Link Start: Danger In Virtual Worlds
Chapter 6: Herobrine's Vengeance
Date: Infinityverse Day 109-134
Stampy replies: "You still want my dogs after all of this to build an evil dog army?! Really?! You have my Lovely World but that's not good enough for you?! You have got to be kidding me! So you're telling me that you and Veeva Dash placed all of that obsidian just to take my dogs in exchange for removing all of it? I don't know how you're able to speak to me since we're not in the Nether. But what I do know is this is ridiculous." "Give me your dogs or be trapped here forever until all of you perish at the hands of Herobrine," "This is such a tough decision! I can't give you my dogs but I can't let the Assault Team be unable to move onto Floor 13!" Romeo speaks: "Forget the deal. Did you all forget what I can do?" He effortlessly gets rid of all of the obsidian. Hit The Target grins: "That's exactly what we expected to happen." "What in the?! That's a load of rubbish! How could you expect all of this to happen the way it has?!" "We have been watching all of you for some time and now that we have delayed you long enough.. My machine will turn you all into my obedient servants!" Something starts to happen. Vibrations in the air. The music of Minecraft is distorted. Cardinal shouts: "I won't allow this to happen!" She stops the vibrations herself. Stampy chuckles: "Aha! You underestimated us, Hit The Target! That's why you only won when you trapped Barnaby over the lava moat around your castle!" Suddenly, Hit The Target's eyes begin turning white. Veeva Dash looks terrified of this change and starts backing up. Jesse exclaims: "Wait. That's not Hit The Target.. Not anymore. That's Herobrine.." Stitcher glares at Herobrine: "Of course he shows up like this! He's behind everything that's happened! Erebus, Malacoda, the other monster kings! My parents were killed because of HIS monsters!"
Herobrine laughs: "You fools! The time for my revenge is at hand! It was easy to kill Hit The Target and replace him. Not even Veeva Dash could tell the difference. And now that I have succeeded in replacing him and fooling all of you, my plan will now begin. Erebus and Malacoda have failed me for the last time. I will not revive them. Instead, I will take care of all of you myself through my army. User-who-is-not-a-user, I have been waiting for my revenge against you for a long time. My anger towards you is what drives all of my plans! All of the other shadow crafters are nothing compared to me." Gameknight replies: "We'll stop you!" "I wouldn't be so sure of that if I were you. This world will be destroyed followed by all worlds. You have managed to stop me over and over, even defeating my oldest creation. I will terrorize your dreams and make your life fill with suffering and despair. Erebus and Malacoda were too blind to follow my orders. They acted on their own and sought to jump to the physical world after gaining enough xp without destroying this world." Many of us draw our weapons. Veeva Dash is unsure what to do. Herobrine laughs: "Your weapons do not frighten me. I am the combined Herobrine, the merging of all Herobrines across the Minecraftian multiverse. None of you can deal damage to me. User-who-is-not-a-user, my powers are far greater than they ever were in the past times we've fought against each other. I am not just a computer virus anymore. I have memories from the very first Minecraftian worlds. This location is not suitable for my revenge. There's no point in fighting here. I'll leave you all here to fight some of my more powerful monsters. If you survive, I'll find you and kill all of you myself." One second he's there, the next, he's gone.
A large flood of large monsters come from underground to attack us. Jesse yells: "Look out! These monsters are mutants! I've never seen anything like them! I've only heard of them up to now!" Gameknight adds: "I thought only Entity303 could add mods to Minecraft. These monsters are from the Mutant Creatures Mod.." Barla yells: "Damn it! If he can add monsters from Minecraft mods, who knows what else he can do?!" I reply: "There are so many Minecraft mods out there! Orespawn and Twilight Forest are 2 of the other big ones. Orespawn adds multiple dimensions and a huge number of monsters, items, and bosses. That includes Mobzilla and King Kong.. The Twilight Forest adds a expansive dimension with the Lich King, Naga, and Hydra as just some of its bosses. There's also the More TNT mod. If monsters were given enough intelligence to use that mod, we'd be easy to wipe out. TNT x500 is one of the most dangerous items it adds. Don't even get me started on some of the other mods that are out there. Needless to say, we better find out if there are any other Minecraft mods that have been added other than Mutant Creatures as soon as possible. There is a way to get unlimited spawn eggs in Orespawn. If our enemies got their hands on that through Orespawn being present in this death game, they could spawn in a Mobzilla or worse easily on us and slaughter us that way." Piccolo speaks: "That's not good. But right now, we have to focus on these mutant monsters!" Thinknoodles replies: "That's way easier said than done. These mutant monsters are.. Well, they're a lot tougher than their non mutant counterparts as you can see. The mutant creepers and endermen are especially dangerous when they die."
And so, the battle continues. Mutant zombies throwing their weight around by hitting and smashing. Mutant endermen teleporting around, attacking, and throwing blocks aggressively while shrieking. Mutant creepers summoning normal and baby creepers as well as exploding over and over but surviving. Mutant skeletons firing aggressively. And the other mutant mobs are acting in ways I never expected despite knowing about Mutant Creatures for years. As if they weren't tough and wild enough, the mutant monsters are equipped with high quality armor just like the monsters that were being used by Erebus at The Source to fight all of us. We better make sure Laughing Coffin never gets their hands on Chemical X which can be used to turn normal Minecraftian monsters into mutant ones. They will 100% use Chemical X if they find out about the Mutant Creatures mod. After a few minutes, the first mutant creepers and endermen started dying. When they did, the creepers let out a huge explosion while the endermen pull in anything within a close enough distance to them, hurting anyone caught in their pull in the process. It's a very painful way to go. And there was nothing none of us could do about the pull of the mutant endermen. So most of us ended up getting pulled by the mutant endermen at least once. All while being attacked by other mutant creatures. The amount of damage we were taking at times was higher than our dps. Not a good thing to say the least. But after a couple hours, we managed to finish off the rest of the mutant monsters. The drops were the only thing that made it worth it. Some clearers ending up gaining baby creepers as pets. Others gained transparent hands possessing the block throwing and teleporting abilities of the mutant endermen. But they have durability and will eventually break apart after enough uses.
