Sword Art Online Light Novel Volume 13

Alicization Dividing (アリシゼーション・ディバイディング) is the 13th book in the Sword Art Online Light Novel series, published on August 10, 2013.

Interlude IV
Asuna and Rinko were enjoying a meal together on the Ocean Turtle, as Asuna wondered about their current location. She was not allowed to connect to the Ocean Turtle's Wi-Fi due to security measures, and the only information she was told was vague. She asked Rinko whether she knew anything about it, but she reveals she knew about as much as her. The two then noticed a ship from the large window of the Ocean Turtle, and wondered if that was how they obtained the fish they were eating. Though, they then realized that it looked more like a warship.

Lieutenant Nakanishi came into their conversation, and pointed out that Japan had no warships, before being invited to eat with the women. He explained that the tomatoes they were eating were grown on the ship, as part of an agriculture experiment. Asuna eventually brought the topic back to the ship outside, and he explained that it was an escort ship, named «Nagato». However, immediately after, Lieutenant Nakanishi noticed that the escort was changing course, away from the Ocean Turtle. He reported this fact, through a portable terminal, from his pocket, stating that Nagato was supposed to escort them for another day. He then excused himself from the two, and left Asuna and Rinko to eat alone, as the «Nagato» slowly disappeared from view.

Chapter 9 - Integrity Knight Alice
After falling out of the Central Cathedral's 80th floor, Kirito managed to stab his sword into a small gap in the Central Cathedral's outer wall and was now hanging on his sword while holding on to Alice Synthesis Thirty with his other arm. With a bit of persuasion, he managed to convince her to form a temporary truce and work together to survive until they could return to inside the Cathedral. Alice then stabbed her sword and created a chain out of her right gauntlet, which they used to tie themselves together in case one of them fell. During their conversation, he asked Alice whether there was any way to re-enter the Cathedral from the outside on the higher floors. After finding out that they could enter the Cathedral through the Morning Star Lookout on the 95th floor, Kirito thought up of climbing the Cathedral using pitons he created from metal elements using Sacred Arts as a platform to jump between pitons. And he did so, repeatedly going through the process of generating metallic element, changing them into pitons, stabbing it into the wall, getting himself up onto it, and pulling Alice up to the piton he previously stood on using the chain.

After repeating the processes for quite some time and getting to about the 85th floor, Kirito spotted grotesque stone statues on a pavement jutting out from the wall a few meters ahead. As night had already fallen, thus the sun no longer provided the Sacred Power needed for Sacred Arts, Kirito had ran out of pitons due to the limited resources around and thus Alice made three out of her left gauntlet. At four mel (meters) to the pavement, Kirito realized the statues were not statues, but were instead recognised as «minions», underlings created by using Dark Arts, by Alice. Kirito, noticing that the pavement was four meters away, while the chain was five meters long, he grabbed the chain and hurled Alice onto the pavement and was shortly afterwards pulled up by Alice in a similar fashion. Together, they managed to fend off the minions, both being impressed by each other's skills. Alice then lent Kirito her handkerchief to wipe off the minion blood on his face, stressing him to wash it before returning it to her. The chapter ends with Kirito wondering on what they should do while they waited for the moon to rise in a few hours and provide them with resources to continue climbing.

Chapter 10 - Integrity Knight Commander Bercouli
After seeing the hole Kirito and Alice had been sucked through had returned to being a wall because of the self-repair Sacred Arts cast upon the tower, Eugeo climbed up the long staircases up to the 90th floor all on his own, feeling quite lonely without his black-haired friend by his side. Even after passing the 81st and 82nd floors, he had not felt any human presence, but he still proceeded with caution, till the staircase came to a stop at the 90th floor, just as the seven o'clock bell rang. There, he found no more stairs, but a large white door, which he pushed and entered the large room on its other side.

To his surprise, the entire floor was a gigantic bath with steam everywhere. And even more to his surprise, he found an extremely bulky man - who was unmistakably an enemy - bathing.

The rather large man, who later introduced himself as Bercouli, asked Eugeo to wait a while as he finished his bath. After a short time, Bercouli leisurely rose and retrieved his clothes and long sword and asked Eugeo about the fate of Fanatio Synthesis Two. Eugeo said that she should be receiving treatment, and the statement caused the relieved Bercouli to claim that he would not kill Eugeo. Surprised that Bercouli only asked about the fate of Fanatio, Eugeo demanded to know why Bercouli did not care about the other Integrity Knights, to which Bercouli stated that those Knights were not his disciples. Bercouli finally drew his sword and prepared to duel.

Eugeo noticed that Bercouli's stance reminded him of the «Lightning Flash Slash» technique of the Norkia-style Swordsmanship Class and intended to counter with «Sonic Leap». Noticing Eugeo's uncommon stance, Bercouli interrupted Eugeo by asking whether or not he was practicing the "Continual Sword" style. Eugeo replied whether it mattered if he used consecutive hit skills, and Bercouli dismissed the question and added that the knights of the Dark Territory could use them but no one in the «Human World» could. At that, Bercouli then said that he would start with his "trump card" as well and raised his longsword, which started to vibrate.

Bercouli slashed his blade horizontally at a distance of eight mel from Eugeo, who had jumped forth to the left, avoiding the predicted attack. Activating Sonic Leap, Eugeo rushed in towards the direction of his opponent. In his way, was a transparent fluctuation cut through the air - a heat haze, from Bercouli's attack. Noticing this, Eugeo attempted to draw back his sword, but a secret move cannot be stopped midway quite easily, resulting only in deceleration, and his body eventually came into contact with the heat haze.

Eugeo was blown away, a gash from his left breast to his right armpit had appeared as he fell into the water, pain surging through his body and blood spewing. Using Sacred Arts, he managed to stop the bleeding, and discovered that his opponent had 'slashed into the future'. Still in the water, Eugeo was approached by Bercouli who started chatting relaxedly with his sword sheathed, as the former began chanting his armament full control art. After leaving the water, Eugeo released the art and stabbed his sword into the marble floor and froze over his surroundings with ice and rose thorns as far as ten mel. Retracting his sword from the ground, he ran towards Bercouli through the field of icicles.

Adaption Notes

 * Interlude IV was not present in the Web Version.

Volumen 13 ru:Том 13