4

As her forehead scraped the floor of the dragon tank in obeisance, Dee trembled inwardly at the gaze of Emperor Vecta upon her back.

There was no anger in his ice-blue eyes. He was measuring her value without emotion of any kind. What kind of action would the emperor take against her if he found her to be without skill or use to him? The thought made her very bones shiver.

After an agonizing wait, his deep, smooth voice said, “Hmm. So the failure of your plan and the death of a thousand dark mages were because the enemy absorbed and used the spatial dark power before we could…you say?”

“Y…yes!” she stammered, lifting her face just the tiniest bit. “That is correct, Your Majesty. We had no knowledge that suggested the enemy had a caster so powerful after the pontifex, so…”

“And there is no means of replenishing that power?” he asked, interrupting her excuse. But she could not give him a satisfactory response to that question, either.

“I…I’m afraid…that we will need rich land and ample sunlight to replenish enough spatial dark power to eliminate the enemy Integrity Knights, neither of which is in good supply here. The treasury at Obsidia Palace would have glimstones that can be converted into power, but we would need days to retrieve them now…”

“I see,” the emperor said simply, then turned his sharp features toward the distant ravine. “But from what I can see…there are no plants on the land here, and the sun has already set. What source of power were you going to use for this large-scale magic art of yours?”

Dee was in such mortal terror that she never registered how strange it was for Vecta, god of darkness and supposed founder of the dark arts, to ask her such a fundamental question about its workings. It was only the desperate drive for self-preservation that helped her answer the question.

“Well, Majesty, this is a battlefield…so the blood and life shed by the demi-humans and the enemy soldiers becomes dark power that fills the air around them.”

“Uh…huh.” The emperor stood up from his makeshift throne. Dee’s entire body went rigid.

His black leather boots approached, clicking on the floor. She felt terror clenching her guts. The emperor stopped just to the left of Dee, fur cape waving in the wind, and murmured into the night.

“Blood…and life.”

“Priestess of Light…?” Commander Bercouli muttered, broad jaw working as he chewed on a flat pastry cooked with dried fruit and nuts.

They used the momentary lull in fighting to rush out some rations from the supply team to the soldiers on the guardian army side. The healing of the wounded was done for now, and thanks to the help of the Integrity Knights, who had considerable healing skill themselves, even the warriors who’d been at death’s door were in good enough shape to sit up and sip bowls of soup.

Of course, the dead would never return. Of the two-thousand-plus that had made up the First Regiment, nearly a hundred and fifty soldiers and one lower knight had perished.

Sitting across the folding table from the leader of the knights, Alice said, “Yes. I don’t recall that name showing up in any of the history texts, but it seems clear that the enemy commander strongly desires this person.”

“Commander…meaning Vecta, god of darkness,” Bercouli grunted.

Fanatio poured siral water into his cup and added, “It’s very difficult to believe…a god, coming back to walk among us…”

“I suppose so. But some of it does make sense. I know that you, too, must have felt the eerie Incarnation that hangs over the enemy camp.”

“Yes…I do sense a chill that seems to suck away the warmth from my bones…”

“For the first time since the creation of the world, there is no Eastern Gate standing there. Perhaps we should understand that anything is possible now. But, Little Miss,” he said, staring right at Alice with great intent, “if we presume that Vecta himself has appeared in the Dark Territory, that he wants this ‘Priestess of Light,’ and that priestess is you—the question is, how does that affect the current status of the battle?”

Indeed. That was the real question. Even if Vecta was satisfied with gaining control of the priestess, the other races of darkness would surely continue their pillaging after that. It did nothing to change the fact that they must protect this ravine to the death.

But there was another term that had stuck itself in Alice’s brain and refused to leave.

World’s End Altar.

It was something the “god of the outer world” had said in conversation with Kirito through the crystal panel, in the aftermath of the battle at the top of Central Cathedral half a year ago.

Head for the World’s End Altar. Leave the Eastern Gate and head far to the south.

If she went there, she might be able to bring Kirito’s mind back. Yet, no matter how much she might wish to make that happen, she couldn’t abandon the defense of the gate.

But what if they chase after me?

What if she went through the gate and Vecta and his armies chased behind her, the Priestess of Light? It might even draw the enemy away from the human world and buy the guardian army enough time to fortify its defenses.

Alice chose to keep the vague topic of the altar a secret for now. She reported crisply to the supreme officer of the guardian army, “Uncle…Lord Bercouli. I will go along, break through the enemy ranks, and head to the distant reaches of the Dark Territory. If the ringleader of the enemy desires the ‘Priestess of Light,’ he will pursue me with at least some of his troops. Once I’ve gained some distance and split their forces, strike back at the remaining army and wipe them out.”

