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

"Yes...whether here or in reality...if only we could go back to reality."

"We will definitely go back, keep going!"

"I hope so..."

------

"So the best way to get rid of orange names is to grind monsters, right? Then why didn't you tell me earlier yesterday? If I had finished grinding quickly, I might have made it to your victory celebration party."

After dodging the attack of the spirit puppet in front of him with a sharp slash, Sorin immediately used a Dragon Rush to deplete the monster's HP. Then, he sheathed his katana, switched to his curved sword, charged up, and unleashed a heavy slash to break the shield held by the spirit puppet. He then switched to his dual daggers and used a Demon Dance to finish it off, even managing to utter a sarcastic remark in between.

"So after being absent all day yesterday, did you guys think I was dead? Why did I see comments like 'Rest in peace' in the live chat?"

[As I said yesterday, you need to consider that Uncle Suolin sometimes goes on dates, and he doesn't stream during those times.]

[I forgot the streamer has already become a winner in life... Sorry to bother you.]

I don't care, even if it's a female streamer, I'll still say "awsl" (a Chinese internet slang for "I'm so happy").

“…These guys. Come to think of it, I was speaking quite fast when I was giving instructions yesterday, it’s amazing you guys could still hear me.” Solin suddenly remembered something and sighed, “At the time, I was thinking of repeating myself occasionally, since it was an emergency.”

"It's alright... The main thing is that even if I can't hear clearly, I can still understand the meaning to some extent. I can just follow your lead." Kirito thought for a moment and then replied.

"Actually, Sorin speaks Japanese very quickly and clearly. Yesterday was roughly the same situation, and I didn't notice anything wrong with it." This was Yura's reply. Although Sorin didn't want to call a tank because he wanted to maximize monster kills, he couldn't stop Yura from coming over.

However, Sorin frowned slightly after hearing Yura's answer. Although he didn't say anything, he kept a thought in mind. It takes killing a full five hundred monsters to go from a slightly orange-named monster to a green-named monster, and after fighting here for an afternoon, they had already completed more than half of that requirement.

"Hurry up and finish this run. I need to hold a strategy meeting when I get back. I want to hear the New Year's bells ringing on the sixth floor. Understand?"

"Okay, okay, you're the president, so you've got to slurp garlic."

Chapter 85: The Fifth Floor Strategy in Progress (Bonus Chapter 2/75)

"Before we begin the strategy meeting, I want to remind everyone of something. PoH is still at large, and I haven't been able to catch him. I apologize for that; I still haven't been able to resolve this problem."

Sorin changed his posture this time. He stood in front of the table, his hands resting on it, his sharp gaze sweeping over everyone. At this moment, everyone standing in the conference room was a member of the Edelweiss Guild, with only one exception—the former blacksmith Nezha, who had been dragged over before he even understood what was going on.

"Apologies are too much, Guild Master. After all, most of the red-named players have already been killed or are serving their lives in jail, and we didn't suffer any casualties, so this operation was quite successful." Lu Fei'er, standing next to the conference table, shook his head. "Compared to that, I think the strategy itself should explain more, because I didn't see any friends from the Dragon Riders or the Aincrad Liberation Army here, only a throwing knife player."

“That’s right, I believe not only Lu Fei’er, but others have probably noticed this as well. So, here’s the introduction. The boss of this level, [Void Giant], will drop an item called [Guild Flag]. Its effect is to provide four buffs to players in the same guild within 30 meters of the flag. The strength of this buff is expected to be similar to that of Yuna.” Solin turned a page in the notebook on the table and pointed to the contents. “So we must get our hands on this flag. This raid is being kept secret, and I didn’t inform Diabel and Fang Wang in advance. The current situation is that this structure of three guilds simultaneously being responsible for the front line is not scientific. Although they understand this, they don’t intend to exploit the large number of items and equipment brought by the maze area. There’s nothing we can do about this situation.”

