Kyrie immediately devised a countermeasure.

“The best strategy is to win without fighting. We split the army. Each battalion commander will lead their own force and continue the advance.”

It was a measure intended to reduce the probability of personally encountering a Doctor to one in ten.

Naturally, objections came immediately.

“Senior? What kind of textbook says something like that? Isn’t the best strategy to fight a thousand battles and win all thousand?”

“My lord. If we do that, we could end up being defeated in detail.”

“In a frontal war, dispersing firepower is directly tied to weakening combat strength. I speak only to repay the value of the gold coins Your Highness bestowed upon me, so I beg you to reconsider.”

Vane, Joi, and Blue Hydrangea all opposed the plan.

We can’t afford to lose all fifteen thousand troops after coming this far. I’m the supreme commander of the Elector Princes’ army. Even if one or two thousand die, we still have to advance.

But the pressure borne by “Imperator” Kyrie far exceeded anything they could imagine.

Besides, those bastards are limited in manpower too. Even during the Rebellion raid, they created those infiltrators locally instead of bringing large numbers with them. There’s a limit to how much they can divide their forces as well.

Kyrie rebutted them again.

“Even Blue Knights capable of slaughtering a thousand men alone cannot pin down a thousand men alone. That’s how I defeated Traisan. If we split into ten columns and attack, one or two units may struggle, but the others can steadily march on to the next city.”

The logic behind the rebuttal was undeniable.

The key was the statement: That’s how I defeated Traisan.

My lord. Surely you have established two tactical objectives, yes?

Joi had been his adjutant even back then.

To occupy the free cities throughout the corpse-waste plains and expose the Hall of Purity, we need large numbers of ordinary soldiers, not merely a handful of superhuman troops. Therefore preserving our forces is essential! But enemies like the Doctors and Masters prioritize grinding down those ordinary soldiers first, so are you preparing to become bait yourself in order to protect them!?

That was why she remembered the sight of Kyrie personally facing Traisan.

This strategy was not mere sacrifice.

In the first place, the sacrifice of “those at the top” was not necessarily a good thing.

Anyone who had worked within an organization knew exactly what happened when its highest administrator vanished and rival organizations descended upon it.

Besides, if we divide the troops like this, the main force where Lord Kyrie personally remains can be composed with an overwhelmingly high proportion of superhuman soldiers and marksman school sharpshooters.

Once the bait was taken, the fish would inevitably be hooked.

And this particular hook would even carry electric current through it.

“If that is your command, then as your regimental commander I shall respectfully obey, my lord.”

Joi was the first to change her stance.

“No, Commander. Are you truly saying an Astreos regimental commander should avoid battle?”

“Lord Kyrie is not merely a Blue Knight of Astreos now, but the Imperator of the entire Elector Princes’ army, my lord. No matter how much one loves battle, it cannot come before tactics, strategy, and war itself. Sir Vane, I ask that you consider Lord Kyrie’s deeper intentions once more, my lord.”

When Joi, the senior-most veteran of Kyrie’s army, changed sides and pressed the issue so firmly, even Vane and Blue Hydrangea could no longer resist.

“Besides, Sir Vane, even if we divide the army into ten groups, rumors of Lord Kyrie’s location will inevitably spread, my lord. Wouldn’t that increase the chances of the enemy finding him faster?”

“Ah!?”

“The same applies to Cadet Commander Blue Hydrangea. Neither Lord Kyrie nor I ever intended to split two thousand cadets across fifteen separate divisions, my lord. There will be several units composed of five hundred marksman school cadets and five hundred soldiers attached to them, so you may rest easy, my lord.”

Once Joi quietly explained Kyrie’s true intentions, resistance became even more impossible.

Vane immediately understood.

“Senior!”

As expected of Kyrie.

He intended to preserve the soldiers while personally confronting that Doctor bastard in single combat and crushing him himself.

Truly the finest senior worthy of emulation.

Since we split the army into ten groups, statistically speaking, the chances of me personally running into that Doctor bastard should be low, right?

Had Kyrie heard that thought, he would have asked what kind of nonsense that was supposed to be.

In the end, Kyrie proved correct.

“My lord! A man in white has appeared over there, my lord.”

