Sword Art Online Integral Factor - The Demon Lord Of Aincrad - On Hiatus -

Chapter 1 - Darkness (Edited)

If you want me to narrate Kayaba's Cliffhanger speech to you, ask Kirito. I ain't got time to narrate that madman's words, couldn't back then and still wouldn't now.

Actually, you know what.. I might as well revisit the catalyst for this ****.. because hey, wouldn't be an Aincrad story without mentioning that ******'s speech, would it? I know I sound crazy, but hey. There are a lot of crazy people in this world, and to be fair, at this point, the developer of Sword Art Online, despite being an absolute genius, definitely counts.

Before Kayaba decided to shatter everyone's spirit inside the game with that speech, my friends and I weren't too worried about there not being a logout button. We figured it was a bug in the code that would be shortly fixed. Boy, how mother******* wrong were we, by far. As soon as it passed 5:30, we were all teleported back to the starting point of the game, the Town Of Beginnings, which was a prophetic name both for what we thought of the game and what actually occurred. Everyone else was there, but up in the sky.. the entire sky was red in a sort of checkerboard pattern. Clearly noting the English text in there, I made out the words "Warning: System Announcement".

So being the idiot that I was then, I thought oh, a system announcement. Guess the developer realized or heard of the bug and wanted to apologize and fix it.

No ******* dice at that at all. Sure, Kayaba did show up, in a ******* red robe and being sixty feet tall, but what he had to say threw everything I had expected about this day completely out the ******* window.

"Welcome to my world, dear players."

"His world? The **** is he talking about?" Crawford, my best friend, said next to me.

"I have no ******* clue, Crawford. Let's hear what he has to say" I replied as Kayaba kept talking.

"My name is Akihiko Kayaba. As of this moment, I am the only human being alive with control over this world."

Everyone else, including my friends, was shocked. But not me, because those two sentences told me all I needed to know. The no logout button part wasn't a bug at all.. it was an intentional ******* feature planned from the start. I clenched my fists in anger and held myself in check as the developer of Sword Art Online, now slowly turning into the man I hate the most, continued to speak. His next words did for everyone else what his first two sentences had already confirmed for me, about the no logout button not being a bug but a feature of Sword Art Online.

"From this point onward, you will be unable to freely log out of this game until the summit of this castle is conquered."

Again, everyone was confused, except me, since I had bothered to look up information on this game before getting it along with my friends, so I knew that Kayaba was referring to the 100th Floor at the top of Aincrad. In simple terms, you defeat the boss there, you go free. Never-mind the fact that this meant defeating the 99 Floor Bosses before it though, which from what I have heard, even the Beta Testers never made it that far. It sounded simple in my brain.. until he added the next part, which made my blood run cold.

"Furthermore, the NerveGear cannot be removed or shut down via external means. If forceful means of exit are attempted.." he paused, though I reckoned, rightfully, that the consequences were not good, which they weren't at all. "..the high-powered microwaves emitted by the NerveGear will scramble your brain and shut down your vital processes." In other words, the NerveGear became a kill switch if someone tried to remove it. Hopefully my parents, and those of my friends, are listening to this madman. After someone yelled out his puzzled thoughts a few minutes later, Kayaba got a bit specific.

"To be more specific, the brain-frying sequence will commence upon any of the following circumstances: ten minutes of no external power; two hours of network disconnection; removal, dismantling, or destruction of the NerveGear. The authorities and media of the outside world have already announced the details of these conditions to the general public." So at least my parents, and my friends' parents, know of this. A slight comfort, honestly.