Arminan’s Wind King Armor shattered like sugar glass.

Even accounting for how much mana he’d burned after taking Andromeda’s Gathered Clouds, it broke far too fast.

Puh-BOOM!

But Arminan truly had been the youngest constellation.

At the very last moment of the very last moment, he yanked his body back hard and minimized the hit.

That was shallow.

Kyrie realized he’d cut leather and muscle, but he hadn’t pierced as deep as the organs.

He would have to be satisfied with having half-disabled him for now.

“Was he unconscious?”

“Yes, inquisitor. For now, we should retreat—”

“How far, and how?”

More than anything, Saint Deneve was alive.

Starlight Healing Prayer.

Saint Deneve, his neck wound fully closed, stood back up and stared the two of them down.

“You did well. But either way, you have no future.”

Behind him, Cathedral Knights and more than ten inquisitors gathered in.

They began to surround Andromeda and Kyrie, circling as they closed in.

Formation!

It was a technique Kyrie had already suffered through once.

Saaah!

The clouded sky turned into a star-poured night sky, and black fog rose across the ground.

The fully deployed Demon Star Confusion Formation swallowed the two of them.

“Wow! That’s seriously amazing.”

“You can say that right now?”

Before they knew it, Kyrie and Andromeda were standing back-to-back on a nameless plain.

["There can only be one Sub-patriarch, in the end."]

Saint Deneve’s voice drifted down from that distant night sky.

["You will eventually come into conflict, no matter what."]

Screeeee!

Meteor-like Authorities rained down toward them.

“It’s mixed—fake and real! They’re all Authorities, so Bio-radar can’t help us dodge!”

“Then we just block all of them, right? Easy.”

“We need to conserve mana.”

“Conserve mana? Why?”

Back-to-back, Kyrie and Andromeda blocked the Royal Family’s Authorities one by one.

Star-Shard Baptism sprayed scorching mana rounds like buckshot, Starlight Mana Bolts—glowing lumps no bigger than a palm—shot in, and Starfire, white-hot flame, came pouring out.

Thud!

Gravity Wave.

In an instant, their shoulders became twice as heavy.

“Ghk.”

“So this… there’s no way to block it, huh? Right?”

Saint Deneve’s voice stretched out like a prayer.

["By Kyrie’s reckless execution of judgment, Royal Family Stellite will at last raise its spear toward House Astreos again and again. You are the one who opened the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War with your own hands, a sinner who scattered the tinder. The night sky has recorded your folly, and starlight shall not forget that sin."]

It grew grander and more oppressive by the second.

["Sub-patriarch Andromeda. For now, that Blue Knight may look like an adorable little brother to you, but how long will that illusion last? Before long, you will become the head of house who commands countless vassals and kin—will you truly drag your entire house into ruin for the sake of a single younger brother even then?"]

Thud! Thud! Thud!

With every sentence, Gravity Wave stacked heavier.

["In the end, there will come a day when you cannot help but deem it your duty to cut Kyrie away instead. The constellation will watch your decision, and the Myriad Star Church will not delay its judgment."]

One of Andromeda’s knees buckled.

“How humiliating.”

Kyrie’s legs trembled as if he might collapse at any moment, too.

It is efficient, in its own way.

It was closer to mental agony than physical pressure.

Since he was a realist himself, he didn’t have the confidence to endure that impossible situation.

“Maybe so.”

Andromeda braced a hand on her knee and tried to rise.

“Maybe we can’t be the good older sister and the obedient little brother forever. The lightning-strike life we pursue isn’t a life where you can walk side by side with someone.”

Kyrie held out his hand, and Andromeda took it and stood.

“But we can help each other get where we want to go.”

A clear smile rested on her lips.

It wasn’t the expression of someone stubbornly ignoring a truth she knew better than anyone out of childish rage and pride.

“My little brother is going to become Rikenta’s Wind Duke.”

["…Excuse me?"]

Saint Deneve’s voice trembled.

“What?”

“Did I just hear that wrong?”

A ripple of commotion spread even among the Navigators and Cathedral Knights outside the formation.

“What insane nonsense is that? How would that position ever become yours?”

Even Arminan, frantic, shouted.

“Why would Rikenta’s Viceroy House take you as a son-in-law?!”

Wind Duke.

