Sword Art Online - Volume 16 - Chapter 19.1

Chapter 19.1
The Radiant Medium
Seventh Day of the Eleventh Month of the Human Empire Calendar, 380
20:00

The Dark Army had just begun to move, kicking up a huge dust cloud behind. The dust cloud began to color the sky of the Dark Territory, already dotted with blinking, blood-red stars, a deep shade of gray.
Peering into the simple telescope generated with Crystal Elements, Knight Commander Bercouli looked up and mumbled softly:
“This is astonishing… Seems like that so-called Dark God Vector has his heart set on you, lil’ miss. The entire army is coming after you.”
“We should be… happy, I suppose. At least this is much better than being ignored.”
Alice muttered as she swallowed her nervousness along with some lukewarm Siral Water.
In the unexplored — only to those of the Human Empire, of course — Dark Territory wilderness, on a small hill about five kilol south from the valley, the Defense Army decoy division was having their first short break.
The Guards were very excited.
Since an Integrity Knight had sacrificed himself to nullify a large-scale art that had plunged everyone into the abyss of despair, they were all determined once again, believing that they should treasure their given chance.
Meanwhile, however, Alice was still unable to accept the reality of Eldrie’s death.
Although it had not been long since they first met in the Central Cathedral, much had happened. Recommending that Alice try some wine or snacks when he discovered them; telling her bad jokes from time to time; there had not been a quiet day with Eldrie.
She had often puzzled over whether this young man was here to learn swordsmanship and arts, or just to be troublesome. But now, she understood. She understood how much Eldrie had been filling her heart with levity.
… These things just seemed so normal that I took his presence for granted. Why am I just realizing how precious he was when he’s not here anymore?
As she gazed towards the Mountain Range at the Edge that spanned the northwestern sky, she gently touched the coiled whip strapped to the back of her waist. She could now well understand why Kirito would not want to relinquish Eugeo’s sword.
As though he were waiting for Alice to open her eyes again, the Knight Commander said:
“About the current strategy… Basically, until all four Integrity Knights in this decoy division are fallen, we’ll keep drawing the enemy away and shaving them off. Are you okay with that?”
Alice vehemently nodded to the Knight Commander, who stood beside the tallest boulder on the topmost part of the hill.
“This is how I see the situation: we’ve eliminated half of the invading army of fifty-thousand and have almost wiped out the most troublesome Dark Sorceresses. We’re left with wearing out their main forces to some extent, which are the Dark Knights and the Fist Fighters… and also defeating Dark God Vector. Once we achieve these, the remainder of the enemy would be very likely to agree with a peace treaty. What do you think about that?”
“Hmm… the last problem is, who’s gonna be the one to head over there. If that Shasta kid’s still around…”
“So, the Dark General is really… Are you certain about that, Oji-sama?”
“He wasn’t there when I took a glance a while ago. Not only Shasta, but his apprentice, the female knight who fought you once wasn’t there either, lil’ miss.”
He sighed roughly. Alice knew that Bercouli secretly had great expectations of the Dark General and his apprentice.
Shaking his head slightly, the oldest Knight muttered in a low voice.
“Now we can only hope that the Dark Knight who took over Shasta’s place would be happy to pass on his will. Not very likely, though…”
“Not very likely?”
“Nope. Those who live in this Dark Territory don’t have any written laws like the Taboo Index. There’s only an unwritten rule ordering them to obey the strong. And… unfortunately, the Incarnation of Dark God Vector is overwhelming… A novice youngster obviously won’t be powerful enough to resist…”
Indeed, when she declared her own identity in front of the enemy a while ago,  a terrifyingly cold, bottomless dark energy had reached out from the core of their formation, and she clearly felt it sticking to her. It was the first time she had this sort of feeling since awakening as an Integrity Knight.
If one were to say the Incarnation of Highest Minister Administrator resembled crackling bolts of lightning, what she had felt would be pitch-black emptiness.
She was getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Calming herself, Alice nodded.
“I see… I don’t expect many people to disobey a god, anyway.”
Right after she said so, the Knight Commander chuckled and slapped Alice’s back.
“Even though you say that, lil’ miss, you, Kirito and Eugeo, you three appeared over there in the Human Empire. Let’s hope there are fellows with guts over here as well.”
Just then, hearing vigorously flapping wings, the two looked up.
Renri’s dragon, Kazenui, was descending to the ground. The young knight dexterously leapt off before the dragon’s claws even touched the earth. He jogged over to Bercouli and urgent words began to tumble from his mouth.
“Commander Your Highness, report! There is an area of shrubbery about one kilol south that would be suitable for an ambush on the enemy.”
“Great. Good work on the scouting. Let me prepare to move the entire division… Your dragon should be pretty tired, so go give him as much food and water as he wants.”
“Roger!”
Bercouli watched as Renri quickly saluted in a Knightly fashion, and his short silhouette began pulling away. Alice suddenly noticed that there was a smile on the Knight Commander’s face.
“…Oji-sama?”
At her inquiry, Bercouli scratched his chin for a moment, as though he were a little shy, and shrugged.
“Well, uh…  The Synthesis Ritual creates Integrity Knights by snatching their memories away and suspending their Life, and that’s absolutely unforgivable. But at the same time, I just think it’s a lil’ bit sad that there won’t be any more fresh Knights like that young man.”
Alice thought for a moment, then a similar smile spread across her face:
“No one can become an Integrity Knight without altering their memories and freezing their Life? I don’t believe that’s true, Oji-sama.”
Her right hand gently stroked the Frostscale Whip once more.
