Chapter 22

Even knowing it wasn't what I should be doing, I couldn't help but wait there

and watch the aerial battle between Eolyne and Istar.

Unlike when I fought with Gabriel, there was no flashy, wild maneuvering

here. If you ignored the fact that they were standing over nothing but a sea of

clouds, it almost looked like an ordinary swordfight—except that all the attack

and defense was augmented with Incarnation.

In other words, when guarding against the opponent's attack, if their mental

image was even a fraction of a second late to bolster the sword, it would break.

The same was true when attacking, too. No matter how fast you swung, if your

imagination didn't keep pace with it, the other sword's block would cause your

own to snap.

They were in an ultrafast exchange of blows, perfectly synchronizing and

controlling their mental images at the same time. It was impossible without

years of training. I certainly couldn't switch my Incarnation on and off this

smoothly. It was an entire suite of Incarnate techniques; it made me want to

call it the "Incarnation System."

And then, between the blinding exchange of blows between the two, there

was a brief opening.

After a quick pause, Eolyne and Istar screamed together and erupted into high

slashes like mirror images of each other.

"Haaaah!"

"Shieeea!"

Blade clashed with blade, creating a shock wave that seemed to flicker the

very air itself. I could make out the tiniest little gap between the two swords, in

fact. In that space was their Incarnation, each battling to destroy the other's

sword.

The instant the pressure crossed its limits, the two were both knocked

backward with a horribly grating metallic scrape.

The fight was even for now—but I was worried about Eolyne's strength, as he

had been comatose just minutes earlier. Istar had mentioned something about

Eolyne not being any sturdier. If they had known each other since childhood,

then it would seem to confirm my fears that Eolyne was simply born with a

weaker disposition.

In the mechamobile on the way to Central Cathedral, Eolyne had said that he

won the Unification Tournament when he was sixteen. Going by their

conversation, his opponent had been none other than Istar. That would make

this, in fact, a duel between the greatest swordfighters in the Underworld to

determine who truly stood at the pinnacle. It certainly didn't make me any

more eager to interfere, but also, this was not a sporting competition. I had to

step in and neutralize Istar when I saw the chance, before Eolyne ran out of

strength.

My attempt at capturing via Incarnate wall was easily eroded, but there were

plenty of other things I could do. If I shot a single heat element while they were

locked together, it might distract Istar and allow Eolyne's slash to get through

and destroy that saber.

I'll intercede on the next contact, I decided.

And just at that moment, several things happened at once.

First, two non-Avus dragoncraft took off from the runway below. They rose in

a big arc, small and speedy. Probably fighters.

Next, the Avus began to proceed from the taxiway to the runway. They had

finished loading the craft.

Also, deep underneath the base, a huge mass of heat and wind elements

activated all at once.

The cloud of elements rapidly grew in pressure—and clearly not for energy

supply purposes. As Eolyne hinted at, it was a means of eliminating the base—

they were going to blow up that entire massive structure. But most horrifying of

all, there were still over twenty staff members inside.

The fighters coming up from the right were probably backing Istar. Deal with

them, prevent the Avus from taking off, and stop the base from exploding…

There was absolutely no way I could do all these things on my own.

Eolyne and Istar opened space between them and readied their swords over

their right shoulders. A yellow-green glow infused the blades—the cue for a

sword skill.

There was only one thing I could do.

I pressed my thoughts into a supercharged, accelerated state. What was the

highest priority? Supporting Eolyne, fighting off the attackers, blocking the

Avus, or preventing the base explosion?

I thought I heard a voice.

I leave this to you now…Protect this…world…and its…people…

Words I'd heard long, long ago from the overseer and protector of the

Underworld, the little sage Cardinal.

I kept those words close to my heart when I fought Administrator and Vecta.

But the danger had not left this world yet. Since logging back in, I had been

maintaining a kind of observational attitude, a distance between myself and the

Underworld. But I had once fought for its sake, and the memories and feelings

of the people who placed their hope in me before they left would never

disappear. For the sake of Asuna and Alice, who put their trust in me when I left

the cathedral, I had to do everything in my power.

