Shards of glass flew in every direction.

Debris that had formed a wall and part of the ceiling poured down like a waterfall.

Bang!

“Down!”

“My lord?!”

I flung out my arms and wrapped Joi up.

His bright yellow eyes, blown wide, stared into mine.

“You get pinned there, you die!”

Rrrr-rrrumble, rrrrumble.

Large and small fragments hammered down across my back.

I had the Sky Shard Cloak on, but I wasn’t even in quilted armor, let alone plate.

If I hadn’t been a knight, I might have broken bones.

Every time I twitched with pain, Joi let out a strangled gasp and curled himself up small.

Rrrrrumble.

The collapse ended.

“Damn.”

It felt like minutes had passed, but in truth not even dozens of seconds had.

“Hands up if you’re dead!”

I shoved aside a chunk larger than my torso with one hand and pushed myself up.

“No. If you can’t see, say it.”

A cloud of dust filled the hall wall to wall.

“Bwahahaha.”

“Is everyone all right?”

“Kyrie, Kyrie! Where are you?”

“What the hell was that!?”

“Drag the owner of this mansion here! I’ll rip that bastard’s head clean off!”

The laughter threaded through the shouts told me no one had died.

Whumm! Whumm! Whumm!

Everyone must have thrown open their Bio-radar; the telltale fine pulse tickled my cheeks.

Ssshhhhhh.

Right then, night wind poured through the fallen wall and began to broom the dust away.

“Huh?”

“Mm?”

“Ugh!”

At the same time groans burst from several throats.

Mine too.

The Bio-radar painted it plain.

The rooftop across the way was packed with armed swordsmen.

“Well.”

Confirmed.

This collapse wasn’t an accident.

Whether those swordsmen were soldier-grade, Retainer-rank, Navigator-rank, or Knight-grade was revealed at once.

Tac!

Dozens of swordsmen drew as one and leapt,

skimming the more-than-ten-meter-wide road and pouring into the mansion with ease.

“Knights!”

A Blue Knight shouted.

“Joi! Run!”

“Eh? Ack!”

I hurled Joi toward the corridor.

“Kyahhh!”

Joi shrieked in a high, cutting register as he sailed away.

If there was any mercy, it was that no one here had breath to spare for a scream like that.

“Gracus, you fucker!”

“Kill them all!”

“I’ll pull their spines out and plant them in Gracus’s front yard!”

Blue Knights and knights alike ripped out battle roars and bared their greatswords.

The attacking knights in black cloaks came crashing in with one-handed blades.

The melee began.

“Waaaaa!”

I unfolded three Authorities back-to-back.

Crackle, crackle!

Neural Acceleration, High-Speed Cognition, Physical Reinforcement.

My consciousness vaulted forward and the resolution of the Bio-radar spiked.

Rrrrummm!

I cast Imbuement over the Thunderclap Longsword and shot ahead.

“Huh?”

Sssk!

I took the thigh off the enemy knight who’d been about to stick a blade in Feijin’s back and spun once.

Swish!

Riding that same momentum, I lopped the wrist from the enemy knight swinging a mace down at Shen.

Thud!

Then I snapped a rear kick loaded with centrifugal force and sent the knight who’d just vaulted into the mansion flying right back out.

“Aaaargh!”

All of that finished in a single breath.

On the Bio-radar, the other Blue Knights were fighting hard.

“Ah! You—you—you cut this cute face? Capital punishment! Capital!”

Frey swung the Thunder-Greatsword and launched a knight clear up to the ceiling.

Wham!

Each time that taller-than-a-man blade carved the air as fast as it sounded, a shockwave detonated.

“You call yourselves knights? You dare call yourselves knights?! I’ll bind Gracus and the lot of you together and toss you into the Spiramentaon Canal!”

Nereus worked his Thundercraft.

Kzzzzzt!

Chain Discharge snaked through the chaos, skipping allies and targeting only the enemy.

Those struck by the blood-red lightning dropped their weapons and trembled, then fell under friendly steel.

More than the lightning, it meant he was running his Bio-radar with exquisite care.

Epicus and Prokus, the brothers, Hensonia, and every Blue Knight worth the name were holding their own.

