The imperial palace’s main palace had been breached.

“Burn them all!”

“May our justice triumph over your truth!”

“Fuck! I’ll rip those monster bastards’ mouths apart!”

Astreos’s Blue Knights, Rikenta’s navigators, Terra’s Black Knights, Crosel’s saviors, Septentrios’s guardians, Flammerios’s Red Knights, the royal family’s oathbearers, and the cathedral knights of the Myriad Star Church all rampaged inside the imperial palace.

They stabbed, cut, crushed, froze, and burned every enemy they saw.

“Run!”

“We have to pass down the knowledge!”

“We haven’t emptied this library yet!”

“At least protect my dissertation! I spent thirty years writing my doctoral dissertation!”

The Masters and Bachelors of the Hall of Purity, and the graduate students in integrated Master-Doctor programs, fled in every direction screaming.

“They’re scattering!”

“The imperial palace grounds are too large.”

“This old man will deploy a great authority. Withdraw the troops.”

The Elector Prince armies did not chase them one by one.

The imperial palace grounds of the Ancient Empire were unimaginably vast.

There were three lakes and four mountain peaks within the rear garden alone.

If the smaller and larger detached palaces were included, the area within the imperial palace walls rivaled that of a modest city.

“And since the Myriad Stars have said they will send down a meteor shower tonight, it should not be too difficult.”

And Saint Sirius was a powerful cardinal capable of purifying an entire city.

“Brothers of the faith.”

Saint Sirius called the battle priests.

Clank!

The battle priests, armored even more heavily than the cathedral knights, gathered under the escort of Church soldiers.

“This servant asks of the stars.”

Wooooong.

“Your breath cleaves the void, and your gaze burns away the darkness.”

Wooooong.

“In your names, judge sin. Scatter the starlight of the night sky and split the darkness, and with clear blade-tips gather the blood of the impious.”

Saint Sirius led the prayer, and the battle priests followed.

“O silence between star and star, deliver the will of the Holy Seats. Burn this world filled with sin through the truth of the night sky, and return their false spirit and flesh to ash.”

Andromeda looked through the shattered ceiling at the night sky where the sunset burned and faded.

Meteor shower?

From the far end of the dark blue sky, points shining with golden light drew lines as they approached.

“Our steps follow the path you have drawn, and our gazes follow the radiance you have shone.”

They drew closer and closer.

“Now send down fire. Grant us fragments. Enlighten us with white-burning light. Become an inextinguishable lamp and teach us.”

The Elector Princes swallowed without realizing it as they watched.

It was the favor of the Holy Seats, built up through precepts.

“Let the will of the night sky dwell upon this earth. Show the wrath of the stars. Burn all impiety to ash, and return all sin into the light.”

It was power even they, direct descendants of great houses, could not reach.

“O flowing stars, awaken and burn.”

Saint Sirius let out an inorganic shout.

["Purify this land, in the name of the Myriad Stars!"]

Fwoooooosh!

Countless meteors fell.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several thousand years after the legends said it had burned under the wrath of the Myriad Stars...

The imperial palace of the Ancient Empire burned once more.

“Goddamn it!”

I figured out how Saint Sirius intended to kill me.

I had assumed it would not be through some ordinary method like sending assassins...

But even so, I had not expected this scale.

Fwoooooosh!

A meteor shower blazing with iridescent colors crossed the night sky and fell toward the earth.

KRAAAASH!

Each meteor devastated dozens of meters with flame where it landed, and the shockwave alone crushed more than a hundred meters around it.

Then, where the shockwave passed, starfire ignited and incinerated the filthy corpses of the Hall of Purity.

“Urgh!”

“Aaagh!”

“Ghk!”

Before it, fast-footed Bachelors, arrogant Masters, massive graduate students, and powerful Doctors were all crushed equally.

“If I make it out of here alive!”

I was about to get crushed right alongside them.

Rumble!

The only relief was that the meteors appeared on Bio-radar, making them visible enough to dodge.

I dodged a meteor falling straight toward my head, then dodged another one falling precisely where I had been about to leap.

