"My army, my army!"

Orcail’s gaze wavered like a candle flame before the wind.

It was a deeply shameful thing for a superhuman who wielded wind, but it was understandable.

Superhuman soldiers, especially Navigators and knights, were extremely expensive human resources.

You had to find talented children, train them, feed them, house them, and arm them with all kinds of combat equipment.

There was no need to even mention the cost of the various targets and elixirs consumed in training, and even after they had been fully raised, you had to pay them enormous salaries every year to keep them.

As long as they stayed alive, they were worth the price.

The problem was when they died.

Once they died, all that money vanished.

Navigators in particular were raised as elite minorities even among a house’s superhuman troops, so many Authorities were passed down not through a systematic educational structure, but through apprenticeship or one-to-one inheritance.

If things went wrong, even things like nighttime aiming methods for the Air Cannon or glider control techniques might be cut off.

"How did they notice? It was a perfect night raid!"

At Morgan’s question, Orcail regained his senses.

"Erica! That bitch I’ll chew to pieces!"

Though whether that would help was another matter.

"Deploy the repeating-crossbow units! If those palisades cannot serve as shields, they won’t hold! Blow away their shield walls or whatever they have, and rescue my knights!"

If one calmly devised the best possible strategy, then steeled oneself emotionally at the final moment and faced the enemy, that was one thing, but no efficiency could ever come from doing it the other way around.

But an army was a collective that lived by orders and died by orders.

"Forward, move!"

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

The Rikenta repeating-crossbow units marched through the jungle.

The repeating crossbows, thoroughly blessed by the wind, boasted enough power to punch straight through a fully armored man.

"Fire! Fire all of them!"

There were thousands of soldiers carrying those repeating crossbows.

In theory, they were a great force capable of wiping out Kyrie’s army and Nereus’s army within minutes.

Of course, even Kyrie, the most rational of Blue Knights, would never make plans based on such armchair theory.

Every plan falls apart within five minutes of battle beginning.

Sometimes, having no plan at all could be the finest plan.

"Nereus!"

"I know!"

The Lightning Sword called to the Thunder Governor.

Even in this dense jungle, the Bio-radar stretching several kilometers had already identified the enemy command’s location.

This time, even Erica did not call the two of them reckless.

"Do not make this lady a widow before the wedding rites are even held."

War, to begin with, was itself something sufficiently brutish, rude, and unreasonable.

And so the most brutish, rude, and unreasonable one was the one who won.

"Let’s go!"

Rumble!

The two Blue Knights unleashed Thunderstep strongly enough to shake the earth.

"Kiri-kiri! Let’s go together! I’m unemployed again!"

"Seniors! Please take me with you!"

"For my brother’s share too!"

"M-me too! I’m going too. Far too many people think I’m really just some machine girl!"

Frey, Vane, Epicus, Hari, and the other personal-guard Blue Knights ran after them.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

Streaks of multicolored electric sparks bursting beneath their feet trailed long through the darkness.

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

In the jungle, more than a dozen Blue Knights encountered the thousands-strong repeating-crossbow units.

Even if they were repeating-crossbow units, that did not mean every last one of them consisted of crossbowmen.

There were shield soldiers carrying thick shields in pairs, spearmen and net-casters working in teams, and retainers, retainers, and knights forming decapitation squads, so they were not much different from an ordinary army.

Perhaps.

Orcail and Morgan thought that perhaps the repeating-crossbow units might actually be able to shoot those dozen or so Blue Knights to death.

The fact that this was not a thought born of reason, but an expectation produced by desire, was revealed immediately after the clash began.

"Prepare to fire!"

Before the knight’s order had even fully ended, a thunderbolt fell.

A Blue Knight with a lion’s mane and blue-green eyes came charging in.

["Heavenly! Thunderbolt!"]

Kwa-kwa-kwa-boom!

A blazing crimson lightning strike crashed down.

And a shockwave violent enough to make that lightning seem almost nostalgic swept outward.

Knights and retainers rolled across the ground, and soldiers of the repeating-crossbow units were hurled high into the sky.

The intensely superheated air spread, burning the corneas and airways of soldiers across more than a hundred meters, making them rub their eyes and gasp for breath.

"Fire!"

The unit beside them at least managed to release a volley.

Pa-pa-pa-pa-pak!

Hundreds, thousands of repeating-crossbow bolts powerful enough to pierce even plate armor tore through the wind.

They tore and tore and tore through it, then stopped in midair and began to spin.

