The Sub-Lord’s palace.

Private training hall.

I began practicing the Lightning-Art known as Guided Strike under Andromeda’s supervision.

“Good thing it’s the rainy season. Trying this on a clear day is maddening.”

She ordered the attendants to drive two lightning rods deep into the open yard.

Once the rods were in place, the attendants bolted for safety—
no one sane stayed near a lightning rod in a thunderstorm.

“Little brother, do you know the difference between Lightning and Guided Strike?”

“Lightning is when I summon the bolt itself. Guided Strike is when I lure a natural bolt down.”

I answered as I’d learned at the Academy.

“Exactly. You do know your theory. But why the formal speech, huh?”

“You’re my elder sister now. I should show respect.”

“Cut it out and drop the honorifics.”

Andromeda smiled and raised her hand toward the sky.

Crack.

A blue spark leapt from her crown.

At once, light gathered within the clouds above her head—
blue luminescence, drawn as if magnetized by her presence.

Her overwhelming control summoned heaven’s own fire.

The lights intertwined, scattering, swelling—

Flash!

A jagged branch of light carved the sky and struck the lightning rod.

A white pillar afterimage burned into my vision.

The rod flared orange for a moment, then cooled as the current sank into the ground.

As expected of Andromeda.

I couldn’t help admiring it.
Power that compelled all beneath the heavens to bow.

“There. That’s Lightning.”

She waved it off casually, not even short of breath.

“And this—this is Guided Strike.”

She gestured toward the second lightning rod.

“Watch carefully. It happens in an instant.”

Crackle!

A white spark flared from the tip of the rod—small, but so bright I could feel its deadly voltage.

Crackle, crackle.

Andromeda sent that spark climbing skyward, a filament of electricity rising like a kite on the wind.

When it reached the level of the clouds—

Crack!

A natural bolt that had been flashing in the distance swerved,
drawn as if by a whistle only lightning could hear.

The bolt traced a geometric curve across the heavens, bending its path to meet the thread of the Guided Strike.

Like a wedge splitting stone, the lightning followed the glowing path back down—

Flash!

Another pillar of white seared my eyes.

“That’s Guided Strike. Got a good look?”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, I wondered if she’d shown off just to crush my confidence.
The display was overwhelming.

“It takes longer than Lightning, only works in cloudy weather, and it can fail—but it does call lightning from the sky. That alone makes people see you as a chosen of the stars.”

She extended a hand to me.

“Now we practice. Remember your Sky Bolt drills? Same idea—gather current, compress it to high voltage, and shoot it upward.”

I stared at her hand.

Was she telling me to take it?

“Well? Take it.”

Apparently, yes.

“Wouldn’t that be sacrilege…?”

“Not anymore. Got it?”

She seized my hand before I could protest.

“I’ll help at first. It’s hard to get the feel for it. Compression’s the tricky part. Draw up your current.”

I obeyed.

Starting with nerve acceleration for control, strengthening my body to endure it, I gathered charge in my palm.

White current rose from my elbow to my fingertips, pooling in my hand.

“Good habits. All right—ready?”

Andromeda generated current of her own.

Her deep-blue electricity intertwined with my white.

Normally I’d fight for control, but this time I let her take the lead.

Crackle!

“You’re good at relaxing. Most of the direct heirs can’t ease off even when I help—they just make me tear the current out of them.”

She compressed the mingled currents.

Her control’s unbelievable.

Handling someone else’s current was far harder than one’s own,
yet she molded mine into a dense, glowing sphere of high voltage and heat.

A pale-blue orb floated above our joined hands.

“See the level of compression?”

I raised my focus and measured the ratio.

“Yeah.”

Nearly a hundredfold.

A level most Blue Knights couldn’t dream of—
yet somehow, it didn’t feel impossible.

“You really get it?”

“You compressed that about a hundred to one, right?”

The edge I’d gained through battlefield focus made my will-control sharper than before.

“You can feel that?”

“I think I can manage it. Maybe not that much, but close.”

“You’d better not be bluffing, or your sister’s going to scold you.”

Her round eyes widened—like a startled fox, almost cute.

“I don’t bluff.”

“You say that, but you did rip out your own eye.”

She laughed, then resumed the demonstration.

“All right. The rest’s just like emission. Fire it at your target.”

Crackle!

She launched the compressed sphere toward the rod.
It rolled through the air like a ball yet moved like a shot.

“Next, send it upward. That’s the hard part. You have to unwind the compression in control, so the current draws out into a thin thread. Then, using both the decompression pressure and the cloud’s electromagnetic pull, drive it skyward.”

That part would indeed be difficult.

I could feel how she did it—
unraveling the orb just enough, neither too slow nor too fast.
Too slow and there’d be no pressure; too fast and it would explode.

Keeping control of a released current and guiding it upward was no joke.

Still, reaching the cloud layer didn’t seem impossible.

“The charge itself helps it climb, huh?”

“Right. The clouds are already full of potential. It’s like stellar gravity pulling it in.”

That, at least, was a mercy.

“Now, your turn. Let’s see if that talk about compression was real.”