Bones, gunpowder, bows, and other items were also dropped by the various mutant monsters. We somehow managed to not lose anyone in the chaos of the battle. Diavel speaks: "We have claimed victory in this surprise battle. We are now ready to face the 13th Floor. It is a volcanic themed floor so please watch your step. Before we head to the 13th Floor, does anyone need to restock or take a break? We aren't going up until everyone is ready." Another hour passes and we finally reach the 13th Floor. Bray notes: "Intriguing. This is similar to Karakaton. It will be somewhat difficult to reach the areas of Minecraftia that have appeared on this floor with how the terrain is shaped." Kirito replies: "It's not so bad once you learn your way around as long as you watch your step." Lisbeth adds: "It's a good thing there's a mini map we can use to get around but it's not much help outside of this environment." The ground starts rumbling, causing us to feel a little unsteady. Alice exclaims: "What is all of this about?!" Heathcliff answers: "It appears that there's volcanic activity. A nearby volcano is going to erupt. But I didn't program that into this floor of Aincrad." Someone screams. I yell: "Who was that?! Why did they scream?" We start hearing maniacal laughter as members of Laughing Coffin appear. POH grins: "I'm going to enjoy killing you fools! This floor is perfect for doing just that! You Japanese and others will perish here! I'll make certain of it myself! Even if you run, you can't really hide here with all of this lava! And because wings don't work in this game, none of you can spread your sad little wings and fly safely away from danger!" Sinon replies: "That may be true but that doesn't mean we're going to give up or lose to you."
Death Gun retorts: "But it is you who will lose. You will all lose. You will be eliminated." Alice stares at him: "We shall slay you where you stand! Your evil ways will be put to an end! This I swear!" But then, the nearby volcano erupts, spewing out not just lava and ash but Nether monsters as well. In seconds, all of us plus Laughing Coffin get surrounded by more monsters. I yell: "Damn it! It just never stops! It's monsters then more monsters then even more monsters! This isn't good at all!" We are once again forced to work together with Laughing Coffin to eradicate the monsters. The only consolation was that none of them were mutant monsters and it appears Laughing Coffin is oblivious to Mutant Creatures for now. Romeo took away what he had granted to Laughing Coffin a few days ago so Laughing Coffin isn't as dangerous as before in some ways. In time, we managed to defeat all of the monsters but both sides were exhausted and drained after that. POH scowls: "You can all live for now. We can't kill all of you in the conditions each of us is in. But KIRITO, I'm going to enjoy watching how much you can take before I piss you off all over again! Hahahaha!" The Laughing Coffin members leave through teleport crystals. Not much worth writing extensively about happened before the 13th floor boss fight against Alaz The Blaze Shooter. Yeah, we kept running into monsters and often used the defensive measures used by Gameknight999 and his friends along with the villagers who would willingly die fighting by his side to help deal with them.
It was difficult to split up the Assault Team to cover more ground due to all of the lava. But once we started making our way to the Minecraft biomes on Floor 13, that became less of an issue. A number of places were explored such as surprisingly, the worlds for the servers VimCraft, Minecrew, and Mine United, abandoned mineshafts, abandoned villages, and pillager outposts. Those servers I mentioned were each active over 10 years ago at closely connected times. If any of you watch the YouTuber Poke, formerly Pokedigger1, he was a part of Minecrew back in 2012, 11 years ago. I watched Minecrew stuff when it was still active as a server. Anyway, there was one things of note that was on the 13th floor other than the boss that I feel is worth writing about. There was a quest no one ever heard of before. Argo discovered it and as a member of Kirito's party, I ended up participating in it after Argo contacted Kirito who then contacted the rest of us. We met up at the teleport gate that deposited us to the floor. Argo grins: "Good. You're all here. I have something interesting I want all of you to check out. Don't worry, I'll reward you for your efforts." Kirito raises an eyebrow: "What is it this time, Argo?" "Heh! You're always a lot of fun to work with. Here's the deal. I have no problem telling you the details for free of course because I need your help. There's a quest that I discovered by accident. I gathered a lot of information in SAO and there was never once any mention of the quest I'm speaking of. If you go northwest from here, you will find a rock. But it's not just any ordinary rock. It's an NPC with a quest. I only saw the NPC name tag when I was exploring this floor for anything different. I contacted Kirito as soon as I reasonably could."
Sinon replies: "That's interesting. I wonder what kind of rewards we'll get by taking on this quest." "That's the beauty of the quest. It's rewards could be generous or absolutely worthless. We might get lucky and you'll learn useful information about the floor boss Alaz The Blaze Shooter from it. I wouldn't get my hopes up though." I speak up: "It's certainly worth giving a try. I'm sick of dealing with all of these monsters that are being sent after us all by Herobrine. This would be a nice change of pace. It's Day 113 and we still haven't found the floor boss. Even though only one guild or group clears the labyrinth on each floor now so that the rest of the Assault Team can deal with other things like searching for the floor boss, no one has been able to find Alaz The Blaze Shooter." "I guess we should take on this quest." "Kirito, Asuna would not be pleased to hear you say that." "Yeah, Kazuto!" Barla says a little too loudly: "Let's do this mysterious quest! Hell yeah!" 20 minutes later, we find the rock after some trouble. But once the NPC name tag and cursor was spotted, it was easy to find em. The rock speaks upon seeing all of us get close enough: "Adventurers, would you care to help an old rock out? My name is Bob. You see, it gets lonely here and well, my best friend has gone missing. D'wayne the Pet Rock vanished without a trace a few days ago. I have no idea how this happened or here he could be." I look bemused: "D'wayne the Pet Rock? Am I hearing you correctly?" "You are hearing me perfectly clearly. If you find him for me, I will be sure to reward you greatly for your efforts. This is a dangerous place to go missing after all. One wrong step and I'll be completely melted! I don't want to be one lava again!" Sinon replies: "We accept your quest. We'll be back." "Thank you so much, kind travelers! I wish you the best of luck!"
