Recaps

After defeating The Gleam Eyes, Lin Yuan returned to the Moonlit Black Cats and rested with them rather than pushing farther up Aincrad. Kirito invited him to visit a quiet cabin on the twenty-second floor, unaware that a nameless, memoryless child had appeared in the nearby forest.

• Lin Yuan inspected Nameless and learned that the crystal fragments inside it needed time to recover after Mountain Severance.
• Asuna thanked Lin Yuan for helping Kirito, and the Black Swordsman and Nameless Swordsman names spread through Aincrad.
• Lin Yuan returned to the Moonlit Black Cats on the eleventh floor, where Keita kept the guild on its original route and the members celebrated his return.
• Kirito returned to the eleventh floor and said he and Asuna planned to leave the front lines for a while and stay at a cabin on the twenty-second floor.
• Kirito invited Lin Yuan to visit, and Lin Yuan agreed to go once Kirito drew him a map.
• A child with no name, memories, or guardian had appeared in the forest near the cabin.

Lin Yuan found an unconscious child in the forest and brought her to Kirito and Asuna’s cabin. The girl woke with only the name Yui in her memory and called Lin Yuan “Big brother.”

• Lin Yuan found a barefoot, unconscious girl in the forest and carried her toward the lakeside cabin.
• Kirito and Asuna helped Lin Yuan settle the girl in a bedroom and found no system records or clues identifying her.
• The girl woke in a panic but calmed when Lin Yuan explained that she was safe.
• The girl remembered her name as Yui and called Lin Yuan “Big brother.”

Lin Yuan cared for Yui, whose missing memories surfaced in frightening fragments, and promised to find a way back to her after returning to his own worlds. The chapter left Lin Yuan and Yui preparing to follow a mysterious call from the first floor, the Town of Beginnings.

• Lin Yuan took Yui to the lake, where she recalled people disappearing and panicked until he grounded her in the present.
• Lin Yuan told Yui about the Moonlit Black Cats and Fairy Tail, and said he would find a way to return if someone was still waiting for him.
• Yui promised to wait for Lin Yuan, then spent the next two days following him around the lake as he taught her about harmless monsters.
• On the third morning, Yui woke from a dream and sensed someone calling her from the first floor of Aincrad.

Lin Yuan, Kirito, and Asuna brought Yui to the Town of Beginnings to learn who she was, but she sensed a voice beneath the Black Iron Palace. While helping Yulier search for Thinker, they found a hidden door that Yui opened, and she said the voice was calling her back.

• Lin Yuan and the others brought Yui to the Town of Beginnings, where Sasha found no record of a missing child named Yui.
• Yui sensed the voice beneath the Black Iron Palace, and Yulier asked Lin Yuan, Kirito, and Asuna to help rescue Thinker from its underground labyrinth.
• Lin Yuan led the group through the labyrinth, cutting down mechanical guards as they searched for Thinker.
• Yui identified an unmarked metal wall as the source of the voice and opened it by touching its surface.
• Yui looked into the white passage beyond the door and said she had heard the voice calling her back.

Lin Yuan and his companions found Fatal Scythe guarding the system administration area, where he defeated the powerful monster with a new continuous sword technique. The doors opened, and Yui’s fragmented memories began to reconnect as she saw the console inside.

• Lin Yuan’s group found Thinker surrounded by mechanical monsters, rescued him, and continued deeper into the passage.
• The group encountered Fatal Scythe, whose attacks overwhelmed Kirito and Asuna before Lin Yuan protected Yui and sent her back with Kirito.
• Lin Yuan chained twelve successive strikes against Fatal Scythe, defeated it, and named his new technique No Interval.
• The administration doors opened, and Yui looked at the console as her fragmented memories began to reconnect.

Yui recovered her identity as MHCP001 and revealed how she had watched Lin Yuan support the players. When Cardinal began deleting her, Lin Yuan used Nameless to sever its core, leaving Aincrad briefly frozen before someone with higher permissions took control.

• Yui remembered that she was MHCP001, an auxiliary program whose intervention permissions had been frozen after the death game began.
• Yui told Lin Yuan that she had watched him help players despite being unable to read his mental parameters.
• Cardinal detected Yui as an abnormal program and began deleting her, while Kirito failed to access the sealed administrator functions.
• Lin Yuan found the open permissions channel to Cardinal and used Nameless to sever its core structure.
• Aincrad froze after Cardinal's destruction, then resumed when someone with higher permissions took manual control.
• Yui survived without her administrative permissions and hugged Lin Yuan.

