Axel's misunderstanding
To accomplish his mission, Axel had pressured Joren along with Qiren to create for them a special ops force inside the game. This force was made of a group of avatars who all had stats far and above normal, comparable to mythical beasts even. However, there was one caveat that they had not understood and Joren had not bothered to explain.
Their avatars appearance was common, almost like blank canvases. They had no distinguishable features, everyone was still the same sex as reality. But other than that they all appeared like clones.
And the caveat was that none of them could control their avatars. When they tried to move they would find themselves hurting each other. A simple gesture would result in broken arms, trying to walk would result in a number of people crashing into each other and setting off a domino effect. The air filled with the sound of breaking bones.