“You understand precisely.”

Piaget raised his voice, delighted.

“Yes. The power that flows in then is not magical power—mana—but the bizarre power of spirit-and-flesh unity contained within the elixir of eternity. And yet we feel that power as warmth. We feel it as familiarity. We feel as though we have regained a part of ourselves we never even knew we had lost. None of us ever realized it truly had been part of us. That comfort itself is proof that we are monsters.”

He theatrically fluttered his white coat.

“Pure mana does not take on such vivid colors, nor does it gather so easily. The Myriad Star Church and the Dawn Council alike are all chasing hollow salvation, like children at play, built on lies and deception.”

“Then mental waves are...”

“Any mental wave below Doctor-class merely helps one recall one’s true self. Among mutant demonic beasts, the truly powerful individuals may be able to use real mental waves, but they can be counted on one hand. Do you know what we call a Doctor?”

“One who has established his own truth, I believe.”

“Thank you for remembering. Yes. Those who accept our truth and gather enough of the flesh and spirit of the old things are reborn as greater beings. Once they reach that realm, only then can they truly spread truth to others. Even if the others do not accept it.”

“Anything below that is merely showing them a mirror?”

Step.

I moved one step closer to the glass tube.

“A mirror. A fine metaphor. Truly excellent for a student of Astreos.”

Piaget silently brought his fingertips together in applause, clearly pleased.

Even the movement of his fingers was grotesque.

“To be honest, I expected you to go into a rage.”

“I want to. But I won’t deny something simply because it disgusts me. I always judge only after seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my own ears.”

“I understand why you’re being so mild. It’s because of eternity—or, by your name for it, the elixir of sacred radiance, isn’t it? I know you gathered the Elector Princes and won their trust with that.”

“The moment I saw it, I knew I was screwed. I thought if I brushed this aside without understanding it properly, it would become a disaster.”

“Once the hunt is over, the hunting dog is boiled. You know better than anyone what the Myriad Star Church will accuse you of after this suppression campaign ends.”

“Do you want hostile coexistence?”

Piaget nodded.

“I want only truth. And I want all humanity to have the right to pursue truth.”

“I think that right is necessary too.”

I muttered words I did not mean under my breath.

“O thunderous star.”

【“Did you call?”】

“Is everything he said true?”

【“How could it be?”】

The thunderous star answered.

【“I already swore I would not spare the name, but I cannot imagine how it became distorted to this extent.”】

【The dreaming thunderous star expresses disbelief with a deep sigh.】

The voice held both emptiness and mockery.

From those two emotional threads woven through it, I realized one fact.

Not everything Piaget had said was wrong.

It was likely the same sort of logic as saying, “Traisan, the senior adopted son, rose to question the suspected collusion between Andromeda, the young lady of the minor house, and Kyrie, the youngest adopted son, with Rikenta, only to be defeated.”

If one looked only at the events that occurred, it was not technically false.

But if someone asked whether that was really what happened, there would be a great deal to explain.

“But I think there are things more important than truth.”

“Hm?”

Three more steps.

If I advanced only three more steps, I would be close enough to crush that glass tube with magnetism in less than a second.

“There are things more important than truth?”

At my words, Piaget frowned, as though this was something he absolutely could not let pass.

“What determines truth is will. It is the direction of what I am trying to become. Isn’t it?”

“Truth is truth because it does not change. No matter how much you deny it, the fact remains that we are not truly human, but monsters mixed with those ancient evil gods.”

“Right. But I was born in a red-light district.”

“...?”

“I am not the fruit of pure love between two noble people. I am the result of one night’s reckless indulgence. But just because I was born that way, I never considered myself the result of one night’s reckless indulgence.”

I continued calmly.

“I gave my best wherever I was, whenever I was there. For my perfect life. Because this is my life. No matter how I was born, it is the only life I have.”

Half of it was bait meant to draw his attention while I took those three steps.

“I think what one is born with matters more than what one is born as. And what one pursues matters more than what one is born with.”

