Am I the only one streaming Sword Art Online on the entire internet?

Solin put the map back into his backpack once again, and then suddenly said this. He had repeated the action of "taking the map out of the bag, marking a point, and putting it back" countless times along the way. Everyone was curious about what he was doing, but no matter who asked him, he would just brush it off with "I'm having an obsessive-compulsive episode."

“Every time something like this happens, it makes me question my existence. You think this is a normal game, but there are always some lucky players who show off their presence.”

“But Mr. Sorin, how do you know that… Dowenban possesses the so-called ‘Kaladesh Invention’?” Praggle asked疑惑地, “What if he doesn’t have anything…”

“Then I’ll blow up the New Bluff Tower.” Sorin interrupted Prag’s next question, and then said in a serious tone, like a professional terrorist or a Japanese soldier invading a village, “Actually, I can’t guarantee that he will definitely have it, but it’s always good to try. Even if there are no super weapons like the Tornado Engine or the Color Sword, giving Xiao Ji and Dalken a magic power bank each can make them two cannons.”

He surveyed the other NPCs around him. These natives of Lanica were also particularly curious about the vortex that had suddenly appeared above Jessball's office, but some clever individuals had already realized something and were leaving in the opposite direction of the crowd. Of course, those pointing at the Time-Space Bridge also included a considerable number of players. Although the game was designed as an expert mode, the permanent death of one's character did not mean that one would die as well. Therefore, they still upheld the uniquely human spirit of courting death, approaching the Time-Space Bridge and the nearby Temple of Bolas in groups.

"Let's stay away from there. That thing can wipe out everything nearby, whether it's living or inorganic. Anyone who stays in that area will be crushed into a meat sandwich by the suddenly expanding spacetime bridge." Solin curled his lip, as if expressing disdain for the players' reckless behavior. "And to answer any questions you may have, this isn't about taking advantage of the chaos to rob a place. As adventurers often say, it's perfectly normal to search for treasure in a dragon's cave after defeating it."

“But that’s still the head of the Senate, not some dragon,” Yuna corrected. But then she saw an unbelievable scene. The sudden, astonishing sight startled her, and she stopped abruptly, pointing in that direction again. “Sorin…it…that thing…”

"Nothing special, it just finally served its purpose," Sorin replied without changing his expression. "Ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin."

311. The Invasion of the Zhenju Army

A deafening explosion, mixed with screams, echoed throughout the plaza. The skyscraper in District 10 was almost instantly crushed by the suddenly expanding spacetime bridge, and the nearby streets seemed to be absorbed into the black hole, or perhaps it was a physical object that naturally repelled and destroyed everything around it when it suddenly appeared.

This includes not only inanimate objects but also living beings. Thorin watched as an armored Ozoff tax-collecting giant was crushed into mincemeat, leaving only a bright red mark on the ground.

"They're here...they're here!" Sorin stared intently at the interior of the Time-Space Bridge, watching the mummies of various races with their blue skin rushing towards them from the other end. "I only saw them on the cards before, but now...this scene is truly spectacular."

Within the battle formation of mummies, many were still fighting fiercely, but in an instant, they were swallowed up by the blue wave, leaving only screams echoing in the air. The natives and the nearby players all seemed to be instantly caught in the vortex of conflict.

The major event "The End of the Pharaohs" in the V2.00 expansion "War of Sparks" has begun.

Faction quests are now available. Players can accept faction quests from the leader of their chosen faction.

[All-area quests are now available. Players can advance their progress in all-area quests while completing faction quests. Rewards for all-area quests will be distributed in stages.]

[Global Mission 1: Repel the Fearful Army]

[Global Mission 2: Close the Time-Space Bridge]

[Global Mission 3: Shut Down the Trans-Time Beacon]

[Global Mission 4: Destroy the Eternal Sun]

A barrage of notifications appeared simultaneously, almost overwhelming everyone. Sorin waved his hand to mark all the messages as read, then sped up and ran. After the first wave of people attempting to block the army of immortals were overwhelmed by the tide, nothing could stop these blue terror soldiers. They surged into Ravnica relentlessly, attacking every living thing they could see, quickly pushing the front line to Sorin's position.

