A pillar of lightning descended from the swirling storm clouds.

From the edge of the storm clouds it was thin, and the closer it drew to the center, the thicker the lightning-fire became—tangling, interweaving, and merging into one.

It looked like a gigantic tree: a pillar made of lightning for its trunk, and leaves made of cloud that covered the entire city.

That’s an Authority I taught him?

Nereus stared up at the sky and clicked his tongue.

This?

He and Frey had both drunk the Elixir of Sacred Light, but neither of them had gained enough strength to wield an Authority on this scale.

There was only one explanation.

He prepared. For a very long time. Enduring with sheer willpower.

It could only mean that, from the moment this battle began, he had been spreading his control little by little while gathering lightning.

The materials were scattered all over the sky.

Countless Blue Knights had been calling down lightning strikes and guided lightning, piling up clouds dense with thunder-energy.

It was far easier than dragging lightning from 0 to 100.

That fact didn’t belittle Kyrie’s feat.

Nereus didn’t console himself with empty pride.

Even if a hundred years pass, you’ll never beat me in lightning arts. You’re a red-light district bastard, and I’m Tonatio’s rightful son. Our blood is different.

Then I’ll just have to work harder.

Just as Kyrie had answered in the Academy years ago.

Nereus swore that if Kyrie survived today, he would train that technique—no, an even greater technique.

The Authorities House Tonatio developed weren’t limited to Pillar Cloud.

Complex calculations spun through his mind—what other powerful techniques could be created using Lion’s Roar and Area Imbuement.

At the same time, Nereus etched that lightning tree—standing tall against all of Astrion—into his eyes.

So he would remember it forever.

So he would never forget what he felt in this moment.

Frey was the same.

Kyrie. You really are incredible, too.

The peerlessly beautiful young Blue Knight tightened her grip on the Lightning Greatsword and scanned the enemies.

Every one of them was overwhelmed, mouths hanging open, not even daring to move.

Could I have done it, if I were you?

A smile tugged at Frey’s lips.

Not her usual bright, boyish grin, but a bitter smile that suited Traysan.

Frey’s lightning arts grades had always been barely scraping by.

Even now, after drinking several Elixirs of Sacred Light and greatly increasing her mana, her control was so atrocious she couldn’t even use Discharge properly.

If not for the synergy between swordsmanship that had reached a realm and Physical Reinforcement, she might not have received her Blue Knight appointment at all.

Back when they first entered the Academy, Kyrie hadn’t been much different.

Both of them had manifested lightning arts as a generational throwback from families that were below average, so that was normal.

Ah, shit! I’m quitting!

Frey had abandoned the path of lightning-arts Authority long ago.

She had even thought about giving up on becoming a Blue Knight and just living as a Knight.

I’ll do one more hour, then go.

Kyrie was different.

Every day, he clung to lightning-arts training until nerve overheating left him so ragged that even a Knight’s physical ability couldn’t fully recover him.

By the time graduation neared, Kyrie had become the lightning-arts runner-up beneath Nereus, while Frey barely clung to the cutoff line for Blue Knight appointment.

And now, a few more years later.

Kyrie had raised a tree made of lightning above the Senior Adopted Heir’s head, and Frey could only stare at him blankly.

Crunch.

Frey gripped the Lightning Greatsword’s hilt tightly and made a vow.

Should I try again?

That she wouldn’t use bloodline as an excuse anymore.

Because I don’t want to feel ashamed in front of you.

That she would walk the lightning-arts road again—the road she’d been quietly giving up on.

“Let go of me! Can’t you see? Fuck! Kyrie is about to die!”

“Get a grip! You’re the one who can’t see all those Blue Knights crawling around? The moment you jump in, you’re getting executed!”

Pinned under Feijin and struggling, Joi saw Pillar Cloud descend.

Stagger.

Under the damp wind, Kyrie pushed his body up.

For an instant, with his focus gone, his face looked strangely fresh and gentle—so much that it didn’t suit the famed Lightning Blade at all.

That lasted only a moment.

Soon, Kyrie’s eyes regained their usual sharp heat and blazing ambition.

As if asking, Did you see?

As if saying, I did it too.

