The Twenty-Fifth Knight
Chapter Twenty Six
380 HEC, Twenty Fifth day of the Fifth month
The Genie flew through the air and crashed down in front of the five rebels. Waves of fire shot out in all directions along the floor, sending huge, towering plumes of flames up along the walls. Mateo, Katherine, Alice, Eugeo, and Kirito all shielded their eyes as the heat and light of the flames became overwhelming, before they then died down slightly and their eyes adjusted.
"I- I had no idea he could conjure such spells. I clearly underestimated him," Alice admitted.
"Yeah, I think we all underestimated him," Mateo replied, to which Katherine nodded in agreement.
"That fiery giant is a being made of pure magic. My flowers cannot destroy such a thing, and I doubt they'll be able to do much damage or ward it away for very long," Alice told her allies.
"How long? I mean we don't need that much time, just enough to get up to Chudelkin and slash him," Kirito pointed out, and Alice glanced over at him.
"Ten seconds, no more, and perhaps even less than that. But you're right," she said, and both Mateo and Katherine stepped forward to stand beside her.
"We can add some time onto that. We'll draw its attention. Eugeo, stay with Kirito and cover him. Kirito, we're counting on you to be able to land a hit on Chudelkin. Don't advance too far though. That's what Administrator is counting on," Mateo warned, and the others nodded. With that, he, along with Alice and Katherine all held their weapons out and chanted the same incantation.
"Release Recollection!"
Immediately, bright, glowing circles formed around their weapons, and they split up to distract the giant from Kirito and Eugeo. Mateo swung his axe and sword, both weapons flaring with blazing might, and he slammed the axe into the ground as he thrust the sword into the air. In response, the massive draconic companion which once fought by Solus's side flew from the sword and spread its wings, letting out a mighty bellow. At the same time, there was a great tremor from the floor, and mysterious, jet black cracks spread along the ground from the Infernal Wyrm Axe. Moments later, right before the Genie would've slammed a massive, fiery fist into Mateo, a great, skeletal serpent with bones the color of pure Ignistone, black like a void save for the edges which glowed with the light of a raging inferno, intercepted the attack and sent the Genie reeling backward with an earsplitting roar.
Katherine ran to the right of the Genie, pointing her sword at its face. She skidded to a stop and planted her feet, before letting out a battle cry and thrusting the Righteous Defender forward. From the blade sprang the magnificent form of Gabriel's griffin, clad in shimmering silver armor, his wings rippling with the wind as he charged towards the Genie. The chimera leaped into the air as the Genie fell backward, working in tandem with Solus' dragon as if they'd fought side by side long ago. As the dragon flapped its wings to push the Genie backward, Gabriel soared into the air and slashed through the flaming giant's face with his mighty claws.
A massive claw mark formed on Chudelkin's face, his pale head tiny in comparison to his fiery behemoth, and he screamed in agony. "No way…" Mateo thought to himself as Alice's sword planted itself in the ground, and great vines armed with flowers sharper than razors ripped through the ground to wrap around the Genie's legs, immobilizing it and causing magical blood to leak from the wounds. At the same time, strange gashes formed on Chudelkin's legs, and blood seeped through his clothing. "It's like a voodoo doll!" Mateo exclaimed in disbelief, before grinning. "Alice! Katherine! Keep the Genie busy! I'm going in for the kill!"
Meanwhile, Kirito pointed his sword at Chudelkin's stomach. "Go for her eyes," he told Eugeo, who nodded and formed a cluster of cryogenic arrows in his hands.
"Discharge!" he exclaimed, shooting the volley of arrows at Quinella's face.
"No no no no! Watch out, your eminence!" Chudelkin called out, turning to look at her with charcoal colored eyes. He laughed gleefully as she merely blew on the particles, causing them to evaporate into the air as if they'd never existed. But then, Kirito began to let out a rumbling cry. It was low at first, but as it strengthened, a bright light overtook both him and his sword. A radiant silver color spread from the tip of his blade, and as it moved down the length of the sword and to his body, Eugeo watched in awe as his sword and clothing transformed.
Where moments earlier he'd worn a black and white shirt with golden accents, and his sword sported a black blade with navy blue highlights, now it was a uniquely shaped longsword with a circular shaped hand guard, which spread from the base of the sword down to his first knuckle, but was nonexistent on the back side of the blade. And his shirt had undergone a stark change too, for it now was a large coat which whipped around like his black hair, with a strange, triangular clasp securing it over the top of his chest.
