Those who fought the Thunderblade for the first time mistakenly thought his weakness was his right eye.

Because his eye was covered by a blindfold, the calculation went: if you circle to the right and ambush him, you can win easily.

Even without letting down their guard, their reflex was to strike from the right.

That side looked weaker.

It was a mistake.

“You thought I couldn’t see?”

From the start, Kyrie hardly relied on sight in combat.

Thunderstep already shifted his view drastically; he fought by sensing the environment through Bio-radar, and wearing the blindfold for years had only increased the radar’s resolution.

Even with both eyes covered he could move exactly as if he’d removed them.

“How did you know—no, how did you stop that, you—you! Let go!”

Betelgeuse realized that fact with his whole body.

While Kyrie had been attacking his subordinates, Betelgeuse had turned to the right to ambush.

A thrust that would have driven the Oathbearer’s sword—wrapped in Sword-Aura Steel—through a man’s body using a knight’s physicality and both hands.

It should have been unstoppable in speed and force.

Brrrrrr.

Yet Betelgeuse’s sword was held fast, immovable, a palm’s breadth away from Kyrie’s body.

“Ugh, uugh!”

No matter how much he forced it, it trembled like a fish dragged up from water and had no intention of returning.

Of course Kyrie was not completely at ease either.

‘For a knight-class, his strength is remarkable.’

Sword-Aura Steel was not merely making the blade sharp and hard; it strengthened muscles and reaction speed.

Betelgeuse had to concentrate mana and nerves on him, and that had freed the royal Oathbearers and knights Kyrie had been toying with in the air with chain discharges.

‘Is this the power you get for sacrificing one eye?’

To an uninformed Betelgeuse, it was absurd.

“Damn it.”

In the end he had to show the world the ignominy of dropping his sword and retreating.

If his direct-line family had seen, they would have urged him to be cut in half out of shame.

“Kill them! Take no prisoners!”

Betelgeuse shouted at the Oathbearers and knights rolling on the ground.

“No restraint, no intimidation! Kill them all!”

A killing glint ran through the Oathbearers’ eyes.

They had planned to do exactly that.

Flare, flare!

Sword-Aura Steel flared on the blades again.

It seeped back into the limbs that had been smoking a moment ago and returned strength.

Whoosh!

One Oathbearer sprang up from his prone position and charged at Kyrie.

Slower than a Blue Knight’s Thunderstep, but faster than most could react.

To Kyrie’s Bio-radar it was plainly visible.

‘I meant to finish this with intimidation. Attraction and repulsion alone won’t be enough.’

Kyrie smiled wryly and swung the crystal Star-Sword.

Clang!

The knockback technique Reflux he opened with the crystal Star-Sword surged up from ground to sky like a strange lightning and collided with the Oathbearer’s blade.

Fizz!

The Sword-Aura Steel, which could slice steel like pudding, trembled violently.

Sparks flew off the crystal Star-Sword that had been turning iron edges back into sand.

‘Simple, but a powerful Authority.’

Kyrie used his left hand to radiate and toss the Oathbearer away.

The royal Sword-Aura Steel had no clear elemental property like lightning or flame, but it was the most versatile.

Fizz!

“Aaaah!”

The Oathbearer wrapped in Sword-Aura Steel held firm against Kyrie’s discharge.

The white lightning could not pierce the Oathbearer’s golden radiance and was pushed back.

Still, the Oathbearer’s body stiffened in the meantime.

Chain Lightning.

Kyrie thrust the crystal Star-Sword twenty-one times in succession.

“Huh?”

“Ah, hahaha!”

Pababababak!

The Oathbearer collapsed, bleeding from head to toe.

“Cut them down! Do you think this is an honorable duel? They’re major criminals who invaded the main family’s territory!”

Betelgeuse shouted in fury.

Clang! Chaaeng! Chaaeng!

A dozen Oathbearers and dozens of knights charged Kyrie at once.

“Our lord—!”

“Our lord?”

“W-who is that!? Is it—no?”

The mercenaries behind Kyrie and Erica retreated ten paces each time royal knights stepped forward.

“We didn’t expect this.”

Erica shrugged her shoulders.

‘Really. Local mercenaries would be reluctant to be fully hostile to any house.’

She opened her fan and stepped forward.

“Wait.”

Kyrie shook his head with tens of royal knights before him.

“Are you sane?”

Erica’s eyes widened in bewilderment.

‘Officially released. From now on it’s a debt. We’ll have more to do together later; we can’t already be borrowing favors.’

‘Really. When fighting, you truly are Astreos. You seem to fear nothing.’

Two completely different emotions crossed their eyes for a moment.

‘But even the nation can’t face a dozen Oathbearers. Not now.’

After careful calculation, Kyrie launched himself into the air.

Rumble!

“Kill them!”

As Kyrie stepped with Thunderstep, royal Oathbearers swarmed like hornets.

Kyrie used attraction and repulsion.

‘So end it at once.’

He raised every weapon left by mercenaries, the daggers he had brought, even weapons remaining on the fly mothership into the sky.

‘Possible.’

To a practical man like Kyrie, “realistic” was used among Astreos as a synonym for “coward,” but there was a decisive difference.

Kyrie did not fear anything that was realistically possible.

So he did not err.

Bio-radar precisely told him the positions, postures, and gaps in armor of the Oathbearers leaping straight and the knights zigzagging low along the ground.

With Thundercloud Body exceeding eighteen hundred percent, he could shift all remaining mana from left to right and squeeze out every last drop.

Crackle!

A hundred-plus weapons leapt with electric sparks.

And at speeds invisible to the eye they were fired.

Projectile Imbuement with Magnetic Railshot.

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!

A dust cloud rose as if thousands of Rikenta long spears had been driven into one spot.

