Chapter Summaries

Lisbeth forged the Dark Repulser for Kirito and a reinforced sword for Lin Yuan, who named it Nameless after testing its strength. Asuna arrived at the shop, while Lin Yuan gained a weapon he trusted not to break before his enemy.

• Lisbeth forged the pale blue Dark Repulser, and Kirito tested it against the Elucidator without either sword breaking.
• Lisbeth used fragments from the forging and material from Lin Yuan’s old sword to make him a heavier, reinforced blade.
• Kirito completed the transaction and passed the new sword to Lin Yuan, who tested it by splitting a stone target with a sudden advance.
• Lisbeth found that the weapon’s system-generated name was blank, so Lin Yuan named it Nameless.
• Asuna arrived at the shop and saw Kirito’s sword and Lisbeth beside him, while Lin Yuan rested his hand on Nameless’s hilt.

Lin Yuan and Kirito tested their swords and fought through the fifty-ninth-floor labyrinth, while Lin Yuan studied Kirito’s secret Dual Blades technique. After Lisbeth inspected Nameless, the front line advanced, and only she and Lin Yuan knew Kirito wielded a second sword.

• Lin Yuan and Kirito entered the fifty-ninth-floor labyrinth, where Lin Yuan tested Nameless against a stone statue while Kirito fought with the Elucidator and Dark Repulser.
• Lin Yuan destroyed one statue by striking the same joint repeatedly, and Kirito defeated the other with a rapid two-sword attack.
• In a secluded hall, Kirito revealed his full sixteen-hit Dual Blades skill to Lin Yuan and explained why he kept it secret.
• Lin Yuan practiced copying the rhythm between Kirito’s slashes with Nameless, and the two fought in the labyrinth for three days.
• Lisbeth inspected Nameless in Lindarth and found only ordinary wear, while the front line advanced beyond the sixtieth floor toward the seventieth.

Lin Yuan entered the boss room and found Kirito and the others fighting The Gleam Eyes. After Kirito’s final strike was pulled off course to save him from the boss’s killing blow, Lin Yuan stepped in to face The Gleam Eyes.

• Lin Yuan reached the boss room and learned that Kirito and the Knights of the Blood’s vice commander were still inside.
• Lin Yuan saw Kirito use his Dual Blades skill against The Gleam Eyes while Asuna and Klein protected the wounded players.
• The Gleam Eyes struck Kirito during his combo, reducing his health to a final sliver as the boss prepared a killing blow.
• Lin Yuan grabbed Kirito and pulled him out of the boss’s attack path, interrupting his final strike.
• Lin Yuan drew Nameless and stood between The Gleam Eyes and the wounded players.

Lin Yuan repeatedly deflected The Gleam Eyes' greatblade without taking a step back, studying how the boss's force traveled through its weapon and body. The boss began charging an unprecedented finishing attack, and Lin Yuan prepared to meet it head-on.

• Lin Yuan redirected The Gleam Eyes' first four strikes, using minimal movement to turn its heavy greatblade away from him.
• Asuna helped Kirito to safety, and Kirito explained that Lin Yuan was attacking the boss's technique rather than its HP bar.
• Lin Yuan deflected three more strikes while the watching players realized his success came from skill rather than stats.
• Kirito noticed Lin Yuan was testing different contact points to learn how force moved through the boss and its weapon.
• The Gleam Eyes activated a powerful new sword skill, prompting Asuna, Klein, and the others to move the injured against the walls.
• After studying the boss's weapon, arm, and chest, Lin Yuan braced himself as The Gleam Eyes brought down its strongest strike.

Lin Yuan used Nameless to break The Gleam Eyes' blade and kill the boss with one slash, though the system could not assign him the last-attack reward. He named the move Mountain Severance and revealed that the sword could withstand it only once before needing to recover.

• Lin Yuan struck the bend of The Gleam Eyes' giant blade, broke it, and continued his slash through the boss's exposed core.
• The Gleam Eyes' remaining HP vanished, and the boss burst into blue fragments as Lin Yuan emerged with Nameless intact.
• The system distributed experience and drops but left the last-attack bonus unassigned because it could not find an account for Lin Yuan.
• Klein asked Kirito whether he had known about Lin Yuan's move, and Kirito said he had not seen it before.
• Kirito asked Lin Yuan about the strike, and Lin Yuan explained that Nameless could now withstand it once before recovering.
• Lin Yuan sheathed Nameless and named the move Mountain Severance.

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.