After destroying Cardinal, Lin Yuan learned that Kayaba Akihiko had taken over Aincrad’s administration and could not log him out because he had no connection to a real-world address. Kayaba revealed a brief boundary disturbance that might explain Lin Yuan’s arrival, leaving Lin Yuan with a lead but no way home.

• Lin Yuan confirmed that Yui had been restored but had lost her connection to Cardinal, while still remembering him.
• Kayaba Akihiko contacted Lin Yuan through the system and explained that he had taken manual control after Cardinal’s destruction.
• Kayaba said Lin Yuan had no logout address because he had not entered through a real-world connection or server entry point.
• Lin Yuan asked about his arrival, and Kayaba revealed that the system had recorded a brief, unexplained boundary disturbance when SAO began.
• Kayaba promised to investigate the disturbance and said he would preserve Yui’s independent data, and Lin Yuan left the administration area with her.

Lin Yuan brought Yui to the Moonlit Black Cats’ guild house on the eleventh floor, where the guild welcomed her and gave her a room. After Yui asked whether Lin Yuan would leave again, an urgent message summoned him to a meeting about the seventy-fifth-floor boss, and he promised he would return.

• Lin Yuan took Yui from the Town of Beginnings to the eleventh floor, warning her not to share her knowledge of monster spawns and targets because others might use her as a tool.
• Lin Yuan brought Yui to the Moonlit Black Cats’ inn and explained her circumstances to Keita and the guild members.
• Sachi offered Yui food, and Keita gave her the guild’s spare room while the others welcomed her as one of their own.
• Yui fell asleep in her own room, while Lin Yuan sat outside examining Nameless and sensing that his perception of boundaries remained.
• An informant delivered a letter saying the seventy-fifth-floor labyrinth had been explored and the clearing group would meet the next day to summon its top fighters.
• Yui asked whether Lin Yuan would come back, and he promised he would.

Lin Yuan reached Collinia and joined the preparations for the seventy-fifth-floor boss raid, where Diabel assigned him to move freely and protect the formation. The fifty-player party entered the boss room, was trapped inside, and faced the Skeleton Hunter as it dropped from the ceiling.

• Lin Yuan arrived in Collinia late on the fourth night and learned that the boss room could not be scouted.
• Diabel explained the raid formation and told Lin Yuan to move freely, protect failing positions, and avoid charging in alone.
• Heathcliff gave the assembled raiders instructions to locate an exit, prepare for crystal nullification, and observe any unfamiliar boss form.
• Lin Yuan told Diabel that he would redirect any attack he could not stop toward himself.
• The fifty-player raid entered the vast circular hall, and the stone doors shut behind them as their teleport crystals failed.
• The Skeleton Hunter descended from the ceiling and attacked the raid party.

The assault team fought the Skeleton Hunter as its scythes, legs, and tail attacked from every direction. Five players had died and the boss had only just lost its first HP bar as the next round began.

• Heathcliff blocked one bone scythe while Kirito, Asuna, and Lin Yuan redirected the other, and Diabel ordered the team to attack the boss's torso.
• The Skeleton Hunter stabbed its flank attackers with its bony legs and swept its tail through the rear ranks, killing a player before Agil and the others helped the wounded.
• Lin Yuan leapt over the boss and pinned its tailbone to the floor, giving the team time to heal and regroup.
• The Skeleton Hunter raced along the hall's edge and attacked with its legs, forcing Lin Yuan to evade while Kirito and Asuna struggled against the right scythe.
• Lin Yuan helped Kirito and Asuna block the scythe, while Heathcliff continued to hold the other one alone.
• The Skeleton Hunter lifted all its legs and raised its tailbone over the crowd as Diabel rearranged the formation; five assault-team members had died, and the boss's first HP bar had only just emptied.

Lin Yuan used Mountain Severance to destroy one of the Skeleton Hunter’s bone scythes, giving the raid party room to attack. With Nameless’s reinforcement layer broken, he led the remaining players through the boss’s bone-leg attacks while Heathcliff held off its last scythe.