“Even if everyone of us were defeated, I’m certain that our souls… our will shall be passed on to someone else.”
***
“All right, it’s finally our turn!!”
Bashing his right fist into his left palm with a pashii , the young chief of the Fist Fighter Guild, Iskahn, yelled with vigor.
I’ve been sitting and waiting here for too long since I felt the battle heating up nearby.
The terrifying pillar of light had burnt away the Demihuman troops, the Sorceresses had created a creepy swarm of worms, and Emperor Vector had demanded for the Radiant Medium so persistently that he even gave out a mysterious command. Yet these did not have the slightest effect on Iskahn’s fighting spirit.
His world was divided into two: his own body and everything else. Iskahn was completely uninterested in anything other than training to improve his body. In his mind, even if he became the target of large-scale arts like those he had just seen, he had absolute confidence in repelling every single one of them using only his fists and spirit.
The Fist Fighter tied belts onto his naked, muscular torso burnt to a reddish-copper color, wearing only shorts and sandals. He turned to the five-thousand powerfully built men and women as their leader, and to the Dark Knights following them. They had hardly begun moving for five minutes, but already, there was a nearly thousand-mel gap between the Fist Fighters and the Dark Knights.
“The Knights are riding on horses but they’re just too slow, as usual!”
A hulking man stayed by Iskahn’s side, taller than him by more than a head. Right after hearing his insult, the man’s rock-hard face smiled wryly.
“That’s inevitable, Champion .”
Addressing the currently strongest Fist Fighter in Dark Tongue, the hulking man continued.
“They and their horses are wearing armor as heavy as themselves.”
“Completely useless, though!”
Concluding thusly, Iskahn faced front again. Shaping his right hand into a tube, he quickly put it against his right eye.
At the center of the flame iris, his pupil enlarged.
“Oh, the Human Empire guys have started to move as well. Seems like they’re… not coming this way. They’re still trying to run away?”
He clicked his tongue.
Though they looked as dim as the stars above them, Iskahn could perfectly capture the enemy’s activity five thousand mel away. He thought for a moment, then said:
“Hey, Dampe. The Emperor’s command was to chase after her and capture her, right?”
“Seems like it.”
“Right…”
He rubbed his nose with his right index finger, then grinned with confidence.
“Let’s speed up for a little while. — Team Rabbit, to the front!!”
Fierce cries of ‘OH!’ both high in pitch and tension immediately answered the summon.
The team coming out from the army in neat formation were a hundred slender Fighters — that said, their muscles were as firm as a whip and perfectly balanced in volume. All of their heads were wrapped with white straps of decorative rope.
“Let’s go say hello to those so-called Integrity Knights! Get ready!!”
OH!
“Martial Dance, step seventeen, GO!!”
Iskahn’s right hand fiercely punched the air and his feet violently stomped the ground as he shouted.
His trusted aide Dampe and the hundred men of Team Rabbit were performing the exact same action in perfect synchronization.
Zun, zat, zun zat.
Ooh, rah, ooh rah.
As the rhythmic steps and united cry continued, beads of sweat began to glow on Iskahn’s curled copper hair, and his healthy dark skin took on a red tinge. The same happened to his subordinates.
After the steps ended in one very long minute, one hundred and two Fighters stopped their movements, steam billowing from their bodies.
No, not only that. Their skin seemed to be glowing slightly red in the darkness.
Fist Fighters.
A tribe that, for hundreds of years, had explored the true nature of one’s physical body.
Both the swordsmen and the sorceresses considered the summit of all arts to be ? interrupting a target with Incarnation ? . In other words, overwriting external events with imagination.
However, Fist Fighters thought the opposite — strengthening their own bodies with Incarnation. Surpassing their original limits, they would strengthen their naked bodies with defensive force stronger than steel, and wield their fists with attacking power enough to crush boulders.
And, of course, they would train their legs to run faster than horses, while barefoot.
“OOOOOH, RAAAAAH!!”
With a powerful roar, Iskahn kicked the ground and began sprinting forth. Dampe followed along with the other hundred Fighters in hot pursuit.
The air behind them was split apart; the ground shook furiously.
***
“——!?”
In order to keep close with the Guards who had started moving to the shrubbery suitable for an ambush, Alice walked a few steps, then looked back as she soon felt something strange.
Something is coming.
And they’re fast.
When she looked closely, she could see a cluster of a hundred men bulging out of the slowly approaching enemy army, and closing the gap at a terrifying speed. They were even faster than the horseback riders running with all their might. For a second, Alice thought they were Dragon Knights, but soon realized that there were too many of them, and that they were actually moving on the ground.
“… Seems to be the Fist Fighters.”
Bercouli muttered beside her.
“They are…?”
She had heard that name before, but this was her first time witnessing them with her own eyes. This was because the ones who usually appeared at the Mountain Range at the Edge were mainly Goblins, Orcs, and rarely, Dark Knights. The Fist Fighters had never even attempted to invade the Human Empire.
Even so, having the advantage of a very long life, it seemed that the oldest Integrity Knight had experience battling the Fist Fighters. He continued somewhat nervously.
“They’re a pain to deal with. Usually a sword’s gonna hurt bare fists, but they’ll keep rejecting that.”
“Huh…? Reject…?”
There’s no way anyone can reject being cut , Alice thought. But Bercouli shrugged and said:
“You’ll know what I mean when you fight them. Better for us to handle them together, lil’ miss.”
“……”
Alice swallowed hard. Bercouli just claimed that he could not handle them by himself; they must be extremely powerful opponents.