In a dry voice devoid of all emotion, Emperor Vecta asked, “Dee Eye Ell, would three thousand suffice?”

“Huh…?”

She lifted her head again, uncertain of his meaning. In profile, the emperor’s face was smooth, even peaceful, but the way his pale-blue eyes stared down at the armies below filled her veins with ice.

“In order to have the dark power needed to reenact the large-scale dark art that will eliminate the enemy Integrity Knights,” he elaborated, “would three thousand lives of that secondary orc battalion suffice?”

Even Dee, who was cruel by the measure of her peers, gaped at this suggestion. A chill crawled up her legs. Fear struck deep.

But as the idea sank into Dee’s mind, it all turned to sweet intoxication. “It will be enough.” She pressed her forehead to the emperor’s boot before she realized what she was doing.

“It will be enough, indeed, Your Majesty. The remaining two thousand mages will pool their efforts to make it happen…The dark mages guild will perform the greatest and most powerful act of terror that anyone has ever seen…”

Whether on the human or the dark side, the Underworld’s inhabitants’ names did not possess any inherent meaning as defined by their language.

This had happened because the four Rath engineers who’d raised the original artificial fluctlights had not considered the concept of their names too deeply. They’d simply picked out foreign-sounding “fantasy” names and given them to the children and grandchildren under their care.

After the four creators had logged out, the fluctlights continued having children on their own and naturally had to raise them. The first problem that plagued them was the lack of an established naming rule.

Without a better choice, the first parents gave their children meaningless phoneme combinations that were similar to their own. But as time went on and generations passed, eventually there came to be a system for naming, until it evolved into what you might call the Underworld’s own unique “naming arts.”

In short, each of the individual sounds derived from their names were given meanings, and the combinations that resulted were a way of wishing for that child’s future growth.

Specifically, the open vowels meant sincerity. The hard K sound indicated liveliness. S meant quick-witted. T stood for good health. N meant generosity. L and R were markers of beauty, and so on. So as an example, Eugeo was given his name in the hopes that he would be gentle, hardworking, and honest. Tiese was given her name in the hopes that she would be lively, caring, and skilled in the ways of combat. Ronie was cute and empathetic and serious.

Most of these naming arts were shared with the demi-humans of the Dark Territory. Sigurosig, for example, stood for agility, ferocity, fearlessness, and then more agility and ferocity for good measure. Only the highly prolific goblins were an exception, basing many of their names on the roots of Japanese verbs for pillaging, slicing, chopping, and other such menacing activities. The elite families of dark mages, too, saw these naming arts as inferior customs and traditionally took only capital letters from the ancient dark tongue.

As for the chief of the orcs—the final survivor of the nonhuman races’ leaders as of the start of the battle—his given name was Lilpilin.

Lilpilin was known, along with the leaders of the dark mages and the goblins, as one of the greatest impediments to the possibility of achieving peace with the human realm, according to Dark General Shasta, owing to his ferocious hostility toward humans as a whole.

But this was not an innate hatred from birth.

When Lilpilin was born to a powerful orc clan, he was praised as the most beautiful baby in the clan’s history. They gave him a name with three L sounds in it to indicate beauty—a great rarity for an orc.

As his parents wished, Lilpilin grew into a youngling of considerable beauty in both body and mind. He was blessed with skill in battle, and hopes were high for him to become the future chief. One day, he assisted the clan leader at the time on his first-ever trip out of the orcs’ marshland domain in the southeast to pay a visit to Obsidia Palace.

When he entered the castle town, back arched with the pride he took in his gleaming armor and sword, Lilpilin saw the thin bodies, lustrous hair, and comely features of the humans who lived there.

It came as an earthshaking revelation to Lilpilin that his own beauty would forever have the phrase “for an orc” appended to the end of it. On this day, he learned that the orcs were mocked by the rest of the dark realm as the ugliest of its races.

A rounded gut, short legs, a huge and flat-ended nose, squashed little eyes, and drooping ears—the only reason other orcs called Lilpilin beautiful for these features was that his face was just barely more human in appearance than theirs.

Lilpilin’s soul very nearly reached its breaking point. The only way he could maintain his functioning mind was to cling to one blistering emotion.

It was hostility. The brutal and fierce determination to destroy and enslave all of humanity, crushing all their eyes so they could never again mock orcs for being ugly, was the force that drove Lilpilin into the position of chief.

So he did not have the innate cruelty of someone like Kosogi. His hatred of humanity was simply an imprint of his massive inferiority complex. To his own people, he was a wise and benevolent leader.

“Dis…dis is unfeah!!” shouted Lilpilin when he heard the emperor’s orders.