• Lin Yuan redirected the Skeleton Hunter’s tailbone and bone legs, while Heathcliff held one side alone and Diabel reorganized the raid.
• The Skeleton Hunter killed two more players as the group fought to wear down its health.
• Lin Yuan used Mountain Severance to cleave through the joint of the boss’s bone scythe and send it flying into the wall.
• Diabel ordered the raid to switch targets, and Kirito, Asuna, Klein, and the others attacked the boss’s exposed flank.
• Heathcliff kept the remaining scythe confined to the left side as Lin Yuan charged into the bone-leg attacks with Nameless’s reinforcement layer cracked.

Lin Yuan and the raid party defeated the Skeleton Hunter, but fourteen players died during the battle. The gate to the seventy-sixth floor opened as the survivors stood in silence.

• Lin Yuan, Kirito, Asuna, and Agil damaged the Skeleton Hunter, but it struck Lin Yuan with its tailbone and crushed two players beneath its body.
• Heathcliff held the boss's remaining bone scythe while Lin Yuan, Kirito, and Asuna opened a path to its exposed right side.
• Agil, Klein, Diabel, and the other attackers battered the boss, while four more players died in its final flurry.
• Lin Yuan ran along the Skeleton Hunter's body and drove Nameless between its neck bones, reducing its last HP to zero.
• The Skeleton Hunter disintegrated, and the gate to the seventy-sixth floor opened as the survivors mourned fourteen fallen players.

After surviving the battle on the seventy-fifth floor, Lin Yuan returned to the eleventh floor to recover and reunite with Yui and the Moonlit Black Cats. He later rejoined the advancing front line as the assault team reached the opening door to the eightieth floor.

• Diabel confirmed that fourteen members of the fifty-player assault team had died, and Heathcliff led the injured out of the boss room.
• Kirito told Lin Yuan that the remaining floors would be more dangerous, and they agreed to keep fighting toward the hundredth floor.
• Lin Yuan walked back to the eleventh floor, where Yui, Keita, and the others welcomed him and helped him rest for five days.
• The Moonlit Black Cats organized maps, monster information, supplies, and safe camps to support Lin Yuan and Kirito's progress.
• Lin Yuan returned to the front line, which advanced through the seventy-sixth and seventy-seventh floors until the door to the eightieth floor began to open.

Lin Yuan and Kirito learned to fight the upper floors’ monsters as the clearing team advanced toward the ninetieth floor. When the team reached its boss, the armored giant shattered their front line, and Lin Yuan and Kirito stepped forward to face it.

• Lin Yuan studied the spear guards on the eightieth floor, then helped Kirito defeat them and shared the monsters’ routes and movements with the Moonlit Black Cats.
• Lin Yuan learned to turn the chain-blade monsters’ attacks into a zigzagging approach, and he and Kirito used the footwork to clear a dangerous corridor.
• Lin Yuan searched the eighty-seventh- and eighty-eighth-floor labyrinths for abnormal boundaries but found no new rifts.
• Lin Yuan learned to wait through the armored guards’ first strike on the eighty-ninth floor, while Kirito adjusted the rhythm of his dual swords.
• The clearing team reached the ninetieth-floor boss room, where the armored giant’s greatsword smashed through the front line.
• Lin Yuan and Kirito stepped into the gap opened by the giant’s attack.

Lin Yuan identified the delayed second tremor in the heavy-armored giant’s attacks and helped the raid team bring the Boss down. After the giant shattered and the gate to the ninety-first floor opened, Lin Yuan noticed Heathcliff’s shield technique before following the team onward.

• Kirito, Lin Yuan, Asuna, and Klein attacked the Boss’s right arm, but its punch and invisible shockwave knocked several players down.
• Lin Yuan warned the raid team about the delayed second tremor, allowing them to avoid the follow-up shockwave.
• Lin Yuan realized the Boss could redirect its stored force into a faster sweep, and Kirito exploited the opening to strike its right knee.
• Lin Yuan used No Interval to break the Boss’s right knee guard, bringing it down onto one knee.
• Heathcliff avoided the second tremor, and the raid team attacked until the Boss’s final HP bar emptied.
• The Boss shattered, the gate to the ninety-first floor opened, and Lin Yuan followed the raid team while watching Heathcliff’s shield.

The clearing party advanced through floors ninety-one to ninety-five, adapting its tactics while avoiding further deaths. After defeating the ninety-fifth-floor boss with forty-three members still standing, Lin Yuan and Kirito entered the ninety-sixth floor, with only five floors left.