I used Thunderstep in rapid succession and sprinted deeper into the imperial palace.

Piaget was ahead.

["Piaget!"]

I chased him while unleashing Lion’s Roar.

Sharp-cut black hair, yellow eyes, a white coat.

The Department Dean.

“……!?”

He glanced back at me once, then recoiled in horror and moved his reverse-jointed legs.

In his hand, he held a translucent crystal tablet.

I felt as if I had once seen my father, Peleus, handle a similar magic tool.

I did not know whether it was the same magic tool, but one thing was certain.

It was a magic tool of the Ancient Empire.

KRAAAASH!

The sun had already set, but darkness did not come.

KRAAAASH!

Because the gaze of the Myriad Stars poured down with physical force.

KRAAAASH!

As meteors of every color fell overhead, I chased Piaget and ran across a steep mountain within the imperial palace grounds of the Ancient Empire.

This mountain, too, seemed to have been artificially constructed like the central seat of Astreos.

Where the topsoil had been gouged out and shattered, washed away in places, I could see a stone framework of countless square bricks stacked like a pyramid beneath it.

Through Bio-radar, I could see places where even that framework had collapsed, turning into steep cliffs.

Whoooooosh!

Piaget was on that cliff.

Flutter!

Leaving behind the countless Doctors and terrifying graduate students who followed him, he was dragging a giant mechanical device with a pair of white wings out from under a large tent.

It was a little bigger and a little more complex...

But the general shape itself was familiar.

A glider.

It was similar to the glider I had ridden through the night sky with Erica.

There were devices like steel pinwheels attached to the middle of each wing, though I could not tell what they were.

But it was obvious that thing was a magic tool that flew through the sky.

Then it was nothing special.

The sky belonged to us Astreos.

I looked up at the entire night sky and called down Lightning Strike.

Flash!

Lightning aura amplified by updrafts and downdrafts fell like white tree branches.

“Urgh!”

Piaget leapt high and avoided it.

The Lightning Strike landed directly on the white glider.

Boom!

“Come here!”

I had no doubt the glider had been turned into scrap.

Wooooong! Wooooong!

It had not.

“Huh?”

Far from burning or breaking apart, the white glider did not even have a scratch.

[550% charge complete.]

Instead, only the three-headed-dragon emblem carved into its two wings and the circle around the emblem glowed brightly.

【“That thing is still around?”】

【The ‘dreaming thunderous star’ feels awkward as he recalls the past.】

“What?”

For a moment, I heard the thunderous star’s incredulous voice.

Then I focused on Piaget again.

If Lightning Strike could not destroy it, I would just destroy it with another authority.

Tssssss!

I gathered Sacheol Blades and made them surge behind me.

Fwoosh, fwoosh!

Using the magnetic field, I gathered friction heat and electric current, creating ionized gas.

An eight-meter-high wave of Sacheol surged, holding foam-like blue-green flames.

Swaaaaaaash!

I swung the Sacheol wave, intending to grind both the glider and Piaget apart.

“Do you mean to deny truth?”

Piaget bared his teeth, golden eyes gleaming.

["■■■■■!"]

A mental wave no weaker than the incarnation-class graduate student’s erupted.

BWOOOOOM!

The Sacheol wave shook once under the mental wave, which shimmered with the illusion of translucent bubbles.

Whoosh!

At that moment, Piaget kicked off the ground and charged.

Before I knew it, crimson sword aura reinforcement flickered over the two crimson-bone blades he had transformed and drawn from both hands.

Slice!

With a clean cross-cut, he severed the Sacheol wave.

Thud-thud!

He charged toward me, stepping across the surface of that wave.

The area beneath his hooves was being ground away, but the speed of his regeneration and his next step was faster than the speed at which it was carved down.

I erased every thought of deploying great authorities like storm clouds, Heavenly Thunderbolt, or Railgun.

If my opponent were a mountain-sized monster, I could shoot it down with Lightning Strike or Railgun.

But against a fast, human-sized opponent, there was a combat method suited for that.