The orcs had already sent a thousand of their number as supplementary troops in the first group, nearly all of whom had been lost. He’d already felt his heart being crushed by the knowledge that his people had fought and died under the orders of goblins and giants, removed from his command. But this order was simply beyond the pale in its cruelty.

Offer three thousand sacrifices to be the cornerstone of the dark mages’ attack spell.

It was a death that offered no recognition of a warrior’s honor or respect for the wise. They were simply fuel or meat—no different from the long-haired cattle that the provisions troop brought along as a food supply.

“We came heah to fight! Ouwah lives awe not da pwice foh yoh failyah!” Lilpilin argued, his nasal voice high-pitched and strained.

But Chancellor Dee of the dark mages merely stared at the orc with cold eyes and folded arms. She said, “This is by the edict of the emperor!!”

With a grunt, the orc chief’s words stuck in his throat. Emperor Vecta’s power had been made explicitly clear during the dark general’s attempted betrayal. He was almighty, far outclassing any of the Council of Ten.

And the strong must be obeyed. It was the ironclad rule of the land of darkness.

But— But…

Lilpilin stood there, clenched fists trembling. Behind him, a voice that was smoother than usual for an orc said, “Chieftain, we have no choice but to follow da empewah’s odahs.”

He turned around with a start and saw a female orc who had a comparatively slender build and elegantly long ears. She was from a clan that was distantly related to Lilpilin’s, and they had spent time together as children.

With a gentle, comforting smile, she said, “Me and my twee tousand twoops would gladly give up owah lives. Foh da empewah…and foh owah people.”

“……”

Speechless, Lilpilin could only gnash his long tusks so hard they nearly broke. The woman stepped closer and whispered, “Lil, I still believe dat it is not just da humans, but also orc souls dat awe summoned to Heaven afta death. We…we can meet again in dat holy place.”

He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to give up her life, too. But he also knew that if three thousand soldiers were to accept an unfair order, it would be easier done if they knew their fates were shared by their princess knight, whom they held in a certain esteem even higher than their chieftain.

Lilpilin unclenched his fists, took her hand, and groaned, “I apologize, Len…fohgive me…Fohgive me…”

Dee Eye Ell stared down at the two in obvious disgust. “Pack your three thousand troops together in close formation, a hundred mels before the ravine, within five minutes. That is all!” she ordered.

The orc chief glared at the departing dark mage with burning, squinted eyes. Why did they have to undergo this fate just because they were orcs? It was a question he had asked himself many times, but as usual, no answer was forthcoming.

As three thousand troops lined up, orderly, and marched toward certain death, there was even a kind of pride among them. But from the remaining seven thousand who watched them go came the low rumbling of sobs and comments of loathing.

The princess knight astride her armored boar led the three thousand proudly past the dark knights and pugilists, then arranged their formation a bit before the entrance to the ravine where the battle was taking place.

Almost impatiently, the two thousand dark mages who weren’t enveloped in the earlier blast made their ominous appearance and started making a formation. Their chanting, in reflecting the horror of its intended content, set the atmosphere on edge with hideous discordance.

“Aa…aaah…,” Lilpilin croaked. The orcs suddenly began to writhe in apparent agony and collapsed to the ground. As they flopped and struggled, little white twinkling lights emerged from their bodies, sucked out by some invisible pressure. As they flew toward the mages’ hands, the lights turned black and bunched together, growing sticky and clumping until they took a shape like some eerie, unnatural serpent.

The screams of three thousand soldiers stabbed at Lilpilin’s ears, sharp and vivid. He could make out the words, too.

Long live the orcs. Glory to the orcs.

Their bodies began to burst in quick succession. As the blood and flesh went splattering in all directions, the light gushed out of them in great quantities, traveling toward the mages.

Before he knew it, Lilpilin was on his knees, slamming his fist against the ground. The tears that flowed from his eyes trailed down either side of his large nose before falling to the black gravel.

Through stained vision, he watched as the princess knight in her especially conspicuous armor issued blood from all over her body like the petals of a crimson flower.

“……Lenju……!” he gasped as the princess knight slowly toppled toward the ground and out of sight. His jaws clenched so hard that the fangs burst through his lips, dripping blood of his own.

Humans.

Humans!

Damnable humans!!

With each internal scream of fury and loathing, the orc felt his right eye pulse.

Less than twenty minutes earlier, at the camp of the Human Guardian Army, the soldiers who’d been separated into two groups had shared warm handshakes and embraces at their safe reunion.

After the announcement from Alice, Commander Bercouli added a decision of his own. He ordered that the so-called Priestess of Light, Alice, be given half of their number when she diverted the enemy’s attention. Alice was strongly against this, of course, and insisted that she would act alone, but the leader of the Integrity Knights would have none of it.

