10 Second Anime - Sword Art Online - Alicization - Episode 18

Eugeo faces the Integrity Knight Commander, but their fight ends in unexpected manner.

Episode 18 - "The Legendary Hero"

Hmm.

The fight between Eugeo and Bercouli went pretty much as expected, with a lot of buildup, revelations about the hero's origins, and even ending in a de facto tie. The best thing about it though, is that it answered my questions even better than I expected from last week - are the Integrity Knights dupes or partners? We've seen that the lower ranked ones have all been dupes, but if there was a chance that there was a co-conspirator with the pontifex, then it would have to be the Knight Commander. Answer - they're all dupes!

Even better, we finally met one of these senators the nuns, monks, and other knights have been talking about. Guess who are the conspirators! This Chudelkin and his condescending attitude lets the audience know that Kirito has a ready made fighting force for the inevitable coup. Also, the character design for the Prime Senator was so ridiculous and ugly, it makes sure that he won't be around for when Underworld becomes a benign place to visit after all this murder bot business is resolved.

Finally, Eugeo's win by attrition maneuver let Kirito's side have its first real setback. The Bercouli NPC got archived, but the Eugeo NPC just might get an upgrade in the upcoming DLC. Of course, that's a big mistake, since these video game developers are so lazy that they'll never get around to patching the System Alert: Code 871 bug before the release and we'll get a gamebreaker freakout on day one when people get to the new final boss.

Heh.

This Synthesis One is a jedi!

So, Eldrie is Alice's apprentice, the whirly birds are Fanatio's apprentices, Fanatio was Bercouli's apprentice, but who was Alice's master? Synthesis One is only "like a mentor." Very interesting.

Somehow Alice matched the Knight Commander after only 6 years.

He asked Eugeo if he does continuous attacks like Dark Territories knights. He's just probing whether he's an actual Dark Territories invader.

That threw Eugeo. Bercouli Synthesis One is the Legendary Hero dragon hunter.

Time Slicer. Okay.

Eugeo can heal himself pretty good now. Must take practice.

Man, this pontifex just steals everything from the original game. Bercouli's sword came from the System Clock from the original cathedral tower.

Ha. All the succeeding Integrity Knights developed long range attacks to try to beat the Knight Commander since close range means running into his invisible cuts. That's also a nice clue on how to beat all the other ones.

Eugeo's got a sneaky bastard plan to beat Bercouli, just like Kirito would use.

Yeah, that was pretty sneaky. Good one.

Oh, let me tell you about that thing I told you a long time ago, but you didn't remember it until the plot needed you to use it. Makes sense! Enhance, we saw; Release, we need. Savage!

Does this mean the Blue Rose Sword was an original system object too? Like, it was always meant to be found in the lair of a dragon you couldn't beat?

Ha. Death by attrition with this life absorption attack. Bercouli is old, so he's just going to die sooner than Eugeo.

Here's where Bercouli proves he's not a dupe. He didn't like Eugeo's explanation of his true origins as the Legendary Hero Bercouli.

And out of left field, here's comes a bouncing ball that we're supposed to hate.

This Prime Senator Chudelkin is playing the sadistic jester. His colors remind me of Alice in Wonderland too.

Ha. Dying would be treason to the Administrator, you know.

I suppose these senators do all the crazy admin stuff when pontifex is in hibernation mode. He must be the source of the Dark Territories invader story, which none of the knights believed after they met Kirito and Eugeo. He's just going to make Eugeo another Synthesis candidate. I'm looking forward to the conversation he'll have with pontifex.

So, Chudelkin knows how Synthesis numbers are made.

Nice spell. Is ID 001 referring to Bercouli or to himself?

And we're back to Alice's steamy buns, er, Alice steaming buns for the terrible cook Kirito.

They're waiting for moonlight to make more wedges to climb up to the 95th floor.

As expected of Selka's older sister... Nani!?

Next time, Kirito is going to explain Alice's origins and give her a bad headache.