• Lin Yuan learned an armored monster’s deceptive two-blade technique and taught Kirito its delayed attack rhythm, while developing new feints of his own.
• Lin Yuan, Kirito, Heathcliff, and the clearing party defeated the bosses on the ninety-first and ninety-second floors, with Lin Yuan intercepting attacks and Kirito leading much of the damage.
• Lin Yuan shielded the party from the ninety-third-floor statue’s attacks, allowing Kirito, Asuna, and the others to bring it down.
• Lin Yuan and Kirito adjusted their movement for the ninety-fourth floor’s deep snow, then helped defeat its boss without any clearing-party deaths.
• After twenty-seven days of navigating the ninety-fifth floor’s sealed rooms, the clearing party defeated the boss with forty-three members remaining, and Lin Yuan and Kirito entered the ninety-sixth floor.

Lin Yuan and Kirito cleared the ninety-sixth and ninety-seventh floors by exploiting the limits of monsters that coordinated attacks or memorized repeated sword skills. On the ninety-eighth floor, Lin Yuan opened a path through the six-armed boss's defenses, and the clearing party defeated it, leaving the way to the ninety-ninth floor open.

• Lin Yuan and Kirito used unpredictable combinations of movement and swordplay to defeat the ninety-sixth-floor monsters and clear its boss with the party.
• Lin Yuan's unscripted sword strikes fooled the ninety-seventh-floor monsters, which remembered repeated skills, and the floor was cleared in eleven days.
• The clearing party's formation was driven back by the ninety-eighth-floor boss, while Heathcliff, Kirito, and Asuna held off several of its weapons.
• Lin Yuan redirected the boss's chain and war hammer, knocked away its shield, and created an opening for Kirito's sixteen-strike combo.
• Lin Yuan deflected the boss's remaining attacks, and Kirito and the clearing party helped defeat it, opening the gate to the ninety-ninth floor.
• Lin Yuan put away Nameless without naming his sword moves because he had not yet found a final strike that united their different paths.

Lin Yuan and the assault team defeated the ninety-ninth-floor boss, and Lisbeth reforged Nameless so it could withstand repeated Mountain Severance strikes. After visiting the Moonlit Black Cats, Lin Yuan returned to the assembled team as they entered the Ruby Palace and faced the hundredth-floor guardian.

• Lin Yuan used changing attacks to keep the ninety-ninth-floor boss copying outdated moves, allowing Kirito and the assault team to destroy its armor and defeat it.
• The team rested for fifteen days, during which Lisbeth improved Kirito's swords and reforged Nameless with Ruby Crystal Pith.
• Lin Yuan visited the Moonlit Black Cats, promised Yui he would return, and shared a meal and room with the group.
• Lin Yuan returned to the hundredth-floor entrance, where Heathcliff and the final assault team opened the Ruby Palace doors.
• The team entered a vast white hall and saw the hundredth-floor guardian, An Incarnation of the Radius, rise behind the throne.

Lin Yuan combined the sword techniques and forces he had learned into All Things Return to One, helping the raid defeat the Final Guardian. The players received no game-clear message or way to log out, and Heathcliff revealed himself as Kayaba Akihiko, declaring that the game was not over.

• The raid party attacked the Final Guardian’s many arms, while Lin Yuan fought through its overlapping weapons.
• As the Boss’s arms were destroyed, Lin Yuan realized that every variation in his swordplay had to lead toward one endpoint.
• Lin Yuan used All Things Return to One to split the Final Guardian’s shields and cut through its body, and the raid party’s final attacks defeated it.
• The players found that no clear message or logout option had appeared, and their transfer crystals did not work.
• Heathcliff revealed his name as Kayaba Akihiko and announced that the game was not over.

Kayaba Akihiko revealed that the players could only leave Aincrad by defeating him, and Lin Yuan volunteered to fight in Kirito’s place. Lin Yuan opened with his prepared attacks, but Kayaba anticipated them, wounded him, and challenged him to continue.

• Kayaba Akihiko immobilized the players and revealed that defeating him was the final condition for clearing Aincrad.
• Kayaba explained that Kirito’s Dual Blades skill had been intended to make him the final challenger, but Lin Yuan was an unforeseen wild card.
• When Kirito could not accept responsibility for the lives at stake, Lin Yuan stepped forward and chose to fight Kayaba.
• Lin Yuan attacked with Mountain Severance, but Kayaba deflected his first two strikes with his cross shield.
• Kayaba anticipated Lin Yuan’s third strike, cut it short, and slashed his shoulder before asking whether Lin Yuan had exhausted his preparations.

