Sword Art Online Volume 16 – Alicization Exploding Chapter 18 – War of the Underworld 37 The grey ball enveloping the firestarter beetles were from the north as well, it was formed by drying a kind of moss out in the sun, kneading the powder made, and drying it once more. As it let out a large quantity of smoke once ignited, it was originally used as a signal. However, through the technique of concentrating like the Assassins’ Guild, Kosogi had amplified the objects’ effect by tens of times. As a result— The moss balls thrown by Kosogi and his subordinates as one became what could be considered as impressive smoke grenades. Ignited by the firestarter beetles, the balls spewed out dense smoke that hid away even one’s own nose and shrouded the entire northern half of the valley stretching out east and west. Not even the goblins with their excellent night vision could fight properly within this smoke. However, Kosogi’s scheme was not to defeat the enemies by slipping into the smoke. Immediately before diving into the dense smokescreen, he shouted out his third command. “All of you, ruuuunn!!” Returning the mountain knife to his back at once, he landed both hands onto the ground. With their small statures, goblins reached no higher than humans’ knees when scrambling on all fours. The smoke was faint closer to the ground with the enemy soldiers’ positions barely visible. The five thousand mountain goblin soldiers with Kosogi, their chief, completely ignored Eldrie and the guards and slipped past, running on farther into the valley. The emperor’s orders were merely to charge into the enemy army. It did not specify which part to target. Kosogi set up a plan to pass by the enemy’s main force, especially the integrity knights, without engaging them and to assail their reinforcement units behind.