Scratch.

The blade grazed the Rykenta Censer-Bearer’s throat.

The Rykenta Censer-Bearer rolled on the ground.

That was easier than I thought.

Joy exhaled an excited breath, rapid.

Her body was hot.

She didn’t know why the victory had come so easily.

Was it the electrified sword’s blessing, or her confidence bred from trusting an electrified sword, or had training with Feyjin lifted her to a higher level?

Whatever it was, victory was victory.

“Censer-Bearer Bathius is dead!”

“That bastard killed Censer-Bearer Bathius!”

Soldiers from Rykenta—apparently the man had some standing—crowded in, screaming.

“Yeah!”

Joy swung her sword again and again.

“I killed Bathius!”

Beastlike yellow eyes.

A flippant tone honed by long training and a rough voice.

A single-handed sword sparking with electricity and an arrogant gesture.

The three struck a perfect provocation.

“How dare—”

Even the starlight-veined onlookers in the distance had their attention drawn.

“He was a favored officer of mine!”

From the start Joy had followed Kyrie deep into Rykenta’s lines.

She had cut through to the center and killed even the high officer Bathius who had been rallying troops there.

It was a sufficient merit for Erica to personally retaliate.

Erica unfurled an ornate silk fan from her left hip.

A splendid fan made of white silk, embroidered in red like a dress accessory.

Fshick!

A shockwave rose in time with the fan’s opening and sweep.

The fan-shaped shockwave surged forward, growing like a collapsing wave.

Power to crush Joy and the Astreos troops charging behind her.

Rrrrreeak!

The atmospheric-pressure wave swept across the ground.

I’m screwed.

Joy’s legs stiffened as if nailed to the earth.

She had no sense how to dodge that.

“Evade!”

Even so she snapped her head around and shouted.

“Aaaargh!”

“To the side! Run sideways!”

The Astreos Retainers and Censer-Bearers who followed her flung themselves desperately aside.

I’m too late.

Joy had been too far forward.

Kyrie-nari.

At the instant she squeezed her eyes shut—

“Hold on tight!”

Rumble!

Kyrie came running with Thunder Step.

“Nari?”

With one hand he snatched Joy by the waist.

He took a diagonal Thunder Step.

Rrrrreeak!

Rocks broken under the atmospheric wave and pushed-up clods of earth brushed the heel of Kyrie’s boot by a hair.

Still, Kyrie never let go; he held Joy and managed to get them both out of the wave’s range.

“You—!”

Erica recognized Kyrie and shouted.

“Without this one, I couldn’t handle a single soldier, let alone an army.”

Kyrie smiled slyly and set Joy down.

Joy inhaled sharply.

She saw Kyrie’s face.

Quiet anger burning in his deep-blue eyes.

A smile at the corner of his mouth that expressed trust and relief.

Solid—yet strangely her chest tightened.

“He’s my first subordinate, you know.”

Kyrie gestured for Joy to fall back and glared at Erica off in the distance.

Joy ground her teeth in a contradictory frustration.

She could have fought better.

If she’d been sharp she might even have evaded that.

Of course the battlefield did not permit such soft feelings.

“Bathius’s revenge!”

“I will be the revenge for your parents and children as well!”

Joy swung her blade at the Rykenta Retainer charging straight at her.

At the same time Kyrie and Erica closed on each other.

“Blue Knight!”

Erica’s voice spread like a storm.

Not a figure of speech—she literally put wind pressure into the shout.

“Aaaaargh!”

“She’s lifting! She’s up!”

The echoing sound wave could carry a person along with words.

“Navigator.”

Kyrie’s response was low as stormclouds before lightning.

Yet the white sparks flickering around his blindfold told everyone he wasn’t hiding any clarity.

“Kneel and prostrate yourself in the proper respect to your lineage. I am Princess of Rykenta, direct line of the distinguished family.”

“I am also the son of the head of House Astreos. I will not bow my head to a seated princess!” Kyrie shot back.

“Then I will make you grovel!”

Erica struck first.

Shrrr.

A longsword in Eastern style was drawn from her hip.

One hand held the blade, the other the fan.

Kraaa!

Erica stomped the ground.

A gap of hundreds of meters collapsed to zero with a single step.

Rising dust and the aftershock that momentarily surpassed the speed of sound became a second and third wave smashing down on Kyrie.

insane!?*

Kyrie was so taken aback he could not even curse aloud.

Thunder Step grade!?

