Up ahead, I could see the Grand Cathedral.

“It’s blocked!”

“Doesn’t matter! Run!”

The main gate and the large doors on all sides were packed with cathedral knights standing guard.

We were about to try a mounted charge when I saw the cathedral knights’ commander’s face.

A faint smile had surfaced.

I swept my Bio-radar over the walls encircling the Grand Cathedral grounds.

As expected.

There was no one at the side door leading toward the Inquisition building.

“This way!”

I urgently swung the horse’s head around.

On the cathedral knights’ commander’s face blocking the main gate, that faint smile returned.

Yeah.

Everyone was just doing their job.

“Waaah!”

We poured straight down that route toward the Inquisition building.

Crack!

One allied Knight slammed his shoulder into a locked side door, smashed it open, and burst inside.

“Kyrie! I opened it!”

Pajijik!

And before his words were even out, he was flung back out again.

Several of our soldiers tumbled as an armored Knight crashed down on them.

“Who seeks to enter?”

“Step back!”

Blue Knights in full plate armor emerged.

“Traysan is dead! Surrender!”

Frey shouted, but they didn’t so much as twitch.

Trying to at least identify their affiliation, I studied their armor closely.

No crest on the helm, no crest on the chest, no crest on the cuirass.

They were clearly men the Senior Adopted Heir kept privately.

There was no way to know how he’d raised them.

A story flickered through my mind—how, back in the previous Patriarch’s era, each cadet line had built its own training camp and raised Blue Knights like private soldiers.

Pajijik! Pajijijik!

They crackled current over swords and armor as they blocked the side entrance.

In a corridor this narrow, each Blue Knight really could fight a thousand.

We’d left the ballista back there, and I was out of mana for powerful Authorities.

And it wasn’t like we could just plunge into a brawl—because the kind of fight where I could corner Traysan and Lady Andromeda was a brawl.

If I got my throat nicked even once, I’d punch through Traysan only to die here.

“Kyrie.”

As I hesitated inwardly, Frey stepped forward.

“Thanks. Honestly, I made up my mind a minute ago, and then in less than ten minutes I was hesitating again. People don’t change that easily, you know?”

Pajijijijik!

Unlike usual, she flowed current heavily into the Lightning Greatsword and advanced.

“Like how I was the peerlessly beautiful Blue Knight when I enrolled, and I’m still the peerlessly beautiful Blue Knight now. Heehee.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Royal Guard Blue Knight Frey. My assigned duty is escorting Kyrie of Astrion Astreos, son of the Patriarch.”

Urrrrng!

Frey pressed in, leading with the Lightning Greatsword.

“Right now, I’m drawing my sword not to protect my body—but to protect my heart!”

She used Thunder-Step, blasting Traysan’s Blue Knights deeper inside as she forced her way in.

“Go!”

Frey shouted, swinging the Lightning Greatsword amid the Blue Knights.

Pajijijijik!

A burst of Discharge stiffened one Blue Knight’s body, and Frey swung the Lightning Greatsword and took his head off.

Thud!

At the same time, another private Blue Knight stabbed a sword toward Frey’s side.

“Ugh!”

“Frey!”

“I said go!”

I’d already accepted I might hear later that an adopted heir died only a few years after receiving an escort Knight.

But it seemed I hadn’t accepted watching a classmate die for me.

Two more Blue Knights joined—Hensonia, Daniel, and others.

“Let’s go!”

With the remaining Knights, I sprinted toward the front.

Woo, woo, woooooo…….

The Inquisition building, too, was a staggeringly enormous structure.

Wind poured in and out through huge, precisely designed ventilation shafts, and every time it passed, a majestic, distant singing echoed.

Like a hymn.

Ah, ah, aaaah…….

Even our running footsteps rang with solemn echoes.

From stained glass set in ceilings and walls tens of meters high, colored light poured down.

Thick yellow and red rays dyed my vision in an unreal haze.

“You can’t pass beyond here.”

A group blocked our way.

About ten of them.

If it had been earlier, we could’ve overwhelmed them with numbers, but now they were nearly as many as the whole force still following me.

With my nerves battered like this, I wasn’t confident I could beat them all—even if only half of them were Knights.

I looked them over carefully.

Every one of them wore a metal mask.

Beneath thick robes, they wore heavy plate armor.

The one standing at the very front drew a longsword.

Fwoosh!

