Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds
Chapter 34: An Incarnation Of The Radius
Date: Infinityverse Days 1102-1343
Nothing much significant happened for a while. Not until we reached the 99th Floor and a whole heap of problems as a result of that. So what was on the 99th Floor? Well, a bunch of floating islands known as the Archipelago of Memories. It didn't too long for us to get to it after we reached the 97th Floor. After all, we were ready for anything, constantly training to get stronger, and there were no more villains to stand in our way. It was therefore on Day 1116 that we reached it. But it became clear that it was going to be a huge pain to get through. Argo spoke as soon as we got to it: "Thanks to the detailed information Koharu and the others has given us, we knew exactly what was going to be on this floor. However, there's a lot that feels off about this floor." Sinon nods: "There are some quest giving NPCs around." Mater speaks: "You're right. This isn't good. Originally, this was the only floor without any NPCs other than the Ruby Palace of course." Stilla sighs: "Something tells me that we're going to be here a lot longer than any of us expected." M adds: "There's also the problem of the fact that while we can clearly see the Ruby Palace from here in the distance, the only way to get access to it is to fight a bunch of bosses with a small party. We have to choose who is a part of it carefully." I further add: "This game has always added a twist to every challenge we had to overcome from SAO itself. I don't think the party will be fighting field bosses from various Floors. The game will make it nearly impossible to get past this Floor. I think that what await aren't field bosses. I think they're Floor Bosses. If I'm right, we are in a whole lot of trouble and it's going to be very difficult and almost impossible to unlock the 100th Floor."
Just then, one of the NPCs walks over to us and speaks: "Welcome to the Archipelago of Memories, wandering warriors from Aincrad and beyond. It is as you believe. To gain passage to the Ruby Palace, you will have to defeat creatures you previously defeated in the Celestial Tower. But there are a few trials you must pass before you can assemble a team to take on that challenge. I am the keeper of the first trial. It is one where all of you have to confront your worst memories. This is after all, the Archipelago of Memories." Suddenly, a screen animation plays that shows screenshots and other things of key moments that have happened inside of this game. After it ends, the NPC adds: "If you will all follow me, I will lead you to the Chamber Of The Past so that you can relive those memories and overcome them." We do so without hesitating. Lueur speaks: "There were no structures on this Floor last time. This is a whole new twist to our story. I am curious to find out how this goes for all of us." After we step inside the chamber and everyone is inside, the NPC closes the doors, shrouding the chamber in darkness. "Now, warriors from Aincrad and beyond, it is time for you to witness the darkest moments in your pasts all over again." Before I could react, I was thrust into one of my earliest darkest memories. I will not write about experiencing the memories in detail. A lot happened between the chamber doors being closed and our escape from the game after all. Instead, I will list out some of the darkest memories of mine that I had to relive. The complicated and messy situation that was largely my fault in my original body in July 2018, being used by Quinella, the other dark moments I went through in this game, some of the times I was killed in the past, and moments from various battles throughout the years.
It was a really difficult and emotionally painful trial but I managed to get through it without completing losing my mental stability or sanity. After all of us returned to consciousness, the NPC opened the doors back up and spoke calmly: "Well done. Against all of the odds, all of you managed to overcome this trial. I know it wasn't easy. I also know that you heavily relied on your good memories to aid you. Many of you must have thought about those you cherish and that helped you make it through. I will lead you to the keeper of the second trial. They will explain the rest once we arrive. Before we head to them, I will state something important. You have earned my respect and I will therefore join your quest to enter the Ruby Palace. I will aid you in any way I can once you clear the remaining trials. Until that happens, I will simply act as an observing companion for all of you." Soon, we reach the 2nd NPC who speaks immediately: "I see you all passed the first trial. Alright then. Follow me and I will lead you to the Garden Of The Present where you will come to terms with what you have going on in the present. To face what awaits in the Ruby Palace, you must be free of as much worry as you can possibly be. To succeed at the trial, you will have to overcome doubt, fear, and other emotions that hold all of you back. You won't be able to overcome them completely but by coming to terms with them, you can have a clearer mind and conscious." The Garden Of The Present was beautiful, full of plants I've never seen before. The NPC speaks again: "Each of these plants corresponds perfectly to one of you. Once you find your plant, you will experience feelings of sleepiness and be lulled to sleep. And in your sleeping state, you will have to think about what you are right now and go from there to overcome what is holding you back."
It took me a while but I found my plant. It ended up being one fitting for a knight such as myself. At first, nothing happened until I decided to touch it before quickly falling asleep. Things went on from there. Because I have a calm and collected mind most of the time, I had an easier time with the trial than with the previous one and felt even more at ease than I did before. The 3rd trial was in The Temple Of The Future in which we had to deal with good and bad visions of the future. That was really hard but we got through it. The last trial was defeating some kind of ghoul that was made of our worst fears put together but the power of friendship was what ended up killing it in the end. And now, the 4 trial keepers are our allies. With all of that done, we took a few days to not only decide who would go on the boss rush and island hop to do so while also training in a way that was like we were preparing to fight the toughest enemies we've faced in this game so far. We all trained to better counter every possible move we've seen an enemy used. Thanks to record crystals, we have hours of footage of such moves so many of us used a technique that was essentially the same thing as shadow boxing to train. But then, the day finally came to assemble the party on Day 1126. I was one of the ones chosen. Who else was chosen? I'll share in a second. Through some hacking, the Hanoi was able to force the game to accept a larger party than otherwise for taking on the bosses one after another. The trial keepers made sure to warn us that we were about to face the toughest bosses we have faced so far again just as I feared so that was helpful.