"Hurry up! We don't have much time left. I'll give you a general overview of what that blue-skinned Victor Ken is capable of on the way." He said quickly to his team members behind him as he ran. "Adjust your positions. Ki, Darken, Junie, and Huan, stand on the inside. Yuna and I will face the left. Prag, Tich, and Yuki, face the right. Got it?"

“I don’t know why it’s your turn to command again, but it doesn’t matter…” Yuki drew both swords from her waist and casually slashed down an immortal who rushed toward her. “Tich, call out your big one, if it can keep up with our speed.”

“This silver golem is still quite fast, don’t worry about that.” Teach remained remarkably calm at this moment. He waved his Enigma to temporarily assemble his silver golem, and then everyone suddenly felt their movement speed increase. “Titan! Give it your all!”

"Relax, buddy, your Titan is about to be upgraded!" Thorin dodged the axe of a minotaur immortal in front of him, and using the momentum of turning around, he drew his one-handed sword and cleaved it in two with a single Iai strike. Then, he suddenly felt something was wrong and asked in confusion, "Does this game even have a health bar?"

“You do have a health bar, it’s just that you got a kill just now,” Yuuki explained on his other side. “If it’s judged as a fatal blow, there won’t be a health bar, it will be an instant kill.”

“Is that how it’s set up? That’s pretty realistic.” Sorin casually remarked, as if to verify Yuki’s words, he switched to his rapier and pierced the Ozot Stone in the chest of yet another immortal in front of him, watching it fall to the ground. “Their weak point is in their chest; that’s their energy source!”

"These monsters are... electrically powered?" Huan muttered to herself incredulously. She was watching the direction that Prag was responsible for defending, and under her gaze, the immortals' slashes would deflect inexplicably. "It sounds a bit unbelievable."

“It’s not electric, it’s a bit complicated to explain… but it’s pretty much the same. Does your world even have something like electricity?” Sorin looked at Huan and Prag in surprise. He hadn’t looked closely before, but now that their clothes seemed similar to those of modern people, he nodded in understanding and then asked, “What’s the name of your world? It’s not Kaladesh, is it…”

"If you're referring to the continent we live on, its name is Elias..."

Just as Prag was about to give an introduction, he was interrupted by Solin's somewhat rude voice.

"We'll talk about your timeline later. Let me finish what I have to say first, so you don't panic when you meet that guy Dowin and realize you've become weaker." He used a series of multi-hit slashes to knock down a zombie bird that was trying to attack him from the sky, his speech as fast as before. "Dowin's main body isn't very strong in combat. Most of his abilities are used to limit our abilities. To put it simply, his fighting style is to lower our level to the same level of weakness as him, and then defeat us with the various artifacts he has in his office."

"How strong are those things?" Yuki asked.

"The most powerful one is the six-attack, six-defense, death-touch life-type. The rest are a bit complicated to explain. I can only guess what they can do based on what I can think of." After a moment's thought, Sorin said something that completely baffled everyone. "Hopefully, there won't be any crap like trap bridges or static balls. In other words, anything that can hit people is strong, and anything that can't hit people is disgusting. It's that simple."

"So we're just going to go up there like this... won't we just be throwing our lives away, Sorin?" Yuna asked with some concern. "According to you, his office must be a very dangerous place."

“That’s right. Our only advantage right now is that he doesn’t know we’ll come to attack him so soon. After all, those guys who openly know the source of everything haven’t returned to Ranikana yet.” Sorin said, then suddenly turned to Yuuki, who was slaying a manticore immortal, and shouted, “Yuuki! Use your authority to move all the vibrating aircraft outside the city, as far away from us as possible!”

Why is 312 called "two-five-zai"?

District 10, in front of the Time-Space Ferry Bridge.

