Boros was the one-eyed humanoid monster sitting on the throne, staring at his subordinates with a bored expression.
Well, although humanity had never encountered alien invaders like them before, if they ever appeared, the Hero Association would definitely classify them as monsters.
He was the leader of the Dark Matter Thieves. His species had developed unparalleled physical capabilities because of the harsh environment of their home planet, and even among them, he stood at the very top.
He had never suffered defeat while invading and ravaging countless other races, and before he knew it, he had earned the title Dominator of the Universe. Yet the emptiness of being unable to find an opponent was unavoidable, so he had even donned a set of golden armor that suppressed his own power.
As for why he had come to Earth, it was not because he had happened to see a beautiful planet during his voyage and impulsively decided to destroy it. Rather, a fortune-teller on the far side of the universe had told him that an enemy capable of fighting him existed here.
There was a good chance it was just nonsense meant to send him away, but Boros had still spent twenty years traveling here for those words. He had never expected to receive such a huge surprise the moment he arrived.
"Unforgivable! How dare they show such disrespect to Boros-sama, the Dominator of the Universe! Prepare to bombard them!"
Their ship's large-scale bombardment came from countless gun ports beneath the vessel firing simultaneously. In a single instant, it could flatten an entire city.
With a world-shaking roar like thunder, every shell converged on Aincrad, kicking up enough dust to shroud City A in gloom for three days. Yet because of the castle's properties, the dust could not possibly linger for more than five seconds.
"What?"
The dust cleared, revealing the completely unharmed floating castle before them.
Even a genius like Kayaba Akihiko had been forced to make compromises for the sake of optimization when programming. SAO's real-time interactivity already required enormous amounts of code, and since he had created a death game while still wanting players to treat it like a real world, he naturally could not allow lag.
He had never written code for destructible buildings at all. After Aincrad manifested in reality as a Noble Phantasm, that property remained intact.
"Heh." Boros could not help laughing.
Of all the ships they had encountered throughout the universe, not a single one had ever endured that bombardment without so much as a scratch.
If this planet possessed technology like this, then perhaps it really did have an opponent capable of fighting him.
The tentacled monster noticed his interest and hurriedly called out, "Melzargard, Groribas, hurry and knock that thing down!"
The many-headed monster and the alien whose head and hands were all filled with vicious mouths leaped from the ship onto Aincrad, casually tearing apart a field boss on the way.
Both were Dragon-level.
* * *
Because this was Yimi's first time using the Noble Phantasm, she had thought she should summon it farther away. She had overdone it so badly that it was almost out of sight.
When King used the Teleport Crystal, most of his connection to Aincrad was severed. Yimi tried controlling Aincrad to move toward her, but something seemed to be blocking it, making the castle move extremely slowly.
Whatever. It would probably arrive in a little while.
Yimi was unwrapping the game console in her hands and looking for somewhere to sit down and play, but halfway through, she stopped and left. Something felt wrong.
She looked at her two small hands and counted on her fingers as though working through an arithmetic problem.
King was a very good person. He bought Kitty a game console. Kitty was a good kitty too, so Kitty gave King a game console in return.
But what did that have to do with Child Emperor? King never said he was repaying the debt for him. Small-Fry Child Emperor still owed Kitty one game console and had somehow gotten away with it!
Yimi put away the console and stomped back toward the place where Child Emperor had been, puffing up with anger.
Of course, by now Child Emperor was not stupid enough to remain there. In an unusual move, the Hero Association had summoned every S-Class hero for a meeting today and repeatedly stressed the seriousness of the situation.
In a hallway of the Hero Association headquarters.
"Who brought some insignificant B-Class nobody in here? That's incredibly disrespectful to us. Would a normal person really just walk in? What were you even thinking? Don't tell me you thought coming here would let you cozy up to the S-Class. You're seriously annoying. Get out already!"
Tatsumaki, who had gone out to kill a dinosaur only to be urgently summoned back, dumped all her irritation onto the plain-looking bald man nearby.
The bald man: "Whose kid is this?"
Child Emperor happened to pass by and silently watched the exchange. He raised a hand to interject. "L-Little Tatsumaki, your clothes are different from usual today. Since this is such an important occasion, I guess you really did dress up properly?"
"Hah? What's it got to do with you, shorty? You sure love sticking your nose into other people's business. For someone so short, you sure stick your nose into everything. Are you an idiot?"
"My height is completely normal for my age!"
You're the one who already has a kid and still acts like a child.
One threw jabs, the other went straight to insults. These two really did look like mother and daughter.
His equipment had only just been smashed to pieces by the smaller one, so Child Emperor decided not to argue with Tatsumaki here for now. He turned and entered the conference room.
They were all proud in their own ways, but they were heroes with a strong sense of justice. In response to the Association's summons, only Rank 1 Blast and Rank 6 Metal Knight were absent.
