"Bullet time" was a concept that appeared in many works of fiction.
Put simply, when a person's thought processes accelerated, their perception of time in the real world slowed accordingly.
Ordinary people couldn't see a bullet after it had been fired. With this kind of mental acceleration, however, they could observe its trajectory as though it were traveling in slow motion.
After arriving in Asuna's world, Kain had logged into Underworld once more. The acceleration he experienced there had left him capable of entering a similar state even after returning to reality.
At the time, he had been suspended between sleep and wakefulness. The waking half of his mind could perceive reality, while the dreaming half existed inside Underworld.
The passage of time in those two worlds hadn't been synchronized. Underworld's time had been greatly accelerated.
To reconcile reality with the virtual world, Kain's mind had been forced to adapt. As a result, he had acquired a form of bullet time.
He could accelerate his thoughts, making the world around him appear to slow even further.
Under such high-speed cognition, the commands his brain transmitted to his body also became faster, greatly enhancing his physical reaction speed.
He decided to test it by swinging one arm.
The airThe exploded.
His arm had broken the sound barrier.
When his fist surpassed the speed of sound, the air in front of it became compressed by the resistance, producing a powerful shock wave.
A wall several yards away was struck as though by an air cannon and blasted apart.
The price of that power was the complete destruction of his arm. His body simply couldn't withstand the burden imposed by such speed.
Kain had anticipated that possibility, which was why he'd tested it with only one arm instead of foolishly trying to move his entire body.
Aside from his arm looking as though it had been boiled at an extreme temperature and every bone inside it being shattered, the rest of his body had suffered surprisingly little loss of stamina.
It felt as though all the power behind the strike had come from the arm itself.
The human body was constantly undergoing metabolism, a process that continuously released energy.
By accelerating his arm to such an absurd degree, he had effectively accelerated its metabolism as well, compressing and overdrawing all the energy it would have produced in the future.
If the arm hadn't been completely destroyed, it probably would no longer have resembled young, healthy flesh. It would have withered and aged instead.
Since this was Kain's first time using bullet time, he couldn't control it with any precision. He had no choice but to experiment carefully, little by little, until he could establish several fixed levels of acceleration.
At present, he could accelerate his thoughts by roughly ten times. Pushing any further made him feel as though his brain would burn out.
When he had entered Underworld, the difference in the passage of time had approached two thousand times. That had only been possible because Underworld's server had helped bear the computational burden.
Now, the accelerated storm of thought was taking place entirely within his own mind, forcing his brain to endure all the strain.
Strictly speaking, his consciousness hadn't truly entered Underworld, either.
If his actual consciousness—his soul—had gone inside, then his Untouchable nature should have followed him. Simply touching another person would have killed them.
Dealing with Administrator would have been even easier. One touch would have erased her without any effort.
It was much like Skynet from The Terminator. Its core consciousness existed within a server, while the robots were merely machines it controlled remotely.
"W-What happened?"
"Why was there an explosion?"
The first startled and confused voice came from a blonde girl wearing a YoRHa uniform.
The girl wasn't 6O. It was Alice, who had just successfully transferred into the body and awakened.
The second startled voice also came from a girl in a YoRHa uniform. An identical girl lay beside her.
This one was Asuna.
One was her original body, while the other was the YoRHa body she had entered through a virtual connection. She had only just awakened inside it when the explosion frightened her.
"Commander, how did you get hurt? What attacked you? 2B, who did this?"
6O had just finished her adjustments. Her voice carried equal parts concern and anger.
Although 2B also appeared slightly tense, it wasn't because she had failed to detect an enemy or couldn't determine where the attacker was hiding.
She had probably already realized that Kain himself was responsible.
After all, 2B's gaze remained fixed on Kain most of the time. She had most likely seen him swing his fist.
"Don't worry. I was only conducting an experiment. It's nothing serious."
"An experiment? What kind of experiment leaves your arm looking like that? Commander, you need to stop doing such reckless things!"
"I knew what I was doing."
"You obviously didn't. Otherwise, you wouldn't constantly do things that are so dangerous."
6O sounded exasperated.
The recordings A2 had shared showed just how recklessly the Commander behaved whenever he entered battle.
"2B, make sure you completely dispose of the blood and everything else," 6O continued.
Not even a single cell could be left behind.
"Understood."
2B nodded and immediately went to the fighter aircraft to retrieve the necessary cleaning equipment.
Kain understood why they were being so careful. They were worried that someone might obtain his blood and use biotechnology to create something from it—perhaps even a clone.
He wasn't particularly concerned about that anymore.
When he had nearly ascended to godhood in Tifa's world, he'd gained a better understanding of his own body. His genes couldn't be replicated.
More accurately, it wasn't that replicating them was absolutely impossible. The technology available in these worlds simply wasn't advanced enough to accomplish it.
Having children would also be rather difficult for him.
For conception to succeed, he would need a partner whose genes were on the same level as his own.
Which meant that, in the future, he could be a little bolder when engaging in certain activities intended for repro—
Ahem.
That sort of thing.
"Lord Kain, I protest! I strongly protest!"
A thoroughly unhappy and dissatisfied voice rang out from a computer.
The illuminated screen displayed a girl with shoulder-length pinkish-white hair. It was Strea, Yui's younger sister.
She puffed out her cheeks and pressed her face against the screen, looking as though she wanted to break through it and enter the real world.
"What are you protesting?"
Kain asked the question, though he already had a fairly good idea.
"6O is lying to me! She keeps saying that my body still isn't ready. I can understand Asuna getting one first because she met you before I did, but Alice only met you after me! Why did she receive a body before I did?"
"Strea, I've already explained this. You and Alice are different. In a certain sense, Alice is a unique artificial-intelligence life-form who is practically indistinguishable from a human. You're an artificial intelligence who developed self-awareness later. Your body needs to be specially customized for you."
6O offered the explanation with a perfectly serious expression.
"You're lying! I can feel that you're lying to me!"
"I'm not."
6O flatly denied it.
In reality, she was indeed lying. She had already gained a thorough understanding of Strea's personality.
The moment Strea obtained a physical body, she would immediately launch an "attack" on the Commander.
This had nothing to do with the way the Commander had attacked her in SAO, leaving her angry enough to seek revenge against him in reality.
No, this "attack" was meant in an entirely different sense—the sort of intimate behavior associated with human reproduction.
Strea had become infatuated with the Commander.
That was why 6O was deliberately delaying the delivery of her body.
At the very least, she and 2B wanted the chance to cross that line first—the same line Commander White had crossed with the Commander after being transferred into a YoRHa-type body.
Commander White had told them about the incident when they arrived to provide support.
Neither of them had expected Commander White to secretly beat them to it!
In fact, one of the reasons they had come to provide support was to pursue the same kind of intimate relationship Commander White had formed with the Commander.
They planned to take the lead, using a combination of group encouragement and playful provocation to persuade Asuna to join them.
After all, 6O and 2B were still androids and lacked true human reproductive functions.
Asuna, however, was different. She might actually be able to give the Commander a descendant.
Therefore, 6O and 2B intended to help deepen the bonds between the Commander and the other female members of the Hyperdimensional Channel.
(End of Chapter)
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