Asuna…Alice…Cardinal.

Three faces passed through my mind, and in that instant, one single, absurd

idea audibly clicked into place.

If Alice and Asuna were here right now, we could handle all these issues.

Of course, they were watching over Central Cathedral on Cardina, tens of

thousands of miles away. It took an hour and a half for the X'rphan Mk. 13 to

make the trip flying at Mach 300.

But with the sacred art of doors (teleport gates), which Cardinal had

mastered, you could ignore physical distance. And really, the Underworld's

version of "distance" wasn't even the same as actual space in real life.

I didn't know the sacred art formula to create a gate, of course, but Cardinal's

old familiar, Charlotte, had told me that all sacred arts were merely tools for

guiding and aligning Incarnation. As long as you imagined it hard enough, you

could produce elements without speaking the command. Why not teleport

gates?

I took my eyes off Eolyne and looked straight upward.

Cardina and Admina were rotating in the same direction at the same speed,

but Cardina's Centoria and Admina's Ori were on opposite sides of their planets,

meaning they were in a constant state of approaching and withdrawing. This

was the time of day when Centoria and Ori were closest.

Just as Earth looked from the moon, the morning sky here contained a

massive planet, half of it shining blue. My current location wasn't that far away

from the city of Ori, so…

I saw it.

An artificial inverse triangle of a land mass. Red earth, with a brilliant green

circle in the upper left, surrounded by white mountains. That was the human

realm. In the middle was Centoria, and in the middle of that was Central

Cathedral. I couldn't make it out with the naked eye, of course, but I could

imagine it in my mind.

Using the spatial resources provided by the morning sun, I generated a vast

amount of crystal elements and compressed them into place, into a single great

door.

Underneath the translucent, crystalline door, I created a thin circular platform

about twenty-five feet across. All this took one second…and in the next, I

envisioned the figures of Asuna and Alice on that distant planet.

But they were not on that planet. They were just beyond the see-through

door.

Distance does not exist here.

The morning light seen through the crystal door rippled like a disturbance in

water.

On it appeared the vague image of two people wearing blue pilot uniforms I

recognized—and just like that, I opened the door with my mind.

The pale, wavering image suddenly gained color and clarity. It was not a

video. Through the crystal door, the fields of Admina and Central Cathedral on

Cardina were connected.

"Asuna! Alice!" I bellowed for all I was worth, manipulating four kinds of

Incarnation at once while the two were busy with some task. "Sorry! Help me

out!"

If it were me in there, it would have taken ten seconds at bare minimum to

recover from the shock, recognize the situation, judge that it was not a trap,

and then go through the door.

But it took Asuna and Alice no more than half a second to react. They bolted

into action without the slightest hint of doubt.

They came through the door one at a time, ran a few steps onto the clear

platform, and stopped. There was nothing around but the dawning sky and the

clouds below. That had to be a shock, for sure, but they didn't stop there.

"What should we do, Kirito?!"

"Asuna, make that entire base down below float into the air! There's a bomb

underneath it that's about to explode!" I shouted, using a fifth line of

Incarnation to sweep away an entire mass of clouds. It revealed the land below,

where staffers were scrambling to evacuate the building, but there couldn't be

more than ten seconds left until the blast.

Praying there wouldn't be any casualties, I gave my next order.

"Alice, stop that huge dragoncraft! Just don't destroy it entirely!"

The Avus was already accelerating down the runway. It was too late to stop it

from taking off, but Alice would find a way to deal with it.

"You certainly do like to ask for the absurd!" the knight hissed, but drew the

Osmanthus Blade from the left hip of her blue uniform.

"I'll find a way!" added Asuna. She was dressed the same way, but she did not

draw Radiant Light, her pearly rapier. Instead, she lifted the large kitchen knife

in her right hand.

Everything happened all at once.

Alice pointed the Osmanthus Blade straight ahead and shouted, "Enhance

Armament!"

The Integrity Knight's secret art of Perfect Weapon Control activated, splitting

the golden sword into a plethora of flower petals. They shone in the early sun,

turning into a surge that shot downward to the surface.

