The lightning strikes of the Blue Knights resembled the color of that Blue Knight’s lightning.

["Pour it all out!"]

["Burn them to death!"]

["It’s human hunting!"]

["Smash down what they treasure most!"]

Bataos and Sirmines, Nicolaos and Chermidon, even Scipio.

The adopted heirs, together with their subordinate Blue Knights, hurled lightning strikes and guided lightning without a moment’s rest.

Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!

“AAAAAAGH!”

The ceaseless thunder was so loud it blotted out even the screams of comrades dying right beside them.

The black, rainless sky became a canvas that shook off sharp flashes in an instant.

Artists of life and death displayed an avant-garde grandeur, using another’s flesh and their own Authority as material.

Sky-blue, maple-red, spring-flower yellow, sunset orange, rose purple, first-snow pure white.

Lightning of every color fell from the whole sky down upon Kyrie’s army.

The firepower looked ready to roast not eight thousand but eighty thousand, and the sheer force was enough to make not eighty thousand but eight hundred thousand drop to their knees and bow their heads, trembling.

It was the Authority that let a handful of great-house bloodlines rule populations in the tens of millions to the hundreds of millions.

The power of superhuman aristocratic warriors loved by the Stellar Seat.

No matter how high Kyrie’s soldiers’ morale had been, it was an attack sufficient to shatter them in an instant.

["Shed it with guided lightning! If you shed it forward, it’s a counterattack! Break their army with their own lightning!"]

["Hold on just a little longer! Trust Kyri-Kyrie! That Lightning Blade will bring us victory for sure!"]

["We’ll handle the sky! You don’t look up—you look forward! Forward! Forward! Forwaaaaard!"]

Kyrie’s army did not collapse.

["Dreaming Thunder Star!"]

Kyrie, mounted on a warhorse taller than the soldiers, fired daggers up at the sky from the center of the formation.

Swaeaeik! Swaeaeik! Swaeaeik!

When the white-hot daggers shot upward into the sky, the lightning that had been plunging down toward the soldiers turned its head to aim for the daggers.

Kwarururung!

Lightning strikes that turned their heads even slightly flew off in entirely different directions.

“AAAAAAGH!”

“It’s coming our way!”

“Sir! The ballista got wrecked!”

Some of them even swept through the lines of the Light Cavalry, the Outer City Defense Force, the Mounted Patrol, and the Goldcoin Brigade, destroying ballista along the way.

“Kyrie! Kyrie! Kyrie!”

“Our lords are protecting us!”

Hope returned to the soldiers’ eyes.

Their Lightning Blade was still standing with them.

“Charge! Charge! If you’re too scared to run, think of it as running away! We’re running forward to dodge the lightning!”

The officer corps—Navigator-ranks, Retainer-ranks, and the like—didn’t miss that moment.

They raised soldiers whose minds had been blown away by thunder and lightning, and drove them forward.

["You think you can bring down the eldest son of thunder with such guided lightning!"]

["The supreme peak, beautiful-boy Blue Knight is coming through!"]

["You dog siblings!"]

["I have come, all the way, here!"]

["Even if you say ‘save me,’ you won’t be heard!"]

All of Kyrie’s Blue Knights—Nereus, Frey, Epicus, Daniel, Hari, and the rest—fought desperately from their own positions.

Pubeobeobeong!

Nereus spewed Chain Discharge and burst guided lightning that came flying in consecutive bead-like shots.

Frey hurled herself from place to place, slicing ballista bolts out of the air.

Epicus fired guided lightning, turning the adopted heirs’ lightning strikes back on them.

["Fire the lightning-rod crossbows! Lightning-rod crossbows!"]

Hari spread the order with a Lion’s Roar.

“Lightning-rod crossbows! Get them ready!”

At her voice, the Navigator-ranks and Retainer-ranks positioned among the soldiers snapped back to their senses.

“Drive iron stakes into the ground! Tie wire to metal bolts! Tie the other end of the wire to the stake!”

“Fire!”

They barked at the soldiers and fired the lightning-rod crossbows.

Pang!

Dozens of crossbow bolts connected to the ground by thin wire shot up.

Bolts with wide fletching to extend their hang time as much as possible.

After firing, the soldiers hurriedly ran away to clear the area around them.

Flash!

A few lightning strikes that Kyrie’s Blue Knights had missed curved that way.

Pajijijijik!

Even as the lightning melted the thin wire in an instant, it ran down along the stake and sank into the earth.

["Advance!"]

Kyrie shouted as he threw the last few daggers he had left.

["Advance!"]