After we walk away to begin searching, Leafa turns to me: "What was that about? Why did you look bemused?" "Well.. I know of a D'wayne the Pet Rock. The one I know was created for Fur Reality 2019, a furry convention. Fur Reality had a immersive storyline where cards that could be earned would be used to vote for which side wins the storyline at closing ceremonies. There were 3 choices that year: the Interlopers, whatever name the bad guys were called, and the 'unnamed rock team'. The rock team was set to lose. The winner was decided. But then, someone from the con's board of directors brought in a box full of those cards I mentioned and gave them to D'wayne the Pet Rock who had earlier been named during closing ceremonies. They raised over 200 for charity by letting people suggest names for the rock of the 'unnamed rock team' and charging them for doing so. D'wayne the Pet Rock won Fur Reality's storyline that year. And then, the convention died over a year later. It was never held again." Alice frowns: "That sounds completely ridiculous. What's the point of naming a rock?" "That's the thing. It was just a joke. A artificially made large rock with a really derpy face. If this D'wayne that we're supposed to find is the same one as that D'wayne, I won't have words to truly describe my reaction." We look around all over the 13th Floor. We spent 3 days searching. And then, we found him. I recognized him immediately: "You have got to be kidding me! It's the same D'wayne as the one I know! Let's bring him back to Bob!" Silica chuckles: "This is hilarious! But I wonder who or what took him away from Bob?" Sinon adds: "That's a valid concern. Quests in Aincrad aren't this simple. There's usually some monsters to fight. It took us 3 days to find this rock but it still feels too easy." Kirito has a thoughtful look: "I wonder if anything will happen when one of us picks him up."
I pick him up and put him in my inventory for now. Monsters ambush us from out of nowhere. I look at them all. "Hold on a second, these are monsters from different games/worlds.. Sky Deleters, Twerkeys, Roboputers, and more.. Did there seriously need to be twerkeys?" The twerkyes are turkey monsters that are really big with faces on their butts. That make movements to piss off anyone who faces them. Barla shouts: "I thought all monsters from Miitopia are nice now! But apparently, not the ones who are here for some reason!" We fight all of the monsters, defeat them, and head back to Bob only to find Bob missing and a huge fight between more monsters and fellow Assault Team members. Heathcliff commands: "Give them no quarter. Don't let them have another centimeter." We had no choice but to help defeat all of the monsters. Once that was done, we started searching for Bob. It didn't take much to deduce he was no longer in the volcanic environment. We searched and we searched. An hour later, we found him in a ravine in a plains biome. Bob speaks first: "Did you find him?" Bray replies: "Something isn't right with you. You didn't acknowledge the fact your location has completely changed." Bob grins evilly: "You've fallen for my scheme! And now, I will take all of your items after I kill you and then, sell them all to become so rich that no one on this floor will dare challenge me! Why did you think I moved locations? It was all to waste your time and to set up my trap! I deliberately hid D'wayne in a difficult location to help waste even more of your time! Now, you're doomed!" A cage suddenly forms around us. Lisbeth bashes it with her mace but nothing happens. Bob transforms into a angelic fiery spirit and laughs at us: "You can't escape this cage! Its as resilient as the Ruby Palace is to contain the monster within its walls! Not even the best swords or sword skills will be able to break through!"
Kirito shouts: "We'll see about that! Enhance Armament!" He powers up the Night Sky Sword to try to break through but is unsuccessful. Our foe laughs: "I told you! I should probably mention that the cage is full of poisonous gas you can't even see. Right now, you're all being poisoned. Not only that but your gear has allowed you to ignore the fact that you are also being hurt by Wither Roses!" I look down and see a whole bunch of them in our cage: "Damn it! You've had this planned out for a long time!" "Ever since I heard the humans and other creatures were trying to unify the tower! You'll be my first victims to die! I'm going to enjoy watching you die!" Sinon exclaims: "Not even drinking milk will save us!" "That's right! Hahahahaha! You're all going to die here today! I just can't wait to see you all do so! The Fallen Elves should have contacted me! If they had, Lyusula and Kales'Oh would no longer exist as threats!" I pull out a pickaxe: "Or we could just dig down in this cage." "No! You can't! This isn't how this was supposed to go!. I break the Wither Rose below me with it and start breaking block beneath where it was. "This is bad! You're escaping and I can't do anything to stop you!" We're at the bottom of that ravine I mentioned so it's a little hard to see and there are a lot of monsters lurking about. But I was unconcerned about all of those things. The others start doing the same thing. It doesn't take long for us to escape and confront the backstabber(we drank milk once we got out before doing so). Bob backs up while powering up and glaring at all of us: "I have been left with no other choice! I'm going to have to burn all of you to crisps!" Sinon shakes her head: "We're not going to let you do that to us." Bob is a formidable enemy. Without a truly solid firm, hurting him is very difficult. Most of his body is made of burning flames. He attacks are fire balls and lightning bolts.