After everyone took their seats, three men in suits walked in.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Since we truly cannot contact Blast or Metal Knight, we won't wait any longer and will begin the emergency meeting. I'll be explaining the situation."
The leader was a middle-aged man with a large nose and center-parted hair. He slammed a hand on the table. "There's only one reason we've gathered you all here. I want to ask you to protect Earth."
"The great prophet Shibabawa-sama is dead."
"Dead? Who killed her?"
"No. While divining the future six months from now, she suddenly looked terrified and began coughing violently. Then she ate a throat lozenge, choked to death, and left behind the words 'Earth is in danger' before she died..."
Bzzzt—
The automatic door behind them opened. Sitch turned around in surprise. At a time like this, no one else should have been coming in to interrupt the meeting.
At first glance, he did not see anyone, but everyone else around the long table saw clearly: a little cat-eared girl dressed head to toe in designer clothes, apparently the child of some Association investor, had barged in.
Metal Bat vaguely remembered the kid. He seemed to have seen her playing with his little sister when he went to pick his sister up from school.
She had followed Child Emperor's scent here.
Seeing her appear somewhere she absolutely should not be, Tatsumaki angrily started to scold her. "Brat, who let you—"
Yimi was wearing pants, so she did not have to worry about exposing herself.
She took a running start, jumped directly onto the table, then stood straight in the middle and stared at Child Emperor.
"Congratulations, Host, on obtaining the achievement [Kid Sister Attention]. Reward: 5% Portal Energy."
Seeing that, Tatsumaki hurriedly swallowed what she had been about to say and changed course. "Whose damn brat is this? Hurry up and throw her out!"
"Mm."
Hearing that, Yimi temporarily forgot about Child Emperor owing her a game console and ran across the tabletop toward Tatsumaki.
"Why are you, pretending not to know me again?"
Tatsumaki pulled up her hood and turned her face away. "Shut up. Don't talk to me. Hurry up and get out."
"I'm not looking for you. Small-Fry Child Emperor, owes me a game console."
"King-san already paid you back for me, didn't he?!"
"Get out already! Fine, I'll buy you one!" Tatsumaki used psychokinesis to lower her from the table.
Yimi pointed at Child Emperor. "You buy me one. He owes me one too."
"Anyway, get out right now. Can't you see we're having a meeting? Nobody has time to deal with you. Where did you even pick up this gaming addiction?!"
King quietly turned his head away.
"Mm." Unhappy, Yimi jumped down from the table and walked outside.
Her Aincrad seemed to be almost here, but she had already noticed on the way over that you couldn't exactly leave something that huge in the middle of a city.
She should dismiss it first.
Sitch coughed twice and watched Yimi for a moment. "Anyway, let's continue..."
* * *
Earth technology was terrifying beyond belief.
"Boros-sama..."
Even after the three lieutenants attacked at full strength, the floating fortress remained completely unharmed. Even Boros himself had stepped in without managing to damage a single tile.
The thing was even pushing against their ship as it moved, looking for all the world as though it had seized their vessel and intended to impound it.
Boros slowly withdrew his fist from the ground and grinned. "Excellent."
This was what made a challenge worthwhile!
The golden armor suppressing his power shattered instantly. The true strength of the Dominator of the Universe burst forth, frightening all three Dragon-level lieutenants into backing away.
How long had it been since they'd last seen Lord Boros's true power?
"Defend yourself as best you can, creation of the Earthlings!"
Boros took a running start and punched forward.
It was only an ordinary punch, yet the pressure alone tore a massive opening through the clouds across City A's entire sky. It was no exaggeration to say that this one punch alone, if it landed cleanly, could wipe City A off the map.
Yet just before the blow connected, Aincrad vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
"?"
Boros's punch struck empty air. The pressure was not aimed toward City A, but that did not mean there was nothing else along its path.
For example, their ship happened to be right in that direction.
The spaceship that had faithfully served him for years was blasted straight down, landing squarely on the Hero Association headquarters.
"..."
Despicable Earthlings!
"The Hero Association headquarters was meticulously built by Metal Knight. Even if all of City A were flattened, this place might not suffer any damage at all." Sitch was still boasting about how safe the building was.
It had not even taken the aftershock of Boros's attack. A mere falling spaceship naturally was not enough to destroy it.
Immediately afterward, Tatsumaki's eyelid twitched twice. Without waiting for anyone else to react, she tore through the wall and flew outside.
This was bad. Really bad.
Although she did not know what had happened, she had just told that brat to get out, and the brat had obediently done exactly that. With so little time, those tiny legs probably could not have carried her out of the building yet, right?
And then an attack just happened to hit while the kid was going outside. If something happened to the brat, wouldn't that basically mean Tatsumaki had caused it?