We still have plenty of reinforcements. If you’re the only one acting as bait, Little Miss, there won’t be many enemies going after ya. Only if you’ve got a good number with you can the strategy to split up the forces actually work.

She had no rebuttal to that. There was no denying that it was a huge stretch, claiming that she, on her own, would lure the entire enemy army away, based on nothing more than some vague information from the chief of the ogres.

Plus, Alice wanted to take Kirito on Amayori’s back with her. Admittedly, she was uncertain about being able to protect both herself and him against the enemy army. So the idea of military cohorts was reassuring.

When Bercouli announced his splitting of the guardian army, he had another surprise in store. He decided that he, the overall commander of the army, would join the decoy team.

Fanatio and Deusolbert, who were designated the commanding officers of the remaining portion of the army, were vehemently against the idea.

“Hey, you’ve done enough in this battle already. Gimme a chance to fight, too,” Bercouli argued. Fanatio’s eyes screwed up in frustration as she said, “You can barely fold your own clothes without me there at your side!!”

That one got a big jeer from the knights and guardsmen who heard it. Bercouli grimaced, leaned over to Fanatio, and whispered something into her ear—and surprisingly enough, the vice commander looked away and backed down.

As for Deusolbert, he had to accept the inevitable, especially when it was pointed out that he had fought to the point of exhausting his arrows earlier. A supply team was heading for the nearest town to get more, but this would take longer than an hour or two.

Concern and nerves were in abundant supply among the soldiers of both the advancing team and the remaining team. In fact, it wasn’t clear which assignment posed more danger. How much of the enemy army would pursue the decoy team, and how much would continue attacking the ravine? Only God knew—specifically, Vecta, the god of darkness, commander of the enemy forces.

Eventually, the decoy force was complete: Bercouli, Alice, Renly, Sheyta, the four elite knights’ dragons, a thousand guardsmen, two hundred priests, and a fifty-member supply team. Eldrie insisted on joining the decoy team, backing down only after Alice scolded him. The apprentice knights Linel and Fizel threw a fit as well, but when the commander told them to hold down the fort, they didn’t have much choice but to accept his order.

To carry their supplies, they set up eight high-mobility four-horse carriages. One of them would contain Kirito in his wheelchair and the two young trainees.

Alice was very conflicted about the idea of allowing Tiese and Ronie to come along. But she would need someone to look after Kirito, and whatever it was that had happened between them, Renly the elite Integrity Knight now insisted that he would protect the girls with his life.

In all honesty, Alice had few memories of Renly. But the determination in his young face and the impressive shine of the Double-Winged Blades on either hip suggested that he was the real deal.

Bercouli’s dragon, Hoshigami, began its heavy running start to prepare for flight, giving way to a muted cheer from the guards on the ground. As Alice waited for her turn, clutching Amayori’s reins, she looked back to Eldrie below.

Her loquacious disciple had been quiet as she’d prepared to leave, a fact that gnawed at her. But before she could think of something to say, Hoshigami took off into the air. She had to look ahead and gave Amayori’s sides a gentle kick. Her dragon mount ran powerfully across the ground and floated up into the air, followed by Renly on Kazenui, and Sheyta on Yoiyobi.

Bercouli, flying slowly up ahead, turned back and shouted, “When we leave the ravine, we use the dragons’ breath against the enemy’s main force! They should have almost nothing left in the way of long-range attacks, but keep an eye out for their dragon knights!”

She gave him a crisp affirmative response. The sound of the soldiers pursuing them on horseback and foot were audible over her shoulder. When they and the carriage group left the ravine, they would head south, to their right, and it was up to the four knights on their dragons to keep the battle lively and distracted until the ground troops had put good distance behind them.

A multitude of campfires burned in the land beyond the dark, narrow ravine.

There were so many. They had eliminated a ton of enemy soldiers, yet there must have been close to thirty thousand left. But the bulk of that power was concentrated in dark knights and pugilists, both of which were close-range units and had no effective means of attacking airborne Integrity Knights.

No, wait…What is this?

There was a chanting in the air, audible beneath the whistling of the wind, roiling and low.

A…group chant? Of a sacred art command?

Impossible! Alice balked against her own instincts. There isn’t enough sacred power left to carry out any kind of large-scale attack art!!

But then Bercouli, who was flying ahead of her, gasped, “I…I can’t believe what they’ve done!!”

Ohhh.

What incredible power!!

Dee Eye Ell, chancellor of the dark mages guild, hands outstretched to the sky, shivered in ecstasy.

Had any mage in history ever experienced such rich, saturated dark power as this? The life of intelligent beings was the purest and most potent source of power in the world—even the life of something as low and ugly as an orc. If this potency of power was like fine wine aged a hundred years, then the dark power that came from sunlight and the earth was no more than water.

