[Comprehensive] Light and Shadow

SwordArtOnlineAugust 2024, 8

Nalos, the city of mirror images on the [-]th floor, the so-called mirror image means symmetry, and the two worlds are completely axisymmetric.Just like the title of the city of mirror images, the whole city is traversed by a wide river, and the opposite bank of the river is completely symmetrical, not only the structure of the houses and the streets and alleys, but even the snow-capped snow-capped mountains surrounding the town are indistinguishable.

The clear river is like a mirror, separating the whole city but completely corresponding to it.Logically speaking, if it is really symmetrical, then there must be two mazes that need to be cleared, but what is incredible is that this level of the clearing team has not discovered the existence of the maze area.

This is the first time in history that the location of the labyrinth area has been completely hidden in the city of mirror images. Obviously, what all players think of is to find breakthroughs from the differences in the mirror images.

The most obvious difference is that there is a bridge across the river, and a sleeping mermaid is engraved on the stone bridge.The mermaid is the only asymmetric pattern in this world, so the mirrored city is divided into the front of the mirror and the back of the mirror according to the face and tail of the mermaid.

[Whether to accept the TROHS mystery shop mission: Get the flower in front of the mirror in Nalos, the city of mirrors on the [-]th floor. 】

After the strategy group broke through the 69th floor and reached the 47th floor, Kirito has been looking for the flower in front of the mirror.If it was a mission of the mysterious shop, Kirito didn't think that this item could be easily obtained from the towns in the circle.The only possibility is to get it from the practice area outside the circle by fighting monsters, or you can get flowers on the top of the mountain like the [-]th floor of the memory hill.

In any case, Kirito was not sure if there was only one flower in front of the mirror, so he had to go to the practice area at the snow mountain in front of the mirror before the strategy group set off.

The snow-capped mountains are composed of layers of large and small semi-circular white hills and steps. The snow is covered on the hills, and every step seems to sink in, like pure white cotton wool.On some trapezoidal rocks, there are natural pools gathered one after another. The water in the pool is the purest blue, and it just pours down from a high place. From a distance, the blue water seems to be falling from the blue sky. Yes, it looks extraordinarily sparkling against the white snow.

But when the blue water was picked up by the hand, the water turned transparent, and then slowly shattered into ice from between the fingers, and the shattered pieces fell into the pool. The pool is like a shooting star.

Such a beautiful scenery can only be seen in such an illusory world.

Even so, Kirito didn't have much time to linger on the scenery, and suddenly there was a roar of a beast in his ear, and a huge snow-white beast suddenly jumped out of the snow.

Covered in pure white fur, with a strong and huge body, every step on the snow-colored rocks has a heavy sound and the sound of stones breaking. At this moment, the ferocious face and sharp teeth seem to deliberately highlight the For the strength and terror of the beast.

The snow under his feet suddenly collapsed, Kirito held his sword tightly and frowned, more and more leopard-like beasts jumped out, surrounding Kirito in the middle, biting their sharp teeth fiercely, their scarlet blood eyes could be seen He stared at Kirito in horror.

Suddenly the surrounded boy moved, his nimble and flexible body quickly shuttled through the wild beasts, and the sound of the blade tearing the air was faintly heard in his ears.The black shadow in the white snow moved at a speed that was indistinguishable to the naked eye, and the black sword in the right hand split the beast's body smoothly and fiercely with the movement of the body, turning it into pieces.

The boy's dark gray pupils were focused and cold, and every movement of his arms made the air tremble.

All the way to beheaded fiercely, countless monsters rushed in front of Kirito, and fell under his sword countless times, like an irreversible cycle of reincarnation.

Until the top of the mountain, Kirito finally saw patches of small green fields on the top of the snow mountain.In the pure white all over, the touch of green looks extraordinarily verdant, and clusters of small white flowers grow on the small piece of green land.

Those flowers are soft and slender, and the transparent petals seem to be scattered with fine shards of light, but despite this, compared with the beautiful and illusory scenery in this virtual world, this flower is indeed too ordinary.

This is the flower in front of the mirror, right?

Kirito knelt down on one knee and reached out to pick off a small flower, but when his fingers touched the petals, the petals withered instantly, shriveled and withered at a speed visible to the naked eye, and then the petals of the flower were scattered in the air one by one. It fell slowly, but it was shattered into white snow in the wind, and then fluttered and disappeared in the air.

The boy's pupils tightened suddenly, and he looked in surprise at the flowers that had disappeared under his fingers. What's going on?Kirito's hands trembled, and he looked intently at another flower, tentatively and cautiously stretched out his hand, but the moment he touched the flower, the pure white flower quickly withered and withered and turned into white snow scattered in the wind middle.

Untouchable flowers?

If you can't touch it, how can you get the flower in front of the mirror?

"Kirito, what are you doing?"

Suddenly hearing the voice of the young girl Qingling coming from behind his ears, Kirito turned his head in surprise, and saw Asuna slowly walking towards him as expected.The beautiful girl was wearing a pure white and bright red knight-style battle uniform, her light golden-brown hair fluttering slightly in the breeze, and the girl walked over with a slightly puzzled expression.

"Asuna, why are you here?" Kirito looked at Asuna walking beside him in surprise, and it was even more strange that Asuna, the deputy head of the strongest guild, came here alone. .