“White robes, spectacles, short hair. It matches the reports exactly. It is Adler, Doctor of the Hall of Purity.”

Everything unfolded exactly as Kyrie had supposedly hoped.

Two days after dividing the fifteen-thousand-man army into fifteen battalions of one thousand and advancing separately—

Doctor Adler of the Hall of Purity appeared before the First Battalion personally led by Kyrie.

“What were the scouts doing?”

“There was no report, my lord! I shall immediately execute those worthless bastards who waste the air they breathe—!”

“No.”

Kyrie stopped the enraged knights and Joi.

Roughly one kilometer away.

Atop a low hill stood the Doctor in white robes, gazing down at them.

Woooong.

Not registering.

“It’s barely appearing on the Bio-radar.”

“What?”

“Then are you saying those white robes are a magic tool, my lord?”

“That can’t possibly be a cheap item.”

At Kyrie’s words, Joi and the officer knights all looked shocked.

Terra’s superhuman soldiers detected opponents through the weight placed upon the earth, Astreos through electromagnetic waves, Flammerios through body temperature, and so forth. Every great house possessed methods of locating enemies beyond the five senses.

Naturally, countermeasure magic tools had also been developed.

Magic tools designed specifically to oppose the great houses should have been banned from manufacture entirely, but because the great houses themselves kept developing such tools to neutralize each other’s detection authorities in their own wars, they had eventually begun openly encouraging the practice instead.

You really shouldn’t have done that.

Kyrie clicked his tongue internally at his ancestors as he stepped forward.

Regardless, the enemy had appeared.

There was no option of refusing battle.

Especially not when that enemy had boldly revealed himself alone before a thousand men.

Even while cursing internally, Kyrie remained a Blue Knight to his bones.

I want to abandon everything and run away. How am I supposed to know what that bastard has hidden before I walk up to him?

“Hyah!”

Even while thinking that, he advanced proudly atop his black horse, back perfectly straight and one hand resting upon his sword hilt.

Step. Step. Step.

Kyrie climbed the low hill.

Doctor Adler stepped forward several paces and showed the bare minimum courtesy.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you this closely.”

“The same for me. The Elector Prince who stands alone.”

“The Elector Prince who stands alone?”

“Do you possess some personal identity defined separately from everything else? If you wish to be called the Grand Duke of Wind of Rikenta or the royal brother of Astreos, I can call you that instead.”

Kyrie frowned briefly at Adler’s attitude.

Seen from nearby, Doctor Adler looked unexpectedly normal.

His face was neat and clean, and his eyes possessed the sharp intelligence characteristic of arrogant intellectuals.

I know those eyes.

That was precisely the problem.

People who think they alone possess the secret answer to the world always have eyes like that. Like me.

Kyrie himself possessed the same gaze.

Jacobin IV, the warrior of the sickle from the Dawn Council, had been another similar case.

He had attempted to corner Kyrie with his own logic and reasoning.

The display of sword aura reinforcement, long regarded as the exclusive domain of the Church and royal families, had shocked even Kyrie to some extent.

However, that secret had amounted to nothing more than a fresh stimulus.

O dreaming thunderous star.

【“I am listening, child.”】

At this distance, I trust those below cannot hear our conversation.

【“What?”】

No matter what secret anyone else possessed, Kyrie remained certain it could never compare to the secret he carried himself.

That was why he could treat Doctor Adler like an insect.

[“What did you say!?”]

“Hm?”

He shouted in exaggerated outrage from atop his horse.

[“How dare you insult Her Highness Andromeda!”]

It was the perfect excuse to enrage not only himself, but also the army below—most of whom were Astreos natives.

“Elector Prince?!”

Doctor Adler looked utterly bewildered.

“Lightning Strike!”

Kyrie uttered a single phrase that rendered a hundred conversations meaningless.

Flash!

A bolt of lightning descended from a clear sky.

Doctor Adler of the Hall of Purity was utterly dumbfounded.

“Y-You Blue Knights resort to such cowardly tactics!?”

Though he had thrown himself aside in time, one of his legs had turned to ash and every nerve in his body had burned out once.

“You bastard! Your actions completely contradict all the data gathered until now! Behave according to the data!”

