6

Have you ever sensed your own death?

The phantom voice in his ears caused Integrity Knight Bercouli Synthesis One to awaken.

An eerily colored sunrise was trying to sneak into the dim tent. The air was as cold as ice, and breathing in deep prickled his lungs. He sensed that the time was 4:20 AM. Given the way his mind was melded with the Time-Splitting Sword, which had once been a hand on a great clock, Bercouli had the ability to accurately detect the time. In another ten minutes, he would need to have a messenger blow the morning horn to wake the troops.

The aged swordsman stretched his thick arms behind his head and turned his mind back to the statement that had broken his slumber.

Have you ever sensed your own death?

The owner of that sweet voice had been his only superior, the pontifex, Administrator.

He no longer remembered exactly when the memory had occurred. Somewhere around a hundred years ago or a hundred and fifty. After undergoing treatment that eliminated unneeded memories to prevent the collapse of his soul, Bercouli was no longer able to sense the chronology of his memories the way he used to.

But he could remember the scene quite vividly. Seemingly bored by the endless march of time she lived through—by her own desire, it should be mentioned—Administrator chose to invite the next-oldest person in the world, Bercouli, to her chamber for drinks.

The silver-haired ruler of all draped her body, naked save for a sheer scrap of silk, on a long crimson chair and asked him that question as she swirled a wineglass in her fingers. Bercouli was sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating a piece of cheese as he pondered this riddle.

He was used to her whims by this point and so answered honestly, rather than out of some desire to stay on her good side and save his own skin. He said, Sensed my death? When I was still a lad, and I got smacked down by either the previous dark general or the one before him, I thought that was going to be it for me.

The pontifex giggled and lifted the crystal glass. But you brought his head to me quite a while ago, didn’t you? I believe I converted it into one of those jewels on the floor. You haven’t had any moments since then?

Well, I can’t recall them if I did. Why do you ask? It seems a sensation that would be foreign to you, my lady, he replied.

The girl who lived eternally adjusted her long legs and smiled again. Hee-hee, you don’t understand, Bercouli. Every day…every day I feel death. Every time I awaken in the morning…No, even in my dreams. I feel it because I don’t control everything yet. There are still enemies who live. And there is always the possibility that at some point in the future, there will be a new enemy.

My, my, my. It must be hard to be the pontifex.

A hundred and some years later, in a Dark Territory forest far from the human realm, Bercouli grinned to himself.

I feel like I finally understand what you were talking about. Sensing the approach of your own death is merely the flip side of seeking the possibilities of death. In the end, you were searching for a destination you could accept, a death that was fitting, a foe so powerful that no amount of struggle would bring you to victory…

Just like me, now.

The same way that I can keenly sense impending death approaching by the moment…

Without Administrator, Bercouli was now the oldest human being in the world. He bounced up from the floor and covered his powerful frame with a simple white kimono. He tightened the sash, slipped on his sandals, then stuck his sword on his left side.

Then he stepped through the hanging flap into the chill of early morning and headed for the messengers’ tent to give the order to wake the troops.

At about that same moment, from the Dark Territory camp two kilors to the north, ten dragons took flight by the first rays of light peeking over the horizon.

Under the arms of the dark knights riding these steeds were thick bundles of stiff rope. One end of each rope was already fixed to a wooden stake driven into the ground near the edge of the crevice.

The dragons crossed the hundred-mel ravine and landed on the south end, their riders’ ropes uncoiling the whole way. When the knights jumped down, they wielded huge hammers rather than swords and began the awkward process of driving new stakes into the ground.

Emperor Vecta’s new orders were as follows.

The pugilists and dark knights should travel across ten ropes laid over the crevice to get to the other side.

Enemy interference should be ignored. Crossing the ropes was the top priority.

Those who fell should not be rescued.

Food and other supplies would not be ferried across.

In other words, it was a merciless suicide mission, in which numerous casualties were expected, and there would be no supplies. Iskahn, leader of the pugilists, and the young head of the dark knighthood, who’d taken over after Shasta’s death, both ground their teeth at the cruelty and unfairness of it.

But they did not have the option of disobeying the absolute power of their emperor. All they could do was hope that they finished crossing the ropes before the enemy noticed—and contrary to that hope, a Human Guardian Army scout watching the Dark Territory army all night was sprinting down the hill one kilor to the south.

As she ate a simple breakfast of two hard toasted pieces of bread surrounding cheese, dried meat, and dried fruit, Asuna’s mind sleepily worked through some calculations.

…If time is accelerated a thousand times here, that means I get to have a thousand meals in the time that people in the real world eat just one. I’m assuming that means I won’t get that much fatter…

She glanced up ahead at Alice and Sortiliena, who were equally sluggish in the process of eating their sandwiches. Through the fabric of their dresses, it was clear that the other two had lithe physiques with absolutely no extra meat on them.

