Sword Art Online Volume 16 – Alicization Exploding Chapter 18 – War of the Underworld 67 That earnest wish remained with Bercouli despite having reached a realm detached from needless impatience. Putting aside his mental exhaustion, over half of the Time Piercing Sword’s sacred energy was already consumed. He could not dispel the armament full control art for the moment and repeat the act. If he failed to annihilate the enemy’s minions and they assaulted Alice, preparing a large-scale art in the sky above the first unit, they would lose their one and only hope. —Come, quick. * * * Though Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven who abandoned his post was the one stuck with the most pessimistic state of mind among the seven high ranking knights gathered at the Great East Gate, Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one, too, was up against the wall despite how he should have much more experience in actual battles. That emotion differed from what Dakira of the «Four Oscillation Blades» held for Fanatio, that honest love. He wanted to offer all of himself to serve under Alice, yet at the same time, he experienced the contradictory desire to place her under his protection as his senior. Alice was reputed as the greatest genius in the church’s history ever since he awoke as an integrity knight. She possessed a talent at the sacred arts far surpassing the ascetics and priests, was chosen as the owner of the oldest divine instrument, the «Fragrant Olive Sword» with its alternate name, the Eternal Immortality, which had rejected all resonance with other knights, and even had the gift to take in all of Knight Commander Bercouli’s techniques. She could be seen only as a young girl on the outside, but to most of the knights, Alice was like a lone star in the northern skies, distant from all else.