Blitzkrieg

"But Ilsamor, I—"

"You have no right to speak with me! Do you have any idea how alone I was?!" His tears started to gather around his eyes, he wasn't sure whether it was due to anger or his bottled-up sadness, he wasn't sure. His fist was clenched so hard that it was bleeding. "It was always the same… I would fight, for the things I owned, for the things I cared about, and you would never help me… You would only come for him…" He laughed darkly for a moment "It's like you like him more than me…"

The girl shook her head with confusion and sadness "No, I didn't… I didn't!"

He sighed and turned his back "It doesn't matter. In the end, no one would help me at the end of the day. No one was there when I fell and no one helped me to get back up. Not him, not her, and not even you…"

He turned to the girl with a disappointed and heartbroken expression.

And his lips moved…

Dawn was arriving at Aincrad.

It had been about eight hours since Ilsamor made his last call of surrender, and for six hours many small skirmishes had occurred throughout the "Orange Zone", as Crusaders named it. These skirmishes had kept both sides on their toes, with neither side getting that much of a sleep all night.

In numbers, Crusaders were stronger than Orange players, but in Ilsamor's disappearance and the confusion caused by the sudden declaration of The Guild War, many were scattered in towns and cities on many floors. Many of those previously safe zones were under the attack of Orange guilds, and thanks to the (while unknown to many players) Administrator System's hunt on Yui, message systems were buggy at the moment, many couldn't be sent and of those who were sent, only a small handful of them reached to their correct receivers.

Ilsamor decided to correct this first.

At the first two hours of his arrival, he reached around five of the Eternal Champions, and quickly deployed them to known siege locations, while he was present on the floors in case of the appearance of either PoH or Nocturn. Orange Players, who were mostly fighting against the volunteers from other guilds at this point, were not ready for trained and experienced Sword members, and this showed its effect. Floors beneath 30 were cleared with brutal efficiency, and not a single Orange player was taken as a prisoner.

After the war ended, many blamed Ilsamor for the increasing violence and death toll of the Green Crusade. However, one must not forget that the leader of a group is only a reflection of that said group's ideals and opinions. Ilsamor had not come into this place all of a sudden, he was a well-known anti-orange player leader, and the commander of one of the two known Green-Orange Wars.

In light of this information, it would be wrong to only accuse Ilsamor of the increased violence.

While it was kept hidden or outright disregarded by the leading figures of the front lines, there was a growing call for justice and revenge against the orange players, as Kirito can attest with his involvement in several of those calls to end things as peacefully as possible. However, the boiling point would be the unsuccessful raid on the orange players, where many of the pacifists died as a result of poor execution. These factors all prove that Ilsamor's rise to the Chief Commander of the strongest army in Aincrad's existence was not something that happened suddenly, but it was a result of two years' worth of pain and ignorance.

After securing the areas behind the lines, Ilsamor gathered the Champions and this time they traveled to the other side of the frontlines, i.e. the forces that were supposed to push Orange players from floor 55th. While the situation was a little bit brighter on that side, the forces of Green Crusaders were too lax and slow in here, which Ilsamor quickly responded to. With a quick change in the chain of commands and a brief supervision from him, the Forward Division managed to gather itself in an hour and a half before starting to push through the Orange-invaded cities. Battles in here were shorter but more brutal since the fighters on this floor were higher level with access to stronger equipment, still, his involvement was the key once again. Because different than lower levels, the Orange Players on this floor were both trained and experienced, and they were fully using guerilla tactics to their advantage. Ilsamor solved this problem with an advanced light spell, "Seeing Eye of Odin", an area spell that revealed all enemies in natural stealth. There were several defensive spells against such a tactic, but there were no known commanders on the frontline who had access to that kind of advanced spells.

He wasn't personally involved in battles with his swords yet, at best he was acting as a support for the troops on the floor. Championsknew the reason for this, he was suspecting spies or higher-level scrying spells that enemy leaders may have in their arsenal, and he didn't want to show his strongest (or newest) abilities. A worthy opponent hasn't appeared to even the playing ground yet.

And when finally, after both fronts were prepared for a simultaneous advance, Ilsamor ordered the assault. The upper floor's army was under the command of Nautilus while the assault on the lower floor would be led by Artemis. The rest of the Champions would act as special forces under the direct command of Ilsamor and they would be deployed in the cases where a roadblock appears or if a strong enemy would be deployed at the front lines.

