SAO 15 - Alicization Invading

by Reki Kawahara

  ***

  — Lipia.

  Before his Life ran out, Shasta called out within his heart the name of the only woman he ever loved.

  Lipia must have decided to assassinate the Emperor because she was desperate in realizing the arrival of the new age that she had heard from Shasta. Because she believed, as soon as the war of three hundred years ended and new laws and regulations were allowed to shine upon the Dark Empire, then the orphans, even those who would either starve to death or become temporary slaves would gain the privilege to live happy lives.

  — Fer Za.

  — You were defeated in the Youth School? You couldn’t swallow the loss, so you wanted to end yourself?

  — But, at least you had your opportunity. You had parents who paid your tuition, three meals every day, a warm bed and a shelter from the rain. In this world, how many more young lives had their lowest privileges stripped from them at birth, used like they were trash, and disappeared?

  — For this world, Lipia risked her life to correct it. I won’t let her Incarnation be in vain. Your pathetic little personal hatred will be——–

  “…OUT OF MY WAY!!”

  Shasta’s mouth, which was supposed to be completely numb, let out a terrifying roar; at the same time, a gray tornado spun high in the air from the Dark Knight’s right hand.

  This was Releasing Recollection of a Divine Instrument, only usable by a few within even the Integrity Knights. Shasta’s indomitable Incarnation began to directly rewrite the Main Visualizer that stored and calculated all information of the entire Underworld.

  The gray tornado already became type-less, pure destructive power that broke down everything it touched. With no time to evade, Fer Za’s thick black robe was surrounded by the tornado; with a dry noise, it was reduced to a cloud of dust and dispersed.

  The stark naked middle-aged man who was thin as a twig threw up his hands to cover his deteriorated face. But, his hands were quickly broken into countless pieces of flesh and blown around — then, his entire body became a thick mist of blood, swirling around in the air.

  ***

  In the instant that the strange tornado rose from dying Dark General, the strongest Dark Sorceress D.I.L. had an extremely bad feeling, and with both hands, generated Wind Elements and flew backward at full speed.

  But, as she saw that the tornado had touched her right leg, and that everything below her knee had vanished without a trace, that chilling feeling became the greatest shock she had ever felt in her life.

  Even when D was bathing or sleeping, she was protected by dozens of Defensive Arts. Apart from magical attacks, these Defensive Arts constituted an iron defense that was able to repel all forms of attack, such as projectile weapons, swords, and poisons.

  Of course, if the equal Priority ten Feudal Lords all attacked with maximum strength, there would be a chance of running through the shield and harming her skin. However, directly slicing away her physical body and Life just by touching it as if the shield did not exist, was impossible. Absolutely impossible.

  But, no matter how she denied it in her head, she still saw the deadly tornado bearing her down faster than her flying retreat, heavily impeding her right foot. A Sorceress like D could completely revive herself with Healing Arts no matter the extent of damage to her physical body, but only under the condition that she was still alive.

  “Hiih… AAH….!!”

  Finally, a shrill scream came from D’s mouth.

  But her voice was immediately drowned out by the shrieks of the two scrambling Goblin Elders.

  The Mountain Goblin Elder Hagasi and Plains Goblin Elder Kubiri, who had been kneeling at D’s left, ran for their lives on their short legs, wanting to escape the tornado. But it was impossible to evade the expansion of the tornado that could even overtake D, who was flying at top speed.

  “Kugyaaaaaah!!”

  With a grotesque noise, Hagasi slipped and fell onto the floor. He desperately stuck out his left hand and grabbed Kubiri’s ankle with a viselike grip.

  “Higyaaah! Leggo!! Le—!!”

  CRUNCH.

  The two Goblin leaders were effortlessly melted into blood mist and dispersed.

  CRACK.

  D’s right leg was blown away at the hip joint without leaving a trace.

  Her beauty severely distorted by horror and despair, the Leader of the Dark Sorceresses watched as — the expansion of the tornado miraculously stopped.

  Shasta’s collapsed body was no longer visible. Around there, the diameter and height of the erected obconic storm had already swelled to about twenty Mel. The other six Feudal Lords, who were further away, speedily retreated to the western wall, and the officers of the ten armies lined up south of the Hall closely avoided injury.

  Among her extremely chaotic thoughts, with her outstanding reasoning, D deduced the reason that the tornado’s expansion stopped.