"Huh?"

"Why don’t I hear anything hitting?"

"Hey, look, look at that!"

Wooooong, woooooong!

The repeating-crossbow bolts that had already been fired spun in midair toward the very men who had shot them.

Attraction and repulsion.

"Those who flee will not be pursued!"

In the darkness, white electric sparks leapt around that vivid blue single eye.

Those pale sparks soon spread toward every repeating-crossbow bolt hanging in the sky.

Magnetic Railshot, lightning imbuement.

Kyrie fired hundreds of repeating-crossbow bolts as Magnetic Railshots.

Swhiiiish! Swhiiiish! Swhiiiish!

The repeating-crossbow bolts, flying at three times the speed of sound, literally shredded the Rikenta soldiers.

"Urk!"

"Aaagh!"

"Ghk!"

Retainers, retainers, and ordinary soldiers alike fell in fair and equal fashion, without even having time to feel pain.

And in that situation, even Blue Knights like Frey, Vane, and Epicus ran wild.

The encirclement of the repeating-crossbow units was broken before it had even truly begun.

"Hoo, hah!"

"Ah, hahahahaha!"

Kyrie and Nereus competitively broke through that encirclement and ran onward.

I’ll get there first!

Before that bastard does!

Ahead of them, on the low hill, they could see the command banner.

There isn’t enough time for Gathered Clouds, but...

There are enough clouds for lightning, at least!

The two of them called down the strongest Lightning Strike each could use right then and there.

Wooooooooong!

Between the clouds, lightning force surged upward and then sank downward, swelling without limit.

I’ll capture him.

I’ll kill him!

Because this was not a contest against another lightning wielder, they had plenty of time to gather the lightning force.

Flash!

The crimson-and-white Lightning Strikes fell side by side through the darkness like a single blow.

Did we get him?

Kyrie immediately focused on the Bio-radar and checked Orcail’s state.

"You little brats."

On the low hill where the ornate tent had burst apart.

The great lord with white hair stood there quietly, not even a single strand of beard singed.

With storm-like fury blazing in both eyes.

Orcail thrust both hands forward.

Whoooooooosh!

A damp wind blew violently.

Kyrie and Nereus, even as they continued their charge, looked up at the night sky.

They could see stars.

Stars that should not have been visible.

"Looks like we can’t use Guided Lightning."

"Looks that way."

The clouds that had hung thick overhead were shoved several kilometers away in an instant.

An Authority that required even Erica considerable concentration had manifested all at once.

And that was not the end of it.

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!

The wind that had driven away the clouds circled back like a snake biting its own tail and began to whirl.

"It’s a tornado!"

"Aaaagh!"

The wind Authority Windspout struck the palisade beside the Astreos encampment.

A Windspout rising several kilometers high belonged to the realm of natural disaster.

"Holy shit! What the hell is that?! Scatter! No, don’t scatter, damn it!"

No matter how outstanding a commander Joi was, all she could do was issue orders to reduce the damage.

"If the twister is already close, abandon the field guns and run, and if it hasn’t reached you yet, shove the field guns into the jungle and run!"

"But the surviving repeating-crossbow units are approaching..."

"The hell they are! With that thing showing up, are repeating-crossbow units really the problem? Fuck, if you want to live, don’t scatter. Those bastards can’t do anything near that monster either!"

Joi sent messengers in every direction and revised the operational routes.

"This is troublesome."

"Sure is."

Even Nereus and Kyrie turned to glance back at the main force they had left behind, their expressions dazed for a brief moment.

It’s only the vanguard. Even if they all die, we win if we kill Orcail.

But the Thunder Governor with resolve, and the Lightning Sword with calculation, turned their heads forward again.

Even if we went back, there’s nothing we could do. What are we supposed to do, drop lightning on a tornado? We have to kill Orcail quickly.

As it turned out, that was an extremely correct decision.

Boom!

Because Orcail leaped like a shell fired from a cannon.

Did Rikenta have a technique like Magnetic Railshot too?

That was what Kyrie thought when his Bio-radar sensed the speed and he momentarily mistook Orcail for some kind of projectile.

"He’s coming!"

That scream-like warning meant to prepare for Orcail’s attack, not to prepare for Orcail’s very existence.

"Huh?"

For the brief instant Nereus, whose Bio-radar was one step inferior to Kyrie’s, merely blinked.

Boom!

Orcail flew in faster than sound and kicked Nereus.

"Kuh!"