It was the title for the husband when the head of Rikenta’s Viceroy House was a woman.

“Because Erica is in our hands. He’ll marry her for political reasons, gain the succession claim, and rule Rikenta in place of Erica, who’s a criminal.”

“Impossible! The Myriad Star Church—no. Not a single main line will accept it!”

Andromeda treated that shout like a dog barking.

“Looks like the numbers work out. I’ve got the direction, too. I’m right, aren’t I?”

She gathered lightning into both hands, about to smash Heavenly Thunderbolt (light) together.

The best way to break a formation was a wide-area attack.

If you shoved out a few of the pillars from their key positions, the illusion couldn’t help but collapse.

“Can you do it alone?”

Kyrie turned his head.

“You can’t use Heavenly Thunderbolt (light), can you? Isn’t that right?”

Instead of answering, Andromeda’s little brother thrust out a fist crackling with sparks.

【Heavenly Thunderbolt (light) (00 days 23 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds)】

It was an Authority I got while being egged on to betray.

Smiling at the situation like some kind of twist of fate, Kyrie activated the perk.

“Block it!”

“Pour it on!”

Urgent shouts burst from the enemy formation.

Kyrie took it as proof everything was going the way it should.

Andromeda and Kyrie collided their Heavenly Thunderbolt (light).

Clang!

The Demon Star Confusion Formation shattered in a single blow.

“Ghk!”

“Ack!”

“Ugh!”

Cathedral Knights staggered, blood spraying from their mouths.

The Patriarch’s Audience Hall at the top of Astreion Prime.

A place where the rain never stopped and the thunder never ceased.

“H-hahahaha, hahahaha! Ha—ha!”

Peleus threw his head back and roared with laughter in front of a crystal slate.

“Yes! Yes! That’s it! That’s how it should be! That’s how you know they’re Peleus’s children!”

Rarely, he even spoke directly to the stigma.

“Thunderbolt Constellation—do you see? My proud children. Well? At that level, wouldn’t they be worthy of descending upon this land even after I’m gone?”

He was drunk on the same ecstasy he felt when he drank a Thunder-class elixir.

If you only looked at rank, betraying each other was unquestionably the rational choice.

Compared to the power and forces he held, Kyrie’s official position was pitiful.

Officially, he wasn’t even a senior adopted heir—he was merely the youngest heir.

If he’d joined hands with the adopted heirs and plotted against Andromeda, he could have stood truly tall in the house, at least in terms of internal footing.

Andromeda was the same.

After Traisan fell, the adopted heirs’ power had shrunk sharply.

If she purged Kyrie as well, she could have lifted off into an unrivaled weight class among her peers.

With an image as an iron-blooded ruler added on top, she could have inherited the dukedom in stable fashion.

But the two of them didn’t do that.

Brother and sister, bound by a single drop of blood and ninety-nine drops of ties, didn’t betray each other.

Nor was it a weak patchwork compromise that abandoned practical power just to preserve an emotional bond.

Neither Kyrie nor Andromeda sacrificed a thing, and neither Kyrie nor Andromeda conceded a thing.

They only helped each other reach the place the other wanted more.

I can’t be forced to sit here. I can’t be pushed up into this seat, either. They have to climb to my height on their own strength—only then can they see the world I see.

By understanding Peleus perfectly, they moved in ways that surpassed even Peleus’s expectations.

Kyrie didn’t betray the stepsister who might purge him at any time.

Andromeda didn’t purge the stepbrother who might betray her at any time.

It was clearly inefficient.

Life was paid upfront; even if there was a massive return someday, if you couldn’t bear the risk right now, you had to give it up.

Like knowing you could profit greatly by buying more magic tools and hunting larger beasts, yet being too busy paying off the installments on the last magic tool you bought to do it.

And if that risk was your life, it went without saying.

Just the thought of wagering your one and only life stirred emotions you couldn’t control.

And if you succeeded in braving that danger, you could stir emotions in others that they couldn’t control about you.

Because all respect and fear, awe and loyalty, were born from that very irrationality.

What cannot be understood can only be followed.

The Parent Constellation at the center of the orbit.

An absolute being beyond profit and loss.

That was the seat Peleus occupied now.

Many people misunderstood, but a lightning-strike life wasn’t a life where you climbed into the place everyone pursued.

It was a life where you found the place you wanted, and climbed into it.

