Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 17

Alicization Awakening (アリシゼーション・アウェイクニング) is the 17th book in the Sword Art Online light novel series, published on April 9, 2016. It is the third volume in the War of the Underworld sub-arc of the Alicization arc.

Part 1
Kirito's friends: Agil, Klein, Lisbeth and Silica, gathered at the World Tree in ALfheim Online (ALO) along with three thousand other virtual reality game players from ALO or converted from other games. Lisbeth gave a speech and attempted to persuade the crowd to convert their accounts to Underworld to help its residents defend against the incoming foreign players. However, the crowd was discouraged when they discovered that Underworld did not have a Pain Absorber and that their avatars might be lost if they died there. Despite facing hostility from the players, Lisbeth continued her speech.

In Underworld, Asuna and the Integrity Knights continued cutting the ropes that bridged the ravine that Asuna created with her Stacia super account. As they were about to cut the sixth rope, thousands of red light beams streaked down from the sky. While both the Human Empire and the Dark Territory armies watched in amazement, approximately thirty thousand warriors clad in crimson armor began to form. Asuna realized that the soldiers were Americans when they began to yell in English while attacking the Fist Fighters, who were supposed to be their allies. As the situation grew worse, Asuna was approached by Iskahn, who proposed a deal to her. In return for creating a bridge across the ravine to allow the Fist Fighter forces to regroup, the Fist Fighters began repelling the crimson army.

In the fray of the battle, Alice Synthesis Thirty went ahead of the rest of the Human Decoy Army, rendering her vulnerable. Atop a black dragon, Vector, the avatar of Gabriel Miller, snatched Alice and rendered her unconscious with his Incarnation power. Bercouli Synthesis One took Alice's dragon Ayamori, the deceased Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one's dragon Takiguri, as well as his own dragon Hoshigami in pursuit of Gabriel and Alice. The Human Decoy Army began to move south after Bercouli and Vector, while the Fist Fighters and Integrity Knight Scheta Synthesis Twelve remained to occupy the attention of the Americans.

Part 2
Meanwhile in the real world, Vassago Casals awoke in the main control room of the Ocean Turtle and found that the Fluctlight Acceleration (FLA) had been disabled. He thus decided to dive back into Underworld through the use of his old Sword Art Online avatar.

At Kirito's wagon in Underworld, Asuna healed herself while talking to Ronye and Tiese about Kirito. After the preparations were complete, Integrity Knight Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven ordered the decoy squad, reduced to seven hundred, to head south to rescue Alice. However, the squad soon stopped, as thousands of red columns of light rained down from the sky and transformed into players clad in red armor. As Renri prepared to sacrifice himself to open a path for the Human Empire decoy force, a blue light shone through the clouds and there the figure of Sinon, logged in with the Solus super account, appeared. Using the power of her «Annihilate Ray» long bow, she slaughtered much of the enemy army. Solus also had the power of unlimited flight, thus Sinon flew down to where Asuna was waiting. After greeting Kirito, Sinon was sent by Asuna to fly in pursuit of Alice. The Human Empire decoy force continued south through a detour, with the second wave of the crimson army chasing from the north. On her way south, Sinon wondered where Leafa was, since they both dived in at the same time.

Part 3
In the wilderness on the other side of the Great Eastern Gate, Orc Chief Rirupirin spent a long time to find an earring that belonged to his childhood friend Renju. As he pondered on what meaning the death of thousands of his tribesmen had, Leafa appeared right behind him, logged in with the Terraria super account. He was about to draw his sword to kill her, but feeling the influence of Renju, he stopped. To his shock, Leafa spoke to him like a person rather than showing revulsion, scorn or fear. She then allowed him to bind her hands and take her to Vector as a prisoner, but as they began walking, a black haze, along with the supposedly dead Dark Sorceresses' Guild leader D.I.L., appeared.

Meanwhile, after more than two hours of pursuit, Bercouli Synthesis One fell into despair as he could not close the distance between him and Vector, despite alternating between three dragons. Thus, he decided to use his Time Piercing Sword's Release Recollection Art, «Arcane Slash», to sever the left wing of Vector's black dragon far ahead.

