rule this entire world and once I do, I will expand outside of this world to conquer even entire universes as my army of sword golems expands more and more rapidly over time. Eventually, I will have more than enough power to even overthrow Don Thousand and turn him into a sword golem as well for me to use as I please. When it's all over, there will be nothing left but loyal subjects and sword golems in the entirety of existence as I destroy anything that doesn't fit my perfect existence. All power will belong to me. Not even the gods will be able to stop me. Oh and that includes our god Stasia.

I know the truth about the goddess Stasia. I know much about other worlds and there is nothing any of you can do to stop me from achieving my plans. All who oppose me will be crushed until there's no one left alive to oppose me. All be conquered in my name. That is the reality of what's going to happen no matter what tricks you try to use against me in order to have any chance at all at defeating me. If you believe that you can still win, you'll be disappointed to find out that your hope is now pointless as I crush it right out of each and every one of you. I won't even need to wear armor against any of you. Before me, all of you are weak and inferior. I will become a new god. The only god in existence." Eugeo replies: "That's not happening! We will stop you!" Alice nods: "We shall put an end to your farce! Pontifex, you have no one left to serve you! The Senate is being defeated. Soon, things are going to be over for you!" Quinella just laughs in mockery of all of us. But then, she looks straight at me: "And you, I'm not finished talking about you. Due to your insubordination against me, you are not a true knight! You are a cheap imitation of one!" "Is that the best insult you have for me? I'm almost flattered, it was an awfully cringe insult. You can tell me I'm not a true knight all you want but I don't care much for your opinion. Despite all of my mistakes and downright descents into utter madness, I have kept proving my worth over and over again. I am a knight and there's nothing you can do to convince me otherwise. My sword and my armor, tabard, and cape arent just precious to me. They're a part of me. They help complete my identity as a knight. And I will stand firm against you as someone who has worked hard to earn my worthiness of being a knight!"

"Keep telling yourself that! My opinion is the only one that matters! My opinion is soon going to become rule and law in this world and all worlds beyond it! Oh and I don't care about the Senate! They're a bunch of fools who only keep my rule stable. They're disposable especially that disgusting creature called Chudelkin!" As if summoned by having his name get mentioned, Chudelkin appears by running up to the room we're in while the roof over it parts to reveal a very dark sky. So it looks like we're going to fight on this floor instead after all. The jester like villain yells: "Lady Pontifex! Lady Pontifex! You have to save me! Fuse with me! Become one with me! Together, we'll be unstoppable! I will let your will destroy my own will when we merge! Please! Merge with me to become one!" Quinella shoves him away: "I will NOT merge with a disgusting little toad like you!" "Lady Pontifex! You're making a mistake! All of these foes of yours are so strong!" "Silence, you disgusting creature. I only tolerate you because you are able to manage affairs for me while I sleep in this room peacefully!" "DONT REJECT ME! PLEASE, MERGE WITH MEEEEEEEEEE!" Chudelkin sees some of our comrades walking up the steps to this room and screams even more while running to the Pontifex and desperately clinging onto her leg: "They're coming! The ones who almost killed me just now! They're coming! Merge with me so that my body can be in service of you directly, my lady! PLEASE! BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!" "Be quiet, you disgusting thing!" "NOOOOOOO! DONT LEAVE ME TO DIE! I WONT LET GO! I WONT LET GO!" "Get off of me!" "NEVER! IM YOURS TO USE AND I WONT LET GO UNTIL YOU USE ME!" But then, he forcibly merges with her someway somehow, causing them to become a single being.

The fusion screams. While the roof is retracted, the walls are not and there are a few mirrors on them. They see their reflection and scream even more: "No! I'm hideous! No! Curse that Chudelkin! He has made me ugly! And I can't split from him! GRRRRRRRRRR!" That confirms who the fusion is in the end. Lapis speaks: "I almost feel bad for her. I know what this is like." Jasper replies: "I said I was sorry for that and so did Steven who accidentally was indirectly responsible." "I know that and that you've changed a lot but those painful memories of when you and I were trapped together as Malachite never truly went away.. I've been slowly coming to terms with those memories but it's still going to be sometime. I'm still far better than I was the moment the fusion was ended." Quinella is too busy screaming about what has now happened to her appearance. This is the perfect time to attack her. She hasn't summoned her sword golem yet and she is too upset to think straight. She is even too distracted right now to notice that we are about to attack her with just about everything we have. It's a good thing that pretty much all of us have taken good breaks today. Despite it being so dark outside so early in the day, the air is still as fresh as ever. We get her with all that we can but then, she attacks us right back, dealing a lot of damage to us all with a single sword attack now that she's armed with her sword. "I don't care about my appearance anymore! I control the sky, the weather, almost everything!" She's lying. We can tell. She still looks very distressed and so, we have to deal with her unstable attacks and ramblings for a while as her mental health continues to fall apart. Quinella's growing instability gave us the chance we needed to deal more and more damage while also learning from her attack patterns and adapting to em.