Here's the list: every protagonist present including Atemu, Sailor Moon, Kirito, and LLENN, myself, Magnus, Revolver, the other Hanoi, Kaito, and I can't remember who else. You'll just have to see through dialogue and stuff I guess. We prepared for the entirety of that day for what was about to happen. On Day 1127, we aimed to clear the challenge in one attempt. After all, we can still die and there's no going back once the challenge has begun. Giving up means starting all over again. What's also annoying is that any loot we would get will not appear. The challenge is a great way to level up but that's the only thing good about it. Sadly, it is far too challenging to bring along lower level players to help with it in order to allow them to level up a lot quickly. In Integral Factor, it wasn't that hard and some lower level players were allowed to join the boss rush party. Asuna speaks when we meet to clear the challenge: "It is time. This will be the most dangerous obstacle by far. It's up to all of us to carry the entire Assault Team forward from here. We can't afford to lose anyone. If any of us dies, it's game over for us all if we don't immediately give up the challenge." Agil nods and adds: "This is going to take all of our combined efforts to pull off. We represent the top of the Assault Team. We are many of the top clearers and because we are, it is up to us to pull off the unthinkable and clear this challenge. The Arcana System wants us to give up and be trapped inside this game but we can't allow it to break us. I may not look it but I have recently risen to be amongst the strongest in the entire Assault Team." I further add: "We can stand here all day speaking to one another but we have a job to do.
As a member of the Akatsuki, I can't help but be zoned into eliminating our foes one by one right now. And as a knight, if things go bad which they will, I will protect as many of you as I can with my sword, armor, and shield. You can count on me and I know I can count on all of you. None of us are above each other. We're equals. So there's none of that hierarchy crap holding us back." Ghost Gal nods: "Swiftdrawer is right. We don't have a moment to spare. Once all of us are ready, we must immediately advance at once." We meticulously check if ourselves and each other are all ready to go. We have more than enough survival items and the like. We won't run out of supplies no matter how long this challenge takes to clear. Even if it means we have to camp on an island overnight to stay in the challenge dungeon, we will get through this and we will not lose anyone. It's all or nothing now. Everyone is counting on us. We have to make them proud and live up to their hopes and expectations. I'm not heroic in the same sense as Superman and All Might are but I will stay do my very best to not disappoint our comrades. I may not care much about meeting the expectations of others but I'm making an exception because in this case, that could make the different between life and death. There is no time to dilly dally. Everyone is ready. We walk cautiously towards the first boss only to find a surprise waiting for us. A souped up version of Kagachi. Argo exclaims: "What is this?! I thought we were taking on the toughest bosses up to now. Something is wrong." Kagachi attacks us without mercy with a huge amount of force. I realize what's going on: "Even the trial keepers were misled about this challenge."
Pito laughs: "I get it now! We're facing some of the most notable bosses in the game as well as dealing with them being far stronger than ever before! This is going to be so much fun! I can't wait to experience all of the danger that is going to result from this turn of events!" I focus on my efforts to fight from then on out: "Everyone, I'm going to have to focus on what I can do. If you want my attention, you need to holler to me as loud as possible. I am focused on watching Kagachi's movements now. My specialty aka how I can fight best is one on one. I'm best suited for handling just one opponent. That being said, I can handle more than one more than well enough. Especially 2. 3 or more is when things get more tricky unless my opponents are significantly weaker than I am or something along those lines. I will try to match Kagachi blow for blow. I'm willing to use my skills to keep him from hitting anyone. Y'all can focus more on attacking him. I will handle keeping him at bay but I can't do it alone. That's part of why we have the likes of Liten and Agil on the team as well." I run to Kagachi and apply an enlarging potion to my sword to make it a lot bigger. My STR stats are high enough to more than handle the size increase. I do just as promised and we all work together in harmony to eventually bring Kagachi down. I would write about the challenge in a lot more detail but it took forever and An Incarnation Of The Radius still loomed. Plus, it doesn't feel that fun to write about bosses we already fought in the past again. Here's the other bosses we dealt with again. The 1st Boss whose name I can't remember right now somehow as well as The Skull Reaper, Gleam Eyes, that damn dragon that used Ado, Huang, The Last Number, Colossus, the four armed giant, Asura The Executioner, the butterfly boss from 47F, and a few others.
It ended with the 98th Floor Boss. Or at least, that's what we thought until we saw a brand new boss on an island that just appeared out of nowhere. Now this is something I will write about. Kirito yells: "Damn it! Does this Floor have a Floor Boss?!" Pito grins: "YES! THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!" I sweat heavily: "If that's this Floor's boss which is something that never existed in any other version of Aincrad, we're in a lot of trouble because our group is limited. We are exhausted for one and two, need gear repaired. Oh and food. It was fine when we defeated the Boss we just defeated who so happened to be nerfed to make this challenge somewhat possible but now, we can't face that boss just yet.. And we can't back out of this challenge without having to redo all the progress we have made so far. This is horrible." We are in fact forced to not proceed any further just yet. The Boss doesn't attack us but its name still appears in our vision constantly anyway. Hades The Hope Destroyer. That name alone was frightening enough. The boss itself looks like one of the most evil beings I have ever seen even when including Diablo Nemesis, Zorc Necrophades, Don Thousand, An Incarnation Of The Radius, several Demon Lords, and so on. It has.. 500 health bars. How in the hell are we supposed to defeat it?! We do everything we can to prepare ourselves to fight it but our best just won't be enough. Argo exclaims: "What kind of game pulls a challenge THIS impossible on players?! It's like the system wants all of us to die!" Naofumi darkly replies: "What if it wanted all of us to die on its own terms this entire time?"
