Day after day passed.
For most people in this world, it was just another ordinary day. But for some, it was anything but.
A bespectacled young man shoved open the door and rushed into the room. He hurried over to the computer desk, where a crowd had already gathered. Most of them wore glasses, staring tensely at the screen with flushed faces.
"They've reached the ninety-ninth floor! The ninety-ninth floor!!"
"Just a little more, just a little more! Can they do it?!"
"Darkmoon Blade should be fine. Dark Nebula and the Red Knight Order might need a few days to recover..."
The programmers seated at the desks were so excited that they were practically playing their keyboards like pianos.
These people were not ordinary spectators. They were members of the SAO Countermeasures Headquarters. After Kayaba Akihiko caused this horrifying incident, the government immediately established a department specifically to track, manage, and handle the event's progress and aftermath.
As the world's first full-dive game, no one had expected a game to draw the attention of the whole world. After the SAO incident broke out, not only was full-dive technology itself strictly banned by various countries, but all sorts of social debates followed as well.
The pressure on the SAO Countermeasures Headquarters was immense. Before this, although full-dive technology had initially been used for gaming and entertainment, it could also have been applied to the military, healthcare, and many other fields. Just as everyone had been eagerly preparing to usher in a new era of the future, this vicious incident struck them like a blow to the head and left almost everyone dazed.
If they had to compare it to something, it was like humanity building its first nuclear power plant, only for it to explode during its very first test run.