Below, the Avus had just taken off from the runway. The flames of its engines,

three under each wing, were long and red. It was rapidly gaining altitude.

From directly above, the flowers attacked, splitting into two streams that

rushed after not the body or the engines but the flaps on the rear of the wings

that controlled lift. The little mechanisms were gone without a trace.

There were no air molecules in the Underworld's atmosphere, but the

dragoncraft flew on essentially the same logic as flight in the real world. Having

lost the flaps, the wings didn't have enough lift and couldn't rise, but since the

wings themselves were intact, the craft didn't just go into a nosedive.

The Avus unsteadily drifted back down and made an unplanned landing

surrounded by yellow flowers. This time a swarm of real flower petals billowed

up as it slid several hundred yards, then came to a stop at an angle.

Asuna pointed the knife in her hand toward the base and shouted, "Ready,

set—!"

A rainbow of light touched down out of the sky and wreathed the massive

structure.

There was a strange sound somewhat like a chorus of angels, and the gray

building wrenched loose of the ground. The officers still in the process of

evacuating jumped out in a panic, while others who didn't make it in time

rushed back inside the building for safety.

Asuna's super-account for the goddess Stacia had powers of unlimited terrain

manipulation. In the fight against the Abyssal Horror, she summoned a colossal

meteor, and in the Otherworld War, she created a crack in the land several

miles long. Lifting a single building was nothing compared to that.

Once the base had lifted off the ground in the rainbow aurora, I could see that

the elongated basement portion made it look like a vertical rectangle. If the

self-destruct mechanisms with the heat and wind elements were attached to

the foundation, they'd need to be removed, but fortunately, they had been

buried even deeper into the soil.

When it was entirely free, she announced, "There we go!" and slid the knife

to the right. The building followed suit, and a few seconds later, a giant gout of

flame belched up from the dark hole left behind in the earth.

The two craft that took off before the Avus continued their rapid ascent,

seemingly unbothered by the instant whisking away of the clouds.

I could sense intuitively that the people sitting in the cockpits of the

dragoncraft were Istar's personal servants, Sugin and Domhui.

They had a form factor similar to the Keynis Mk. 7, except that the color was a

dark matte gray, with no insignia or numbers of any kind. The large cannons

jutting from their undersides were already glowing with heat elements.

I'd handed over the task of stopping the Avus and preventing the base from

being blown up to Alice and Asuna so I could control the fighters with

Incarnation. But if I tried to grab them flying at that speed, it would cause them

to crumble to pieces and possibly explode their sealed canisters. I didn't want

any casualties if I could help it…and just like clockwork, they read my mind and

opened fire on us.

The rapid-fire heated projectiles weren't aimed at me, nor were they aimed at

Eolyne or the platform Alice and Asuna were standing on. They were focused on

the black serpent, which was floating some distance away.

"Huh…?!" I yelped, and only barely intercepted in time. Nearly ten heatelement missiles collided with my Incarnate wall, creating a large orange

explosion in the air.

Sugin and Domhui must have known that the Divine Beast was still

unconscious. And they aimed at it anyway? Perhaps they had some strategic

reason for needing to kill it, rather than letting it escape with its life.

In any case, I couldn't let them attack the Divine Beast.

I'm borrowing your sword, Eugeo, I thought, and pulled the Blue Rose Sword

from my right side.

With the blue crystal tip pointed right at the dragoncraft, I shouted, "Enhance

Armament!"

The sword took on a pure-blue shine, erupting with light that turned into ice

thorns that twined and tangled as they bore down on the dragoncraft. The two

craft quickly split left and right; the vines separated to follow as well. Just

before making contact, they spread out like nets that caught and clung to the

steel bodies.

The dragoncraft gunned their engines in the hopes of escaping the vines, but

that didn't last for more than a second. With a heavy thud, a block of ice that

came from seemingly nowhere enveloped the rear of the craft. It was growing

bigger by the moment, until it had swallowed up the entire interior of the hefty

fighter jets. Without their means of propulsion, the two craft fell toward the

ground, spinning out of control.

