Kyrie’s Star-Sword flew toward Magnus’s throat.

It was Heat Wave—fired with Thunder-Step, carrying everything: boots reinforced for leg strength, a cloak bearing a gliding blessing, a body strengthened by Celestial Lightning Body, and even the power gained from the Elixir of the Nebula.

“No chance!”

Magnus tried to shove Kyrie away with the magnetism technique “Repulsion.”

Woooong!

The metal parts of Kyrie’s gauntlet, cuirass, shin guard, and Star-Sword were pushed backward.

“What if I do?”

Kyrie defied that repulsion head-on and stepped Thunder-Step again.

Rumble!

Formless magnetism and visible electricity churned in midair like a flow of hot air raising a typhoon.

The fingertips of Magnus’s outstretched hand trembled.

Under the heel of Kyrie’s boot, the flagstone was pressed and pressed, until it finally crumbled.

Karddddeuk!

“What if I make it possible!”

Kyrie forced his way through the repulsion and unleashed Heat Wave at last.

Boom!

Magnus was a seasoned Blue Knight.

“Hup!”

At the very last moment, he twisted the direction of the repulsion and deflected Kyrie’s slash to the side.

The trajectory of the Star-Sword’s Heat Wave twisted.

Slice!

The price of saving his neck was an arm.

Magnus’s left arm flew up into the air above the elbow.

A blow that raised the difficulty and price of crafting a magi-device prosthetic arm by about tenfold.

Didn’t kill him.

Kyrie ground his teeth.

Is this what a Planetary Seat is?

He’d inflicted a fatal wound, but he hadn’t killed him.

Since he handled Sacheol armor and even a Sacheol giant, cutting off an arm didn’t mean Kyrie had completely overwhelmed him.

Why didn’t he kill me? Is he trying to take me alive?

Showing off. But that judgment has logic, too. If it’s a Planetary Seat of House Magnes, he’s a hostage worth more than enough.

Frey and Nereus interpreted it deliberately.

It’ll help shake off the pursuers, and it can restrain Traysan from charging in immediately, too. Even if he’s a Senior Adopted Heir, he can’t help but watch House Magnes’s mood.

If Kyrie wants it!

Better to die than show weakness.

The two Blue Knights kicked off the ground, following Kyrie.

Rumble!

Three swords—the Lightning Greatsword, the Lightning Longsword, and the Star-Sword—flew in, aiming for the one-armed Planetary Seat.

Even in that situation, Magnus resisted to the end.

He raised Sacheol blades from behind his back to cut their throats, bought time with a Sacheol shield to launch magnetism grenades, and used Attraction and Repulsion appropriately to stall.

But he had already lost the most important element in battle.

They already drank the Elixirs of Sacred Light. They know where they are, so even when they run, they can drop a lightning strike and burn whatever’s left.

He couldn’t stop the opponent’s objective.

From a military standpoint, it was a perfect defeat.

Shraaaak!

Kyrie’s Star-Sword tore through the Sacheol shield and drove in.

Magnus used Repulsion under his own feet to evade while gathering Sacheol from all directions to form a giant’s arm.

Tstssts!

An arm as massive as the wind technique “Hand of Destruction,” big enough to grip an ogre in one hand.

“Uaaaaaah!”

Frey leapt into the air and unleashed a halo.

Tskyaaaaaak!

Spinning in circles and becoming a blade itself, she severed the giant’s wrist.

“Tell your father.”

Nereus charged into the opening, laughing wildly.

“That you got beaten and taken prisoner by the eldest son of House Tonatio!”

Crack!

A hilt spitting red lightning smashed dead-on into Magnus’s temple.

A blow that would have cracked an ordinary person’s skull open.

Thud.

Magnus collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Hah, hah.”

“Hooaahhh.”

“I’m going to die.”

Kyrie, Frey, and Nereus looked at one another and caught their breath.

“Did we win?”

A dazed smile rose on their faces.

“No. Not yet.”

Kyrie looked back toward the research buildings.

“Grab everything and come back fast. We’ve already been picked up on Bio-radar. They’re swarming in black.”

“Right. If we use this guy as a hostage, we can get back easily. It’s not exactly fair and square, but in a situation like this, there’s no choice. It was a good calculation.”

“What?”

