Accel World V22

1.
Sunday July 24 2047
NN were going to the place where the 4th 7 Kings Conference is going to be held in Chiyoda,they're talking about unimportant SoL stuff but they watched a recording of the all Japan gymnast competition that Risa participated in when her accident happened,Metatron contacts Haruyuki from the UNF (thanks to the 2 months UNF special training to stregthen Haru's connection to the former after yesterdays Territory War) to tell him to go to the UNF,with only 5 minutes before they arrive at the destination of the conference,Haru tells the others that he will be back in 1 minute and dives to the UNF.

Haru summons Metatron's 3D icon form who tells him to wait 30 seconds before her 2nd form arrives,It turns out thanks to Orchid Oracle messing with Transitions,it caused changes in the system which caused Metatron to get locked out of Contrary Cathedral and by extension,her 1st form so she needs a shelter where neither she and Burst Linkers can't disturb each other,Fuuko(who dived shortly after Haru to check on him) joined in the conversation and gave Metatron a spare key to her Player Home so she can stay there later.

The reason Metatron contacted Haru is because one of the Four Saints was asking for him so she takes him and Fuuko to the Highest Level where they meet Amaterasu and Rose Milady who wanted to get confirmation about Saffron's death from him,She and Oracle were one of Blossom's 11 Childs(who were themed after flowers),after Blossom was mercy-killed by Chrome Falcon she and Oracle joined Oscillatory Universe while the other 9 mysteriously disappeared and then 1 day even Oracle disappeared from Brain Burst.Milady always believed that when the method of reinstalling Brain Burst was found,Cosmos would bring Blossom back.When yesterday's Territory Battle was about to start Oracle suddenly came back to OU to her shock but immediately after OU lost the Territory War Megumi told her the truth about Falcon and Blossom's death which Milady refused to believe so she wanted to get a confirmation from Haru himself.After getting her confirmation Milady decided to do what she has to do for Blossom and Oracle's sake and leaves the Highest Level.After returning to RL,Fuuko tells KYH what happened(in which we also learned that KYH tried to convince Megumi to defect from OU and join NN but she refused out of guilt) before the 4th Conference begins.

2
The Stage for the 4th Kings conference is the Purgatory Stage and takes place in the same stadium where Taku's Kendo tournament is taking place,the Dualis Twins are responsible for opening the battle stage,the attendees from the Matching List are:
Nega Nebulous:
Black Lotus
Scarlet Rain
Silver Crow
Sky Raker
Blood Leopard
Lime Bell
Chocolate Puppeteer
Leonids:
Blue Knight
Cobalt Blade
Manganese Blade
Great Wall:
Green Grandee
Iron Pound
Suntan Schaefer
Crypt Cosmic Circus
Yellow Radio
Lemon Pierette
Aurora Oval:
Purple Thorn
Aster Vine
Oscillatory Universe
Ivory Tower

In this meeting the spokeswoman for NN is Rain and the merger between NN and Prominence is made known to the other non-OU Legions,Radio tried to start up shit concerning the merger and Rain's current position but later backed down because of Lotus.Lotus reported that the operation to identify ARS members in OU using the Territory War and the Matching List had "failed" which was supported by the twins which caused Tower to demand compensation by giving OU Shibuya,at this point NN reveals Puppeteer to activate her recording card(which can't be used if she's in the audience so the twins lets her join in on the battle stage as a participant) which actually recorded more than just Tower turning into his Vise form,it also recorded the Territory War being infested with Enemies and Metatron's intervention,and because it's impossible to fake the contents of a recording card this caused everyone to point fingers at Tower,even Grandee the silent one of the kings spoke up to reveal that he and Graphite Edge were searching for evidence of Black Vise and the whole NN vs GW battle in V18 turned out to be a set-up for all of this to happen.

Tower didn't even try to defend himself and revealed that the whole reason why they tried to invade Shibuya before Great Wall got the rights for them in the past was because their plan needed the 1st and 3rd districts of Shibuya to be under their control but because NN handed Shibuya to GW,the timetable for their plan got delayed by a year(Raker speculated that they were after Yoyogi Park)

After Tower's revelation,He proceeds to explain that while it's impossible to use Abillities,Special Attacks and Offensive Incarnation while you are an Audience and not a participant,there's actually 2 exceptions to this rule:the abillity to obscure other people's perception,amplified by the Incarnation System and the abillity to interfere with the system.

