Kyrie’s Bio-Radar reached farther.

“Look over there.”

So it was Kyrie who pointed first.

“I see the mutant ogre. Six meters tall.”

“No. Beyond that. Inside the tent with the yellow banner.”

“Glass jars?”

Nereus frowned but probed the tent with his own electromagnetic sense.
Dozens of glass bottles, large and small, were stacked inside.

Evening light made it hard to see, but each was filled with a shimmering, translucent liquid—
a fluid dense with dark-red filaments, like veins trapped inside crystal.

“Sir, what do we do with these?”

“Take what you can. If you can’t, burn it all!”

That order came from the Rykenta adjutant.

“What now?”

“They’re key evidence. We have to recover them.”

Kyrie and Nereus met each other’s eyes in urgency.

“Agreed. Let’s move.”

“You’re saying charge straight in? Are you insane?”

To defend the settlement against beasts or bandits, the Rykenta had cleared the surrounding woods by fire.
Between the jungle where they hid and the village lay open ground and broad vegetable plots—no cover anywhere.

“We might make it through, but the soldiers won’t. They’ll end up hedgehogs.”

“My soldiers aren’t cowards like yours. If we move fast enough and draw their aim, it’s enough.
Surely the top graduate of Astreios isn’t afraid of a fence that low?”

Nereus wanted to rush out; Kyrie wanted to watch a moment longer.
The soldiers kept their silence, knowing their place.

Jo too held her tongue this time, recalling the lesson from the previous dawn.

“What matters most right now, Kyrie? Securing evidence.
If we hesitate for fear of sacrifice, we’ll lose both men and proof.”

Nereus’s reasoning was the pure logic of a Blue Knight.

He’s right. But I can’t gamble my life here.

Kyrie couldn’t follow that logic.
He shifted his single eye to the banner rising over the village’s central pavilion.

There’s another superhuman there.

The flag bore a swirl, a sail, and a sword—
rippling though no wind stirred.

The House of the Viceroy of the Empire’s southeast—
the Wind-Power House Rykenta, blessed by the Storm Constellation.

A Navigator.

Their Navigators matched Astreios’s Blue Knights—superhuman noble warriors.

They’re not only strong individually; their command ability is terrifying.
They amplify sound with wind, issue orders beyond normal hearing,
and shoot arrows and iron pellets like cannon fire.
Can the two of us face a Navigator, his knights, and all his men inside that camp?

He could win.

He could also lose.

Confidence alone wasn’t enough reason to start a fight—
especially now, with his soul on the line.

“I don’t fear dying or making others die.
But to make them die and gain nothing—that I fear.”

He couldn’t say that aloud; that would be social suicide.

“Then what do you propose?”

Nereus’s patience frayed.

“Sir! The cart wheels are stuck—it’s too heavy!”

“Break the rest! Smash the jars! Dump them into the river if you must!”

Far off, the Rykenta soldiers began smashing the glass bottles—destroying the evidence before their eyes.

“If you don’t answer by the count of three, I’ll go myself!”

“…”

“One.”

“…”

“Two.”

“…A javelin.”

Thus Kyrie chose the solution that, to onlookers, looked most fitting for a Blue Knight.

“Hand me a javelin. Just watch a moment.”

“I know your Bio-Radar reaches a little farther than mine—but only a few hundred meters, right?
You can’t see all the way inside that camp.
And what will you do with a single javelin?”

A Rykenta centurion kept watch from the tower, scanning the northern jungle.

No beasts had approached the village while the Navigator was there—
but now things were different.

A Blue Knight is coming?

Two of those mad butchers from Astreios had crossed the border, they said.
The message had come from a returning squire earlier that dawn—
a squire of Rykenta blood himself.

The man had been pale as chalk, trembling as he spoke.
That alone had shaken the soldier.

Still, even if a Blue Knight came, they could hold.
They had a Navigator here, plus several knights and squires, and countless crossbowmen.

Rykenta’s triple-string arbalests fired three bolts at once.
Weaker and shorter-ranged, yes—but the wind-mages of Rykenta could bless the fletching,
turning each into a gust-driven dart of deadly force.

Loose a thousand such bolts, and even a Blue Knight would fall.

So the guard watched the northern edge of the forest.

“Huh?”

A figure walked calmly out into the open.

“Rykenta’s Navigator!”

Short-cropped navy hair, bright forehead,
a luxurious sapphire cloak over chain-laminated armor.

The Empire’s southeastern sunset blazed red as flame—
its glow staining that blue cloak violet.

Each step made the fabric ripple like a living thing,
and to anyone who had ever held a sword, it was a sight of pure, impossible poise.

Even the black eyepatch lent an air of secret sanctity.

“Can you hear me?”

Whatever else, he was clearly a superhuman noble warrior—
a Blue Knight.

What do I do?

The sentry froze.
If a Blue Knight charged with Thunderstep, the course was clear:
sound the horn, fire the catapults.

But a Blue Knight walking, shouting—
they’d never been taught what to do for that.