Fwoosh!

I wrapped lightning reinforcement around the crystalline holy sword and covered my entire body in Sacheol Armor.

Krrrrrk!

Piaget charged in, spinning his two blades like a top.

Clang! Clang! Claaang! Claaaaang!

The sound of steel rang out in layers.

Once again, I felt how solid my body had become.

Even an ordinary knight possessed transcendent reflexes, strength, and endurance, and Blue Knights raised those reflexes and strength even further through Neural Acceleration and Bodily Enhancement.

That was how a battle unfolded where more than a dozen cuts were exchanged in a single second, and dozens of thrusts poured out in a single breath.

Right now, I was strengthening my body with sword aura reinforcement and lightning reinforcement.

【Bodily Enhancement: 5.1】

【Neural Acceleration: 6.4】

Then I was multiplying that Neural Acceleration and Bodily Enhancement several times over.

In this time frame, ordinary movement looked not merely slow, but almost stopped.

The pebbles that had shot into the sky earlier were still falling, and the Sacheol Blades cut into a cross had not yet collapsed.

Grind, krrrrk!

And even in this time frame, Piaget flew in like wind.

He alternated between both feet, rotating his body as he cut in like a storm.

Skaaaaaash!

When rotating, he bent his elbows to increase speed while breaking rhythm, and the moment the blade-tip pointed toward me, he swung his arm wide, delivering a strange attack that pierced and cut at the same time.

Crack!

My breastplate split like skin slashed by a blade.

I was wearing both Sacheol Armor and a magic-tool breastplate, but with the technique of cutting the exact same spot twice, he split the Sacheol Armor and even cut through the breastplate’s shoulder strap.

On the next rotation, he drove the crimson-bone blade into the exact same spot.

I kicked Piaget’s knee away while seizing his forearm with my Sacheol-armored hand.

“Caught you.”

I intended to grind away both flesh and bone then and there.

Crunch!

I applied force.

Piaget simply watched his arm break.

Mockery appeared in his yellow eyes.

Shlck!

The crimson-bone blade, already lodged in the gap of my armor, lengthened by more than a span.

I twisted away reflexively, but because of that, my armor peeled away like a crab shell.

Of course, if I had not dodged, my heart would have been pierced.

It was an unavoidable evasion.

Saaak!

With his other hand, Piaget thrust his crimson-bone blade toward my now-unarmored torso.

I had no choice but to release the arm I had finally seized and retreat.

Realistically, I acknowledged it.

He was truly strong.

“...How?”

But Piaget was even more emotionally shaken than I was.

“How can you know that I am right, and still point your blade at me?”

Even though he had maintained the offensive from beginning to end in that clash, his face was red and his breathing was rough.

“The Holy Seats deceived us. They say they saved us, but they did not save us from anything. We... we are monsters!”

Piaget drew in a deep breath.

It was not because he was out of breath.

["■■■■■!"]

BWOOOOOM!

An illusion of endlessly boiling bubbles burst outward.

["■■■■■!"]

Fwoooooosh!

I countered with Blue Radiance Lion’s Roar, like unceasing lightning flame.

In the air, blue fire rose and subsided in an instant, like the blink of an eye.

“That is our essence! You know it, don’t you? Or is it slave mentality? Is it that vulgar mindset where no matter what your essence is, you are satisfied so long as you can reign over the masses with that splendid authority you begged from the Holy Seats?”

Piaget shouted at me.

His voice, gestures, and every glint in his eyes were sincere.

“I have never thought I was deceived.”

I answered while checking my body’s condition.

My mana was gradually running low, but there were no physical injuries.

Tssssss!

I had lost the breastplate, but the gauntlets on both arms were intact, and my Sacheol Armor had just recovered.

“I have never wanted to become the greatest, either.”

A decent winning move came to mind.

“There has only ever been one thing I wanted.”

“It was just too hard to get.”

Even if I failed, I would lose nothing.

If I succeeded, I could cut off his head.

I raised my control to its limit.

I prepared to separate the Sacheol Armor.

Chapter 247

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