Sword Art Online - Volume 27 - Chapter 13

13

“Haaaaaaah!!”

Integrity Pilot Stica Schtrinen launched herself off the floor with a piercing cry.

Her sword, held at the waist, took on a pale glow, ready to execute the Norkia-style ultimate technique Waterwheel Slice. An unseen force accelerated her charge, instantly closing the gap between her and the enemy.

An ultimate technique increased the power and speed of the slice dramatically, but made it much harder to hit the intended spot. Even still, Stica performed some subtle contortions to fine-tune her aim and drove her swipe right into the relatively thin flank of her target’s metal armor.

It made a dull thwack! sound. The armor broke, and the sword sank more than ten cens into the body underneath. But instead of the sensation of biological flesh and bone being severed, the physical feedback was more like cutting a clump of wet sand.

“Shaaaa!”

The enemy howled with aggression, not in pain of any kind, and raised its hefty machete-like weapon.

“Ugh…”

She danced back, just before the knife struck the spot where she had been standing. It crushed the stone tile into pieces.

“You all right, Sti?!” shouted Laurannei from the back. She was engaged with her own foe, however, and couldn’t come to Stica’s aid.

“I’m fine!” she replied, taking her distance. “But cutting him doesn’t seem to have any effect!”

“Same here!” said Laurannei, sounding worried.

Their foes were obviously neither human nor demi-human.

They stood with an extreme forward tilt, yet were still 180 cens tall. Their torsos and arms were notably long and narrow, while their legs were thick and short. Their bodies were covered with armor like slabs of metal stuck together, and they wore sleek helmets, but the mask portion on the front had four eyeholes, and the eyes behind them glowed a deep red. What exposed skin they did have was such a dark gray, it was nearly black.

It was said that there were many strange creatures living on the undeveloped continent of Cardina, but there was no record of anything like these monstrosities in the Pilothood’s registries of knowledge.

“Hissss…,” the monster growled as it approached. There was sticky black liquid dripping from the wound Stica’s best technique had inflicted, but even that would dry up in a matter of seconds.

The monsters had attacked the space force base just ten minutes ago.

Stica and Laurannei were in their two-person room on the third floor of the pilots’ barracks, enthusiastically discussing the day’s events. It was stunning enough that they had set foot inside the sealed floors of Central Cathedral, which hadn’t been opened in a century. Seeing the Star King’s own X’rphan Mk. 13, enjoying a dip in the legendary Great Bath, and even meeting their proud Integrity Knight ancestors, Tiese Schtrinen Thirty-Two and Ronie Arabel Thirty-Three, all in one day, was unfathomable to them.

There were so many things they wanted to ask their elders, who had taken part in events like the Otherworld War and the Rebellion of the Four Empires, which were mere historical footnotes to the girls. But Commander Herlentz had not approved their request to extend their leave of absence, so they had to return to base. After the ten o’clock lights-out, however, they were unable to fall asleep and were still in their uniforms, talking, when they heard the explosions.

They rushed to the window, just in time to see huge flames billowing up from the dragoncraft hangars on the south side of the base.

The Underworld’s Space Force was split into four flight groups—Cattleya Company, Anemone Company, Marigold Company, and Dahlia Company—each containing sixteen Teira Mk. 6 dragoncraft, including reserves. The flames were coming from each company’s hangar, telling the girls that this was not an accident, but a deliberate attack. Next, they rushed to the west-facing window.

From this one, they had a view of the space force headquarters’ command center, adjacent to the pilots’ barracks. The Integrity Pilots’ Blue Rose Company had their hangar on the first floor of the command center, so the Keynis Mk. 7s they flew might have been under attack, too. Fortunately, they saw no flames from that direction.

Instead, they saw dozens of strangely shaped figures breaking the exterior glass doors to the building and going inside. The Star King himself had designed the command center to have armor plating that would seal off any weaker entry points in an emergency, but that system was not activating now.

Even still, the base was surrounded by sturdy four-mel walls on all sides and had security guardsmen on watch. Why did the alarms go off well before they reached this far into the base? But Stica found out why when Laurannei grabbed her arm and pointed to the sky in the opposite direction.