"Let me see if there are any clues to the maze." Asuna glanced at Kirito's face from the corner of her eye. She hadn't seen Kirito since the Smiling Coffin Annihilation Battle.As long as I think of Kirito's pale face when he left that day, I feel a little worried and uneasy. When I heard that someone saw Kirito coming to the mountain in front of the mirror, I followed him.Seeing that Kirito was fine now, Asuna secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and turned her attention to the clusters of small white flowers in front of Kirito.

"Are you looking for flowers?" Asuna looked at the flowers that grew safely in the snow mountain with even more doubts. The petite and pure white flowers really looked a little too pale in the snow.

"Don't touch!" When Asuna reached out to touch Xiaohua, Kirito grabbed Asuna's hand suddenly.

Asuna froze, looking at Kirito's hand covering her own with trembling golden pupils, even though Kirito was wearing gloves, the temperature of the fingertips seemed to warm in the cold snow. conduction.

"Sorry, I, I just wanted to say that this flower will wither when touched, so..." When Kirito found Asuna staring at him holding her hand, Kirito suddenly realized and let go immediately Asuna's hand, hastily explained.

Asuna lowered her hand slowly, but her movements were a little stiff, the girl pursed her lower lip, and shifted her gaze to other places unnaturally, but a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.

"Is this flower related to the labyrinth area?" Asuna quickly pretended that nothing happened, and looked at Kirito with a normal face. After all, Kirito couldn't rush here to see flowers for no reason.

"No, this is the mission of the TROHS mysterious shop, I accept." After hesitating slightly, Kirito told Asuna all about the mission, after all, it was nothing worth hiding.

"So, you accepted the quest because you wanted to know the name of the shopkeeper?" After listening to the narration, Asuna looked at Kirito suspiciously. Just for the name of an NPC, Kirito would accept such a vain task. Intelligence mission?If this is the case, Asuna frowned slightly, "Are you an idiot?"

"..." Kirito looked at Asuna's undisguised look of contempt, and was speechless for a moment, he was regarded as an idiot.

A biting cold wind blew past, white snow rose from the upper layers of the hills, and the temperature around him became a little colder.Kirito noticed that the body of the girl beside him trembled slightly, Asuna rubbed her arms with her palms, and looked at the snow-covered surroundings with a little wandering eyes.

Kirito turned his head to look at Asuna's exposed skin, probably feeling extremely cold but holding on to it.

"Let's go down the mountain first." Kirito stood up helplessly and patted the snow on his body.

"You gave up on this mission?" Asuna looked at Kirito strangely, and stood up.

"I can't think of a solution for the time being. Let's collect some useful information in a few days before coming back." Kirito replied while drawing out the item bar with his hand, and took out a black cloak to cover Asuna's body.

Asuna's body froze, she looked at Kirito helplessly.Asuna, who was already about to take out her own equipment, also slowly withdrew her hand. The girl lowered her head slightly and pulled the cloak, muttering something softly to herself.Then Asuna raised her head, pretended to be natural and said, but glanced to the side, "Then let's go."

In the vast white world, although the figures of those two people were so small that they seemed to be swallowed up by the pure white, but walking with each other like this, it looked as if they would continue to walk to the end of the world like this.

Far away, at an unknown time, there was a person standing quietly beside the flower in front of the mirror.

The man was wearing an oversized dark robe, half of his face was covered by the brim of the hat, and the other half was wearing a dark gray mask. He just stood alone between the sky and the earth, watching silently until the two people in his vision The figure of the person is completely hidden.

After a long time, the man finally squatted down slowly, looking down at the small and delicate white flowers in full bloom.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

The clear and faint voice of the young man was blown away in the wind, as if the young man was asking the clusters of little flowers.The breeze lifted the wide brim of the hat a little, revealing the clean and bright purple eyes under the young man's purple hair.

The purple-haired boy stretched out his right hand with a fingerless glove, and slowly touched the transparent petals with his index finger.The petals withered quickly, unlike the result of Kirito's touch, even if the fingers were moved away, the clusters of white flowers fell into crystal stars one by one, and then quietly turned into white snow in the breeze Fly away.

In the end, the small clusters of flowers disappeared, leaving only the withered yellow grass lifeless and wilting on the ground.

The boy's fingers were stiff like that, trembling a little, and finally retracted his fingers slowly.

The flowers are all gone, so I can't tell him my name again.

"Kitaya Kazuto..."

——But, he still remembered his name.

The purple-haired boy lay curled up on the snow, but his empty purple pupils just stared at the withered grass lightly, as if he could see the flowers blooming again just by looking at it like this, but the boy's body was gradually covered by the snow. cover.

His vision gradually blurred, and he could faintly hear the sound of walking on the snow from behind, step by step calm and slow, and finally the footsteps stopped behind the boy.

"Are you lost?" The voice of the man behind him was low but gentle.

The curled up body of the boy on the snow was carefully held horizontally by the man. The boy's hand slowly grabbed the corner of the man's bright red clothes, and he snuggled into the man's arms like a child. Closed, as if about to fall asleep.

"Sleep, you'll be home when you wake up."

Hearing these words, the young man seemed to be relieved at last, and closed his eyes Shen Shen, but he never let go of his hand holding onto the clothes.