However, what the Knight Commander said next destroyed her painstaking concentration and spirit.
“And, by the way, lil’ miss… You’re not okay with stripping down, are you?”
“Haah!?”
Instinctively, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and squeezed out a sharp voice.
“Wh-what are you talking about?! Of course I don’t like stripping down!!”
“No, I don’t mean that… Well, I do mean that… I just wanna tell you that armor and clothes are useless against their fists, and they may hold you back, so…”
After saying those pointless words as he scratched his chin, the Knight Commander shook his head as if to say, “Suit yourself”.
“Anyway, if you’re gonna fight in that, get your Armament Full Control Art ready.”
“O… Okay.”
Anxiety trickled down her spine again. As it seemed, the enemy team was composed of around a hundred men. If she needed to utilize the full power of the Fragrant Olive Sword against such a small team, they were definitely not easy opponents.
However, there was one problem.
When she had released the ? reflection-concealed beam ? art, and during her battle against the Dark Sorceresses, she had twice used the Armament Full Control Art, consuming a large portion of the Fragrant Olive Sword’s Life in the process. She could still use it for normal slashing without fail, but she worried over how much longer it could remain in its split-form attack.
The same applied to the Knight Commander’s Time Piercing Sword. From a rather close distance, Alice had watched him perform the stunning wide ranged attack that had instantly eliminated hundreds of Minions. It could be said that both of their beloved swords needed rest in their sheaths overnight.
But within their tens of seconds of conversation, the enemy team of Fist Fighters had already closed in to a distance from where Alice could begin to make out their masculine physiques. She could not let them get any closer to the Guards, who were still preparing the ambush.
Alice bit her lip, nodded to the Knight Commander, and was about to slide down the rocky slope to the north.
Right before that, however, a timid female voice called to them.
“I’ll go.”
Alice spun around in shock; beside her, Bercouli’s eyes widened as well.
The one who had been standing there without their knowledge, was one of the four Integrity Knights joining the decoy division — the one other than Bercouli, Alice and Renri.
She was tall and slender, clad in drab gray armor. Her hair, also gray, was parted so crisply that it looked artificially plastered to her head, ending in a tight ponytail. Her face was refreshingly clean, but showed not a shred of emotion. She was probably around twenty, like Alice.
Her name was Sheyta Synthesis Twelve.
The Divine Instrument strapped to her waist was the ? Black Lily Sword ? .
However, she was seldom referred to as such. Whenever they happened to mention her in conversation, the Knights addressed her by another nickname.
? The Silent ? .
Alice was not shocked because she had volunteered to battle the Fist Fighters.
She was shocked because this was literally the first time she heard the voice of The Silent Sheyta.
***
Leaping over ditches and small rivers with ease, blasting boulders out of their way with single kicks, Iskahn, Dampe and the other hundred Fist Fighters continued their ferocious sprint.
In a few moments, I’ll finally be able to fight these so-called demons, Integrity Knights. Bursting with anticipation, the young Fighters revealed disturbing grins.
In fact, Iskahn had been completely dispassionate towards the Integrity Knights of the Human Empire until he received the call to arms. He had looked upon them with contempt, under the impression that they were merely ruffians who hid behind armor and swords. Among all Humans in the Dark Territory, there was only one Dark Knight whom he had respected as a true fighter: the deceased Dark General Shasta.
But while he was meditating as he stood by for the order to attack, he had sensed the Integrity Knights’ fighting spirit and aggressive energy, and that was something. At least they aren’t just relying on their high-class weapons, he thought.
There must be impressively trained bodies beneath the armor and swords.
With heightened expectations, Iskahn couldn’t be more excited about fighting them fist-to-fist.
So.
When he finally sighted a Knight in front of the hill where the enemy army had stopped minutes ago, the Fist Fighter chief’s mouth dropped open, dumbstruck by her standing figure.
How thin.
She seemed to be a woman, so maybe her lack of a muscular build was inevitable; even so, she was way too thin. Although she was clad in metallic armor, she still looked more fragile than any of Iskahn’s female Fighters. Her armorless body would only be about as muscular as a Sorceress’s. Even the long sword hanging from her waist looked like a roasting spit.
Signaling with his right hand for his subordinates to stop, Iskahn skidded to a halt, kicking up a dust cloud. Raising his eyebrows that were curled up at the end like a flame, he opened his mouth.
“Who’re you? What the hell are you doin’ here?”
Slightly shaking her long, straight gray hair, the female Knight tilted her head. She looked as though she were thinking of what to say — or rather, pondering whether she wanted to answer the questions.
Her brows, eyes, nose, and mouth looked as though they had been sculpted with a sharp knife. Without a shred of emotion on her clean face, the female Knight spoke quietly:
“I’m here to stop you.”
Iskahn exhaled a large amount of air from his nose and mouth; no one knew whether he was laughing or upset, but in the end he just shrugged.
“ You can’t even stop a little kid. Oh, I know… You’re a Knight good at arts, eh?”
There was another awkwardly long silence before she answered.
“Arts are not my strength.”
Irritated by his enemy’s belittling attitude, Iskahn said: “Well, whatever,” and called out one of his subordinates. “Yotte, fight her.”
“Here I come!!”
A rather diminutive female Fighter leapt out of the formation with a vigorous reply. Despite that, she was still several times sturdier than the female Knight. Flexing her stiff muscles and darting to and fro, she revealed a savage leer that was completely different from her opponent.
“HAAH!”
From five mel away, the female Fighter punched the air, generating wind that rustled the female Knight’s hair.