Everyone was holding their breaths, and those who had some kind of belief were praying before everything kicked off.

Interestingly, Champions noticed, that Ilsamor did not open the Book, not even to read a few lines to raise troops' morale.

The Day of The Assault (Assault on 30th Floor)

Sunlight was slowly returning to the world… It was what most people would wait to wake up, and some may even be awake to see the beauty of nature.

Tens of players were looking at this miracle of nature with tired yet vigilant eyes. There were two reasons for waiting; the first was to bring both fronts to attack positions, and the second was to finish the training of several volunteered mages who would act as artillery support for the rest of the war.

No one could ever guess the destruction this war was going to bring.

Though, no one could guess it for its real-world counterpart either.

All eyes were looking at a single figure, all ears were waiting for a command from an eighteen-year-old, previously a forced hikikomori. He could do anything, he could check for the Book, he could send a message to Asemi, Rider, Argo, or even Kirito to ask their opinion, hell he could even deactivate Silver Blade skill to make his emotions a part of this decision.

He did neither.

"Fire."

His magically enhanced voice was heard throughout the lines.

At the back of the troops, several dozens of red magic circles appeared and fireballs began to rain upon the designated four towns, the "first line" as the command dubbed them. After the first three salvo, some towns responded, but their response was not as regular as the Crusaders, and soon, the suppression fire was concentrated on those locations. In ten minutes, all opposing fires were suppressed and regular shots continued.

In the Diary of BedKnight,

We were tasked with the capture of First Line's westernmost town. Our commander was one of those 'Champions', elite, professional, and strong as hell. I am not a newbie in RPGs and MMORPGs, but I have not seen anything like it before. I have been in PvP before, but what I was witnessing wasn't some kind of PvP. This was war… And for the first time in this game, even after facing many life-and-death situations before, I have realized that I was more than a player, or survivor in this thing. I was a soldier now, and there was no way both sides would exist in the end. Either oranges would die, or we would.

After twenty minutes of fire, the first line of troops rushed to the town centers from already destroyed walls. Just as they crossed the walls, support mages began to send light orbs to the sky that would reveal the enemies in stealth and debuff the orange players. Many who didn't recognize the situation's severity understood it quickly, but it was too late. The Crusaders were now a force between a mob and an army of zealots. During the attack, while some forces maintained their seriousness, there were quite a few war cries like "For the Lady!" and "Death to the Orange!" Most of the Orange players were caught off-guard by the sheer ferocity and the power behind the attack that in the initial assault, many had been killed rather easily. In just half an hour, the First Line had fallen and assault force began to move to the Second Line, which was under bombardment from mages while the First Line was under the attack of foot soldiers.

"Second town is cleared."

"Third is about to!"

"We need reinforcements on the first town, third street!"

Crusader's HQ was brimming with activity. A quickly established chain of command was taking and relaying the information to necessary parties while Eternal Champions were acting as field commanders while Ilsamor was only watching the progression of battle with silence, sometimes providing directions for mages' fire.

"Battle is as good as over."

He turned his head to see Artemis standing behind him. He glanced at her for a moment before turning back to the battlefield "Make no mistake… They had no idea we could come at them with such force. We will use this momentum for a few more hours, and by then they will surely understand the gravity of their situation. Replace the losses with reserves and make troops rest in shifts. I want to clear five more floors before they realize it."

Artemis nodded and returned to her post as Ilsamor watched the battlefield few more minutes before he finally decided that things would go as he planned on this floor. He reached his pouch, pulled out a teleportation crystal, and teleported to the 55th Floor.

Compared to here, the 30th floor was a kindergarten.

Orange Players on the 30th floor were amateurs, kids who thought that acting tough and edgy would make you cool, but the Orange Players on the 55th floor were the darkest bunch of the Aincrad. These guys not only liked killing and all the other things that come with being an orange player, but they were also damn good at them. If the unexpected update of the Inquisition of Vaneria caught most players off-guard, these people probably just shrugged and began to grind new skills that come with the package. When the situation was like this, it was not surprising the battles on the 55th floor were smaller in scale, but larger in case of both the skill with weapons and skill with magic.

