Kyrie had never seen Magnus at maximum output.

Back then, we were inside the city, and Magnus was off guard.

Most fights between Blue Knights were like that.

In close combat against a highly mobile Blue Knight, it is practically impossible to gather mana at maximum output, too.

If you stalled to cast your strongest Authority, the opponent would close in with Thunderstep and swing a blade clean through your neck.

In general, the mana you could use in a single instant without a long cast was around ten percent of your total reserves.

In other words, if it was a fight where you could afford a long cast, you could show a full hundred percent.

Tststststst!

Black mist whipped across the red earth of the wasteland.

It was mist made of fine metal powder, large and small.

The mist settled over the entire shallow basin where the Fly King’s forces had taken position.

["--! ---!"]

["-----!"]

Whitebone Knights with imposing frames flexed their dominion and barked at the surrounding skeleton soldiers.

They were ordered to identify this anomaly.

Wiiiiiiing!

Weeeeeeeeng!

Buuuuuuung!

Skeleton soldiers with compound eyes and fly wings rose in a buzz.

"You said you would stop them from taking off."

Vicher frowned.

"They will not take off."

Magnus lifted a hand without even looking back at him.

Saaah!

Sacheol began to spin.

"Never again."

Whooooosh, whooooosh!

From across the wasteland, Sacheol was dragged in.

The black mist that had blanketed only up to their shins was now a black storm that surged up to the sky.

WHOOOOOOOSH!

A Sacheol storm.

A highest-tier Authority of magnetism arts, raging across several kilometers.

SAAAAAAH!

Skeleton soldiers were shaved away as if wood were being sanded down.

To deliberately widen the range, the density of Sacheol had been limited, so the speed was not especially fast.

But the fly skeleton soldiers’ wings were far softer than their bone torsos.

"Kaaak!?"

"Fliiiieee!? Fliiiieee!"

"Sssiiik!?"

Skeleton rain began to fall from the sky.

Thud! Thud!

Hundreds of insect-shell skeletons shot upward, then dropped as their wings were all shredded.

Many were completely smashed by the impact of the fall, or broke apart after colliding with one another.

Magnus shut even his eyes, sweeping his hands as if conducting an orchestra.

From his fingertips, a storm rose as though it would swallow the entire wasteland.

So this is a Planetary Constellation.

Kyrie nodded without realizing it.

The pillars of House Astreos.

He admitted it.

Magnus was a man worthy of awe.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Magnificent."

"Our turn?"

Vicher and Vichera drew up mana as they watched Whitebone Giants approach, pushing through even the Sacheol storm.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Giants that rose from ten meters to thirty, formed from thousands upon tens of thousands of skeletons, were truly like moving mountains.

Vichera ensured those mountains could come no closer.

Fwoosh! Fwoosh!

Her twin tails of hair whipped in the air.

The red, billowing hair had already become flame.

Countless strands of fire threaded into the Sacheol storm.

"We are fairly good at spiritization, you know."

The Red Knights also breathed fire from their fingertips or their mouths, adding to their lord.

Flames spun along with the Sacheol storm.

A blazing Fire Dragon Ascension surged upward inside the Sacheol storm.

FWOOOOOSH!

With a body hundreds of meters tall and pressure and heat like a furnace, it blocked the Whitebone Giants.

"That is why we can do this too. Fireworks!"

The red dragon waterspout flung sparks into the sky.

Vicher swelled that flame severalfold, then slammed it back down to the ground.

KWA-BOOM! KWA-BOOM! KWA-BOOM!

The high-tier fire Authority, Sky-Filling Fire Rain, poured down like Rikenta’s monsoon.

Each drop of that rain was an explosion that scorched a radius of over ten meters.

A corpse army that had numbered ten thousand collapsed as though it were melting away.

"Kiri-kiri. At this rate, we might be able to kill it from a distance."

Frey reslung her greatsword across her back.

"Yeah."

Kyrie let himself hold a hope that maybe they could.

Back then, the gorge got in the way, but this is flat ground. There is nowhere to dodge. No matter how big and strong it is, it cannot escape this storm. And no matter how terrifying Mental Shockwave is, it is not a threat at this distance. For people like us, even if we receive purification after everything ends, it will not be too late.

