The sky tower opens and is added to UNF, as celebration BrainBurst held an special event, A race.
everything goes well till Black Vise and Rusted Jigsaw turns up to wreak havoc.
Rust is on the verge to kill Crow so he unintentional Equip the Disaster armor and beats Jigsaw
Lime Bell uses his time skills to bring back Crow from Chrome Disaster before this loose to insanity.
the later part of the vol is that after a conversation with Fukoo, Haru realize that her dream was not flying but going far beyond the sky (the space), so using the Sky tower and her wings, Crow carries Raker to the space, and make her remember her dream, allowing her too recover her legs.
(Explanation: by the time Fukoo got BB she had forgotten her dream to go to space but the BB program read it in her hearth, so she later misundertood her dream to go to the sky, that why she hated her avatar for not letting her go to sky and after Lotus cut off her legs she unconciously was using IS to block the leg from grow back)

Most of the 1st part is a Meeting of the 7 kings (Blue Knight, Green Grande, Black Lotus, Scarlet Rain, Yellow Radio, Purple Thorn, ..White King dont show up so it sends Ivory Tower as representative.
The mains topics in the discussion are A) After the incident in in the Space Race, IS (that its knowledge was to be keep just between kings and his more trusted ones) was show to a public of over 100 Linkers in the fight between Jigsaw and Crow, so whether they decide to make IS knowledge public and keep denying it.
B) Crow infected with Chrome Disaster, (The Disaster Armor was supposed to be destroyed of the hunt of the 5th Generation (Cherry Rook))
At the end of the meeting they give Haru 1 Week (I real time) to get rid of it or they will hunt him down.
The true reason why NN was disbanded: It was not only cause Black Lotus killed Red Rider, but also the raid fiasco to the Imperial Palace. which left Sky Racker without her legs, and Ardon Maiden, Graphite Edge and Aqua Current in EKmode.
Only Lotus and Raker could scape, the other 3 were saved but the auto log out program Hime made as a precaution, but they could not dive again to UNF ol will re-spawn in the Palace and being killed again
They meet Ardon Maiden IRL, a little girls called Utai, she cant speak.
Seeing the problem about The Disaster Armor, they decide to make a rescue mission of Ardon Maiden (her IS and skills allow her to Purify so they expect that would help em get rid of the armor)
The rescue team is Lotus, Raker, Crow and Bell, (taku is left outside so he could tell Utai when to dive to UNF)
The rescues goes well till a miscalculation in the spawning time of an enemy for Crow to grab Maiden and instead of run away dive into the Imperial Palace to hide.
In the Palace they meet Azure Heir a rare Avatar that have never step outside the Palace.
while in the palace they fight a high lvl Enemy, and are shown the Fluctuation Light (The last of the 7 arcs) but decide its impossible for even the 3 of em together to get it (the F.L is guarded by 8 Legendary lvl Enemies. to put on perspective, the only Linker knows to have been able to Solo a Legendary Enemy was Blue Knight..when he was a lvl 9 and had the Impulse...that where he got 1 of his Nicknames: Legend Slayer)

*Dont remember how or when between the rescue arc there is other one.

Takumu Cyan Plie is possessed by an ISS Plug-in, a parasite like program that Allow the user to use IS without the need of train, but also corrupts the mind of who uses it, this evolves in fight between Pyle and Crow.
Crow was winning till pile use an IS Laser and blow one of Crow arms.
Crow regrow this arm but as part of the Disaster armor and its on the verge to kill Pyle when the ISS parasite leaves Pyle and tries to attach to Crow.
With the help of Bell they get rid of the Parasite and go back to be BFF (Being Taku is Suffer)

Going back to the rescue*

Also the Imperial Palace is home of 2 other Arcs, The Destiny and The Infinity.
They learn the story about the originators (The 100 1st Burst Linker), the story of Saffron Blossom and Chome Falcon, the Origin of The Disaster Armor and the reason why IS was decided to be keep a secret from the regular Burst Linker.
In a last try to scape, Lotus and Raker distract Susaku (The God lvl Enemy that guard 1 of the 4 entrances to the Imperial Palace) while Crow scape with Maiden. he gives her to Bell and tell em to go to a log out portal, as he goes back to save Raker and Lotus, they both are on the verge to get killed when Crow grab em and scape, but Susaku chase em, Crow Flying ability is about to run out so he manage to use his IS to keep flying, and scape from Susaku.
Later he was supposed to meet with Ash roller but he never shows up.
The end of vol 8 we see as Ash Roller is being Killed.

It was proven back at the light novel thread that KYH is not Kirito's child. After all, Kirito and Asuna won't be such neglectful parents. But what if, they were but not alive. Essentially, KYH and her sister were taken in by relative of Asuna. Thus explaining, why KYH is well off. The reason of death of the original parents was because of an accident or related to GGO gunman case.

We have seen AI in Accel World in the form Ash Roller. There some evidence that Kayaba is now a digital entity given what happened at the end of ALO. It could be that Accel World is a creation of Kayaba in order make a new successor for his Seed since Kirito died. If remeber correctly, the reason why Kirito was exceptional was because of his reaction speed. So Accel World has two purposes: Experiment and Seed successor.

The programmer of SAO created Accel Word, and he became Green King. He already made several attempts with online games. In Accel World, Kirito became Kuroyukihime hime's sword master. He is one of few who could block Kuroyukihime's blade without getting asunder.

Kayaba wouldn't do that. The Green King is trying his best to preserve the Accel World as a player. It earned him the title of Yggdrasil. Considering Kayaba's M.O., I am pretty sure he would go for a more extreme approach.

As for Kirito, it was already discussed that Graphite Edge /= to Kirito. GE's mannerisms way too different from Kirito. Although, he has Kirito's special sword skill. It doesn't necessarily mean he is Kirito.