“Kgyaaa!!”

  Hagashi slipped and tumbled to the floor with a hideous shriek. With his outstretched left hand, he caught Kubiri’s ankle like a vise.

  “Hiyeaaah!! Let ’ooo!! Let g…”

  Splurch.

  The rulers of the goblin tribes turned into bloody mist.

  Zhurnk.

  The remainder of Dee’s leg was blown to pieces.

  Before the eyes of the dark mages guild’s chancellor, her beautiful features twisted with shock and terror, the whirlwind’s expansion miraculously came to a stop.

  Shasta’s fallen body was no longer visible. The inverted cone of his raging storm was already a good twenty mels across and in height. The five lords who’d been far enough away had retreated to the western wall. The other military officers lined up along the south end of the chamber were safe, too, but just barely.

  Dee’s mind was beset by confusion, but she had just enough rational power left to vaguely understand why the whirlwind had stopped expanding.

  It was protecting the dozen or so high-ranking dark knights in the room. The whirlwind was something created by Shasta’s own will.

  As if to back up her suspicion, the upper half of the whirlwind began to change shape. It formed a man’s torso made of translucent mist.

  While it was incredibly huge, it was also clear that it was a representation of Dark General Shasta.

  Gabriel Miller stared up at the oncoming tornado giant with something that indeed resembled shock.

  When he had revealed the assassin’s head, he’d expected that the knight on the left end would draw his sword in response. When the head of the assassins guild used some kind of poison to paralyze the man who tried to attack Gabriel, that was not exactly a shock, either.

  His plan was to crush the traitor at once and instill absolute obedience into the remaining nine. That wouldn’t happen now, but a spontaneous act of protecting the emperor was worthy of praise, he decided, so he allowed events to unfold.

  But then, a gray whirlwind suddenly erupted from the fallen rebel unit, and it obliterated the head of the assassins guild and the two goblin generals in an instant. That caught Gabriel off guard.

  The general units should have all been roughly equal in status. So if they fought one another, it shouldn’t be quick. It should be a long series of chipping away at HP and healing, back and forth.

  But three units had just been destroyed in mere seconds. Perhaps there was some kind of logic to the Underworld that neither he nor Critter understood yet…

  At that point, the giant in the whirlwind opened its mouth and let loose with an earthshaking bellow. Unable to withstand the intense pressure, a majority of the glass windows around the royal chamber gave way and broke outward.

  The giant lifted a fist the size of an engine block—and swung it down at Gabriel.

  It was pointless to block it with his sword, and he could tell that there wasn’t enough time to evade it on his feet. Noticing Vassago leaping nimbly out of the right corner of his eye, Gabriel stood at the throne and awaited the gray fist.

  The deadly whirlwind of Incarnation that Shasta produced in his final moments transcended even the system of the Underworld.

  He did not eliminate the life value of Fu Za and the goblins with numerical attack power to kill them. Instead, he forced the mental image of death directly into their lightcubes, thus destroying their fluctlights—and in reverse order, this caused their flesh to be obliterated.

  So his attack against Gabriel similarly had no effect on Emperor Vecta’s vast store of life.

  But the aura of death that Shasta’s fluctlight produced passed through the quantum circuits and into the STL machine where Gabriel’s organic body lay—and so the pure concentrated bloodlust of Shasta, the dark general, one of the greatest warriors in the Underworld, scored a direct hit on the core of Gabriel Miller’s fluctlight: his ego.

  In the moment, Shasta’s consciousness fused with his unstoppable attack, so that he felt as though he were plunging inside Emperor Vecta.

  It was clear that the life of his actual body was long gone. Shasta knew this was the last attack he would ever make.

  He regretted that he would never fulfill his promise to cross swords with Integrity Knight Bercouli again. But the man would understand. He would know what the dark general wanted, and why he struck back against the emperor.

  He had killed both Fu Za of the assassins guild and the two goblin chiefs, who were the most combative of all the lords. It was a shame that Dee, chancellor of the dark mages guild, had escaped, but she could not recover instantly from such a terrible wound. If the head of the dark knights brigade and Emperor Vecta himself both died, the remaining lords would surely reconsider their final war against the Human Empire.

  If they could just form a temporary truce with the people of that side, who had recently lost their own ruler. If they could trade words instead of blows, perhaps some common understanding would arise.

  And he could only hope that somewhere down that line, the world of peace that Lipia had desired would arrive.

  Completely fused with his Incarnation, Shasta split Emperor Vecta’s brow and plunged into the core of the soul that existed within. If he destroyed this, even the god of darkness would be erased just as completely as Fu Za and the rest of them.

  With a silent roar, Shasta’s will collided with the emperor’s soul—

  Only to be met with the final shock of his life.

  Nothing.

  At the center of the cloud of light that was the soul, the place where the pure essence of consciousness and being should have been, there was nothing but dense, choking darkness.

  But why? Even the soul of Fu Za, the recluse, had been glowing with a perverse fixation on life.

  The infinite darkness at the center of the emperor swallowed Shasta’s Incarnation.

  He was vanishing. Evaporating.

  This…this man…

  Does he not know life?