“Okay, that sounds reasonable. So what’s next? Now that the number of players in this raid has decreased significantly, we might run into trouble if we don’t know the boss’s skills.” Yura nodded and then expressed her opinion, “And judging from the previous levels, the boss we’re seeing now is quite different from the boss in the closed beta version.”

“That’s right. So yesterday I specifically soloed this boss, and after getting it down to about half health, I managed to find out most of its skills.” Solin said, turning to the next page of his notebook. “The Void Giant’s main body is the boss room, and its first phase involves attacking using its hands and feet in the hall. Pay attention to the ground; stepping on half of the dark-colored tiles will trigger an attack, while the other half won’t. If someone gets controlled, nearby teammates should immediately attack the arms or legs to help them break free.”

"So...does this battle still need a tank?" Kirito asked doubtfully. "I feel like this is a completely different version from the closed beta."

"T... is still necessary, because in addition to the attack hitbox of stomping the ground, it will also attack itself. Next, let's talk about its second-stage skill. This skill will not hit the person who stomps on the other half of the ground during its release, but after charging up, it will release ground spikes in a small area around itself, then release ground spikes in a larger area, and the last time the area will reach the entire map, but there will be no ground spikes in the area around it that is about the size of the first ground spike."

"It doesn't sound like a mechanical colossus, more like a prototype of some Blacklight virus..." Kirito muttered thoughtfully, then was glared at by Sorin and immediately fell silent.

"Here's the thing: after dodging the third spike, everyone immediately move towards the center of the hall. Nezhar, run to the furthest point from everyone. Once you feel your movement speed increase, immediately run in one direction at a relatively fast, steady pace. I'll handle the rest. This skill is used every 30% of your health, so it should be used three times in total. Nezhar, when I call 'Gaze,' get ready on the outer edge, understand?"

“I…I understand, Mr. Sorin.” Nezha remained as reserved as ever, but he was now brimming with confidence. “I guarantee I’ll complete the mission!”

"That's settled then. I haven't seen the berserk skill yet, so we'll have to improvise. May the guiding blue star shine for you forever! Now, everyone, move out!"

Sorin put away the notebook on the table, said this last sentence, and then turned and walked out of the hall, followed by the thirty-odd members of the Edelweiss Guild. This time it wasn't a PVP group battle, so Yuna and Asuna, who hadn't been in the party before, were also present. Asuna still felt a little guilty about not participating last time, but no one really cared about that.

This fifth level was so rudimentary that Sorin even thought that all it needed was a two-dimensional map. It would only take half an hour to reach the maze area after leaving the main city. The guy guarding the gate outside the maze area had already been killed during Sorin's scouting trip, so there was naturally no one to stop them. At most, some small monsters would spawn inside the maze area, and they would be hacked to death as soon as they appeared.

"Just a heads up, this boss has no weaknesses. Once you're in the boss room, you can hit the walls or the floor and it will do damage. If it attacks with its hands or feet, hitting its hands or feet will do more damage." After giving this final reminder, Solin pushed open the boss room door and casually slashed at it. "Time to engage! Be careful with your positioning in phase one!"

"WAAAAGH!" Strange shouts rose and fell. Sorin had previously complained that this kind of mob-like way of starting the fight was easy to over-aggro (OT). However, this boss was so strange that there was no need to play it safe like before. Entering the fight like this was actually the best option.

After everyone rushed into the hall, the hall began to shake violently, and two huge hands, each over four meters tall, emerged from the floor and slammed down forcefully.

"Yura! Sparrow! Go up and tank, everyone else find your positions to deal damage! Yuna, stay put and buff yourself, first attack speed, then Sharpness, and finally healing. After you finish healing, come up and deal damage!"

After shouting, Solin charged straight at one of the giant hands, wielding two daggers and unleashing a flurry of attacks that sent stone chips flying from the giant hand. His damage output immediately jumped to first place.

