The management area has no walls in the traditional sense.
Countless rays of light crisscrossed in the white space, with layers of text and windows floating in the distance. After entering the room, Yui stopped in front of the central control console, her pupils constantly scanning information that Lin Yuan could not decipher.
" Yui?" Lin Yuan walked up behind her.
The girl did not turn around immediately.
The dormant memories are returning from the management core. First, her name, then her responsibilities, her authority, and why she was alone in the twenty-second layer of the forest.
My official serial number is MHCP001.
Yui's voice was still childish, but her tone was no longer confused.
She was an auxiliary program responsible for maintaining the players' mental state, but her interference privileges were frozen by the higher-level system after the death game began.
Yui could still see all the mental monitoring data, but she couldn't speak to anyone. She could only watch as fear spread and as each mental signal disappeared completely with the player's death.
Later, I discovered my brother.
Lin Yuan had no account, nor any device connected to reality. Yui couldn't read his mental parameters; she could only see a constantly moving blank space in the environmental record.
This blank space, however, has continued to affect those around it.
After the first boss battle, the overall despair level of the raiding team decreased; the anxiety level of the Moonlit Black Cats remained stable for a long time while they were with Lin Yuan; and those he casually saved were more likely to regain the desire to leave the safe zone and continue living.
"I can't see what my brother is thinking," Yui turned around, "So I've been watching you."
She saw Lin Yuan enter the maze time and time again, and she also saw him return to the Black Cats every now and then. No matter how long he searched for the exit without success, he never treated the people here as data that could be discarded at any time.
"Because I always felt like I could go home?"
"Not just."
Lin Yuan thought of Fairy Tail, and also of the spot that was always reserved for him on the eleventh floor.
"Some people are waiting for me to go back, and some people are waiting for me to come back."
Yui seemed to finally understand the emotion she had been unable to analyze for so long.
She reached out her hand to Lin Yuan.
Just as their fingers were about to touch, the entire management area suddenly turned scarlet.
The warning text covers all windows.
A cold voice rang out simultaneously from all directions in the space.
"An abnormal management program has been detected. Forced deletion will be initiated."
White cracks appeared at Yui's feet.
Her shoes and calves rapidly disintegrated into tiny specks of light, and her body was dragged deeper into the control panel by an unseen force.
Lin Yuan grabbed her.
It has no effect.
This is not a movement that can be stopped by force. Yui's body is merely a program Projection; what has truly been deleted is the core hidden within the management layer.
Kirito rushed to the console, trying to open the administrator window. However, all operable areas were blocked by red warnings, and ordinary players couldn't even delete processes.
"Brother, let go." Yui's voice trailed off. "Cardinal is deleting me. If you continue to contact me, you might be flagged as an abnormal contact."
Where is it?
"What?"
"Cardinal."
Yui was stunned.
The management area belongs to the deepest data layer of SAO. After the deletion program starts, a permission channel from Yui's core directly to the Cardinal main program is briefly opened.
Lin Yuan saw a crack deep within the crimson light.
The World Marker, which had remained silent since entering this world, suddenly trembled. For the first time, the magic power suppressed within his body by the data rules found a gap to seep out, and extremely fine black lines climbed up Lin Yuan's arm onto the " Nameless " scroll.
Space cracked open around the sword's edge.
This is not a complete restoration. The power only exists for a brief period after the access channel is opened, which is insufficient for Lin Yuan to open the door back.
But that was enough for him to swing his sword.
Yui realized what he was about to do. "Destroy Cardinal, and the entire Aincrad might come to a standstill!"
Lin Yuan gripped the " Nameless " book tightly.
"You want to take my sister away? Then try it!"
He swung his sword toward the gap that only he could see.
"Space-Destroying God - Boundary-Severing Blade "
A black sword mark runs through the management area.
A scarlet warning, a delete command, and layers of permission windows simultaneously burst open. The sword didn't strike a real device; instead, it severed the core structure that maintained Cardinal's autonomous operation.
The cold, automated sound abruptly stopped.
Yui's disintegration stopped at her waist, and the scattered light began to flow back, reforming into her legs. She fell from above the control panel and was caught by Lin Yuan.
At the same instant, the entire Aincrad came to a standstill.
The monsters in the maze remained in attack stances, the town NPCs were still reciting their lines, and the lights in the quest windows and portals all went out.
The Cardinal system was completely destroyed.
The black spatial patterns vanished rapidly as the access channel collapsed. Lin Yuan could no longer sense magic, leaving only a vague direction of the world's boundary deep within his consciousness.
A few seconds later, the white light returned.
Monsters, NPCs, and town facilities gradually resumed operation. Someone with higher privileges bypassed the destroyed Cardinal and took over the entire world.
Yui was still in Lin Yuan's arms.
She has lost administrative privileges, but she has not disappeared, nor does she belong to Cardinal anymore.
The girl reached out and hugged Lin Yuan.
"Elder brother."
"I am here."