Even then, there was not an ounce of fighting spirit on the Knight’s slender face. Instead, she looked confused and whispered softly.
“… Just one…?”
“That’s my line, you skeleton!”
Curling her thick lips, Yotte shouted.
“After I teach you a lesson, I’m gonna stuff lots and lots of dried meat into your tiny little mouth before I finish you off! Just pull out your sword already!!”
With a face as though saying ‘So you have nothing more to say’, the female Knight gripped the handle on her left waist.
Shiyuran . Catching sight of the effortlessly drawn blade —
“…what the fuck!?”
Iskahn, who had backed off and crossed his arms, shouted instinctively.
“Thin” was an insufficient description. The scabbard already looked like a roasting spit, but the blade inside it was just a cen wide, like a child’s finger. The sword was matte black and thin as paper; just being able to see it was difficult under the starry night sky. How fragile.
Yotte’s face flushed red with anger.
“… Y’ gotta be kiddin’ me…”
Performing a short martial dance, or rather, battering the earth with her feet, the female Fighter charged straight and quickly closed the distance between her and the Knight.
Even to Iskahn, that was quite an impressive sprint. Team Rabbit of the Fist Fighters’ Guild were, unlike their name, elites that were not only agile, but skilled precision fighters.
Bibat!
Splitting the air, Yotte lashed out.
Unable to avoid the close-range attack, the female Knight defended with her paper-thin sword.
The resounding noise was piercingly high, as if created by a collision of two metal objects. Blinding golden sparks shot out.
Immediately after.
The needlelike sword was easily bent.
Iskahn smiled. A normal sword would never cut the skin of a Fist Fighter.
The children born as Fist Fighters were thrown into the training facility as soon as they became five years of age. Their very first training was snapping a cast iron knife with one punch.
As they matured, cast iron would be replaced with wrought iron, and knives would be replaced with long swords. Not only did they have to split them, they had to withstand slashes from the weapons without any protection. Through their training, the adolescents were confident that blades were nothing to be afraid of. I am invulnerable to blades. That belief — in other words, Incarnation, turned their bodies into steel.
As the guild chief, Iskahn could stop a needle 2 cen in diameter with his eyeball.
Although Yotte, a normal Fighter, had not trained her Incarnation to this extent, she was one of the ten group leaders in Team Rabbit. Her fist did not lose to any sword.
Especially not that pitifully thin one.
All of the Fist Fighters had one image in their heads: the horribly bent black needle would snap with an embarrassing crack, and a fist would sink into the female Knight’s face.
Thew .
A strange sound, like a whip slicing the air.
Yotte froze, her fist hovering in the air. The punch barely grazed the female Knight’s right cheek, and the Knight’s hand lifted up.
Iskahn could not see the black blade clearly from his position.
— What the hell? That’s a pretty large target to miss.
The chief cursed. Even if Yotte wins this battle, she’ll have to start her training all over again in the arena’s third-class waiting room. No matter how tough one’s fist is, it’s useless if it doesn’t hit the oppone…
Yotte’s clenched fist silently split apart between her middle and ring finger.
“Wh………”
In front of the stunned Iskahn, the fissure continued from Yotte’s wrist to her elbow, through her upper limb, and passing through her shoulder.
Perfectly displaying a cross section precise to the bone, muscles and even the thinnest blood vessels, the outer part of Yotte’s right arm dropped onto the ground. Only after did blood erupt in multiple jets, forming a crimson mist.
“— GHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
Uttering an earsplitting shriek, Yotte collapsed to the ground, cradling her right arm.
The female Knight retracted her arm, and breathed a small sigh.
Back during her life in the Central Cathedral, ? The Silent ? Sheyta seldom spoke. This was not due to introversion, nor because she hated everyone else.
Just to avoid attention from other Integrity Knights — she suppressed her own existence, hoping that no one would challenge her to any sparring matches.
If she were to cross swords with anyone, even if it had been Knight Commander Bercouli, she possibly could have killed her opponent .
Fearing that this might happen, she had kept silent in the hundred years living in the Cathedral.
Even if she spoke, her familiar caretaker and the elevating-disk operator girl were the only ones she would talk to.
Sheyta was entirely a swordsman, synthesized after winning the Four Empires Unity Tournament.
However, the records of that year’s tournament were completely erased. The reason was that, in a tournament that appraised the principle of mercy as one’s best quality, blood had been shed: Sheyta had brutally murdered every single one of her opponents.
The high-ranking Integrity Knight Sheyta Synthesis Twelve, in a certain sense, shared a similar mindset with the chief of the Fist Fighters’ guild, Iskahn.
Iskahn thought only about beating up something or someone, while Sheyta was interested in nothing but slicing things in half. Despite that, from the bottom of her heart, she had never, ever enjoyed it.

She would just cut. Whether it be human or object, when she was confronted with something, Sheyta could already see its cross section sliced clean. Whenever that happened, she was never able to stop herself from realizing it. If her opponent were a wooden practice dummy, she could even cleanly sever it with her hand.
Sheyta had always suppressed her cut-hungry nature as something sinister.
The first to perceive this deeply hidden impulse in her heart was the Highest Minister Administrator.
For two hundred years, Administrator had been attempting to deduce the Spacial Sacred Energy Theory, which was now common knowledge to every learner of arts.
While the Highest Minister was still researching, she became deeply obsessed with the last and largest war in the Dark Territory that put the ? Age of Blood and Iron ? to an end.