What they had tried to consume for the wide-range incineration projectiles before had been merely the dregs of the lives expended in battle. But this, now, was power directly and freshly converted from three thousand lives through sorcery.

The misty black substance gathered around the extended hands of Dee and her two thousand cohorts, forming a number of hideous long insects, each with countless writhing legs. They were simulacrums of life, things generated from darkness elements, and were called life-eaters. Nothing with physical form, not even the highest-priority swords and armor, could stop them. It was a less-efficient form of conversion from darkness than fire attacks were, but that didn’t matter when the source of power was so rich.

Dee had chosen this particular art as an intentional counterpoint to the pillar of light that the enemy had used to burn a thousand of her precious followers. At this point, the death screams of tormented orcs were almost music to her ears.

“Ready…?” Dee called out on high. “Prepare to unleash the deathworm curse!!”

But as she stared forward, to her shock, she saw a mad rush of four dragon knights approaching through the ravine. Her alarm promptly turned to joy. Now she would be able to wipe out the Integrity Knights and their dragons, the most powerful piece of the enemy army.

“Don’t rush it!! Let them come closer!! …Closer…closer………Now! Unleash!!”

Zwaaaah!!

Countless black insects thrummed in horrifying fashion as they leaped straight for the oncoming enemy.

The moment they saw the enemy’s spell, that great black wave of horror rushing toward them, both the civilian men-at-arms and even the elite Integrity Knights found themselves unable to think for entire seconds at a time.

It was a dark art of an ultra-high priority, even higher than Alice’s earlier light attack. A long-range curse art that was impossible to physically defend against and devoured the target’s life directly.

How could they produce a dark art of this incredible scale and density when darkness elements had such inefficient conversion to sacred power, and the entire battlefield was barren of resources to begin with? Only Bercouli was capable of spotting the answer.

But even he could not summon the wits to give an immediate order.

Every kind of offensive art carried certain values: its source element, density, range, speed, direction, and so on. In order to defend against a sacred art, you needed to cancel out those elements or utilize them to your own ends. You could snuff out flame attacks with ice elements, confuse a tracking art with a decoy, evade a direct-line attack with enough speed—part of what made a high-level caster was the ability to react and respond appropriately without skipping a beat.

But not in this case.

The enemy’s attack was simply beyond the pale.

Only light elements could counteract dark elements. But light, too, was difficult to convert from raw power, and they could not generate enough of it to dispel that kind of curse. Fanatio’s Memory Release would certainly be able to punch a hole through the enemy’s curse, but the Heaven-Piercing Blade’s light was far too thin in its effect, and more importantly, she wasn’t in the decoy group.

“Invert!! Pull up!!” shouted Bercouli, about the only thing he could do.

Four dragons turned quickly, spiraling around, heading higher right above the ravine. With a terrible rustling of wings, the swarm of snaking creatures turned accordingly.

But then Bercouli shouted, “No!!”

The worms that chased after them were not even half the total. The rest proceeded straight for the guardsmen and the supply team running along the ground.

“…!!” Alice gasped and turned her dragon into a steep dive. She charged straight for the wriggling mass of dark arts in the lead below.

Shing!! She drew the Osmanthus Blade from its sheath. The blade began to glow a golden color.

“Little Miss!! You can’t use that one!!” cried Bercouli, trying to stop his favorite apprentice. The Osmanthus Blade’s Perfect Weapon Control art was tremendously powerful in a battle of one against many, but only with sword against metal. It couldn’t cut through a curse that had an ethereal body.

Alice was perfectly aware of that. But there was no way that she could sit there and watch the soldiers be attacked.

Just then, a fifth dragon rocketed forth from the ravine like a shooting star.

It was Takiguri—the dragon of elite Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One.

As he gripped the dragon’s reins, just one word ran through Eldrie’s brain.

Protect.

His mentor. His Alice. He must offer his sword to do whatever it took to safeguard the person whose life he had pledged to protect.

But at the same time, he heard a voice mocking him at exactly the same volume:

How will you protect her? A powerless man like you? Inferior in every conceivable way and yet endlessly seeking validation and attention from your mentor.

The thing that supported Eldrie’s skill as a new, junior Integrity Knight was the powerful Incarnation that drove him to serve Alice. It was what made him a higher-ranked knight, but it also meant that when he was hit by doubt, it rocked him to his core.

I don’t have the strength to protect my teacher Alice, nor the right to stand at her side, he concluded, which caused a rapid loss in power. Swept up by an unpleasant emotion, he leaped onto Takiguri and chased after the decoy group, though he had no idea what he was going to do.