“Let’s spear these bastards’ heads and pay Gracus a visit!”

“A betrayal on the very night he gave us a triumph?!”

The intruding knights had won a sliver of advantage in the opening ambush, but were being pushed back more and more.

At this rate we could take the win without too much trouble.

Why?

Then it hit me to wonder why Gracus hadn’t sent even a single Blue Knight.

He had decent Blue Knights under him—men like Ronius.

If you’re going to strike from behind, you hit once and finish. Anything more and it’s meaningless.

So is there another reason?

Skeeee! Skeeee! Skeeee!

Just as I thought that, something pinged on my Bio-radar.

From a rooftop not merely across the street where the knights had jumped from, but a whole block farther and higher yet—projectiles rose from that roofline.

Tat-tat-tat-tat!

Only the tripod of a 900% Celestial Lightning Body, the Bio-radar honed to a razor, and the mana swollen by the Lightning Elixir let me barely catch it.

Each was no bigger than a fingernail, and each flew faster than Rykenta’s ballista bolts.

I calculated their paths and instantly slanted the Thunderclap Longsword to guard my face.

Clang!

A mag-bullet screeched along the blade and skated off.

Thmp, thmp-thmp!

At the same time I heard mag-bullets punch into other Blue Knights’ bodies.

“Argh!”

“Urk!”

“Ghk!”

Pained grunts spilled from every direction.

“The Musketeer School!”

A Blue Knight roared like he meant to chew them to paste.

“Gracus hired the Musketeer School!”

The Empire of Stars teemed with mercenary companies.

There were tiny bands—free knights with a handful of followers, mid-small outfits of a hundred like the one Feijin led, and mid-sized corps of a thousand like Shen’s.

Rare in Astreos, but down in the domains ruled by the Flame House and the Earth House, they said there were large mercenary hosts tens of thousands strong.

And the Musketeer School was a colossal mercenary company famed across the continent.

They even owned an entire city near the Royal Stellite Line’s direct domain.

A mere mercenary company possessed power to rival the Manseong Church’s papal curia or the Engravers’ Iron Citadel.

There was a reason they could.

“When did he call them?!”

“While he was prepping the triumph!”

“Is that what matters right now? Protect your head!”

“Another volley incoming!”

“Don’t use Radiant Discharge! You’ll light yourself up too well!”

They alone in the Empire of Stars handled “firearms.”

“Again!”

Tat-tat-tat-tat!

Another volley raked us.

This time I took a round too.

“Kh.”

It only lodged shallow in muscle—lucky—but the impact wasn’t small.

“Lightning Blade!”

“Damn!”

Kzzzzzt!

I nearly failed to slip a knight’s sword and almost took the hit.

I trapped his wrist against my armpit, slammed him with Thundercraft, and dropped him.

Even in this frantic fight, my skin crawled.

That could have been a mortal wound.

The instant the thought formed, I bounded in a long step to the far side of the hall.

Tat-tat-tat-tat!

A volley stitched the space I’d just vacated.

Boom!

“Gun-tube!”

A large firearm with firepower close to a small-caliber cannon—a gun-tube—went off nearby and turned that section into a wasteland.

“Argh!”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Epicus tumble through to the floor below.

Dead?

No idea.

I had no room to see more.

This was bad.

If a firearm hit you, large or small, you were wounded; take a knight’s blade on top of that and you died.

Unfurl Thundercraft to dodge it and you made yourself a perfect beacon in the night.

“You sons of bitches!”

Nereus hauled an enemy knight up by the scruff and shouldered him as a meat shield.

Kzzzt!

From crown to tailbone a red electric bloom crawled, and that same red flared across the night like a sheet of flame.

Flash!

A scarlet thorn-tree grew from the clouds down toward the earth.

Boom!

The upper stories of the building where the Musketeer School mercenaries clustered turned to complete rags.

Got them?

For the blink of an eye I hoped.

Clatter!

“Kh!”

“Nereus!”

Nereus’s head snapped down—shot from behind; a round grazed the back of his skull.

“I’m fine! Just a scratch!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Right after, gun-tubes hammered from the far side of the hall as well.

“Eek! Eeeek!”

Nereus squealed like a boar hit by a fire-arrow, bounding and juking.