Mateo thrusted his axe forward toward the gut of the Genie as Kirito thrusted the reborn Elucidator out at Chudelkin. The sword stretched out and lengthened with a bright, golden glow, spearing Chudelkin, before retreating back to its normal size. In the same instant, the Arch Mantle Wyrm, whose bones had become the ore which the Infernal Wyrm Axe was forged from, shot out of the ground like a shark and burrowed through the Genie's stomach as Alice warded it away from Eugeo and Kirito with her sword's flowers.
Chudelkin screamed in horrible agony as his blood gushed from the massive, gaping wound in his chest, while the Genie let out a dying roar as it fell backward, vanishing into the air with a huge cloud of embers right before it would've hit the floor. At the same time, Chudelkin fell backward with a pained groan, his clothing stained with his blood. He feebly reached for Administrator, who was floating in the air without a care in the world. "Y- Your… Eminence…" he said in a guttural tone before his hand fell to the ground and splashed into the large pool of his blood.
As the light from the Genie faded, Quinella twirled her hair with one finger, while Kirito briefly balanced himself with the sword. Katherine and Mateo's weapons both recalled the beasts formed from their memory release skills back into themselves, and they rejoined their companions to face the Pontifex.
"Well, that was rather anticlimactic… But, I did gain some interesting information from it, so it's not a total loss," she then pointed out, before glancing at Chudelkin's bloodied form. "How unsightly," she muttered, before hurling it through the air with a wave of her hand, his body glowing white as he was moved by way of Incarnate Arms. Chudelkin hit the wall with a thud, before falling to the ground again, covered in crimson red blood.
Alice narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Even though she hated the Prime Senator as much as she did, the disrespect her former ruler displayed for her allies was disgusting. "Heartless creature!" she muttered, but Quinella cared not for Alice anymore, nor did she care for her opinions.
"So, irregular boy… I think I've figured out the mystery of you. At first, I was convinced I could not see your properties because you were unregistered, an illegitimate birth. But, now I know that is not true. You're human, not from this world," she said, looking Kirito in the eyes. "You're from the other side, aren't you?"
Eugeo gasped in disbelief as Kirito raised his head and looked at Quinella. "I am," he said. "So what? You don't feel threatened by me. I've got the same authority level as everyone else. Nowhere near as high as yours, that's for sure, Administrator," he said, before shaking his head. "Sorry, Quinella."
The Pontifex laughed at that. "Oh, that little imp! She's filled your heads with ridiculous stories. Well, boy, tell me then. What are you doing in my world, because I doubt you stumbled in on accident or by curiosity," Quinella guessed. Kirito nodded.
"You're right, I didn't. Your world is gonna end very soon. And you know something? It's going to be all your fault," he told her.
"I'm sorry, what?" Quinella replied. "You're not seriously suggesting I'll destroy it, are you? Why, what could I possibly gain from that?"
Kirito shrugged. "I don't know, but that doesn't change the fact that you'll have caused it. At this point, there's nothing you can do to stop it either. The Dark Territory will invade the Human Empire, which is why you made the Order of the Integrity Knights. But your faith in them is your mistake. For all their skill, all of their might, and all of their weaponry, there's still one glaring problem. It's a problem that, if you had made more reasonable decisions and raised a true army, you wouldn't be facing."
Quinella narrowed her eyes. "And what, pray tell, would that be?"
The black swordsman nodded. "You're horribly outnumbered," he answered simply, and Quinella chuckled again.
"That sounds exactly like something that little brat would say," she mused. "How pitiful… both her, for being so desperate to have me expelled, and the five of you for being gullible enough to actually fall for her lies."
It was at that moment that Alice stepped forward. "Madame Pontifex, if I may," she spoke. "The army of the dark has grown rapidly in recent years, and it continues to do so now. If they were to invade now, the current number of Knights would not be enough to withstand such a siege. The commander believed so, and the same is true of Vice Commander Fanatio, and many others of our order. I also share their concerns, so I must ask you," she said. "What is your plan without the aid of the Integrity Knights? You act as though you believe you alone could hold them all off indefinitely!"
"However, as angry as your hubris makes me, there is something which infuriates me even more. You, Madame Administrator, have stolen us Integrity Knights from our homes. You've taken us from mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives. You sealed our memories of them away, replacing them with ideas and delusions of a nonexistent heaven!" she exclaimed, her eye alight with betrayed fury. She stabbed her sword into the ground for emphasis. "Pontifex! Could you not trust us to be loyal to you, that we would willingly trust your authority?! Were we truly such a threat to you that you would submit each of us to that monstrous ritual so that you might force us into obedience?!"