Administrator was concerned that it would be such a waste for no one to collect the virtually infinite Sacred Energy that had been released from the fierce battle between the five Dark Territory races, which took place in the wilderness between the Human Empire and the Imperial Capital Obsidia.
Despite that, she had been careful to never visit the Dark Territory herself. Instead, she had summoned Knight Sheyta. The Highest Minister had whispered to Sheyta, who had already earned the moniker, ? The Silent ? :
— Journey there alone and look for something in the battlefield. A demonic beast, or something of the sort unharmed by the war would be best if you can find one. If not, any large animal will do. A bird or an insect at least. Just find me anything that’s engorged with Spacial Sacred Energy.
— Bring it to me, and from it, I will fashion a Divine Instrument for you.
— A sword with the highest Priority, a sword that can slice anything in half… How about that?
Sheyta could not resist the temptation. An Integrity Knight could not disobey an order from the Highest Minister anyway, but she, without taking a dragon to get over the Mountain Range at the Edge, trekking thousands of kilol deep into the land of ash, arrived at the battlefield that stank of blood.
There were no moving creatures where the five races had strained their limits to kill each other. Not even a mouse or a crow had survived, let alone a beast.
But Sheyta did not give in. A sword that can slice anything in half. The phrase had captured her heart, leaving her unable to think of anything else.
At the end of her three day search —
She finally found one lone black lily, wobbling flimsily in the wind.
That small flower was the only object that had survived the vast battlefield, charged with Spacial Sacred Energy.
The Highest Minister Administrator generated an extremely slim sword out of the flower that Sheyta brought back, and bestowed it upon her with the name ? Black Lily Sword ? .
A year later, after killing an Integrity Knight in a duel, she was put into hibernation at her own request.
Sheyta did not know whether she sighed out of sympathy or intoxication when she cut the female Fist Fighter’s fist.
Come to think of it, she also did not understand why she had volunteered ten minutes ago to defend this place, speaking to the Knight Commander and breaking her silence. Rather, she was unaware of any motivation to join the Defense Army half a year ago, volunteering herself while all of the Knights were invited.
Is it because I hope to protect the Human Empire, like the other Knights?
Or is it simply because I want to cut?
Or — it wants me to cut?
Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. The situation is what it is, and there’s no way to stop the sword anymore. Let’s just hope that there won’t be too many lives taken.
Sheyta calmly raised her head, and glanced at the terrified Fist Fighters who had frozen to the spot.
Without a trace of hesitation or fear, the gray Knight gripped her slender, pitch-black sword, and slashed head-on towards the hundred Fist Fighters.
***
“… What an incredible performance.”
At Alice’s hoarse comment, Bercouli muttered in a low voice.
“Right… Let me tell you something that you shouldn’t tell anyone else. Half a year ago, while I was waking her up from her deep freeze , I was actually kind of scared.”
“I never knew. I never knew that Sheyta-dono has been so adept…”
Beneath the hill, the battle between one hundred Fist Fighters and Integrity Knight Sheyta unfolded. To be precise, it was a one-sided massacre.
Whenever a thew came from the extremely thin and malleable sword, the limbs of the surrounding enemies would immediately separate from their bodies and hit the ground.
While impressed, Alice was slightly concerned about something that she should have felt from Sheyta’s slim frame.
She could not feel Sheyta’s murderous intent at all. Not only that, she could not even feel a shred of hostility.
If so, then how is she able fight so ferociously?
“Don’t think about it. Even though I’ve been watching her for more than a hundred years, I still understand nothing about her. Nothing.” The Knight Commander whispered and turned around.
“We can leave this to her. The main enemy army should be arriving very soon; we have to prepare for the counterattack over there.”
“… Okay.”
Nodding and looking away from the battle below her, Alice followed him.
***
About a thousand kilol south from Bercouli and Alice, who were walking down the hill, the gray, rough wilderness finally came to an end, where some irregularly shaped shrubbery grew in the area. The main formation of the decoy division was concealed among them.
They consisted of one thousand Guards, two hundred Ascetics, and a supply team of fifty people. They had to face the five thousand Fist Fighters with such a small force.
Integrity Knight Renri had ordered the Guards and the Ascetics to hide in the plants’ shadows, dividing them into twenty teams. The supply team wagon had carved fresh grooves into the only narrow path that stretched through the entire wooded area. The plan was to perform a pincer attack as the enemy followed the ruts into deep enough woods.
Renri had already heard from the Knight Commander that their swords would be ineffective on Fist Fighters, and he had heard about their weakness as well.
Fist Fighters were not good at defending themselves against Sacred Arts.
In the northern wilderness where not even moss could grow, there was simply not enough Sacred Energy to deploy any high-powered arts, but the air should be thicker in the shrubbery. The Ascetics hiding behind the leaves would ambush the enemy together, then retreat to the south while protected by the Guards. From the above, five Dragons would torch the enemy with their flame breath in the midst of the chaos.
Prepared for a quick retreat, Renri stationed the eight supply team wagons at the southernmost part of the shrubbery area. He determined that, the further away from the front line, the safer they would be.
However, just as Renri was devoting his mind to preparing the ambush, the five Guards, who were stations around the wagons just in case something happened, silently died, one after another, without uttering so much as a whimper.
Its entire body clad in glossless black metallic armor that was fitted with a demonic horned helmet, a shadow moved soundlessly.
Before h im,  a Guard of the Human Empire Defense Army looked left and right, alert. He did not, however, look behind him at all, because the other Guards should have been watching that space.
The shadow entered his blind spot, approaching as if it were gliding. A long sword was equipped on its waist, but it did not draw. Instead, it casually raised the tiny dagger in its right hand.
