War For Underworld

Advice From An Old Friend

After walking a considerable distance in the night, Medina and I made camp along the eastern river. After a filling meal of food not from Rulid, I decided to take first watch and allowed Medina to rest. I know (and she does too) that the chances we'd run into danger are low, much lower than our first adventure together two years ago, I'm just distracted in my head with all the recent events that's happened, and want to clear my head before the inevitable encounter with Eydis.

Right now, I'm entranced by my sword, Falchion, created 300 years ago when I made my first dive into the Underworld prior to Quinella's rise to power. Back then, my mission was to oversee the fledgling empire, but I made a few friends with the ancestors of people I know today, such as the Serlut and Orthinanos families. It was Medina's ancestor that forged the blade, its power stemming from the eight elemental stones embedded in the hilt; the design itself forged by my mind to be similar to a popular game series back home.

The eight stones represent each of the elements in their best form now crystallized. Luminous and Umbral, for example, were taken from the brightest light and the darkest shadows findable at the time. Metallic and Crystalline come from the rarest, most precious ores, Thermal, Aqueous, Aerial, and Cyrogenic come from nature. The hottest hot, coldest cold, fastest wind, and purest water. My friend called them "'the elements that forged the world'" and thus my sword is the "sword of creation" itself...until the goddess Stacia herself arrived.

By now, each of those "bests" have been either destroyed or found to not be the best as Quinella's empire expanded further into the land. The bow Deusolbert possesses comes from a phoenix, Fanatio rapier originates from a mirror. But even with that in mind, I still believe Falchion to be the strongest blade in the land. Stronger than Asuna's blade, Radiant Light. Stronger than Kirito's Night-Sky and Blue Rose combo, no matter how much Incarnation he pours into them.

But when I failed to break the Wall at the End of the World, I found that my sword has its limits. My ultimate power allows me to manipulate whatever my sword touches as I see fit; basically, I could change the data of the Underworld freely. Add, subtract, multiply, divide, delete, copy, create. To a previously uncertain limit, the code that makes up this world was in the palm of my hands. Usually I used it to "delete" data--like when I killed an ever-reincarnating Pontifex or when Kirito and I finished off Subtilizer--but for some reason, I couldn't do the same to the barriers that limit this world. I couldn't even break the invisible one in the sky.

But when the Reaper of the Woods deflected Exalted Falchion, despite our weapons making contact and I willed for the deletion ability, I learned my limits weren't just to the confines of the world. The Ancient Apostles, relics of an age past in this world, were beyond my power. Two gods, I took on alone equally, but the apostles are much stronger if Quinella didn't even destroy them. My limits are now defined--I can edit this world as much as I want, but I cannot destroy it nor create it anew. As I learned in the Dark Territory, I cannot create what isn't there, so I can't disperse sacred power across the land and make it fertile. I can't edit my ID, so the barrier blocking the sky will still recognize me as a human unit rather than an object. If the Ancient Apostles are an integral part of this world, then like the world itself, Falchion will never be able to delete them.

Of course, maybe it was just the Reaper's willpower to be defeated by the archer that made that one moment happen, but the fact is that its scythe didn't disappear upon contact. I never got the chance to test Exalted Falchion against the Taboo Knight to prove my hypothesis right or wrong.

"Exalted Falchion." The blade shifts to a sleeker design, and I continue to stare at it. This power in this blade used to be limited by my imagination...now there's a certain reality to it. Falchion, at its base, is a jack of all elements, master of none; at its height of power, it is bound to the rules of this world. Rules that RATH created and I protected twice now. All that has led me to a conclusion I won't admit to Medina.