Chapter 487: 475: The Final Experiment

Chapter 487: Chapter 475: The Final Experiment

The time rewound to the day before the game’s fourth-anniversary celebration.

[Commander, according to the countdown protocol, there are only five months left until the five-year deadline set by Sir Augustus Valentine.]

“I know.” Allen tapped his fingertips lightly against the armrest of his throne, producing a rhythmic TAP, TAP sound that resembled the ticking second hand of fate.

Thanks to Sword Art Online’s three-fold time dilation, he had effectively conjured an additional thirteen-year window for research and development.

Over these thirteen years, he had completed the technical iteration of artificial souls from “zero” to “one,” amassing a terrifying amount of data samples. The path leading to the Core Witchcraft of “Consciousness Uploading” had been paved by him, brick by brick.

From the initial Stripping of sensory information to the digital encoding of shallow consciousness, and finally to the Cybertron main server’s simultaneous hosting of millions of consciousnesses… he had conquered the core obstacles one by one. The millions of gaming hibernation pods scattered across the country were no longer the mere “amusement facilities” capable only of connecting to shallow consciousness. Through dozens of “version updates” and “firmware upgrades” over the past few years, he had stealthily transformed them all into soul extractors capable of drawing complete souls out of flesh-and-blood bodies.

Everything was ready. Only the final, and most crucial, piece of the puzzle remained.

“Can a complete soul, after entirely detaching from its physical body, exist independently in a world of pure data for an extended period?

“And, after undergoing prolonged ’digitization,’ can it still… be downloaded back into its original shell, completely intact?”

This was the ultimate leap from carbon-based life to silicon-based life—a practical test that no theoretical deduction could replace. It required a massive, long-term, and high-intensity live experiment. An ultimate stress test on millions of souls.

“Jarvis.”

[Present.]

“Finalize the experimental protocol.

“The experimental cycle will be thirty days in real time, corresponding to ninety days in-game. The launch time is set for exactly eight o’clock tomorrow evening, Aiselan Kingdom Standard Time.”

[Command confirmed. Tomorrow evening at eight o’clock is the fourth-anniversary celebration of Sword Art Online. The server’s peak concurrent player count is estimated to surpass 5.1 million, reaching a historical high.]

“A sample size of this magnitude is more than enough,” Allen nodded slowly.

[The underlying firmware of all hibernation pods underwent silent replacement half a year ago via the ’V4.7 Security Patch.’ Replacement success rate: 100%.

[When the time comes, we merely need to sever the external connection permission for the logout channel, and the system will automatically perform a full upload of all connected consciousnesses.]

Explained in Wizard terminology, this operation was even simpler. He was going to take 5.17 million living souls and cleanly, decisively… pull them out of their bodies.

Just then, Allen’s brow twitched imperceptibly. A wave of discomfort, originating from the depths of his soul, slowly washed over his dam of rationality.

That was the [Humanity Operator] faithfully executing its duty, simulating the moral pressure a normal human ought to bear when deciding to conduct such a maddening human experiment. Guilt, remorse, anxiety… all sorts of emotions were precisely quantified and presented within his consciousness.

But he simply “felt” all of this calmly, before accurately enforcing a Suppression on this discomfort to keep it within a “tolerable” threshold, ensuring it wouldn’t interfere with any of his decisions.

“This is a continuation of our transaction,” Allen told himself.

“I grant them a second life, heal their imperfections, and satisfy their desires. In return, they light up the final stretch of the road to truth for me.

“It is very fair.”

…

In-game time, day three.

Aincrad, 91st Floor, Frontline Clearing Group Temporary Command Center.

The atmosphere was as oppressive as a tomb. Dozens of the game’s top players had gathered inside the command center. They were the core elites of the two major guilds: the Blood Alliance Knight Order and the Holy Dragon Alliance. Yet, at this moment, no one spoke a word.

Yak, the Commander of the Blood Alliance Knight Order and the number one Swordsman on the server’s level rankings, had his hands pressed flat against the tactical map.

“The intelligence on the 92nd Floor Boss, the ’Abyssal Worm,’ is very clear. Its weaknesses are fire and holy attributes, and the estimated success rate for clearing it is over eighty percent. I have decided to organize our main forces to push through it first thing tomorrow morning.”

