Chapter Summaries

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.

Lin Yuan followed the unnumbered records backward through Aincrad as the floors and their coordinates were deleted, using his sword skills to survive the collapsing world. He reached the moment he first arrived in Aincrad, but found no exit before the black rift closing with the world.

• Lin Yuan fell through the collapsing floors, cutting through obstacles with Mountain Severance and No Interval as the records guided him backward.
• He used All Things Return to One to cross the collapsing eleventh-floor city district and reclaim a coordinate before it vanished.
• At the first floor, Lin Yuan adapted each step to the changing ruins and passed through the vanishing Town of Beginnings.
• Lin Yuan reached the blank record marking his arrival in Aincrad, where the white trail ended before a closing black rift.

Lin Yuan used the records left by Kayaba and the World Marker to force open the rift from Aincrad to the world where Fairy Tail existed. He crossed through and arrived at the rain-soaked ruins of the moving castle, while Yui remained behind in Aincrad.

• Lin Yuan sensed magic beyond the rift but could not use Space: Mountain Severance to reach it, so he pressed Kayaba's records against the gap.
• The mass disconnection of the players briefly widened the rift, revealing a rain-soaked forest and the ruins of the moving castle.
• Lin Yuan thrust Nameless into the gap, and the World Marker extended its World Adaptation Layer to preserve the sword as its Aincrad data faded.
• Lin Yuan used Nameless to force the rift open, while the unnumbered records lit a path toward the ruins and then disappeared.
• Lin Yuan said, "Wait for me to come back," and carried Nameless through the rift, leaving Yui's coordinates held by the World Marker.
• Lin Yuan fell into the wet earth in the Fairy Tail world, saw the vine-covered castle ruins, and watched the rift close behind him.

Lin Yuan returned to his world after two years away and reunited with Mira. They left the ruins together, with Lin Yuan learning it was Year X780 and that people at the Guild were waiting for him.

• Lin Yuan confirmed he had returned to his world, recovered his magic, and found the faint coordinate where Yui was sleeping.
• Mira arrived at the ruins, checked that Lin Yuan was real, and angrily confronted him before embracing him.
• Lin Yuan told Mira that the creator of the other world had wounded him, and she helped him reach shelter for the night.
• The next morning, Mira told Lin Yuan it was Year X780 and that people at the Guild were waiting to settle accounts with him.
• Lin Yuan followed Mira out of the woods, and she told him he had finally come back.

After returning to Magnolia, Lin Yuan reunited with Fairy Tail and told them how he had survived two years in a hundred-floor castle in another world. The guild welcomed him with a banquet, which ended with Natsu challenging him to a duel.

• Mira brought Lin Yuan back to the Fairy Tail guildhall, where Natsu rushed to greet him and Erza stopped him from charging into the injured man.
• Lisanna and Elfman welcomed Lin Yuan, while the guild members crowded around with questions about his disappearance.
• Lin Yuan told Makarov that a rift in the moving castle had taken him to another world, where he survived two years and helped clear the hundredth floor before returning through the now-closed rift.
• Makarov welcomed Lin Yuan home, and the guild began a banquet as Lin Yuan answered questions about the castle, his sword Nameless, and his sword training.
• Natsu stopped fighting over the roast meat, surrounded his fists with flames, and challenged Lin Yuan to a duel.

Lin Yuan defeated Natsu in a sparring match, first using his sword to redirect Natsu’s attacks and then splitting his Fire Dragon’s Roar with a magic-infused strike. As Natsu brawled with Gray after the fight, Erza challenged Lin Yuan next.

• Natsu challenged Lin Yuan to a rematch, and the guild members followed them to the clearing behind the guild.
• Lin Yuan used Nameless to redirect Natsu’s punches and flames, preventing Natsu from landing a hit.
• Natsu unleashed Fire Dragon’s Roar, and Lin Yuan infused Nameless with magic power and split the torrent of flame down the middle.
• Lin Yuan disarmed Natsu with his sword and sent him falling into the spectators, where he and Gray began brawling.
• Erza entered the clearing with a longsword and challenged Lin Yuan to fight her next.