As soon as he appeared on the floor, a darkened, stormy sky welcomed him. There were many different colored bolts of lightning jumping in and out of the many clouds in the sky, neither Green nor the Orange Players had managed to gain air superiority on this floor yet. As he was busy watching the sky, a crimson beam of light passed over his head towards the north, and hit the side of a mountain in that direction. The blast was so powerful that it had managed to create a dust cloud that covered the entire mountain from his view. Yet, before even the dust cloud was cleared, a poisonous green light was fired from the mountain toward the direction of the red beam. With just a slight movement of his head, Ilsamor could see similar battles of swords and magic occurring throughout the floor.

"Ilsamor-san! I take it your presence here means things are going well for the Lower Assault Division?"

Ilsamor calmly turned to the source of the voice and slowly nodded "Yes. I take it the things did not go that well in here, Heathcliff-san?"

Heathcliff shook his head as another red beam passed above them "Not quite. It is really hard to contain the battle here in a single area or an orderly manner. There are skirmishes everywhere, and almost none of the towns belongs completely to either side."

"So fewer members but longer battles? We need some way to break this stalemate." Ilsamor said while turning toward the mountain. His eyes almost instantly caught a running player on the mountain who was still throwing that green beam of magic occasionally.

He pulled out his greatsword on his back and one of the runes on it glowed faintly before an intense flame covered the whole blade. Ilsamor slowly swung the sword and a huge beam of flame hit the mountain, causing an explosion that covered it with flames.

"Do you think that was wise?" Heathcliff asked while the leader of the Swords sheathed his blade. "Now they know you are here and can use one of the highest level fire spells…" Then he stopped "Unless you wanted that."

"Nocturn seems to have a weird fixation on me. My presence would pull him here rather than the lower floors. It should make the lower division's job easier, I want them to use their advantage and advance as much as possible." Ilsamor answered while moving to the west exit of the town square, Heathcliff quickly started walking near him "What about PoH?"

"PoH is more unpredictable than Nocturne. He seems to be fixated on Kirito, but he doesn't act on this always. When he is not taunting Kirito, he is trying to cause the highest possible death toll, and this somehow narrows its location to possibly two places, here or 30th floor."

"Why possibly?"

Ilsamor stopped and looked at the horizon for a few seconds before opening his menu and starting to write a message "They may find another hole in our security and try another massacre. I have several defensive measures for it, but nothing survives the first contact with the enemy…" He sent the message before turning to Heathcliff. "We need to push from the east. Can you handle that? If needed, send word for the Champions."

"Okay, but I have noticed not all of them are ready for deployment, Ilsamor-san?"

Ilsamor furrowed "Now, when you mention it, where is Asemi and Rider?"

A light shower of pixels appeared on the 4th floor's teleportation square, and a second later disappearing pixels revealed a panting Asemi, who started to run once again as soon as the animation ended. Players around her glanced at her before returning to their work.

There was rubble all over the place. LC attack had left the 4th floor as a ruin, and many people were left to die paralyzed and DoT status beneath them, if Asemi hadn't used her authority, there would have been many more deaths.

However, the temple was still standing.

It was due to zealous members of the Guild, instead of defending the living quarters, they had instead defended the temple. However, it was kind of pointless as the temple building had remained indestructible, even after all of the bugs and discrepancies in the system.

Still, the fact that this was learned only after the attack already ended was showing the tenacity of the warriors who were defending the temple because it was one of the prime strike zones for LC. Asemi bowed her head when temple came into her sight and stood in front of the door before entering.

She was completely alone.

She stood there for a few moments, then her hand slowly pushed the wooden door. However, instead of entering the well-known temple's interior, she found herself in a throne room. She was somehow familiar with here, but even after all that going on, she couldn't help but gasp against the scene she was witnessing. Previously a peace of serenity, the throne room seemed like a hurricane passed through it. There were several small fires around the room, and some kind of a black, bacteria-like thing was eating the walls. Lady Cardinal was sitting on the ground, her hands were raised like she was trying to hold something, and her face was scrunched up in concentration. And, of course, one of the fulcrums of her throne was broken.

Asemi finally managed to snap herself out of her daze "My Lady!"

Lady Cardinal's eyes opened "Asemi… You are here."

"I am sorry, My Lady, but what happened here?" Asemi asked while crouching near her. Lady Cardinal waited for a few moments like she was trying to gather her thoughts while under heavy stress "I… made a mistake, Asemi…" she chuckled without humor "It seems I've become more human than we could anticipated…"

Asemi waited.

"I… acted rashly during Ilsamor's duel with Nocturn. But my intervention didn't go as I planned and the Administrator system found me…" She sighed "Thus, I didn't gain anything while bringing us to a state where we can lose everything."