Alice's eye began to well up with tears, and then they fell down her face like a river as Quinella held up a Piety module in her hand, the very same one that had been inserted into Eugeo's mind. "But I do trust you. In fact, I love you. And the Piety module installed in you knights is proof my love, a gift from me to you all. This little device frees you from the worries, pain, and fears of normal folk. You are my beautiful dolls, beautiful for all time!" Quinella explained, but it did nothing to ease Alice's mind.
"Out of all of the Knights, Uncle Bercouli has shown you the deepest loyalty. He has served you for three hundred long years, but not once in all that time have you truly known the man…" Alice went on, and yet more tears fell from her eye. "Did you think he experienced no suffering at all, in all that time? Were you truly that oblivious?!"
But to their collective surprise, their foe merely raised an eyebrow in amusement. Quinella tilted her head back. "You think so little of me… of course, I knew. These things you speak of didn't start bothering Bercouli recently though. He brought them up to me ages ago. A century, I think? Yes, about that long, give or take," she said, rolling her eyes. "Well, I couldn't just sit by and watch him worry himself to ruin, so I fixed him. Or rather, I suppose reset would be the better term."
Quinella giggled in a way that would've been as innocent as a child, were Mateo and his allies not aware of what she'd done, or what she planned to do and was capable of. "And he was not the only one. Every knight more than a century old has been reset at one point or another. Had you not broken my heart and abandoned the Church, you would've been the next one to be fixed, Mateo," she said, before going on. "It must be such a wonderful sensation, to feel all of your pain and sadness being erased in the blink of an eye… Don't you three worry. I'll overlook all of your transgressions, and I promise, all of the thoughts that make you so miserable now will be wiped away."
Alice closed her eye, and both Mateo and Katherine imagined what it would feel like to be rid of their worries as easily as Quinella promised. On the surface, anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was an incredible deal. All they had to do was give in, and they'd be given back a blissful ignorance that ensured they'd never worry again.
But then, they both thought about how far they'd come since abandoning the church. They'd learned what true loyalty was, loyalty that you chose to give to someone else from your own judgment, rather than being tricked into doing so. They'd discovered what real, heartfelt love was, and the joy of being able to give it to the one person who meant the most to them: each other. Against all that, there was no cause for deliberation, and there was no way they'd ever give it up either.
"You are correct, Pontifex," Alice agreed. Eugeo tightened his fingers around the Blue Rose Sword. "Right now, I feel more pain and sadness than I ever thought possible. One would not be exaggerating to say that it tears my heart asunder as we speak…"
Quinella let slip a small grin, but it soon vanished with Alice's next words. "But I choose to embrace it. I do not wish to be relieved of that which I have never felt before. The pain in my heart serves a purpose, to remind me of who I am, of what I am…"
"And that would be?" Quinella replied, feigning compassion.
"A human being, and not a puppet knight. Pontifex! I do not want your supposed love, nor do I need you to fix me!" Alice exclaimed, with her head held high.
"Well said," Mateo congratulated her. He had not realized just how courageous the blonde haired Integrity Knight had become since they last saw each other, a week before he and Katherine had fled from the Cathedral so long ago.
"I am sad to hear that. But unfortunately, what you want doesn't matter. As soon as I resynthesize you three, and I will, those pesky feelings which trouble you so will be erased completely."
Suddenly, Kirito spoke again. "Sounds kind of like what you did to yourself way back when, doesn't it Quinella?" The black haired boy suggested, and with an annoyed half smile, Quinella looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
"Watch it, little boy. Dredging up the past can be considered quite rude," she warned, but Kirito didn't listen to her command.
"Why?" he countered. "Are you scared the truth is going to come out? No one has got the power to erase the past, not even you. You were born a human, raised a human, and no matter how much power you have, one day, even if it's not today, you will still die all the same, just like a human. That's something you can never change!"
Quinella lowered her head slightly. "I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, little boy from the outside world…"
"All you want is to be a god, but you can never be that because you're human, which means you'll make mistakes, and you made a big one. Simply put, you don't have enough Integrity Knights to fend off the Dark Territory. It's not a matter of if they invade, but when. And when that time comes," he said. "Who will stop them?"