In the meantime, D.I.L. transformed the fingers on her left hand into long, worm-like creatures, stabbed them into Leafa and began absorbing her Life. As Leafa's Life continued to be depleted, the ground below her began to glow green and sprout with plant life and Leafa's Life was completely recovered due to Terraria's unlimited healing abilities. Shrieking in surprise, D.I.L. transformed the fingers on her right hand into the worm-like creatures as well and began draining more of Leafa's Life. Rirupirin tried to stop D.I.L. by attacking her with his own sword, but as he was doing so, an enormous pain erupted in his right eye and it ruptured. At the same time, drew and swung his blade at D.I.L., but due to perception errors stemming from the loss of his right eye, he was not even able to graze her. D.I.L. turned to him in fury, and, after flinging Leafa behind her and transforming her fingers into black blades, swung down. But, at that moment, D.I.L.'s arms fell to the ground as Leafa severed them with her sword from behind. Claiming that she was vanquishing evil to save another person, Leafa severed D.I.L. in half.

Part 4
As his dragon's Life diminished, Vector decided to kill the Integrity Knight chasing him, take control of one of his dragons, and continue flying south. While waiting, he wondered whether to incarcerate Alice or not, but made the decision not to do so. Unbeknownst to him, the Vector super account had the power to tamper with Fluctlights, which, coupled with his Incarnation, robbed her of her dynamism and put her into a forced sleep.

In the mean time, Asuna and the Human Empire decoy force managed to gain some distance from the crimson army, but it was impossible for them to continue running indefinitely. Finally reaching the ruins that Sinon had informed them about, the squad decided to confront the crimson army at this location. As the battle began, one man watched from the sidelines. The man, Vassago Casals, was clad in a black raincoat-like poncho. As he watched Asuna fiercely killing the American players, he recalled watching her fight in Sword Art Online and his vow to kill her and the swordsman in black who fought even more fiercely by her side.

Meanwhile, as Bercouli drew near Vector's crash site, he leapt off the dragon and swung his sword at Vector as he fell. However, Vector easily avoided the attack, and thus Bercouli was forced to follow up with another attack, but Vector caught the blade by clapping his hands over the sword with his back turned.

Back in the ruins, Asuna stood in the middle of the road, defending. Renri on her right was faring well in the battle but the guardians on her left were slowly being pressured to retreat. After she ordered healers to prioritize the left flank, the Americans organized twenty lancers to charge at the Human Empire decoy force. Most were successfully blocked, but a few of the guardians were skewered. In order to protect a fallen guardian, Asuna allowed herself to be pierced by a lance.

In the meantime, after receiving several attacks from Vector, Bercouli crossed swords with him and began pressing down on Vector's sword with his own Time Piercing Sword, which pierced Vector's shoulder. However, at that moment, Vector's sword emitted an ominous glow, which withered the gleam of Bercouli's sword and caused his consciousness to corrode. After Bercouli retreated, Vector shot a beam of dark blue light that, upon touching Bercouli's chest, made his consciousness fade. While Bercouli was stuck in this state, Vector severed his left arm.

In the ruins, Asuna struggled not to scream from the pain of being pierced with a lance. After removing it from her body, she quickly dispatched the shocked American player by piercing his heart with her rapier. At that point, she found another Guardian in danger and used «Flashing Penetrator» to save him from a lancer, dispatching three others in the process. Seeing a third wave of twenty lancers having formed at that moment, Asuna summoned Renri to the middle. Before sprinting towards the enemy, she requested him to handle the lancers that managed to breach her defence.

Meanwhile, Bercouli stumbled as he stepped on his left arm in confusion. After widening the distance between Vector and himself, Bercouli stopped the flow of blood with non-verbal Sacred Arts, while pondering on how to defeat his enemy. As his Armament Full Control Art was useless against Vector, Bercouli considered resorting to his sword's Release Recollection Art, «Arcane Slash», which had two harsh requirements to use. Realising his impasse, Bercouli glanced at Alice. For a moment, Bercouli regretted not being able to grant Alice fatherly love, but resolving himself that parents die protecting their children, he sprang at Vector once more.

Asuna had successfully repelled the third and fourth waves of lancers, but not without consequence. Her clothes were ripped and stained with her blood and that of her enemies. Even though she had a gaping hole in her, her enormous amount of hit points did not allow her to fall. She tiredly lifted her rapier as she dimly saw the fifth wave forming up. As the lancers started charging, Asuna's eyes were distracted. Her heart fell as she saw a string of digital codes and numbers streaking down, except the line was blue this time. The line began to turn into a human figure about ten meters above the ground and started to spin like a tornado. The lancers, dumbstruck, were ripped to shreds while standing still. A figure appeared as the tornado, caused by «Tsumujiguruma», a Sword Skill Asuna had seen before, slowed to a stop. She called out Klein's name as he turned around. Then, thousands of more blue strings rained down from the sky.