Biara speaks: "This can't be permitted to happen! I'm beginning to hack the game's files themselves. There isn't much time until the system discovers the hack and shuts me down. Not only will I need help but all of us working to hack will have to work faster than ever before. There has to be something we can change to give us a chance at victory. We may be most of the Assault Team's top clearers but there's no possible way for us to win against a boss THIS strong by ourselves as things stand." The hacking continues and Argo contacts the rest of the Assault Team for further hacking assistance. Eventually, they manage to get through and open access to this boss rush dungeon for all players but were only able to get it to open for 10 minutes before the system almost caught them and they were forced to stop hacking. That gives our comrades 10 minutes to get inside the dungeon before it closes again. Most of them are on other floors, seeing no reason to stay on the 99th Floor once we began the challenge. They came rushing to us. And because things like in game islands are immune to damage, the movements of them all didn't cause the islands to destabilize and crumble apart before falling to the ground of the 98th Floor. The barriers keeping us from jumping off the islands or otherwise falling off of them are still intact. We had to keep using teleporting devices to get from one island to the next which was actually good for us. Soon, the islands are crammed with as many of our comrades as possible. Seeing this, we lead the charge against Hades The Hope Crusher and go to the island he's on with as many of the others as possible. Others being mostly close range fighters or healers. That way, ranged fighters can safely fight from a distance and we can have the most ideal line up of fighters on the island with the 99th Boss on it.
After all, there are too many of us to fit on even just 5 of these islands. Hades laughs: "So, you have made it all this way to challenge me, have you? Very well! Prepare to die along with all of your hopes and dreams! I will carry out the Arcana System's orders to stop you from advancing to the Ruby Palace! Your efforts end here! And to prove it, I won't speak any further as I crush each and every one of you until all of you die and your friends retreat upon seeing all of you dead!" Our foe does in fact stop speaking for the remainder of the battle. Many of us also fall silent to focus on fighting against them. This is a serious crisis level situation after all. It's going to take a lot out of us to win. We might even lose some of our comrades but I hope we don't have to pay that price in order to win here. "HAAAAAAAAA! NO HOLDING BACK! Take this!" The boss sees through all of our moves easily and beats us up more and more as time passes. They also bring about all kinds of never before seen attacks that make things that much harder for us. However, we all just switch to new tactics to throw our foe off guard and give us a fighting chance in this battle. Again, I would write more extensively but this time, my reason is that it's better to describe the general summary of how it went. Just kind of done writing about Floor Boss fights I guess. I'm so sorry about that. But I usually write what I feel like writing in these stories of mine. That's just how it goes with me. I mean, my stories are first hand accounts of things that have happened so you can't expect me to write in detail about every single notable event.
Moving on, we fought the boss until that evening. With once again empty stomachs, we strained to finally defeat the boss. They just kept giving us more and more difficulty but ultimately, we simply refused to give up. Our will to keep going was the only reason we managed to eliminate all of the 99th Boss's health bars. All 500 of them. They only screamed in agony as they finally died. It was quickly decided that we would spend several months preparing to fight against the final boss. The Ruby Palace was within reach now but after everything we've been through, we simply refused to go in just yet. The 99th Boss taught us a few key lessons. We weren't ready for a boss with hundreds of health bars. An Incarnation Of The Radius originally had 10 health bars and that was bad enough as it was. But in this game, we had a 99th Boss with 500. Based on that, the last boss definitely has far more than just 10 health bars this time. So what did we do during those several months of preparations? Well, every single player who wasn't top clearer level already which was most of them was made top clearer level. And that took a while. A long while. We also extracted so many resources that every single clearer's gear ended up being fully maxed out, myself included. We now had a chance to defeat our final foe but still, we knew this wasn't enough either. Training was relentless. Hundreds of hours of training. Training and training and sparring and sparring. I helped others get stronger by instructing them to adopt my intense training regiment as well as teaching them patience and inner calm.
We just had to max ourselves out just as we did to our gear. Soon, our inventories were filled with a ridiculous amount of support items. Golden apples, healing potions, spare weapons, explosives, you name it. The goal was to make it so no one had to ask for someone else to heal them. We had to try to fight the boss at all times. And with some newly created items that reduced total exhaustion to minor fatigue if used on anyone completely exhausted, our chances improved further as they will mass produced on a huge scale. Every bit of science and imagination we could use was used to prepare ourselves for the battle with An Incarnation Of The Radius as well as whatever the system wanted to throw at us once the boss was defeated. We couldn't afford overlooking anything. We had to think so intensely and for such a long time that we basically might end up OVERESTIMATING the system as well as An Incarnation Of The Radius. Overestimating the enemy is hard to pull off but if it ends up working out, it gives one a great advantage against the enemy. And it takes serious imagination and scientific know how to totally overestimate an enemy especially an incredibly tough enemy. The deliberate overestimating went beyond the border of completely nuts and overdone. I helped spearhead that with my vast imagination. I threw out some seriously wild ideas like "An Incarnation Of The Radius will force us to follow it into physical reality!", "The system will reset all of our stats and levels to what we started out with as soon as we defeat that last boss!", and "We'll all be sent to the Blackiron Prison for years if necessary until we accept that this world is now our home and will always be that way until we die!"