We were not expecting to encounter a boss like him as part of what seemed to be just a really silly quest with no real meaning behind it other than the humor parts. But in the end, it has proven to actually be no laughing matter. Kirito tries to turn Bob into a tree with Release Recollection. It seemed like it worked and Alice used Release Recollection to transform her sword to quickly cut the tree down but the tree burned to ash before she could. Bob appeared unharmed and continued to be hard to beat while also dealing a lot of damage to us. But then, another NPC stepped in. More like burst out of my inventory and transformed. D'wayne the Pet Rock transformed into an elderly martial artist instructor. They attacked with a combination of punches and energy that slowed down Bob. With their help, we were able to defeat Bob. Now that he was defeated, he was on the ground, barely moving: "Why? Why did my plan have to fall apart like this? I timed everything perfectly!" The instructor grinned: "Sorry pal but your time is up!" "You! Sensei Errada! Why did you get in my way?!" "You are such a troublemaker, Bob. It was easy for me to see through your plan. I switched places with the D'wayne the Pet Rock you found and set up to use as part of your plan. Now that you've been defeated, I'm going to take care of you for myself for now on. Thank you for your help, human warriors. As a token of my appreciation, I will award you with just not valuables but also whatever it is you wish to know about this floor of Aincrad." Leafa asks: "Can you tell us about the monster in the tower on this floor?"
They nod: "Certainly. Now that my mind is much more fluid than it used to be, I can answer you with the knowledge that this floor has been cleared by human warriors before in the past. Alaz The Blaze Shooter has been defeated before. Therefore, I will tell you what has changed since last time. You will find Alaz The Blaze Shooter to the north of here, in a volcano created by player users in Minecraft. Is there anything else you would like to know about this floor? *we shake our heads no* Very well. In that case, allow me to reward you with some items as promised. It's not much but I've been traveling this floor for some time to hone my skiils. I haven't been able to gather many valuables." We are rewarded minerals, apples, ore rocks, and a couple weapons. After that, Errada leaves, carrying Bob along with them. The next day, we were able to find and defeat Alaz The Blaze Shooter. It wasn't as hard of a battle as some of the other battles with floor bosses since a lot of clearers have water attribute skills. My own skills are of the darkness and wind elements so I didn't get any advantage in dps against Alaz The Blaze Shooter. In fact, my wind based skills didn't do anything but harm us so I had to resort to relying on Shadow Stab. Oh yeah, elemental advantages and disadvantages. I forgot to bring those up until now. SAO style skills have various elements they represent for some reason. They don't in SAOIF or at least I don't think they do there. (On second thought, SAOIF does have that stuff)
After Alaz was defeated, we actually decided to head up to the 14th Floor right away seeing as the Assault Team has grown in numbers once again not to mention the fact that most of us still had plenty of health potions to keep us alive. Tsunade speaks once we all get there: "This is the 14th Floor. 118 days into this death game and we're finally here. Pholus the Centaur Chieftain is the boss on this floor." Not much worth noting extensively happened on the 14th Floor. More monster attacks, quests, grinding, and resource gathering. But I did start sparring with my teammates more often and began making a bigger effort to be more social as well. Being trapped in a death game isn't exactly that great of a thing for someone's mental health. More players have begun being active instead of hiding in the Town of Beginnings. As time has gone on, attitudes such as far right infused gamer nonsense and the Beater stigma have begun fading away. This game is transforming people: an example of the sociologically studied law of unintended consequences. When we reached the 15th Floor, it was Day 124 of the game now. And well, Herobrine had more than a few things planned for us. The moment we stepped out of teleport gate, all of us began to fall through green carpet held up by spider string. We fell all the way down to bedrock and miraculously managed to survive without losing anyone. Kirito exclaims: "What the hell?!" Olivia replies: "It looks like someone placed a trap for us. Carpet and spider string.. It's so genius but so painful because we fell for it!" Ivor adds: "It's a classic trick! Whoever did this wanted all of us to die quickly or to at least get severely injured as well as trapped down here."
Shope yells: "Hold on a second.. If we just fell through a artificially dug hole, why aren't there any walls around us?" We start hearing many things. Memock and Zenblock exclaim in unison: "Uh oh!" Herder shouts: "My wolves are unharmed. But something's making them angry!" Creati yells: "Monsters! Coming from all sides!" Stampy screams: "Aaaaa! It's not just gogglies! I see players and iron golems too!" Beerus groans: "Oh you have got to be kidding me! Just when I thought this game couldn't get more annoying! I don't want to have to play this game anymore!" I reply: "Like we have any choice in the matter. This is the last floor until RCT3 so we better be ready for a serious change in appearance next floor and take full of advantage of RCT3 as soon as possible." And so, we fought against a whole lot of monsters. But no matter how many we defeated, more just kept spawning since most of the area we found ourselves in was dim at best and pitch black otherwise. That made seeing monsters very difficult but we did do our best. Obviously, it wasn't easy. But then, the players and golems finally reached us. I say: "This is weird. Why would players want to attack us? Same with these iron golems.. Get back! Ha! Ha!" A player laughs at me: "It's useless! You're all going to die here and we'll obtain all of the spoils of war! After all, being part of Laughing Coffin as well as serving Herobrine separately has its many rewards!" "You're going to end up regretting siding with them someday!" "As if I care about the future. All I care about is power! Hahahaha!" I'm forced to end killing that player with my sword. They weren't a match against me with the upgrades on my gear. We actually discovered and began widely putting into practice the ability to upgrade our skills with special materials just like in SAOIF.
