"Patrols, you mean?"

"Yeah. Split into several teams and run search operations and force reconnaissance. If you find a group with multiple large entities, don’t engage—just report."

Joi followed Kyrie’s instructions faithfully.

"From here, I will divide the force into nine teams, sir."

Kyrie’s Mounted Patrol 8th Regiment split its 9,000 troops into nine battalions of one thousand each.

"Senior Adopted Heir. If you operate the troops like this, there’s a risk we’ll be defeated in detail."

"Kyrie. If we don’t have forces we can concentrate when we finally find the Whitebone Lord, what then?"

"Ask them whether Flammerios has some political leverage over me. I’ll drop lightning on their lodging."

The Blue Knights and knights voiced doubts about Kyrie’s plan.

They didn’t go to Joi—they went straight to Kyrie and aired their suspicions about the operation.

"Adjutant."

"Yes."

"Why did you allow them to come to me."

Kyrie called Joi over and, in front of them, scolded her in a perfunctory, formal way.

Blame he redirected as something that should have been handled at the Navigator rank.

Normally, there would have been a duel challenge, even if they knew they would lose.

But when Kyrie’s usual reputation mixed with House Astreos’s political situation, a bizarre conclusion emerged.

"In truth, Kyrie is doing this to save us."

"What?"

"Seems like Flammerios demanded that he bring down the Whitebone Lord, the 'King of a Hundred Legs,' as repayment for being late, and for helping on the first day. So he’s sending all of us out on reconnaissance so we only have to deal with small skeleton groups, and he intends to handle the lord himself."

"So we rebelled against his plan without even knowing that. I’m getting chills at how ignorant I was."

"Now I get why he delegated it to the adjutant. So if problems come up, it can be handled as the adjutant’s independent action."

The voices praising Kyrie’s sacrificial conduct grew louder and louder.

As expected of him.

Joi, of course, knew that rumor wasn’t true.

Kyrie wouldn’t use her as a scapegoat.

What Joi had seen in the Lightning Blade’s intent was clear.

Through competition among the nine units, he would drive each unit’s sense of belonging to the extreme.

Not to the mercenary corps they originally belonged to, but to Kyrie’s 8th Regiment.

The reason was obvious.

He intends to build a warlord faction.

To build an army that pledged loyalty to an individual, not a house.

Even Joi didn’t know what Kyrie intended to use that army for.

It can’t be treason. If it were, he wouldn’t have knocked Traysan aside—he would have attached himself to Traysan.

But she was certain of one thing: Kyrie was dreaming of something far bigger than a Senior Adopted Heir.

Hadn’t he brought Rikenta’s Princess Erica under him, saved Astreos’s Andromeda, and now cooperated with Flammerios’s twins?

Joi intended to follow that dream, no matter how far it went.

Because when the army became truly united, it would become a strength greater than anything else.

Joi split the nine units and subjugated every large and small corpse army in the area around the fortress city.

On the sixth day.

"Found it, Colonel Joi."

"What do you mean you found it?"

"The Whitebone Lord. The 'King of a Hundred Legs' is inside a gorge thirty-one kilometers due south."

She could bring Kyrie the report he’d wanted.

"Sir. We found that shit Whitebone Lord."

Joi smiled brightly and raised a crisp salute.

Now you’ll show your new subordinates who you are.

Just like when you brought down the mutated manbeast, like when you captured Erica, like when you brought down Gracus, the Three Musketeers, and Traysan.

She expected him to display his specialness to all with a victory so vivid no one could deny it.

"Found it?"

Kyrie rose slowly from his seat.

Forcing down the urge to curse.

Well, sure. What’s there to hide in this wide-open wasteland? How could you not find a skeleton army in the thousands. It’s impressive you bought me even a week.

Joi had understood his mind and bought him time for a full week.

So I really am about to fight a house-sized monster with just a single blade.

The only comfort was that he’d kept up his Magnetic Railshot practice in the meantime.

A princess of the Rikenta royal family, the wind great house blessed by the free Storm Castle.