“Hm? You didn’t cut his arm to take him hostage?”

“……You noticed. Yeah. That was exactly the calculation. It’s not that I couldn’t kill him.”

Traysan left the Senior Adopted Heir’s palace within Astrion’s main fortress.

He headed for Academy Research Complex Building 11.

“You have arrived.”

“This was the place.”

The scene was perfectly controlled by the Goldcoin Brigade’s Blue Knights.

It was like closing the door only after the horse had already run out of the stable.

Traysan opened his mouth, feeling something closer to emptiness than rage.

“What are the casualties?”

“Forty-five Goldcoin Brigade regular soldiers are dead, and 351 have suffered injuries large and small.”

“And.”

“Your younger brother, Master Acto, has died.”

“And.”

“We found part of the body of His Highness Magnus, the Planetary Seat who shapes an orbit. We believe he has been taken prisoner, but the possibility of death cannot be dismissed.”

A Goldcoin Brigade Knight delivered the report with his face gone dark.

Traysan nearly blew the Knight’s head off, then held back.

It was a unit that had lost its commander to mere thugs.

If he crushed morale further, they might turn their resentment this way.

“Were the elixirs down there?”

“Yes.”

Traysan went down into the basement.

An Academy research building that was excessively ordinary.

Even the vault wasn’t a special custom piece—just a mass-produced model you could see anywhere.

Looking at the bottles left behind, it seemed even the elixirs had been stored in all sorts of glass bottles with different shapes and sizes.

“What did this research building study?”

Traysan looked at an Academy professor who couldn’t even step on his shadow.

“L-luminous moss and spore organisms and the like—research to improve them and replace the magi-device lanterns of the Engravers’ Iron Citadel.”

“Then faintly glowing liquids must have been lying all over the place.”

“I apologize.”

The professor looked like another word or two would make him stop breathing.

He hid a leaf in the forest.

Traysan waved the professor away.

It was all over.

Did I get played by Andromeda’s sleight of hand?

Beating them down wouldn’t produce anything.

The evidence that she used mutant beasts to make imitation elixirs is gone. Now it’ll be hard to get Manseong Church’s official cooperation.

The basis for the charges he’d used to bind Andromeda evaporated.

Now he couldn’t kill Andromeda by official means.

If he even tried, the Patriarch would descend from within the storm clouds atop that fortress.

Then I have no choice but to take Erica.

Traysan reached his conclusion.

Now it truly was only battle.

He thought it should have been that way from the start.

“Knight.”

“Yes!”

“Deliver letters to the names I am about to say. Nicolaos and Chermidon of the Light Cavalry, Urmes of the Royal Guard, Bataos of the Outer City Guard, Sirmines of the Outer City Guard, Scipio of the Mounted Patrol……”

Every name he spoke belonged to adopted heirs who had formed solid factions within their units and completed their privatization.

“Have them gather with their troops.”

They were heavyweights who, with a single word, could mobilize at least ten Blue Knights and over three thousand soldiers—and talents who, given enough time to prepare, could have become warlords on Kyrie’s level.

“I need to teach my disobedient youngest brother a lesson.”

The Senior Adopted Heir’s eyes flickered like a candle flame on the verge of going out.

“If they come, cut them! Really cut them! You want to meet the Patriarch of House Magnes?!”

“Run! Run!”

“Blue Knights behind us! Fast approach!”

“Soldiers in the alley ahead! They’ve got nets! Drop lightning!”

“Ballista! Get deeper into the alley!”

“Just up to there!”

Kyrie, Frey, and Nereus ran in crashing chaos, colliding and careening.

They ran while dodging Goldcoin Brigade forces, and dropped lightning on ballista towers aiming at them.

In narrow alleys they played hide-and-seek against the pursuers while using Bio-radar, and carried the Elixirs of Sacred Light carefully so they wouldn’t break.

They couldn’t find the small hole they’d used to enter, so they wandered for hours more.

Midnight, with the moon shining bright.

“We’re back!”

The three were able to return to the encampment.

“Waaahhh! I truly thought you had died!”

Joi came rolling out in a run and hugged Kyrie.

“You truly brought the Elixirs of Sacred Light. To be honest, I thought you would destroy them. You have exceeded our expectations again.”

