To attend the Elector Princes Council, we had to go to the church territory near the corpse-waste plains.

But if I left Sky Castle vacant carelessly, there was no telling when a rebellion might break out centered on the eastern lords.

The other Blue Knights or Navigators would probably think I’ve gone mad.

So I intended to neutralize poison with poison.

Step. Step. Step.

The underground prison of Rikentrion Sky Castle.

Far deeper than the place where the cadets of the marksman school had been imprisoned.

“Open it.”

“Yes.”

A pit-shaped prison hidden beneath the thick stone floor.

“Jacobin IV.”

“...Kyrie.”

When eight guards worked together to lift the stone slab, Jacobin IV, kneeling there in chains, raised his head.

The red eyes beneath the robe glowed ominously as though trying to pierce straight through me.

“Shall we talk for a moment?”

“I have nothing to say to an enemy of the Revolution. Our doctrine and your great houses are irreconcilable enemies.”

I let him pierce me with a crooked smile.

He was the one imprisoned, and I was the one who had imprisoned him, so a mere look like that did not frighten me in the slightest.

“It’s about bringing down the Navigator lords.”

Jacobin IV’s eyes flew open.

“If you truly desire revolution, then you know why Rikenta ended up in this state.”

I continued at ease.

“Of course I know. Those Rikenta bastards imported grain and spices from the Eastern Continent and manufactured goods from the Empire, and scraped up gold only through intermediary trade. They fostered no industry of any kind and drove their subjects into poverty. Hypocrites who prattle of the freedom of Navigators while standing atop a mountain of corpses built that way.”

“Good. I intend to turn the eastern lords who led that business into beggars. I require your cooperation.”

“Warriors of the Revolution do not serve constellation great houses.”

Jacobin IV’s expression hardened.

“No. Think of it as making constellation great houses slaughter one another. By your own words, isn’t that revolution?”

For an instant, Jacobin IV flinched as though he had been struck on the head with a hammer.

“...Let me speak with my comrades for just a moment. Only for a moment.”

The guards tensed and shook their heads.

I did not tense.

This place was set with demon-sealing stones, so they could not recover their magic.

Moreover, I was fully armed, while they were barehanded.

Even if they all rushed me together, one Chain Discharge would wipe them out.

The guards opened pits here and there and pulled out those so-called revolutionary warriors.

Jacobin IV and his lot immediately began shouting fiercely.

“Comrades, this is the very model of revisionist opportunism!”

“It is not! Even sucking the resources of the enemy commander dry like a leech can become a revolutionary means!”

“It is collusion! The moment we join hands with a constellation great house, our revolution is finished!”

Their words were grand indeed.

To my ears, they sounded somehow hollow.

It felt as though they were playing a board game while role-playing a particular profession.

“But comrade, think about it. What if that Lightning Blade comrade beats the eastern lords flat? We can sit and watch their downfall!”

“Then while crying out for struggle, we become revisionists who merely sit and reap profit in reality!”

“And what is wrong with that? Revisionism or opportunism, if we win, it is revolution!”

In any event, that ridiculous debate went on for quite a long while.

Punches were thrown, and they even grabbed one another by the hair.

“Proletarians of the world, unite!”

“If we’re united, then why are you grabbing my hair, you idiot!”

“This is precisely the explosion of internal contradiction!”

In the end, Jacobin IV slammed his fist into the stone wall and barked.

“Silence!”

Silence.

Panting, he turned to me.

The red in his eyes still flashed with anger, but that anger no longer seemed directed at me.

“...We have decided.”

Jacobin IV declared it flatly.

“In turning those fat capitalist lords of the east into fellow proletarians, I will stand on your side this one time.”

I smiled at ease again.

People live by emotion, and emotion is supported by reason.

Revolution, religion, great houses, in the end all stand upon calculation.

It really was inefficient.

“Good. Then the second condition.”

I continued speaking.

“Hm?”

The red eyes beneath Jacobin IV’s hood narrowed.

“That sword aura reinforcement. Tell me how it is used.”

“......”

He was silent for a long while, then snorted.

“Do you think I would tell a constellation great-house noble like you the most precious secret of my revolutionary comrades?”

I shrugged and took a step closer.

“In any case, I am one of the ten strongest Blue Knights in House Astreos. Even without learning your authority, I am strong enough.”