That was the greatest difference between House Astreos and Flammerios—and why the epithet “self-willed” clung to House Astreos.

The two spiraling trajectories crossed beautifully without either of them being hurt.

“Your Grace.”

“Yes. Let me see.”

“They’ve arrived outside.”

“I know. Have them wait here.”

“Please, preserve your health—”

Peleus patted the shoulder of the chief attendant standing beside him.

“Before I died, I figured if I found even one bastard child like me, that would count as a successful life.”

“……”

“And I found two, of all things. That’s a smashing success.”

He swept his long ceremonial robes and walked out of the palace.

Shaaah!

A palace where the rain never stopped.

A garden where bizarre plants grew that were closer to aquatic plants than anything else.

“Looks like I’ve earned their hatred properly.”

Barefoot, Peleus stepped onto the stone-slab stepping-stones and looked over the uninvited guests.

Dozens of Cathedral Knights, fully armed in pure-white plate armor, made multicolored starlight flare along their longswords.

Each one was planetary-rank or higher—the very finest elite of the Papal See.

Among them stood four figures in black vestments like the night sky.

“To send four Apostles.”

Twelve powerful Cardinals, holding both the right to vote for and the right to be elected as the next pope of the Myriad Star Church.

["If you set one of the two as head of house, then the former head must disappear, no?"]

A decoy.

That was the real reason the pope sent Saint Deneve.

The formation shattered.

“My sword!”

Kyrie sprinted for the monastery corridor and unleashed attraction.

Even in the darkened corridor, Bio-radar’s detection net carried clearly.

Whoomp!

The crystal Star-Sword and the Thunderbolt Longsword he’d left at the entrance, along with the belt holding throwing daggers, all flew in at once.

“Yes! Take my swords!”

In Bio-radar, Kyrie also saw a shape that wasn’t a sword at all.

Betelgeuse, dyeing his longsword in multicolored starlight, swung down at him.

Saaak! Saaak!

An enormous quantity of mana—so much that starlight rippled and trailed with each swing.

Claaang!

Kyrie, in a panic, pulled only one dagger first out of the two swords and dozens of daggers.

He drew the crystal longsword midair as it flew in through the iron bars and met the attack.

Pa-ba-ba-bak!

In a single breath, he deployed Linked Thunder, firing twenty-one consecutive thrusts to check him.

“You should’ve gone back then!”

“You, of all people!”

Betelgeuse redirected it with Meteor Shower—an offense-and-defense-as-one sequence of continuous slashes that traced a spiral.

His defense is solid.

It was a defense as tough as his build.

Tsssss!

Kyrie raised Sacheol blades once more.

This time, he didn’t pull them up like tentacles from underfoot—he compacted them tightly and gripped them like a sword.

“That’s nothing!”

Betelgeuse kept carving in with Meteor Shower.

Strength so overflowing that multicolored starlight remained like a curtain where the slashes passed.

Clang! Clang! Claaang!

Even with two swords, Kyrie was steadily forced back.

“I’ll take back my battle standard!”

Betelgeuse swung his longsword up in a huge rising cut.

At that moment, Kyrie let go of both swords and dove inside his guard.

The crystal Star-Sword was knocked away, while the Sacheol sword scattered into the air, becoming metal powder.

Tsssss!

And the instant Kyrie slipped into Betelgeuse’s inner space, it became a blade again, sprouting long from Kyrie’s hand.

Thud!

Betelgeuse collapsed.

The battle ended there, for now.

The moment the formation shattered, Saint Deneve and the Cathedral Knights, and Rikenta’s Navigators, retreated.

“You hurt?”

“I can take it. You?”

“I didn’t even nick a finger. The ones Traisan brought were stronger.”

Instead of giving chase, Kyrie and Andromeda took a moment to catch their breath.

Andromeda worried about Kyrie, and Kyrie was worried about the ominous sensation he’d been feeling for a while now.

“Sis.”

“Yeah?”

“There were fewer Cathedral Knights than I expected.”

“What?”

“Right now, both of us have left the prime seat.”

“No way. It can’t be.”

Andromeda let out a hollow laugh.

“Wasn’t it always ‘no way, no way,’ and then Traisan brought the Royal Family bastards with him?”

Kyrie didn’t laugh.

Chapter 162

Comments