The damage we were taking was still no small matter though. I'm bleeding heavily again at this point and my armor has taken a beating but if she were still in control of herself emotionally, Quinella would have harmed us a lot more than she has thus far. A army of RCT3 peeps arrives to take on all of the damage she's doing now that her behavior has devolved to match that of your typical Floor Boss's behavior but they only get sent flying, falling hundreds of meters as a result. Bercouli exclaims: "The Pontifex is now attacking like a true monster! All of her humanity has left her!" Alice replies: "Uncle, that's not a good thing for us. As cunning as she is normally, this isn't any better than that." "You're right, kid. This isn't any better. In fact, it's actually worse than how she normally is." But then, 4 dragons suddenly appear from who knows where. Quinella recognizes them and comes back to her senses: "Impossible! It's the 4 guardian dragons! I killed them all! How are they here?!" Ignoring all of us, she attempts to kill them only for that to fail. "So be it! Arise, my creation! Behold, my sword golem! Sword golem, kill them and all of my other enemies!" "I don't think so! It's time, Blue Rose Sword! Release Recollection!" "My sword, it is time! Graceful Protector! Release Recollection!" Eugeo and I aren't the only ones to do that. The others who can use that ability do so as well. The sword golem is stopped for now by our efforts but it was obvious that that wasn't going to last for very long. Quinella laughs madly: "None of these unexpected-" She remembers her face and starts losing it again, even freaking out even more this time over the fact that the 4 dragons she had killed were back. I shout while engaging the sword golem: "Quinella's mind is now in a state of chaos where it can become rational again at any time only to spiral out of control again!

This is what happens when someone's ego is dependent on their desire to look pretty! Looks aren't everything! Sure, in this body, it goes without saying that I'm a pretty majestic looking knight with my sword, sword, cape, tabard, bright red hair, and so on but that doesn't mean I'm obsessed about looking so majestic. One's self worth should never be greatly tied to the way they look! And this sword golem is going down one way or another! We will not lose anyone here in this battle! We are going to win despite all of the obstacles and work that we still have to endure getting through to pull off a win in this one! Quinella, your ego is your greatest weakness! HAAAAAAA!" I try to break off one of the sword golem's many limbs but fail and end up getting hurt even more. I'm knocked to the ground and struggle to get back up as I bleed more and cough badly and nearly throw up. I hear some of my comrades yell: "Swift!" "Don't worry about me so much! I'm not the legendary hero who acts like a beacon of hope and brings smiles to everyone's faces as a famous icon who millions look up to. I don't want to be treated like I'm special. I just want to be treated fairly as a human being! And I don't want the eyes of millions on me, itching to find out what I'm going to do next as a knight who is trying to do some good here! *gets back up* I'm not dead yet. I'll keep fighting." In her rage, Quinella knocks the 4 dragons out of the sky. Some of the others rush to their aid. Cardinal speaks: "I will care for them in my library. But I can't do it alone. Tell anyone who wants to help but isn't needed in this battle to message me privately!" And with that, she along with some newly arrived comrades leave with the 4 dragons being carried and transported to the library through their collective efforts. Quinella laughs: "That takes care of that little annoyance and those irritating dragons!"

