Kirito watched from a distance as another foraging party went out for resources from the castle and as he looked back into the courtyard of his own castle, he was quite pleased with the progress of his group so far.

Even though now both Lisbeth and Sinon were gone, the group was managing to hold itself together as they worked their way to getting better troops and finding gear for the NPC blacksmith to create into relatively good gear.

So far, they had over half a dozen Swordsmen unit that were Veteran, one or two Archers that were Veteran, a Veteran Guardian, a Veteran Light Cavalry, and then about three more Swordsmen and Archer units that were still at recruit. Most of them had been fully equipped with Steel weapons, armor, and banners as Kirito had made sure to keep most of the Veterans here for protection of his keep while the newer units went out and gathered supplies.

But it was hard, not having either Lisbeth or Sinon around. Without the amazing blacksmith Lisbeth was, their equipment did take longer to finish up and a bit more expensive as well while without Sinon, most of the archer units took longer to both fire and train.

Still, the only good thing was since the defeat of the Prince of Plague at Aerovale that none of the other necromancer bosses, as it had been found out they were, had sent any units to attack.

Likely, they were preparing for another assault, possibly on Aerovale again.

"Hey, Kirito!"

He snapped out of his thoughts as Asuna walked over to him and as he smiled at her, they looked out towards where the portal was as the beacon of green from it was shining into the sky just as she asked him, "You think Liz and Sinon are okay?"

"Hopefully.. if they weren't, we might have seen them already by now..." said Kirito.

Just then, he heard a small commotion from the courtyard and as he looked down into the courtyard itself, he saw many of the NPC's pointing up into the clouds and as he looked up, it was then he finally noticed them in their large formation.

About 200 World Tree Guardians swordsmen and archers were slowly floating above the castle as they headed for the portal and as Kirito watched them, something else was appearing above the castle as well.

And as it dropped down, Asuna appeared by his side as she then saw the package as well and asked aloud, "Wonder what that is..."

"Whatever it is, I just hope its not a trap..." said Kirito as the crate of pure metal, having floated down via a Feather-Fall magic spell, hit the ramparts and as the spell faded away, Kirito slowly approached it as he unlatched its top and then slowly brought it up.

Immediately, a message popped up before them and as the ball of energy slowly began to expand into almost a small portal, both Asuna and Kirito were stunned to see the face of Lisbeth as she said, "Hey guys, its Lisbeth! I got some goodies for you all to use to get me and Sinon back! But I won't say anything else because... well... apparently it would spoil the Princes fun."

"Bye!" The message collapsed in on itself and as both Kirito and Asuna looked at one another, they then looked down into the crate as they slowly pulled out it contents.

"BloodIron Rapier"

"BloodIron GreatAxe"

"BloodIron Longswords"

Asuna and Kirito looked over all of the weapons that suddenly was with them, Klein and Shisho appeared with their weapons, somehow managing to keep theirs since the last battle against the Prince of Darkness, Klein looked at the weapon as he said, "What are these? And where did they come form?"

"I'm not sure... looks like some weapons that Lisbeth gave us... but how or why... its beyond me..." said Asuna as she slowly unsheathed the BloodIron rapier. Its blade was the color of dark blood but its blade was pristine and sharp, like it was brand new from the forge.

As Kirito took the two, dual BloodIron longswords and held them in his hands, they felt as good as his normal blades he once used and as he looked back to the World Tree Guardians going towards the portal, he then said to Klein, "Get us a few units... lets go see if we can maybe survive the beachhead in Hel with these new blades..."

Sinon was bringing up her Shining Bow of Shekhinah to shoot when she heard the Prince of Darkness appear. Surprisingly enough, to her surprise, the Boss Prince of Darkness had allowed her to train in the castles main courtyard in preparations for any more battles with the Bone Princes as well as practicing with her DarkSteel dagger.

And so, as soon as she appeared in-game, she set up a target from the many there were, made it look something akin to the Prince, and fired arrows into it until she could barely pull back the bow anymore.

And as she slowly put her bow down as she watched the Prince of Darkness get off his shadow horse and walked towards her, she had already put a dozen arrows into the training dummy this session.

Kommando293 looked at her and then the dummy pincushioned by her arrows and as he stopped to look the dummy over, he was conflicted a bit over its look. He found it somewhat funny that it was him in a way with how the straw armor was shaped but at the same time it was a bit worrying because it looked like she was getting better and better at keeping her arrows in the weak points of his armor.