But Quinella wasn't done either. "How ironic. You display such concern for the safety of humankind, and yet you are the one who corrupted some of my best knights, defeated the rest, and are now attempting to depose me."
"If you're all that's left after this, maybe you can start over. Perhaps that's what you've always wanted. But the problem is that it's not going to go that way," Kirito pointed out. "On the other side, where I come from, there are the people who made this world, and they have the final say over what happens to this world. You know just as well as I do that they could destroy the Underworld in the blink of an eye like it never existed. With that option, tell me. What do you think they'll do when they see their precious Human Empire fall?"
Mateo, Katherine, Alice, and Eugeo all gasped in shock. Mateo and Katherine both knew that what Kirito said was true, because Cardinal had told them the same story when they first started working with her, but that still didn't ease the shock factor. But he was right. If the Human Empire fell, the people who had sent Kirito into their world would delete their home without a care. It was heartless and cruel, but such horrible truths often were.
Quinella narrowed her eyes. "Point taken… However, I suspect the same is true for your kind too, is it not? You must have a creator, so do you strive endlessly to please that being, in order to secure your own right to continue existing?" she retorted, causing Kirito to flinch slightly. "I would be shocked if that were not the case! As you said, your people created us, and if we were to fail them, they'd delete us without a care. If that is how your kind treats us, boy… You have no right to criticize me. I reject your people's authority. I will not pander to beings who believe themselves worthy to create life, only to bow down at the whim of their own higher power. My legs are for climbing over others to greater heights, not to bend at the knee in subjugation!"
As she said this, a great wind picked up in the chamber. The five rebels used their arms to shield their eyes from it until Kirito snarled and stabbed his sword into the ground. "And then what?! Are you just going to sit here and watch everything burn down around you, a queen with no one to rule, sitting on your token throne?!"
But Quinella shook her head. "On the contrary. I will not allow your kind to reset the Underworld… And neither will I allow the final load test to run its course. I've prepared a new sacred art to counter them both, so be honored, for you will be the first to bear witness to my creation…"
Kirito leaned forward slightly, his face stricken with worry. "Your… Creation?"
Quinella nodded. "Yes. The knights, although useful, were but a stopgap, a temporary bandage to defend against the Dark Territory. Unlike them, this perfect military might has no need to think. It does not remember, and it does not consider mercy. My perfect soldier relentlessly massacres all that stand against it, uncaring of who they are or why they're fighting. In short, it is not human at all," she explained, before holding the Piety Module high in the air. "Awaken, my beautiful puppet, my soulless exterminator, my faithful servant! Awaken and destroy our enemies! Release recollection!"
With that, the purple prism glowed with a violent amethyst light, and suddenly the weapons on the wall of the chamber, each secured to its own pillar by a pair of chains, began to emit a golden light.
"Wh- what's she done?!" Eugeo exclaimed, unsheathing the Blue Rose Sword.
"It's impossible!" Alice added, holding up the Osmanthus blade.
The chains melted away and each weapon flew toward the prism, spinning around each other in a razor sharp dance before a bright light forced the five rebels to shield their eyes. When they could see again, floating before them was not just the Pontifex anymore, but a massive mechanical nightmare made of swords and blades.
"What in Stacia's name is that…" Mateo swore out of shock, before holding both of his weapons in front of him and sidestepping over to stand next to Katherine, whose face had paled. Kirito gasped, and he held out a hand, releasing a barrage of thermal arrows. However, his effort was to no avail, as the massive titan stretched out a bladed leg to intercept the volley before it could hit the Pontifex.
Quinella let go of the Piety module in her hand. It flew up into the monstrosity above her and disappeared, and then they heard a low whirring noise. A purple wave washed over the titan, and a pair of deep, purple eyes flickered to life in what the rebels could only assume was the beast's head.
It crashed to the ground, sending a wave of dust out in all directions and leaving long, jagged cracks in the ground. Mateo, Kirito, Katherine, Alice, and Eugeo all gasped in horror, shock, and disbelief, and Alice was the first to say what they were all thinking.
"It can't be… all of those weapons?!" she exclaimed, taking an involuntary step back as Mateo slammed his axe into the ground in shocked horror. "Using perfect weapon control on even two is an incredible feat. But thirty at once? There is no way it could even be possible, even for the Pontifex… It violates the Sacred arts!"
Quinella began to giggle, and then she laughed, but it was not the innocent laugh she'd given them before. Now, it was a dangerous, malevolent laugh, one that made their skin crawl and their hair stand on end. "At long last, the power I have sought… Offensive might with no equal, a soldier that will fight forever… Now, what should I call it?" She wondered, before glaring at them evilly. "I know… the Sword Golem!"