Lin Yuan fought Erza in a sword match and defeated her with his No Form technique. Erza acknowledged his swordsmanship, and the group returned to the Guild to continue the banquet.

• Erza challenged Lin Yuan to another fight, and they exchanged a rapid series of attacks as she switched among different weapons and armor.
• Lin Yuan used lessons from past battles to deflect Erza's strikes and find openings without committing to a predetermined sword path.
• Erza feinted an opening and tried to trap Lin Yuan's blade, but he changed his strike and stopped Nameless beside her neck.
• Erza admitted defeat, and Lin Yuan explained that his No Form technique waited for each strike to end before choosing the next move.
• Natsu asked for another round, but Erza knocked him into the ground and led everyone back to the Guild banquet.
• Gray took the last piece of roasted meat as he passed Natsu.

Lin Yuan told Fairy Tail about the Moonlit Black Cats and his promise to bring Yui back, then resolved to seek a way between worlds. The next day, Mira invited him on an S-Class job and proposed that they start their relationship anew.

• Lin Yuan described rescuing the Moonlit Black Cats with Kirito and explained that Yui was dormant because he could not bring her through the rift.
• Makarov urged Lin Yuan to bring Yui back when he could, and Lin Yuan decided to enter another world’s rift willingly to find a way back to her.
• The banquet continued late into the night, and Lin Yuan found Natsu asleep and Gray half-dressed in the guild the next day.
• Mira revealed that she had become S-Class and selected a job investigating missing merchant caravans and wizards in a northern Fiore canyon.
• Mira told Lin Yuan that if things were different between them, they could start over.

Mira and Lin Yuan investigated the disappearance of three caravans in Echo Canyon, tracing their clues into a hidden passage. They found a missing carriage and encountered two figures who looked exactly like them.

• Makarov approved Mira and Lin Yuan's S-Class mission to investigate the missing caravans in Echo Canyon.
• Mira questioned the caravan drivers and compared their records with Lin Yuan, who noted that the groups had no cargo or affiliation in common.
• Mira and Lin Yuan entered Echo Canyon, found an unrecorded passable route, and followed wheel ruts deeper inside.
• The pair discovered a missing carriage with intact cargo and footprints leading away from it without signs of panic or violence.
• Lin Yuan sensed two approaching people, and Mira and Lin Yuan saw an identical Lin Yuan and Mira emerge from around a bend.

Lin Yuan and Mira fought crystal copies that reproduced their moves one step behind, then tracked the magic sustaining them deeper into the canyon. As the copies pursued them to the edge of their range, cries for help echoed from every direction, including Lin Yuan’s own voice.

• Lin Yuan and Mira battled crystal copies that mimicked their weapons and fighting styles, and Lin Yuan realized they could only react to moves they had already seen.
• Lin Yuan and Mira changed their attacks to catch the copies off guard, shattering both of them into crystal sand.
• The crystal sand reassembled the copies, and Lin Yuan sensed their magic flowing through gaps in the canyon walls toward a deeper source.
• Mira drove iron nails into the walls, and Lin Yuan and Mira retreated together toward the source while the copies slowed beyond a crack in the rock.
• Voices calling for help echoed through the canyon from several directions, and the last voice to call out was Lin Yuan’s own.

Lin Yuan and Mira discovered that crystals in the canyon copied and redirected sounds to lure people away, and they rescued a trapped search-and-rescue mage. After learning that others had been taken underground, they opened a hidden path and headed down to find them.

• Mira and Lin Yuan examined the wagon tracks and realized the caravan members had split up after following different sounds.
• Lin Yuan struck the wagon wheel, confirming that the canyon’s crystals replayed sounds and sent them down different paths.
• Lin Yuan and Mira followed the driver’s tracks, carefully opened a crystal-covered wall, and freed a trapped man.
• The rescued man explained that the missing mages had been lured apart by false cries and copies of themselves, and that more people were trapped below.
• Lin Yuan sensed human-shaped figures beneath them, sent the rescued man back toward the wagon, and cut open a concealed underground path with Mira.