“Ugh!”

“Ugh, uugh!?”

“Huh? Huh—?”

Blades and daggers, axes and flails flew faster than sound and mangled the limbs of the royal knights.

“Not bad.”

Erica raised wind to sweep away the dust cloud.

Standing on two feet in that place was only Betelgeuse.

“This, this is—what on earth!”

Betelgeuse looked as if he might faint.

“You didn’t wound me, so I won’t wound myself.”

Kyrie sneered at royal superhumans rolling with limbs missing on the ground.

I used up my mana. I can’t Thunderstep even once more. If he realizes that and charges, I’ll have to throw sand and beg Erica to save me.

Playing out the practiced farce.

“However, these are my prisoners. Their ransom is all the armor, weapons, and banners you have.”

“You demand the royal banner? You attempt to mock Stellite?”

“Are you saying the lives of a dozen Oathbearers are worth less than a single banner? Honor is always borne in deeds.”

‘Borne in deeds.’

Erica liked that line.

‘Out of pride he won’t retaliate. He’s already been stripped by one person and had banners and armor taken.’

What Kyrie was thinking then, she could not have imagined.

‘I will take revenge. Certainly!’

Kyrie could not have imagined Betelgeuse’s thought either.

Betelgeuse called his soldiers.

He took the moaning Oathbearers and knights and returned to the fortress.

Kyrie ordered the remaining mercenaries to gather the royal banners and spoils.

He did not forget the skeleton soaked in the Fly King’s essence; he packed it on his back and returned to Astreos territory.

“Shall we return?”

“Please.”

Walking side by side with Erica.

“Did you hear? The Fly King is dead!”

“The Fly King dead? The Whitebone Lord who lived eight hundred years?”

“Then does that mean there won’t be flying corpses next year or the year after?”

“Not gone entirely, but much fewer! The Fly King was the one who gave wings to the zombie cavalry; now that one is dead.”

Merchants traversing the Astreos–Flammerios–Septentrio region raised their cups in unison.

After the ‘King of a Hundred Legs,’ the ‘Fly King’ had fallen.

Undead lords that once commanded near a hundred thousand troops were dying off quickly.

“Who is all this thanks to?”

“Kyrie! Kyrie! Kyrie!”

“Yes. Isn’t this all thanks to Young Lord Kyrie of Astreos—no, Grand Young Lord!”

“I heard he even wiped out several mutated beast lairs along the southern border.”

“Didn’t Sub-patriarch Andromeda also do such things?”

This carried two meanings.

First, the human satisfaction that monsters which had attacked countless merchants, tribes, and villages for centuries had disappeared.

Second, the merchants’ commercial gain from being able to move quickly between the three houses.

If one tried to monopolize that gain alone, trouble would surely follow.

‘Safe now?’

‘If waterways are secure, we can farm.’

In the worst case, Astreos and Flammerios might send branch lines or governors around the Corpse Wasteland and turn it into territory.

“We should offer our thanks.”

“I agree.”

“First go to the guild. Guild-level is best.”

So merchants thought it wise to make that powerful Blue Knight leave the land to merchants.

As Spiramantaon’s targets had a hundred-plus ships, Free City targets easily had hundreds of wagons.

A guild-level gift offensive from many affluent parties.

“Are all these gifts for him?”

“Yes.”

Joi blinked at the line of wagons stretching from the fortress gate to the horizon.

Similar scenes were happening where Joi didn’t know.

Scipio of the horse patrol immediately sent lightning-messengers and heralds to the capital as soon as the Fly King fell.

“Lord Kyrie defeated that arrogant royal collateral without disobeying your command, my lord!”

The Blue Knights’ reaction was fierce like storm clouds crackling.

“Was that even possible? The engagement ban must have been issued.”

“They used Princess Erica. They formally released her on paper and hired her as an escort…”

“Beauty and valor combined—truly gifted!”

“Beauty and—what?”

“Skilled in both sword and strategy and wealthy and handsome. Learn from them.”

“Thunderblade! Thunderblade! Thunderblade!”

The heirs tried to ride that momentum.

Heirs’ conference.

“We need a new center. Something even Sirmynes and I can’t do.”

Uru, the personal guard’s heir, opened the topic.

“Forgive me, brother. He is the enemy of Unutus and Trinios.”

Diaes, the second of the Trio, immediately grasped the strategy hidden in that nuance.

Diaes, who had lost both elder and younger brothers to Kyrie, found the plan unacceptable.

“All the more reason to do it.”

Nikolaos of the cavalry grinned nastily.

“What we need is time. How many here will really accept Kyrie? If Kyrie becomes the center for our heirs and collides with Andromeda, that will do.”

“Pardon?”

“Then whether they like it or not they’ll have to reach out to us.”

At Nikolaos’s words Diaes trembled silently.

“No matter who wins it’s fine. If Kyrie wins, later we can brand him a traitor and dispose of him; if Andromeda wins, you can revenge. Besides, who would follow Andromeda who betrayed Kyrie later?”

“My thinking was short.”

“Release the dogs. Let’s stir the wind.”

“…….”

Silvanus of the security corps glared at Nikolaos and Diaes as if he disliked them.

The rumor spread quickly.

“Despite being insulted by the royal family, Andromeda had no plan for revenge and merely endured. Lord Kyrie has washed that humiliation away cleanly.”

“Andromeda may lack experience, but isn’t Lord Kyrie the same? They started from the same point.”

“How many wars has Lord Kyrie already won? And now that the Triysian Duke’s obstruction is gone and he still cannot spread his wings—ah. I’ll stop here.”

“Wouldn’t Lord Kyrie suit the Sub-patriarch more?”

Exactly as Kyrie had feared.

Chapter 154

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