Asemi thought about her reason to come here "My lady, is it about the Mental Health Counselling program?" Then she added when Cardinal's eyes widened "We have encountered with her. It seems the Administrator system is hunting her."

Lady Cardinal seemed a little bit hopeful "By we, you mean…"

Asemi shook her head "Ilsamor is still not with us…" she closed her eyes "He is leading the Crusaders while decimating the orange players."

For the first time, Cardinal swore "I shouldn't prepare those updates in advance. It is all because of that damned Administrator System!" However, her tone indicated to Asemi that this might not be the whole truth, "And that damn boy! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MY SWORD!" With an explosion of power, Cardinal pushed back whatever she was fighting against. With great concentration and effort, she managed to reach her throne and touched the active screen.

The throne room was filled with a white light before the black substance was gone and fires were put out. However, Lady Cardinal seemed very tired after this effort. She slumped on her throne "Asemi, listen to me well… Yui has the key to stop this whole chaos. You must make sure she reaches a command console."

"Why is she that important?" Asemi asked, Cardinal seemed like she was barely staying awake "I— no, we were developing a series of command prompts and codes that would allow me to take control of most aspects of the game from both the Admin and the Administrator System…" Asemi's eyes widened "If I can take control of the systems, I can put my command of Cancelation of Orange Damage to work. I believe in later stages I can fully disable the game's true death mechanism, but for now, it would greatly stop the PvP, at least I believe it would. Though the cancelation of Yui's lockdown would also help as well, I believe…"

"Okay, as soon as I go out I will find—"

"Asemi…" Cardinal's voice was full of pain. "Forget Ilsamor. He won't help you with this endeavor."

"…what?"

"He was first blinded by his rage and self-loathing, then Administrator System gave him a unique skill." Cardinal's eyes were closed "Now, it seems, he only has a single-minded dedication to the destruction of orange players. I am sure he believes I still oversee some parts of the system, and he jumps at every boon given by the Administrator System as if they were sent by me. I tried to reach him via the Book, but he didn't get them it seems…"

With the last bit of her power, she looked up to her "Listen to me. Administrator has locked up every command console from the discovered floors. The nearest one you can find is on the 76th floor."

"76?!" Asemi yelled, "There are seven more floors to it!"

"I know, don't yell at me…" Cardinal said with a slightly irritated tone "Find some other help, I don't know, my processors are trying to keep the Administrator at bay right now. You need to get there. I have managed to keep the Administrator's influence on floors from 1 to 40. When you reach floor 41, you will be able to teleport again. After that, it is up to you…" Her head started to lull "I have left some items for a quick power-up at the Cathedral on the 69th floor. And Asemi, one last warning…"

She whispered before going to sleep

"Don't try to tame the storm… Leave that to me once… I…"

She was asleep and Asemi had a feeling that Cardinal wouldn't awake before they managed to bring Yui to the one of the consoles."

She thought about the Cardinal's warning for a moment…

"Don't try to tame the storm…"

However, Asemi couldn't do that. Not with all the things are going...

"If that happens, all is lost…"

She straightened up and looked up

"I am coming senpai…"

From the diary of "DudeGotPants":

"The past hour was like a blur. I am sure the Orange players still don't know what they are up against. We have stormed the last floor at such a speed that, to give an example, I went to have lunch and when I returned they had already taken 2 towns back, are you fucking kiddin' me?!

Though, I suppose I should be grateful. Every town we rescued and every Orange SOB we killed brings me closer to the bastard who killed Chiori… I was not that warm to Swords before, but I think I will follow Commander to my vengeance.

While the battles on both the lower and upper divisions were continuing, several of the Crusader companies were stuck in sieges in "non-rescued" zones.

Before the war started, Crusaders had created several forward outposts to ease their advancements and scout the areas to provide information on Orange Players. However, these outposts became deathtraps with the start of the war, as these weak Crusader forces suddenly found themselves besieged by vicious killers and rapists.

It would suffice to say that many of those outposts couldn't stand against the orange onslaught that came with it and the loss of the safe zones, and many had fallen right at the beginning. There were several that were still fighting against the siege, but whether it was due to the strength of the defenders or due to a sick "play with your prey" mentality, was not known.

Well, until now, that was…

"Incoming!"

A huge, black spectral sword fell and destroyed the eastern walls of the 43rd floor's exit town. As the sword disappeared, a huge black mist appeared in its place, covering a large part of the town and with it, the Crusaders.

