"Hello everyone, welcome to my world. I am Akihiko Kayaba. Have you noticed that you can't see the logout button? Do you realize you can't exit? Do you think this is a bug?" Akihiko Kayaba appeared in mid-air, transformed into a giant figure in red, and spoke in an icy, cold voice.
"What on earth is this guy trying to say!"
"Maybe the researchers are just bored! They probably want to troll us!"
"This is definitely a bug. Just waiting for compensation."
The players below were discussing among themselves, pointing and gesturing at the figure in red.
"NONONO! This is not a bug. I repeat, this is not a bug. This is something I designed intentionally," Akihiko Kayaba said, waving his hand. "You have now been imprisoned by me. I created this world for viewing purposes, which means this is not a game."
"In this world, you must clear the BOSS of the 100th floor before I will let you go home. There is also one very important thing I must tell you: in this world, once you die, you cannot be resurrected. Once your HP hits zero, you will GAME OVER."
"This GAME OVER will cause your game character and your consciousness in the real world to disappear simultaneously. Why is this? It's because I tampered with the helmets. As soon as your character's HP reaches zero, you will be roasted by the electromagnetic waves inside the helmet. How about that? Isn't it a pleasant surprise? Isn't it exciting? Isn't it unexpected?"
"Ah! You don't believe me? Let me show you something. More than a dozen people have already died in the game. In the real world, the police have already been dispatched to catch me, but I am hiding very well, and they cannot catch me."
"You are very panicked right now. I know you are very panicked, but panicking is useless. Those who are meant to die will die. By the way, here is a little gift for you. Don't look, it's definitely not a Dragon Slaying Saber. You want a 999 damage one-hit kill? Keep dreaming."
"This is a small mirror. Take a look at yourselves first; there will be a surprise!"
The players below looked at themselves, and beams of light erupted throughout the plaza. The characters that had been crafted to be very beautiful were ruined by this mirror, because all these players had been restored to their real-life appearances.
"You're actually a man? You made me think you were a woman! Ugh! I actually kissed a man just now!"
"Old man! How did you turn into a loli? I liked you so much, I even wanted to have your children!"
"Honey, let's break up! Let me clarify that this breakup is definitely not because you look ugly in real life. You have to believe me, I'm not such a shallow person."
The players were discussing among themselves, feeling strange about the people they were familiar with, as the difference between their characters and their real-life appearances was just too great.
"Whoa! Illustrious, you were a girl all along!" Kirito was very surprised. After all, a moment ago, Illustrious had been a silver-haired boy; how did she turn into a cute girl in the blink of an eye?
"Kirito! You look quite cute yourself. You're fair and clean—you have a bright future as a pretty boy!" Illustrious patted Kirito on the shoulder and smiled.
"Illustrious! I have something I want to tell you. These words have been buried in my heart for a long time. Could you have a child with me?" As soon as he saw that Illustrious was a girl, Klein immediately moved closer.
But Illustrious blocked him with her right hand, stopping him from getting closer, and said, "I'm sorry! Klein, you're a good person, but we aren't suitable. Believe me, I'm not as good as you imagine. You should find someone better than me; that's the right path."
Beep! Klein received a "nice guy" card. Klein took 10,000 damage. Klein collapsed on the ground, unable to get back up.
Seeing that the time had come, the red-clad Akihiko Kayaba decided it was time to escape. He said with a very imposing air, "That is all I have to say. Thank you all for your support. Remember to leave a five-star review. Bye-bye."
After seeing Akihiko Kayaba make his escape, the crowd in the plaza reacted—some cursed! Some panicked! Others were excited!
"Great! I can play games forever, until I die. No work, no overtime—what could be better than this?" This was the statement of a certain die-hard otaku.
"What do I do! I have an exam tomorrow. If I don't go to school, everyone will find out I'm a delinquent girl who plays games. No! Let me out, I want to go to school." This was a certain chestnut-haired girl who wanted to go to school and take her exams.
"Oh NO! My pizza! Even if I manage to clear the game, it'll definitely be moldy by then." A certain middle-aged man let out a miserable cry.
This noisy situation only lasted five minutes before everyone saw a huge meteor descending from the sky, hurtling toward the plaza.
Gazing at this huge meteor, the players were all dumbfounded. What was going on! What happened to the game clearing that Akihiko Kayaba promised! What was the meaning of suddenly throwing an apocalyptic meteor at them?