Almost directly overhead of the command center, a single large dragoncraft was in a hover. The pitch-black armor, cast in red by the flames rising from the hangars, and the body, shaped like the sacred letter V, were both identical to the large dragoncraft that Kirito and Eolyne had found on Admina.

Clearly, this black dragoncraft had bombed the hangars and lowered the strange-looking soldiers onto the command center. But if they were seeking to neutralize the space force and Integrity Pilothood, why didn’t they bomb the center as well? After a moment, realization set in. They either wanted to take it without destroying it or there was someone they wanted to take captive rather than killing them.

If either, it was probably the latter. And that someone was probably Commander Herlentz.

With that realization came the arrival of the barracks’ alarms at last, along with the vice commander’s voice through the transmitter on the wall.

“All pilots, arm yourselves and head to the command center. Our top priority is to secure Commander Herlentz’s safety, and our second priority is to eliminate all enemy creatures within the base. The commander is most likely on the seventh floor, in either his office or his personal quarters. Act as soon as possible; do not wait for further orders.”

Thankfully, the girls were still in their uniforms. Stica and Laurannei simply grabbed their standard-issue swords from the rack on the wall and rushed out of the room. Rather than heading to the front door on the ground floor, they opened the window at the end of the third-floor hallway and used wind-element jumping to travel through the air. It was a far cry from the wind-element flight that the Integrity Knights of the past were said to be able to use, but by releasing a wind element from their soles with each step, the air pressure pushed them upward, so they could travel about thirty mels through the air before landing.

When they reached the third floor of the command center, they took advantage of the fact that the armored plates were not down and broke through a window to get into the hallway.

From there, they rushed up the empty emergency stairwell until they got to the seventh floor, where the pilot commander’s private quarters were located. They had run no more than ten mels when two enemy creatures appeared around the corner ahead and blocked the way, forcing them to draw their swords and fight.

In the two minutes of combat since, Stica had hit her foe with three slashes, including an ultimate technique, and the enemy didn’t even seem to be pained, much less defeated. Stica’s and Laurannei’s longswords had the highest priority level of all the standardized weapons allowed for personal use, and their ultimate techniques were obviously very powerful. The fact that they couldn’t even slow down the enemy was a sign that their foe’s durability was numerically and categorically abnormal.

Fortunately, the things weren’t that fast, so the girls were able to avoid the attacks, but if even a single strike from those thick machetes landed, they would be seriously injured, if not killed instantly, given the wrong location. The longer the fight went on, the higher their chances of getting hit, and their top priority was not defeating the enemy, but securing the safety of the commander.

After a right turn up ahead, at the end of the hallway and attached to his office, would be his personal quarters. They just had to get there first.

“Laura, let’s try to get them bundled up in the same spot somehow!”

“Try to think of what ‘somehow’ is supposed to be before you make a suggestion,” Laurannei groused, although she already had a good idea. “Sti, let’s circle around your enemy and slip past them together! One, zero!”

At least start from three!

Stica pushed off the ground. The enemy reacted, pulling back its blade. She leaped right below it, stifling her momentary terror.

She barely made it past the whoosh of the falling machete, but it brushed the hem of her jacket, and that alone made the fabric split like paper. The pilot’s uniform was supple but highly resistant to slashes and sacred arts. The fact that the weapon was able to cut through it so easily was a sign of how high its priority level was.

Once past the enemy’s left side, Stica put distance between it and her. But Laurannei, slipping through on the right side, began to slow down unnaturally. She had activated an ultimate technique.

“Rrraaahhh!!”

With a fierce cry, she spun her sword with both hands at mid-level, body and all. The horizontal swing left a crimson trail that dug deep into the side of the enemy spinning around to face her and knocked it back farther into the hallway.

That was the Baltio-style ultimate technique Stormy Sea. The trajectory of the attack resembled Waterwheel Slice, but it took longer to charge and had much more power.

It was a technique that had been passed down through the Schtrinen family for generations. Stica had taught it to Laurannei, and at some point, she had totally mastered it. But there was no time for Stica to feel admiration or jealousy.

The bowled-over enemy slammed into the other one behind it, and they fell to the floor together. Stica promptly threw her hands out and began to intone a command.