A sinner placed under Kyrie’s protection.

Princess Erica the captive watched a group heading south.

"Packed your lunch?"

"Yeah."

"Blanket mat, too?"

Andromeda, making idle small talk like they were going on a picnic, and Kyrie indulging her.

"Sure is fast when you focus only on searching."

"If we’d scattered the army into five-hundred-to-one-thousand units, we’d have found it quickly too. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to take the risk of being defeated in detail, and the risk that when we finally found the lord, we wouldn’t be able to kill it."

"Is that so? Yeah, I guess it would be. Everyone knows the right answer. You have to light a fire to cook meat. They just hesitate because they’re afraid their hands will get burned."

"But that Kyrie would have lit the fire even if it burned his hands. That’s why he was born in the red-light district and still made it into House Astreos’s Patriarch succession. He’ll surely adapt well in our house, too."

Flammerios’s twins, watching Kyrie’s back.

Around them, the superhuman troops of both houses—the Blue Knights and Red Knights, knights and messengers, and so on—were riding across the red-stained earth.

Even counting noncombat attendants, the group was fewer than one hundred.

Both the Astreos and Flammerios "armies" had scattered, entering a search operation and defeating corpse armies in detail.

Even if a corpse army threatened ordinary villages, towns, and merchants, it was child’s play for the soldiers of a great house.

They had certainly prevented civilian casualties.

But Erica thought the operation was wrong at the root.

Sure, you found it. But now, even if you try to gather the scattered army, the Whitebone Lord will leave in the meantime.

The dominion of the six great houses didn’t come from the consent of the masses, but from the choice of the constellations.

No matter how one tried to prevent civilian damage like Kyrie did now, it didn’t expand their dominion.

You’re only taking on needless risk.

But Erica couldn’t stop Kyrie.

Because she had lost to him.

She still didn’t know whether she had lost because of that or despite that.

"Princess Erica?"

Just then, an uninvited guest approached.

"Vichera. I saw you once a few years ago."

Erica faced Vichera while straightening the sleeves of her plain one-piece dress that symbolized her status as a sinner.

"Your expression looked poor, so I came."

The twin younger sister of the flame great house rode closer to Erica with a sadistic smile, like a cat eyeing a fallen bird.

Erica started to speak her thoughts about the operation, then inwardly shook her head.

"The sunlight is just too strong, so it’s dazzling. Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine."

What could she possibly say to someone wearing an expression like that?

"How fortunate. I was worried that a princess who once kept hundreds of attendants might feel lonely at the gulf of ages—."

Vichera put on crocodile tears.

So you’re mocking me this brazenly.

Erica thought Andromeda had been truly honest.

That woman laughed openly. It was easier on the heart, at least.

There were more people than she could count on both hands who wanted to sneer at Erica—who had once enjoyed one of the strongest powers even among great-house direct lines, only to fall in utter ruin.

She felt the same sneer from Vichera.

"So hurry back to Kyrie’s side or your brother’s side and put on that cheap smile."

So Erica decided to display the virtue of honesty, the way Andromeda had.

Snap.

She opened her fan, covered the lower half of her face, and cut off Vichera’s words.

"Did I hear you wrong?"

"No. You heard perfectly. I’m worried, though—your hearing’s already going bad. I wonder if you can even run an operation properly like this."

"For a sinner captive, your mouth is rough."

Vichera immediately lifted her eyes in a fierce glare.

"One who is king alone is king of all. I have never once forgotten who I truly am. But you seem to doubt whether you are even yourself."

Erica curved the corners of her eyes like a gentle breeze.

Even if she was wounded and fallen to the ground, she was Erica—a raptor that carried storms.

She wasn’t someone who would be done in by the claws of a kitten.

"Kyrie has no intention of playing games with Helios."

"...!"

"So don’t entertain strange thoughts. Just finish the subjugation properly."

"I will gladly take that advice to heart."

But Vichera, too, was a beast.

She slowly closed and opened her downward-slanted golden eyes and nodded.