Just as Joi had reached a new realm, Kyrie had reached a new realm as well.

Commander.

Joi remembered the inner chamber of the Governor’s Fortress where she had sworn loyalty to Kyrie.

That place had been a temple for the two of them, and Kyrie had been the apostle who showed Joi the path.

“……Now it’s fine. Fei. You’ve come to your senses.”

“Ah, ahh. Sorry.”

Joi slowly pushed aside Feijin, who had been stunned into a daze, and rose.

“More importantly, prepare the charge. The moment that disappears, we have to push.”

“Push?”

“Did you forget the plan? We have to go rescue Lady Andromeda.”

Bataos, an adopted heir of the Outer City Guard, doubted his eyes.

What is this?

Tears streamed down his face from the blinding light.

What Authority did he use? With what strength? He must’ve spent everything blocking lightning strikes.

Even when he shut his eyes, the world looked red, as if he could see the blood vessels in his eyelids.

How do you beat something like that?

Bataos, too, was an adopted heir who could call down lightning strikes.

He could estimate how much mana and control it took to create that tree.

I can’t do it. Not even if I die. I’d pass out immediately from nerve overheating.

Bataos felt something that had been burning inside him cool—and something he’d never even considered flare up at the same time.

Crazy bastard. Crazy bastard. Crazy bastard. He’s the enemy! He’s the enemy, damn it! Get a grip!

The cooled emotion was rage. The flaring craving was longing.

As an adopted-heir-rank Blue Knight, it couldn’t be helped.

Whether enemy or ally, it was something you had to acknowledge.

That was the realm they pursued their entire lives.

“Lies, lies, lies! Liiiiies!”

Sirmines’s scream rang out beside him.

“Traysan, brother! Get up! Hurry!”

In a surreal sense of floating, Bataos had two thoughts at once.

He wanted all of this to be a nightmare.

And at the same time, he wanted it to be true.

If that power made hierarchy meaningless, maybe it really could laugh off the so-called limits of cadet lines.

Kyrie’s Pillar Cloud blew away in an instant the shadow Traysan had spent more than ten years trying to wash away—at least from Bataos’s heart.

“Ha, hahahaha.”

In an empty laugh, Bataos admitted it.

A cadet-line Blue Knight is not weak.

It was only Bataos himself who had been weak.

Urmes of the Royal Guard—an adopted heir implicitly regarded as second among the adopted heirs—saw the lightning tree from closer than anyone.

At this level, a pureblood of the direct line…… no. Even Lady Andromeda wasn’t like this at his age.

He recalled an old story the cadet-line Elders had told him about the Patriarch.

Pellaeus.

They said House Astreos back then had the same problems as other houses.

The Elders reached into the house’s combat organizations and privatized them.

Governors ruled cities by force as though they were lords, not officials.

Cadet lines raised Blue Knights as they pleased and waged territorial wars against Knight vassals or border vassals of other great families.

The young Patriarch Pellaeus crushed all of them with overwhelming power.

He roasted Elders, Governors, and cadet lines alike with lightning.

Even now, Elders and Stellar Seats still didn’t dare make contact, Governors kept their place as term-limited officials, and cadet lines surrendered land at a single word from the Patriarch.

Under the light on the back of his hand that pierced hearts, everyone—from the direct line to the serfs—lay face down equally.

Power that reminds you of the Patriarch.

Urmes wondered how he might use that power.

If he survived today, that was.

The lord’s audience hall.

“My Patriarch.”

“Hm?”

“Did you know?”

“As if I can see the future—well. I do see it sometimes. But I didn’t know this.”

“How, how in the world. With such a poor bloodline, and not even thirty yet……”

“That’s why he’s superhuman. Doesn’t it take that much to say the stars love you?”

Racul and Pellaeus continued in voices that had grown noticeably lighter.

“It’s quiet. Good. Very good. I can’t even remember how long it’s been.”

For the first time in a long while, sunlight came in through the window.

Because Kyrie’s Pillar Cloud had dragged away even the storm clouds that had been hanging over the lord’s audience hall, the clouds parted for a moment.

Pellaeus continued in a satisfied tone that was obvious even through the mask.

“To think I can see my city from here.”

Through the full glass window, the entire city lay below.