She turns her full attention to us: "I will now watch all of you as you die to my sword golem! None of you will ever get past it to reach me. It won't allow you to nor will I let any of you cut me unless you can force me to. But that would require you to destroy my greatest creation! As we speak, more of this world is falling under my control. If I gain complete control, I will purge you from this world and allow you to die out in cyberspace itself! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Considering the fact that she started screaming about her face again after saying that, she was using it as a cover for her ongoing instability. At this point, I'm bleeding too much to keep fighting because the sword golem has now gotten me a few more times. There's cracks and openings all over my armor now. I'm trying to stand strong but even my grip on my sword is slipping. I accept my situation and retreat to a corner of the room where I sit down and try to stop the bleeding, having already run out of recovery items at this point. I watch as my comrades struggle even more than I did. I almost give up hope in ever winning against Quinella but knew better than to give it up. Eva shouts: "Keep going! Let's let 'em have it, ladies!" "*other SHINC members* RIGHT!" Tetsuya screams: "Craaaaabbbyy crabby crabby.. CRABS, QUINELLA IS THE FINAL VILLAIN WE HAVE TO FACE BEFORE WE CLEAR THIS GAME, PINCHY! STOP SCUTTLING AND GET GOING HARDER, CRABS!" Never saw him act like a real cheerleader before. Yuya speaks: "I think it's time for a mid battle show that will rejuvenate our spirits and allow us to fight for a lot longer! I need a few volunteers to help me with this! Do we have any volunteers?!" Yuna replies: "Allow me to sing a song that will grant everyone extra buffs!" A few others speak up as well and all together, they do things that not only damage the sword golem but get everyone's spirits raised as well.

Having finally stopped the bleeding, I become determined to rejoin the fight even if it means I die in this game for good. I'm not going to abandon my comrades when I know there's something I can do here now that I'm not constantly bleeding. I'm on the verge of death but I'm still alive. That's what matters. Being alive still despite everything that stands in everyone's way including my own way. With renewed vigor, we manage to start dismantling the sword golem. Quinella is too busy freaking out about her appearance and trying to find a way to undo what Chudelkin did to her despite saying earlier that it's impossible to split up from that villain. That didn't stop her from trying. But we weren't paying much attention to her for the time being. Right now, we were focus on the sword golem and its powerful attacks. It's getting tougher and tougher to defeat as time goes on not just because we're getting weaker and no reinforcements have come ever since the task to save the 4 revived dragons began but also because the sword golem is getting tougher. It must be learning from our attacks. That's when I notice that its health bar shows "DD" in its name just like with any doped monster in this game so far. That being said, we were forced to pull from all of our experiences fighting all kinds of enemies over the years and I don't just mean in this game. I mean all of our experiences. We started innovating new ways to fight back and using past battles as guides for dodging the attacks unleashed by the sword golem. Extensively training in this area has been undertaken by most of us in the past in this game in order to pull off this kind of thing. By sharing information, we could easily read and counter anything the boss does. What's even more is that as it adapts to our own adaptations, we adapt to those and so, the cycle continues until the sword golem's programming goes haywire.

Its limits as an AI are what do it in. Before our eyes, it literally self destructs, leaving only Quinella to deal with. Quinella finally pays attention and screams: "What have you done to my golem?! It's gone! No! My creation! You'll pay for-" Out of nowhere, a giant nether portal appears and sucks all of us in, including Quinella. We get spat out in the Town Of Beginnings. Quinella laughs: "My emergency plan worked! If you were somehow able to defeat my sword golem while I was not able to respond as I normally would to such, a portal would take me and all of my enemies to this location. That's how I set it up. Here, we will decide the fate of this world and all other worlds besides-" She's interrupted again as something that looks like a lesser form of Don Thousand appears before her: "Pontifex, you have gone too far in your personal ambitions. Your power has nearly reached its peak. I know you absorbed your sword golem the moment it self destructed. You seek to overthrow me and I cannot allow you to do so. This is where your plans end. Consider it punishment for disobeying my will. I let you be up to now to see what you would do. It appears I should have controlled you completely from the very beginning." "HAHAHAHAHA! YOU CANT STOP ME, DON THOUSAND! THIS WORLD IS ALMOST COMPLETELY MINE AND WITH THE POWER I HAVE OVER IT, I WILL REMOVE YOU FROM HERE AT ONCE!" They have a brief but intense bout before she does exactly what she said she would do. Thanks to this, Don Thousand's very influence is fully removed from the game and his lesser form is destroyed, leaving behind polygons that vanish instantly.