Now, my skills are a lot more effective than they were before in battle. I shout: "Everyone! Keep going! Don't you dare quit! We're in this to survive together!" I was right. The battle continued. We were not expecting to be facing double agents serving both POH and Herobrine but they weren't anything compared to our respective skills and abilities. In the end, we were able to take out all of the players and golems before placing torches and pushing back against the endlessly spawning swarm of monsters. It was hard for anyone to be able to place torches so it was a very gradual process. But finally, we managed to torch up a large portion of the underground area, enough to allow us to see what we were doing and have some room to fight. Now that the monsters weren't able to spawn in as many places, that made dealing with them a little bit easier. Due to this, we finally started killing monsters faster than they could spawn. At last, we began to be able to light up more and more at a quickening rate, further cutting down the monsters as we went. Hours must have passed once we finishing lighting all of it up. Jesse exclaims: "We did it! So what now?!" Sinon looks around: "There are caves full of monsters around us. We could explore those caves and kill all of the monsters we encounter but that would take too long." Twilight Sparkle nods: "We could very well get lost and separated in those caves. They're large. I don't see any benefit in exploring them. We should begin digging back up to the surface." Gameknight999 agrees: "It would take less time for us all to return to the surface if we just dug our way out." Revolver adds: "Digging to the surface may seem counterintuitive but I have 3 reasons why I also agree to doing so. 1, the pickaxes some of us have are quite fast. 2, we don't know just how big those caves are or the way to the surface through any of them. And 3, the monsters in those caves are likely as tough and numerous as the monsters we just faced."
30 minutes later, we were all back on the surface, now able to see what was on the 15th Floor. There's virtually no information online about what's on the 15th Floor so I'm afraid I can't describe what we saw on that floor nor what the floor boss was like. However, I can say that things ended up going the same way as on the last 2 floors. However, that was up until we had finished off the boss inside of the Fallen Kingdom map used in an iconic Minecraft parody song and music video uploaded by CaptainSparklez. Herobrine himself appeared before all of us without any warning. He speaks: "I have seen all of you overcome all of my monsters as well as various other challenges and traps I have placed in your paths. And yet, no matter how difficult I've made things for you, you have still come out on top. Therefore, I will have to kill you myself. I won't give any of you the luxury to see the 16th Floor or any of the other floors beyond this one. You will die here together. You can try any attacks you wish but they will not harm me." To demonstrate his point, Herobrine transforms into a floor boss sized monster and allows the Dark Factor aura to surround his entire form. Stitcher grins: "You think you can take on all of us by yourself?!" Kizmel adds: "You are not of man. You look like you are but you are not. To go against an army alone is something only someone very brave or foolish would do." Herobrine laughs as if to say he's completely confident that none of us have a chance against him. A high level of confidence. We all attack him at once in a way so as to not hurt one another. The synchronization required for such tactics has been well embedded into most of us due to the fights with the swarms of monsters and floor bosses we've faced.
And those who hadn't had it yet embedded were able to catch on very quickly. But no matter how hard we hit Herobrine, none of us were able to deal any damage except for Romeo due to his admin powers. At the moment, he has taken the form of a huge ancient stone guardian just like the first form of his Jesse fought against in Minecraft Story Mode Season 2. But even his damage isn't that much against Herobrine. "Is that all you have for me? What a shame. I was expecting a much more interesting fight. Very well, I don't find most of us worth the effort to kill myself anymore. But Gameknight999, I will kill you myself as you watch all of your friends be devoured by my monsters!" In an instant, thousands of monsters appear all around us to get in the way of us trying to hurt Herobrine. They are all set to kill us with bloodthirst being the only desire they have. Due to this, they attack constantly and ruthlessly. They don't flinch at being hurt. They just keep attacking even if we manage to completely outdo them. Because all of the monsters are geared up, it was taking some effort just to kill a single one of them. However, that wasn't enough to dissuade us. Instead, we just kept pushing on. There was no other choice. Even as we heard Gameknight999 cry out in pain as Herobrine slowly squeezed the life out of him. It hurt to listen to that but it also empowered us to fight even harder. So many of us refused to let anyone else die. We all want to save him. Naofumi yells: "Damn it! All these monsters! There's so many!" Kirito shouts: "Don't worry, Gameknight999! We'll save you! Somehow!"
Herobrine just laughs at us as he watches us struggle against all of the monsters but his laughter stops when Diavel yells: "Everyone! We must begin fighting even more strategically than we have been!" I turn towards Kirito and he gives me a nod. We get together in a 2 person formation, cutting through the monsters with our respective skills. But when the monsters really start proving to be too much, Kirito yells: "Switch!" I reply: "Okay!" We trade places, taking the monsters by surprise, giving us an opportunity to kill multiple monsters faster than we were doing so before. And then, arrows and TNT blocks start raining down on the monsters from the sky. In the corner of my eye, I see a quickly constructed fortress behind all of us. Damn, some of us build really fast. It isn't just Minecraftians who build fast. It's others such as the brick masters like Lego Batman, Emmet, and Wildstyle/Lucy as well. Kirito and I remain in sync with each other, trading places, watching each other's backs, jumping when necessary, and so on. The monsters get increasingly agitated at seeing this. But Gameknight999 was still being slowly killed by Herobrine. We really had to do something about that. But what? Nagato shouts loud enough for everyone to hear: "No evil, no matter how powerful they are is invincible. Herobrine isn't impossible to defeat. Naruto helped me believe in that." This caused morale to increase on our side. More encouragements were shouted out to increase our collective willpower, teamwork, and endurance. When someone gets really hurt and can't heal anymore, someone uses a splash potion on them to make sure they don't die.