"We’ve arrived!"

A shout rang out at just that moment.

Vichera turned forward.

Erica stared at her back for a moment, then looked away.

Ahead lay a gorge lurking like a demon’s maw.

The split is narrow, but the interior space is wide. It’s not good for pouring down Lightning Strike (Authority).

Inside, skeleton soldiers swarmed.

She could also see several high-grade entities—Whitebone Knights formed from dozens of skeletons fused together, and Whitebone trumpeters cloaked in pitch-black feather capes, holding bone flutes.

The 'King of a Hundred Legs' was among them.

Clack, clack-clack.

The lord, its entire body smoothly covered in white bone, looked like a centipede and mantis fused together, then inflated tens of millions of times over.

["Kkadeuk, kkadeuk, kkadeudeuk."]

Its skull-like head held eight red eyes. Behind its head stretched long trumpet-like tubes, and from its four-way-split maw, black mist poured out.

Its white carapace forelimbs, bristling with countless spikes and blades, looked sharp enough to turn an ogre into minced mushrooms in a single blow.

A monster about two hundred forty meters long.

The 'King of a Hundred Legs' lifted its head.

["---, ---!"]

Eight blood-red pupils flashed, and thick black mist spread from its four-split maw.

A hideous, savage ancient evil that had transcended life and death.

["Who do you think you’re baring your maw at?"]

Erica heard a voice several times more ferocious than that evil.

Andromeda bared her teeth and reached up toward the sky.

Monster.

Erica clicked her tongue inwardly at that spirit that didn’t shrink back in the slightest.

Flash!

A blue bolt of lightning dropped onto the Whitebone Lord’s massive head.

["----!?"]

The Whitebone Lord’s white carapace scorched.

Its hundreds of legs were electrocuted and spasmed.

"We’re going. Just keep those subordinates in check."

Kyrie raised his cavalry lance and reminded Vicher and Vichera of the plan one last time.

"Leave it to us."

"Will keeping them in check be enough? I’m coming right after you."

"I won’t stop you. But you won’t be able to keep up."

He laughed boldly and looked back once, then charged out with Frey and several Blue Knights.

Without realizing it, Erica’s eyes chased Kyrie’s back.

On a battlefield where everyone was looking in different directions, could he bring down his enemy?

She was intensely curious.

This operation was very easy.

Watching the corpse army pour out of the gorge, I lightly tugged the reins and adjusted my speed.

The enemy could be divided into three categories.

One: ordinary skeletons.

Two: high-grade entities like Whitebone Knights, Whitebone trumpeters, and Whitebone drillmasters.

Three: that mountain-sized monster, the 'King With a Hundred Legs'.

It would end only when we took the king’s head.

And there was a high chance that king could wield the power we had named Mental Shockwave.

Given its size, even Andromeda wouldn’t be able to bring it down easily with ordinary lightning.

So we just keep striking it with lightning—only enough to prevent it from triggering Mental Shockwave.

The plan was for the twins to knock down ordinary skeletons and some of the high-grade entities with flame waves.

We Blue Knights only needed to cut down one or two high-grade entities as we advanced, then take the head of that Whitebone centipede.

About two hundred forty meters.

An absurd size, but because it was a centipede, it wasn’t as oppressive as you’d think.

At least, the width and thickness of its body weren’t that different from the 30-meter-class monstrosity we killed not long ago.

Unlike then, Andromeda was fine, and if it really came down to it, we could just fire the electromagnetic cannon.

"O fire that burns all things."

Behind us, the Red Knights continued casting together with the twins.

Whoosh, whoooosh!

A 'flame wave' hundreds of meters wide and fifteen meters high surged and rolled.

"Those guys really are incredible."

Frey exclaimed in admiration.

She’d learned that flames could hold something down for longer than lightning.

And the "grand magic" of spreading an Authority massively with multiple people together looked far easier for them than for us.

KWAHHHHH!

The flame wave surged toward the mouth of the gorge.

It collided with the corpse army.

Chapter 143

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