She clapped her hands lightly.

I began my drills—
and failed a hundred times that day.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but this is brutal.

Guided Strike involved four stages:

Compress the current into a sphere.
Fire the sphere toward the target.
Release compression under control.
Drive the current skyward.

Each stage had its own pitfalls.

Even the first—compression—was a headache.

I can reach a hundredfold, but keeping the sphere uniform is hard. If the balance’s off, it explodes.

Crackle!

“Gah!”

Another white sphere shattered in my palm.
Arcs crawled up my arm and down into the floor.

“You all right?”

“I’m fine. Totally fine.”

Even when compression succeeded, emission brought new problems.

Distance weakens control. One slip and it detonates.

And when I somehow reached the target—

“It blew again!”

“Argh!”

Unraveling the sphere was worse still.
Hard enough to send it that far, harder to break it apart gently.

“Exactly what I expected,” Andromeda said.

“What do you mean?”

“If you go too slow, it won’t climb; too fast, it pops. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

I failed over and over—ten, twenty, a hundred times.

Again.

Again!

Once more!

By the time my mana neared exhaustion—

“Huff, hah.”

—I glanced toward Andromeda.

I’m doomed. I can hear her disappointment dropping by the minute. She must have spent huge political capital to push my adoption, and here her ‘little brother’ can’t even manage a single Guided Strike.

Not that I was a pessimist.
I knew exactly how capable I was.

Trisan will try to kill me soon. The rumor says he’s planning a duel. He won’t come himself—he’ll send another Blue Knight, maybe even Nereus.

I didn’t despair or gloat.
I just calculated.

To survive, I have to succeed.

I gathered current again.

Who does he take after, to be this relentless?

Watching my drenched back, Andromeda smiled.

He listened even to a merchant nobody, discovered a mutant beast, crossed the border to win merit, sent a report through that merchant to get his Star Seat while capturing the spy evaluator—perfectly handled.

Her single-lidded eyes softened.

Then he beat Prochus and Epichus, infiltrated Rykenta territory, and took a fortress village. He’s like someone out of legend.

She felt pure pride.

After achieving adoption, he could’ve rested—but instead he’s already training a new technique. This is what it means to live memorably, to burn bright.

Kyrie never made excuses—
he recognized his limits and pushed past them.

And that Oath of Bodily Loss… even I’ve never seen its power firsthand. No wonder it lasted generations.

His self-destructive resolve drove terrifying growth.

Andromeda watched him attempt another Guided Strike.

“Argh!”

Crackle!

The slender thread of current rose skyward—then snapped.

Failing even at that stage takes talent.

Kyrie braced for her scorn.

How long did it take me to learn this?

Andromeda compared him to her younger self.

A week just to get the feel, right? Yeah. Lightning was about raw mana, but Guided Strike—this one needs control and repetition.

She had greater talent, of course.
She was pureblood—
the Star’s favored line of Astreios flowed thick in her veins.

No one masters it overnight.

So instead of disdain, she felt awe.

How much has he practiced to control current like that?

Reverence—for effort itself.

Andromeda’s heart swelled.

And he’s doing it for me. To truly become my brother.

Warm delight rose through her chest, and a smile tugged at her lips.

Three days later.

“Kyrie?”

A Blue Knight named Frey climbed to the Sub-Lord’s palace.

Short and boyish, with straight-cut bangs and crescent-shaped eyes, his delicate features made him look like a schoolboy—
but he’d graduated fifth in his Academy class, a true prodigy.

“Sir Kyrie—ah, I mean, Young Master Kyrie. Where is he? The training hall?”

Guided by the maids, Frey reached the yard.

Training again, huh.

What he saw froze him.

“Uaaaaah!”

Kyrie stood beneath the downpour, soaked to the bone, wielding thunder itself.

Rain streamed from beneath his black eyepatch like tears.

The resolve to offer even an eye.

He clenched his teeth and hurled a sphere of current.

It flew dozens of meters, broke apart, and rose toward the heavens—

Crackle!

A thin, white filament arced upward like a fracture in ice.

It was still the rainy season.

A wild bolt, flashing between clouds, twisted in mid-air, drawn to that filament.

It spiraled through the sky’s geometry and met Kyrie’s thread.

Ah.

Frey watched a Blue Knight awaken to a new power.

Flash!

Lightning rode Kyrie’s Guided Strike and obliterated the target.

“I did it!”

Kyrie dropped to his knees, body trembling from the current crawling through the wet floor.

Rainwater—or tears—ran from beneath his eyepatch as he shouted to the sky.

The sight was raw, desperate, unforgettable.

Our valedictorian. Our pinnacle. You’re still the best, Kyrie.

Frey forgot the very reason he’d come, lost in awe.

Only when Kyrie turned to re-enter the palace did Frey remember himself and rushed forward.

“Kyrie! Kyrie!”

“Frey?”

“From today, I’m assigned as your escort—Frey of Aer Astreios! An honor, sir.”

“Escort?”

“My first duty is to deliver this.”

Frey presented a sealed envelope.

“The formal challenge to your duel.”

Chapter 44

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