‘Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld’ episode 12: American players attacked the Underworld in season finale

“Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld” episode 12 marks the end of this cour. It ended in a major battle between the Human Empire and the army of real-world American players.

The finale is indeed chaotic and somehow turned out of control as thousands of players from the U.S. were tricked into joining the game that was misleadingly called a “beta test.” The real reason behind the call for players to sign in was to annihilate the Human Empire by helping Vecta with capturing Alice and ultimately destroy the entire Dark Territory and Human Empire World.

Gabriel Miller or Emperor Vecta’s strategy

“Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld” episode 12 revealed that the infiltration of the Underworld by people from the real world, in the guise of being the red army, was all planned out by Gabriel. His plan is to let the American VRMMO players get into the Dark Territory’s dark knight accounts and attack the Human Empire in the virtual world.

As mentioned on Reddit, after arriving in the Underworld, they started to slaughter both the Integrity Knights and the even the Dark Forces’ armies. Asuna realized what was happening and tried to stop the red soldiers, but she can’t do it alone.

Pugilist team up with Human Empire

In an unexpected twist, the pugilist lead by the tenth Champion Iskahn, join forces with Asuna and the Human Empire to fight the American players. Iskahn took out his right eye to stop receiving commands from Vecta after seeing how his people are mercilessly slaughtered in the fight.

He realized that Vecta already abandoned them since he already achieved his goal of capturing Alice and now on his way to the End Altar. Thus, he decided to help the Human Empire and save their world in the process as well because Asuna can now go after Gabriel while the pugilists stop the intruders from the real world.

Sheyta decided to stay with Iskahn and fight the American players together. This leaves Asuna and Bercouli on hot pursuit behind Vecta.

“Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld” episode 12 titled “Ray of Light” was released on Dec. 28, but the English version has yet to arrive. KayoAnime reported that the next season will return on April 2020, and it will premiere with "The Great Underworld War" cour with 23 episodes.