Since he could recover through mental waves, it was not truly a major problem. But the fact that Kyrie—whom he had analyzed as the very embodiment of a Blue Knight—had acted so irregularly was a severe issue.

“If you refuse to behave according to the data, then I shall force you into the data! Y-You who must not behave dishonorably!”

In his agitation, the Doctor even said something a true scholar never should have.

Surprisingly enough, Kyrie actually had a response.

Whoosh!

“My conscience does not belong to me. It belongs to the one watching from above.”

He answered while sending away the warhorse, whose mind was weak against mental waves, exactly as he had planned beforehand.

“And since your kind are evil seeds abandoned alike by the Myriad Star of the night sky and the dreaming thunderous star, nothing I do to you could possibly trouble my conscience.”

In a world like this, the will of the Myriad Star naturally mattered more than the convictions of any individual.

Therefore those who defied the will of the Myriad Star were not even human.

And considering what they had done in Rebellion, they were not human even by ordinary standards.

“And besides.”

Tzzzzzt!

Kyrie did not allow the fallen lightning to simply disperse across the ground.

Exerting maximum control, he converted the power directly into magnetism arts and gathered Sacheol.

The purpose was not merely attack, but also to spread it shallowly across the terrain.

Step. Step. Step.

“I came alone. So why did you bring more than a dozen men with you?”

So that he could clearly detect those moving nearby.

“Kh!”

“Come out!”

Kyrie unleashed Chain Discharge.

Pajijijijik!

Blinding white electrical sparks exploded outward.

“Kyaaaagh!”

“Aaaagh!”

“Ugh?!”

Doctoral candidates of the Hall of Purity writhed upon the ground with twisted faces after being struck by the electricity.

【Telephone Conversation (14:59)】

“Joi.”

Kyrie immediately linked the Bio-radar with Telephone Conversation.

“Paisen, Augusta, Paisen, Sir Daniel.”

He was not speaking solely to Joi below.

His voice reached the battalion commanders, Blue Knights, and marksman school cadets spread across distances of several to more than ten kilometers in every direction.

“I have encountered a Doctor of the Hall of Purity. More than a dozen subordinate troops accompany him. Based on physical appearance, this is identical to the specimen encountered by Terra’s General. Judging by the distances between operational sectors, these are presumed to be all specimens operating throughout this region.”

“Kyrie!”

Doctor Adler’s expression hardened.

“All units are to proceed at full speed toward their designated target cities!”

Which meant this was excellent news for Kyrie.

“Y-You obstacle to truth! Follower of wicked vandalism! Punish the apostle of the false god!”

Doctor Adler pointed furiously at Kyrie.

The doctoral candidates who had been blasted away by Chain Discharge all rose simultaneously.

Even after suffering electrical output powerful enough to burn every nerve in a human body to death, their movements remained swift.

So swift that they seemed to possess several extra arms and legs.

In reality, they did.

[“---!”]

[“------!”]

[“--, --!”]

The doctoral candidates erupted with mental waves one after another as they transformed.

A beast-type infiltrator whose body was wrapped in black steel feathers while crimson flesh and grape-cluster eyeballs dangled between them.

A giant-type infiltrator surrounded by pale sensory tissue and possessing four arms.

An amorphous infiltrator with a black slime-like torso filled with dozens of mouths lined in white teeth.

“There sure are a lot of you.”

Tzzzzzt!

Every single infiltrator was swallowed by a wave of pitch-black Sacheol.

Black metallic dust gathered like fog, deepened like a lake, then surged forward like a tidal wave.

It was a dark blue-black wave of ultra-high-temperature ionized gas foaming like sea spray.

A metal tide.

Krrrkkkkk!

“Having a lot of them is fine. But they aren’t big. Did you think being big meant you could win?”

The doctoral candidates were shredded apart and burned alive within the Sacheol Blades.

Steel-like feathers and amorphous bodies alike were meaningless before that torrential current of steel vibrating at ultra-high speed.

“You should have come at me like this from the beginning. Then Terra’s General would’ve been enough to deal with you.”

Kyrie smiled brilliantly, like a bolt of lightning exploding across the sky.

Electric sparks danced between his white teeth.

Chapter 221

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