The Blue Rose Sword's Perfect Weapon Control could wrap players in a big

chunk of ice and neutralize them, as well as protect them. Nothing short of a

truly extraordinary weapon or physical shock could break that ice. You'd need

the same priority level as the Blue Rose Sword to destroy it, or else use

Incarnation.

The two flying icebergs dropped to the ground far below, bounced and

tumbled violently, then came to a stop embedded in the slope of a tall hill.

There wasn't a single crack in the ice, so the aircraft inside were totally

unharmed. Sugin and Domhui probably got wickedly dizzy, but wouldn't have

suffered much.

The Avus's crash landing, the explosion in the base's footprint, and the attack

and crash of the fighters all happened at the same time.

But in their midst, Eolyne and Istar did not lose the slightest ounce of focus.

They held the Sonic Leap skill in their swords, waiting for the moment to

arrive.

As I'd experienced many times before, when two combatants were evenly

matched, it was often the case that you couldn't strike when facing off. The one

who got impatient and moved first usually lost. Once in that situation, it was

simply a battle of perseverance.

On top of that, they were both using Incarnation to stay still in the air. If this

were ALO, they would be expending their flight gauge at every moment. Even

the greatest Incarnate expert would eventually reach their limit, and in that

sense, Eolyne was probably at a disadvantage because he had passed out after

using Hollow Incarnation twice inside the base.

That was my reasoning for interfering with an elemental attack.

At the time I turned back after neutralizing the fighter craft, they were still at

a standstill. Grateful that I was still in time, I held up my hand and made to

generate a heat element that would distract Istar—when I felt someone gently

hold back my hand.

It wasn't Asuna or Alice. They were still busy with wrapping up the Avus and

base.

It wasn't Eolyne, either. All his attention was on Istar, and he likely didn't even

see me.

Instead, my eyes dropped to the Blue Rose Sword in my left hand.

The blade, still in Perfect Control mode, sparkled with white particles like

diamond dust.

Through the wavering haze, I thought…I saw someone's figure…

"Lord Eolyne!" someone shrieked, ripping through the dawn.

It was Stica. She was peering through the still-open crystal door, maple-red

eyes wide.

Then the swordsmen moved.

They activated the Sonic Leap each had been holding and burst forward,

leaving yellow lines behind them in the air, crossing the gap instantly, swinging

saber and longsword.

There was a tremendous double ring of light and vibration that spread

outward to rock the atmosphere.

Two sword skills, bolstered by Incarnation, each vying to crush the other.

Power beyond limits was compressed into ultrafine bolts of purple lightning

that surged repeatedly from the nexus point.

The standstill of immense power against power broke in a shocking way:

Eolyne's longsword and Istar's saber simultaneously crumbled to pieces.

They didn't cleave in two, but instead shattered into hundreds of tiny bits that

sparkled and flew. The energy, now unleashed, caused a tremendous explosion,

knocking back both combatants.

"Eolyne!"

I bolted forward and caught the pilot commander, propping him up with my

right hand. There were a number of fine cuts on his chest and arms, but none

seemed serious. He was also quite conscious still, and nodded that he was all

right.

The remnants of light in the air soon faded, leaving only Istar floating twenty

yards away.

Istar did not seem seriously hurt. But after the destruction of the saber, their

Incarnation had to be heavily expended. There was still that gun, but it couldn't

possibly have more power than the heat-element guns on the fighter craft.

We, on the other hand, had Asuna and Alice. Istar was undoubtedly powerful,

but there was no way to even break free and escape from the three of us

together, much less beat us all.

Eolyne straightened and stepped away from my arm, his feet firm on the air.

"I'll say it again. Surrender yourself, Kouga."

Istar's red lips curled into a faint smile. "I'm glad to see you haven't lost your

touch, Eol." Then the smile vanished. They brushed the shards of metal from

their coat. "But you're still just as naïve. You won't beat me unless you can

overcome."

Their hand a blur, Istar moved swiftly to pull out the black pistol.

I wasted no time in deploying an Incarnate wall in the midpoint between

them. Istar could slip through the wall in person, but surely a bullet wouldn't

have the same power. Let them fire all their bullets first, and then I could

physically apprehend them…

But Istar instead pointed the gun straight upward and, to my shock, said,

"Enhance Armament."