But to overestimate the enemy, you also have to be perfectly aware of your side's capabilities to have any chance of succeeding at overestimating them. That's just how it goes. Like I said, managing to overestimate the enemy is hard. And it only gets harder the more powerful they are known to be. We now even expect the system to merge with An Incarnation Of The Radius to immediately flatten us like pancakes as soon as we step forth inside the Ruby Palace. Yeah. We spent a lot of time trying to overestimate the enemy. I hope it's enough to help us beat the odds because there are still a lot of unknowns and other unpredictable factors. Then there's the challenge in believing the overestimates. That's tricky because it involves altering your own worldview in such a way that you're almost in the same camp as the people brainwashed their entire lives into fanatics supporting fascists like Trump. The difference is basically never supporting fascists or becoming fanatics. Actually, it's not usually that extreme. It's more like in the vein of internalizing a whole new identity for yourself and changing the way you think logically. But either way, there's more details on how hard it is to overestimate a powerful enemy but I won't get further into it when I've already covered the main stuff about it. So what else did we do to prepare? Well, we set up traps and safe places all across the game in case the battle got out of the Ruby Palace which we had to convince ourselves would happen at some point. To make ourselves believe that things of ridiculous proportions will be done against us by the enemies was something else though it had precedent from what has already happened in this game.
Therefore, we had to take it even further into the realm of the impossible of the impossible because we have already gone through the impossible many times up to now. We studied the moves that we know of that An Incarnation Of The Radius can pull off for hours as well as every other move we have faced once again. We won't let our enemies surprise us. We will believe their abilities to be so great that no ordinary person could come up with such a thing on their own. So great that most adults in many worlds in "civilized first world countries" lack the imagination to understand it due to having the creativity sucked right out of them by capitalist societies that want all work and no play. Imagination is inherently anti-capitalist because capitalism would rather have all forms of creativity gone but can't afford to let them all die out because of the money made in entertainment, advertising, amusement parks, and so on. That's also why they are trying to replace artists, writers, and so on in creative fields with generative "AI". That's why ChatGPT, Midjourney, and so on have used people's stuff to train their AI without credit, compensation, or permission. Capitalism hates creativity and the sooner you understand that, the better. Back to what else we did to prepare. We built all kinds of other things to get any kind of advantage against the enemy that we possibly could. On Day 1324, we were just about ready to finally end this game at last. Over the previous months, we did everything we could to prepare. We still have a tough fight ahead but it's going to be easier than it would have been otherwise. Of course our intel suggesting that the boss has maximum stats proved handy and allowed us to somehow overestimate it.
Recalling that intel would end up being a life saver. On Day 1325, we made final arrangements and preparations. Not a single things was missed. Not even things that are rarely accounted for. This was our stand. Together, we will finally end this nightmare. Not even the Arcana System could stop us now. This is it, the moment we have spent months preparing for. We had a final day long strategy meeting on the final boss the next day, leaving Day 1327 to be the date of the final fight. It was nerve wracking to say the least. How did we enter the palace? Not the normal way. The idea was to have the element of surprise which the enemy usually has instead of us. Not even the Arcana System is aware of what we've been up. How? Let's just say we had more than a few players keep its attention occupied including a team sent to hunt down Notte and Rano while proclaiming that they are to be taken down for going against the majority will of players. That being said, we didn't make all of our training sessions secret in order to make the system believe we were just training really hard for the final fight. That was what we were doing but only a part of it. We made sure to keep deceiving the system as well as Notte and Rano for all those months. (Rano is Notte's friend, his name is now back fully in my memory which is excellent news honestly) I was among those who snuck inside the Ruby Palace during the night. The easiest time to sneak inside, the hardest to stay awake during. But it will be worth it. We slept early earlier today in a cave and have some items that will help with any sleepiness we may experience. Don Thousand made a mistake when he believed this world he orchestrated the creation of might be able to contain us forever.
A huge mistake at that. And now, we are going to do some assassination like stuff to gain another edge against An Incarnation Of The Radius. We moved as silently as the shadows as we slipped inside the Ruby Palace from a window that is not to be used as an entrance but we still used it as one anyway. Once inside, we saw the boss already spawned in and looking around for anyone to kill. We had to be careful but we had made ourselves believe the boss would spot us and try to kill us on the spot. That didn't happen but we refused to lower our guards for even a moment. To expect the impossibly unexpected is our goal and current mantra. We won't falter in that endeavor for even a moment. Just you wait. We're going to escape this damn game at long last and the next step to that end begins now! Working quickly, we attack one of the boss's arms to cut it off, force them to heal, and get their sword away from them. Meanwhile, the rest of our comrades rush into the palace from the doors leadings into it. There we go, the boss's attention is on them now and they will split up into groups very soon in order to take advantage of the size of the arena itself. I whisper: "We have to do this right now. Before the boss potentially kills everyone else!" Thousands of ways this battle could fail have been imagined. We will be the ones to be underestimated. Not the other way around. And so, we strike. If we can get the sword to fall and manage to have someone take it, our chances of winning will shoot up immensely. There are some of us with enough STR to wield even it. I'm one of them but I'm far from alone in that regard. However, it would still be hard for any of us to wield it. We're better off having someone run out of Ruby Palace with it and drop it over the edge of the floating island it's on. Hell, we set things up just for that purpose.