It stretched its left arm like a black snake, blocking the Guard’s mouth and nose.
At the same time, its right hand flashed, slitting his exposed throat in a straight line.
In complete silence, his Life was drained. Right after the Guard’s body suddenly lost its strength, the black shadow pushed it under the nearest bush.
Behind the black veil that covered its face, a barely audible voice slipped out.
“ Five, dooown. ”
The shadow giggled.
This was not the Ancient Sacred Tongue.
This shadow was actually one of the three real-world people in the Underworld. He, Vassago Casals, was the adjutant under Gabriel Miller, who posed as Emperor Vector.
About an hour ago, Vassago was swigging his red wine straight from the bottle for the umpteenth time. Meanwhile, he caught sight of the large-scale art, which ended with a pathetic failure for his side, and finally said something that sounded like advice.
“Hey, bro. How ‘bout we stop depending on those guys and try moving a bit by ourselves?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes at Vassago, raised his blond eyebrows and replied.
“Okay, then you can make the move.”
The instructions that followed were not to invade the valley that the Human Empire Army was protecting, but to travel somewhere far away from the battlefield, far south, in the middle of nowhere.
When the enemy eradicated the Demihuman troops with a laser beam like those in sci-fi movies, Gabriel had already predicted that part of the enemy would be selected to enter the Dark Territory.
But when Vassago heard this, he questioned why he had to specifically move south instead of north. Hearing the reply “Look, there’s more space that way”, he couldn’t help but be even more doubtful. But since the enemy did actually come, he could only admit his mistake and get to work.
No matter how strong the Human Empire units were, they would definitely stop if they lost all of their food supply. In order to continue his ‘Killing Time’, which was his first since Diving into this world, he gazed into the dark woods.
Very quickly, he found wagons camouflaged with branches and leaves.
Licking his lips under the mask, the assassin began moving again.
Then, something moved behind a wagon. He stopped abruptly and pressed himself against a tree.
A fair-skinned young girl with tea-colored hair, which was not a face of the Dark Territory, stuck her head out of the roof. Perhaps she had sensed something, as she was looking around with a nervous expression.
As Vassago stayed still, it did not take long for the girl to step carefully out of the cart. She whispered something to someone in the wagon, and finally began to walk slowly.
Wearing minimal defensive equipment on top of gray clothes that looked like a high school uniform, the girl was heading straight to Vassago’s hiding place.
Resisting the temptation to whistle, the assassin gripped his blood-soaked dagger tightly in his right fist.
***
“— DOOOON’T…”
Forced to watch his Fighters, whom he had painstakingly trained, effortlessly defeated nearby, Iskahn screamed in anger as he recovered from shock.
“GET TOO COCKY, YOU BIIIIITCH!!”
Kicking onto ground hard enough to produce a giant crack, he fiercely charged.
Flames erupted on his taut right fist as though they were the scorching fury itself.
He punched straight at the neck of the gray Integrity Knight. Sparks flew from his fist, creating a blazing tail in the air along its path.
At that moment, the Knight had just finished a slash with the sword in her right hand; she tried to block Iskahn’s punch with her gauntleted left hand.
— To my punch… all armor is no more than paper!!
The strike engorged with Incarnation collided into the female Knight’s palm; blinding sparks burst in all directions.
Immediately, the gray gauntlet shattered with a deafening crack, and the armor pieces from her arm to her shoulder were shredded and blown away.
Countless cuts crossed the smooth, white skin of the exposed left arm; droplets of blood flew into the air like grains of sand. However, surprisingly, he did not feel any bones breaking.
Even though it should be excruciatingly painful, the female Knight only frowned slightly, her right hand flashing her super-slim sword while her left hand grasped Iskahn’s right fist.
Kiiin! A high metallic noise resonated, and sparks burst again from the Fist Fighter’s elbow.
The source of Fist Fighters’ strength was the confidence of being invulnerable to all blades. In order to obtain that confidence, they wrapped their bodies only with belts, exposing their skin. The moment they fell back on any kind of defensive equipment, a Fist Fighter’s Incarnation would be weakened.
Therefore, Iskahn was trying to deflect the black blade that was about to cut through his right arm, just with his determination.
But.
The dense frigidity that almost sank into his skin was completely different from what he had felt from any other sword, even having taken slashes from them with bare skin.
This paper-thin sword was not just cold, hard steel; it represented will. Instead of a desire for victory, it was simply a thirst for division.
Sensing this, Iskahn reflexively punched with his left fist.
Po! Shattering the air, the punch pierced the space where the female Knight had been an instant ago.
That was impressively agile, but she did not completely evade the strike: the punch grazed her gray chestplate. As the Knight jumped out of the way, her chestplate shattered just like her gauntlet had.
But Iskahn was not uninjured either.
On his inner elbow, at the point that had met the blade for less than a second, there was a very shallow cut. A tiny droplet of blood slowly beaded out from its center. Only a drop — yet a drop nonetheless.
Licking the blood away, the young Fist Fighter savagely grinned.
“… Hey, bitch. You’re quite different inside from what you look like on the outside, huh.”
The gray female Knight and replied with something completely irrelevant.
“… I should be older than you…”
“Huh? You got that right. Integrity Knights like you are monsters that don’t get old for decades, right? What, you want me to call you granny?”
“……”
Below her eyes, the female Knight’s clean face jerked, but soon she returned to dispassion.
“… I forgive you. You are very hard. I can barely see where I can slice.”