With a loud clank, the black gun changed shape and emitted crimson light

from the cracks.

Perfect Weapon Control.

Meaning Istar's main weapon wasn't the shattered saber, but the gun…

Red light poured from the muzzle when the trigger was pulled, penetrating

the wall of Incarnation and spreading in a spherical shape.

There was no heat or pain when the light passed through me. Instead, I was

assaulted by the unpleasant sensation of cold hands caressing my soul.

Immediately, I was reminded of when Mutasina's suffocation magic affected

me in Unital Ring. The effect itself was completely different, but there was a

similarity in their menacing, curse-like nature. What was the effect of this—?

The answer came before I could finish wondering the question.

First, the crystal door I generated vanished, along with Stica's face peering

through from the other side.

Asuna and Alice screamed and began to fall. I tried to lift them back up with

Incarnation, but at this point Eolyne and I were falling, too.

No matter how hard I demanded it, the drop would not reverse itself. My

imagination was being canceled out, just before it could overwrite the rules of

the world.

An Incarnation-nullification zone. That was the nature of Istar's Perfect

Weapon Control.

But then Istar shouldn't be able to fly, either. I looked up, searching, and

found a black shape plummeting elsewhere and moving fast. Istar's arms were

pressed flat to their body in a skydiver's pose, intentionally adding speed.

Their destination was the two dragoncraft that had crashed on the hill to the

north. Because of the Release Recollection art, the ice had already melted, and

both craft were opening their canopies. Was Istar going to take Sugin and

Domhui and then escape? But if they hit the ground at that speed, even Istar

wasn't going to survive.

The answer was actually much simpler than that.

Just before Istar would have slammed into the ground, they used wind

elements rather than Incarnation, generating and bursting them to create a

blast of air to cushion the fall and land safe and sound.

After a quick spin, Istar took off running toward one of the pilots tumbling out

of their dragoncraft—I guessed it was Domhui—grabbed his arm and rushed

toward the other craft. Once Sugin was up on his feet, Istar pulled both of them

up the hill.

For a brief moment, Istar turned back to watch Eolyne fall. But it was so far

away that I couldn't make out any expression on that beautiful face.

The three of them crossed the line of the hill and went out of sight.

Then the two dragoncraft promptly exploded. Sugin and Domhui must have

activated a self-destruct mechanism. The Incarnation-nullifying bubble ended at

the top of that hill. Once there, Istar could resume Incarnation flight.

Unfortunately, we didn't seem to have any means to prevent their escape.

The bigger problem was our continued plummet toward the ground. Asuna

and Alice weren't screaming anymore, but they were looking at me expectantly,

thinking, What now? Since I couldn't use Incarnation here, I'd have to keep

falling and cancel out the impact the same way Istar had.

I was just about to tell the others to prepare some wind elements—when a

long, black, tubular object came soaring upward from below and caught me and

Eolyne. The tube continued toward the girls and picked them up, too.

At five feet across and at least sixty feet long, the flying object was none other

than the black serpent kept captive inside the base—the Divine Beast. At some

point, it had awakened from its coma, flown through the Incarnationnullification zone, and come to save us.

On the end of the snake in the direction we were moving was a slight bulge

for the head. A tiny black snake was stuck to the top, its tail wriggling

energetically.

The Divine Beast descended close to the ground before floating upward again.

That was when I noticed the crew of the crashed Avus and the other base

staffers who had escaped the explosion watching us in amazement.

"…Eo, what should we do about them?" I asked.

The pilot commander shrugged. "We'll have to leave them here for now. As

long as we've got the large dragoncraft and the base itself, we have plenty of

evidence of their conspiracy."

"Good point…"

About ten feet behind us were Asuna and Alice. They were still having

difficulty grasping the situation. I walked carefully along the smooth scales of

the Divine Beast's back to approach them.

Asuna asked, "Kirito, what is this giant snake?"

"It's apparently a Divine Beast that's been living on Admina."