“My name is Kyrie! Kyrie of Astreios! A Blue Knight of House Astreios!”

In the Empire of Stars, no common soldier, no matter how urgent the moment,
dared act on his own judgment.
The presence of superhumans—by fear or reverence—made ordinary men surrender their fates to their betters.

Usually that worked.

Sometimes, like today, it didn’t.

Please, please don’t shoot yet.

That was what Kyrie thought as he approached the palisade openly.

Twenty steps—no, ten more and I’ll be in range.

He was a master of the javelin.
If anything within his Bio-Radar radius was larger than a fingernail and moved slower than sound,
he could hit it.

Even the mutant ogre muzzled in the village square was no exception.

From the forest he hadn’t been able to reach it—
but once he stepped into the open plain between forest and fence,
it would be inside his range.

The moment the ogre came within, he’d hurl a lightning-charged javelin and smash its muzzle open.

A six-meter brute. If it lets out that monstrous roar even once,
every soldier in the village will be paralyzed.

After that, the Navigator’s gift for command would be useless.
It would become a melee—and in a melee, Blue Knights reigned.

To do that, he had to cross bare ground with no cover.
One wrong move and the wind-blessed bolts would rain down.

Kyrie’s solution was simple.

He would make no wrong move.

No helmet, no drawn sword.
He let his cloak billow in the red dusk and walked with calm, imperious stride.

Five steps.

Inside, his nerves were burning.
But no one could see a man’s thoughts.

“Please, please, please—let him return alive.”

In the jungle, the hidden soldiers prayed as they watched.

“He’s doing that so we won’t charge and die for nothing, right?”

“Lord of Lightning, shine upon Sir Kyrie.”

“So noble is that name. May the Blue Knight of Blue Knights be blessed by the Constellation Eternal.”

They felt faith swell inside them—
their devotion to the Lightning Star deepening.
Their guts tingled; their hearts thudded.
That was their Blue Knight.

“Even our lord isn’t like that.”

“No wonder Sir Nereus burns to surpass him.”

Even Nereus’s men couldn’t look away.

My lord…

Jo remembered Kyrie’s words.

No. I don’t think it’s a sin. “Forever, like lightning”—
to live once, and leave a memory that lasts an eternity.
That’s our house’s creed.

He’d said he didn’t think her disguise was a sin.
How arrogant.
What were her opinions before the doctrines of the Church Eternal and the House’s sacred law?

And yet Kyrie was proving with action what he was—
forever, like lightning.

In that moment, she understood why the guardian star of Astreios, the Lightning Star, favored him.
He was living proof that one who served the will of the stars
had the right to interpret their law.

Jo’s eyes burned; her whole body flushed.
Her dream of becoming a knight blazed larger than ever.
Someday she would follow that back.

She swore it.

“There’s a limit to knightly theatrics.”

Nereus clicked his tongue as he watched.

Did he offer the Lightning Star his sense instead of his eye?
He ignored the Duke’s orders back home, and now he announces himself to the enemy?

A commander would call it madness.

A soldier with ten lives, maybe.

But as a superhuman warrior, he couldn’t help admiring it.

The instant he revealed himself, arrows could have rained—
and yet he walked on.

To assume the enemy would freeze in awe was one thing;
to make them actually freeze required someone with a hundred spare lives.

Next time…

Nereus felt something like aspiration as he watched that back.
He vowed to live rougher, sharper, fiercer.
Kyrie was the kind of Blue Knight who made others want to surpass him.

Kyrie crossed the midpoint of the open field.
The mutant ogre’s shape entered his Bio-Radar.

Its neck bulged with tumors shaped like human faces,
a grotesque necklace of flesh.
The outline resolved in his mind like a third-person image.

He drew the javelin from his back.

Neural Acceleration.
Physical Enhancement.
Projectile Blessing.
Then—throw.

Shaa-aaaa!

A throw to be remembered for ages shot into the sky.

The javelin wreathed in white current under the Projectile Blessing truly looked like a streak of lightning.

Thunk!

It struck true, shattering the ogre’s muzzle.
Iron chains burst; the javelin clattered to the ground.

“Hah.”

Through the Bio-Radar he saw the face of the Rykenta Navigator emerging from his pavilion.
It twisted in fury, that white outline burning in his mind.

As if in response, the stigma flared again.

[Hero’s Journey — Stage 12]

[Stage 1: Adoption as Heir]
[Enter the main house of Astreios and end the life of a bastard.]
[Failure Penalty: Death]
[Success Reward: Downstrike]

‣

[‘Sub-Goal 3: House Representative’ — Completed!]
[You have discovered an anomaly beyond the border
and found clear proof to make it a matter between great houses.]
[Authority “Chain Discharge” granted.]
[Celestial Lightning Body efficiency +25%.]

There was no time to ponder what exactly had triggered success.

Because—

[“WOOOAAAARRRR!”]

—the roar that followed shook the world,
and he had to clamp his eyes shut and his ears tight just to survive it.

Chapter 35

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