"What a mess."

I let out a sigh as I surveyed the surrounding state of battle with Bio-radar.

We were winning, all the same.

To begin with, it was never a fight our army had any reason to lose.

Though the encampment had been placed at the center, my army and Nereus’s army had each split to left and right, hardening their formations in a semicircle.

The Navigators, knights, and high-ranking retainers had been brought down with the gliders and eliminated at the start.

The elder-class Navigator had been eliminated by Nereus and me.

With the repeating-crossbow units deprived of Navigator support, they had been exterminated.

After that, the Navigators, now unable to receive support either from knights and retainers or from soldiers, had been cut down one by one.

It had been a perfect operation.

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!

That was true right up until a Windspout descended into the center of the encampment and spun in all directions, tearing through the rear of my army and Nereus’s army.

Once chaos broke out in the command structure, including Joi, the time it took for orders to be passed down to the field lengthened little by little, and because of that, the army of 20,000 ended up shattered into fragments.

If there were twenty one-thousand-man battalions each with its own commander and one ten-thousand-man corps under a single commander, then the Blue Knight commanding the ten-thousand-man corps could be said to possess the larger army.

"What did Adjutant Jo say?"

"Acting Governor Nereus has returned! Soldiers of Astreos are to obey his orders!"

"Prepare to charge! Assist the knights!"

"Hold your positions! Do not act rashly!"

That was exactly what our army looked like right now.

Because the Windspout was still tearing through the area around the encampment, they could not even regroup.

Of course, the Rikenta repeating-crossbow units were not in any better shape.

"Aaaagh!"

"Gaaagh!"

"Lord Orcail has fallen!"

"Retreat, retreat!"

Over there, they had broken apart into groups no bigger than lance units, each one roughly centered on a single Navigator, four or five knights, a dozen or so retainers, and a hundred-something soldiers, stumbling around in confusion.

Even if our army had split into one-thousand-man battalions, if the other side had split into one-hundred-man units, then it could also be said that we still held ten times the cohesion.

"Ah, I can see now."

Color was gradually returning to my vision.

Thanks to the increase in my Thunderbolt Body value, the neural overheating had eased as well.

I identified the point on this disordered battlefield that could end the whole thing at once.

Swhiiiish!

Up in the sky, Erica and Morgan were colliding.

The battles of wind wielders lacked the gaudy brilliance of lightning wielders.

Pububoom!

But the acrobatic flight as each tried to catch the other’s back like two birds of prey, the explosive crashes not even swallowed by the Windspout, and the remnants of wind blades reaching all the way here to toss my hair around made it obvious what kind of fight was taking place.

["Erica!"]

I unleashed Lion’s Roar with all my strength.

["Over here!"]

Erica did not even look back at me.

She simply flew toward me while keeping the exact posture she had held facing Morgan.

I was grateful for that trust.

The moment the distance between the two of them exceeded a hundred meters, I invoked my Authority.

Lightning Strike.

Flash!

A pale radiance flashed from a clear sky.

A lightning blaze of extreme pressure and extreme heat struck Morgan.

"Kyaaaah!"

Morgan, true to her direct-line status, endured the opening blow.

But her flight speed slowed markedly, and her body began to sway up and down.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

I followed with a second, third, and fourth strike.

Against ordinary Blue Knights who could not use Lightning Strike, a normal Navigator held the advantage, but against a powerful Blue Knight who could use Lightning Strike, even a high-ranking Navigator was more than a step inferior.

Even someone as fast as Orcail could have his position tracked without difficulty once neural acceleration was activated.

The anomaly came after I had dropped around five Lightning Strikes.

["S-surrender! I surrender! Stop!"]

Morgan unleashed Lion’s Roar.

It was loud enough for soldiers across every battle line spread over several kilometers to hear.

From my perspective, it was something to be profoundly grateful for.

In the vision seen through Bio-radar, I caught sight of the Rikenta soldiers trembling, from Navigator officers of battalion-commander rank all the way down to the lowest infantrymen.

If I had to go all over the battlefield breaking their will one by one, it might have taken hours.

Even if we won overall, certain battle lines could still have suffered massive losses.

["I’m coming down to your side now. I’m coming down!"]

Morgan’s declaration of surrender neatly skipped over all that miserable cleanup work.

["Your ducal daughter has surrendered!"]

["Throw down your weapons!"]

["This officer does not desire slaughter!"]

Perhaps our Blue Knights had realized it as well, because Lion’s Roars rose from all across the battlefield, pressing the enemy to surrender.

In the view I saw through Bio-radar, one group of soldiers from two forces that had been locked in tense opposition began setting down their weapons and kneeling to the ground, and that scene appeared all over the battlefield.

Saaa.

Morgan flew toward me.

Smoke was rising from her blonde twin-tails.

Her emerald-like eyes shook wildly with fear.

She was naturally compared in my mind to Erica, who had remained elegant as a peacock even after becoming a body unable to resist because of the vow.