"HAHAHAHAHA! NONE OF YOU STAND A CHANCE OF KILLING ME! THIS WORLD IS MINE!" That's when things get even more interesting. Some kind of emergency procedure left behind by the Arcana System activates, teleporting every living creature in the game to our location. The remaining 4 Floor Bosses speak as one: "ELIMINATE QUINELLA. ELIMINATE QUINELLA." All of the monsters, bosses included are now going to fight alongside us against Quinella. She laughs: "The game itself is trying to reject me! However, I am far more powerful than all of you put together even if you including the last 4 Floor Bosses: the only ones who are still truly alive!" She has stopped caring about her appearance at last. Now, there is nothing holding Quinella back. Nothing to stand in her way except all of us. I try to break her sword by attacking in just the right way but it doesn't work. Instead, my sword is almost shattered but manages to hold on very well. Kirito yells: "Damn you, Quinella! We'll stop you!" Asuna adds: "That's right! This is where we will finally bring you down once and for all!" Eva adds: "This is going to be one hell of a final battle but once you're dead, we can finally focus entirely on clearing the game and preparing for what the Arcana System might try to do to keep us trapped here for the rest of our lives and even beyond that!" But just like that, things only intensified further. The sky even down on this floor: the 1st Floor gets not just dark but active with dark lightning. The grass below us dies, revealing tainted soil as a result. Quinella and the whole of Aincrad transform into much darker and more twisted versions of themselves.

The villain laughs: "This is my full power! This world is now completely under my control! I have absorbed the souls of every single living being: players, NPCs, bosses, and more who is no longer alive! I have now taken the role An Incarnation Of The Radius once had originally in Sword Art Online! HAHAHAHAHAHA! EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED IN THIS WORLD HAS LED UP TO THIS MOMENT! PREPARE FOR TRUE TERROR AND MISERY LIKE YOU HAVE NEVEF EXPERIENCED IT BEFORE!" Huang The Hundred Arms appears. I forgot he was still alive. He tries to attack Quinella along with as many of us as possible but our efforts are only repelled effortlessly. We weren't hit with our own moves but still, it was bad. I almost died thanks to that. Some of the others were in such bad shape as well as a few of our comrades distracted Quinella long enough for those of us who have been hurt really badly to be healed. I felt so much better and thanked the people who gave me healing items to heal because I really did almost die there. Soon after that, the clash with Quinella only got more extreme. The Town Of Beginnings was obliterated again in the midst of all of the fighting. Things got so heated that the floating castle itself started to fall apart. Quinella laughs: "If this world rejects me, then I will just destroy it all and kill all of you in order to do it! HAHAHHAHAHAHA-" Her laughing is cut off as the entire game glitches out. Our fight with her has overloaded the game completely to a point it has never been pushed this far. Not even in the most intense battles any of us can recall being a part of while trapped in this game. It gets so chaotic that just about everything in the game breaks until it just completely freezes without crashing or experiencing the infamous blue screen of death.

But we can still hear the sounds of electronics going haywire. Sounds from some of the worlds the games that were merged to become this death game are from are heard such as fire alarms, the screams and shouts of experts following the situation of the game, you name it. Quinella is somehow still able to move: "HAHAHAHAHAHA! This world is over! Soon, all of its files will be corrupted and all of you will be no more! I'm not going to wait to see that happen. I'll leave you inferior fools behind as I prepare to make my next conquest!" And with that, she vanishes without a trace. We are left to wait for something really bad to happen. None of us can do anything. The game really is frozen. However, things change when out of the blue, certain severed connections are restored. We can tell because there's a lot of information flowing into the game from outside. My memory of the next few minutes is a blank but what I do recall after those minutes is something that we never expected. I felt the strength of my undead body flow into me as the frame rate of the game stabilized and Quinella returned, as if the game was pulling her back in by force. I can now sense her overwhelming power. That means that the connections to our bodies really have been restored again. I can now use everything I have outside of the game in here once more. This is going to be interesting. Beerus immediately attempts to erase Quinella with Haikai but fails. Goku, Ultimate Shaggy, and a few others go Ultra Instinct. Unagami transforms into his villainous form, the one he used when he wanted to understand his creator, Milton Dyer after his creator had Prime Empire shut down when it was still Untitled Adventure Game 1.