As Bercouli's consciousness started to fade, Vector's cut jolted him awake. This had already happened a number of times. Though Vector had not landed a fatal blow, the loss of blood was bringing Bercouli's Life down. Bercouli, however, was focusing on only one thing throughout the fight. He was unconsciously counting while continuing to fight. Then at one point, Bercouli started to swing randomly, weakly. However, this was a performance as he looked for Vector's deepest footprint, the place he had been standing when he cut off Bercouli's left arm ten minutes before. As he approached six hundred seconds, he swung his final slash and activated his sword's Release Recollection Art, «Arcane Slash», which had the power to cut the past. Since the Main Visualizer of the Underworld tracked movement from about ten minutes prior, his skill caused the system to mistake the position of a unit ten minutes and one second ago. However, before he could execute his attack, Vector sensed Bercouli was plotting something and attacked him. Forced to dodge, Bercouli missed his chance. He successfully dodged the first four attacks, but the fifth one ran Bercouli through. His dragon, Hoshigami, suddenly swooped down towards Vector. He raised his sword and killed Hoshigami with his Incarnation power. This took place in only seven seconds, but Bercouli used this time to fully activate «Arcane Slash». Another characteristic of this attack was that it completely could erase the life of the target. As a result, Vector's astronomical Life was set to zero and his body was completely split. Before the body could hit the ground, it exploded in a ball of black light without heat. At the same time, Bercouli's Time Piercing Sword crumbled and broke as its Life was utterly depleted.

Alice felt her head supported on a person's knees. As she felt a hand caressing her hair, she looked up and saw her father figure, Bercouli. Her drowsiness completely evaporated as she saw the terrible wounds on him. She then knew that his Life had been depleted.

As Bercouli silently comforted her, his vision faded. Then he saw his old mentor, the Highest Minister Administrator and his dragon, Hoshigami. After helping Administrator onto Hoshigami, he followed and slowly flew off to the unknown.

The main Human Empire army and the Dark Territory were in a standoff. Unable to bear the tension, Integrity Knight Fanatio Synthesis Two, began to pray to the three goddesses. Just before she started, she heard Bercouli's voice speak to her, repeating their last conversation. Upon realizing that he had predicted his death and was now dead, she sobbed as she recalled him asking her to protect their child. The reason why Bercouli had stayed away from intimate relationships for over a hundred years was that the Integrity Knight parents would either live longer than their child or that the child would go through the same process as their parents. Finally, after Administrator's death, he accepted Fanatio's feelings. She silently promised to properly raise their child.

Part 5
As soon as Klein plunged into the crimson army, Agil, Lisbeth, and Silica grouped in front of Asuna. Agil followed Klein, while Lisbeth and Silica healed Asuna. Then an army of real world players clad in blue formed. Their armor, superior to the default Guardian set, meant that they had converted accounts from another game, shocking Asuna. Asuna convinced Renri and the rest that they were friendly people from the real world that came to help them. Asuna ordered Lisbeth and Silica to take two hundred of the two thousand converts to join the support team, and that the rest of the Guardians fall back and focus on healing the blue soldiers. Asuna decided to lead the rest of the converted players at the front lines. She looked in amazement as she saw crossbowmen shooting with extreme accuracy from Gun Gale Online, leaders of the races from ALO, and the strong guild that swept across many VRMMOs, the Sleeping Knights. Hoping to defeat the Americans before the Japanese soldiers' spirits broke, she plunged in the battle.

Meanwhile, Japanese VRMMO player Hirono Takashi wondered to himself why he had come to Underworld. Despite being woken up at five in the morning, he felt something in his gut and decided to join. There were multiple reasons for this feeling that caused him to convert his character, which he had been working on for two years. He stood facing an American wielding a halberd. As the American swung down, Takashi suffered a large wound on his leg, causing him intense pain unlike anything he had felt in other games. He repelled further attacks as he was pulled to the back for healing. Just as he felt like quitting, he stopped as he gazed at the girl who was healing him. Overwhelmed by emotion, he hugged the girl and asked her for her name. She replied that her name was Frenica Szeski, to which he responded with his own. He asked if they could meet after the war, and she agreed. With that answer, Takashi ran back to the fight, determined to stay alive, win, and meet Frenica again.

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Volumen 17 (novela ligera)