  A man who knew nothing of the shine of life, of soul, and of love. No wonder he was starving. No wonder he wanted others’ souls.

  No matter how powerful his ability to Incarnate, no sword built of murderous anger could defeat this man.

  The man’s soul was dead, even as it lived.

  He had to tell someone. Whoever was fated to fight this monster in the future.

  Someone…someone…

  But that was the moment Shasta’s consciousness was enveloped in the infinite abyss.

  ………Alas………

  ………Lipia………

  And with that final thought, the soul of Vixur ul Shasta, general of darkness, was obliterated at last.

  At the moment of that overwhelmingly powerful soul shine piercing him, Gabriel Miller felt more joy than fear.

  The dark knight’s soul, even more than the woman’s he’d devoured two days ago, was brimming with thick emotions. Love for the woman. And a kind of beatific love that was much broader in nature and harder to understand. And using those as a source of power—an untamed drive to kill.

  Love and hatred. Could there be anything more delicious in this world than those two concepts?

  Gabriel was completely unaware at this time that his own life was in terrible danger. Even after seeing the three units fragged to pieces by the dark knight’s attack, Gabriel was more interested in devouring the knight’s soul than in his own safety.

  If Gabriel feared the attack and wished for his own survival, Shasta’s deadly drive would have crushed Gabriel’s instinct for survival through the STL and, by extension, obliterated his fluctlight itself.

  But Gabriel Miller was a man who did not understand life. To him, all life, including his own, was like that of the many insects he slaughtered when he was a young boy—automatic and mechanical. All he wanted was to unlock the secrets of the soul that powered the machine—that mysterious shining cloud.

  So the destructive signal of Shasta’s fluctlight simply passed through the empty void at the center of Gabriel’s fluctlight and vanished without colliding into anything at all.

  Gabriel had no way of knowing all this, but as he chewed on the knight’s soul, two things stuck in his memory.

  First, that there were ways of attacking in this world beyond just the weapons and magic spells of normal VRMMOs—and that this kind of attack did not have any effect on him, apparently.

  He would have to make Critter study the logic of the phenomenon he witnessed, Gabriel thought. He slowly rose from the throne.

  The six surviving lords—the dark mages guild chancellor, Dee Eye Ell; the head pugilist, Iskahn; the leader of the commerce guild, Rengil; the giant chief, Sigurosig; the orc chief, Lilpilin; and the ogre chief, Furgr—were either pressed back against the wall or flat on their backsides or attempting to stanch their bleeding. But all of them were staring up at Emperor Vecta.

  The only feeling in their hearts at this point was fear.

  Dark General Shasta’s stunning mega-attack, which had reduced three of their number to a bloody mist in an instant and ripped off the leg of the fearsome mage Dee, had not left so much as a scratch on the emperor.

  The one with the power makes the rules.

  It was clear to the six lords and hundred-plus officers behind them that even if they all fought together, they could not overcome the power of Emperor Vecta.

  Like a wave rippling across them, they all bowed their heads, signaling acquiescence to the emperor. Even the dark knights brigade, who had just witnessed their beloved commander’s death, were no exception.

  The emperor’s voice rang out loud and clear over the scene.

  “…For each army that has lost its general, the next-highest officer must immediately take command. We will begin the march in one hour, as planned.”

  He did not rage about the outlaw or point a finger in blame. This fact only brought a fresh wave of fear to the remaining officers.

  Dee finally succeeded in stopping the bleeding of her leg. She thrust her hand high in the air, fingers splayed, and shouted, “Long live the emperor!!”

  After a brief pause, voices echoing her cry poured forth from the crowd over and over, a flood of sound that threatened to shake Obsidia Palace to its foundation.

  5

  Alice looked around the tent that had been assigned to her, and she sighed.

  The simple bed was neatly turned down, and the sheepskin leather on the floor was brand-new. Even the air inside smelled of sunflowers. That was all well and good, but it was clear at a glance that this tent had not been hastily arranged for her after her arrival. Commander Bercouli had prepared for her presence and ordered an extra knight’s tent in advance.

  Perhaps she should have taken it as a sign of trust, but knowing what the commander was like, it was hard not to feel like he could read her mind and actions like a book.

  No—that couldn’t be entirely true. Even the commander hadn’t seemed to guess in advance that Alice would be bringing Kirito along. There was only one bed in the tent.

  She brushed Kirito’s back, leading him over to the bed to sit down. Instantly, the young man was moaning, trying to reach out with his left hand.

  “Yes, I know, just a moment.”

  She hurried back to the pack she’d set down by the entrance and pulled out two swords, one black and one white. Then she went back and laid them across his lap. Kirito put his arm around the swords and became quiet.

  Alice sat next to him and thought as she removed her boots.

  She’d told Eldrie that if necessary, she would fight with Kirito strapped to her back, but if it actually came to that, it would be difficult to do. Kirito alone was scrawny enough, but the weight of both the Night-Sky Blade and the Blue Rose Sword would limit her mobility in battle.

  She could leave him on Amayori’s saddle, but there were dark knights on the other side who hunted dragons, so air battles were likely. She wanted to keep her mount’s burden as low as possible.

