In the sky of Rikenta, the lightning of Astreos rose.

Just as Kyrie had said, it was the day lightning struck from the ground into the sky.

“Are you ready?”

The corridor leading from a Sky Castle embrasure down to the ground was soaked with the traces of battle now ended.

Bullet marks from the marksman school, scars where the wind blades of the Navigators had torn through, fragments from the Blue Knights’ Thunderstep smashing the floor apart, walls blackened by Emission.

Though the battle had only swept past once, these were marks that showed hundreds of lives had been shattered here.

“Of course we are.”

In that gruesome underground passage, Joi exchanged looks with the retainer Gaben.

Joi wore silver plate armor, while Gaben, on the surface, had on what looked like a black uniform-style coat of plate.

Shining metal and rough cloth, the contrast between the two was clear, yet now it strangely suited them.

“But with our strength alone, it will be nowhere near enough.”

Gaben nodded at Joi’s words.

“Certainly, those Dawn Council bastards wielded power equal to the royal family’s sworn warriors and the cathedral knights of the Myriad Star Church.”

“Damn it. I cannot understand it at all.”

“Yes. I cannot understand it either. It was clearly the power of the constellations, yet how the stars could bestow that same power upon those apostates as well, I truly could not understand.”

At the corners of his mouth lingered the arrogance peculiar to intellectuals.

“But that very ‘inability to understand’ is what makes the constellations the constellations. Like His Highness Peleus, the great sub-constellation.”

Joi did not waver even at that smile that poked at her own complex.

Rather, she almost spoke the words And like His Highness Kyrie as well to provoke Gaben in return, then swallowed them.

Because, startled by the words she herself had nearly said, she could tell just from looking into Gaben’s eyes that he was thinking the very same thing.

If so, there was no need to voice it.

“As the Deputy Battalion Commander instructed, I have already asked for your help.”

Gaben turned to look behind him.

Step. Step. Step.

From the far end of the corridor, several Blue Knights approached.

“An order from my senior?”

Vane, brushing back his short white hair roughly with a blood-stained hand.

“Yes! I’m taking off the old-man label today!”

Hari, brandishing his estoc with a playful face and a sadistic smile.

“I’ll fight those apostate bastards until I collapse. It’s what I swore. That I’d be loyal to the house and devout to the thunderous star.”

Daniel, whose every step was heavy, bearing the ease of a veteran who had fought dozens upon dozens of battles.

This is enough.

Joi felt reassured by the appearance of just those three Blue Knights.

“They agreed to cooperate without hesitation, solely on your word.”

That reassurance, with Gaben’s words, transformed even into emotion.

The fact that the Blue Knights had gathered trusting her word alone pleased her immensely.

Never waiting to obtain what one wants.

Jacobin IV’s words came back to her.

Those words did not shake her heart in the slightest.

She had already lived that way.

“Thank you for gathering.”

Joi gave a brief greeting.

Vane gave a curt nod, and Hari swung the estoc once through empty air with a smile on his lips.

Daniel said nothing, but looked at Joi and Gaben with a gaze more intense than anyone’s.

Step. Step. Step.

Joi moved forward at the head of the group.

Into the corridor thick with the smell of blood and smoke, she went deeper still.

“From here on, we will dispose of the traitors of the Dawn Council.”

Her voice spread like an echo of thunder.

The warriors of the Dawn Council had gathered in one embrasure.

Below the embrasure, the cliff-like slopes of Sky Castle spread clearly into view.

The “warrior of the sickle,” his robe drawn deep over himself.

Jacobin IV leaned his back against the wall, steadying his breath.

The “warriors of the hammer,” clad in worn armor, moved slowly and heavily.

“Hold that properly, comrade.”

“Why should I hold it properly, comrade? They’re just the corpses of the young dogs of that reactionary noble school and the slaves lower than those dogs.”

“Ah, ah, you mustn’t say that. They are all pitiable common people who were denied the chance to learn. And the reason I told you to hold it properly is because at the moment you are putting all the weight on me!”

They had gathered the corpses of the marksman school cadets together with those of the Rikenta soldiers.

“So you’ve made a revolutionary decision, I see?”

Jacobin IV stared at the sight for a long while before turning his head.

Beneath the robe, red eyes flashed with a strange light.

Step. Step. Step.

The sound of footsteps rang through the corridor.

“Yes. It was a very, very revolutionary decision.”

