Chapter 490 - 478: Who is Real and Who is Fake?

Chapter 490: Chapter 478: Who is Real and Who is Fake?

In the real world, twenty-eight days had passed since all the players became trapped in Sword Art Online.

A sense of irrepressible anxiety filled the air of the Aiselan Kingdom.

In the Royal Capital Square, the same crowds that had once cheered for Sword Art Online now gathered in silence, their faces etched with waiting and torment. For the families of the more than five million players, every minute, every second, was a death by a thousand cuts.

Meanwhile, in Aincrad, on the ninety-ninth floor.

"ROAR—!"

With a final, defiant roar, the colossal dragon skeleton collapsed, shattering into a storm of data fragments.

Yak, the leader of the Blood Alliance Knight Order, stood drenched in blood, leaning on his broken broadsword and panting heavily. Behind him were the last survivors of the front-line assault team—fewer than three hundred players. Every one of them was injured, yet their eyes shone with a startling brilliance.

Before them, a crimson portal leading to the one-hundredth floor slowly spun. It was the final, fatal trial.

In the Cybertron Main Control Room, Allen watched this scene with calm detachment.

[Report to Commander: Boss AI difficulty for floors ninety-five through ninety-nine has been lowered by an average of 17.3% as per the preset plan.]

[The assault team’s arrival time at the final area is consistent with the projected timeline.]

[Two days of buffer time remain on the real-world side, sufficient for completing the final data collection.]

Allen waved his hand lightly, zooming in on the image on the light screen. The grand "death march" he had personally directed was precisely timed to end at this final moment.

To the outside world, it had been twenty-eight days on the brink of life and death for 5.17 million people.

For him, it had been twenty-eight days of harvesting a complete technological loop powerful enough to rewrite the very form of life.

Now, only the final piece of the puzzle was missing.

...

「Two days later, in the game world.」

The assault team, having rested and regrouped, stepped through the crimson portal. The three hundred surviving warriors were filled with a near-tragic sense of finality.

They were the last hope for over five million people, and every single one of them was prepared to die taking the final boss down with them.

The light faded, but the hellish scene they had anticipated did not appear.

Before them was a grand palace, so vast and empty it was unsettling.

Above, streams of light flowed like a river of stars across the dome. The floor was paved with a single, enormous slab of dark red crystal, smooth as a mirror.

In the center of the palace, there was no terrifying demon lord, no roaring beast—only a hundred-meter-tall, black, mirrored Obelisk, standing in silence.

It seemed to have existed there since time immemorial, silently reflecting the figure of every intruder.

The players exchanged glances, tightened their grips on their weapons, and approached cautiously.

The moment Yak stepped within a hundred meters of the Obelisk, a system prompt rang out in everyone’s mind simultaneously.

[Welcome to the final destination, the Red Jade Palace.]

[The final trial begins—defeat yourself.]

[The first person to defeat their ’mirror image’ will be the one who clears the game.]

Dead silence.

After several seconds of silence came a wave of incredulous, cathartic joy, like that of disaster survivors.

"Defeat... ourselves?"

A Mage muttered to himself, then burst into laughter. "That’s it? It’s... that simple?"

"My God! I thought it was going to be a World-Ending Ancient Dragon or something!"

"This is Lord Wesley’s mercy!"

Yak raised his legendary longsword, his voice trembling with excitement. "He’s given us a fair chance! A chance we can win!"

"Long live Lord Wesley!"

"We can go home!"

Cheers echoed through the empty palace.

After enduring a month-long bloodbath and watching countless comrades "permanently disappear" in boss fights, this final stage, which could only be described as a "bonus," caused everyone’s mental pressure to instantly evaporate.

Fighting yourself?

The odds were at least 50/50! No, even better! Who knows you better than you know yourself?

They were heroes fighting to save five million people. That conviction was their strongest weapon!

As long as one person could defeat themselves, the mission would be cleared!

Morale was at an all-time high.

Just then, the central Obelisk let out a low hum. Hundreds of beams of light shot out from it, enveloping every player.

The next second, the world spun.

When Yak opened his eyes again, he found himself in a separate space made entirely of white light.

Ten meters in front of him, a figure was rapidly materializing from streams of data.

The exact same crimson Knight armor, the exact same broadsword, the exact same scars and bloodstains. Even the look of determination and exhaustion in its eyes was identical.

Another "Yak" was staring at him coldly.

"Come on," Yak growled, charging forward first.

The battle erupted in an instant.

The moment they clashed, he realized something was wrong.

The mirror image’s blocking angle was identical to his—this wasn’t mimicry, it was synchronization!

When he subconsciously feinted, his opponent had already sidestepped in anticipation.

For his usual combo of his third move followed by his seventh, the mirror image assumed the perfect counter-stance the instant he began the sequence.

Thirty moves later, Yak hadn’t landed a single blow.

Cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck.

’This thing across from me... can it really read my thoughts?’

He thought to cut to the right; the mirror image cut right at the same time.

He thought to retreat and create distance; the mirror image retreated as well. The two were like a person facing a mirror with zero latency.

Room 42.

A shield guard named Gray was locked in a stalemate with his mirror image into the seventh minute.

He executed a feint—deliberately exposing a weakness in his right side to bait his opponent into stabbing.

The mirror image didn’t fall for it at all. It dodged the attack with a move Gray knew all too well, while muttering a phrase.

"Martha... bless me, give me strength."

Gray’s hair stood on end.

Martha.

That was the name of his three-year-old daughter.

He had never mentioned that name to anyone in the game.

"You..." Gray’s voice trembled. "How do you know that?"

What terrified him to his core was that the mirror image’s face showed the exact same look of utter shock and horror as his own.

It looked at Gray and asked in the same trembling voice:

"What are you talking about... That’s my daughter."

---

On Cybertron, Allen calmly watched the hundreds of simultaneous "self-duels" on the light screen.

[Report to Commander: The "self-backup" experiment has been fully initiated.]

Jarvis’s voice rang out.

[Recording data on the logical conflicts arising between ’self’ and ’backup’ driven by the survival instinct.]

[Some players have become aware of the truth about the "clones." Captured 73 instances of cognitive dissonance regarding ’memory ownership’ and 12 instances of logical wavering on ’self-existence.’ The data model is iterating at high speed.]

This was Allen’s final experiment. The "clones" the players encountered were clones in the truest sense—perfect backups copied from the soul level.

Only the winner of the duel could return to their physical body.

From Allen’s perspective, each pair consisted of two identical people. It didn’t matter who won.

Once a soul is perfectly replicated, the original and the backup are indistinguishable on a data level.

But for the two individuals fighting, with both believing they are the original, would either one let their opponent go back and occupy their body?

Two identical consciousnesses, possessing the same memories, the same personality, the same obsessions.

When placed in a "kill-or-be-killed" cage to fight for the sole "right to exist," what brilliant sparks would fly from their collision?

Who is the original? Who is the backup?

When both firmly believe they are the "real" one, who gets to make that definition?

"Continue recording."

"This is the most precious data on the boundaries of ’humanity’."

He watched the players who were fighting with all their might to prove they were the "real" one.

They had no idea that from the moment the backup was created, the distinction between "real" and "fake" had already lost all meaning.

"If one day, I were to face the same situation," Allen mused, watching the bloody self-slaughter on the screen, "between the original Allen and the backup Allen, who would have the right to press the delete key?"

In the game, Yak’s battle had also reached a stalemate.

He and his mirror image were like two identical caged beasts, tearing at each other in a frenzy, only to inflict the same wounds upon one another.