“Tsk… What the hell are you talking about?”
Iskahn clucked his tongue, feeling his spirit weakened from her offbeat attitude. However, as he looked around at the Fist Fighters on the ground, he recovered his anger.
Twenty of them of them, men or women, were moaning, their arms or legs having been cut from their bodies by the slim sword. The most unforgivable thing was, not only did the female Knight harm his subordinates, she was apparently merciful to them by sparing their lives. None of the injured had lost their heads. With her skills and the sharpness of the sword, the Knight could easily have made that extra stroke if she wished.
“… So you treat us like wood dummies for your fucking sword practice. Unforgivable… I’m gonna beat you to a pulp!!”
Zun, zat, zun!!
The remaining active Fighters followed the quick steps of the Martial Dance. Fierce war cries overlapped with their stamping on the ground.
Ooh, rah, oorarah. Ooh, rah, oorarah.
As they stomped and vibrated the air, the Fist Fighters intensified their Incarnation. Drops of sweat flied off from their copper skin, transforming into flying, blazing sparks.
The Integrity Knight did not move, as if she were waiting for Iskahn to reach his maximum state.
— That’s right.
The Fist Fighter champion stopped his steps; flames roared from his reddish golden curly hair, and blinding light effused from both of his hands.
The female Knight, as his opponent, was persistently calm. In her right hand, the pitch-black super-slim sword was giving off a freezing energy.
“Heeeere I come, you BIIIIIIIIITCH!!”
Setting the air ablaze with a pow , Iskahn instantly closed the distance between them in a straight line.
The female Knight effortlessly swung the sword in her right hand.
Thew .
Just before the fine black line touched Iskahn’s shoulder —
Faster than the sword that swung earlier than him, a blow from the Fist Fighter struck the female Knight’s left leg. Not a punch, but a kick. His right foot shot up, hitting the gray leg guard directly with his toes.
With astonishing reflexes, the Knight stopped her sword and leaned forward, avoiding a fall, but the left leg guard was instantly shattered. The skirt around her waist was torn; her toned yet slim legs were exposed.
“Don’t think Fist Fighters can only punch!!”
Grinning confidently, Iskahn began a high kick with his left leg.
The female Knight turned her wrist, trying to parry the kick with her sword.
The instant that the blade and the leg clashed, a deafening crack was accompanied by a shower of blazing sparks. The Fist Fighter Chief pulled his toned left leg back, feeling a sharp pain, and suddenly thrust his right fist forward.
Bathed in crimson flames, the strike hit the Knight’s chestplate squarely in the middle.
Kaboom! An almighty explosion propelled the two of them away from each other. Iskahn backflipped in midair and landed on the ground.
His left leg stabbed with pain again. He glanced at it.
On his rock-hard shin that could easily bend a steel bar, a fresh cut carved a straight line. Dark red blood flowed out at once, dripping onto the black ground.
Snickering at this small scratch, he observed the enemy.
The female Knight managed to withstand this as well, but she pressed her left hand onto her chest and coughed a few times. Her chestplate, already damaged, had shattered completely; her right hand gauntlet and the gray clothing covering her chests were the only things left on her upper body. There was not much left on her lower body either: only a torn skirt and her right shin guard.
Exclusive to those born in the Human Empire, her snow-white skin seemed to glow even in the darkness. Seeing this, Iskahn sneered:
“Now you look more like a fighter, but there just aren’t enough muscles. Go eat and train more, bitch.”
The Fist Fighters around jeered at her, but the Knight calmly tore off a hanging piece of cloth from her left shoulder and raised the sword in her right hand. Thew.
“… But you’ve become a bit softer just now.”
“… THE FUCK DID YOU SAY?”
His nostrils flared and he bared his canine teeth.
Even though he was bluffing with his expression, Iskahn felt that his breaths had become slightly quicker.
There’s no way my spirit would decrease just by seeing some uncovered limbs. The women over here show much more of their skin every day, only a fresh trainee kid would hesitate just by seeing that.
The whole world is made out of opponents that I must beat up with my tough body, even if it’s a foreign woman who’s slim enough that the wind could bend her bones, whose skin is shining white.
“There’s no turning back… I’m gonna show you all I’ve got!!”
Howling like a wolf, Iskahn jabbed his index finger at the female Knight:
“So show me yours as well, bitch!! Don’t give me that fucking sleepy face!!”
As he said so, the Knight looked confused again, and touched her own cheeks and the middle of her forehead with her left hand. Changing her eyebrows’ angle into a slightly fiercer look, she said:
“Bring it on… please.”
“…… Yeah, bring it on.”
I’ll be thinking nonsense again if I follow her pace.
Iskahn inhaled deeply, gathered power in his stomach, and violently bent over.
Putting his left fist to his waist, and pointing his right fist at his opponent, he noisily exhaled the air. As he repeated the rough breathing, his parted legs began to glow red, drawing power from the ground. The energy channeled through his body and gathered at his fist.
Crimson blazing flames gradually shone yellow, and eventually turned bluish white.
Now Iskahn’s right fist was at a temperature so high that it could almost burn the air, making high, sharp noises.
The female Knight faced him sideways, extended her left hand to the front with her thumb and fingers neatly lined up, and swung the fine sword in her right hand behind her. Her arms aligned in a straight line, giving a feel of strength like a catapult prepared to launch with full power.
The tension in Iskahn was so immense that he felt like he was already split into half, from the head all the way down to the stomach. And yet he grinned excitedly.
— She’s the first one to burn me up this much.
Both of them moved at the exact same moment.