"Divine Beast?!" shouted Alice. Her blue eyes sparkled, and she knelt down to

caress the scales. "I've never seen a living Divine Beast before. Uh…if you don't

count the Abyssal Horror, that is."

"That probably doesn't count." I chuckled. Then I straightened up and bowed

to the girls. "Alice, Asuna, thank you for helping us. It would have been pretty

bad if you weren't there."

"You're entirely welcome, of course, but that door—," Asuna started to say.

But she was cut off by a sonorous, echoing woman's voice inside my head.

"Dark King, where wouldst thou have me take thee?"

"Wh-what?!"

I looked around for the source of the voice. Belatedly, I realized that it

belonged to the Divine Beast.

The base was now far behind us, and we had left the nullification area. We

could fly with Incarnation at this point, but I wasn't opposed to getting a ride.

"W-wait a minute!" I shouted in the direction of the beast's head, then

deployed some Incarnate radio waves in the direction I was guessing. The

response was immediate, so I pointed ahead and to the left. "Fly us over there!"

"Over there" was a very vague order, but the Divine Beast changed direction

at once. We flew over yellow flower fields for several minutes until a very small

hill appeared. Without even needing the order from me, the serpent rose to the

top of the hill and came to a gentle landing.

The four of us hopped off its back and turned around a short distance away.

The Divine Beast's massive length coiled into a pyramidal mound, and it looked

down at us with three eyes.

"Thou hast my gratitude for freeing me and my child from that prison, Dark

King," said the ringing voice in my head. The child was surely the little black

snake now riding on the Divine Beast's head.

Istar's group had forced the Divine Beast to give birth, then turned the

children into bio-missiles. I couldn't have guessed how many had been

victimized this way until I got here, and I didn't want to ask.

"Uh…we're the ones who should be thanking you. Humans like us inflicted

those terrible things on you, but you saved our lives anyway. Thank you."

Asuna, Alice, and Eolyne joined me in bowing.

"I am well aware that thy kind contains both the virtuous and the wicked.

Those who captured me will one day pay the price for their deeds."

"We'd be glad to help," I offered, raising my head. I got the impression that

the Divine Beast smiled somehow.

From the rear of the giant coil, the pointed tip of its tail came reaching over to

me. A leather bag was tied to the tip with string.

"Take this."

"Huh? Wh-what is it…?"

"Thou gavest it to me thyself, many seasons ago. Thou saidst that when thee

returned after time's passage, I should relinquish it to thee."

"...!"

I held my breath. If this was true, then when I was the Star King, I had left

something behind in the anticipation that I would one day return to the

Underworld.

"I was meant to gift it after thee had crossed the planet hither and thither,

completing numerous ordeals…but having found ourselves in each other's

company this way, I cannot begrudge thee this early bequeathing. Take it."

The tail stretched out farther, so I grabbed the bag with both hands.

The tip of the tail slipped out of the rope knot and returned to the coil. If I

were to interpret the Divine Beast's words, it seemed His Majesty the Star King

had left something of an epic questline for me to complete, at the end of which

I was meant to encounter the Divine Beast. But Istar captured the beast, and I

had just rescued it, so the quest was all for nothing. A part of me was

disappointed, I would admit, but the part that thought I had just lucked out was

ten times as big.

"Until we meet again, Dark King…White Queen, Golden Knight, and Blue

Swordsman," the Divine Beast announced. The baby snake atop its head added

a spunky hiss for good measure.

The pitch-black serpent lifted its long body and curled upward into the sky.

When it had reached a distant height, it shot off toward the sun with

tremendous speed.

No one said anything for several moments. It was Alice who eventually broke

the silence.

"…What is that, Kirito?"

"Oh, this. I think it's…"

I undid the rope around the mouth of the bag and reached inside. What I

pulled out was a box about eight inches to a side, made of some mysterious

material that seemed like it could be either glass or metal. There was nothing

written on the outside, but I was certain I knew what it contained.

"This is the sealed chest, Alice. Everything about the Deep Freeze art is

contained in here."

"Wha…?!"

She put her hands over her mouth. Her sapphire-blue eyes were full of

rainbow color.