The massive buildings of the Main Fortress, the ornate buildings of the Inner City, the vast Outer City and its walls, and beyond them, even the lightning tree rising up—all of it was visible.

“I brought in one son well. Didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

At Pellaeus’s question, Racul nodded firmly.

“You brought him in extremely well. So now please intervene. That fine son of yours might die!”

Manseong Church Inquisition.

“Traysan has fallen. This is not what we expected.”

“Secure the hostage and move. The value remains.”

“To the west, quickly, now!”

【You have achieved ‘Sub-Objective 2: Demon King Hunt’.】

【You cut down the root of all evil you designated—Senior Adopted Heir Traysan—and became a symbol of hope to the people.】

【Penalty for failure: Celestial Lightning Body decreases by 100%】

【Reward for success: Celestial Lightning Body increases by 100%】

“Ah.”

My consciousness snapped back with a thrill that pierced from the crown of my head down my spine.

Looks like I fainted while standing.

Normally it would’ve been pleasure strong enough to leave me trembling, unable to think straight, but now it felt like I’d only had a single cup of sweet honey water.

That alone told me how hard I’d driven my nerves.

If Celestial Lightning Body hadn’t increased and raised my physical durability and recovery along with it, I might really have lost consciousness like this and never woken again.

I almost died.

The moment I realized it, even in this foggy, confused state, goosebumps rose over my entire body.

An eternal abyss.

How terrifying.

But I succeeded, and in the end, I stood here.

【Sub-Objective 3: Rescuing the Princess】

【Rescue your half-sister, House Astreos’s Sub-patriarch Lady Andromeda.】

【Penalty for failure: Celestial Lightning Body decreases by 100%】

【Reward for success: Celestial Lightning Body increases by 100%】

As if there were no time to rest, my Stigma burned hot and raised strings of text in my vision.

【“Wouldn’t it be better to hurry?”】

The constellation’s voice echoed faintly.

Even through the crushing drowsiness and my vision washed in black-and-white, I thought.

Traysan might have left orders to assassinate Lady Andromeda the moment he lost, or to spirit her away.

I had already made a plan accounting for that possibility.

Pajijik!

I moved my creaking body as I unfurled Nerve Acceleration.

“……Joi, no.”

Right now, immediately, I had to go.

["Jo!"]

I almost called her by her true name with my mind slipping, then barely realized what was wrong.

I unleashed Lion’s Roar and called Joi.

“Kyrie has won! Everyone, follow Kyrie!”

Joi sprang up, raised her sword, and shouted.

["Run! Run!"]

Nereus also roared like thunder, grabbing the reins of two horses—his and mine—and charging this way.

["Don’t dawdle! You’ll get uglier!"]

Frey got the Blue Knights and Knights back on their feet and pointed at the gate.

Everyone was moving according to the plan.

“They’re coming at us!”

“What happened to Lord Traysan?”

“Tell them to attack from behind!”

“It’s too late!”

The Royal Guard and Goldcoin Brigade soldiers were still out of their minds.

Our Blue Knights had rested in their own way, and it seemed like they’d recovered enough mana to use an Authority once or twice.

Bio-radar caught the army of the second of the three-man team attacking our rear from back there, but I didn’t care what happened to armies anymore.

“Hold them!”

Silvanus, the adopted heir of the Goldcoin Brigade, tried to lead his troops to block the gate.

“Go.”

Nereus handed me the reins, then turned away.

With his friends, he leveled cavalry spears at Silvanus.

“This is me helping you. Don’t ever forget it.”

I couldn’t get the words out well.

“Let’s live and meet again.”

I meant it.

I spurred the horse.

“Kyrie—Kyrie! I’ll hold them! Just look ahead and run!”

“Knights, follow me!”

“Commander! This way!”

I took Frey, Joi, Feijin, and anyone else who latched on, and we rode for the Grand Cathedral.

Lady Andromeda was right there.

【Hero’s Journey Stage 12】

【Stage 3: Hero】

【Make your name resound】

【Penalty for failure: Death】

【Reward for success: Electromagnetic Cannon】

【Stage 4: (Locked)】

If I rescued her, Stage 3 would be over, too.

Chapter 124

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