Wasn't messing with us just now exciting enough? Did you decide to play something even more exciting this time? But this is too exciting! You bastard!
This is going to wipe everyone out! If we're dead, what the hell are you going to watch!
"Boom!"
A deafening roar erupted, flames soared into the sky, and a mushroom cloud rose up. The explosion generated countless destructive shockwaves. Everything and everyone hit by the shockwaves was destroyed. The 100-floor floating castle of Aincrad instantly vaporized in less than three minutes, turning into light and disappearing from the server.
In the mountains in the outskirts, there was a three-story building. A black-haired girl went to the rooftop and kept chanting a spell:
"Death and rebirth, light and darkness, sky and earth. The Dao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three. Taiji gives birth to the Two Modes, and the Two Modes give birth to the Four Phenomena."
"Ancient Divine Artifact—Cauldron of Chaos! Transformation between virtual and reality!"
"Boom!..."
A golden beam of light shot up from the black cauldron in the girl's hand. The golden beam soared into the sky, piercing directly through the thick clouds, and a giant hole appeared in the sky.
The golden beam began to spread in all directions—ten miles, a hundred miles, a thousand miles, ten thousand miles, and finally, the entire world was enveloped in golden light.
The world's climate, terrain, and environment underwent tremendous changes. Countless monsters appeared in cities and villages. Most of them were small monsters—kobolds, man-eating plants, and Skeleton Soldiers. There were also large monsters, such as giant Santas, giant minotaurs, and giant skeletal monsters, all kinds of shapes and varieties, rich and diverse.
Western-style medieval structures that didn't belong to this world appeared in real life one by one. If the sword art online beta testers saw these monsters, they would definitely shout: "Holy crap! How did the monsters from the sword art online game end up in reality?"
The monsters were slaughtering humans and destroying buildings all around. Daily life had changed—mobile phones had no signal and couldn't make calls, planes fell from the sky, power began to cut out in many areas, and human social order and laws began to collapse.
...
A group of people in strange costumes suddenly appeared in the city of East Capital. Some of these people carried swords, some carried axes, and some carried spears; they looked just like RPG game character cosplayers!
"This is reality, not a game! We're not dead! That's great!"
"What's going on! I should be at home! How did I end up outside? And where is this?"
"Holy crap, I can actually perform sword art online sword skills in reality! How amazing, how magical! What's the principle behind this?"
"I feel full of power right now. I just broke a tree with one punch! My God! So strong! Could I have become a superhero?"
Some onlookers who were just watching the show gathered around these strangely dressed people and took out their phones to film these "superheroes." However, after they finished filming and tried to post to their social media, they discovered there was no signal.
"Damn it, trashy carrier. Looks like I need to switch to a different one."
"Did you notice that they just appeared out of thin air? What's the principle behind that?"
"I guess these must be characters created using 3D projection. That broken tree is probably a 3D projection too."
"I see. It looks like they're filming a movie! I need to get on camera! Hehehe!"
The onlookers, seeing these strange cosplays, all assumed it was a film shoot or some game promotion. They were eager to see who the protagonist was, planning to ask for an autograph if they were famous.
"Hello there! May I ask if you are cosplaying as sword art online?" a female reporter asked a black-haired boy.
The female reporter recognized their attire; wasn't this the sword art online costume she had interviewed about yesterday? She hadn't expected that, even though it had only been operating for a short while today, someone would already be cosplaying as sword art online.
Having just executed a Horizontal Square skill, Kirito was dumbfounded, not understanding why the reporter was interviewing him. He felt a bit tense looking at the camera because he suffered from severe social anxiety and was terrified of interacting with strangers. "Th-this is indeed a sword art online costume! But... but it is definitely not cosplay."
"If it's not cosplay, then why are you dressed like this?" the female reporter continued to ask.
"This is... Ouch!" Kirito was pushed aside by Klein.
Looking at the reporter in front of him, Klein's heart fluttered; he wanted to confess his feelings again. "Beautiful lady! Hello, it is fate that we met in this vast sea of people. Ask me, I know more than him. I don't want your money, I only ask that you listen to one thing I have to say."
The female reporter broke into a cold sweat. She had a feeling it wasn't going to be anything good and wanted to find someone else to interview.
"Hey! Don't go! I'll just say one thing, listen closely: I want to ask you to have my baby, please, you must agree!" Klein grabbed the female reporter tightly with his lecherous hands.