Defense was, fundamentally, harder than offense.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

On the outskirts, the adopted heirs’ lightning strikes were already falling and dropping soldiers.

I need to conserve my nerves as much as possible.

Wung.

Nerves heated white beneath his skin flared with light.

【True-Energy Guidance: 15%】

【Aura-Carried Voice Transmission: Activated (375%)】

If they couldn’t break through the Outer City Guard quickly, they would be trapped like this and die.

“We have to advance, sir! No one is to fall back, sir.”

Joi knew that too.

The foremost line where the Outer City Defense Force mercenaries and Kyrie’s Knights collided.

Renowned Knights like Feijin, Augusta, and Shen grit their teeth and swung their blades.

“We are, the flowers, of the battlefield!”

The skill of those who became superhuman without being loved by the Stellar Seat was staggering.

A single sword swing split a mercenary’s head, helmet and all, and a single spear thrust knocked aside an incoming net and draped it over the head of a mercenary officer.

But they could not wield Authority.

“Knights!”

“Unhorse them first!”

“Bring axe-spears and nets! Knock them off, then beat them down!”

“Have the ballista focus only over there!”

Mercenaries were far more used to Knights than to Blue Knights.

Their caved-in chests lifted, and what they had trained surged back to life.

Joi watched mercenaries closing in in small groups.

We’re slowing down, sir.

A combination of net-throwers and long-spearmen.

A tactic of chopping at a horse’s legs with an axe-spear, then beating down the unhorsed Knight.

Ballista beginning to concentrate their impact patterns.

“Expand the line! Expand the line, sir!”

Joi ground her teeth and whipped the flag.

“Good timing!”

“Push!”

Even the Navigator-ranks and Retainer-ranks who had been following the Knights from a little behind joined the foremost line.

If you want to say it nicely, it’s reserves committed at the right place and time.

Joi threw away the last flag that had now served its purpose and joined the battlefield as a Navigator-rank herself.

If you want to say it badly, it’s the last card, sir!

At this stage, they had played every card they could.

If they couldn’t break through without the Blue Knights’ power, they would lose; if they could, they could move to the next stage.

“You—adjutant!”

“Huh?”

“I know your type well! You lecher!”

“What do you mean, my type, sir!?”

“Pale-colored hair, brown skin, a vicious look with a bunch of gold jewelry! The enemy of all men!”

Joi swung her sword at the Retainer-rank and soldiers rushing her.

Saaak!

A cleanly drawn crescent cut took heads all at once.

Where they fell, nearly twice as many soldiers filled in.

Behind them, a Navigator-rank who had just dropped one of their Retainer-ranks was also approaching.

We’re getting pushed back.

Joi knew it by instinct.

A number in the tens of thousands was no joke.

Nets and ballista flew in; axe-spears and long-spears danced.

“Kgh!”

Up ahead, Augusta fell from her horse.

A ballista bolt that came in like a comb’s teeth skewered the horse’s head perfectly.

Chwaaak!

Like a true Knight, Augusta leapt into the air in time and spun a red spear like a pinwheel, slaughtering dozens of soldiers.

Whoosh!

As if it didn’t matter, several steel nets flew in.

Watching the long-spearmen and the Navigator-rank also charging her, Joi clenched her teeth.

If she knocked aside the long-spears, she would allow the Navigator-rank to close—and she could see, plainly, the future where her throat would be taken.

Thump, thump.

At this rate, it was certain defeat.

The power she had only ever wanted—now she needed it.

I don’t want to be strong.

Joi realized the two were different.

I have to be strong.

She had gripped the sword because she wanted success like the moon hanging in the night sky.

But the end of desire was only ruin.

Like when she met mutated monsters for the first time and got caught by Kyrie.

I have to be strong!

Desire let you begin, and necessity let you complete.

Crack!

Joi heard something snap deep inside her.

A shiver raced down from the crown of her head along her spine.

Ddu-du-du-du-duk!

Like milk with lemon juice poured in, her body overturned completely.

A change she couldn’t return from—and didn’t want to return from.

Long-spears stabbed in.

Hoooook!

Time felt strangely slow.

A sensation she had experienced before.

Now she could control it.

Joi kicked off the saddle and leapt.

In midair she lifted her legs and rotated her body, drawing the largest crescent she had ever drawn.

Saaa-aaak!

In a single strike, the throats of six or seven long-spearmen—and the Navigator-rank lunging beside them—flew away.

Before the Navigator-rank’s corpse even hit the ground, Joi kicked off the dead Navigator-rank’s shoulder and sprang up.

Whoosh!

“Let’s go!”

She landed back onto her still-running horse and drew another crescent.