Andromeda, too, stayed ready to drive down Thundercloud at any moment in case the Fly King tried to flee.

There are no variables. If anything, because it was strong as a lord rather than as an individual, it is one step behind in front of powerful superhuman soldiers who can handle armies.

Kyrie clenched his fist and anticipated victory.

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

Three seconds after the Fly King unleashed Mental Shockwave, that expectation vanished.

"What is that? That thing."

Frey did not draw her greatsword.

Not because she forgot in surprise, but because it felt like drawing it would not let her do anything anyway.

"Incredible. Even my Sacheol giants are not like this."

"Brother! Make it bigger!"

"It is too much! Spreading sideways is easy, but height—!"

Magnus, Vicher, and Vichera all let out empty laughs.

Even I think this one would be hard.

Even Erica, who constantly obsessed over when Kyrie might finally look at her, hoped he would not look this time.

Tststststst!

Dozens of Whitebone Giants.

Hundreds of Whitebone Knights.

Thousands of fly-skeleton soldiers.

All of them latched onto the Fly King.

They formed a colossal mothership that made the King With a Hundred Legs look like a snake in front of a bull.

The shape was, of course, a fly.

WEEEEEEEENG!

A Whitebone fly grown so immense that its wind pressure alone whipped up storms here, more than a kilometer away, lifted the fly mothership into the sky.

Neither the Sacheol storm nor Fire Dragon Ascension could hold the fly mothership down.

"How strong must its dominion be to do that."

"So it truly was the strongest lord. A lord that becomes one with the swarm."

The Blue Knights and Red Knights gaped and stared up at the sky.

"Older sister!"

"Yes! I know!"

At that moment, only two people kept their wits.

The Sub-patriarch of House Astreos and the new Senior Adopted Heir.

Andromeda stretched out a hand toward the sky.

KWA-ROOOOM!

A Thundercloud came down, as thick as the one Kyrie had once called with a build-up of six hundred ninety percent true energy.

Then, gathering the thunder created by that terrifying pillar of lightning into a single point, she struck it dead-on with Heavenly Thunderburst.

CLANG!

Strike with lightning, shatter with thunder.

The Fly King’s abdomen, unimaginably vast, collapsed completely.

KWA-DRRRRK!

Intertwined bones split apart and fell, trailing down to the ground like a long rope ladder, dragging and scraping.

The ascent that had seemed ready to soar into the clouds stopped, and it held a precarious altitude of roughly a hundred meters.

["-----!?"]

The Fly King hurled out a psychic wave packed with pain and shock.

"Frey."

Kyrie drew the Thunderclap Greatsword.

"Kiri-kiri. S-should we maybe think this through one more time?"

Frey tried to stop Kyrie.

"I think the conclusion stays the same no matter how many times we think. Joi. Bring the javelins."

Kyrie spoke as he mounted up, forcing on his usual bold grin.

Wow. I really do not want to do this.

"Please return safely, my lord."

Joi, the only Navigator here, handed Kyrie a bundle of javelins.

"I cannot believe I am going to miss being unemployed!"

After a long sigh, Frey also drew her greatsword and mounted up.

Kyrie spurred his horse toward the Fly King’s mothership.

Yeah. I have been saying it all along. Give me absurd trials. Let me achieve a feat the Thunder’s Roar will see and remember!

A smile rose at the corner of Frey’s mouth as she followed.

Kyrie and Frey galloped down the hill.

Their target was the long skeleton ladder dangling from the Fly King’s fly mothership.

The interference came immediately.

["Grrrrr."]

Even the portions torn off the Fly King’s body were swarms made from countless skeletons.

Even excluding the parts burned by Andromeda’s Thundercloud, it was still a significant volume.

["Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap."]

["Hii, hiiii!"]

Two Whitebone Giants, several Whitebone Knights, and hundreds of skeleton soldiers rose up.

weapon lightning imbuement.

Kyrie aimed a javelin at a fifteen-meter-class Whitebone Giant.

Magnetic Railshot!

He forced in lightning as hard as he could, then fired it with Magnetic Railshot.

THUNK!

The javelin tore through the air and pierced the Whitebone Giant’s eye dead center.