After the players joined the battle, District 10 instantly became the largest battlefield in the entire city. The waves of players clashed passionately with the massive army of immortals, and almost every second, the Ozot Stone on the chest of an immortal lying on the ground would dim, and the person would turn to ashes.

The players were also in a bad situation, with player characters dying at any time, their teammates picking up their equipment and retreating, only to rejoin the battlefield a moment later with a new character.

In a sense, this is the advantage of being a player. Even after dying and recreating a character, they have the chance to start over. Moreover, this rather special mission has a very player-friendly feature—new characters can inherit reputation progress and global mission progress, which makes players even more fearless in their gameplay.

"It was like two packs of mad dogs colliding. They were tearing at each other non-stop."

Kirito casually dispatched four immortals with a vertical four-way slash, then sharply remarked. His thoughts were quite similar to Sorin's; he also brought out his unique skill from SAO, the [Dual Wielding] skill tree. However, his reason for choosing to replicate Dual Wielding was simply because he thought it looked cool.

"I feel like you're including yourself in this generalization, Kirito." Sinon frowned, feeling something was off about Kirito's statement. "And now there's another problem. He said we can get faction quests from the guild leader, but in such a chaotic battlefield... who knows where our guild leader is?"

Her weapon is quite unique because she wanted to try out melee combat while playing the game, but she didn't want to give up guns, which had been with her for a long time and were the weapons she was most familiar with. So she devised a gunsword that looked quite similar to the gunpowder in Monster Hunter, only a bit more slender, and the skill design was changed to a mixed ranged and melee gun-fu style.

"I don't know, and we don't have just one guild. I chose the Ozori Senate, and Asuna joined the Serena Alliance. The territories of these two guilds are quite far apart... By the way, Sinon, what did you choose?"

Kirito stopped an Evan Bird immortal that was swooping down for Asuna, but Sinon then shot it through the chest of the Ozote Stone with a single shot, and it fell from the sky and turned to ashes.

“The Ije Alliance, that’s easy to guess, right? Only they have a specialized tech tree in mechanics.” Sinon raised the gunsword in her hand, gently blew on it to disperse the smoke still rising from the muzzle, “When I first got this thing, it was only a beginner’s weapon. I can’t keep using this thing to fight.”

“That makes sense, but if that’s the case… then our three guilds would be in completely three different directions, which would be quite difficult.” Kirito shook his head in distress, but at that moment, he suddenly received a message from Sorin.

“We plan to blow up the Senate building, so you won’t need to come to pick up the mission. I remember Sinon chose the Ije Alliance guild, right? Follow her to the Ije Alliance headquarters, and then find a way to shut down the interdimensional beacon.”

"Ah... it's a message from Sorin, look." Kirito paused for a moment, then showed the message to Asuna and Sinon. "He said the interdimensional beacon is over at the Ije Alliance, and he also said he's going to blow up the Senate building."

"So?" Sinon looked at the message Kirito showed her and replied without thinking, "He's really acting like a terrorist as always, but I think it's fine this way. Let's go over there first."

------

"Good idea, that way they won't come back to bother us later, right?"

Yuki immediately understood Sorin's meaning. She brought up the system menu in front of her, selected all the vibrating-wing aircraft under her control in the vicinity, and dragged them out of the city. Dotted lines appeared on the map, representing the movement routes of the vibrating-wing aircraft.

“That’s it. It turns out the best way to defeat a traitor is to become one yourself.” Sorin said, stopping in the outer area of ​​the Chong Sheng Fountain Square. The square was no longer as peaceful and serene as it had been yesterday; instead, it was in chaos just like the outside world. Although the immortals hadn’t made this their primary target, the small groups of scattered immortal soldiers who had wandered here were already enough to give the garrison a hard time.

Unfortunately, when Sorin and his companions arrived, the garrison appeared to have stabilized its defensive formation, and it seemed unlikely that any immortals would break through anytime soon. This would pose a challenge to Sorin and his group's infiltration.

"Wait a minute, why are you infiltrating? Isn't your Ozoli camp supposed to be respected?" Sorin suddenly felt something was off and quickly turned to look at Yuki, asking in confusion, "They're even stopping their own people?"