“System Call! Generate Cryogenic Element!”

Five on the fingertips of her left hand, but only four on the right, because her thumb was holding the sword in place. Nine frost elements in total cast a pale light on the corridor.

Normally, she would follow this with a shaping command, a trajectory command, and a shooting command, but the enemy was already rising again. She shortened the process by simply shouting “Go!” to fire the frost elements.

Nine lights zipped forward, leaving trails in the air. The instant they made contact with the enemy, she cried, “Burst Element!!”

Bshhk! The air shivered, and the two enemies turned bone white. The frigid air of the frost elements had frozen them over. But this would only briefly slow them down.

“Haaaaah!!” she bellowed, wringing out all the Incarnation she could. With another hefty creak, the ice surrounding the enemy grew thicker before their eyes.

If she did this anywhere other than the specially screened training grounds, all of the base’s Incarnameters would go off and get her in trouble, but no one would care now. The iceberg grew until it reached the ceiling, and she lowered her hands only when she was certain that the two enemies were trapped beneath it.

Immediately, she swooned slightly as the effect caught up with her head. Fortunately, Laurannei was there to put a hand on her back and keep her upright.

“Can you keep going, Sti?” her friend asked, as blunt as ever.

“Of course I can,” she replied, standing on her own.

Considering the enemy’s strength, even a cage of ice as strong as could be might last only five minutes. They had to meet up with the commander and escape the command center by then.

After one deep breath, she had recovered enough to go on; they resumed their sprint. The stone-tiled corridor intersected with a wider central hallway up ahead. If they turned left, they would reach the main stairs and a levitation shaft, but if they turned right, they would be at their destination, the office.

Stica leaned forward as far as she could, hurtling herself off the left-hand wall to reorient herself into the central hallway.

“…!!”

On pure reflex, she dropped her hips and came to a rapid stop.

Just ten mels ahead, there were more of the enemy creatures—four of them.

“Fhhsshhh…”

One of them noticed the girls and growled. The other three turned to see.

Through the holes opened in the strangely shaped helmets, sixteen eyes glowed red, staring at the two pilots.

“Sti…,” Laurannei whispered. Ever since they were in their first year of juvenile school, it had always been Stica’s role to take action in situations like this. But now, not a single good option came to her mind.

The Integrity Pilothood had four pilots, excluding Commander Herlentz, who outranked Stica and Laurannei. The vice commander, the flight captain, the swordcraft master, and the sacred arts master could all use the Perfect Weapon Control and Memory Release arts; they were undoubtedly the strongest swordsmen in the Underworld.

So where were the four who should have been here before anyone else? Stica started to curse them, then realized that it was only because they were holding off all the other creatures on lower floors that there were only this many on the seventh.

Fleeing wasn’t an option. They had to do something about these four somehow.

“Laura, I’ll…”

Be a decoy, so you can slip past to the office, she started to say.

Then there was a tremendous metallic crash from behind them.

Stica spun around on pure reflex and saw the front glass in the main stairway room shattering to pieces.

The dragoncraft hovering overhead had dropped more creatures onto the building, Stica instinctually thought—but she was wrong. What came through the spray of glass shards, whipped up by the vortex of wind elements, were two women wearing old-fashioned white knight’s uniforms, with swords at their sides. One of them had brilliant scarlet hair, while the other’s hair was the deep brown of cypress bark…

Integrity Knights Tiese Schtrinen Thirty-Two and Ronie Arabel Thirty-Three had learned of the danger to the space force base and come to help.

They alit on the floor without a sound. Stica very nearly shouted, Ancestors! but composed herself first and reframed her feelings. “Lady Tiese…Lady Ronie!”

“You’re both all right?!” shouted Tiese. She released the remaining wind element under her feet and leaped over twenty mels of space at once. When she landed in front of Stica and Laurannei, her sword was already drawn and pointed at the four enemies.

“Ahhh…minions,” murmured Ronie, who landed next to Tiese.

Stunned, Laurannei asked, “Y-you know what they are?”

“Yes. Unfortunately,” Ronie replied, drawing her sword, too.

The so-called minions hissed menacingly at the women but did not draw closer. It was almost as though they’d been ordered to block the way to the office. If that were true, it would suggest that enemies had already infiltrated their destination.

