Bercouli

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“

You saw it happen. I swung level at the right. It was an Empty slash—the fastest attack of my life and completely unthinking. My first movement gave me the advantage over Bercouli... However—however. When he put up his sword to receive the blow, which should have rebuffed it, he somehow pushed back my swing instead and chopped off my arm. Can you believe this, Vixur? In the moment, his sword was not even touching mine!... It is truth. It was as if the path of my swing itself was pushed aside by some invisible force. Not arts. Not Perfect Weapon Control. There is only one way to describe the phenomenon. My Empty Sword lost in battle to the willpower he refined over two centuries. He envisioned the path his sword was meant to take so powerfully that it became unshakable truth!

„

“	— Lil’ Miss. I still couldn’t give you what you wanted, Lil’ Miss. I couldn’t give you fatherly love. Because, I can’t remember, anything about my own parents either. But, there’s one thing that I do know. These so-called parents die protecting their children.	„
	~ Bercouli's inner thoughts before fighting Dark God Vecta

Summary

Bercouli (ベルクーリ, Berukūri), also known as Bercouli Synthesis One (ベルクーリ・シンセシス・ワン, Berukūri Shinseshisu Wan), was a supporting character in the Alicization Arc. He was one of the founders of Rulid Village, as well as the leader of the Integrity Knights; the oldest one in existence. A battle-hardened warrior and leader, Bercouli lived for hundreds of years, being seen as nearly unbeatable by the enemies who live to tell the tale. His weapon of choice was the Time Piercing Sword, a blade that could cut through time itself.

Powers and Stats

Tier: At least 8-C, possibly far higher

Name: Bercouli, Bercouli Synthesis One, The Legendary Hero

Origin: Sword Art Online

Gender: Male

Age: Around 40 physically, around 300 mentally

Classification: Artificial Fluctlight, Integrity Knight, Swordsman (Former), guard chief (Former), co-founder of Rulid Village (Former)

Powers and Abilities: Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Immortality (Type 1; All Integrity Knights do not age due to their lifespan being frozen by Quinella), Statistics Amplification (Sword Skills amplify the user's speed and power, with the downside of leaving some aftercast delay), Master Swordsman, Extrasensory Perception (Can sense whether or not someone is alive or dead, even if they are on the other side of the planet. Can spot individual people within an entire army. Can predict oncoming attacks through his sheer battle experience), Air Manipulation (Can generate air slashes. His Enhance Armament slashes go further than his normal slashing range because of this), Magic & Creation (via Sacred Arts. Can create a spell or an object for almost any situation, so long as he knows the words used to arrange his thoughts, guide his emotions, and fuel his imagination to create said spell or object), Regeneration (Low-Mid. Can regenerate his entire arm via Sacred Arts without an incantation), Limited Reality Warping (via Incarnation. Allows the user to change the world to an extent via their willpower or imagination. For those who are not conscious or adept with this ability, it is primarily used to increase the chances of winning a fight against stronger opponents or create miracles not possible with standard Sacred Arts. Bercouli, through hundreds of years of experience fighting, has enough experience and recognition of Incarnation to use its probability manipulation at will), Can create invisible swords (via Incarnate Blades), Telekinesis (via Incarnate Arms), Superhuman Willpower (Even when the odds were against him, fighting a God who was leagues above him and suffering an immense amount of pain, Bercouli still continued to fight. Even though Dark God Vecta's primary ability was to absorb the Incarnation of his opponent— their literal willpower as well as their soul, Bercouli still stood tall and continued to fight this uphill battle, eventually winning in the end), Time Manipulation (via the Time Piercing Sword. Can attack the past and the future. Attacking the future allows Bercouli to store the power behind a slash in a specific area, meaning the slash would remain in the trajectory where the sword was swung, and anyone who touches that area will be cut. In contrast, attacking the past will always hit the opponent instead of remaining in an area. The user could only attack 10 minutes into the past), Durability Negation (via the Time Piercing Sword. Upon slashing the past, the opponent's life will instantly drop to 0 due to directly interfering with the system), Resistance to Soul Manipulation (Resisted Vecta's ability to absorb Incarnation and the souls of his enemies through sheer willpower)

Attack Potency: At least Building level+ (Should be comparable to Alice and is superior to other Integrity Knights. Fought Eugeo very casually. His left-over slashes from his Enhance Armament completely shattered parts of Eugeo's own Enhance Armament. Casually stopped Alice and Stacia from fighting with his bare hands), possibly far higher (Stated that he has defeated all previous Integrity Knights in battle before, even though most of them use ranged attacks and destructive Armament Full Control Arts that are Multi-City Block level. Slain the Northern White Dragon, a dragon whose role was to protect the entirety of the Human Empire from the Dark Territory. Even weaker dragons such as Amayori can torch entire villages and forests). Release Recollection ignores conventional durability by instantly dropping the opponent's life to 0.

Speed: Relativistic (Comparable to other Integrity Knights and Eugeo)

Lifting Strength: Likely Superhuman (Should be comparable to, if not superior to Eugeo)

Striking Strength: At least Building Class+, possibly far higher

Durability: At least Building level+, possibly far higher (Was merely immobilised from Eugeo's Release Recollection and would have eventually broken free if not for the blue roses sapping his Life. Took attacks from Dark God Vecta)

Stamina: Virtually Infinite physically (Just like normal Virtual Reality Avatars, however the difference being that if one ran out of "stamina", they would begin taking damage to their Life), Vastly Superhuman mentally (Should be comparable to Kirito's own willpower. Fought through immense pain and an uphill battle against Dark God Vecta, an opponent who could absorb an opponent's own willpower and soul)

Range: Standard melee range with the Time Piercing Sword, several meters with ranged slashes, Incarnate Blades, and Incarnate Arms. Can ignore distance with Armament Full Control Art.