There's a designated "big weapon dropping" spot labeled with a big red X mislabeled with a sign reading: "Arr! There be treasure here! Dig it up and see what kind of treasures you uncover!" That will throw off the Arcana System, Notte, and Rano. I know it will because it will be just confusing to them and they'd think it's a diversion for something when it really isn't. To sum up what happens next, we succeed in slicing one of our foe's arms right off as they deal with our comrades. I jump down to retrieve the fallen sword, despite knowing that doing so may cause me to die after having a big red target be put on my head but I couldn't wait around anymore. I pick up the sword and silently run away with it despite it being so damn heavy even with my now really high STR stat. I also seriously upped my AGI stat so that helped me get away a lot faster. Once I reach the target area, I throw the sword down. Most objects and creatures can't get past the barriers surrounding things like this floating island containing the Ruby Palace and the beautiful architecture and gardens right in front of it. But what about a Floor Boss's weapon? The short answer is yes. It falls all the way down to the 68th Floor where it will immediately come into contact with something that will end up transporting it all the way down into the bottom of the Underground Labyrinth(later, we found out it was gone because it's owner died). It took weeks to set this plan up. That's one weapon down. I join the front line of the battle against our foe who roars in rage before activating its healing barrier. No one was able to stop that from happening but we expected as much and prepared to attack at once as soon as the healing was completed. Diavel shouts: "We have this but don't get cocky! The boss will try to kill us all instantly! Never forget that!"
After the boss heals, it unleashes laser like missiles, spear attacks, tentacle attacks, takes pieces of floor some players are standing on in order to lift and break them to injure the players, and lets out one giant laser attack all at once. We have just seen all of its original abilities used in rapid succession. But we were ready for this. Our foe has 1000 bars of health. There are thousands upon thousands of us. The attacks don't scare us nor are they able to do any lasting damage. Instead, we just keep attacking with all of our might. This battle may not scream big epic battle to you readers based on how I'm currently describing it but oh well. We had to do what we had to do to make it as easy as we possibly could to win. But easy still meant extremely hard for us. And that only became more clear the longer the fight went on. The boss suddenly gets access to in game permissions and uses that to reset all of our levels and stats. Spectre laughs: "We saw this coming too! All hackers, you know what to do!" Before the boss even managed to kill one of us, the hackers on our side hack into the game again and undo what the boss just did before taking their permissions away like clockwork. Angered by this, the boss started attacking with a huge variety of attacks just like Huang The Hundred Arms does. The boss has mastered every school of fighting, technique, skill, and so on that they possibly could. But we were ready for that too. "HAAAAAAAA! You won't beat us in any kind of fighting style! I will show this by countering the knightly swordsmanship I see you using at times along with my fellow knights!" Alice nods: "That is indeed what we shall do, Swiftdrawer! This is how our response must be done!" It is a bit boring that we know how to counter everything thrown our way but I just knew that the system would eventually try really hard to make us pay for this when the battle was over.
And it won't be so easy to overcome what it has planned for us. We fought on for hours without tiring or coming close to death. It was now morning. The sun was shining and our fighting only got more intense now that we could better see our giant foe. Kizmel shouts: "It may take us days to win this battle but we will eventually overcome An Incarnation Of The Radius!" At this point, a giant stalemate has occurred and we just have to find a way to break through it. Neither side is giving ground right now. Our enemy is no longer fazed by our attacks. They now heal instantly. No technique required but we saw all of this coming as well. That also means that we have a plan. Every NPC who hadnt yet joined us in the battle as well as even those NPCs who were previously killed appeared to come to our aid, shifting the tide of battle from calm neutral waves to us. The dps we were doing and the dps the boss was doing were just about equal. They helped make ours slightly higher. Due to this, it wasn't long until the boss's healing stopped keeping up and it started slowly losing health bars. But it was taking 10 minutes for even just one health bar to be depleted. At this rate, it will take like an entire week of nonstop fighting to defeat the boss. Did we also expect this? Yes, yes we did. It was time to get more creative. Many of us summoned many things to help us deal damage. An Incarnation Of The Radius was getting increasingly overwhelmed by every single thing that we were doing to it. I'm surprised that I'm only about 6300 words into this writing and am already writing about this point in the battle. I'll take it I guess. Most of us were seriously focused on less talking, more doing.
It took so much effort for all of us to get this coordinated and sure of how to counter whatever was thrown at us. Such an information overload can't last forever. We will forget most of it quickly once the boss is dead. It's hard enough to keep it close in the mind. As time goes on, more of the information will fade even in this battle. It is crucial we win before we forget too much or we might just dig our own graves. And that would not be very good for any of us. We fight and we fight. Over and over again, I unleash every technique that I possibly can within the ways I'm still limited when compared to my physical zombie body while trapped in this game. My gear gets beaten over and over again. Every so often, I have to step back so someone can fix it for me before jumping right back in with renewed vigor. The battle was so long and full of repetition that it wouldn't be worth writing about it with 3,000 words focused on a significant chunk of it. Not when what we did is so easy to explain. It was a lot of the same stuff over and over again. The boss literally ran out of ways to stop us from beating it. Every single thing it did, we basically had locked down. We knew exactly how to counter its every move. If you want to get an idea of what it was like fighting An Incarnation Of The Radius, watch SAO Ordinal Scale and see the fight against it in SAO Integral Factor. Anyway. The main problem we had now was how to crush the rest of its defenses. But we had many solutions for that and so, before our eyes, the ground below the boss was blown up. Using teleport crystals, we teleported to the 98th Floor and watched as it hit of the ground of the Floor really hard.