Quinella is shocked: "This can't be! No! The only thing that allowed my plans to come this far! The restrictions on all of you players has been broken!" Leafa smirks: "That's right and now, we can fight you at an even level!" Quinella's anger causes her to turn even more hideous in appearance: "Curse you all!" Superman immediately punches her really hard: "It's been too long since I've been able to do this!" Batman cautions: "Be careful, Clark. We can't afford to underestimate her, even now." We all just keep going at her and she can't even keep up. The Elemental Master of Sound from Ninjago among others messes with Quinella's emotional state a bit. Shikamaru is among those focusing on trying to stop and possibly even capture Quinella. We all sort of fall into different groups with different specialties. Barla smirks and yells: "Hell yeah! Now this is a battle! The BRAINS Collective working with other players and the NPCs and so on!" I reply: "Let's keep on the pressure. If we leave her a single opening, she would instantly give us a lot of trouble. I don't know how or what pulled her back into this game but even with whatever that was, she is still in control of this world. Give her an inch, she'll take a mile." I join with basically all of the other heavily armored individuals focused on countering and seeing any attack our foe throws at us and tank it or counter or block it. Things are just coming together by themselves now. The villain yells: "How is this happening?! I had everything perfect! I had it all! This world is mine!" Spectre laughs: "It's so amusing to witness your fall from grace! Now, it's time to begin taking your power away!

It appears this game came with a will of its own beyond the Arcana or Cardinal Systems and that's what brought you back here! And now, we're going to put an end to all of your tricks and schemes once and for all!" Suddenly, some LafCof members are revived or rather, their Integral Factor versions are and appear in our main front. I didn't pay much attention to alternate XaXa or Morte or any of the others because they mysteriously vanished out of nowhere for some reason soon after they appeared together. "One For All! 40%! SMAAAAAASSSSSSHHHH! AND AIR FORCE!" Quinella begins to put up actual resistance to all of our moves but we're ready for it. The Knights Of Hanoi and other hackers strike. Ghost Gal yells: "Prepare to lose control over this world! You will no longer be able to impose your will on this entire game soon enough! And there is nothing you can do to stop us now that all of our skills and abilities are at our disposal and this game itself resists your efforts to control and destroy all!" Case in point: the game hasn't been falling apart ever since the tables were turned. Zaizen adds: "Against so many hackers, you would have never stood a chance even just against the likes of us all by yourself. Using my key to Link VRAINS as well as Sol Technologies, I will help assist in hacking you until you lose the control you have taken for yourself." Revolver speaks: "Quinella, it is clear that this turn of events is all your fault. The performance dip was largely because of you. That caused the code that was preventing connections to outside of this game. Therefore, you have put yourself in this entire situation. And now, we will be taking away what especially makes you feel so superior to us." And then, just like that, the game's functions went back to normal.

The sky stopped being creepy and chaotic and now, we saw that it was partly cloudy up in the sky. What's more is that that wasn't all either. Quinella screams even more especially as Notte yells: "Finally! I can now punish you by the authority granted to me thanks to the Arcana System!" That's because she unleashed something on our foe due to now being able to do so. It did quite a lot of damage. But still, the Pontifex refused to give up. She wouldn't simply yield to us. No, more had to be done in order to take her down. Vegeta smirks at seeing her state: "Now it's time to really give her a-" He is cut off as she spontaneously gets much physically stronger to reflect the true amount of power she had taken from deceased beings in this world. That didn't shock anyone because we knew she was actually holding back. There was just no way what she had done had only amassed the amount of power she was showing up to now. Something didn't feel right about it. But what did shock us was Quinella being able to deal a crap ton of damage to us all once she transformed further. None of us are deterred but that did make most of us stop in reaction and pain for up to a few seconds which she used to unleash another assault on us. But this time, we were ready. "Shadow Stitching Jutsu!" "My, my, you think you got us now, Quinella. Don't you? It's too bad you don't! Try this out for size! Constricting Striking Shadow Snake!" "Universal Pull." "Shield Prison!" "It's time to round up a villain with my trusty rope! Yeehaw! Just like back home on the Apple Farm!" Shadow laughs: "Alpha, go ahead. Help lock her in place." "As you wish, Lord Shadow." "Delta wants to help!" "Not now, Delta!" "You're so mean, boss!" "That doesn't matter right now."

I activate Artist's Eye: "I will also help trap you in place! By pushing myself, I am able to create structures that keep you from moving around as freely. *screams in pain as my left eye tears up* THIS IS WORTH IT!" "It's unfortunate that my quirk Erasure will not work on our enemy but that's why I have my binding cloth. To deal with villains like her who I can't use my quirk on." Pretty much anyone who could capture someone did something to contribute to all of this. But that still wasn't enough. Quinella was still trying to kill us all despite having most of her body binded right up. So we all sort of chose to surround her on all sides on organized groups solely based on specific skills and specialties. "How dare you all oppose me! I am far above the goddess who is not a goddess, Stasia!" Eugeo replies: "It's over, Quinella. You've lost. Give up. This is the end of all of your ambitions." Alice adds: "You shall now be at our mercy. We will restrain you over and over again if that's what it takes to settle this situation. You can break out but our combined strength far exceeds yours." Beerus smirks: "There's even gods like me and mortals who have practically reached the same level we have. I am willing to consider sparing your life for a price." Kirito adds: "You can't win this time, Quinella. For everything you've done to us and many others, this is the least you deserve." Bercouli sighs: "For a long time, all I really remembered of you was your caring side, Pontifex but as time has passed, I have more and more understood the truth about you. You used me and even took away all my memories of my life before you turned me into your first ever Integrity Knight."