In other words, the other half was sincere.

“So I’m not especially surprised to hear I was born a filthy monster. I’d already thought something similar before. But that was a reason to live even harder and become a greater human being—not a reason to despair and say, ‘I was always a monster, so I may as well live like one.’”

Yes.

Wherever I was, whenever it was, I had always done my best.

At the orphanage.

At the training camp.

At the academy.

Even after the day of the oath ceremony, when I met a Holy Seat and the trajectory of my life twisted completely.

I had simply done my best with my life.

Step.

I took one step forward.

“How arrogant of a great house. Your ego is swollen as well. Do you believe you can change truth?”

Piaget bared his teeth as he asked.

“No.”

I calmly shook my head.

“But I believe it doesn’t matter even if I can’t change it.”

Step.

I took the second step.

“Not everyone will be able to accept this truth the way I do.”

“Many have accepted truth, and many more strive to accept it. We also strive to spread truth. In the end, people will realize the truth.”

Step.

I took the final third step.

“That’s why all of you have to die.”

Craaaack!

At the same time, I drew up magnetism and clenched my fist.

Pulling force and repulsive force.

I pulled and pushed the metal components attached to the top and bottom of the glass tube with all my strength.

Crack—craaaaaack!

“Huh?!”

“How dare you!”

“Stop him!”

Piaget snapped his head up, and the Doctors and graduate students rushed forward all at once.

“You... blasphemer!”

Piaget’s face was more distorted than almost any I had ever seen.

Tsssss!

Piaget transformed his hand into a crimson-bone blade and thrust it at me.

Crash!

But I was faster.

I shattered the glass tube into pieces.

SPLAAAAASH!

The high-purity elixir of sacred radiance and the graduate student sleeping inside it spilled across the floor.

Whoosh!

I threw myself backward, dodging Piaget’s crimson-bone blade.

“Kill him!”

At Piaget’s shout, the graduate students waiting in the rear surged forward.

Even I could not handle their numbers in this kind of melee.

It did not matter.

BOOM!

“Duke Kyrie!”

“Here!”

“We found him!”

The pile of stone behind me split apart as if coming alive.

Step. Step. Step.

Tyren of Terra walked out at the front, his violet eyes blazing.

“Duke Kyrie has found them! Now it is our turn!”

Behind him, Andromeda, Erica, Valherios, all the other Elector Princes, and their guards rushed in like a flood.

“Get away from Kiri-Kiri, you ugly monster!”

BOOM!

Frey shot in like a ballista bolt, greatsword first.

Whoooooosh!

The lightning-reinforced greatsword drew a huge semicircle.

Crack!

Piaget blocked with his crimson-bone blade, but the force hurled him backward all the same.

“You too are nothing but a monster mixed with an ancient evil god!”

“What the hell did you say, you bastard? You can look at a pretty boy like me and still call me a monster?”

Piaget snarled, but Frey spat out a crude curse and raised his middle finger straight at him.

The melee began again.

“For truth! We shall open the eyes of those blind fools!”

“Make those rebels pay for their sins!”

The Elector Princes surged in like a tide, leading their greatly reinforced guards.

In terms of raw fighting power, this was a battle we could not lose.

Andromeda poured out Emission, and Erica fired Air Cannons.

Valherios’s sword aura reinforcement burned as if a sun had risen inside the room, while Severic’s frost wind was sharp enough to freeze encroachers to death where they stood.

But Piaget and the Doctors still wore composure on their faces.

They did not look like rebels nearing their final moments.

I spread Bio-radar, searching for the graduate student who had spilled out of the glass tube earlier.

Where are you?

I scanned each person’s face with electromagnetic waves and confirmed them one by one.

I did not have to search for long.

Crack. Crack-crack. Crack.

At the rear of the audience chamber, that graduate student began to mutate.

It was so fast I had no time to shoot it with the Advanced Perk Railgun.

Its body became wrapped in glossy black carapace, and several trumpet-like mouths jutted out.