The only reason we hadn't taken away its spear is because we're far too busy fighting it directly for anyone to attempt that. Now that the boss has taken so much fall damage, it's more vulnerable. As for how we're able to survive its incredible speed and strength, it's mainly because we keep dodging or reducing the damage by sharing the pain. That and the fact that our combined strength was again, on par with its stats. That really helped our chances of making it out of this fight alive. Sure, many of us were slowed down by doubt, fear, impatience, confusion, and so on but we had made preparations for even dealing with that sort of thing. Not a single clearer who became confused or whatever and thus became more open to being attacked was killed because of how well we managed to keep working together. Our sense of unity was at an all time high. Maybe this was still really hard to end but we still had each other, our stuff, and our plans to keep us moving ahead. So what exactly finally caused the boss to die? We started dealing more damage and got the boss to chase us throughout all of Aincrad, causing them to be caught in thousands upon thousands of traps. Some of us even managed to poison them. The underworld of Aincrad is with us in full so we really had all the help we could get to winning here. As I write this, I just keep surprising myself with how quickly I'm getting through writing about the battle with the boss. It was so chaotic, long, and action packed that words do not begin to do it true justice. It took 2 more days of fighting until we finally won. In that time, we nearly ran out of support items including the items that kept us all from falling asleep.
Every single time any of us used any item, we were vulnerable for a few seconds. We accounted for that as best as we could, allowing us to lose no one during the battle. I will now write about the final moments of the battle in full detail. "HAAAAAAA! 10 MORE HEALTH BARS LEFT! I KNOW WE CAN GET RID OF THEM ALL IN JUST A FEW SECONDS IF WE USE WHATS LEFT OF OUR COMBINED STRENGTH RIGHT AWAY!" "HARRRRRRRRGGGGGG! NIGHT SKY SWORD!" "HECATE!" All of us yell out things as well as our best in game attacks while thousands of summoned duel monsters fought alongside us. It was spectacular. Almost as amazing as how we would later bring down Don Thousand nearly 11 months after escaping the Infinityverse. What we did was seriously super anime. We gave it our all. It almost felt like many of us were subconsciously somehow using our actual abilities outside of the game to strike the final blows. Each of us was attacking the boss at the same time from different angles, locations, and so on. I myself focused on stabbing the boss in one area as hard as I possibly could before pulling my sword out in a slashing motion to multiply the damage I dealt. It worked as all kinds of things were sent at the boss. Crashing roller coaster cars, a tsunami of RCT3 peeps, TNT, ALO spells, bullets, laser blasts, you name it. The battle took us all the way down to the Town Of Beginnings and that's where we killed An Incarnation Of The Radius at last. Without waiting for its death animation to begin, we teleported back to the Ruby Palace to finally escape. Multiple portals appeared before us. I smiled: "This is it. We can finally leave now. *frowns* But wait. This is too easy." The portals vanish. Notte and Rano appear. Notte scowls: "So you annoying clearers have made it and managed to defeat the impossible to defeat version of the final boss, huh?"
Kirito yells: "What the hell have you done?!" "Don't you get it? We gave you plenty of warnings about what we wanted from you all. You aren't ever leaving the game. In fact, you can all just fight all of the bosses again at the same time for all I care. But don't worry, that won't be pulled on you. Killing all of you now would be a poor decision. Not when the Arcana System is still as interested as ever in seeing how humans and other creatures behave and interact with the NPCs who have as some of you would say: 'become real humans in their own right'. How ridiculous is that? Anyway, did any of you honestly expect us to just let you leave? *we shake our heads* I thought so. Then you should understand perfectly what's going to happen now. You will live out the rest of your days inside this world. No, I dare say that you will live the rest of eternity here! This IS real life for all of you now!" Kikouka replies: "Notte! Or should I refer to you as your given name?" "Not this again! I told you once and I will say it again! I won't accept any deals you have to offer to me!" "That's not what I was going to ask. Are you really okay with so many more individuals to be trapped in Aincrad than before? I know why you are willing to go to all of this trouble but that doesn't mean that it's okay." "Shut up! No one asked you!" Alice speaks: "If I may speak. I hardly consider this world to be a place to call home. I have enjoyed most of my time here but I shall always prefer being outside of this game." I add: "We have too much to do outside of this game. If you won't let us out, we will still find a way to get out of here somehow. The linking of this world with countless digital networks caused some chaotic events a while back.
Even though we can't rely on that to help us escape anymore, that doesn't mean there's no way to get out of this game." But then, a voice that horrified all of us, Notte and Rano included is heard: "An Incarnation Of The Radius defeat confirmed. Now activating self destruction sequence of Aincrad." Tetsuya panics: "Crabby! Crabby! Did none of you crabs prepare anything for IF THIS REALLY REALLY BAD SITUATION occurred?! There's nowhere to run or hide! This is a horrible nightmare! I must be dreaming! I must have been dreaming this entire time! That's right! It's crabtastic! This is all just one big nightmare that I will wake from soon enough and then be greeted by Taka The Giant Spider Crab!" Dominic shouts: "Nap causation! We tried everything we could to devise a plan in case this happened but we couldn't think of anything, even when using our wildest imaginations!!" Notte groans: "We'll settle our differences later after this is stopped! We know about the terminal in the Undergroudn Labyrinth! It's the only way to stop this! Not even the Arcana System can stop it this time! So be it! We'll have to work together until this problem is solved! But let me make myself clear. I resent each and every one of you clearers, NPC or not!" Oculus of the 82nd Floor who recently taught Leafa how to sense bloodlust, use it, and perform a powerful technique he called his "demonic sword" replies: "You're right. As much as I'd like to see the outside multiverse, we can't think about something like that right now." Bevel shouts: "There has to be a way to solve this with science!" Notte groans again and snaps: "There isn't! All we can do is get to the terminal in the Underground Labyrinth to stop this damn crisis! If we don't hurry, we will all be lost!
