Alfenheims Warlords (a SAO fanfic)

Chapter 48

The taking of the castle with what felt like by default standards made Kirito start wondering whom they really were fighting against. NPC's didn't just teleport in like that to help one of their own out but then again it might've been part of the whole thing, a script they didn't realize yet. Still, the win may have saved many from a grueling task of taking the castle town street by street and then fight into the castle itself but the Hackers had been a problem that soon most people began to notice more people getting a bit more banned on a somewhat regular basis as they were found in one way or another.

Another surprising event was the surrendering of the Blood Princess whole domain as he packed up shop and seemingly, with the other Necromancer princes Kirito assumed, set up shop at the last and most intimidating castle: the Prince of Darknesses castle, the one who had beat Kirito a few times and what you could say was a rival to Kirito. Initial scouts were ambushed by skeleton riders and soon few dared to near it but it became obvious it was one of the highest tier castles with Tier 5 walls and battlements with trebuchet, catapult, ballistae, and other siege implements spanning the battlements while towers rose up like dark spikes from the spiked battlements. The castle town expanded not only immensely inside of the walls but also outside and had an initial palisade the Alves would have to get through. And then the castle itself spanned the way between the valley ends as it had several tall spires and keeps within its last and final inner wall.

Kirito hoped this last battle wouldn't prove too lengthy, he was already straining his tier 4 castle to its max for resources and troop capacity like everyone else.

But the one thing he reminded himself was that he was going to be getting Lisbeth and Sinon back from these Princes. He couldn't wait to finally run a full group and even more so since Klein and Shisho were back with them. He found it cute when they were together, a cute couple whispering and laughing which reminded Kirito to have moments like them with Asuna when he could. And if he ever wanted a full group he was going to have to personally get Lisbeth and Sinon back from the Princes, he could only imagine how heavily a guard was on them.

"Reaper!!"

Reaper glanced over as he was getting units placed along walls and more while Lisbeth walked over as she managed to sigh of relief and said, "Stop running on me. I can't find you in this place now like I probably could before."

"How on earth can you lose me, I'm the least edgiest thing here at the moment."

"Just because your red doesn't mean you are the least edgy. It just means your one of the easier edgelords out of our friends to spot because you so darn bright. If only your head was as bright." Said Lisbeth.

"Hey, hey, hey! I know my way around money but going from US Dollars to frickin Japanese Yen is gonna take time." Reaper attempted to defend himself with.

She sighed but then said, "You think we're prepared?"

"Prepared? Least concerned thing on my mind. Mantis had a attack, a seizure if you will... she's fine but they keep getting worse as time passes." Said Reaper as his voice told Lisbeth he was extremely worried for his friend.

So she hugged him as she told him, "She'll be fine, okay? It's why we have Midnight looking over her while we move around our defenses.. but did we have abandon our castle?"

Reaper had completely emptied his castle and town out and moved everything into Kommando's castle. This had been the plan as once Mantis went down, they would simply concentrate efforts here and then once they were beat the even would over. That way they could at some point play the game like normal folks did and Reaper wanted to fly for once instead of ride.

So he answered, "It was planned from the start. We don't want this event going on forever as last I checked, this event had been going on for nearly a month!"