  To protect the ten or so higher level Dark Knights. In other words, that tornado was created from Shasta’s willpower after all.

  As though it were proving this theory, the upper half of the tornado slowly changed shape.

  What appeared was the translucent upper body of a colossal man, made out of mist.

  Although it was huge, that was undoubtedly the shadow of Dark General Shasta.

  ***

  As Emperor Vector, Gabriel Miller couldn’t help but watch the erected tornado giant with an expression that looked like surprise.

  Publicly displaying the female assassin’s head,; the leftmost Knight drew his sword as soon as he saw it — everything was exactly the same as predicted up until there. To the man who wanted to slice towards Gabriel, the elder of the Assassin’s Guild used numbing poison or something to stop him; that didn’t seem out of the ordinary, either.

  Although it was different from his plan of beheading the traitor in one stroke and drive absolute loyalty into the nine remaining Units, a voluntary action to protect the Emperor could be judged as subservient.

  It was because of this thought that he still sat and observed the progression of events—

  But a gray tornado suddenly spun up from the fallen body of the Traitor Unit, and the Elder of the Assassin’s Guild who was surrounded by it and the two Goblin generals were destroyed in an instant; even Gabriel could not help but halt his thoughts.

  The General Units were supposed to be of the same level. Then, if they were to fight each other, it would supposedly be the same as duels in real-world VRMMOs: if someone’s HP dropped, it would heal back.

  But now, how was it possible that three Units were demolished in mere seconds? Could it be that there were systems or theories he himself did not understand in this «Underworld»?

  Just as he was thinking, the tornado giant opened its mouth and let out an earth-shaking roar.

  Under the intense pressure, most of the glass windows decorating the Throne Room shattered in all directions.

  The giant slowly clenched its frozen right fist—

  And brought it down crashing down towards Gabriel.

  Gabriel realized instantly that neither drawing his sword nor evading would have any effect. Glancing left in his vision, he saw adjutant Vassago simply raise and leap out of the way; Gabriel remained on the throne, quietly waiting for the gray fist that came smashing towards him.

  ***

  The Tornado of Death that was released because of Shasta’s Incarnation before he died was a phenomenon exceeding the estimates of the Underworld system.

  It was not measured attack power that decreased Fer Za’s Life and caused his death; [The Will to Die] was directly sent into the Light Cube: it first destroyed the Fluctlight and performed an inverse calculation, shattering the visual physical body.

  Therefore, the attack on Gabriel, or Emperor Vector, did not affect his Life.

  But, the murderous intent created in Shasta’s Light Cube was transmitted by the photon communication circuit to the STL that Gabriel was using—

  The fatal willpower of the one
called Dark General Shasta that only a handful of swordsmen in the Underworld could produce directly struck Gabriel Miller’s Fluctlight core — his «Self-Image».

  At this time, Shasta felt that he had already completely melded with the full-body strike that he had released, and shot into Emperor Vector.

  Suffice to say, the Life of his original body had already been exhausted. As described, this was the last sword of Shasta’s life.

  His only regret was that he could not see Integrity Knight Commander Bercouli once again. But, that man would definitely understand. The Dark General’s wishes, and why he killed the Emperor.

  Including the Assassin’s Guild Leader Fer Za, the two Goblin Elders, the most bellicose of the Ten Feudal Lords, had already died. It was very regrettable that the Dark Sorceress Leader D had escaped, but it would be impossible to rebirth with a severe injury like that. Along with the Dark Knight Commander, if even the Emperor died, the remaining Feudal Lords wouldn’t easily wage war against the Integrity Knights.

  If only an armistice, even a temporary one, could be established with the Human World inhabitants who had also lost their ruler, so that they could talk to teach other and understand each other without drawing swords.

  Hopefully from now on — the peaceful world that Lipia longed for can arrive.

  Fused with his Incarnation, Shasta ran through Emperor Vector’s forehead and entered the soul core within.

  If only that was destroyed, even if Vector was the God of Darkness, he would definitely and completely perish like Fer Za.

  With a silent scream, Shasta’s will collided with the Emperor’s soul—

  Then, he experienced the last shock of his life.

  Nothing.

  The soul core like a cloud of light, a place supposed to be filled with the essence of vitality, had only deep, deep darkness.

  Why? Even the soul of the recluse Fer Za shined brightly, dedicated to life to the point of greed.

  Shasta’s Incarnation was swallowed by the endlessly extending [Darkness] within the Emperor.