86. The True Wooden Stake Boss

With clear division of labor, the situation wasn't too chaotic. Occasionally, someone would make a mistake and be captured, but they would be rescued in the next second. At the same time, the boss's health bar was decreasing relatively steadily. Because the boss's ultimate attack, which it unleashed every 30% of its health, was rather unpredictable, Solin didn't have everyone go all out for damage, but instead planned to play it safe and steady.

"That guy on the left got captured! Teammates nearby, go and take him down! Everyone else, cease fire!" He saw that the boss's health had reached 75%, and someone on the left had been captured, so he immediately shouted for a ceasefire. Unlike the situation on the third floor, when Solin shouted "cease fire," everyone put down their weapons and found their positions on the outer circle in advance.

So after the squad rescued their trapped teammates, the Void Giant's health dropped to exactly 70%. The hall trembled again, and after about five seconds, clusters of spikes suddenly emerged from the floor in a 4x4 tile area in the center of the hall.

"Everyone, stand on the edge of the second spike and get ready to move!" After shouting this, Solin saw everyone standing on the edge of the second 6x6 tile area. After excluding the red-name guilds and only bringing the Edelweiss guild, Solin felt for the first time that commanding a boss battle was such a simple thing.

Perhaps because the Void Giant was the first boss with a bizarre mechanic, this skill, although it sounded difficult, was actually very easy to dodge in practice. There was a full ten-second interval between the two waves of ground spikes. In this situation, let alone a high-level player, even a newbie could dodge the ground spikes after a few explanations. Now, Solin thought back to how he had previously complained that those bosses were just training dummies, but now he had a real training dummies, which were actually slightly more difficult than those others.

After the third wave of spikes retracted from the floor, Sorin glanced behind him instinctively and saw that Nezha was already standing at the outermost edge of the boss room, the furthest point from the center. He had said he would handle this position himself, so everyone else had already returned to their positions and started attacking the boss.

As the hall began to shake again, Nezha felt his body suddenly become much lighter. He sensed something about to fall on his head, so he ran at a steady pace towards an empty area, as previously planned.

Sorin stood slightly behind him. Now that the gaze had locked onto Nezha, he no longer needed to worry about being too far from the front and accidentally getting caught in the gaze. This skill, if not handled properly, could be a wipe-out. After the ground spikes were placed, it would magnetize the player furthest from the front. The magnetized player would gain speed, magnetize nearby players, and attract the magnetized spikes above their heads.

If two magnetized cones are too close together, or if the magnetized player touches the magnetized cone, the cone will trigger a chain explosion. The explosion will cause enough damage to deplete two-thirds of the health of a high-level player wearing level 15 armor with 5 or higher enhancement. Most people's armor and level have not even reached this standard.

The solution is simple: all you need is a player with high enough damage output who isn't affected by the Magnetized Gaze to follow behind and destroy all the Magnetized Spikes. And right now, Sorin is doing just that.

He followed behind Nezha, slicing through six spikes before the vibrations stopped. The spikes were actually quite fragile to him; a simple basic attack followed by a quick slice with another knife to remove the mark would turn the deadly bomb into a pile of rubble.

"Keep this pace! Keep fighting!"

With clear command and the team's exceptional execution, the Void Giant's health dropped by ten percent after unleashing two more powerful attacks. From that moment on, the hall began to shake incessantly, with debris and dust constantly falling from the ceiling.

"It's enraged! Everyone be alert! There might be some unknown skills!" Sorin shouted. "Burst damage! Burst damage! Take them all down in one wave!"

Nezha remained at the furthest point, using his [Belbas Ring] to deal damage to the boss. His damage output was average for the team; after all, while the item was relatively inefficient, it was still a drop from the boss guarding the second layer of the labyrinth. In addition, his task, besides drawing the gaze, was simply to stand still and deal damage, making him a powerful source of firepower when undisturbed.

At this moment, the firing point was still repositioning, letting one spike after another fall behind it, only to be destroyed one by one by Sorin. However, it now seemed that the Void Giant's berserk mode only resulted in slightly increased attack power and an increase in the number of spikes cast from six to eight. Of course, this increase in attack power was no problem for the seasoned MT Yura.