A speed that, if not for Biological Radar, would have been impossible even to perceive approaching.

Kyrie added neural acceleration.

He pushed his already enhanced nervous system further.

Zing!

The Lightning Greatsword and the Eastern longsword clashed fiercely.

He felt it instinctively.

I’m being forced back.

There was acceleration from crossing hundreds of meters in an instant.

No matter how enhanced the body, he could not win sheer force against that momentum.

But Kyrie was a Blue Knight who prized technique over brute strength.

Clack!

He shoved his shoulders forward and pinned the sword down with a momentary press.

Then, stepping forward, he reversed the downward press into an upward strike.

With all his strength.

Chang!

“Ugh!”

Erica was flung over Kyrie’s head, carried by the momentum she had used in her charge.

Her dress and shawl whipped wildly in the air.

“A grappling technique!”

Her green eyes flashed arrogantly.

“Do you think a little swordplay can subdue me!”

Kraaaaa!

Erica’s spectral image soared into the sky.

The windcraft power Flight.

A technique to fly purely by wind—the hallmark of the wind house’s direct line.

“If I don’t like you, I’ll treat you another way!”

Kyrie answered with the emblematic technique of the thunder lineage.

White electric sparks danced at the edge of his blindfolded eye.

The Thunder Star answered its contractor’s call.

【Lightning Strike】

ZAP!

A bolt split the clear sky.

The white pillar, like a thorned branch, struck straight down at Erica in the air.

“Guh!”

The windcrafter who had been haughtily looking down from the sky seemed to be smitten by the Thunder Star’s wrath and plummeted.

If not for the powerful Wind King Armor she wore, she would have been burned to nothing.

Rumble!

Kyrie immediately used Thunder Step to rush at Erica.

She still has armor left? How tough is that? Well, direct-line houses are on a whole other level. If I could have avoided this fight I would have. His heart hammered with tension.

This is bleak.

Rykenta’s Wind King Armor granted seemingly ridiculous physical faculties.

The wind armor wrapping the body tightly was not only hard but assisted strength.

When can I wear it down completely?

When damage occurred the surrounding wind filled the gap, so until it was entirely shattered the wearer was effectively invincible.

“Ugh.”

Erica planted both hands on the ground and rose.

Her proud green eyes shook for the first time.

“How dare you.”

Despite the muddy ground trampled by soldiers, the dress and gloves encased in Wind King Armor bore not a speck of mud.

But the fact she had been forced to the ground pierced her pride despite the armor.

“How dare you subject me to the humiliation of rolling on the ground!”

Sword and fan were swung.

The longsword cut a line and the fan formed a surface.

Clash clash clash!

Wind blades sought to cut Kyrie’s throat while wind barriers blocked his escape.

Right, left, two more jumps, then press the body to the ground and charge!

Kyrie read the trajectory through Biological Radar.

Like when fighting a green-armored navigator, the wind itself did not register on radar.

But he could infer the blades and barriers from the sword and fan movements and reflect them as visual information.

There were, of course, small inaccuracies.

Shhhaaaak!

Blood spurted from shoulder, flank, and calf.

They touched.

But none were mortal wounds.

From the beginning he had not intended to block everything.

Avoiding most strikes was sufficient.

The prize was in front of Erica.

“Surrender!”

“You have no right to stand against a direct-line house.”

“Surrender on your knees!”

Erica raised the longsword high and brought it down.

The force behind it is enormous, but the trajectory is simple.

Kyrie whirled the Lightning Greatsword and made Erica’s blade fall to the ground at her feet.

Thud!

Dust rose higher than Kyrie’s height, but he did not bat an eye.

A blade touching earth meant the arm had come forward.

An arm forward meant a grab was possible.

Crack!

Kyrie twisted the wrist of the hand holding Erica’s sword.

If this had been an ordinary opponent he could have crushed it through the gauntlet, but a thin white glove was enough to stymie him.

First, the Wind King Armor!

He decided to exhaust the defense first.

Pzzzzzt!

Kyrie, still holding Erica’s wrist, discharged electricity.

The thunder aura he had built with his sacred thunder infused into Erica’s body.

“Let go!”

Erica swung her free hand with the fan.

She tried to blast wind and send Kyrie flying.

Kyrie raised an aura of intimidation to interrupt.

Woom! Woom! Woom! Woom!

Infrasound and electromagnetic waves were amplified through the arcane gauntlet Coward’s Hold, stiffening Erica’s body.

“Ugh!”

Erica’s face contorted.