“That’s how it is. These guys don’t really trust outsiders like us. Apparently, you can only enter the Senate building after your reputation reaches Exalted.” Yuuki originally wanted to say “players like us,” but when she realized there were two NPCs in the party, she naturally switched to a more localized way of saying it, “And Sorin, what exactly does ‘traitor’ mean? I can’t translate that word…”

"It's a pretty old story, and I doubt many people know it now. In Chapter 20 of the Romance of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms, it says: 'Duke Xian had two favorite ministers: Liang Wu and Dong Guan Wu. They would listen to foreign affairs with Duke Xian, and one would hold power while the other held favor. The people of Jin called them "the two Wus." To put it bluntly, they were traitors. But nowadays, the word is often used jokingly, probably because it's actually a Cantonese expression.'"

Suolin casually explained the origin of this saying, then looked at the heavily guarded square and suddenly became worried.

"How are we supposed to get in now... We can't just go in with a burst of speed if we fail to sneak in. The problem is, if we go in with a burst of speed, it means all the reputation we gained from Ozoli is for nothing. Even though we're after their leader, we should still be able to use this reputation later... This is really a headache."

He looked at his teammates behind him, but among this group, including the five members of the Sleeping Knights, all the support characters were hardcore combat-oriented; no one had specifically specialized in non-combat support skills. But just when he thought things had reached a stalemate, a delicate voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

"If it's just infiltration, I can give it a try."

313. Infiltration (True, Not Musou)

Sorin looked in surprise towards the source of the voice—the silver-haired girl who had been following the alchemist like a well-behaved child. It was understandable that he would have such a mental lapse, since the illusionist had been largely invisible after causing them considerable trouble, and all the enemies they had encountered along the way were mindless immortals who couldn't be fooled by illusions. But now… blocking their way were the warriors of the Ozori Senate—these were living beings!

"Then I'll leave it to you, Miss Illusionist. Your name is Illusion, right? It's quite a fitting name."

"Ah...this is the name Prag gave me, because I forgot what my name is..." Huan's voice was still soft and cute. She waved the short cane in her hand, but seemed as if nothing had happened. "Alright, if we just walk over like this, it should be fine..."

“Let’s be careful. Places like courthouses can’t possibly be without infrared cameras or something that can bypass illusions. If someone on them is carrying such a device, things will get complicated.” Sorin gripped his one-handed sword again, quickly zoomed in and out on the area map, and drew a route on it. “Follow me, in a straight line. Everyone stay together. Let’s get inside the building and check the situation first.”

After saying that, he was the first to run out. Following closely behind him was Yuna, then everyone in the Sleeping Knights, and finally the two NPCs who had joined the party halfway through.

"Hey, Sorin, with this formation... what if those two get away?" Yuki asked worriedly. "We'll need their strength later, won't we?"

“I can’t guarantee that the ones at the back of the column won’t desert halfway, but one thing is certain, and they understand that,” Sorin replied calmly. “Following us is just a little dangerous, but if they leave the group… in the war-torn Ravnica, only death awaits them. Bolas has an army specifically for hunting Planeswalker Sparks, and that unit hasn’t been deployed yet.”

"Since you're so sure..."

As Yuki spoke, she kept an eye on her surroundings. Although they looked no different from before, the illusionist's illusion had successfully worked on them. At least none of the mixed guards of about five hundred people at the gate saw them.

"Let's go, don't hesitate, hesitation means defeat, understand?" Sorin patted Yuki's shoulder and said casually, "I've seen a lot of storms back then, little guy. Although it may sound a bit exaggerated, I can be considered one of the earliest players in the world to fully immerse myself in the game."

"That's not necessarily true, Solin. But if there's a chance, I'd still like to hear your story; it must be even richer and more exciting than ours."

Yuki shook her head, a hint of helplessness in her voice, but Sorin dismissed it as a child throwing a tantrum and didn't think much of it.