Saaa.

Erica also flew to my side.

"Lightning Strike certainly is useful."

"There’s no way I’d miss a target flying around by itself. Unless it comes at me at high speed without giving me any casting time."

"You will not kill someone who has surrendered, will you?"

"Because I’m a Blue Knight."

Wearing an empire dress that revealed her figure and a voluminous fur shawl, she lifted her chin like a triumphant general.

"I will become a prisoner."

Morgan avoided Erica’s eyes and pleaded with me.

"This is a promise between great houses. As the commander who issued the declaration of war, you are obligated under church law to spare me."

That was true.

"Right. I can’t kill a prisoner. Nor can I refuse a surrender."

"Then..."

"But I am the prospective husband of the legitimate Viceroy of Rikenta."

So I stepped aside.

Erica, with a fury like that Windspout wrapped around her whole body, leveled her fan at Morgan’s face.

"For the crime of slandering this lady, the rightful heir, with false charges that I spread mutated beasts."

"Wait, wait a moment!"

"For the crime of refusing aid when this lady, the rightful heir, requested reinforcements, and swearing loyalty instead to the usurper Ortupios."

"I surren—"

"For the crime of a 'free Navigator,' who ought to die rather than be bound, abandoning her vassals for the sake of her own safety and surrendering, the sentence is death!"

With a crisp sound, Air Cannon fired from the tip of the folded fan.

Morgan crumpled.

"She was a child with bad habits since she was young. Though she was this lady’s maid, she kept taking one or two of this lady’s possessions. It was hardly the first or second time she was caught sitting in this lady’s seat while I was away."

Erica muttered with her back turned to me.

"I remember how she laughed when I was driven north into northern Rikenta by Ortupios and she refused my request for support."

Her voice trembled with a shiver of release.

"Thank you. For yielding her to me."

She thanked me with an unusual plainness.

On the face expressing gratitude was a kind of affection without a clear name, or perhaps one she knew and was refusing to face.

I had refrained from touching Morgan because I was worried we might be brought before the Myriad Star Church for executing a prisoner.

I decided not to mention that.

News of Kyrie’s victory spread quickly.

Because the merchants of Spiramentaon had issued stocks and bonds in order to recover their investments early.

For merchants who needed to inflate the price somehow, even a tiny victory had to be spread around as though it were enormous.

But since this had turned out to be a genuinely enormous victory, it was easy to imagine how fast the story would spread.

"Have you heard? They say the Lightning Sword brought down the great lord of northern Rikenta together with the captive princess."

"They say he killed dozens of Navigators under that lord and captured dozens more, and that he is about to enter the largest city in northern Rikenta."

"Is he really trying to conquer Rikenta? Will the Empire’s Six Great Houses be reduced to Five?"

"Not that. Even now, does he not claim himself the spouse of that captive princess? He may play regent for a single generation, but the next Patriarch will still be a wind wielder. Of course, Rikenta will have to bow its head to Astreos for decades to come."

"What a change of ages. It would not even be an exaggeration to say it was the exact opposite before His Highness Peleus’s accession. Back then, was not even Spiramentaon half governed by Rikenta?"

"Then I can buy more war bonds. Where’s the exchange?"

In the great conference chamber of the administrative hall at Astreion Prime.

"As expected of my little brother. Is that not so?"

Andromeda sat as Regent and Sub-patriarch with a chair placed beside the Patriarch’s throne, smiling brightly.

"Your younger brother is truly an exemplar among Blue Knights."

"The Thunderbolt Constellation must be very pleased as well."

"After investigating those war bonds a little further, it might be wise to support them indirectly by purchasing a certain quantity."

The Constellation Ranks and ministers all flattered her in unison.

"Good. In that case, it seems we may be able to avoid the eyes of the Myriad Star Church as well."

Andromeda had become a complete wielder of power.

Power was a relative thing, and even if only the number of those who possessed it decreased, the value of my own power rose.

With the Patriarch in seclusion because of his injuries, Kyrie having voluntarily gone south, and the adopted sons silent amid successive scandals, there was now no force left that could oppose Andromeda.

"...Dismiss the Governor of Ketusirion and appoint a new one. The suitable candidate would be..."

"An excellent choice."

"...Send Scipio of the Mounted Patrol to investigate..."

"It shall be done."

"Patriarch of Nubesta. We must strengthen our intelligence line against the Myriad Star Church."

"I obey."

Whatever orders she gave were carried out exactly as spoken.

Important meetings and decisions never ceased.

"Planet Rank Magnus requests an audience."

"Let him enter."

Andromeda received a report on the enterprise she cared about most from a man who had once been her enemy.

"So the third transaction has been concluded."

"Ducal Daughter Vichera says that before long, it should be possible to trade in greater quantities."

"Good. I will attach a light-cavalry unit, so return together with them. If the twins require reinforcements, send them without hesitation."