Kirito faltered for the briefest of moments. "No way… It's a walking sword!"
Mateo narrowed his eyes, scanning the behemoth in front of him as Quinella explained the golem. "Each one of its swords has the priority level of a divine object. I stretched my precious memory capacity to the limit to create this: the ultimate weapon. Do you think you can defeat it?" she proposed, and none of them had an answer.
Quinella stretched out a hand, and the golem rushed forward and raised a massive bladed arm above Eugeo. The blonde haired boy froze up in terror, and at the last second, Alice charged in and deflected the attack. But then, with a flash of light, the Sword Golem shifted, and it plunged its arm straight through Alice's chest. As the Golem pulled the blade out, Alice stood there for a second, staring down at her cracked armor, before collapsing to the floor.
The others stared on in horror. Unconsciously, Mateo felt around for Katherine's hand. He didn't know what he was going to try and do, and he didn't know if he'd survive. But whatever happened next, he wanted her to be certain of how much he loved her. He held her hand with his own, and then he let go. He leaned down and pulled the axe from the stone as the Golem took a step forward.
Despite all the things he didn't know, there was one thing he did understand very clearly. He would do anything to keep his friends safe.
Katherine glanced over at him a second too late, just in time to see Mateo plant his foot and push off the ground. She let out a scream for him to stop, but it was to no avail. Mateo flew at the golem with righteous fury, his weapons alight with rage as the golem swung its arm, only for Mateo to hook his axe on the edge, just as he had during his first fight against Bercouli.
Mateo flew over the top of the golem and fell down on Quinella, who simply sighed. With a wave of her hand, Mateo seized up in the air as she conjured a massive metal spike right in front of him, mere moments before he would've sliced her in two from top to bottom with his sword. Unable to stop his momentum, Mateo let out a choked, bloody cry as Quinella twisted her wrist, and the spear rotated around him and shot clean through his chest, embedding itself in the wall in front of him.
"Mateo!" Katherine screamed, running around the golem and barely dodging one of it's attacks as Kirito charged at the mechanical nightmare, only to be batted aside and slashed through the chest. The attack sent the black swordsman flying into the wall, which cracked upon impact, and as he fell, he left a long trail of crimson blood behind him.
Katherine skidded to a halt above Mateo, and she gasped in terror at what she saw. His armor was covered in blood, all pouring from a massive, gaping wound in his stomach, and the metal spike was embedded in the wall above them where it had pierced all the way through Mateo while he fell. His vision was hazy, and he had already lost a great deal of blood, but he could still see enough to make out Katherine kneeling above him, her eyes streaming with tears.
In a last ditch effort, she unsheathed her sword. Healing arts couldn't heal this much damage, and she wasn't sure even the life transfer art could either. "Release recollection!" she hiccuped, and the sword glowed with light.
"With my power, not only will you strike down all who serve evil, but you may cleanse the wounds of those who fight for what is truly good and pure in this world."
Gabriel's words rang in her ears, and the light enveloped both herself and Mateo.
She never heard the titan coming, and, completely focused on healing Mateo's wound, she left herself wide open for the Sword Golem. With a quiet cry, she flew off to the wall and hit the ground with a pained groan, her sword flying off to the side and spearing itself into the ground like a broken, tilted pillar. Her hands were stained with blood, both her own and Mateo's, but she pulled herself to her knees and shambled over to Mateo, who by now was teetering on the verge of death, his breathing shallow, and ragged.
Quinella giggled as Katherine's chest rose and fell much more weakly, and then, the Golem skewered her and Mateo on its foot, and both of their chests fell still. All the while, Kirito watched wide eyed as his two friends feebly intertwined their hands for one last time.
"Eugeo!" a voice cried out from beside him. He glanced to his shoulder, and miraculously, there was one more ally among them that he hadn't seen all this time. "Eugeo! Grab Mateo's dagger! Stab the levitating disk! I'll buy you as much time as I can!" Charlotte exclaimed, jumping onto Kirito's cheek, and then onto the ground. "Hurry!"
As the tiny spider marched towards the Golem, a pink light overcame her, and suddenly she grew to many times her size. "That's… that's a floor boss from old Aincrad!" Kirito realized. "Charlotte… no wonder that name sounded familiar! She's the boss from floor seventy three!"