  It disappeared, then evaporated.

  — This person, this man…

  — Does he not understand what life is?

  A shining man who has no knowledge of life, a soul, or love. That’s why it’s hungry. That’s why it thirsts for the souls of others.

  No matter with how strong of an Incarnation, «The Sword of Murderous Intent» cannot kill this man.

  Because this man’s soul has ceased to live.

  It must be communicated. To whom? The person who will definitely fight this monster in the near future.

  Whom — To whom…

  But at this time, Shasta’s consciousness was covered by a bottomless abyss.

  … Remorse…

  … Lipia…

  After the two thoughts frayed apart, the soul of Dark General Biksul Ul Shasta was completely destroyed.

  ***

  When he was pierced by the overly intense light of a soul, Gabriel Miller was more joyful than frightened.

  The Dark Knight’s soul was filled with thicker emotion than the soul of the female assassin he consumed two days ago. Love for that woman — and an incomprehensible substance equivalent to kindness, more widely known. Also, the strong killing intent that was driven by this.

  Love and hatred. Is there anything more delicious in the world?

  At this time, Gabriel was completely unaware that he had exposed his own life to danger. Seeing three Units blown to pieces because Dark Knight’s attack, Gabriel thirsted more to swallow the Knight’s soul than to care about his own safety.

  If Gabriel had fought for survival because of fear of the Knight’s attack, Shasta’s murderous intent would have traveled through the STL, destroyed Gabriel’s survival instinct, and blown everything away along with his Fluctlight.

  But Gabriel Miller was a person who [did not understand life]. To him, including himself, all life was merely automatic machines the same as the many bugs he had killed when he was young. Gabriel’s actual wish was unlocking the [soul] that was the energy source of these machines — the secrets of the mysterious shining cloud.

  Therefore, the destroy signal created by Shasta’s Fluctlight simply floated past the extended emptiness within Gabriel’s Fluctlight and disappeared without any collisions whatsoever.

  Gabriel could not have known this theory, but as he chewed the Knight’s soul, he understood two matters:

  Firstly, in this world, there existed an attack method without weapons or incantations like normal VRMMO games.

  Secondly, this attack method seemed to have no effect on him.

  Later, he should get Critter to investigate the theory behind the phenomenon just now. As he thought this, Gabriel slowly stood from his throne.

  ***

  The surviving six Feudal Lords — Dark Sorceress Guild Leader D.I.L., Fist Fighter Leader Iskahn, Commerce Guild Leader Langel, Giant Tribal Chief Siglosig, Orc Tribal Chief Lilpin and Ogre Tribal Chief Filgul — stared stupidly up at Emperor Vector’s figure; some with their backs against the wall, some with their behinds on the ground, some tending to other’s wounds.

  All that remained in everyone’s heart was fear.

  Dark General Shasta’s terrifying super attack — a ghastly attack that instantly sliced three Generals to pieces and blew away the right foot of D, who was seen as the strongest among the ten Feudal Lords, harmed not a hair on the Emperor who took it head on.

  Power dominates all.

  Everyone deeply believed that Emperor Vector possessed power far insurmountable by the six Feudal Lords and the hundred officers awaiting orders behind them, combined.

  Like a rippling wave, all knelt down and submitted themselves before the Emperor. Even the Dark Knights who had their beloved Knight Commander killed were no exception.

  From above their heads, the Emperor’s voice reverberated.

  “… Troops who have lost their generals are immediately commanded by the next highest ranking officer. An hour from now, we shall advance as planned.”

  Words devoid of anger or denunciation towards the betrayal. This further provoked deeper terror within the general’s hearts.

  D, who had painstakingly stopped the bleeding on her right foot, raised her right hand and fingers high in the air, and shouted:

  “Long live His Majesty the Emperor!!”

  Then—

  Overlapping voices cheering for the Emperor shook the entire city.

  Part 5

  Alice looked around the interior of a camp tent prepared for herself, and sighed softly.

  A simple bedsheet was pulled straight, without a single wrinkle. The cashmere leather laid on the ground was also brand new, and the air had only a dry sunlit smell. There were no problems with these, but at the same time it signified that this tent was not hurriedly vacated for Alice. In other words, Knight Commander Bercouli had believed all along that Alice would join the battle, and specifically prepared an extra tent for a Knight.

  Although this proved that she was trusted, it would be better to say that man had thought of her own plans.