Joi appeared alone in the corridor.

Her silver armor was stained with blood and dust, yet the smile in her bright yellow eyes still shone like sunlight.

“I’ll say this in advance: I have no intention of betraying Lord Kyrie.”

Joi stopped at the boundary between the embrasure and the corridor.

“I am merely using you.”

Jacobin IV let a moment of silence settle, then smiled.

“Every great cause begins with a small first step. That will be enough.”

“Even now, the lords on Ortupios’s side are gathering.”

Joi continued speaking.

“If it’s you people, you ought to be able to carry out sabotage in every possible way and delay their advance.”

“A more revolutionary request than I expected.”

Jacobin IV took one step closer.

“That much suggests you desire a great revolution just as deeply, comrade. Will that truly be all right?”

“Things are not all right right now, so why should the future matter?”

Joi held out her hand.

Jacobin IV hesitated a moment, then came forward and took it.

“Hup!”

At that very instant.

“Hm?!”

With all her strength, Joi hurled him backward.

The authority of a sworn warrior or a cathedral knight manifests more slowly than the electric shock of a Blue Knight.

The Joi of now could, for an instant, contend with Jacobin IV in pure strength.

Boom!

Jacobin IV’s body flew into the corridor and crashed hard against the stone floor.

A blunt sound rang throughout the embrasure.

“Bring down the hammer of the faith upon the apostates!”

“Force those wicked traitors to their knees!”

“Show these stupid atheists the power of the thunderous star!”

That cry was the signal flare.

The Blue Knights burst forward all at once.

“I’ll become a hero like my senior!”

Vane shouted first as he rushed past Joi.

The current extending from his mechanical arm spread out like a net.

Chain Discharge.

Pajijijijik!

A net of blue current filled the embrasure and spread like a wave.

“Aagh!”

“Urk!”

“It’s a reactionary attack! The guard! The guard!”

The warriors of the hammer shuddered violently and collapsed to the floor.

Some endured, but the other Blue Knights rushed in and butchered them.

The walls burned under the electric shock and blackened.

It was suppression like lightning itself.

“Kya-hahaha!”

Joi laughed fiercely like a golden sun and turned back.

“Yah!”

At that very moment Blue Knight Hari moved nimbly and subdued Jacobin IV.

Thunk!

The awl-like sword, the estoc, sank deep into Jacobin IV’s back.

Pajijijik!

When electric shock burst inside his body, Jacobin convulsed.

“Guhhh!”

Jacobin IV staggered and raised his head.

From within the robe, his eyes burned red toward Joi.

“If you simply stay still, you gain nothing! You made a reactionary choice! Deputy Commander Joi! To both yourself and the Revolution!”

His voice was cracking, yet it still carried a strange force.

“In the end, you are nothing more than the dog of a classist. The flames of freedom and equality are already spreading across the whole land, and yet you would still bind yourself with the chains of the stars.”

Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Jacobin IV wiped it away with the back of his hand and shouted.

“The Revolution will inevitably triumph. Even if I fall today, tomorrow another Jacobin will rise. Revolution is not a name, but a number. Numbers do not break. The numbers of Jacobin will continue on without end!”

Joi did not so much as blink.

“I have a fine name that Lord Kyrie himself called me by.”

Sneaking a glance at Hari, she then opened her mouth.

“I cannot cast aside that name and become something like Jacobin V. Never!”

She denounced him with the certainty of a lightning bolt.

At her ear, that voice rose again.

Sir Joi.

The name Kyrie had called her by.

Joi, a name that was hers alone.

“That kind of name is nothing more than a shackle bestowed by your lord! The freedom you crave so much will collapse the moment your lord dies. In the end, you too will only be betrayed and cast aside!”

Jacobin IV screamed maliciously to the very end.

“Revolution is number! You are all bound by names!”

Bound.

At those words, Joi closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

For a brief instant she recalled her days in the Blue Knight training camp, when she had been called by a number.

I would sooner read Myriad Star Church scripture to a cow.

She was about to speak of the inhumanity of numbers, then gave it up.

Erica.

Instead, daring to admit it, she recalled the name of the person she had envied as a superhuman warrior.

She recalled the person who had longed for freedom more than anyone.

She recalled the person who had chosen of her own will to stand at Kyrie’s side.

“Damn it. Don’t preen and prattle when you don’t even know what freedom is.”

“What?”

Jacobin IV’s eyes shook once.