Eugeo nodded, and he stretched out a hand towards Mateo and Katherine. Mateo's dagger trembled as the boy called to it with Incarnate Arms, and then the string gave out and snapped. Even without the Piety Module, Eugeo could still remember what he'd done while under Quinella's spell. But that was not just limited to memories. No, he not only knew what he'd done, but how he'd done it, and with that knowledge, every skill he'd used as the thirty second Integrity Knight was his to wield.
The dagger sailed through the air and into Eugeo's hand as the massive, man sized spider threw herself at the Golem one last time, only to be slashed in half by its enormous arms. But that was all the time Eugeo needed, and he sprinted to the disk that he and his friends had arrived on. With a shout of pained rage, he stabbed the dagger into the platform. Bright purple light filled the room as the dagger and the platform were both surrounded by luminescent lines, and then there was a large beacon that shot up into the air from the disk.
Eugeo stepped to the side as a familiar door appeared in the air. "Thank goodness… he made it…" Charlotte said, her eight eyes flicking over to Kirito. "I remembered… just now… we once fought, didn't we?" she asked, and with tears in his eyes, Kirito nodded. "I'm happy… I got to fight alongside you… for just one time… I'm so…" she trailed off, shrinking down to her original size before she could complete the sentence.
The door in the air creaked open as the knob turned, and from the light inside the frame, a massive bolt of golden lightning shot out and sent the Golem flying to the back wall with a crash. Quinella smirked, but Eugeo didn't care. With his sword drawn, he watched as Cardinal descended from her gateway and flew over to Kirito, healing his wounds with a single tap of her staff. She then did the same to Alice, whose face had become a pale white from blood loss. As she healed them, she pulled Mateo and Katherine back to their side of the chamber and healed their wounds too. Their faces all regained their original coloring as the blood receded back into their grievous injuries, and then those injuries sealed themselves up as though they'd never existed in the first place.
The four once dead heroes stood up with simultaneous gasps, and both Mateo and Katherine placed their hands where their wounds had just been, as if shocked and unsure the healing art cast by Cardinal had worked. But it had, and their wounds were gone without a trace. "Kirito… who is this person?" Alice asked as she and the others walked over.
"Alice, this is Cardinal, the good Pontifex of this world. Two hundred years ago, she went head to head with Administrator, but she had to go into hiding. She's the one who saved Eugeo, Mateo, Katherine, and me from Eldrie and Deusolbert in the Rose Garden," he explained, and Cardinal smiled. "Truly, nobody loves this world more than she does."
"I don't doubt it. I trust the warmth of her power, which saved my life. Thank you for healing me, milady," Alice said, and Cardinal nodded. But then, a sad frown came over her face, and she floated over to pick up Charlotte's bisected form. "You… you stubborn old fool… I relieved you of your duties and thanked you for your tireless work, did I not? Why couldn't you just stay on your bookshelf? Was the urge to fight on still so great?" she asked the dead spider.
Kirito pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the broken hearted librarian. "I'm sorry… did she have a fluctlight too?" he asked, but Cardinal shook her head and sighed.
"No… to borrow a term from your world, Charlotte was like an NPC."
Kirito gasped, knowing all too well what that meant even as it perplexed his allies. "But, she… she laid down her life to save us… That's not something an NPC would do… I mean, if she didn't have a soul, then why would she…"
Cardinal turned to look back at Kirito. "This child had been alive for more than two hundred years. In all that time, she was my constant companion, and she watched over a number of people for me, including yourself, as well as Mateo, Katherine, and even the Integrity Knight known as Edith," she explained. "After spending all of that time with someone, even an NPC can grow to care, regardless of their capacity to contain a fluctlight. Even if the nature of an intelligence is just a collection of data fragments, it is still possible for it to have a true soul within… and in some cases…" she said, narrowing her eyes and turning to stare down Quinella as she swiftly teleported Charlotte's body back to the Library.
"They can even feel love. Administrator, you wretched woman, will never understand that concept as long as you live!" she exclaimed, slamming her staff into the ground as a golden glow surrounded her, and she floated up to face the Pontifex at eye level.
A/N: And here's chapter twenty six! I hope you enjoyed that little tid bit where not only did Kirito's appearance change back to his Aincrad clothing, but his sword did too. I get why it didn't in canon, but all the same, I much prefer the Elucidator's design to the Night Sky Sword. Next up, I'm fixing a problem that I've always had with the ending of Alicization, so get ready because it's intense!