I speak up: "You made the Human Empire reliant on your matriarchal authority. That was a mistake because without you, the Human Guardian Army had a harder time dealing with the Dark Territory. If you had allowed yourself to die a natural death and let someone else take over, things would have gone more smoothly. I don't entirely like saying that because I oppose hierarchy in general. But your society became reliant on a hierarchical structure that would have still went on without your influence for some time. And now, we are here. You have been revived by Don Thousand, Barian World's god of chaos, a cunning mastermind who had exceptional humans killed young and reincarnated as Barians with their memories of being humans sealed away. You tried to destroy and take over this world before moving onto all of existence. I do have my own grudges against you for what you did to me but it is not up to any single individual to decide your fate. I think you should be killed BUT you are weakening by the second due to poison and other things. Before long, you will be stripped of all of the power you have left and be rendered as nothing more than a low level threat who was once on the verge of destroying this world with her own hands. Others will not agree with my opinion that you should be killed. Because you are becoming a minor threat instead of staying a S rank level threat, that also means that we don't have to kill you to stop you anymore." It took some time but it was decided what to do with her as we continued to attack her to further weaken her and keep her in place, unable to break free of her confinements. Alice announces what the decision was made to be: "We shall now execute the Pontifex!"

Quinella laughs: "Do any of you actually think you can execute me when I'm still incredibly powerful?!" Argo replies: "Normally, I'd laugh and make a remark but this is serious, ya know. Really serious. Extremely serious. So I will just say this. We'll just have to end your life in a very powerful and flashy way." Goku and several others have already begun to charge up for Kamehameha blasts. I join them in doing so. Our foe looks terrified now: "What are you doing now?!" The others begin readying various attacks of their own including the attacks of many of the most powerful duel monsters to ever exist. Quinella went out with a bang. There was no trace left of her once the deed was done. We checked. Double checked. Triple checked. Used our resources for a while to track her if she somehow escaped death. But nothing, not even outside of the game. A lot of time went by between her defeat and the day we planned to move onto the 97th Floor: day 1098. We took a lot of time to rest, relax, and train as out of nowhere, we lost access to everything we had outside of the game again. Because of that, it became that much more urgent to get even stronger. I will say now that the last 4 floors had nothing on them besides what was originally on them in SAO and a few new things. But a few days before we moved onto the 97th, we discovered something startling. The other Aincrad was overlaying the Aincrad we're in this entire time. They weren't fully merged as we thought but the other Aincrad was empty of any beings after the start of this death game for a long time. Its existence as a separate place basically meant that it was another reason for all of the chaos that Quinella caused to happen including the fact that the game somehow managed to start moving again after being frozen for as long as it was.

None of us know what kind of difficult threats we have to deal with next other than the Floor Bosses and a annoying field boss rush on the 99th Floor that will be much harder to deal with than in Integral Factor. But what we did know is that we wouldn't be running into anymore villains in this game. At long last, we can relax a little bit in that regard. However, that doesn't mean we should become complacent. No, it only means we shouldn't get cocky and need to focus even harder on beating the game and dealing with Notte and so forth when things come down to dealing with them. That being said, it was still a huge moment when we finally reached the 97th Floor. Barla speaks to me as soon as we do: "Hell yeah, we're going to go down as heroes after everything we've been through in this game alone!" "I guess you're right. Heroes, huh?" Many of us couldn't help but celebrate reaching the floor by doing things. I raised my sword happily to show my feelings. But our celebrating attracted some monsters. Luckily, they were easy to take care of but it made us put our guards back up. No one even needed to say anything. Not even a "let's go". We immediately got to work and found some of the missing players still alive and well. Looks like Quinella never got the chance to use them. On day 1102, we had the entire 97th Floor mapped. Koharu and the others weren't able to quite remember where anything was on it so we had to play it by ear. To be continued..