If, at the very last possible instant, he had not pulled his body back with Thunderstep; if he had not been wearing armor engraved with rather excellent defensive sigils; if he had not been a Blue Knight on Nereus’s level.

Had even one of those three conditions been absent, it would have been a strike that burst him apart like a tomato hit by a slingshot stone.

Nereus spun through the air like a villain in a picture book and flew off beyond the jungle.

"We meet again."

Grinding his teeth, Orcail glared at Kyrie.

A white suit embroidered with golden silk in the eastern style, glossy white hair and beard, and the Wind King Armor wrapped around his body.

"Ha."

Kyrie let out a laugh born from pure disbelief.

Having sparred with Erica, he could feel it.

"Can you still laugh?"

"I can’t do anything but laugh."

Wind condensed into an absurd density wrapped around the body of this young old man without leaving even the smallest gap.

No swagger, then. Even so, he’s the one who brought down Traisan’s senior adopted son. I can’t afford to let my guard down.

Orcail drew an eastern-style long sword.

What a joke. He can move that fast? If my Bio-radar had been even slightly weaker, I wouldn’t even have known he was coming.

Kyrie did not even consider raising the Thunderclap Longsword.

This was not an opponent he could cut down with a single blade.

That did not mean he could obediently let himself be killed either.

Crackle, crackle.

In the darkened forest, pale electric sparks spread outward.

Tssssss!

Waves of Sacheol gathered beneath Kyrie’s feet.

"May your wind come to an end here."

"May your lightning scatter here."

Colorless wind blades and pitch-black Sacheol Blades surged toward one another.

Kyrie and Orcail began a battle between those who had reached the extreme of superhumanity.

The Navigators who had abandoned their gliders and risen into the air had also gradually regained their composure.

"There they are!"

"Blow them away!"

"Bring them down!"

The Navigators who had once withdrawn from the battlefield returned to support the repeating-crossbow units.

"Rally! Re-form, damn it! You sons of bitches, rally!"

Dodging the Windspout, Joi somehow gathered together the soldiers who had been moving here and there in the darkness and confusion, and set them against the repeating-crossbow units.

"Stop them!"

"Hit the Navigators from behind!"

"Pull them down!"

The Blue Knights who had charged forward with Kyrie moved to catch those Navigators from the rear.

In one-on-one combat, by the standards of a "normal" matchup, the Navigator was stronger.

Boom!

"Aaaagh!"

Blue Knight Daniel dodged a wind blade, only to be hit directly by a shotgun blast and sent rolling across the ground.

Blue Knight Hari also hurled himself into the jungle to evade a Navigator’s fierce assault.

With the Navigators’ active support, the field-gun units regained their formation.

"Follow in my senior’s footsteps!"

Blue Knight Vane charged again to break that formation.

He rushed the repeating-crossbow units and unleashed Halo.

Tskaaaaaaak!

The blade imbued with silver lightning spun savagely, and arms, legs, and heads flew into the air.

Where some formations broke apart like that, elsewhere Blue Knights struck by volleys of repeating-crossbow fire rolled across the ground.

Pa-ba-bak!

"God damn it!"

As Epicus threw a newly recruited Blue Knight, now turned into a hedgehog, behind him, he himself was struck in the backside by a repeating-crossbow bolt.

"Help the lords!"

The soldiers of Kyrie’s army and Nereus’s army charged into the jungle and collided with Rikenta’s repeating-crossbow units.

A counterattack in which Joi threw in all the personal-guard knights and retainers she had been holding back.

In a battle in darkness like this, individual physical capability mattered most in the end.

The sword tips of the free knights in Kyrie’s army sliced through the repeating-crossbow soldiers.

The bolts of the repeating-crossbow soldiers pierced the Blue Knights.

The wind blades of the Navigators blew apart soldiers from Kyrie’s army.

The field guns of Nereus’s army shattered a Navigator’s Wind King Armor and brought him crashing down.

All of them were professional soldiers, and not one step did they retreat.

They were people trying to rise with the sword and change their fate in this oppressive world where bloodline decided everything.

"Traitor!"

"A mere maid of this lady’s!"

Just as a second Windspout was about to descend, it was canceled out.

"After being dragged here as a prisoner and surely made to suffer every filthy torture imaginable!"

"When your head is full of nothing but thoughts like that, naturally your mouth speaks that way too."

Morgan and Erica rose into the air and aimed fan and sword at each other.

Now.

In the middle of that chaos, Kyrie saw his chance.

Chapter 173

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