Did lifestyle diseases even exist in this world? Or was your physique based on fixed parameters that were assigned at birth? Or perhaps a person’s appearance was like a mirror that reflected their mental state?

Next to her, Ronie was cutting a sandwich into little pieces for Kirito to eat. Alice claimed that she had been feeding him enough to maintain his life level, but apparently there was nothing she could do about how scrawny he looked. It was as though he wished that he could simply vanish from the world.

“…Kirito’s cheeks are looking less pale this morning,” Ronie suddenly said, as though she knew what Asuna was thinking. “And he’s eating his food more forcefully than usual.”

“Perhaps spending the night with four beautiful women had a positive effect,” said Alice, eliciting conflicted smiles from the others.

They had spent the night talking, sitting around Kirito as he slept. It was nowhere near enough time for the four of them to exhaust their anecdotes about Kirito, and they eventually gave in to the temptation of sleep.

The next thing she knew, Asuna was being awakened by a horn, and Ronie had brought breakfast. As she ate, Asuna silently told her lover, You never change, no matter where you are. You’re kind to everyone, and you try to take everything on, and you get hurt in the process. But this time, you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. You can’t take an entire world on your back. You need to rely on me and everyone else. We all love you.

…But no one more than me.

She felt quiet, strong determination fill her chest. When Kirito woke up, she would smile and tell him, It’s all right. Everything went fine. I and everyone else kept safe what you wanted to protect.

The other three seemed to feel Asuna’s will, too. Alice, Ronie, and Sortiliena looked to Asuna, their eyes sharp and alert, and nodded firmly.

It was moments later that the horn sounded, tensely alerting the camp to an enemy attack.

Alice rushed back to her tent with a scrap of bread in her mouth, quickly slapped her armor on, and grabbed the Osmanthus Blade before heading back outside. She met up with Asuna, who was armed and ready, too, then told Ronie and Tiese to take care of Kirito before setting her sights to the north.

About where the forest gave way, she found Bercouli with his sword drawn. The commander had already gotten the report from the scout, and when he saw Alice and Asuna running up, followed close behind by Renly and Sheyta, his expression went hard.

“Seems like the real-worlder on the enemy side’s got quite the bold methodology. Emperor Vecta’s played a risky move.”

What he said next made Alice bite her lip.

The enemy had run ten thick ropes from bank to bank of the crevice to use as bridges, and they were forcing their way across the hundred-mel-wide gorge. If they fell, they would die. It was an acrobatic act that required great stamina and willpower. If Emperor Vecta was forcing his troops to do this, either he was getting desperate, or their lives were worth less than scraps of paper to him.

But even if one in three of the enemy fell into that crevice, that would still leave nearly seven thousand to deal with. The human army had only a thousand—they didn’t stand a chance in a regular fight.

Their original plan, to hide in the woods and use sacred arts to attack, was pointless in the sunlight. They would just have to keep moving south and wait for another chance to lay an ambush.

It was Commander Bercouli who cut through Alice’s indecision.

“This is a war,” the ancient hero muttered, his pale-blue eyes shining fiercely. “Asuna’s from elsewhere and has her own reasons—but there’s no reason for us to show mercy to the dark army. We’ve got to make use of this opportunity while we’ve got it.”

“Oppor…tunity?” Alice parroted.

Bercouli gave her a sharp look. “That’s right…Renly.”

The young Integrity Knight bolted to attention, surprised at the sudden address. “Y-yes, sir!”

“What’s the maximum range of your weapons, the Double-Winged Blades?”

“Normally, it’s thirty mels, but under Perfect Weapon Control arts, it’s seventy…maybe a hundred.”

“Good…then, the four of us are going to attack the enemy as they attempt to cross. Alice, Sheyta, and I are going to focus on protection. Renly, you’re going to cut down the ropes they’ve laid across the gorge with your divine weapons.”

Alice gasped. The enemy would be desperate to defend their means across, but even if they piled up bodies at the stakes at the end of the ropes, those thrown blades and their curving trajectories could easily fly over their heads and slice through anything. It was a merciless counterstrategy.

But the fifteen-year-old boy knight was firm with resolve and smacked his fist to his chest. “Understood, Commander!”

Next to him, Sheyta the Silent muttered, “It’ll be fine. I’ll protect him.”

Even Asuna stepped forward, though his orders hadn’t included her. “I’ll go, too. The more defense, the better.”

Alice closed her eyes for a moment and thought, I used my large-scale art to fry ten thousand nonhumans, and my Perfect Control art to slaughter two thousand dark mages. I don’t have the right to seek an honorable battle.