Fitting for a place like the Inquisition, he raised the longsword reverently in both hands, and a pale halo of light flared along it.

An Authority called Starflame.

It was Sword Aura: Manifested Force.

“Vow-taker?”

The word slipped out of me.

I remembered the night of the ambush after the victory celebration in Spiramentaon.

Officers’ Academy scum, royal knights, and Manseong Church heretics—joining forces to kill us.

After that night, we’d colluded with Lady Andromeda and spread the conspiracy theory linking Gracus—Traysan—the royal family.

Looks like that conspiracy had been real.

“XX fuck!”

I spat the rough curse and dragged up the last few drops of mana.

A royal Vow-taker was a superhuman noble warrior on par with a Blue Knight of our house.

Judging from the aura, there was only one Vow-taker and the rest were ordinary Knights or Navigator-rank, but with who I had left, we couldn’t possibly face them.

“Kyrie also uses that kind of language?”

Feijin stepped to my side.

“Kyrie. Fall back.”

She was an exceptional Knight—and also a mid-tier mercenary commander who effectively held a substantial stake in my army right now.

If she died, there was no way to gather my forces again after they scattered in every direction.

Lady Andromeda came first, but a realist had to consider what came after, too.

“I don’t want to.”

Feijin answered crisply.

“What?”

For once, I thought my ears, of all things, had finally gone wrong.

“Forever like lightning, a life worth remembering.”

Pajijik! Pajik!

Then even my eyes seemed to be lying.

From the crown of her head down her spine, Feijin spat violet electrical sparks.

Tremble.

The faint twitch unique to Nerve Acceleration and Physical Reinforcement rose, then subsided.

“I have met a benefactor beyond my station. Each week I received a baptism so gracious it felt as though my debt would reach eternity. It even feels as if I’ve taken one step closer to that bright full moon in the distant night sky I thought I could never reach.”

In exchange for teaching Joi swordsmanship, I had given Feijin a baptism of lightning arts.

It sharpened nerves and helped her control muscles a bit more firmly—but only that.

There had never been a case of someone who failed to manifest lightning arts in training camp later becoming a lightning arts user.

Not until now.

“With your vivid life, you made me want to live that way, too.”

Feijin took a sword salute and walked toward the Vow-taker.

“Commander. Please rescue Lady Andromeda.”

Joi also took a sword salute and followed behind her teacher.

“If this adjutant bastard drops out, it feels like I can’t follow anymore.”

“Go, Commander!”

“Please save Lady Andromeda!”

Every Knight, Navigator-rank, Retainer-rank, and soldier who had followed me up to now leveled their blades at the royal knights.

“Seize Kyrie!”

“If we just send Kyrie through, we win!”

“May two stars shine upon us!”

“Forever like lightning!”

Leaving them behind, I ran.

Be happy.

This is the army I built to write something like this.

They chose sacrifice themselves.

I succeeded in an efficient investment.

As a rationalist, I should be happy.

So the reason my steps are this heavy must be because I’ve bled too much.

“Huff, huff!”

My nerves and my muscles were both at the limit.

Woo, woo, woooooo!

The ringing in my ears mixed with the endlessly echoing hymn and muddied my mind.

Ah, ah, aaaah!

The warm-toned light pouring from the stained glass made the cathedral corridor look like it stretched on forever.

Woo, woo, woo, wooooo!

I wanted to discharge lightning and shatter all the glass right now, but if I had that strength, I needed it to maintain Physical Reinforcement.

Then I saw silhouettes ahead.

“Andromeda?”

Three figures in royal robes were running.

The man in the middle was carrying one of them.

Long black hair, a pale fox-like face.

It was Lady Andromeda.

She hung limp, unconscious, as if drugged or poisoned.

["Andromeda!"]

I shouted the name that, by the rules, would earn execution if spoken carelessly—so loudly the cathedral rang.

I fired the throwing daggers I’d stocked up on before fighting Traysan, just in case.

They were daggers Princess Erica had blessed with Blessing of Wind.

Swaeik! Swaeik!

The daggers flew like comb teeth and pierced both knees of the man holding Lady Andromeda.

Thud!

He collapsed face-first, and Lady Andromeda rolled across the floor.

Tadadak!

The second one drew a sword and charged at me.

Judging by his movement, he was Knight-rank.

I wrung out half of my remaining mana and unfolded Linked Thunder (21).

