Light Novel: Sword Art Online Vol 11

Sword Art Online: Alicization Turning
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

It's been two years since Kirito entered another mysterious fantasy world and met the boy named Eugeo. At the Northern Centoria Master Swordsmanship Academy, the two of them have advanced to become upper rank trainee swordsmen. Now they spend their days training, aiming to one day earn the rank of Integrity Knight, the greatest peacekeepers in the human world. Soon, appropriate for their new ranks, both Kirito and Eugeo are assigned apprentices and they all deepen their bonds while perfecting their bodies and minds. But suddenly, an evil rears its head and threatens their peaceful lives. Eugeo tries to draw his sword to fight but he finds himself helpless as a message appears in words he can't read. They say--SYSTEM ALERT.

Buckle in kiddies, you're in for a bumpy ride in this volume of Sword Art Online! Things happen, some realisations are made and then boom...end of the volume. See you next time! It's pretty brutal. Because I'm making all kinds of assumptions and theories and it's going to be a while until next volume, I guess! 

Sword Art Online, as a whole, was pretty disturbing. Let's be real. The whole concept behind it was disturbing. Reading it was disturbing. Watching it was disturbing. But this arc is taking all of that to a new level. Sure there's no 'you die in the game you die in real life' but that doesn't make this arc any less...well...disturbing. In this volume we learn a whole tonne more about the world that's been created, how it changed and grew and became what it is when Kirito found himself in it, and we get some more information on Rath. 

Then there's the disturbing scene with Raios and Humbert. My hatred for them knows no bounds. But this volume is pretty pacey. We have Eugeo's POV for most of the volume, and we shift from the school after said disturbing scene and meet up with Alice a lot sooner than I was expecting! I was here ready to be in it for the long haul and do the tournament etc but nope. This arc is moving forward pretty speedily. Thanks to Asuna we have some seeds of intrigue scattered throughout her POV and we even get some Kirito POV time. Things have changed with Alice, and Kirito finds himself participating in a prison break but that's not the most shocking development of the whole volume. 

We meet Cardinal. Yep...let that sink in. Where've you heard it before? Sounds super familiar right? It should *wink*. It took a moment when I was reading, for me to answer all of those questions and then it hit me like a brick. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about that...but yes. We have a pretty major development right before the end of the book! 

I'm mildly worried we're going to lose out on Tiese and Ronie, I feel like there's lots of potential with them and we're possibly not going to get to see them again. Which will be a liiiittlleee bit disappointing. 

While I found the beginning of this volume a little bit slow as we built up towards a certain dark event, the majority of this volume has a great pace and provides us with lots of intrigue and information as well as a shock twist at the end of the book. Yep. Right at the end! We finish up with the school and head in to new settings and territory just before the book ends, and I'm very intrigued to see how this is all going to play out. We have a rough deadline thanks to Asuna's POV for when this is all going to be resolved, but I since we've got a long way to go still! 

I feel like this arc is like every horror movie ever with the AI taking over control basically. But it's a bit more disturbing.