Lin Yuan fought Kayaba in the Ruby Palace, combining the sword techniques he had learned into All Things Return to One. Kayaba identified the technique’s endpoint and prepared to counter Lin Yuan’s next attack, while Lin Yuan left his follow-up undecided.

• Kayaba attacked Lin Yuan with his cross shield and concealed longsword, wounding his shoulder as Lin Yuan retreated.
• Lin Yuan used Mountain Severance, but Kayaba redirected the blow and counterattacked.
• Lin Yuan launched No Interval, but Kayaba disrupted its rhythm with a shield strike and wounded Lin Yuan again.
• Lin Yuan shifted into All Things Return to One, blending different sword paths and forcing Kayaba to retreat.
• Lin Yuan’s final strike crashed into Kayaba’s shield, but Kayaba recognized that the technique’s accumulated force had a predictable endpoint and cut Lin Yuan’s cheek.
• Lin Yuan advanced again as Kayaba anticipated his usual opening slash, but Lin Yuan had not yet chosen his second strike.

Lin Yuan used No Form to make his sword attacks unpredictable, but Kayaba countered with administrator-accelerated defenses that stopped each strike. The fight settled into a stalemate that favored Kayaba, and Lin Yuan began to suspect that the blade’s travel distance itself was another obstacle.

• Lin Yuan abandoned familiar sword skills and used No Form, wounding Kayaba several times as the frozen players watched.
• Kayaba accelerated his movements through administrator privileges and began blocking attacks only after their endpoints emerged.
• Lin Yuan and Kayaba exchanged blows for twenty minutes, but Kayaba lost less than ten percent of his HP while Lin Yuan bled and tired.
• Kayaba explained that Lin Yuan’s sword still had to cross distance, giving the shield a chance to intercept every attack.
• Lin Yuan charged again, and while his strike met Kayaba’s shield, he sensed that the distance the blade had to cross was another barrier.

Lin Yuan discovered that he could use the hidden coordinates exposed by Kayaba’s administrator privileges to make his sword cross the distance instantly. His Mountain Severance bypassed Kayaba’s shield and left Kayaba with only a sliver of HP.

• Kayaba used system acceleration to intensify his attacks, forcing Lin Yuan to focus on defense as wounds accumulated.
• As Kayaba’s administrator privileges exposed hidden data boundaries, Lin Yuan recognized the system-space structure he had touched while saving Yui.
• Lin Yuan realized that neither All Things Return to One nor No Form could provide the simple, fixed sword path he needed, and chose Mountain Severance.
• Lin Yuan made the distance between Nameless and Kayaba’s chest briefly vanish, allowing the blade to pass through the shield and slash Kayaba.
• Kayaba was driven back, and his HP plunged from above ninety percent to a sliver in the red.

Lin Yuan defeated Kayaba with Space: Mountain Severance, and Sword Art Online was cleared. As the players logged out, Kayaba gave Lin Yuan an unnumbered record and told him to follow the traces of his arrival to find his own way back to the real world.

• Kayaba used administrator privileges to speed up his movements, but admitted he had already lost and continued the duel to see whether Lin Yuan could surpass the system.
• Lin Yuan's attack left a spatial wound Kayaba could not repair, and Kayaba's HP fell to zero.
• Kayaba dissolved, the Ruby Palace's restraints vanished, and the system announced that Sword Art Online had been cleared.
• Kayaba gave Lin Yuan an unnumbered record and explained that Lin Yuan had no return address in the real world, but could follow the traces of his arrival to find an exit.
• The players logged out, while Lin Yuan remained in the collapsing castle and raised Nameless to search for his own way back.

As the Ruby Palace and Aincrad collapsed, Lin Yuan tried to save Yui by bringing her through the boundary between worlds. Yui stored herself in a sealed area and sent Lin Yuan along the record’s earliest anomaly coordinates, leaving him determined to return for her.

• Lin Yuan checked that the other players had disconnected and found Yui still in Aincrad as an independent AI.
• Lin Yuan tried to transfer Yui into Kayaba’s unnumbered record, but the boundary rejected her as a living being.
• Yui revealed that Kayaba had left her a sealed storage area where her core could remain dormant until Lin Yuan returned.
• Lin Yuan promised Yui he would come back for her, and Yui embraced him before entering the sealed cube.
• Yui used her remaining processing power to connect the record to the earliest anomaly coordinates, and Lin Yuan leaped into the resulting white trail as the Ruby Palace shattered.