Holy Sword Excalibur


 * This page is about the Holy Sword Excalibur in ALO. You might be looking for Holy Sword used by Heathcliff or the episode.

The «Holy Sword Excalibur» (聖剣エクスキャリバー) is the strongest legendary weapon in «ALfheim Online», being the only weapon that surpasses the «Demonic Sword Gram». The sword is rewarded upon the completion of The Holy Sword of the Ice Palace quest and is currently in the possession of Kirito.

Appearance
The Holy Sword Excalibur is a majestic longsword that is almost entirely gold in color, including the handle. The crossguard is shaped like a small set of wings and has a small, triangle-like plate with three green gems on it.

Mythology
Excalibur was forged by the god of blacksmiths, Völundr. King of the Frost Giant tribe «Thrym» once transformed into a wolf and infiltrated Jötunheimr to steal it. He then threw Excalibur into «Urðr's Spring», a lake at the center of Jötunheimr where it impaled the World Tree and cut off its roots. At that moment, Jötunheimr lost the blessings from the Tree and quickly degenerated into a barren wasteland of frost. As the roots of the tree retracted to Jötunheimr's canopy, the frozen lake was pulled up along with the roots. Thus the large mass of ice reached the canopy of the world, where the ice dungeon was formed and later fashioned into Thrym's castle, Thrymheim. The great sword Excalibur, after impaling the roots of the Tree, became stuck at the bottom of the ice structure, where it keeps it from melting and the roots of the World Tree from regrowing.

Fairy Dance Arc
The sword was first discovered by Leafa and Kirito during their adventure in Jötunheimr, when Leafa noticed a golden light at the bottom of an ice dungeon above the Great Void while riding on Tonky. Using a distance viewing magic, she identified the light as the Holy Sword Excalibur, however, knowing that the dungeon was too difficult for them, the two did not use the opportunity to challenge the dungeon and instead used the nearby stairs carved in one of the roots of the World Tree to ascend back to Alfheim.



The Excalibur was first shown during the battle between Kirito and Fairy King Oberon. After Kirito used Heathcliff's system ID to revoke Oberon's administrative authorities, Oberon attempted to summon this sword with the use of a system command, but the system no longer responded to him at the time. Kirito then used the same system command to generate the legendary sword and gave it to Oberon to use during their battle, while Kirito chose to use his own sword. However, due to Oberon's lack of combat ability, none of his attacks connected with the far more experienced Kirito, who then defeated Oberon with ease, despite the latter's superior weapon.

Calibur
After discovering that others players had found the location of the «Holy Sword Excalibur», Kirito formed a party to raid the Inverted Pyramid Dungeon again. Upon arriving at Jötunheimr, they discovered that other players were massacring the Beast-type Evil Gods with the help of the Humanoid-type Evil Gods. At that moment, the NPC «Queen of the Lake» Urðr appeared and requested them to remove «Excalibur» from the «Plinth of Thrymheim» to stop Thrym from invading Alfheim.

With most of the Humanoid-type Evil Gods preoccupied at that moment, Thrymheim was left far less defended than usual, allowing the group to get through the dungeon at record time. However, after the sword was removed from its pedestal, the castle of Thrymheim began to collapse and fall. To escape certain death, the group needed to immediately jump out of the castle and onto Tonkii. But, as the sword was too heavy and could not be stored into a player's storage until the completion of the quest, Kirito left it behind. Unexpectedly, before the sword fell into the Great Void, Sinon fired a «Retrieving Arrow» at the sword and successfully retrieved it, giving it to Kirito, under the condition that he would always think of her when drawing the sword.

Trivia

 * Contrary to popular belief, «Excalibur» cannot be obtained as a quest reward for the Beast God Slaughter quest, as the quest that Thrym and the Frost Giant generals give rewards the «Fake Sword Caliburn», a weaker version of the Excalibur, instead.
 * The usual katakana version of «Excalibur» is エクスカリバー (Ekusukaribā). However, in the Sword Art Online series, the katakana name of the weapon is エクスキャリバー (Ekusukyaribā), which sounds like the word «caliber» (キャリバー). The word «caliber» can either mean the diameter of the valleys on the rifling inside a gun's barrel, or «a man's capacity», or «a man with high capability».
 * Kazuto resolved to never use Excalibur for personal gain as he believed that the sword contained the «caliber» of himself and his companions.
 * Excalibur is referred to as the «sword which cuts all of steel and tree» by Urðr.

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