Veins popped out on her forehead. The female reporter appeared indifferent on the surface, but inwardly she was cursing wildly: Where did this toad come from, daring to take advantage of me? He really has a death wish. If it weren't for the people around, I'd beat him until he couldn't take care of himself.
Using all her strength, the female reporter still couldn't pull her hand away. She was inwardly shocked; this man was incredibly strong. She knew that most of her male colleagues weren't as strong as her—she could carry a 40kg bag of rice by herself.
A wild boar as big as an ox appeared from nowhere and rammed into Klein's backside, forcing him to let go and sending him crashing into the wall.
The wild boar's charge was incredibly powerful, like being hit by a car. Klein's body was embedded tightly into the wall, unable to move, and the indentation in the wall hinted at the power of the impact.
The onlookers were even more surprised. They hadn't expected the actors to be so dedicated, actually taking the hit themselves; perhaps this was the next Jackie Chan.
The wild boar was naturally unsatisfied after hitting one person; it aimed for its next target. Upon seeing the chestnut-haired girl, it immediately scraped its hind legs on the ground to prepare for a charge. With a boom, the wild boar, like a deadly assassin, charged toward the chestnut-haired girl.
Watching the wild boar charging at her, she, who had never experienced sudden dangerous events in her normal law-abiding society, was at a loss for what to do and could only crouch down and cover her head.
"Tsk!" Seeing the chestnut-haired girl in danger, Kirito immediately raised his sword, intending to slay the wild boar, but the Silver-Haired Girl beat him to it.
The Silver-Haired Girl ran forward, gripping her black sword. The black sword emitted a blue light, and as she looked at the boar's body, she unleashed a sword skill—Rage Spike!
"Snap! Clang!"
After being attacked by the Silver-Haired Girl, the wild boar turned into dozens of blue fragments. These blue fragments transformed into blue light, and blue orbs the size of ping-pong balls entered the Silver-Haired Girl's body. She felt her strength increase by a tiny bit.
Seeing the Silver-Haired Girl use her black sword to emit a special effect blue light and kill the wild boar in one hit, the onlookers were stunned. This further confirmed their belief that it was indeed a film shoot; once this was filmed, it would definitely be Hollywood-level.
Running up to the chestnut-haired girl, the Silver-Haired Girl crouched down and asked: "Are you okay? Did you get hurt anywhere?"
Seeing the wild boar killed in one hit by the Silver-Haired Girl, the chestnut-haired girl immediately thanked her savior: "Thank you for saving me, my name is Asuna! What is your name?"
The Silver-Haired Girl did not hide her name and said directly: "My name is Illustrious, nice to meet you. How are you now? Can you stand up?"
Because of what just happened, Asuna's legs were a bit weak from fear, and she said a bit embarrassedly: "Illustrious, could you pull me up?"
"No problem, it's a small matter." Illustrious reached out and pulled Asuna, changing her from a crouching position to a standing one.
Seeing that Asuna was fine, Illustrious heaved a sigh of relief. Her Myriad Worlds Lottery Draw mission for coming to this world was to protect Asuna for three years. If Asuna died, she would lose 100 Red Crystals, and then she would have to wait for the Little Yellow Chicken to refresh the mission before she could go to the next world.
Looking down at the black sword in her hand, Illustrious cherished it greatly. This was a weapon drawn from the Myriad Worlds Lottery Draw—elucidator. This was her source of self-preservation and the power to protect Asuna in this world.
When she asked Kirito to teach her sword art online sword skills, as soon as Illustrious took out this black sword, Kirito was quite envious and asked her where she got it. Illustrious lied and said it dropped from killing a wild boar.
Kirito pondered Illustrious's words. If a normal monster could drop a legendary weapon, he would have been frantically grinding monsters long ago. So, the only truth behind how Illustrious obtained such a legendary-grade weapon was that there was a bug.
This definitely had to be a bug; otherwise, how could a normal wild boar drop a legendary weapon?
After the one wild boar was killed, a group of monsters ran out from various places. Not only were there wild boars, but there were also giant mantises, giant wolves, and giant apes.
These monsters seemed to have gone mad, attacking humans as soon as they saw them. The giant wolves were as big as an ox, and upon seeing the crowd, they kept opening their mouths to bite at them.
The giant mantises were as tall as three people, and upon seeing a bus, they swung their sickle arms.
With a flash of a blade, the bus was instantly sliced in two.
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