"Your Excellency. Surely you do not mean..."

"Do you think Kyrie left me without any thought at all? Do you understand?"

Her manner differed from that of her great father, yet it possessed a dignity of its own.

"There will be upheaval in the Empire. We need even one more ally. I am not yet as strong as Father."

Magnus bowed his head deeply.

"On your way out, Blue Knights from the Nubesta side will be waiting. Return west together with them."

"You mean the Cloud counterintelligence unit?"

"Astreion Grand Cathedral has officially entered into hostility with the Papal See. That means the only way the Papal See can interfere with the main house now is by making use of the free-city churches spread from the southwest to the northwest. If we loose them there, some kind of news should come back."

He felt a tremor run all the way to the tip of his prosthetic arm.

She is grand while leaving no openings at all. I do not know how the two of them can seem so much like full siblings. In truth, they cannot have more than a drop or two of blood in common.

Kyrie and Andromeda felt astonishingly alike.

"I obey."

This was a main house worth willingly following, even as the next Patriarch of the prestigious cadet branch Magnes.

To meet a generation of main-house blood relatives worthy of service.

Magnus, who had once stood with Traisan, knew better than anyone that there was no greater good fortune than that.

I will absolutely take my younger sibling back from that mad wind-wielder. Absolutely!

At that moment, Andromeda was mastering the thousand bolts raging inside her.

If we buy up the war bonds, we’ll be able to intervene in postwar Rikenta economically as well. Whether the war ends quickly or drags on, Rikenta will be left half-crippled, and when that happens, if Flammerios and Astreos join forces, we can apply pressure at a level that can never be refused. It was a political marriage from the beginning, so divorce is nothing. And if that isn’t enough, I’ll overturn even the Papal See. Yes. I’ll overturn it.

It had been her fault.

She thought of her younger brother, with his fierce face crossed by an eyepatch.

Kyrie.

She silently called that name, the name that brushed once against her front teeth.

You saved me. You made every dream I dreamed into reality. You drove out Traisan and returned my place to me.

No matter what schemes the Church had played, she should never have allowed a situation to form in which Kyrie and Andromeda stood opposed.

Andromeda ground her teeth at the horror of her mistake.

I stole your place too. I made it so you had no choice but to leave my side and attach yourself to that vile wind-wielder. I did that. I made it happen. I did!

What she found most unbearable of all was the fact that this entire situation had arisen because of her mistake.

Kyrie had overcome the origin of being a bastard, and Andromeda had recovered a title that had once existed in name alone.

It is the thing I wanted least!

All that should have remained was for the two of them to become happy together, but because of her mistake, the younger brother she had raised so carefully had been taken by the person she hated most.

Andromeda still remembered that day.

Kyrie of Astreos.

The day an illegitimate child without a middle name and the eldest enemy daughter without real power had met.

He had been the younger sibling who came to Andromeda like a fated Lightning Strike among countless blood relatives.

He had been the shadow she had placed at her side after raising him with only the best of everything she had.

She had dreamed of walking arm in arm with him across this vast Astreos, looking down upon the world they would govern.

Your sister will make your dreams come true too.

It was enough to make her want to kill herself.

Flames rose at Flammerion Prime.

"Is it hot?"

Wearing leather masks and leather armor studded thick with rivets, Vicher and Vichera walked down the splendid corridor.

Their cloaks, red as blood, as autumn leaves, as sunset, billowed behind them.

Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

Behind the twins, dozens of Red Knights in crimson plate armor followed in step.

"It would be nice if it were hot."

Soon the two of them stopped before the throne in the Sub-patriarch’s palace.

"You, you bastards..."

A man who would have looked exactly like Helios if he were twenty years older.

Volcanus, Sub-patriarch of Flammerios, was kneeling before them with his legs on fire.

"What madness made you do this!"

the man cried out.

"I have always wanted to do this."

"And now it seems I finally can."

Vicher and Vichera looked at one another and shrugged.

"You miserable—"

For an instant, the light vanished from Volcanus’s eyes, then venom surged into them.

Whoooosh!

The next moment, black flames came blasting violently from his mouth.

Whooom!

Those flames did not even touch the twins’ bodies, but rotated around them, losing their color.

The flames, now fully discolored into a vivid orange, coiled around the twins like dragons.

"Mother’s flame?"

Volcanus’s expression went beyond shock into sheer absurdity.

"How?"

Vicher and Vichera shrugged once more.

"Someone told us that, in truth, it had always been possible."

The twins extended both hands forward, thinking of the Lightning Sword who was even now fighting in the southeast.

"Let the flames become one."

For the Blue Knight who had shown them how to cross that line.

For our dream.

For our friend, who showed us the way to achieve that dream.

For the day that would come when he returned.

Volcanus squeezed his eyes shut.

The Sub-patriarch of the House of Flame was engulfed in Mother’s flame.

Whoosh!

Chapter 175

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