Unlike electricity, wind alone rarely dealt fatal injury.

For a windcrafter who relied on delicate control, intimidation was a highly effective attack.

Kyrie, with his left hand holding Erica’s wrist, swung the Lightning Greatsword repeatedly with his right.

He stabbed, slashed, and struck Erica’s head, neck, flank, and legs in succession.

Kang! Kang! Kang! Kaaang!

Each blow had the force to fell a great tree in a single cut, but the Wind King Armor protected the dress from being severed.

Still, it was clear the Wind King Armor was being consumed rapidly.

A trickle of blood.

Erica bled from her nose.

“Will you make me bleed?”

A drop of blood fell on the white dress and bounced off the Wind King Armor.

Her green eyes flashed like that droplet.

Erica dropped the Eastern longsword.

She twisted her wrist and locked her hands around Kyrie’s in reverse.

Pzzzzzt!

Even then Kyrie was discharging electricity moment to moment.

The white current ate into Erica’s Wind King Armor, but still he had not managed to break her flesh.

“Damn!”

Kyrie’s face went pale.

“It’s time to exit.”

Fwoooom!

Erica exploded a gust of wind from the point of contact.

Wheeeeee.

A ringing filled my ears.

I groped my face and raised my head.

“…Ri, nari, where are you?”

“…Kill the Astreos bastards!”

“…Find Lady Erica!”

Dust everywhere made it impossible to see properly.

Luckily the blindfold string was intact.

I scanned with Biological Radar.

Erica’s silhouette came into view.

“The Thunder Star, for God’s sake!”

She was only ten or so steps away.

I got up at once.

Between us lay our respective weapons, and there was no one around.

Well, even I wouldn’t go near while a Blue Knight and a Navigator were unleashing every power they had.

At the same time Erica must have spotted me.

“Were you there?”

Whooosh!

A fierce wind blew.

Dust was swept away in an instant.

The brilliant blonde and the white dress with a red shawl revealed their colors.

“You said you were exiting? Why did you come back?”

I leapt toward the Lightning Greatsword lying ahead.

“Hmph.”

Clang!

Erica swung her fan and sent the Lightning Greatsword flying skyward.

I had no choice but to lunge again to grab Erica’s longsword.

I had thought she would use windcraft to lift my Lightning Greatsword back up.

But Erica only took a step back, looking bewildered.

Why?

A sense of confusion crawled through my mind.

Only then did her outfit register.

A frothy dress, the fluffy shawl, the long blonde hair swept elegantly—an attire completely incompatible with a superhuman noble warrior.

Could it be—an oath?

I had heard that Rykenta layered oaths to the limit they could bear to make up for wind’s lack of killing power.

That sort of clothing, that hair, the constraint on weapons.

No doubt she was not used to melee chaos.

I had felt it earlier.

Aside from the power of her authorities, her swordsmanship itself had been overwhelmingly inferior to mine.

Then!

Rumble!

I executed Thunder Step.

I ran swinging the longsword.

I cut at Erica’s head and withdrew.

Clang!

“It doesn’t even tickle,” she said.

Not a single hair was cut.

Still I kept pressing the attack.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Every time my blade cut past, Erica staggered.

Even though Wind King Armor increased the strength of the wind around her, her mass remained the same.

Being hit repeatedly would unsettle anyone’s head.

Of course it was a dangerous fight.

“Admit it! You are defeated!”

Erica swung her empty right hand.

Kuh-ku-ku!

Dust made it hard to see what was happening.

A wind gathered into the shape of a hand.

A giant hand big enough to seize an ogre.

It was the windcraft authority Hand of Destruction.

“If you will not surrender, I will make you unable to surrender. I will take your freedom to live!”

With Erica’s motion the destructive grasp surged at me.

But I had noticed one more weakness.

Slower than expected.

Wind King Armor bestowed tremendous strength and durability, but its thought processes were no different from ordinary Knights or Censer-Bearers.

Even with a Knight’s physique and Wind King Armor, they lack neural acceleration.

My reflexes were overwhelmingly superior.

I kept slicing and dodging the fearsome hand.

Minutes passed.

“Now.”

Whoooosh.

The sky filled with clouds again.

“You, surely—!?”

A look of dismay crossed Erica’s face.

Even a direct-line house probably could not clear the southeast imperial sky on their own.

Especially when facing a Blue Knight they could almost not catch.

“I will force your surrender.”

I immediately summoned a guided thunderbolt.

Chapter 72

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