“Commander Eolyne is in the room behind them!” Stica cried, in the grips of panic.

But Tiese just held out a hand, gesturing her back. “I know. Ronie, get the two on the left.”

“Roger that.”

Stica could only stare in wonder as the pair of knights readied their swords in formation ahead of her.

If they knew what the monsters’ name was, they would know of their horrible durability as well. Yet they expected to defeat all four of them at once, just with swords?

Tiese and Ronie held their swords over their right shoulders in perfect unison.

The blades glowed a deep shade of red. It was an ultimate technique—but that color and pose did not belong to any techniques Stica knew.

The minions reacted to the light, lifting their machetes.

“Bshhuuuu!!” they roared with malice. Spreading out to block the hallway from edge to edge, they pressed down on the women in a surge of motion.

Then the women bolted into action.

Their thin longswords reached out to block the blades of the innermost two. This is crazy, Stica thought. The ultimate techniques would lift the power and speed of an attack dramatically, but they would not change the priority or durability of the swords themselves. The minions’ machetes were equivalent in priority to the Pilothood’s standard swords, so if they struck equally, the swords would either lose or, even worse, break in two.

However…

Tiese’s and Ronie’s swords, which glowed in a deeper shade of red than that of Stormy Sea, easily shattered the two-cen-thick steel machetes as easily as if they were panes of glass.

The blades continued through, cutting deep into the minions from shoulder to chest. But then the machetes of the outer two creatures came hurtling forward.

With a roar like the heat-element engine of a dragoncraft, the women’s swords leaped upward, striking the machetes from below and once again shattering the steel.

A two-part technique! marveled Tiese, but it was not finished yet. The swords swung back down, the angle and speed ignoring all concept of inertia, mercilessly gouging the chests of the outer minions.

The fourth attack hit the inner minions.

The fifth, the outer. Sixth, inner.

The seventh swings, downward diagonals, cut through two minions at once, and at last the knights’ ultimate technique was over.

Tiese and Ronie came to a stop at the end of the follow-through, while behind them the minions hurtled backward, spraying black blood and toppling to the floor atop one another.

“A seven-part…combination,” Laurannei rasped in disbelief.

Stica was just as stunned.

Out of the ultimate techniques passed on through the Integrity Pilothood, the greatest number of strikes belonged to the Norkia style’s Lightning Slash Profusion and Waterwheel Slice Hail, both of which hit four times. And only five elite pilots had been granted permission to learn them; Stica and Laurannei would have to train for years to even learn the initial form…

But actually, the real shock was not the number of parts in the technique, but the potency of each strike. Every one of the dizzying sequence of blows seemed to be far more powerful than even the High-Norkia style Mountain-Splitting Wave.

Once certain that the minions were truly neutralized, Stica gingerly spoke up. “Um…L-Lady Tiese? What was that…?”

“Deadly Sins, from the Aincrad style.”

“A-Ain…?”

She had never heard of that style or technique before.

The Integrity Pilothood was supposed to contain techniques from every sword school in the entire human realm. Could that really be possible…?

Tiese grabbed Stica’s shoulder. “Come. We must rescue Eolyne.”

“Ah…y-yes, of course!”

She started to run down the hallway with them—when the bodies of the minions, which should have been completely killed by Tiese’s and Ronie’s seven-part techniques, shivered.

They splurted and burst, shooting tendrils of black liquid in every direction. Because the four women were a good distance away, it did not reach them, but the stringy liquid stuck to the floor, ceiling, and walls, instantly hardening and forming layers of netting that blocked the hallway.

“……!”

Ronie raised a hand and silently generated ten wind elements, then turned them into a small whirlwind that she pushed forward. The black nets shook violently with the power of the wind but did not tear loose.

“Hahhh!”

This time it was Laurannei, striking at the nets with her sword.

It made a horrible, ear-piercing clash that produced orange sparks. Laurannei and her sword were thrown backward by the impact of the collision, and Stica rushed forward to help support her weight.

The four were stuck, helpless, before the nets.

And through the doorway just ten mels past the netting, they could hear the faint clanging of swordfighting.