It was probably the worst situation the defenders could imagine.

Soon, many sword-hitting effects and pixel destruction sounds started to be heard. To be honest, in the moment that black mist appeared, Crusaders knew that the battle was already lost because against such a show of power they already knew they would die, but after the same power caused this black mist?

They were rooted in their place, horrified…

And it was a massacre.

Many of the forward outposts would be met with the same fate in the following hours.

"Ahh… This is music to my ears…" PoH said as he listened to the terrified screams of the players from the town, he was turning his cleaver in his hand absent-mindedly. He had a feral grin on his face, his eyes were shining and they could be seen even when his hood was up.

This had turned out better than he could ever expect.

He had seen the SAO crisis and entered this world to cause some mayhem, but even he could not dream of something like this: A Guild War that was more akin to a real war due to all that "If you die here, then you will die on the real world too" thing. And what's even better, with this new update the war had turned quite like its real-world counterpart with many massive destruction spells.

"Don't you feel the same, Noct?"

He turned to the owner of the spell.

Even after all this time they had worked together, PoH didn't know what he should think about Nocturn. Before the war had started, while Nocturn was just a knight in DDA, he was a weakling. His pathetic nature was so clear that PoH would not deign him to be worthy of killing. Then the guy suddenly grew a spine and after the Battle of the 4th Floor, he became a completely changed man.

He chuckled darkly… Really, making your worst enemy gather all your equipment, then killing one of his close friends and wounding his pride in a fell swoop, this guy was a beast.

"Speak for yourself P…" Nocturn said while shaking his head. Then he grinned ferally "I am a connoisseur, I don't deal with cheap stuff." His grin had become quite a terrifying sight for those who were watching "I have very expensive tastes."

PoH laughed "So I know… You are excited then? We are approaching them as they are approaching us. Soon, we will not be able to avoid the approaching major clash, and we will need to fight them…" he said while looking to the entrance of the tower that is leading to lower floors.

"Excited?" Nocturn's voice had come hoarse. PoH looked at him with a slight confusion, however as soon as he looked at the Nocturn, he began to laugh.

Excited? This guy was about to explode!

"P, you have no idea how long I've waited for this fight… Let's ramp up the heat, shall we?"

PoH nodded and sent a few previously prepared messages to his lieutenants while Nocturn raised his great axe and released a wave of black flame toward the dark mist, which caused a massive explosion. Soon, all the cries for help were over, and an eery silence reigned the area.

PoH snapped his fingers "Alright, gather up! We have given them enough advantage! It's time to even the playing field…" He then added with a dark laugh "Isn't it?"

The grins on the assassins' faces were answering enough.

At the end of the first day, Crusaders' advancement was significantly slowed.

Finally understanding the Crusaders won't pardon anyone, Orange forces stopped surrendering. This development happened around the middle of the war, and while it alone was not enough to slow the Crusaders down, later combined with the coming reinforcements from the upper floors, it significantly reduced their speed and finally at 41st floors entrance towns for lower, and 53rd floors middle towns, the war steered away from a blitzkrieg.

It was an expected move from the LC. After all, many of the high command was aware of the elite players in Orange ranks and it was only a matter of time for them to join in the fight. Champions were quickly deployed to the necessary zones to prevent high casualties in lower floors while in the upper floors, guild leaders themselves were put to work.

The first major battle between both sides occurred on the 41st floor.

Crusaders had found themselves surrounded from all sides as soon as they had exited from the labyrinth tower. Orange veterans from the onslaught had finally reached a sizeable number to counter the firepower of the Crusader mages and with the coming reinforcements from other Orange guilds, the two sides were roughly equal in number.

The battle started with the barrage of fire from the Orange side, commanders were hoping to surprise Crusaders and cause heavy casualties before the battle even began. Yet, attack force was not the only aspect Crusaders were developing, support mages came forward thanks to a tightly knit and functioning command chain, and before casualties grew too much.

And this brings us to another aspect that most of the Orange Players didn't have a chance to look at: Enchanted Weapons.

Ever since the update came out, Ilsamor had ordered to a group of players to gather special metals that he knew would make excellent ores to forge such armaments. A group of blacksmiths was constantly working on these materials to forge high-level equipment from them, and most of this equipment would become useful not only for Green Crusade but after it too, when players continued to climb the floating castle.

In all actuality, this wasn't a fair fight.