His voice broke the silence, but what he got in return was an even heavier stillness. Everyone kept their heads bowed, their gazes darting away. No one dared to meet his eyes. Because a piece of news that made everyone’s blood run cold had spread across the entire frontline yesterday.

Just yesterday, while an elite squad was conducting an exploratory raid on the 92nd Floor, a top-tier shieldwarden in the team was struck by a tail swipe from the Boss while covering his teammates’ retreat. His health bar instantly dropped to zero.

And then… there was no “then.” There was no flash of white light, nor did he experience a Resurrection in the rear temple.

That player’s ID just abruptly and completely disappeared—from everyone’s friend lists, the guild rosters, and even the server-wide rankings. It was as if he had never existed in this world.

The bizarre part was that players killed in PvP combat or by ordinary monsters on the floors were still able to experience Resurrection normally. The only exception was Floor Bosses.

“Why aren’t any of you speaking?!” Yak slammed a hand on the table and roared. “Our time in reality is dwindling day by day! If we don’t push forward, are we just supposed to wait here and die?!”

A Mage player finally couldn’t help but speak up. “Commander… it’s not the same. Before, if we died, we’d drop a Level, drop some gear, and we could try again. Now… if we’re killed by a Boss now, we might really die!”

“Yeah, that was a permanent disappearance!”

“Who knows what ’disappearing’ in the game means in reality? What if it causes brain death?”

Once the panic began, it could no longer be contained. The forums had long since exploded into chaos.

Some desperately comforted themselves, saying, “This is just a scary bug the officials are using to force us to clear the game,” while others began to hysterically attack the clearing groups, cursing them as “lunatics trying to trade other people’s lives for their own clear rewards.”

A Boss challenge with an original eighty percent success rate was forced into an indefinite hiatus because nearly half of the main members refused to fight. The torch of human civilization had stalled on the road to the 100th Floor.

…

7th Floor, Lakeside Safe Zone.

Inside Cole’s wooden cabin, the curtains were drawn tight, refusing to let even a sliver of light peek through.

“I don’t believe the official announcement.” Cole kept his voice very low.

Across from him, Amy and Zero sat shoulder to shoulder, Amy’s face riddled with anxiety.

“Cole, what… what do you mean?”

Cole’s gaze was sharp. “First of all, the officials have yet to provide a reasonable explanation for the ’data anomaly’ that occurred when we fought the 7th Floor Boss four years ago. That was definitely not a simple bug.

“Second, and this is the most critical point. Allen Wesren stated in the announcement, ’Clear the game as soon as possible to log out.’ Don’t you find that contradictory?

“If this were truly a natural disaster, an accident that even he couldn’t fix, then why would an internal action like ’clearing the game’ be able to fix an external ’natural disaster’?”

Amy froze; she had never considered it from that angle.

Cole’s eyes slowly landed on Zero, who had remained silent the entire time.

“This only points to one thing: the system’s core control authority was never lost. Someone… is deliberately locking us in here.” He stared intently into Zero’s pure, unadulterated eyes, and, pausing after every word, asked the question he had kept buried in his heart for a long time.

“Zero, tell me.

“What… exactly are you?”

Zero’s body trembled slightly.

Amy immediately shielded her, looking at Cole nervously. “Cole! Don’t scare her! She has amnesia; she doesn’t remember anything!”

Zero remained silent for a long time, so long that Amy thought she wouldn’t answer at all, before she finally gave a gentle shake of her head.

“I don’t know… I only remember Amy.”

Hearing this, Amy’s eyes turned red, and she gripped Zero’s cold hand even tighter. Cole looked at them, let out a heavy sigh, and stopped pressing the issue.

He walked out of the cabin alone and stood by the lake in the night, the freezing wind blowing through his graying hair. After a long while, as if he had made a certain decision, he opened his friends list and found an ID he almost never contacted on his own initiative.

The name behind that ID was a legend in Aincrad.

[Ghost].

Cole took a deep breath and sent over a line of message.

[Mr. Ghost, this is Cole. I want to figure out if there’s actually any possibility for us to save ourselves. Could I ask you… to help analyze the underlying logic behind the logout function being locked?]

The message was sent successfully. Cole didn’t expect the other party to reply immediately. This fifteen-year-old tech genius was always as elusive as a phantom.

However, a mere three seconds later, a DING sounded, and a reply popped up. The message was very short.

[I’m observing it as well. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.]