Soon its back broke through the ceiling of the audience chamber dozens of meters above and towered upward.

Craaaaaaack!

“Ah...”

Thanks to Bio-radar, I saw that horrifying body before I could with my own eyes.

It stood on six ant-like legs, its carapace-covered torso rising straight into the sky.

Two pairs of mantis scythes grew from its body, and several long trumpet-like mouths protruded from its face.

“Ugh!”

“Huh?”

“Mm!”

Its size itself was similar to the creature that had appeared in Rebellion.

But its overall presence could not even be compared.

I quickly realized the difference.

“It’s symmetrical.”

“What?”

Frey, standing beside me, widened his eyes.

“Its limbs are all where they should be. There are no warped sections, no places where flesh is melting off. It looks grotesque, but it’s a stable life-form.”

I let out a low groan.

That was not a mixed and twisted encroached body.

It was a true demonic creature, saturated with the flesh and spirit of an ancient evil god and completed as a single being.

[“Confess the truth.”]

Piaget shouted, carrying his words on a light mental wave.

Whoooooosh!

The graduate student drew in an unfathomably deep breath.

“Shut up!”

Andromeda stretched a hand toward the sky and called lightning.

Rumble!

At the will of a direct pureblood tempered through countless battles, storm clouds gathered in an instant and began to swirl.

It was the storm clouds that had shattered the gigantic skeletal lord, the Lord of Flies, in a single blow.

[“■■■■■■■■!”]

But the fully mutated graduate student was slightly faster as it raised its face to the sky and unleashed a mental wave through its trumpet-like mouths.

Because it had five trumpet mouths facing left, right, front, back, and even upward, the wave truly spread in all five directions.

“Ghk!”

For an instant, my vision went black, then returned to normal.

Even the mana I had gathered to exercise some authority scattered entirely, like water spilling from a flung bowl.

My breath caught, and nausea surged.

It felt as though countless insects had risen inside my body before settling back down.

“Uuugh!”

In the end, I vomited up everything in my stomach.

Even I ended up like that.

“...Block your ears, open your mouth, and retreat, sir.”

“What did you say?”

“Block your ears, open your mouth, and retreat! You must not let the shockwave remain inside your body!”

The inner wall.

Joi quickly grasped the situation.

We’re screwed, sir.

As Kyrie’s adjutant, she made the best judgment she could.

“If this goes wrong, all our people will mutate too, sir. Pull ordinary soldiers back to the outer wall and maintain only the encirclement. Retainers and below should withdraw as well.”

It was the kind of realistic attitude Kyrie would have liked if he had seen it.

“What are you saying?”

“Do you know nothing of honor, Sir?”

“How can we retreat when our lords are inside?”

But for the other regiment commanders, generals, and adjutants, the command was too flexible to accept.

“Have you still learned nothing after everything we’ve been through? Will you only come to your senses after all your subordinates turn into monsters? If you won’t listen, then at least I’ll pull our forces back—”

Joi tried to withdraw at least Kyrie’s army, Rikenta’s army, and Andromeda’s army.

If the coalition soldiers mutate like this, the encirclement we worked so hard to build will collapse, sir.

But then the emotion her lord had also begun to feel raised its head within her.

Responsibility.

An emotion only those truly trying to stand above others could feel.

“No. I can’t allow that, sir.”

“What?”

“You’re only a squire—how dare you!”

“I am Joi of Equitaras!”

Joi looked at the Elector Princes’ adjutants, generals, regiment commanders, and officer-knights as she shouted.

“Regiment commander and adjutant to His Highness Kyrie, Imperator of the Elector Princes Coalition Army! I will exercise the command authority entrusted to me by His Highness Kyrie, sir. All forces, withdraw to the outer wall!”

It was the best she could do.

My lord. Leave this place to me.

She believed Kyrie was doing the same.

At the same time, inside the imperial palace—

I have to cancel it out somehow. Blue Radiance Lion’s Roar is the only way.

Kyrie lived up to his adjutant’s expectations.

Chapter 244

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