Tadadadadang!

The Star-Sword smashed his mask, split his armor, pierced flesh, and shattered bone.

Now only one man stood between Lady Andromeda and me.

I judged him to be the royal Vow-taker.

Their swords, wrapped in halos of light, were terrifyingly powerful.

The standard play would be to kill him from range with Authority, but I didn’t have the mana.

Hup!

I leapt, planning to keep distance and finish him using the knockback technique Backflow.

He responded in a way I couldn’t even imagine.

Woooong!

Behind his head, a Halo rose and began rotating, pouring out pale light.

Prayer of Halo?!

He was a Manseong Church battle priest.

["Nameless stars of Manseong. By starflame, judge this heretic."]

Fwoooosh!

White flame crashed over me like a wave.

“Ghh!”

I rolled across the floor with the momentum of my charge.

The unquenchable fire heated my cuirass and ate into the quilted armor beneath.

A horrific searing pain flooded in, leaving me unable to think.

I bared my teeth and unfolded lightning arts.

Thududduk!

I deliberately overheated and severed a few nerves.

Nausea surged up—and at the same time, the pain vanished.

I could think again.

From his Authority, he belonged to the Manseong Church.

And judging from the cathedral knights’ commander’s attitude earlier, this wasn’t an order from the archbishop.

A clean conclusion formed.

He was part of the heretic group that killed Bishop Saturn.

They’d made it all the way into Astrion.

“You almost ruined the great plan.”

He sighed theatrically.

As I writhed, I moved the sky-fragment cloak and wrapped the burning area.

The cloak, engraved with water-and-fire immunity—free from heat and cold—quickly smothered the flames.

With Bio-radar, I tracked his movement.

“Do you know how many years we prepared this plan?”

He picked up the sword the dead royal knight had been using.

Fwoosh!

White flame wrapped even that sword and blazed.

“It’s fortunate I can set it right with my own hands. Truly, it is Manseong’s aid.”

Pretending to flee, I crawled forward.

I covered Lady Andromeda’s body with my own.

“Noble families who twist the will of the constellations to fill their own bellies. Noble families who inherit power from blood to blood! What makes you ‘chosen’? The truly chosen are us believers!”

I watched the strings of text rising in my right eye and waited, and waited.

“We will set everything right. We will create a world with no inborn superhumans. A world where only understanding of the law and the sweat you shed decides who stands above or below.”

I had no strength to do anything anyway, except wait.

He grabbed my leg and flipped me over.

He raised the white-flame sword high.

“No. You’re wrong.”

I looked into his eyes.

Thududduk.

For the first time in a long while, my right-side vision opened.

Looks like the eyepatch strap had burned through and snapped.

【You have succeeded in ‘Sub-Objective 3: Rescuing the Princess’.】

【You rescued 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%】

“I’m chosen.”

“You…?!”

“Even though I never wanted it.”

The battle priest, seeing my eye, froze with his sword still raised.

He looked like he’d taken a heavy slap across the face.

【Hero’s Journey Stage 12】

【You have succeeded in ‘Stage 3: Hero’.】

【You are ‘Lightning Blade’ Kyrie of Astrion Astreos—Liberator of the Million City, Warden of the Lightning-Tree Forest, Executioner of the Senior Adopted Heir, and countless other epithets that make your name resound.】

【Penalty for failure: Death】

【Reward for success: Electromagnetic Cannon】

I drew the Lightning Longsword from my right hip with my left hand.

“Do you truly think you can face this body—the apostle of Manseong—while stuck like that!”

“And it wouldn’t matter even if I wasn’t chosen. Because I chose myself. I always did my best.”

Pouring mana into my right eye, I unfolded the perk I had just obtained.

【Deepening Perk: Electromagnetic Cannon】

The Lightning Longsword heated to pure white and crimson—then spun violently and shot out at seven times the speed of sound.

“……Kyrie?”

Looks like I passed out for a moment.

I turned my body after staring at the light spilling through the hole-punched ceiling.

Hair that had fallen down covered my right-side vision.

“Kyrie.”

Lady Andromeda had opened her eyes and was looking at me.

Eyes that seemed like the sky, like the sea, like gemstones—like every blue in the world gathered into one.

“Sister.”

I reached out with a trembling hand.

“Thank you.”

Lady Andromeda took my hand.

“I believed you’d come, my little brother.”

Chapter 125

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