Meanwhile, the first aggro on the other hand had now shifted to Sorin, because even though the other main tank, Sparrow, was doing everything he could, he couldn't snatch the first aggro from Sorin.

Sorin used a swift and decisive strike to deflect the giant hand that was attacking him, and then used a Dragon Rising Slash to cut off the last bit of health of the Void Giant Machine. The notification "Last Attack" appeared in front of him.

"Falled, fell, fell! Nicework!" He landed steadily on the ground, raising the phantom blade high in his hand. "Who has the flag? Take it out and check its attributes!"

“Here I am, Solin.” Yuna walked over from a little distance and placed the flag in Solin’s hand. “It looks pretty impressive.”

"WTF! Endurance aura, team-wide cooldown reduction, and focus aura... Is this some kind of overpowered aura?" Sorin examined the flag for a while before displaying its stats. The flag was a weapon, and its base stats were barely passable, but it had four additional buffs: movement speed, attack speed, cooldown reduction, and armor. Moreover, all members of the same guild within a 30-meter radius could benefit from it, without the previously imagined limit on the number of members.

What's even more overpowered is that this flag can be upgraded ten times, and it seems that upgrading the flag itself also strengthens the aura. If nothing unexpected happens, this should be a powerful weapon that can be used until the end of the game.

"Let's go upstairs! We've completed one-twentieth of the game content!" He equipped the flag and raised it. The blank space on it had been replaced by the Edelweiss Guild icon, which was not the random thing that the viewers in the live stream had guessed, like Old Ding or 9.18 Shining.

"One-twentieth... I feel like saying that already represents a lot, but thinking about it carefully, isn't that just five percent?" Kirito suddenly retorted next to Sorin. "I wanted to say that when you mentioned one-fiftieth last time."

"Don't worry about so many details. Those who worry about details are all 9."

87. The wondrous sixth layer

While on the fourth floor, Sorin was pondering a question: was it still worthwhile for him to continue leading the team through the 100th floor? The Rainbow Team had given him an alternative to clearing all 100 floors: finding Kayaba Akihiko himself. Of course, this would have to wait until the Rainbow Team located Kayaba Akihiko in the real world.

Sorin had initially thought that with the Rainbow Squad's operational capabilities (in fact, he didn't even know what those capabilities were), they would find Kayakiya's location by the sixth floor at most. However, to this day, not only had they not found the location, but Grace hadn't even sent Sorin a second message.

"By the way, Sorin, the theme of this floor is quite interesting." Kirito suddenly reminded him as if he had thought of something. "However, it might not be very friendly to some people. At the time, the players' evaluation of this floor was particularly extreme. It was roughly half five-star reviews and half zero-star reviews, and the final score was about 2.5."

"Oh? That's interesting." Solin immediately became interested. "Tell me about it, what type?"

"The theme of this floor is puzzle games. Most of the doors require a mini-game to open, and there are also many related quests and monsters. Of course, it's not very friendly to those who don't like puzzles." Kirito thought for a while, and then explained to Sorin in the simplest way possible, "For example, you might need to solve a 3x3 Rubik's Cube before returning to your room at the inn, or solve a Sudoku puzzle before opening a treasure chest... something like that."

"It sounds so troublesome..." Asuna lowered her head immediately upon hearing the description. "It's not that it's unsolvable, but it just feels so troublesome... Solving a puzzle before entering a room is something only hardcore puzzle enthusiasts would enjoy."

"That's probably how it is. I once played the Cube Escape series on stream, and although I found it very interesting, I found that I only had 500 viewers left after a day." Solin clearly felt a strong sense of frustration when he mentioned this past event. "I've never been this badly off, not even when I played MTGA for four hours while watching a movie!"

"By the way, Sorin, my father... hasn't he contacted you since then?" Asuna asked anxiously when Sorin mentioned the live stream. "You hadn't come to see me for a long time, I almost forgot about it."