For now, all she could do was fight with everything she had.

“Let’s hurry,” she said to the four others and turned to the hill north of them. The bloodred rays of the rising sun were already casting the curve of the horizon into black profile.

Hurry.

Hurry, hurry!

Iskahn, leader of the pugilists guild, chanted an inward refrain as he clenched his fists.

The pugilists and dark knights were crossing the ten crude ropes that spanned the crevice, each group using five. They clung upside down with their arms and legs around the ropes, but without any proper training, their movement was awkward and slow. If they had lifelines for everyone and time to distribute them, it would help, but the emperor did not give them that luxury.

On top of that, Iskahn’s request to be first had been denied. Apparently, this was punishment for his fanciful interpretation of last night’s orders and for using only a small portion of his troops. He could still hear the emperor’s icy voice in his ears: You will follow my orders and do nothing else.

While Iskahn worked his jaws with frustration, the quickest of his subordinates was finally getting to the middle of the rope. The man’s copper skin was steaming in the chill of the early morning, and even at this distance, his dripping sweat could be seen shining in the light. It was a mad idea.

Just then, a powerful gust of wind ripped through the huge crevice.

Whoooosh! It buffeted the ropes, rocking them back and forth.

“Oh…!” Iskahn murmured. A number of pugilists slipped from the ropes, unable to keep their sweaty palms firm. Their howls echoed off the walls of the gorge.

Those were not screams, the young leader told himself. They were howls of rage that their deaths came not in the glory of battle but in the humiliating failure of forced circus acts.

A single, momentary gust of wind had sent over ten pugilists and dark knights plunging to their inky doom. But those just behind them bravely continued their passage. And from this side, soldiers continued to file onto the ropes at intervals of about three mels apart.

The cruel wind blew again intermittently and cost lives each time. Eventually, Iskahn realized that his clenched fists were emitting a red light that looked very much like flames.

A miserable dog’s death.

Even lower than that. At least a dog had bones left to bury.

And the reason for their death was not the long-awaited invasion of the human lands—that fervent hope of the five races of darkness—but merely the capture of this Priestess of Light, because the emperor desired her. Iskahn had no idea how he would apologize to his people back home.

Hurry. Be quick. Let everyone get across before anything else happens, the young leader prayed. Through either divine providence or simple adjustment to the ropes, the lead climbers picked up speed and at last made it to the other side. Five seconds later, the next wave set foot on solid ground.

At this rate, it would easily take over an hour for ten thousand soldiers to cross the ten ropes. It was practically impossible that they’d complete the entire process before the enemy noticed their plan.

But at this moment, they had no choice but to pray for that very slim chance.

The sun rose into the eastern sky with terrifying speed, shining red upon the black earth. In comparison, the crowd of soldiers on the far side who had successfully shimmied across was growing agonizingly slowly. Despite the many who fell along the way, the group went from fifty to a hundred, to two hundred, then at last to over three hundred.

Just then, atop the hillside looming dark on the far side of the crevice appeared five horseback riders. Even with his excellent eyesight, Iskahn could not make out the riders atop the horses.

Just five…Scouts, then. We should still have more time before they marshal their forces.

It took only a moment for this judgment—this hope—to fall to pieces.

The five riders began descending the hill, heading straight for the ravine. With their whipping cloaks, shining armor, and powerful haze-like spirit, Iskahn could no longer deny the obvious.

Integrity Knights! Five of them!!

“Enemy attack!! Defend!! Defend the ropes!!” bellowed Iskahn. He didn’t know whether his voice even reached the far side, but he had to do it. In possible response, half of the three-hundred-strong soldiers there formed protective circles around the stakes that held the ropes in place. The rest arranged themselves in front of that, preparing to fight back their attackers.

The enemy knights practically flew down the thousand mels from the hilltop to the edge of the cliff. They jumped off their mounts as one and raced for the rope on the right end.

Running in the lead was a large, stout man in foreign-looking dress. To his right was a woman in blazing golden armor. On the left was the woman named Sheyta, whom Iskahn had fought the night before.

They surrounded a smaller knight, and what looked like another one was farther behind, but he couldn’t be sure of any details beyond that.

Dozens of pugilists rushed forward to envelop the five knights, beads of sweat flying from their torsos.

“Raaaah!!” they roared, fists and feet raining down upon the knights.

There were glints and flashes of metal in quick succession. An enormous geyser of blood erupted into the sky, like some gruesome waterfall rolling backward. At its base, arms, legs, and heads flew helplessly from the bodies they belonged to.

And then, from behind the three lead knights, a silver light rose up high, leaving a bright trail behind it. Amid the red light of the dawn, it arced up and over the heads of the pugilists—and toward the rightmost rope, which was still surrounded by a host of fighters…

“Nooooooo!!”