Thump, thump, thump.

Her overheated heart spread heat through her whole body, her vision—reddened, perhaps by blood droplets—held only the enemies in front of her, and the many small wounds across her body didn’t hurt in the slightest.

The enemies rushing her had weak points visible everywhere, as if begging to be cut, and Joi drew cold crescents, connecting those weak points with lines.

“Khk, kheooogh!”

“……Ah.”

She dropped another opponent from horseback—no idea how many it had been now.

That soldier wasn’t holding a sword, spear, or net.

He was loading a stake-thick bolt into a ballista and aiming at Feijin.

“……Monster, bastard.”

Joi knew the look in his eyes.

The same look she had always used when she looked at Navigator-ranks and Knights.

She put strength into her arm and shoved him aside so he couldn’t aim at her master.

Thud.

Her sword drove a little deeper through the soldier’s torso, and the soldier tumbled under the ballista.

A ballista?

Through her blazing-hot head, Joi thought.

Ballista were usually positioned at the very back.

She lifted her head.

The endless wall of humans was gone.

A gap of about three hundred meters—and beyond it stood Traysan, surrounded by the Goldcoin Brigade and the Royal Guard.

In dazed ecstasy, Joi understood.

We broke through.

She had done it.

Today, Joi defeated herself, and defeated the enemy.

Traysan didn’t blink.

“Hm.”

Even when Kyrie’s Knights appeared a few hundred meters ahead, he didn’t gape in shock.

Even when five adopted heirs and a hundred Blue Knights on both flanks poured down lightning strikes and guided lightning like rain, yet failed to collapse the mere eight thousand line, he didn’t scold them.

“It’s about time.”

He only stared beyond the ridge where Kyrie’s encampment had been.

Tu-du-du-du-duk!

Hoofbeats that had been hard to hear under the battlefield’s din grew louder.

["Kyrie!"]

From beyond the ridge, a group of riders appeared.

“Diaes?”

Nicolaos and Chermidon of the Light Cavalry widened their eyes.

Diaes, the second of the three-man team.

He appeared with an army that approached at least several thousand.

“Your Highness.”

The Blue Knight standing beside Traysan looked up at him in shock.

“W-where in the world did you raise that army?”

Traysan stroked his mustache and laughed easily.

“My youngest brother broke through the three-man team, but he didn’t defeat them. It’s not hard to regroup the troops and come up.”

Now Kyrie’s army would collapse into chaos.

Little brother. Your Blue Knights and Knights are at their limit.

It didn’t matter that the lightning strikes hadn’t annihilated the army.

They had exhausted the Blue Knights to their limit.

It didn’t matter that the twenty-thousand mercenary army had been wiped out.

They had exhausted the Knights to their limit.

And in that situation, an enemy army appears in the rear. Can you endure it?

In contrast, Traysan had the Royal Guard and the Goldcoin Brigade—who hadn’t swung a sword once.

The Light Cavalry and Mounted Patrol still had strength left.

In the rear, Kyrie’s ballista crews were already abandoning every ballista and wagon and fleeing.

["Traysan!"]

Then a Lion’s Roar burst from within Kyrie’s ranks.

The soldiers split, and Kyrie appeared.

On horseback, he wore swords at both hips and the sky-fragment cloak Traysan had given him.

["You betrayed the family, and now you’re even shouting your elder brother’s name like that?"]

Traysan intended to welcome this last, desperate struggle.

Crush him head-on.

Only then could he shove himself forward as the family’s only option to the Patriarch watching this scene.

["Betrayal?"]

["Sub-patriarch Lady Andromeda joined hands with Rikenta and spread mutated monsters in the south! You became an adopted heir with Andromeda’s patronage, went down to the south, and with Rikenta’s help turned Spiramentaon into a wasteland! The Rikenta repeating crossbows you used are the greatest proof of all!"]

Traysan unleashed a Lion’s Roar so loud the sky itself seemed to ring.

Hearing it, Kyrie smiled quietly.

Huh?

Instinct screamed.

Something was wrong.

["Yes! I, Kyrie, borrowed Rikenta’s power to kill you!"]

Kyrie answered.

["I will kill you and become the Senior Adopted Heir! For that single goal, I offered my eyes to the Dreaming Thunder Star, became an adopted heir, and even borrowed the power of House Rikenta!"]

Something was terribly wrong.

A dizzy vertigo hit Traysan; he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.

Somewhere, he had made a misjudgment.

“Ho?”

“The Senior Adopted Heir took a hit.”

Watching, Pellaeus and Elder Racul thought the same.

Chapter 121

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