It is true we've had a flow like this in the previous battles but it just wasn't this strong or effective before now. Due to all that's going on, the monsters began to stand no chance despite all the gear they were wearing. It meant almost nothing compared to all of us working together. Heathcliff leaps forward to be in the fray of the monster swarm in order to take a lot of the damage other clearers would have taken for them. But because of his admin permissions, he is still an Immortal Object so he actually takes no damage. It was becoming more obvious that Gameknight999 was beginning to slip away. We needed to make a breakthrough big enough to hold off enough monsters to allow enough of us to attack Herobrine with enough force to temporarily lose at least some of his hold on our comrade. Soren, one of the original Order Of The Stone members yells: "Look out from above! I prepared something special in case a situation like this took place! One was powerful enough to knock the Wither Storm unconscious for a few minutes in my world. Many Formidibombs are seen flying through the sky as projectiles. A Formidibomb is a powerful explosive Soren invented. He has orange short hair, an orange beard, green? eyes, light skin, and brown, gray, black, and purple armor(recently crafted by him). They rip through the air and kill countless monsters in an instant. In that moment, most of the monsters we were fighting were killed. The drops from all of them caused the game to lag for a long 10 seconds. When the Infinityverse stabilized again, Herobrine was no longer holding Gameknight999. Instead, he was fading in and out and glitching whenever he tried to do anything.
After all, part of him is still a computer virus after all. Entity303 created him or at least, the version of him whose personality became dominant in the fused Herobrine we are fighting against. I watched as Gameknight999 was healed by his most concerned friends and given support. Herobrine rises into the sky just as the last of his monsters are slain. He glares down at us furiously before raising his hands. Beerus gulps: "That monster is trying to wipe all of us with a single attack now! His patience has run out! If only I could still use my powers as a destroyer. Someone like Herobrine would be no much against a destroyer like me." Herobrine cackles: "I've had enough! This is the end of all of you! With you gone, I will turn this world to ruin!" Monet screams at the top of my lungs: "ENDER PEARLS, NOW!!" She yelled that, knowing that teleport crystals wouldn't be fast enough for all of us to get away. All of us ends up throwing an ender pearl each at almost the same exact time. Just in time too for Herobrine says: "Goodbye, all of you! My plans will now no longer be ruined! No NPCs will ever dare to challenge me again!" He releases his attack but all of us teleport away before it could reach any of us. All Assault Team members at some point have been taught to throw ender pearls in the most effective ways possible. With the enderman farm still in the end, we have no shortage of ender pearls to use when there's no better or other choice. Now that that was done and over with, we were all scattered across all directions as each of us threw our ender pearls whichever direction we happened to be facing when Monet screamed. But none of us stopped there. Herobrine could be heard trying to go after Gameknight999 so we all started doing some ender pearling. As most of us could never truly know where exactly we'd land after we threw a pearl, that meant Herobrine was clueless too.
He could teleport and move around as fast as he wants to but as long as we have ender pearls, it's a little hard for him to just catch one of us. We all thought we were safe from him for now. After traveling thousands of blocks, I stopped throwing ender pearls at the optimal angle and force. In the distance, I saw something begin to form. Some kind of structure made out of bedrock. And then, everything became dark out of nowhere. Due to ender pearling so much, I was certain that we were all scattered across millions of blocks by now. I watched as monster after monster spawned around me. "Crap! Herobrine bedrocked all of us in and even blocked out the sky to prevent escape as well as cause countless monsters spawn infinitely and quite quickly!" I get a message sound and just barely managed to check my messages. It was from Argo. "Attention everyone reading this, I have sent out a mass email to every Assault Team member I could. After confirming my suspicions, I have determined what has happened. We are all separated from each other. To survive, we must meet back up in groups. Attached, you'll see a number of places I have listed as decent rendezvous points for us. Teleport to one of them with a teleport crystal and work together with whoever goes there too." I see no problem in taking orders like that. I've been willing to work within the Assault Team despite the small level of hierarchy inside of it. After all, we all go around yelling orders if we are certain we got a great idea for a number of us BRAINS members to do in the heat of battle. Not much different from this except BRAINS has no authority leaders. There are leaders but no one is part of a supreme authority in the collective. Natural leaders still act like natural leaders but no one imposes their will on someone else.
I end up using one of my teleport crystals to teleport to the location where we fought the 15th floor boss. There, I reunited with a large portion of the Assault Team. All of us began to place torches and prepared for the worst. Walls and other fortifications were even built around us as we knew the monsters AND Herobrine are coming to come to us eventually. I don't know how it happened exactly but I found myself after some time in another Minecraft area but from a dimension different from Jesse's world or Twisted Land's world. I literally just fought like nuts and followed some of my comrades around. The area we were in was full of TNT. I mean, even the hills and trees were made out of it. Shope says bluntly: "Why are we here? This place looks like the opposite of where we should be right now. It's far too dangerous to be here." Lisbeth nods: "Just one minor mistake and we'd be blown to shreds here." I sigh: "That's a mouthful. Why does this place even exist?" Ellegard replies: "This world was originally created as an experiment according to some of the ancient texts that were studied by some academics. It failed. This world was meant to be just like theirs. But something went wrong, converting this place into pure TNT. Snarly smirks: "You know, this would be a great place to trap Herobrine. He has been proven to not be invincible like many of us previously believed." It was a good plan but none of us could figure out how to lure in Herobrine when we heard cries of distress far from our current positions. I'm among those who ends up ender pearling around to investigate those cries of distress. Despite how dark things have become, it's still possible to see a little bit. Not that easy without moon or sunlight spilling over from outside the bedrock enclosure we were now trapped inside. But possible nevertheless.
