10 Second Anime - Sword Art Online - Alicization - War of Underworld - Episode 8

The Human Guardians show their mastery of the Sacred Arts against Dee Eye Ell and the Dark Mages' use of the Dark Arts.

Episode 8 - "Blood and Life"

Hmm.

The theme of the episode is "sacrifice." There's a lot of scenes on the Dark Territory side showing how little they value individual life, where the talk of thousands of deaths to power one spell is done so cavalierly. At least by the humans. The orcs seemed to care a big deal, but somehow accepted their fates, with the Orc Chief holding resentment for humans in his heart.

On the human side, the sacrifice of one Integrity Knight is worth three thousand orcs. We've always known there was going to be a disparity because of how the different army sizes demonstrated how the two sides valued life. The Dark Territory is truly the home of game monsters, where they're all fodder, their fighting AI is terrible, but they have so many numbers to overwhelm a player that he has to manage resources. It's a given the human side values life more, but what if the monsters in the Dark Territory felt the same way? Maybe their tribal value systems were exploited by the human leadership over there? Gabe Miller looks like he slotted right in perfectly.

A couple of fun things I noticed were how this was a great DIL episode and there was the return of Kirito Jesus. We needed to get our fill of DIL, because it looks like she's going to disappear for a few episodes before she makes a surprise return. You can tell I'm going to be so surprised at that... Meanwhile, the important thing about Eldrie's sacrifice was that it was Kirito's right hand, his missing right hand, that pushed him into going beyond the Underworld system rules. Obviously, he was going to die when his life counter went to zero, but what about the loophole of taking in all of the enemy's singular attack spell damage before death? That's exactly something that sneaky cheater Kirito would do in breaking the rules of a SEED based game. That little push in Eldrie's back was like, "Hey, I'm going to die, but I'm not done DYING yet!" Since the Underworld system relies on a character's Idea to work Arts, there's no contradiction here. Vegetable Kirito Jesus will find a way.

Heh.

If Alice is talking to Ayamori the dragon, his brother with Eldrie will probably feature too. And there he is. Don't worry. That's not his own blood. He's pissed because of the smoke diversion and that weakling Renly had to kill a Goblin Chief instead of him. Oh, he finally admitted he was jealous of Kirito.

Woof. Heh. That Ogre Chief is half burned, but he gave away valuable intel about Vecta seeking a Priestess of Light. He also gave us valuable clues about the demi-humans not wanting to fight and just mind their own business in their homelands. Wolf-type ogres came from grasslands.

Eldrie being useless again. Has no military judgment. Alice will play along to get info. Furgr doesn't hate Alice for killing his people. It's war and the strong have a burden to act too.

I don't think the Human Guardian forces realize how evil the Dark Territory guys are. If they can't get "materials" to work magic, they'll just have to make "sacrifices."

The Big Three discuss what Alice found out. Vecta is a Dark God who has apparently been resurrected. Bercouli knows a lot about the Dark Territory mythology. Is it because he spent so much time fighting the Dark Knights over there, or something else in his origin story?

Here comes some real plot. Alice heard what Kirito wanted to do. Bring her to the World End's Altar in the Dark Territory. Now's the time to draw them away from the Gate and defeat their forces. So, this is Lord of the Rings…

Can anyone else suck up "material" like Alice? They seem to underestimate how much the Dark Territory wants to kill everyone besides finding this Priestess of Light.

Why does this woman orc have to die along with the other three thousand? Not established. DIL doesn't like watching this emotional display. Racism? Hatred of positive emotions in general? The Orc chief hates taking orders from humans, in any case.

Oops. Bercouli figured out the Dark Territory guys killed a whole bunch of themselves for material. DIL is drunk and aroused from power.

Bercouli drew most of the attack, but part of it still continued down the canyon. Eldrie thinks he needs to redeem himself. His relic weapon was the trump card. Those weapons using Recollection is something the Dark Territory guys never saw before. Kirito's right hand pushing him to go beyond death was the real secret weapon.

Well, he's not walking away from that. I mean that literally. He got his final moment with Alice and he touched his core memory of his mom. Eldrie RIP. Another shot of an individual fluctlight. It's important!

That's two huge defeats against DIL. And she wanted to be empress… Supposedly DIL learned how to prolong her life the same way as Quinella, but her way seems more vampiric. It's totally wrong to ruin such delectable witch bodies. Did she make it in time?

Okay, what's up with the skull? Listening for the keyword Alice?