If it came to it, at least he could die here with his mentor.

As he flew, clinging to this last resort, he thought he heard something, and he glanced down at the ground. The guardsmen below had noticed the oncoming dark magic and were beginning to panic. Behind them, the supply team’s carriages were fraying apart the same way.

A pale-blue light flickered in one of the carriages, visible through the covered top.

He heard a strange voice in his head.

Your determination—

—your desire to protect—

—needs no payment in return, does it?

Love is not something you ask for. You just give and give and give it, and it never runs out. Isn’t that right…?

Ah, man…

What got me so confused?

That I didn’t have enough strength? That I couldn’t monopolize her feelings? That I wasn’t able to protect her?

What tiny, insignificant things…

Lady Alice has been trying to save all of humanity.

Eldrie whipped Takiguri’s reins with one hand and shouted, “Go!!”

The dragon beat its wings powerfully, sensing its master’s thoughts, and sped up immediately. The instant they passed the plummeting Amayori, Eldrie heard Alice calling for him to stop. But he did not slow down; he pulled the dragon higher, heading straight for the onslaught of worm creatures.

With his free left hand, he removed the platinum whip from his side.

The Frostscale Whip received its holy power from its core: a great snake that had once lived in the mountains of the eastern empire, known as the god-serpent. Unleashing the power of its memory transformed the whip to many times its original length and gave it free control over its own trajectory.

But this power was nearly meaningless against a curse-type sacred art. Even so, Eldrie continued to pray, filled with absolute conviction.

Serpent!

God-serpent of yore!

If you are indeed the king of the snakes, then devour this swarm of wretched worms!!

“Release Recollection!!” he called out, and the Frostscale Whip shone a brilliant silver.

Amid that light, the whip split into countless ends. Hundreds upon hundreds of beams of light lashed out at the squirming black things.

And then the light turned into glowing snakes. The swarm of reptiles fanning outward from Eldrie’s hand opened jaws of sharp, glinting fangs and bit down on the deathworms. There was a horrible zormp sound, and the first creature to be bitten in two reverted to darkness elements that promptly scattered into nothing.

Abruptly, the swarm that was heading for the guards and the swarm following the airborne dragons changed directions, recognizing the glowing hydra to be their most urgent foe. The snake heads were soon beset by countless writhing worms. The curse traveled up their length, bearing down on the source.

Eldrie was using the one element of the enemy’s dark arts that he could affect, its ability of automatic pursuit, to force all of the spell’s attention on himself.

Lady Alice…

He grinned and closed his eyes.

The next moment, darkness engulfed him.

The life value of the Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One, which was at slightly over five thousand, instantly plummeted to negative five hundred thousand.

The explosion that rippled outward from a centerpoint in his chest tore his body into tiny, fleeting pieces.

“Eldrieeeeee!!!” screamed Alice.

Her one apprentice, whose time with her had been short but memorable, slid off his dragon’s back, missing over half of his body.

Alice turned Amayori around yet again and plunged through the remnants of the vanishing worms, reaching out with her free hand to grab Eldrie’s. Her breath caught in her throat when she felt how light he was, but she gritted her teeth and sent the dragon upward anyway.

Takiguri followed right beside them, concerned for its master. As the dragons shot upward in parallel, Alice shouted again, “Eldrie!! Open…open your eyes!! I won’t let you leave me! Not like this!!”

Eldrie had nothing left from the chest downward. His pale eyelids fluttered. Underneath his lashes, his purplish irises shone, weak but firm, as he looked at her.

“…Men…tor…you’re…safe…”

“Yes…yes, I’m safe, thanks to you! I told you that I needed you!!”

Her vision went blurry. Droplets landed on Eldrie’s cheek. Alice held her disciple tight, not even realizing that they were her own tears.

His voice was barely audible in her ear.

“Lady Alice…you are needed…by…so many more people. I was…such a small person…to think…that I could have you…all for…myself…”

“I will give you whatever you want!! Just come back!! You are my disciple!!”

“I’ve…had…so much already,” he whispered, full of satisfaction. She could sense what little weight there was in her arms rapidly beginning to fade.

“Eldrie!! Eldrieeee!!” she wailed.

His final words were gentle yet heavy.

“Don’t…cry……Mo………ther…………”

And so the soul of Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One the Integrity Knight, also known as Eldrie Woolsburg, left the Underworld forever.

Through wet eyes, Alice watched the body of her beloved disciple vanish. It turned into a gentle light that illuminated the night and melted into it, as miraculous as the several seconds she was able to talk with him as he lay dying.

Soon Eldrie was entirely gone, without even a trace of armor. Only the Frostscale Whip remained, falling onto Amayori’s back limply. Nearby, Takiguri howled sadly as it flew, sensing its master’s death.