Lava was the main way we could still see. Obviously. But by the time I tracked down a cry for help, it was too late. A forest elf lied dead from rapid bleeding. "Damn it. We're losing comrades out here. But who's causing all of this?!" 30 minutes later, pretty much everyone is fighting Herobrine. It was he who was behind attacks such as the one that killed the poor forest elf. Herobrine was now laughing maniacally all over again. In the back of my mind, I was still concerned about luring Herobrine to that TNT area that was a part of an entire TNT dimension before the Infinityverse was formed. All of us were trying to attack him again but now, he was moving far too fast for anyone to land a blow with few exceptions. He's toying with us, trying to drain us, leaving us helpless in the face of his truly terrifying amount of power. When it seemed like some of us were definitely going to die, something surprising happens. Minglow Bats belts out in his dull voice: "Residents of Minecraftia, do not forget the magic of Minecraftia." Chris Creeper adds: "It has only become clear to us now in the middle of this baffling battle with Herobrine. We have been ignoring it for far too long. Many of us have used our magic when there was little choice and subsequently forgot about using that magic. But now, we must embrace our magic and use it once again. It has never left us even though that was the impression we have been given after being inside this death game for such a long time." While it's true that fully fledged Infinityverse players cannot use magic, that doesn't mean the likes of Minglow Bats or Petra can't. Bursts of light appear above us as magic begins to be casts. Caught off guard, Herobrine is stunned and momentarily stopped by a bombardment of attacks all headed straight for him. This once again exposes that he can be defeated. He has recovered from the lag that disrupted him but that doesn't mean he's won yet.
We may have caught him off guard but it's not going to be that easy for us to win against him. No matter how much magic is used, he is too strong. "Swiftdrawer! Switch!" "Alright!" Our Switch allows us to actually land a couple hits on Herobrine even as he resumes moving around extremely quickly while also beginning to actually attack us all in earnest. With such a high speed, his attacks were just that more powerful, dealing more and more damage every seconds. As we kept fighting, I couldn't help but wonder how some of those who we thought died previously or I may have seen as Integrity Knights are alive and well on our side. I found out at some point that Heathcliff managed to get some of them back. That doesn't include any of the close friends I've lost sadly. He was able to do that during a brief glitch in the system. "Damn it! Herobrine is just too much! But we can't give in to him! We have to keep fighting until the very end: whatever that means." A few minutes later, Romeo somehow was able to use telepathy to communicate with all of us silently: "Attention, all Assault Team members. I realize that I used to be really bad and that this battle is incredibly difficult. But you have to listen to me. I have a plan to lure Herobrine to the TNT area some of us ended up in. Some of us have to let Herobrine capture them. I will handle tempting Herobrine to go to the area after I do a little.l retexturing of the TNT.." No one objects for a number of different reasons such as not caring how things are done much as long as they are, completely supporting the plan, or just pure confusion at what he just said. I ended up volunteering to let Herobrine capture me. But why would Herobrine want to capture anyone? To torment Gameknight999 of course. By this point, it was Day 130 of the Infinityverse.
The User-who-is-not-a-user continuously began to look more confident. When Romeo single-handedly erased the bedrock enclosure made by Herobrine, our foe was now able to see his face. Because Romeo pulled that so suddenly, I could just see Herobrine's hatred for Gameknight999 rise to being higher than ever before in real time. The villain was no longer just speeding around and attacking obviously. He was now letting us try to hit him. I egged him on though: "Hey, Herobrine! Don't you want to capture somebody or something?! Isn't that what all villains like you do, capture somebody or something to piss off the main hero?!" "You fool! You have given me the perfect plan to make Gameknight999 slowly suffer more and more so that I can get my revenge! And you're going to be part of it! I know exactly where I'm going to be sending you!" A minute later, I've been teleported back to the TNT area except the area looks completely normal: as if it were just another Minecraft biome: not much to see here, move along. "I hope the others know what they're doing. I don't want to be blown to pieces alongside Herobrine." I waited around and waited some more. Finally, something that was worth the wait occurred. Herobrine came in with a bunch more captured individuals before leaving again. After he left, I feel myself getting yanked and then teleported. I'm teleported to where I was earlier when I helped rile Herobrine up. Ender was the one who brought me back. Hamaduh Riley laughs mischievously: "Swiftdrawer! You should see yourself! You look just like an enderman thanks to my illusion spell! Not only that but there's an illusion of you back you know where!"
"Huh, now that's something! Well, Herobrine is about to get what's been coming to him for a while now. Since he replaced Hit The Target, he's killed too many and destroyed too much." A screen like display appears in front of all of us in the Assault Team right as Herobrine binds Gameknight999 to some blocks and says: "Assault Team, I have kidnapped some of your pathetic members! Say goodbye to all of them as I begin the process of killing all of you through this screen!" He then teleports to that area, not realizing it's actually entirely made out of TNT. A trigger for all of the TNT has been set up but it's likely Herobrine will use fire to torture some of his "hostages". All of us stop moving to watch and see what happens. All of us who were captured by Herobrine were rescued and replaced by illusions over there. The only victim will be Herobrine and no one else. The illusions are so life like that it takes him to become impatient from not hearing any screams of pain for him to realize something is off. But by the time he does, someone already pulled the trigger. And when Herobrine started getting really mad, all of the TNT began to explode. This caused the game to briefly freeze before going back to normal as the aftershocks did even more damage. We all use teleport crystals to get to the area. Once there, all we see is a giant crater with a lot of xp and Herobrine's head. All blocks left behind as drops have already been deleted by the system. We did it. We got Herobrine. But then, Herobrine rises from the dead through his floating dropped head, revealing himself to be alive and unharmed. Olivia exclaims: "Oh no! It didn't work!" Herobrine upon closer inspection looks severely weakened not to mention angry.