Feijin stared at Kyrie with faraway eyes and let out a sound of admiration.

“Wow! Wow! You really brought them? Huh? Isn’t that Magnus? You beat a Planetary Seat? Really? For real?”

Hari jumped up, covered her mouth, and looked this way and that.

Even accounting for her cheerful personality, it wasn’t an exaggerated reaction.

“Magnus?”

“A Planetary Seat of House Magnes?”

“No way!”

“Bring Sealing Stones! Hurry!”

All the Blue Knights reacted similarly.

Good thing I didn’t betray them.

Epicus, in particular, was completely stunned.

To think he’d been fooled by the Three and even considered betraying Kyrie—he must have been out of his mind.

“We’re right on the verge of overload, so we can’t drink any more. Hand out one or two bottles each to the Blue Knights, and the Knights should drink too.”

Kyrie set the elixirs he’d brought down on the table.

Hensonia, Daniel, Hari, Tacitus, Epicus, Fabienne, and many other Blue Knights took Elixirs of Sacred Light.

Famed Knights like Feijin, Shen, and Augusta also took their share.

“Heh heh, there won’t be a Retainer-rank like me in the history of the Empire of Stars who’s drunk this many elixirs.”

Joi received a bottle not as Retainer-rank, but as Kyrie’s adjutant.

“Life really is about lines, it is.”

“I partially agree. This is all Lady Andromeda’s arrangement, isn’t it.”

As soon as the Blue Knights and Knights had taken their elixirs, Kyrie headed straight for the tent.

My nerves.

He felt like he might collapse immediately.

“I’m sleeping. We might get raided tonight, so keep a proper watch.”

“I will patrol so not even a single mosquito can get in, it is.”

Joi snapped a salute.

Now there’s no evidence that we did anything with mutant beast bodily fluids.

Kyrie went into the tent and flopped down.

Sleep surged up on the relief of overloaded nerves and vanished evidence.

【“Evidence?”】

【The Dreaming Thunder Star asks the question with a meaningful smile.】

At that moment, the Stellar Seat’s voice sounded at his ear.

The pharmaceutical craftsmen who made it themselves won’t even make Retainer-rank, so they can’t be witnesses in court against Andromeda, and the Knight Eugene is dead.

Drowsy, Kyrie mumbled the thoughts in his mouth.

I’m the one who sent the mutant beast bodily fluids, and Gluttony transported them. But Gluttony will be with Necron in Spiramentaon, so it’s fine.

He couldn’t even tell whether he’d spoken or only thought it.

【“Is that all?”】

No.

He didn’t even feel confused.

Now I feel confident I won’t break immediately even in a frontal fight. After tonight passes, I’ll absorb even what’s left in my blood vessels and nerves. And I handed out one bottle each to the Blue Knights and Knights… yes. I won’t break immediately.

Even then, one thought occurred to him.

When he’d been pinned under Magnus’s Sacheol giant.

The 10% the Stellar Seat supports—or rather, it’s 15% now. Anyway, I think I could store more than 100% of that.

He’d escaped by detonating the electricity stored through Aura-Carried Voice Transmission all at once in the form of Imbuement.

Could I gather several hundred percent and unleash an absurd single blow?

He thought about whether he could store more.

That was as far as his thoughts went.

Kyrie fell asleep as if fainting.

The next morning.

“I slept well!”

“Are you awake?”

“I slept well, all right. Call the Blue Knights and the Knights. The operation meeting starts.”

Kyrie opened his eyes feeling astonishingly refreshed.

It recovers in just one day.

Nerves and muscles that had been shredded were now neat and clean.

Celestial Lightning Body really did increase.

It even seemed sturdier.

“If you tell me the topic in advance, each of us can prepare our opinions, it is.”

“Andromeda’s location. We have to get her back to truly win.”

Kyrie ate a simple breakfast and headed to the meeting tent.

Blue Knights and Knights gathered, and the meeting began.

“As I told you in advance, today’s agenda is reclaiming the Sub-patriarch. First we need to find out where she is—”

Kyrie expected that meeting to become very long and difficult.

Traysan will have hidden her extremely well. All information will be controlled.

“I think I might know where she is—no. Whether she’s there.”

At that moment, Hari raised her hand high.

Chapter 116

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