Even though no one has no idea what Tower is even explaining,Wolfram Disaster shows up and it turns out he was actually in the Matching List but Ivory Tower used Under Cover amplified by IS to make sure Cobalt didn't see his name,Blue Knight ordered Cobalt to kick Wolfram out of the Duel but Tower activates the new Cerberus III,Orchid Oracle on Wolfram's right shoulder who used Paradigm Breakdown to bring everyone to the UNF.

After the transport to the UNF is complete,Haru realizes the whole thing is a trap and tells Fuuko to get Chiyu and Nago out of the stadium while Mihaya gets Nico out of there,he then proceeds to fill up his Special Attack Bar as much as he can and flies Lotus and Thorn out of the stadium before a giant laser from a skyscraper destroys the stadium.Because Haru had no time to fill up the gauge he is unable to fly over tall buildings even while using Light Speed so Lotus and Thorn uses Vorpal Strike and Thorn Retribution(her Incarnation attack from Millennium Twilight) to destroy one such tall building so Crow can get past.

Crow rendevouzed with the rest north of the stadium and they decided to split into 2 teams:
Alpha team:Crow and Rain,deals with the one who destroyed the stadium.
Bravo Team:Lotus,Thorn,Bell,Raker,Leopard and Puppeteer
Before they split up,Thorn(who decided to join forces with NN to get out of the situation) fills up Crow and Puppeteer's gauge using Elementary Discharge which fills up other Burst Linkers Special Attack Gauge using her own with a bonus 1.6 multiplier increase,Puppeteer's share of her gauge was used to create 5 chocolate puppets to help rescue the others who were buried.

When Crow and Rain landed on the office building they were attacked by Argon Array who fired the giant laser and exposed her and Shadow Cloaker's positions in the process,Cloaker attempted to restrain Scarlet Rain by using Shadow Tie only to get interrupted by Crow and was finished off by Rain,Array makes a run for it as she needs a hour to shoot the giant laser again which is not something she can spam whenever she wants,she attempted to buy time by using Infinite Array to make sure Crow doesn't gain on her but he finds out that Infinite Array will only deal damage if anyone is in a close enough distance to her and the use of it to damage Crow was just a bluff to buy time,Crow then proceeds to equip Metatron Wings to kill her with a high-speed dive kick before she uses Infinite Array again.

Because of the use of Incarnation,many Large-level Enemies noticed and began moving from the south,Crow then notices from the remains of what used to be the stadium,the light that shows the appearance of a Death Marker has appeared.

Back to the Bravo Team,they and Puppeteer's chocolate puppets began the recovery work(no one died from Array's long range giant laser attack) starting with recovering Knight and Grandee from the rubble,then Pound and Schaefer,Aster Vine and Lemon Pierette were successfully recovered by the chocolate puppets,Thorn then takes an interest in the use of Puppeteer's chocolate puppets and flirts with the idea of scouting her from NN to Lotus's annoyance.

After the 5th puppet rescued the twins from the rubble,Wolfram Disaster shows up and just by hearing Vise's voice(Tower has the abillity to alter his own voice which is why no one realized Tower was Vise despite him speaking in keigo and having the nearly the same manners(Tower is more rude in his real form compared to when he is acting as Vise to the point even Thorn is annoyed with him,as shown in V17),immediately changes to Cerberus I and decapacitates Cobalt with her own sword,this angers Mangan who attempted to attack Wolfram only to get kicked into a nearby building which nearly reduced her health to 0,before Wolfram activates the stolen thrusters from Rain's Invincible to kill Mangan,Crow intervened from the sky only to get overwhelmed by Wolfram until Knight intervenes,Tower is taunting Crow in his Vise voice but no one knows which shadow he is hiding in.

While Knight is superior to Wolfram Disaster his habit of not using either Special Attacks or Incarnation Attacks until the opponent does ended up giving the latter a fighting chance.Grandee,Lotus,Rain,Thorn and Radio(who was invisible after getting embarassed by Lotus early in the conference) then intervenes in the fight and sorrounds Wolfram Disaster 6 to 1.

The 6 Kings and Wolfram(Cerberus I is still active) clashed in attack,at which point Vise uses his 3rd stage Incarnation,Icosahedral Insulation from the shadows which causes 20 5-meter triangles to appear from the shadows to form a black Icosahedron to trap everyone present there.

The forming of the icosahedron is impossible to stop and if the balance of the clash of the kings and Wolfram were to be unbalanced,a giant explosion would happen,Bell managed to push Crow outside the Icosahedron through an opening before the Icosahedron and the sound of an explosion was heard after he got out but as the Icosahedron was not transparent he could not identify if it was the result of the clash being thrown off-balance.