“Contradictory. Then why ask?”

“Because I want to know. Whether such power can truly be used without making a contract with a constellation. Isn’t this quite a significant opportunity for you? I am the younger brother of Andromeda, Grand Prince Regent of Astreion Astreos, and the husband of Erica, Viceroy of Rikenta. Will you ever again get a chance to verify your logic against a great noble like me?”

Of course, more than half of what I had just said was a lie.

I’ll suck them dry to the marrow while I’m at it.

Sword aura reinforcement was a simple and powerful authority.

Pour it into a sword, and the sword became stronger. Pour it into the body, and the body became stronger.

It was especially excellent in combination with electric arts specialized in explosive bursts, thanks to how greatly it raised durability and elemental resistance.

That was why cathedral knights from electric-arts backgrounds who appeared from time to time tended to rise quickly.

But now, the Dawn Council, the Hall of Purity, and even those expelled by the Myriad Star Church were all using the same power?

There was no reason I should not be able to wield it too.

If I was going to make use of apostates while bearing the risk of excommunication, then I had to suck them dry to the marrow—no. I had to chew even their bones to make it worth the price.

“...Let me speak with my comrades once more.”

In the end, Jacobin IV turned his head aside.

“Isn’t that not something you can decide on your own? From what I saw earlier, even when you ‘talk,’ it doesn’t seem to produce especially constructive conclusions.”

I let out a laugh.

The previous disgraceful display was still vivid before my eyes.

“How dare you deny our commune!”

Jacobin IV shot back fiercely.

“Commune?”

“That’s right. Commune! Democratic decision-making through communication!”

The guards shook their heads with expressions asking what kind of nonsense that was.

I theatrically raised both hands and instructed the guards.

“Very well. Try it.”

Again, the revolutionary warriors were dragged out of the pits one after another.

Once more they sat in a circle and exchanged words.

“Comrades! This too is a trap of revisionism!”

“No, comrade. What if that Lightning Blade bastard wipes out the Navigator lords? Then we sit and feast upon the fruits of revolution!”

That side was the truly theatrical one.

“Isn’t that opportunism itself!”

“Opportunism? Since when did you become a purist, comrade? To a hungry revolutionary, opportunity is more important than food!”

It took only a few minutes for that conversation to turn into a conversation of bodies.

“Proletarians of the world, unite once more!”

“If we’re united, why are you pulling my hair again, you traitor!”

“Th-this is precisely the explosion of internal contradiction! The explosion of explosion! One might call this the true revolution itself!”

The guards tensed and placed their hands on their sword hilts, but I simply folded my arms and watched in silence.

What a miserable shambles.

That scene, if anything, gave me relief.

If they were truly this sort of fools, I could make use of them as much as I liked.

In the end, Jacobin IV punched the wall again.

Bang!

“Silence, silence!”

Silence fell.

His red eyes gleamed with humiliation and anger.

“We do not serve nobles. But we will permit a revolutionary experiment. If that Lightning Blade fails to learn sword aura reinforcement, then it is the victory of the Revolution. It will prove our precepts are correct. If he does learn it... then one might call it the revolutionary progress of the Revolution. Even a noble will have personally experienced the fact that one can transcend without faith.”

I first had the hammer warriors of the Dawn Council moved to the upper prison.

From that moment onward, all manner of complaints poured forth.

“Comrade! Comrade! We are the vanguard of the Revolution! Imprisonment even after an alliance—this is a plot to create classes among the people!”

I could not tell whether that was something they were saying in their right minds or whether they meant to drive me mad.

“A new kind of mold grows on my clothes every other day! Is this not class discrimination?”

“Guard comrade, my rice bowl is smaller than the one next door! This is the structure of inequality!”

One of the warriors even beat on the bars and shouted.

“We are not imprisoned in the prison, we have occupied the prison! The prison is now the engine room of the Revolution!”

I snorted and turned away.

“So you don’t want to see a Blue Knight plundering with authority, but you do want to eat bread that a Blue Knight plundered with authority?”

The murmuring stopped at once.

They glared at one another, then eventually gathered and launched into another debate, declaring they would hold a “commune” through “communication.”

“Shall we eat the bread or not?”

“Comrade, that is a matter of overturning the ownership relations of bread.”