There's only 30 minutes until this entire world, including what was merged into it is blown up and all of us die!" We rush to the entrance of the Underground Labyrinth on the 1st Floor. We would have arrived inside of it instead if it weren't for the fact that teleport crystals don't work inside of it. There's several floors to it and for some reason, the terminal is further down and deeper inside of it than it's supposed to be. So we end up rushing inside, doing wha we could to avoid the tough monsters dwelling within. We were surrounded by all of those monsters constantly. Thousands of them. It wasn't long until we had to fight some of them as we ran. As time went on, more and more of us stuck behind to hold back so many of those monsters, allowing the rest of us to keep moving towards the terminal as quickly as possible. In Integral Factor, the Arcana System shut down the self destruction sequence by force and sort of broke the game, causing all kinds of bugs to occur including Doped monsters and Runaway Floors. But here, it can't stop it due to all of the other games merged with Aincrad, thereby adding to and altering its source code and other key parts of its programming. Cardinal yells after we reached the 3rd level of the labyrinth: "Not even I can do anything to stop what's going on! The system is out of my control completely! I may be a Cardinal System but it seems this game's Cardinal System refuses to respond to me." Heathcliff sighs: "I'm still locked out of the system. I have no control over the game as all of you are aware. Only Notte and Rano have admin permission."
Notte smirks: "That's right! You handle the monsters while we save the world!" Shope sighs: "Wow, you are really rubbing it in, aren't you?" We keep running at full speed. With only 5 minutes to spare, we made it to the terminal only to find some monsters waiting for us in front of it. Notte laughs: "You all can go deal with these rejected bosses for some of this world's floors! We'll get inside the terminal now to stop this world from exploding!" Rano shakes his head: "She's always like this. Okay, less nuts than this usually but still." Koharu shouts: "I remember the weaknesses and abilities and more of these bosses!" Argo replies: "Ya know, that will help and all but not even the most up to date intel on them will be enough for us to defeat them. Now, there's only about 30 of us here besides Notte and Rano. Everyone else is dealing with all of the monsters we passed by on the way here. What's even worse is that there's only 5 minutes left. It would be really easy for one of these bosses to slip past us and attack Notte and Rano just long enough for them to be unable to stop the destruction of the entire game." Pito for once doesn't look excited: "Damn it! This is too far! Even for me! What do we do?" LLENN replies: "The only thing we can do. Keep these bosses busy." Tetsuya chuckles: "We don't have enough time to defeat them with our current numbers so here's an idea! Let's be distracting crabs, pinchy!" Zenblock nods: "That should work but it's still.. extremely dangerous. Uh oh! Speaking of, they're all Doped bosses! That's really bad for us, you know! Even with all of our maxed out stuff, we'll still have a lot of trouble dealing with them! DARN IT!"
I add: "Well, we better start doing a lot of running until the others catch up or the countdown finishes or is stopped. Whatever comes first. This isn't the first time this game has faced the threat of being completely destroyed but it feels like this is the most urgent of this kind of situation. Which doesn't bode well." As we play diversion and keep the bosses busy with us, we hear the 2 fail a lot in trying to gain access. Notte shouts: "Damn it! We've been ejected from the system! Most of our permissions have been somehow revoked by the Cardinal System! I don't know how to hack into something! We need programmers and hackers for this! And there's only 2 minutes left!" Argo yells: "I'm contacting anyone who can break into the terminal right away! I hope someone makes it and gets through! Because if not, it's been a pleasure fighting alongside all of ya. We won't go down without a fight though, ya hear?!" She then slips past an attack by one of the bosses using a monster only skill known as flowmanship. This allows her to move in ways humans normally cannot move. Looking back, I guess she, Leafa, and so forth ended up being taught the same things by NPCs as their Integral Factor counterparts at different times. It's kind of odd but also a really good thing for our chances. Yuuki yells: "Come on, everyone! Let's keep these bosses busy for even longer!" We refuse to give up and just persist with our desperate efforts as the hackers and programmers of the Assault Team manage to run to the terminal and work together to gain access to shut down the self destruction sequence. Doofensmirtz yells: "You'd think this process would be easier with all of us working together! Maybe I should have invented a new Inator to deal with this!"
Tails replies: "It's okay! We can solve this problem in time! I know we can! I'm not necessarily a computer whizz but I do love building machines and flying vehicles. I have more than enough knowledge to aid in the desperate goal to break into this terminal and stop the self destruction sequence for good." Yui adds: "We have to hurry!" Kirito nods: "Almost there!" Biara warns: "Look out! There's a firewall there! I'm beginning to destroy it right away." Suddenly, the bosses stop as the timer starts to tick very loudly. In a panic, the ninja of Ninjago yell: "Bro bro gloom gloom! BRO BRO GLOOM GLOOM!" Most of us join in, including those of us who just managed to catch up: "BRO BRO GLOOM GLOOM!" Thanks a lot, Clutch Powers. This chant is your fault. I hear the sounds of the Crash Bug Virus breaking into the system through the terminal. Faust shouts: "Only 5 seconds left! We aren't going to make it!" Ghost Gal replies: "But we must make it!" 4. Playmaker announces: "We're in! I see the command to destroy this world!" 3. 2. 1. System voice: "Self destruction sequence disabled." We had a brief moment of victory until we remembered the bosses that had suddenly stopped trying to kill all of us. We are forced to now contend with them. And it was difficult. But the tables turned when everyone else caught up and we managed to defeat them. Notte speaks: "I won't thank you for your help in saving this world. I will just say this. It looks like creating more impossible to defeat Floor Bosses to keep you clearers in line from now on is pointless. But mark my words, we will do everything in our power to keep all of you inside this time! And for now, we're leaving! I hope I never have to see any of you again! Hmph!"