Why am I telling this? As soon as the shields were set up, a group of armored knights under the Nautilus, the "Shield of the Swords", spearheaded an assault all donned with the armor and shields that were protecting them against fire damage. Before the Orange players understood what was happening, knights were at their front line, and they were practically massacring them. Realizing the state of things, Orange commanders ordered a retreat, and the first problem was overcome like that.

However, that started the second problem, and it would not be as easy to solve as the previous one.

Unlike the previous floors, the 41st floor was covered with swamps and many areas with long grasses, or in short many areas that are suitable for stealth attacks. At that time it was not known very well due to the ongoing war, but later as Kirito explained in the council of Assault Team after battle, SAO was a fair game, similar to many other RPGs. For those who are strangers to the rules of RPG games, there is a balance between classes in almost all of the RPGs. While Knights could wear heavy armor, but do less damage, the assassins are the complete opposite in essence. On the 55th floor, when the war had started, Ilsamor had used a relatively low-level revealing spell to reveal such ambushes. It had worked back then because he knew several shortcuts and the opposite force did not have time to master high-level stealth magics. But by now, especially some of the LC assassins that are coming from higher floors covered this weak side of the Orange forces. This, in addition to assassins' build's natural advantages against armored and range targets from stealth, meant one thing for Crusaders.

At first, with the confidence they got from the lower levels, forward scouts of the Crusaders began advancing in those highly dangerous areas that were scanned only with low-level magics.

And this came with the highest losses of the war so far.

Forward scouts and several support teams were brutally massacred by the hidden Orange players, and before they managed to gather themselves, Orange commanders launched an attack that pushed the Crusaders back to their entry point. And, due to the floor's being covered with many swamps, none of the mages were strong enough to burn through them.

With such a case present, the balance between the two sides was established, and commanders knew now they had to enforce different techniques to advance forward.

A similar scene occurred on the 51st floor.

"I was waiting for a looong time for this!"

The grass around him was withering, and the earth was shattering at each of his steps. Black clouds were following him from behind, and ethereal images of killers, rapists, and every sort of other scum were following behind him. His huge axe was constantly releasing a black mist, and the helmet he wore was making his eyes glow red with bloodlust.

No one, not even his guildmates or infamous PoH was standing near him, and he was holding a critical chokepoint that stopped the advancement of Green Crusaders.

Standing before him, was he… Long stood silent, only did a few fireworks to ease his forces' advance, but mostly only gave orders. There was no emotion on his face, no anger or fear. He was looking at Nocturn with a calmness that would make even Master Yoda jealous.

His swords were sheathed, his left hand was on the hilt of his katana and the evil wind from Nocturn's spells was flapping his trenchoat.

"So, are you giving me the silent treatment, Blade?" Nocturn chuckled darkly, it was clear that he was enjoying this too much, like a man who was waiting to eat his favorite meal after a long day. "Are you still angry at me for killing Hikari-chan? Would you believe it if I said I am sorry?"

Ilsamor did not answer. His reactions were akin to an executioner who was listening to the final words of a convict.

"I promise, I will kidnap Asemi next time!"

That got a reaction, Ilsamor's eyes suddenly widened and the silver in his irises gave away to hazel for a moment as he made a fist with his hands. But it went suddenly as it came, his hands relaxed, and his eyes shone with silver color once more after he closed them for a while.

Nocturn clicked his tongue, that damn skill had leveled up again.

Ilsamor looked to Nocturn's behind once more before he unsheathed his golden greatsword behind his back and stabbed it to the ground. Behind his back, a heavenly light erupted in the sky, and white clouds stood in front of the Nocturn's black ones. Behind the Nocturn, the earth opened up, and silhouettes behind Nocturn were quickly pulled underground by the black-cloaked figures with scythes.

"You are no fun…" He lifted his axe and challenged him, while Ilsamor too lifted his sword and held it with two hands.

This would be the biggest fight Aincrad has seen yet…

"They seemed to be stuck. What should we do?"

"We need to push through, he needs us!"

"How will we do this? I thought the aim was to stop killing people."

"… We will try to keep it as low as possible. For the last time, let's do this!"

Three different voices echoed the same words on the 41st floor:

"RELEASE RECOLLECTION!"

A/N: Hello everyone, and once again thank you for reading. There are around five to six chapters to end of this arc, I hope you are enjoying it so far... If you have suggestions, please share it on reviews.

I wish you well until we meet again!