“If you say we are bound, then true freedom is the freedom to decide to whom one will be bound, the freedom to decide with whom one will remain bound!”

Joi thrust out her chest and shouted proudly.

“I shall live like lightning for all eternity, and so that is not subordination, but choice!”

She shouted like a knight, like a Blue Knight, like her beloved lord Kyrie himself.

“Oh.”

Vane looked at Joi’s back with unmistakable admiration in his eyes.

“You talk well?! That’s amazing, amazing!”

Hari praised her as he let go of the estoc and fastened magic-tool handcuffs on Jacobin.

“Yes. Those words are right. You’ve already realized what it took me more than fifty years of life to understand.”

Daniel smiled warmly as he bound the warriors of the hammer.

“Thank you.”

Joi smiled as she looked down at Jacobin IV.

There, the number called Revolution came to a halt.

Her name was still vividly alive and moving.

A week passed after Kyrie seized Sky Castle.

A week was too short a time to erase the scars of the battlefield.

Even now, marksman school cadets who had hidden themselves were still being dragged out from the embrasures and the surrounding corridors.

Bullet marks remained on the walls, and the fragments on the floor had not yet all been cleared away.

Fortunately, the urban district of Sky Castle and Rikentrion Royal Palace itself had suffered almost no damage.

Thanks to that, the ceremony of that day could be held as planned.

Rikentrion Royal Palace.

A beautiful colonnade where pure white marble pillars stretched upward as though to pierce the sky.

Light poured down through the stained glass in the ceiling, glimmering over rose petals.

A hymn resounded.

...What exactly am I doing right now?

Kyrie stood in the middle of the colonnade.

Beside him stood Erica.

Locked arm in arm with him, she was taking one step after another.

Each time they stepped forward, the candles lining the colonnade trembled.

“All who sleep beneath the night sky, bear witness to this place. Let the course of the stars cover us above, and let the light of meteors shine upon our vow.”

The voice of the Archbishop of Rikentrion rang out.

With a complex and subtle expression, he looked at the two of them.

“Bridegroom, do you swear to take this woman as your wife, to protect her from storm and demonic beast, and on nights when no stars are visible, to become a star yourself and guide her steps?”

“Yes.”

Kyrie nodded as though bewitched by the wind.

“Bride, do you swear to accept this man as your husband, to follow him faithfully like a satellite circling a planet, and, when his orbit is thrown off, to set it right?”

“Yes.”

Erica nodded with the decisiveness of lightning.

“Then, as the starlight bears witness, the Church offers this vow before the free Storm Star, the dreaming thunderous star, the blazing supergiant, the frozen Polar Star, the surging Shin Hae Star, the unmoving Brass Star, the Infinite Twin Stars of Fate, and all the constellations of the night sky.”

A solemn proclamation rang out.

All of this felt unfamiliar to Kyrie.

He recalled stories his seniors had once told as jokes in his academy days.

Stories of how they had come to their senses and found themselves kissing before the upright cross in a cathedral.

He had not known his turn would come now.

“On days of joy and days of sorrow, in abundance and famine, in sickness and in strength, may this vow not break until the day death parts them. O Myriad Star, watch over their path. Bear witness to their vow. And before the Church and this congregation, I now proclaim that these two have become one.”

Erica looked up at Kyrie.

Eyes holding the light of early summer.

Her luscious blonde hair trembled as it reflected the light of the colonnade.

Kyrie did not deny the faint sense of victory held in that elegant face.

...At the very least, this woman probably won’t cut off my head while I sleep.

By habit, he thought in a self-preserving way.

At the same time, there was also a fact he could not help but recognize as a realist.

He was relieved that the thunderous star had not issued a quest such as Annihilate the Rikenta bloodline.

A thousand candles flared greatly.

Rose petals fell.

The hymn ended.

The bells rang.

【Detailed Objective 3: Grand Duke of Wind】

【Enter the Rikenta Viceroyal House.】

【Penalty for failure: Thunderbolt Body value -100%】

【Reward for success: Thunderbolt Body value +100%】

.

.

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【Hero’s Journey Step 12】

【‘Step 4: Minor House Head (Kronprinz/Crown Prince)’ achieved!】

【You have become the minor house head (Kronprinz/Crown Prince) of a great house.】

【Penalty for failure: Death】

【Reward for success: Electrocardiogram】

【Excess achievement reward: …….】

Chapter 187

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