Nonetheless, he will continue to let her train but not today. He was deciding to take a bit of a risk and ask her out on a small side quest he hoped would distract her from trying to run away again. Heck, he had managed to talk her blacksmithing friend, Lisbeth, into coming along but he suspected that was simply to gain more items to craft weapons and armor with. She had already sent out some low tier BloodIron weapons to her friends but it wouldn't take long before she begins sending higher-tier Mithril and DarkSteel weapons to them.

But until then, he could only simply bide his time and pray that maybe he didn't actually die from this.

"Ah, I see you are practicing still, my bride... I have.. a proposition,, if you will, that I want you to hear out." said Kommando293 to Sinon as he gave a slight bow to her.

Sinon put her bow and arrow away as she slightly crossed her arms before her and said, "What do you need?"

"Would you like to join myself, the handmaidens, and your friend on a Hunt for some.. Wraith Stag..?" Ghastly Stag were almost ghosts in the shape of European deer that were often seen in decently numbered herds north of the castle closer to the capital that Hel herself held. They were a challenge alone, mainly because the bucks would often times attack any aggressors to the herds with their horns, hooves, and their canine teeth.

Sinon thought about it and as she did so, she suddenly drew her bow as she fired one last arrow and as it hit the dummy in the groin area, she then said, "Alright, lets do this."

Kommando293 felt himself cringe from seeing the arrow pierce the groin and as he kinda shimmied his legs a bit, he then gave a whistle as a Ghostly horse appeared with a saddle as he said to her, "Mount up... and lets ride..."

"What? You don't want me with you?" asked Sinon in more of a teasing way than an actual question.

"Don't get me wrong, my sweet." said Kommando293 as he got onto his own horse. "I would love you with me but if you do come with me, I might just take you to my chambers immediately and skip the hunt."

Sinon gave him a look and it made him feel guilty but he sighed as he said, "Now, come along and let us hope we can get your smithy friend out of the smithy itself... I haven't seen her out of it since I gave her permission..."

"Why are you surprised? You did tell her she can make weapons for the Alfs..." said Sinon as she got onto her Ghostly horse. It whinnied and moved beneath her but she managed to get use to the controls as she soon trotted it over next to the prince of Darkness.

"Still, I expected to see her out and about a little more beyond meal time.." said the Prince of Darkness.

Suddenly, they heard a shout and as they all quickly trotted their horses over as they suddenly saw Lisbeth trying to stay on her mount as Kommando was rather surprised.

She was trying to stay on top of a pure bronze stallion with firey eyes and hooves and as she managed to stay on for a little more, he slowly trotted his horse over as he said, "Are you okay, my friend?"

"I'm fine!!" Lisbeth put away a stray strand of hair from her face as she managed to get her horse moving again and as Kommando293 smiled at her, he then asked both Lis and Sinon, "Are you ready for a hunt?"

They both nodded and as the trio began to trot their horses away, it didn't take long for the handmaidens to appear with a horse cart as they followed the trio to the hunting grounds.

The portal trip was over and as Kirito and Asuna landed together as their army began to spread out around them just as the World Tree Guardians did the same. Kirito immediately looked all around them and as they did so, it definitely wasn't the same place like the initial attack and it showed. The first thing was that the big armies of the main princes and princesses were all gone as it looked like those weaker units were now garrisoning the whole place.

Another note was that there seemed to be only catapults and trebuchets for ranged weapons and that the only units here visibly were melee units and as Kirito, Shisho, Klein, Asuna, Silica, Leafa, and Agil all looked around with their units, they watched as the World Tree Guardians immediately began to march straight for the gates that had enemies swarming before and along it as Kirito said to everyone else, "Quickly! Lets do what damage we can and then run!"

Everyone immediately nodded as they all began to go after the Guardians as the enemy began to react to their presence as zombies, skeletons, and lesser demons began to form up in their loose mobs and slowly begin marching towards them.

"Fire Storm!" Shisho's shout of a spell rose over the noise of moving feet as a large storm of fire came streaking down upon the battlements of the enemy defensive just as Asuna herself brought her new wand up and shouted out, "Lightning Bolt!"

A streak of lighting blasted from the tip of Asuna's wand as it streaked forward and slammed into the front ranks of a mob of zombies as it then blasted through their ranks to strike the ranks of at least 5 other mobbed units.

Kirirto watched as the enemy units began to march towards them while other fired the catapults and trebuchets and as he saw the shots coming, he then shouted, "Run! Back to the portal!!"

Everyone gave him a funny look but everyone immediately ran and as everyone ran, the Guardians took the brunt as the Spriggan force made a mad dash for the portal.

But they had done some damage and knew that the portals defenses on the other side were weak for the moment. It was the perfect set up to get everyone together again for another attack.