Alice flew from the North side of UW to the East side on her dragon. It’s the first time for both her and her dragon to be in this area. The people she sees staring up at her had black hair, and Alice thought maybe Kirito was born in this area. Alice had wanted to take it easy and land in a few villages, maybe more human contact will wake Kirito’s heart up, but as things are now there’s no time to waste to get to the front lines. After 3 days of urgent travel with minimum rest they reached their destination, the front lines. Her dragon lost all the excess weight from half a year’s worth of feeding on fish whenever it wanted to in a nearby lake, since taking two people and three artefact-level swords are quite tiring.
The Eastern Gate was 300m high, lower than the central Cathedral which was 500m high. Though in terms of quality it was beyond anything Administrator could have created. The outer walls as far as Alice knew was created by the Gods at the creation of this realm. Upon those walls was words in English, and Alice tried to make sense of them:
“desutora……kuto……ato……za……rasuto，sute-ji……”(destruct at last stage)
Alice couldn’t understand what those words meant. As she was trying to puzzle it out the massive gate cracked and bits of rock fell off it. Upon more inspection the other sections of the gate was covered with cracks dozens of metres long as well. Alice gulped and made her dragon went closer to the gate. There was more dull cracking sounds, suggesting the internal parts of the gate was collapsing on the inside as well. She brought up the system window of the Gate, and she was stunned by the numbers on there; the HP was the highest of anything she had ever seen, over 3 million. On the other hand, there was only around 3 thousand HP left in the gate, and still decreasing as she looked. At the current rate it was going down, in 5 days the Gate will fall. Alice struggled to accept this fact, when she had heard the war was near she had naively thought she still had 1-2 years left. After sealing the northern passage, she had thought that would have bought Selka and her village some peace for now.
A few minutes later Alice reached the top of the Gate, and gazed out towards the Dark Territory. On one side of the gate there was blue skies and green grass in the human kingdom, but on the other side the skies were red and coal-black plains with no plant life. Some distance away, there were many campfires, spreading as far as she can see into the horizon, the Dark Territory were ready for the invasion. Then as if to escape from the reality, Alice turned her dragon away and flew off. If she stared any longer she might let fear overrule herself and charge straight in to fight, and then die by being suppressed by the superior numbers.
Alice landed in the human army’s camp, and her student (Synthesis Twenty Six) approached her. He was shocked Alice brought Kirito with her into battle, she wouldn’t be able to protect him; even if she strapped him onto her back, her capability would be halved and she owes it to the human world to fight at full potential. Alice was surprised at how her student can still argue back against her when before he always accepted what she had decided on; after his fight with Kirito and Eugeo he changed. Kirito’s rule-breaking seems to be contagious, with Selka for example showing her disagreements with the village policies, the two squires that was with him and Eugeo back at the sword academy, and of course Alice herself. Alice thought back to just how much Kirito had done for her and UW, and how much he had sacrificed for that, but she also knows the various Synthesis Knights he would still be a traitor that did heavy damage to them.
Berculi then parted the crowd and came in to tell Synthesis Twenty Six it’ll be fine, and then greeted Alice. Alice felt if he ordered her to leave Kirito behind somewhere she would obey for the sake of keeping morale high, even if after breaking the seal in her right eye she isn’t bound by his words. But she really hoped it would have to come to that. Berculi then stepped forward in front of Kirito, and gathered up his willpower. Alice understood this aura to be preparation for an Incarnation attack, and wondered if Berculi wanted to cut Kirito down for being a burden. If so then she would use her own sword to fight back. Everyone else around them, even the dragons, are stunned speechless by the aura Berculi expressed. Berculi telepathically told Alice it’ll be fine, and in the instant Alice felt puzzled by his words Berculi’s eyes flashed brightly. At the same time Kirito in Alice’s arms shuddered, and a silver flash sparked between Bersuli and Kirito. Alice stepped back in surprise and Berculi released his aura, smiling. Berculi had tried to attack Alice and Kirito with a minor Incarnation attack, even if it had hit it would only cut a bit of skin off, and Kirito had parried it with his own Incarnation attack. Kirito might not have his heart here, but he’s not gone for good either. In his attack just then Berculi found Kirito cared more about protecting Alice than for himself, so Kirito will be back for sure one day – possibly when Alice herself is in real life-threatening danger. Alice couldn’t help herself and buried her face onto Kirito’s shoulders to hide her tears, moved by Kirito’s dedication; though she tries to convince herself Kirito is doing this for all the humans in the world, but because it’s for protecting her alone.
Berculi told Synthesis Twenty Six to don’t be stingy and help out, it’s just taking care of one boy after all. Twenty Six argued if Kirito could fight even a tiny bit then fine, but even if he recovers what can he do? Berculi revealed Kirito’s partner, Eugeo, managed to defeat even himself, Berculi Synthesis One, the strongest of Synthesis Knights. This suggested if Kirito, who is at least on the same level as Eugeo if not greater, recovers they will benefit greatly. As Alice considers how dangerous was Berculi’s words stating that even their strongest warrior can be defeated, Berculi suddenly trembled and looked to the sky:
A great swordsman’s aura had flared up in an instant, and then vanished… far away, someone had died.