“Actually, that’s not necessarily true. I’ve always felt that everyone’s story has its own unique brilliance, even those of ordinary people who think their lives are like stagnant water.” Sorin stepped up the stairs, his sword tip pointing straight at the open doors of the Senate headquarters building. “I’ll tell you about it when I have the chance, but for now, let’s write our own stories first. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to do?”

"Is there a chance...? Yes, there will be a chance, I must persevere." Yuuki thought to herself quietly. She didn't want to reveal this secret to Sorin, at least not now.

She followed Yuna upstairs, through the doors of the Senate headquarters building, and into the lobby. The interior design of the Senate was highly consistent with the style and color scheme of this guild, featuring the same blue and white color scheme, and exuding a meticulously ordered style.

“We didn’t actually need to be this careful. The founder of this guild is gone forever in Isharan, and its leader was recently turned to stone by Vaska, the guild master of the Gorgari Guild. This Dowin is actually a parachuted-in guild master.” Sorin explained the current situation of the Ozori Guild to his team members as they walked up the stairs. “His style of doing things has earned him the support of some Ozori people, but there are still quite a few conservatives who question the authority of this parachuted guild master, one of whom is Ms. Ravenne. In fact, her questioning is correct, because the person behind Dowin is the villain of the whole series, Nicoloni… no, I mean Nicolboras, the dragon we saw earlier.”

Now that everyone in the Ozoli Guild still capable of fighting has gone outside, meaning there aren't many people inside the building, their conversations can be more casual, without the need for the cautiousness of a traditional stealth game. Sorin is now acting like a tour guide. The building actually only has three floors, connected by a central staircase, with each floor further divided into smaller floors, but these smaller floors don't share staircases with the main floors. They've now entered the second upper-level area, which appears to be Ozoli's high-level office area, or rather, its core area.

Every fifty meters or so along the wall, there's a display case, usually containing a uniquely shaped metal ornament. Every time they see one, Yuna and Yuki stop to take a picture, as if they were truly on vacation.

Of course, Thorin knew that these things only looked like simple decorations. He had seen the [Kaladesh Inventions] displayed in the showcases, which were the [treasures] he had mentioned before, more than once when he passed by. The treasures he saw in the outer area were just things like Hero's Helm, Marble Antiques, or Power Gauntlets—not very high-end items—but this made him look forward to what was to come.

However, at that moment, he suddenly had an ominous premonition, which became clearer as he climbed the stairs to the third floor.

"Wait a minute... I remember that besides the Tornado, the treasure of Caladesh also included five Gundams, right..."

314. A Two-Sided Crisis

"What I used to enjoy was the artistic planning process. From selecting sniper locations and setting up ambushes to various emergency maneuvers, it was all quite artistic. But after that experience, I realized that sometimes you can fight quite well without thinking, so now I want to experience the feeling of abandoning everything and fighting just for the sake of fighting."

Sinon pulled back the sword she had just unleashed, forcefully pulled the trigger to empty the ammunition in her gun and sword, then flung it into the air, loading the five bullets that were already in the ammunition compartment into the magazine, and once again aimed at the other minotaur immortal in front of her.

"Try this, monster!" She curled her lips into a cruel smile, then twisted her body and unleashed a sweeping attack. Midway through, she activated a full-power burst to accelerate her strike, instantly cleaving the minotaur in two at the waist. "Fire!"

Kirito stared at Sinon, who had suddenly transformed into Basaka, with a dark expression, then turned his gaze to the other side. Asuna was in a similar state; her left hand shimmered with a shimmering white light, a unique effect of healing spells in the "Hyperdimensional Illusion." However, her current movement pattern was completely unlike that of healing classes who only hid in the back.

With a nimble sidestep, she dodged three or four swords slashing vertically at her, cast a healing spell on Sinon with her left hand, and the sudden bright light blinded the three immortals. Then, with a series of lightning-fast thrusts, she pierced their chests with the Lazoth Stones, the almost continuous sword shadows like streaks of light across the sky. By the time Kirito reacted, she had already ended her battle.