He glares at all of us: "All of you are fools for playing tricks on me! *all the remaining illusions wear off* Magic?! Since when did you have magic on your side? Hmph! We are not finished but count yourselves lucky. I'm letting you go for now by withdrawing. You have managed to outsmart me so elaborately that I can't wield enough of my full power to kill all of you anymore. My monsters will start find and hunt you down for me. What they see I see too. REVENGE SHALL BE MINE!" And then, he fades away like a hologram. Gameknight999 breathes a sigh of relief: "We won against Herobrine today. But he is far from done." Pretty much all of you agree with his statement. After the temporary defeat of Herobrine, the path to the 16th Floor was clear. But after all of that excitement, we all collectively chose to take it easy and focus on smaller tasks for a few days or longer. It was also a way to prepare for the RCT3 stuff. So what exactly did we do over those next few days? Well, many of us did something I should have mentioned before now. Guard the unactivated teleport gate to the next floor so that no one tried to go on ahead without the entire Assault Team. Volunteers guarded it in shifts. I chose to guard on the first shift. Now that people don't really resent me anymore for my past mistakes and I haven't lost control to my inner darkness in some time, my personal reputation is now in good standing. I'm really embodying the spirit of a knight once again now that I'm not falling into despair every so often. The morning after we forced Herobrine to retreat, I was having breakfast when Kirito said to me: "Hey, Swiftdrawer. Would you be willing to spar with me again?"
"You didn't even need to ask. All you had to do was point your sword at me and I would have accepted. But I have an idea. Why don't we find others to spar with? We all do need to get stronger after all? Raise our levels, better our skills." "I like that idea." And so, we started asking around and messaging others, inviting me to join in on the spar. We ended up with a lot of participants and made sure everyone was familiar with the PVP feature from SAO before we got started. We used that to have sparring matches so that no one would actually die for real. It was a lot of fun and by the time we had to stop due to being exhausted, it was already the afternoon. After that, I rested for a few hours only to come across some kind of creepy quest. I messaged my teammates. They all came to my location right away. Sinon asks: "What's up, Swiftdrawer?" I point to a reaper NPC in the distance: "It looks like there's a creepy quest available now even though it's never been heard of before." They all agree to check it out. We approach the NPC who says: "Greetings, mortals. I am the Reaper of Aincrad. You are strong adventurers, are you not? If so, I challenge you to a challenge of frights, puzzles, and survival. Fail and you perish. Succeed and you will be rewarded handsomely. What do you say, dare to try my challenge?" Kirito accepts it for us: "Sure, we'll go for it." The Reaper of Aincrad gives a ghostly smile: "Very well. To begin, you must follow the whispers of long lost souls. You will know where you must go in time as long as you follow their whispers." Around us, things start getting very creepy. Fog rolls in, noises are heard, the music of Minecraft is replaced by the sound of a haunting organ.
We stay quiet and soon hear the whispers of those lost souls. It was impossible to understand what they were saying but we followed them to a maze that was full of traps. I chose to get out some supplies to try to map the maze as we navigated through it. It was super frightening, frights, tricks, monsters, and traps at every corner. It put the Dent Schoolhouse and Halloween Horror Nights to shame in terms of creepiness and fear factor. We managed to find our way out of the maze. At the exit, a book containing a riddle was found. In the fog, it was hard to read what the riddle but we still managed to solve it. It's answer was woodland mansion. We had to go to the nearest villager to trade with a specific villager to get a woodland mansion map which we used to find our way to the woodland mansion. It was no ordinary woodland mansion, it was haunted and full of all kinds of nightmares from creepypastas to ghosts to wraiths to demons. We had to fight our way through it until we found something that would lead us to where we needed to go next. We found a redstone trail that continued outside of the mansion once we followed it outside. And from there, we faced more obstacles and terrors. But finally, we were led back to the reaper who rewarded us with rare items from the 15th Floor as well as emeralds, prismarine, and other hard to find Minecraftian materials. After the quest was completed, we went to bed at the nearest inn and slept in due to staying up so late. The next day was now ours for the taking. I chose to spend the day upgrading everything I could as well as socializing with the others. In the evening, I even took on some bounty missions issued by the Assault Team as well as NPCs.
When they were done, I took a significantly large amount of Col. I have more Col than I know what to do with so naturally, I chose to give it away to those who needed it most on the day after that. I teleported to the Town of Beginnings and went to a place that is a refuge for children who are trapped in this game along with all of us and are too afraid to explore the game. I walk through the doors and find a young individual reading to the children. I didn't want to interrupt so I sat down somewhere until they were done. When they were done, the children noticed me and ran up to me excitedly. "Woah! So cool! A knight here?! This is awesome!" "Hey, aren't you one of the knights who is part of the Assault Team?!" "This is amazing!" The young person says: "Settle down, children! Allow our guest some room!" I chuckle: "It's fine. It's only natural for them to get excited. I'm here for a specific reason. I have more Col than I know what to do with so I'd like to donate most of it to your cause of helping these children. We need more people like you taking care of the children in this game." They gasp: "What?! You're so generous! Thank you! You're Swiftdrawer, right? We've heard about you! I'm Miles." "It's a pleasure to meet you. *deposits a lot of Col into a bag and hands it over* I can tell by the appearance of this place that you're having a hard time providing for these children but are still doing your best. Such self sacrifice is as honorable as a knight's code. With this Col, you should be able to take better care of the children."
"Thank you so much! This is so much Col! How could I ever repay you?" "Take good care of these children. That's how. It's that simple. Maybe someday, some of these kids will join the frontlines and help take down some of the floor bosses. You are doing great. Keep it up. The work you do is more important than most players seem to care or notice." One of the kids asks: "Swiftdrawer, could you show us some cool knight moves? Pretty please?!" "How could I say no to you? Very well. Could you all stand back for me?" And so, I did in fact show them some cool knight moves. I spent the rest of the day with all of them and did my best to help out Miles with the chores and such. When night fell, I bid farewell to all of them and returned to the 15th Floor. The following day, it was time to move onto the 16th Floor. Many of my comrades had already taken care of any loose ends on all 15 Floors that we had cleared so far. We now have plenty of Minecraftian resources ready to be used at any time. Now, we will say goodbye to blockiness in favor in graphics that are a blend of realism with cartoon. Instead of the music of Minecraft, we will probably hear RCT3's Summer Air song in the background. It's the default background song in the game itself. To be continued..