Both sides of the hall were blown open, night wind pouring in.

“We’re surrounded!”

Frey screamed it.

Looked like they’d had us ringed from the very start.

“Waaaaa!”

Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk. Chk.

And on the Bio-radar I saw more enemy flooding in from down the way.

Judging by their running speed, at least Retainer-rank again.

No quick rout.

I set my back to a pillar and thought.

What exactly are they aiming at?

Even if they’d hired the Musketeer School, they couldn’t easily wipe out a dozen-odd Blue Knights and over a hundred knights.

Even now, in straight knight-for-knight exchange, we had the overwhelming edge.

Join hands with Traysan—how do you crush me completely?

“Erica.”

High-Speed Cognition delivered the conclusion in a blink.

“What did you say?”

“Erica! They’re here to kill Erica!”

“The princess?”

Nereus called back from the next pillar.

Bewilderment flickered a beat over his face, then shock shot through.

“Fuck!”

He got it too.

Kill Erica and the Navigators, and I lose the link between Mutated Beasts and House Rykenta.

No matter how many I’d killed or how much gold I’d seized, the grand objective would fail.

That’s the dictionary definition of defeat.

From there it’s easy.

They’d pile every false charge on me, and I’d become a wastrel who squandered Spiramentaon’s wealth on a botched little war game—then plunge into ruin.

“There’s no need to hold here. Take the knights downstairs. Guard Erica and link up with our army. I sent Joi earlier—they’ll be assembling the cannons right now.”

There was no other choice.

“You?”

Nereus asked.

“Looks like I need to smash those gun-tubes before I go.”

I said anything at all.

My plan was simply to get out of this hall.

With the Musketeer School spraying shot and shell, clinging here was suicide.

I’d leave the glorious heroic death to my rival who liked that sort of thing, and sprint for a safe distance.

Play the Blue Knight’s game: maneuver.

“It’s yours.”

I said anything at all and sprinted for the window.

Rrrrummm!

I stamped Thunder-Step and hurled myself out.

“Huh?”

There was one fact I’d forgotten.

Right now my cloak was imbued with Glide.

And I’d just hammered Thunder-Step with everything I had.

“Uh—uhhh?”

The mansion’s roof fell away beneath my feet, and I soared to a height that made it look far below.

Nereus didn’t believe his ears.

“‘Smash the gun-tubes and be back’?”

The Musketeer School’s true strength lay not in raw power but in precision.

Even if you strung Thunder-Step leaps through the alleys, mag-shots and shell would rain like a storm and tear muscle and bone.

Rrrrummm!

But Kyrie moved in a way Nereus had never even imagined.

Kyrie kicked off the edge of the hall and leapt.

Like a bird flashing blue wings, his Sky Shard Cloak snapped and bore him up into the night.

“Good gods.”

Nereus, Frey, Feijin, the intruding knights, the Musketeer School cadets—every last one could only stare, slack-jawed, at the height he reached.

Kyrie caught a flap of cloak in his left hand and bled into a smooth glide.

As if running the night sky itself, he skimmed the dark with effortless agility; his left eye burned like a blue candle.

Chk.

He raised the Thunderclap Longsword in his right hand.

Flash!

A bolt cast at an impossible speed fell smack into the knot of enemies sprinting through the street.

“That fast?”

Flash!

At the same speed, another bolt fell onto a different building where Musketeer School cadets were massed.

“His insides must be thrashing to paste.”

Even Nereus had to click his tongue at that pace.

And still Kyrie hung in the air after dropping two bolts.

The first building the knights had used to spring their assault slid by beneath his boots.

Now he was over the Musketeer School’s rooftop.

Tat-tat-tat-tat!

“Knock him out of the sky!”

“Fire, fire!”

Mag-shots left orange tracers through the dark, but that was no longer a musketeer’s range—it was a Blue Knight’s.

Kyrie released the cloak’s hem and took the Thunderclap Longsword in both hands.

Kzzzzzzzt!

The blade, marbled black and white, flared to a pure, blazing white.

“Lightning Blade.”

Nereus found himself whispering the epithet.

Kyrie dropped—together with the very thunder he’d just twice called.

Boom!

Chapter 84

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