Iskahn’s ears were so sharp that even beneath his own scream, he caught the faint snick of the cut.

The rope split in the middle, and the release of the tension holding it up left the ends writhing loose in the air like serpents. Dozens of warriors helplessly plunged into the depths of the ravine.

The image of them falling burned itself into Iskahn’s eyes. Without realizing it, he said aloud, “This…this is war? You call this a battle?”

For once, his second-in-command, Dampa, did not have a pithy retort.

Not only were his tribespeople forced to mimic a clown’s acrobatics, they were swallowed by the abyss without even having the opportunity to fight. They had not undergone the long and brutal training of the pugilists for this.

What would he tell the elderly parents and young children who awaited their return back home? How could he tell them that their loved ones had not stood boldly before the enemy’s blades and given their lives as the glorious warriors they were, but fallen to the depths of the earth without a chance to use their mighty fists?

He was helpless to do anything but watch and listen to the spectacle of the overlapping screams of anger and mourning as warriors fell to their deaths.

I will claim your vengeance. Just forgive me. Forgive me.

But such was the cruelty of the situation that Iskahn could not say whom he should defeat to fulfill that vengeance. The Integrity Knights were raising a desperate stand against ten times their number. He could not ask them to wait, pretty please, until all the pugilists had crossed the ropes safely and assumed their battle formations. It was a sign of the knights’ courage that they struck with a tiny group of five, knowing that their window of opportunity was limited.

So who was it? Who bore the blame for the undignified deaths of those valiant warriors?

Was it their chief, who could do nothing but stand stock-still like a fool, his fists balled? Or…

Iskahn suddenly felt a sharp pain deep in his right eye. The breath caught in his throat.

Red light pulsed repeatedly through his vision as a second rope was cut, its ends flying through the air.

At the rear of his army’s emplacement, Gabriel Miller watched, face propped against his fist, as three of the ten ropes they’d affixed over the gorge were snapped within moments of one another.

It seemed that the human army’s artificial intelligences were slightly superior. In fact, taking their adaptability into account, the difference seemed stark. With how quickly they’d identified and countered the Dark Territory army’s moves, both last night and today, it was unlike any strategy game’s CPU opponent he had ever faced.

The result of the game was that Gabriel had already lost 70 percent of his total units, but he was not yet panicking.

He just watched hundreds of his units die and waited—waited for the moment to arrive.

Critter, who was still manning the desk in the main control room of the Ocean Turtle, was as of that point done with the task of matching the Fluctlight Acceleration rate to one, the same as real time. The task had taken as long as it had in order to soften the shock of the shift and prevent the Rath employees logged in to the Underworld from detecting that it was happening.

In parallel, he used the satellite connection to drop a URL into a major online gaming community in America. The link led to a teaser site that Critter had whipped up in short order. It used edgy fonts and blood-splatter effects to announce:

A LIMITED-TIME BETA TEST FOR A NEW VRMMO IN PRODUCTION.

THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD’S FIRST TRUE PVP SLAUGHTER EXPERIENCE.

FULLY HUMAN AVATARS. NO SOFTWARE BOARD RATINGS. NO ETHICS CODE.

The gamers reacted to this bold pitch with equal parts skepticism and excitement. If nothing else, this indie studio had balls.

As of July 2026, VRMMO regulations were evolving in America within the general expansion of anti-terrorism measures, so even indie developers who made games with the free Seed package had to submit to an industry ratings board and implement certain ethical measures, or they would suffer major problems with operating their game.

In particular, depictions of brutal violence suffered a major crackdown. If you really wanted severed limbs to be a major part of the appeal, you had to employ the method of games like Insectsite and make the avatars nonhuman in some way. In fact, America’s restrictions were even more severe than what existed in Japan, where the first VRMMO was created, a state of affairs that left the American gaming community frustrated…Until this mysterious beta test advertisement, that is.

This was Gabriel’s big strategy, which he enacted at the cost of significant valuable time.

He was going to give American VRMMO players the keys to the Dark Territory’s dark knight accounts and allow them to dive into the Underworld to serve as his soldiers.

Neither Seijirou Kikuoka, the man in charge of Rath, nor Takeru Higa, who’d designed the Underworld, had ever considered that such a drastic move might be possible.

But the Underworld, on a lower server level, was no more than another VRMMO game that met Seed specifications. If it was presented as a virtual world using 3-D polygon models rather than its original mnemonic visuals—and the time-acceleration aspect were not active—you could use the AmuSphere to log in, touch and interact with the world’s objects, and even kill other characters.

And it didn’t matter whether those characters were real-world people or Underworld people.