Rano just says: "I will not try to intervene directly with anything you try. But Notte won't be so kind. I'd watch out if I were you." Days later, it was Day 1340. We just finished repairing all of the damage caused by our fight with An Incarnation Of The Radius. Now, it's time to figure out how in the hell any of us are supposed to escape this game with the portals to leave now closed forever. My dearest friends and I gather together to talk about everything that's happened lately. I sigh: "I don't even know what to say anymore. We're even more trapped than we were before now. All attempts to bust our way out of here through hacking have failed miserably." Bray nods: "Indeed. But don't lose heart. We shall find a way to escape. It isn't clear how we will manage to escape. But it is clear that we will have to directly go against the Arcana System and that won't be simple." Pirate Blaster adds: "To add insult to injury, there have already been multiple attempts to punish us all for wanting to escape. They've all varied and failed but it's worrying. We can't even relax with the final boss now defeated." Dominic yawns: "Yeah. You're all right. What a nap causation. We already know that there's no way back through the 21st Floor based on the rumors that Koharu remembers helping debunk. But what if there's some other hidden kind of way to escape this game?" I speak: "It's possible that there are things in this game that exist that the system didn't authorize even if those things were created after this game started. Can't rule out any possibilities. I'm not too worried about what Notte and Rano will try to pull in order to punish us on behalf of the Arcana System.
What I'm worried about is finding a way out of here. Beating An Incarnation Of The Radius was the only definite way to get out. With the portals that spawned due to the boss's death gone, we can't just force them to reopen. They're completely gone. They can't open back up if they're gone. You know, did anyone ever use any Nether or End portals? There's one of each in Twisted Land but we can't exactly used them because I put invisible barrier blocks around them." Bray thinks for a moment: "No, players have used those portals. They work. They send individuals to those dimensions just like they did before. You must have forgotten and I relate to such, my friend." Barla replies: "Wait, they might be our ticket out of here, then!" I sigh: "Not exactly. Sure, they can send us to other dimensions but those dimensions are still a part of the game. We didn't explore those dimensions much or at least, I don't remember doing so or hearing much about them. Who knows what kind of new monsters lurk in either dimension. Wait, I recall something. Oh yes. We didn't allow anyone to casually visit either dimension. They don't have boundaries like Aincrad does. You can fall in the void or fall into lava depending on which of the two you visit. Why do I feel like parts of previous floors included elements of either dimension? Wow, it's been such a long time since we still had yet to clear the 10th Floor, hasn't it? Maybe we should explore them some. If one goes out far enough in either dimension, they will run into the Strip Lands. That's where a Minecraft world stops generating normally. But trying to stand in there means a fall into the void and certain death." We still decide to go to the Nether to search for any way to get out of the game.
If we're lucky, a Nether portal built in the Nether may lead us to a Minecraft world that wasn't assimilated into Aincrad. There are far too many Minecraft worlds to assimilate all of them into this game. If we can get out, we can get help. We'll only go to the End if we get desperate enough. We let the others in the Assault Team know our plan and wait a couple of days to do it while also preparing for the dangers unique to the Nether. Contrary to what may have been said before, the Nether and End still largely exist outside of this world as their own separate dimensions. Not even the Arcana System could plug every way to get out of Aincrad given all of the games merged into it. Hell, if we somehow found a really old Minecraft PE world that's still only 256 by 256 blocks, we might find a way to break free for certain but there's nothing for at least 30 million blocks in all directions around such a world. All there is, is air beyond the world that can basically be walked on if you fly to y 128 and build something next to the world border at that height. No matter the case, we were in the Nether on Day 1343. And oh yeah, it was dangerous. I caution my friends: "Be careful. Don't touch the zombie pigmen and they won't touch you. Beware of the piglins. They will attack and have a wide aggro range. Watch out for ghasts. Their fireballs can be deadly. Magma cubes aren't so bad as long as they don't knock you anywhere you don't want to go. Don't be afraid of the adorable striders. You can use them to safely but slowly cross lava. They love swimming in lava. Watch out for wither skeletons and blazes too.
All of them will be far stronger than normal so we really have to keep an eye out." We walk cautiously. Our goal is to transverse the Nether in search of anything ancient that might help us escape. If that fails or takes too long, we will just build a nether portal many many many blocks away from where we started. I can see our coordinates in my vision so I made note of where our portal is located for reference later. I also told Carlos: "No snowballing the zombie pigmen, okay?! Just let them be neutral and leave us be." "I won't! This dimension gives me the creeps!" "Good. Oh yeah and we have to watch out for bastions and the piglin brutes who guard them. Easy to fall into a pit of lava in the center there." We continue on, I note what structures won't tell us anything and we go from there. To be continued..