Alice breathed in the faint scent of roses and lifted her head.

This is a war.

There was no point in taking any of it personally, no matter how the enemy tried to attack or what damages were suffered from it. Just minutes ago, Alice herself had unleashed a mammoth sacred art that had taken the lives of thousands of enemy soldiers; it could not be described as anything but merciless.

So if she took all this anger, this sadness, and channeled it into power that would allow her to slaughter ever more foes…

“…Let it not be said that you were not ready for me!!” Alice drew the Osmanthus Blade and shouted, “Amayori! Takiguri! Charge at full speed!!”

The dragons, who were pressed into service by a binding art, normally refused all battle orders that did not come from their designated rider. But the two dragons, brother and sister, roared ferociously and beat their wings, rushing forward. The outer end of the ravine, where the charcoal Dark Territory stretched as far as the eye could see, grew closer.

Through the burning rage that threatened to blind her, Alice’s blue eyes quickly made out the formation of the enemy’s main force.

On the left side, about five hundred mels past the exit of the valley, five thousand dark knights stood in their matching metal armor. To the right, another five thousand pugilists, their hardy bodies wrapped in light leather. These two groups were the bulk of the enemy forces.

Behind them were backup units of orc and goblin infantry and a very large supply team. Somewhere in the midst of them would be the enemy’s supreme commander: Vecta, the god of darkness.

And right up front, packed between the rows of dark knights and pugilists, was a group cloaked in black.

That was it. They were the dark mages who had set off that massive curse. There were nearly two thousand of them. And now they were fleeing, those who’d noticed the approaching dragons first among them.

“You’re going nowhere!!” shouted Alice, who then ordered the dragons, “Aim for their tail…now! Breathe!!”

The siblings craned their necks and opened their jaws wide. The flames that filled their mouths lit white fangs red.

Two parallel pillars of fire tore through the air and hit the ground right where the fleeing mages were attempting to run. There was an earthshaking blast, and a fireball rose from the spot where the flames struck. The figures caught in its midst flew like leaves.

Their escape route blocked by flames, the mages completely lost order and clumped into one place. Alice held the Osmanthus Blade high overhead. Its body shone a yellow gold brighter than the sun itself.

“Enhance Armament!”

With a crisp metallic ring, the sword split into hundreds of tiny shards. Each one reflected Alice’s Incarnation and glinted with sharper edges than they’d ever had before.

Impossible. It cannot be!!

Dee Eye Ell, chancellor of the dark mages guild, stared upward at the oncoming dragon knight, a silent scream tearing through her mind.

Two thousand mages had sacrificed three thousand orcs to prepare the deathworm curse, which had set upon the enemy with even more power than she’d anticipated. The deathworms had a high enough priority level that they should’ve easily devoured both the Integrity Knights and the soldiers on the ground alike.

But somehow, the deathworms that should’ve devoured the life of all the enemy troops had concentrated only on a single knight and spent themselves on one extravagantly wasteful and redundant kill.

Deathworms were drawn to whatever creature had the greatest amount of life. So if you were to guide them, it would require the creation of some artificial life-form greater than any human or dragon, something along the lines of a magical beast out of legend—but there was no way they could’ve produced such a thing with a short command. There was no logic that explained this outcome. It was simply illogical.

How can there possibly be some power that I, Chancellor Dee Eye Ell of the dark mages guild, center of all the knowledge of the world, do not possess?!

Dee gnashed her teeth and let loose a screech that was all air, no voice. Whatever the answer, the enemy had sacrificed just one person and resumed its charge, and it was now unleashing all hell on her remaining two thousand mages.

“Fall back!! All units retreat!!” Dee called out in a high voice.

But that was when two jets of blazing fire passed overhead and rammed into the ground just a few dozen mels behind her. An explosion erupted from that spot, drawing dozens of screams from her subordinates. A heat wave swept over the second floor of her carriage, singeing the black hair she was so proud of.

“Yeeek…!” screamed Dee, practically falling off the carriage. Standing on it was only turning her into a target. She wanted to flee among the crowd of her followers, but then she caught sight of a bright golden light.

Looking up despite herself, she saw an Integrity Knight atop a dragon, her sword splitting apart into many tiny pieces of light. Each one of them, it was clear, held a frightening level of priority—and there was no element she could generate from the thin layer of dark power hovering around the area that would help her defend against it.

Shit! Dammit! I will not die yet!! Not here!! Not when I am promised to become ruler of the world!!

Dee squinted, features twisted in a rictus of desperation. She swept her hands forward, fingers bent like claws, and jammed them into the backs of two mages running before her. The sharp nails tore through soft skin and flesh until she grabbed round pillars—the very spines of her mages.