The Knight’s sword drew a pitch-black crescent curve in the air.
The Fist Fighter’s fist became a bluish white comet. At the instant that they collided, powerful shockwaves exploded outward, cracking the ground on their way. The remaining Fist Fighters surrounding the two were irresistibly blown backwards.
The sword and the fist were only meeting at the size of a needle’s tip, yet they were battling intensely. Surpassing its limit, the compressed power shot forth into a beam of light, bursting into the night sky.
With Sheyta’s combat skills, she could have defeated her opponent without this kind of stupid competition of brute strength.
Slightly surprising to her, the intensity of the young Fist Fighter’s Incarnation was at the level of a high-ranking Knight. Even so, he concentrated all of his Incarnation at his fist as he charged, and other parts of his body actually looked rather soft to Sheyta. It seemed that she could have evaded the straight punch and cut his head off right away.
Sheyta, however, did not choose to do that; instead, she countered the opponent’s white-blue glowing fist head-on. There was no rationale to this decision; she was simply following her body and her sword.
Sheyta was rather confused by herself. Since a hundred years ago, she had already realized that she had none of a Knight’s appraised mental qualities, such as pride or nobility. She would cut because she wanted to, and that was all she desired.
It should mean the same when “slice” is replaced with “kill”. Only when she had been assigned with the mission of securing the Mountain Range at the Edge, Sheyta could release her true self. She had ended countless lives of Dark Knights or Goblins by mercilessly cutting their necks.
She had been suppressing her nature as something sinister, so much, in fact, that she was called ? The Silent ? , but why did she not choose to kill in this particular battle? Sheyta was deeply puzzled.
But even that was just too much to think about.
Now, at this moment, there was only herself, the Black Lily Sword and the fist in front of her.
— It’s so hard. Can I cut it in half?
— This is fun.
Iskahn saw the thin and almost colorless lips of the enemy Knight slightly widening, a smile on her face.
And he had already understood that the smile was not a disgrace to him — nor the fight.
The reason was that he had the exact same kind of smile on his face.
— So you’re one of the elegant Human Empire residents born with such a delicate figure, but we’re the same kind of people, huh.
Click . A small vibration could be felt from within his fist.
Iskahn realized that the noise was not because of any cracks on the opponent’s black sword, but it came from the fracturing bones of his own fist.
— No good. Even this doesn’t get through, huh.
— But, well, that’s how it is.
If his fist had been completely cut, for sure the black, slim sword would cut his entire body in half as well. Even though he expected for such a result, Iskahn felt no fear. I’m not going to meet such a great opponent like her for a second time. If so, well, this isn’t such a dumb way to die.
Right at the moment when he thought so, and was about to close his eyes for a long nap.
The pressure added onto his fist slightly weakened.
Compressed at one point to its limit, the pressure released all at once, blowing Iskahn and the Knight away from each other as if they were mere leaves. He suddenly noticed why his opponent’s Incarnation had weakened. A large silhouette had tried to slip in between the two.
Sitting up on the ground, Iskahn yelled at the huge man who fell down as he did.
“Dampe, you bastard!! … Look at what the fuck you’ve done!!”
“Time’s up, Champion .”
The vice chief said, slightly opening his eyes that were usually almost closed. He stood up, raised his muscular right arm, and pointed it to the north.
As Iskahn turned his eyes to the same direction, he could see that the main army of the Fist Fighters and the Dark Knights behind had come so close to one another that they could recognize each other. Right, as the chief of the army, I shouldn’t be too obsessed with a private battle when an army-scale battle’s beginning anyway. But—
Clucking his tongue like mad, he spun around. Behind the floating dust, the enemy Knight that had lost almost all of her equipment and clothes slid her slim sword back into its scabbard, as though she did not care at all.
“Hey, bitch! Don’t think you’ve won like this!!”
The young Fist Fighter screamed, forgetting that he had just been preparing his mind for death.
Swaying her gray hair, the Knight flicked her head to look at Iskahn, and tilted her head as if she were searching for the right words to say.
“Umm, that, ‘bitch’ thing… Could you please stop that?”
“Look… In this situation, I don’t know how you’re gonna run awa…”
At that moment, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew from the south. The Fist Fighters surrounding her looked towards it as one.
Iskahn blinked unconsciously. In his sight, a Knight stretched her arm up high, and a gigantic monster quickly descended. Its gray scales twinkled like stars; this must be a Dragon.
As the Knight grabbed onto a leg, the Dragon rose into the sky at once.
“Hey you! … Tell me your fucking name before you run away!!”
Intertwined with the noise of the vigorously flapping wings, a mild voice came down.
“… I’m not running away. I’m… Sheyta Synthesis Twelve.”
He stood up with Dampe pulling his hand; Iskahn watched the Dragon’s silhouette vanishing into the nocturne darkness, and clucked his tongue again.
If he were allowed, he would love to fight that strong opponent again after a year of intense training, since his realized that he had a lot to improve on.
However, Iskahn was mature enough to know that his personal desire would be nothing in front of the war strategy.
Once his team rendezvoused with the Fist Fighter main army, they would have to crush the enemies together with the Dark Knights. There might not be a chance for them to fight again.
If only I could obtain the ? Radiant Medium ? —
After a moment, Iskahn clucked his tongue for a third time, this time to himself for having such a thought.
— What a retard I am. Begging the Emperor to save the life of that female Knight as a reward? My entire tribe will be furious at me.
Pulling himself out of the thoughts, Iskahn went to the subordinate that held a jar of medicine, in order to cure his left leg.