At this time,Raker who left early to keep watch on Argon's death marker noticed the formation of the Icosahedron,Icosahedral Insulation
is probably Tower(Vise Form)'s strongest 3rd stage Incarnation binding attack and there is no way Crow and Raker can even destroy it,also she speculates that because of the sheer size of the Icosahedron,Tower has to completely turn into the Icosahedron instead of just converting parts of himself into bindings.

While the 2 of them are trying to figure out how to get everyone out,First Seat of the Seven Dwarves Platinum Cavalier(also known as Bashful and Bassher(Destroyer in kanji,Bassher is ruby text)) shows up riding a Pegasus Enemy and informs them that the Icosahedron is indeed Tower himself and says that not even Tower deactivate Icosahedral Insulation once it's activated.

While Cavalier observes the situation,Haru gets the idea to push the Icosahedron to Array's death marker(which isn't considered a living thing so it won't get rejected by the panels when it dislodges one of it) so they can dislocate 1 of the panels to free everyone but before they can do it,Metatron contacts Crow from the old Tokyo Tower to warn him of approaching danger and to tell him to get out of there,Platinum Cavalier then summons the enslaved Sun God Inti using The Luminary loaned by White Cosmos to descend to the icosahedron from the sky to EK everyone trapped including Tower and Wolfram Disaster.

As Crow has exhausted his Special Attack Gauge,he then equips Metatron Wings to get him and Raker to reach the Icosahedron to get everyone out of there,Ivory Tower died just by being near Sun God Inti for 5 seconds and the Icosahedron was dismantled as a result,Crow thought everyone died as a result of the clash being unbalanced,but it turns out Grandee sacrificed himself to protect everyone except Wolfram Disaster and the only ones who died in the explosion was just him and Wolfram.

Lotus,Knight,Rain,Thorn and Radio decides to stay in the ring of fire created by Sun God Inti and works together to get everyone else out of there,Bell,Puppeteer,Mangan,Pound,Vine and Pierette successfully escaped as a result of the Kings teamwork to hold off Inti,while Leopard and Schaefer escaped by turning into their Beast Mode.

A total of 9 escaped from the destroyed icosahedron while the Kings are fighting off Inti and Platinum Cavalier mysteriously disappeared from the area,the Icosahedron escapees and Raker regroups to wait until Cobalt(whose Death Marker was outside the ring of fire created by Inti) resurrects and gets out of the UNF through the Leave Point in the 1st floor of Chiyoda's office building(so even though Paradigm Breakdown transfers you to the UNF,you can still log out through the Leave Point PROVIDED it is within Paradigm Breakdown's AoE)

After waking up in RL,Fuuko immediately disconnects KYH's cable to force her to Log out before she gets EK'd by Inti,another duel was held to reveal Kings's current status:
-Knight and the Twins were diving together and they have successfully disconnected the cable to force him to log out.
-Grandee was diving alone but he had a force disconnect insurance in case he ever got EK'd so he's fine.
-Rain was diving with Pard and she was successfully disconnected from the UNF.
-Thorn was diving with together Vine and she's successfully disconnected Thorn from the UNF.
-Again,Radio and Pierette were diving together and he's been disconnected from the UNF,it turns out he's actually Pierette's older brother and is probably her BB Parent.

From here everyone splits up,Chiyu goes to the stadium to check up on Taku,Fuuko leaves the stadium on her car,Haru,KYH and Nago goes back to their respective schools.

In the afternoon,it's revealed that while their school's Kendo team didn't make it to the top 6 when it comes to team matches,Taku actually entered the semifinals of the Kendo competition and earned the right to participate in the regionals so things are getting better for him,for now.

Haruyuki decided not to tell anyone that KYH is now in an EK situation with Sun God Inti to prevent everyone from worrying and going to the enclosed area to save the Kings in case Oscillatory Universe had another trap waiting in the situation where anyone escaped the trap and brought reinforcements,KYH requested Haru to go to her apartment for a talk in the evening to his confusion at the sudden request as when they were going to conference there was nothing odd with KYH.

There's some SoL discussion about finding a mate for the owl the school is taking care of and after everyone part ways,Haru goes to the convenience store to buy food for KYH before going to her apartment.

KYH was taking a shower when Haru arrived and he noticed that her eyes looked a little red before putting the food that he bought from the convenience store on the table,although KYH didn't look too different throughout the day until now,being EK'd isn't something to take lightly even if you are a Level 9.

Haruyuki tries to cheer up KYH and offers her the food he bought to comfort her,before Haru could leave KYH hugged him from behind.

The volume ends with KYH asking Haru to sleepover at her place for the day.