“Aaaah! L…Lady Dee…?!”

“What are you…?! S-stop, please…!”

The greatest of mages ignored the pleading screams of her subordinates and began to chant a command, a wicked smile on her face. This, too, was in all ways a curse.

It was an art to change the shape of matter—a secret, forbidden art that used human life force as its energy source to alter the container of flesh that stored it.

Shlurbp.

Two young, healthy individuals melted into uncertain structures, sloughing off flesh and blood in the process. The solution covered Dee entirely where she knelt on the ground, and it hardened into a resilient membrane of living armor around her.

The golden swarm of death descended into their midst.

Alice hardened her heart against the sound of all the screams.

She would not let that art be used ever again. She would remove both the caster and the command from the world.

With each swing of the glowing handle in her right hand, the blindingly sharp little petals followed the movement, slashing at the foes on the ground below. The dark mages, who wore no metal armor, had no physical defense against the metal shards that tore through their bodies.

Alice maintained the Memory Release form of her weapon until she was certain that over 90 percent of the two thousand or so dark mages were wiped out. It used up quite a lot of the sword’s life, but she was not in the mood for conservation at this moment.

Two hundred mages fled in terror, not sparing a glance for the stacked corpses of their fellows, but this time, Alice returned the Osmanthus Blade to its original shape and let them go. Out of the corner of her left eye, she spotted about ten dark knights lifting off the ground on dragons from the rear of their formation.

She assumed they would rush for her, but the dragon riders merely formed up and hovered, keeping their distance. She learned why very soon: Bercouli’s group was catching up behind her.

“Don’t push your luck, Little Miss!” the knight commander called out as soon as he was in range, understanding that she was bereaved after the death of Eldrie.

“I…I know,” she managed to stammer. “I’m fine, Uncle. Please watch over the ground troops. I must go and play my role as decoy.”

“Sure…just don’t go charging too far ahead!” shouted Bercouli, glancing at the enemy dragons. Alice ordered Takiguri to stay airborne where it was, and she had Amayori proceed forward and rise.

She could sense the attention of dark knights, pugilists, orcs, and goblins—and some great, colossal presence, though she could not tell its location—as she rose. Behind her was the low rumble of the soldiers and supply team leaving the ravine, heading south, and proceeding at top speed.

Then she shouted, loud enough to drown out the sound of all those footsteps. Her Incarnate voice, heavily amplified, spread in all directions, crisp and clear.

“My name is Alice!! Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty!! I am the proxy of the three goddesses who protect the human realm: the Priestess of Light!!”

There was nothing behind this statement. It was, in essence, a bluff.

But the effect it had on the enemy army was immediate. They rumbled and murmured. She sensed the desire to capture her extending toward her like giant invisible tentacles. It seemed true that the enemy was after this “Priestess of Light” at least as much as, if not more than, the actual conquest of the Human Empire and their lands.

The question remained, was that really her, or was she merely pretending to own the title?

It didn’t matter to Alice. All she needed was for half of the enemy soldiers to follow her. If buying time and getting the enemy to pull away meant that they succeeded in defending the human world, which Eldrie, Dakira, and all those soldiers had given their lives in service of, that was all that mattered.

“Know that any who stand in my way will be struck down by my righteous light!!”

“Ooooh…”

Emperor Vecta, the god of darkness, also known as Gabriel Miller, hunter of souls, stood up from his throne in wonder. “Ooooh.”

The apparent failure of the attack that had consumed three thousand orc units, and the destruction of the large majority of the mage units, did not startle or disturb Gabriel in the slightest. Only in this moment did his cold, inert soul feel any kind of rumbling.

From his thin lips, which assumed only the shape of a smile, a quiet voice said, “Alice…Alicia…”

His eyes caught in full detail the sight of the young knight in her shining golden armor, standing on the back of the dragon in the distant night sky.

Straight, long golden hair. Pure-white skin. Blue eyes as cool and crisp as the midwinter sky. In Gabriel’s mind, these features perfectly matched the image of a beautifully matured Alicia Clingerman, the very first victim of his desires. He had failed to capture Alicia’s soul the first time, but now he knew she had returned to take her place in this virtual world.

This time.

This time she would be his. He would take the lightcube that contained her fluctlight and devour it to his heart’s content.

As the knight pulled the dragon’s reins and flew to the south, Gabriel poured into her a gaze like blue fire. He leaned toward the master skull and rasped an order, quiet but fierce.

“All troops, prepare to march. Pugilists in front, then dark knights, nonhumans, and supply, in that order. Proceed south. You must capture that knight, the Priestess of Light, unharmed. The commander of the unit that captures her will be given control over the entirety of the human realm.”