Next, Sakuya raised her lacquered fan.

“Sylphs, prepare your extra attacks!”

The tight pack of warriors held their swords overhead as they charged. The blades were enveloped by a lattice pattern of emerald-green light.

A large congregation of the guardian knights, so dense they resembled white maggots, descended upon them with hideous screeches. Alicia Rue waited for the creatures to get as close as possible, biting her lip with a long canine, then finally raised her hand and barked another order.

“Unleash fire breath!”

All ten dragons exhaled gouts of hellfire at once. Ten crimson pillars shot through the air, fanned out around the sylph warriors and Kirito, and blasted into the cloud of guardians.

A bright flash illuminated the dome. In the next moment, bulging fireballs exploded one after another, linking together into a tremendous wall of flame. The world was rocked with a massive roar. Guardian knights were blown to shreds by the force of the blast, adding their own little white flames as they burned away.

But the seemingly infinite wall of white simply formed another swarm that recklessly pushed its way through the flames. It fanned out wide like a spreading liquid, threatening to swallow Kirito whole.

Just before the blob of white could attack, Sakuya swung her fan down and shouted, “Unleash Fenrir Storm!!”

With perfect precision, the sylph platoon thrust their swords as one. Green lightning pulsed through fifty blades and then shot through the air to pierce the cloud of knights.

Everything was again awash in white light. There was no explosion this time, but instead thick bolts of ravenous lightning racing through the enemy, churning them to bits.

Twice decimated, the center part of the wall of guardian knights did indeed seem to be hollowing out. But like a liquid flowing back into shape, that depression was filling in from the sides.

This was their only chance, Leafa knew. She drew her long katana and darted forward. The two leaders had come to the same conclusion. Sakuya’s voice cracked through the clearing like a whip.

“All units, charge!!”

It was undoubtedly the largest battle ever fought in Alfheim. The periodic bursts of fire breath from the rear set the guardians aflame and falling to the earth. The sylph party worked in perfect formation like a single projectile, gouging great holes in the wall of flesh with their wave of deadly swords.

Standing at the front of that projectile was the tiny black form of the spriggan. His equipment was clearly inferior to the sylphs’, but the holy speed with which he whipped his giant sword around meant that anything coming into contact with him burst into smithereens.

Leafa raced through a small aperture in the center of the sylph formation to take position directly behind Kirito. She used her katana to deflect an attack bearing down on his back, plunging the long blade into the glowing white guardian beneath its mirrored mask. With a vigorous flip of her wrists, she knocked the head clean off. Its body burned with white flames.

Kirito took a look behind him and mouthed, Sugu—watch my back!

I’ve got you covered! she indicated with a glance, turning to stand back-to-back with him. They stayed that way, spinning round and round, slashing and hacking at the oncoming knights.

The giant guardians would not be so easy in a one-on-one fight. But standing next to Kirito and matching his speed, Leafa felt the enemy moving slower and slower. Or was her mind just working faster? It felt as though all of the stimuli from all of her senses were focused at one single point in the center of her brain. This was a sensation she’d only noticed a few times before, during kendo competitions.

It was as though she and Kirito were one. All of her nerves and brain cells were connected and racing with pale electronic pulses. She knew where Kirito was moving behind her without seeing him. As they spun together, Leafa struck the head off the guardian knight Kirito had been sparring with, while he sank his sword directly into the wound she’d made in the enemy she’d just left.

Kirito, Leafa, the sylphs, and the dragoons all formed one being of pure energy that melted, gouged, and burst through the limitless flood of knights. Though the enemy might be endless, the spatial limits of the dome were fixed. As long as they kept proceeding forward, their moment of victory would come.

“Seyaaa!” Leafa cried, splitting a guardian’s body straight down the middle. For an instant, through its crumbling corpse, she saw the ceiling.

“Raah!”

Kirito broke away from Leafa’s back and plunged through the gap in the wall of flesh like a bolt of black lightning. The last line of guardian knight defense roared with hatred and closed in on all sides. There were at least thirty of them.

“Kirito!!”

On pure instinct, Leafa pulled back her sword and hurled it with all her might at Kirito’s left hand. The light green hilt of the spinning katana fit right into his palm, as though it were being pulled to it.

“Rraaaahh!!”

With a bellow that seemed to shake the entire dome, he alternated swipes of the blades, greatsword in his right hand and katana in his left.

A slash down from the right. A slice up from the left. The two shining swords traced slightly different angles each time, until they formed a glowing circle of white like that of the corona around a solar eclipse. The guardian knights were torn to ribbons by dozens of light-speed slashes, their remains littering the air.

Beyond the quivering ring of End Flames, she could see it clearly now. Right in the center of the vine-crossed ceiling of the dome was the round door, split into four sections. The final gate of Alfheim, leading through the trunk of the World Tree to the palace seated at its crown.