  Sadly, the most realistic option at the moment was to leave Kirito in the care of someone back in the supply train during the battle. The problem was whether she could find someone trustworthy enough in time.

  The Integrity Knights that she knew were, of course, all going to be in the midst of the fighting, and she didn’t know a single soldier among the common people. She also wasn’t in the state of mind to ask Eldrie to point her to a suitable person.

  “Kirito…”

  Alice stared at him right in the face and brought her hands up to cup his cheeks.

  She was not going to treat him like a burden. If he could just get his old self back, he would be the best possible protector of the realm that anyone could ask for. She had brought him here to the brink of the battle because she thought there might be a chance it would be the spark that healed his mind.

  Commander Bercouli claimed that Kirito had deflected the Incarnate Sword he’d hurled. Even in his current state, he had tried to protect Alice, supposedly.

  Should she believe that?

  When they first met at Swordcraft Academy, they were apprehender and criminal. When they met again on the eightieth floor of the cathedral, they were executioner and rebel. Even in the moment they traded their final words on the top floor, the most favorable view one could take of them said they were potential enemies in the midst of a truce.

  If he hasn’t had his mind ever since that battle, how is it that he tried to protect me from Uncle’s sword technique?

  Tell me…what do you think of me?

  Her question bounced right off Kirito’s lightless eyes and back to her. What did she think of this young man?

  If there was any single word she’d felt about Kirito in the cathedral, it would probably be detestable. Before and since, no one else had ever called Alice Synthesis Thirty an idiot so many times.

  But the way Kirito had looked in the final battle, as he’d bravely stood up to the all-powerful Administrator…

  The sight of the swordsman—black cloak flapping in the buffeting wind, a sword in each hand—had made Alice’s heart tremble. It was a powerful image, one that pierced her chest with sadness.

  She still felt it in her chest, a bittersweet throbbing.

  But she was afraid to learn the reason for that and thus kept her heart shut tight.

  I mean, I am only a creation. A puppet created to fight, occupying the body of Alice Zuberg. I am not allowed the luxury of possessing any emotions aside from the will to battle.

  But what if…?

  What if my voice isn’t reaching you because I’m holding myself back?

  If I unleashed the Incarnation of all my being, would you respond in kind?

  Alice sucked in as much air as her lungs could bear and held it.

  Kirito’s cheeks were cold in her hands. No—it was her palms that were hot.

  She drew his cheeks closer and stared into those black eyes right in front of her. Dark as midnight. But somewhere in the distance, she felt she could make out tiny, blinking stars.

  She stared at those stars, getting closer, closer…

  At the abrupt tinkle of a small bell, Alice leaped back into a standing position. She looked around the tent in a panic, but no one else was there. Finally, she realized that it was the bell on a string attached to the entrance flap of the tent.

  There was a visitor. Alice cleared her throat, straightened her hair, and crossed the tent. It was probably just Eldrie coming to complain again. She wasn’t going to kick out Kirito, no matter what he said, and she was going to let him know that.

  Alice stuck her head through the thin inside flap of the doubled entrance curtain, then pushed aside the heavy fur exterior to the outside.

  Her half-opened lips froze in place.

  Standing before her was not an Integrity Knight or even an ordinary soldier. She couldn’t help but stare.

  “Um…,” the little visitor said, voice timid, holding up a covered pot with both hands. “I…I brought your supper, Miss Knight.”

  “…Oh, I see.” Alice glanced at the sky. Somehow the red of the sunset was already retreating toward the western horizon. “Thank you…for bringing it to me.”

  She took the pot and gave the visitor a proper examination from head to toe. She was still just a girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Her hair was a brilliant red color and hung to just below the shoulder. Her large eyes were a similar reddish-brown color, which, combined with the pale color of her skin and thin bridge of her nose, indicated she was from the northern empire.

  The girl wore light armor, suggesting she was part of the defensive army, at least, but the gray jacket and skirt underneath it looked more like some school uniform.

  A poor child, here on the battlefield, Alice thought at first—but then she blinked in surprise.

  She recognized the girl’s face. But while she’d been stationed at Central Cathedral, Alice had almost never had any contact with ordinary people.

  Just then, a second girl bashfully popped out from behind the back of the first. “Um…w-we brought bread and a drink.”

  This girl had dark-brown hair that was nearly black and deep-blue eyes. Her voice was barely audible. Alice accepted the basket she offered, trying to hold back a smile. “You don’t have to be afraid. I won’t bite.”

  But just then, Alice’s memory jogged itself. She recognized that nervous voice. These were the girls who—

  “Pardon me…are you two…from North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy…?”

  For just a moment, the nervous faces of the two girls relaxed, but then the duo hastily straightened up and snapped into a salute.

  “Y-yes, Miss! I…I am Primary Trainee Tiese Schtrinen of the Human Guardian Army, Supply Corps!”

  “P-Primary Trainee Ronie Arabel, of the same!”

  Alice returned the salute out of habit and realized that her hunch was correct. They were the ones who had rushed up when she was taking Kirito and Eugeo away from the school and requested permission to say their good-byes.