PAJIIIJIIICK!

Discharging the current it held, it shredded the Whitebone Giant’s dominion to pieces.

["WOOOOOO!"]

Rrrrrrrr!

The Whitebone Giant collapsed, transforming into countless Whitebone soldiers.

Javelins and daggers differ in mass by hundreds of times.

Magnus, breathing hard, looked toward Joi.

And weapon lightning imbuement on top of that. An unexpected combination. There is an efficiency beyond simply firing faster and firing more.

"Deputy Commander Joi."

"Yes."

"Bring me a bundle of javelins as well."

"Yes, my lord. I will bring them at once."

Magnus fired Magnetic Railshot with javelins too.

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

The Magnetic Railshots shattered the fly mothership’s exoskeleton and sank deep.

Magnus’s Magnetic Railshot had the power to drop an ordinary Whitebone Knight in one blow, but the mothership was simply too enormous.

"Your Highness. Please strike that location with Lightning Strike (Authority)."

Magnus did not hesitate.

"Everyone who can use Lightning Strike (Authority) or guided lightning, aim for the spearheads!"

It was a variable already born, an improvisation already underway.

"Understood."

"Yes, Sir Magnus."

Andromeda and the nearby Blue Knights began to move.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

Bolts fell from a clear sky and hammered the fly mothership.

Lightning that burrowed in along the javelin points burned away, without leaving a trace, the dominion the Whitebone commanders received from the Fly King and extended into the skeleton soldiers.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

House-sized piles of bones dropped to the ground.

"Frey! Bio-radar!"

"Got it!"

Kyrie and Frey spurred forward, dodging every fragment as they chased the fly mothership.

Forward, then jump left again, sprint for three seconds, then leap straight ahead!

With that fearsome Bio-radar, and with Frey amplifying the radar signal through the Coward's Grip gauntlet she had received from Kyrie, they tracked the falling bone masses.

That one I can block.

Fragments they could not possibly dodge, they smashed apart with their fists.

Traysan’s gauntlet, engraved with Impact Sharing and Impact Reflection, earned its keep even under its new owner.

"Heeheeheeng!"

A skull on the ground bit the horse’s ankle.

"Gh!"

Astreos warhorses could crush a single skull immediately, but when dozens, then hundreds of skulls tore into their legs, they could not endure it.

"Jump!"

"Yeah!"

Kyrie and Frey sprang off the horses, using Thunderstep.

Still under Erica’s constant blessing of Glide, that leap cleared close to a hundred meters with ease.

Go.

Andromeda and the Blue Knights continued calling down Lightning Strike (Authority), striking the fly mothership over and over.

Even to clueless eyes like ours, that is incredible.

That is the pinnacle of a Blue Knight.

As expected, in sheer physicality, the great houses have no equal.

Vicher, Vichera, and the Red Knights dealt with the skeletons that broke off from the fly mothership and came attacking this way, aiming for Andromeda and the Blue Knights.

Kyrie and Frey left it all behind and ran.

At this rate, we will lose it.

The long Whitebone rope ladder that had streamed from the fly mothership’s body swayed ahead.

But it has already shrunk considerably. Even it cannot maintain its original shape. It is continuing to use the power of that Mental Shockwave.

Kyrie drew a javelin and examined the fly mothership’s structure.

FLASH!

The abdomen was ruined, and the chest and head were still under constant attack.

Because Magnus had embedded Magnetic Railshots at exquisite positions, Andromeda’s Lightning Strike (Authority) drilled straight into one wing.

["■■■■■!"]

The Fly King kept unleashing Mental Shockwave.

Around the wings, illusions of black feathers and swirling black foam repeatedly appeared, repairing the wings moment by moment.

Then.

Kyrie spread what was likely the best Bio-radar in this entire detachment and swept over the Fly King’s whole body.

BUUUUUUNG!

It is a triangular structure. Equilateral triangles are fused into long frames, and those frames form another equilateral triangle.

He pictured the structure in his mind like a three-dimensional map, then identified exactly where Andromeda was driving impact with Lightning Strike (Authority).

There!

Kyrie poured lightning into the javelin and fired.

THUNK!

He aimed under the fly mothership’s wing.

Chapter 147

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