"This...it's a secret," Solin said mysteriously. "A true secret, one that none of you have the authority to access."

"...I understand." Asuna replied, then sensed the atmosphere suddenly become a bit heavy, so she quickly changed the subject, "By the way, Yuna, what do you think of these games?"

However, she didn't choose a suitable person this time. Yuna had been keeping her head down and silent ever since she heard Kirito's introduction, as if only Sorin beside her could give her a sense of security.

After hearing Asuna's question, Yuna remained silent for a long time before finally speaking.

“Almost completely unresponsive. I tried to learn how to solve a Rubik's Cube, but after spending an entire afternoon trying to solve it according to the formulas and still failing, I felt like this thing was a waste of my study time.” She said this, but her trembling voice and clearly fearful eyes conveyed a different message—these things were not as simple as “unlearnable” or “a waste of time” for Yuna.

"...It's okay. Anyway, if you're with me, leave all this to me. Everything will be fine." Sorin sensed the strange atmosphere, so he gently stroked Yuna's hair a couple of times and comforted her like this. He found himself increasingly fond of touching Yuna's hair lately, and although it didn't sound quite right, Sorin inexplicably thought of the cat his family had when he was a child.

“But hotels and similar places also need this kind of door opening method, and the more expensive the hotel, the more complicated the door opening method. You can’t exactly say that Sorin opened the door for you and then you go back to your room, can you?” Asuna suddenly realized the blind spot and asked this question.

Of course, Kirito is smarter in comparison. At least he has realized something and has not made himself unhappy in this way.

"No need, we've been sharing a room since we were on the fourth floor, Asuna-chan~"

Yuna sounded somewhat smug when she said this, even though she still blushed when she mentioned it now. In a sense, after the two had established their relationship, Yuna seemed to be much more proactive than Sorin.

“…Okay.” Asuna blushed instantly upon hearing such a bold statement, but only for a moment. After all, the focus right now wasn't on discussing this kind of topic.

Behind Sorin and his group of four was the large group of Edelweiss members. They were initially talking about different things, but Kirito wasn't the only beta tester in this guild, so after a while, the conversation naturally turned to the same topic: the puzzle game.

Actually, when it comes to Japanese games, besides big IPs like Dark Sword or Monster Hunter, there are numerous RPG puzzle games of various genres, such as Angels of Death and Witch's House. These are familiar to seasoned gamers, so they aren't averse to puzzle games.

The terrain design on this level is also very interesting. The entire city is divided into five major areas, represented by red, green, white, blue, and black, arranged in a specific order. The green area of ​​the sixth level is reached after exiting the connecting staircases between the fifth and sixth levels. The main city is located less than a kilometer outside the exit of these staircases.

When Kirito mentioned this order, he clearly thought about it for a long time. As a result, when Sorin heard him describe it, he immediately gave the answer: "Clockwise: white, blue, black, red, green".

"This is the color sequence imprinted in DNA. It's perfectly normal that you can't remember it."

This was Sorin's comment after giving his explanation. Of course, after this chat, everyone entered the city that seemed to symbolize wisdom. After opening the portal, they all rested and prepared for their turn.

Of course, Sorin was no exception. He glanced at his watch and realized it was already noon, so he decided to find a place to stay with Yuna on this floor first, and then discuss what to do next. Sorin hadn't been able to spend much time with Yuna before because of the red-name guild issue, but now he clearly had that opportunity.

Chapter 88, The City Lord's Request (Bonus Chapter 3/75)

The main city on this level is called Stacchion, and the most striking feature of the city is the grid pattern scattered across the ground, some with numbers and some without. These large grids are grouped into sets of nine, and each set of nine grids is a different color.

"This is a Sudoku puzzle. A Sudoku puzzle the size of an entire city... How long will it take to solve?" Sorin looked at the ground beneath his feet and couldn't help but sigh.