“No, that is a conspiracy of the ruling class telling us not to eat bread.”

In the end, the debate concluded with, “Let us eat the bread for now, but while eating it, let us express revolutionary resistance.”

I clicked my tongue and shook my head.

The mere fact that such people called me comrade made it feel as though my self-respect was being shaved away.

Even so, I brought out that one bastard alone, Jacobin IV, the one called the warrior of the sickle that cuts through the curtain of deception.

With Frey, Vane, and two Navigators assigned as guards, I did not worry about escape or rebellion.

The training ground beside the cliff overlooking Sky Castle, at the Rikentrion Royal Palace.

In that open landscape, I sat facing Jacobin IV.

“Ahem, then let us begin.”

“Fine.”

He cleared his throat, and I nodded.

“First, I will speak of how our Dawn Council views the world.”

“If you intend to tempt me with the babble of some pseudo-heretical cult, then at once...”

“Do not worry. I am a revolutionary, yes, but also a martial artist.”

His attitude grew serious, surprisingly so.

Then again, everyone had moments when they became serious, and all martial artists who had reached a realm were earnest when it came to the martial path.

“Do not even the electric arts of you Blue Knights contain the will of your house’s constellation, the dreaming thunderous star? Merely according to one’s own dream, vividly like lightning. Is not every authority, in the end, a way of reflecting the philosophy of that star into reality?”

“That is true.”

I nodded.

“We are the same. Thus before speaking of the sword aura of Revolution, we cannot avoid speaking of the philosophy of Revolution.”

It was a line of logic I could accept.

Jacobin IV drew a breath and continued.

Judging by the way he even rubbed his palms together, he truly seemed excited to tell me about their philosophy.

“First of all, we do not deny the constellations.”

“What?”

The question escaped me before I could stop it.

“It is not that the constellations do not exist. Rather, the constellations no longer bestow their protection upon humanity. In ancient days, the evil Ancient Empire ruled by the Dragon Emperor collapsed beneath the righteous wrath of the stars. The constellations liberated mankind and entrusted its future to mankind’s own hands.”

Yet his voice did not waver.

I raised my brows.

It sounded like nonsense, but there was in his eyes that peculiar sincerity unique to a man who at least was not lying.

“Is it not recorded even in the scriptures of the Myriad Star Church?”

Jacobin IV recited as though singing.

“When the Emperor’s tyranny was broken, starlight would no longer serve as guide, and mankind would light its own fire and go forward.”

“...That is indeed a real passage.”

“Exactly. Therefore we say it proudly. The Myriad Star Church’s Myriad Arts, the authorities of the six great houses, and the gunfire arts of the marksman school are all nothing but theft. They are merely filthy acts of stealing and using the lingering embers of starlight from stars already extinguished.”

Conviction rang in his voice.

“But sword aura reinforcement is different. Anyone can learn it. Bloodline, contract, school regulations, precepts—none of them are necessary. Training and will, those alone are enough to hold light within oneself. This is the power of humanity. An equal power, the true flame of revolution.”

Thump, thump.

My heart beat.

Even though I knew it was impossible nonsense, every word still lodged strangely in my ears.

“So our power is not a power made through theft. It is a light that mankind drew forth and cultivated from mankind itself.”

Jacobin IV spoke with naked honesty.

At that moment, I resolved myself.

Two apostate heresies, sword aura reinforcement and the elixir of sacred radiance, and the mutant demonic beasts that are its raw material. There is something here.

I would uncover the true nature of sword aura reinforcement no matter what.

“...Therefore, even without such theft, we ascend to the seat of the superhuman, and together with revolutionary comrades who have likewise ascended to that same seat, the kingdom of deception built through theft...”

Naturally, I only listened to Jacobin IV’s story up to that point.

It was a story with some logic to it, but ancient mysteries held little meaning for me.

“Is that so?”

I muttered and asked within my mouth.

【“Wasn’t it I, in truth, who stole your destiny?”】

An overwhelming presence descended by my ear and then receded.

Certainly, there was some logic in Jacobin IV’s words.

But even without the stigma, I would never have believed them.

To me, truth held little value.

Because I knew that the one who determined truth was what mattered more.

“Then from this point, I will show you our sword aura reinforcement, the Ascension Sword Art.”

Jacobin IV crossed his legs and sat down.

Chapter 193

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