Standard Equipment:

• Time Piercing Sword: A Divine Object-class sword that has the ability to pierce time. Its abilities are located in the Notable Attacks/Techniques section.

Intelligence: Bercouli has around 300 years of fighting experience and is said to be a legend within the Underworld, even to those in the Dark Territory. With his immense battle experience, he was able to barely defeat Dark God Vecta; an opponent who is comparable to the Goddess Stacia and Kirito when powered by the world. He is a person with an impressive level of concentration, yet also relaxed even in intense situations, as he was able to maintain focus on his «Armament Full Control Art» even while leisurely conversing with Eugeo. Although Bercouli was the commander of the Integrity Knights and had his memories of his previous life suppressed, he maintained his critical thinking, as he held faint distrust against the instructions handed down by the Chamber of Elders, but nonetheless continued fighting on the church's side due to his wish for peace, and knowing peace would be impossible without the Axiom Church.

Weaknesses: Is extremely self-confident and prideful, which makes him not use Release Recollection most of the time. Can only attack the past for up to 10 minutes back and keeping various future slashes up for a long period of time requires immense concentration. Is susceptible to Quinella's whims with the Seal of the Right Eye, though after her death this weakness becomes a non-factor. Sword Skills have a slight aftercast delay at the end of them in exchange for increased power. Most of the time, to activate Sacred Arts the user must chant out the words required to activate it, however for Bercouli most Sacred Arts do not need a chant for him, making this weakness negligible. Sacred Arts require "spatial resources" to use, meaning that barren environments would lessen the effects of a Sacred Art. If Bercouli loses willpower, confidence, or imagination on succeeding in an event, Incarnation will not activate.

Notable Attacks/Techniques:

Incarnation: A secret skill passed down by Integrity Knights since ancient times, and one of the most important concepts in the Sword Art Online franchise. Incarnation refers to the ability to change the state of the world through pure willpower and imagination. This mainly includes creation, alteration, and destruction. It is the power which Sacred Arts derive from. Its effects are versatile, as the power has been used to wield invisible blades, create swords from the user's blood, transmute objects, increase the chances of an event happening, and much more. However, the power of an Incarnation ability can be matched by another Incarnation ability, and the use of Incarnation is mentally exhausting, requiring a lot of concentration and energy to perform. If the user is in a state where their will is not strong enough, they become unable to use Incarnation. There are a limited amount of people who can use Incarnation to its full potential, and much practice and experience are needed to be able to use it. This ability is most prominent in the Underworld, as this ability is one of that world's core mechanics. However this ability has also been shown multiple times throughout the series before the Alicization arc.

Sacred Arts: «Sacred Arts» are System Commands in Project Alicization that residents of Underworld believe to be magic rituals. In reality, they are just words used to arrange thoughts and guide the emotions of the caster to make use of one's imagination power. Because of this, the imagination of the user may either improve or decrease the effectiveness of an art.

• Armament Full Control Art: The Armament Full Control Art is a high-ranking Sacred Arts ritual that is used to boost the offensive power of a Divine Object-class weapon by linking with the true essence of the weapon. As all Divine Object-class weapons strongly inherit the properties of the object that served as its nucleus in the form of memories, the Armament Full Control Art may be used to tap into the parameters inherited from the base material, thus increasing the power of the weapon in the form of special abilities. The ability acquired through the ritual depends solely on how the caster pictures the released form of the weapon. The first phase of the «Armament Full Control Art», called the «strengthening» phase, is the partial awakening of the weapon's memories, which manifest as a new offensive ability for the weapon. The «Life» of the weapon decreases greatly every time the command is used and the power of the ritual is determined by the caster's ability to imagine the released form of the weapon. The second phase of the ritual, called the «releasing» phase, is a command that releases all of the memories of the weapon, unleashing all of its rampant power. Memories unleashed with this phase become uncontrollable to the caster and might even engulf the caster himself. For example, the «Armament Full Control» art with the Time Piercing Sword is as follows:
  • Once the «Armament Full Control» art is in effect, the Time Piercing Sword can interfere with the perception of time in the Underworld's server. The swords «strengthening» phase allows the user to seemingly slash the future: the sword's force is conserved in a specific place and is unleashed at a specific time, in the form of a powerful heat haze. Due to the nature of this ability, the user must carefully calculate both the time and the place that his opponent will be standing in at a specific time, otherwise, the strike would miss its intended target.
  • In contrast, the «releasing» phase of the «Armament Full Control» art, or «Release Recollection», allows the user to, in a sense, slash the past. Normally, the Underworld's Main Visualizer maintains logs of all the movement of Human Units in the past six hundred seconds or ten minutes. The sword is capable of interfering with these logs, causing the system to mistake the Unit's position at the time of the slash with their position exactly six hundred and one seconds before the slash. This allows the sword to attack a target by slashing at the spot they had stood at in the past. Additionally, due to directly interfering with the system, this slash completely erases the target's Durability (aka Life or HP in video game terms), no matter how high the value had been.

Others

Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches: