Jacobin IV rose from the floor, brushed himself off, and straightened his back once more.

“However… is swordsmanship truly necessary?”

An unexpected remark.

I narrowed my brow.

“Are you trying to change your tune now?”

“No.”

Jacobin IV shook his head at once.

“It is a difference of doctrine in swordsmanship. Our path and yours differ from the root.”

His attitude had become serious again.

He seemed like an entirely different man from the mad republican who had been ranting just moments ago about internal contradiction and opportunism.

“Different?”

“You Blue Knights of House Astreos have surpassed the limits of the human body thanks to electric arts. When you kick off the ground, you leap dozens of meters in a single bound. When you swing a sword, you break the sound barrier. Therefore, your swordsmanship is not technique, but doctrine. It is an act of faith projecting the will of the thunderous star.”

His black robe swayed in the wind.

“All combat techniques begin from the premise that two people of equal physical ability are facing one another. Schools branch according to how they approach the method of victory, and their methods become increasingly refined so they can win under any circumstances. You are not like that. Your schools and methods are fixed. All you need do is wrap yourselves in stronger lightning, move faster, and thrust harder. Linked Thunder, Radiant Wheel, Heat Wave, Cloud-Dragon Style. Different names, same essence.”

I nodded.

There was reason in it.

The bodies of knights enhanced by electric arts were stronger than most demonic beasts.

The Blue Knights had always destroyed their enemies in an instant through overwhelming speed and overwhelming physical power.

“So even if you learn my swordsmanship, it will not help you much. And if the cathedral knights with sharp eyes catch wind of it, you will be branded an apostate borrowing our ‘revolutionary weapon.’”

Jacobin IV snorted.

“So there is only one thing I will teach you. How to wrap sword aura reinforcement around a blade. And how to strengthen the body as if burning it. That alone will be enough for you. The rest of the sword forms would be excessive for you. Needless ornament.”

I closed my eyes, then opened them.

From the beginning, the reason I had taken an interest in sword aura reinforcement was its bodily enhancement.

I had wanted to compensate for the short duration caused by neural overheating from electric arts, not seek out an entirely new path.

“Fine. Then teach me how to infuse this sword aura reinforcement into a blade and into this body.”

“But you already know how to place it into the body, do you not?”

Jacobin IV twisted the corner of his mouth.

“If you succeeded in cultivation, then the method of placing it into the body opens naturally. There is no way you would not know.”

I stared at him suspiciously.

Surely he was not trying to slip away from this?

And yet, when I recalled the heat-haze light that had gathered in my hand earlier, it did seem possible that I could actually do it.

“Wait.”

I drew mana up from my heart.

Unlike the bodily enhancement of electric arts, I did not seize mana, control the current, and forcibly tense my muscles.

I simply let it flow.

Saaaaaa—

A pale-blue energy slowly spread outward from my heart.

Part of it naturally transformed into lightning, but instead of suppressing it, I let it flow to the side, then drew it back into my heart.

“…Like this.”

When I opened my eyes, my body was wrapped in a faint halo.

The lightning still snapped white and sharp, but beneath it, layers of mana patterns like heat haze flowed softly.

Sunlight spreading beneath electric sparks.

Jacobin IV’s red eyes widened.

An astonishment as if the sky had collapsed and the stars had fallen.

“O red star of Revolution, did you hear that!”

He clenched his fist and cried out.

“This noble has now betrayed the historic leap! To steal and monopolize once again the equal flame of the proletariat! This is the overthrow of the dialectic, the plundering of the revolutionary spirit!”

Jacobin IV clawed at his own hair.

“How can a hardened electric-arts user, a bloodline scion of a great house who already clutches power in his fist, make even this revolutionary force his own! Historical progress has been stolen! This is regression, reaction, the very summit of revisionism!”

I lightly raised a finger.

Lightning and mana mingled and rose from my fingertips like heat haze.

Not lightning, yet another power existing together with lightning.

“But it is reality. I will grant you freedom of interpretation.”

Jacobin IV dropped to his knees and stared upward from where he had collapsed to the floor.

Red eyes mixed with rage, despair, and madness.

Yet somewhere within them flickered the light of a defeat he could not help but acknowledge.

“Revolution is always betrayed…! But comrade! A betrayed revolution burns all the fiercer!”

He beat his chest and howled.

His red robe rippled and heaved.

I looked quietly into those eyes.

This time, I neither smiled nor sneered.

I merely felt the faint light cloaking my body fade from my fingertips, and simply enjoyed the fact that I had ascended to a new realm.

“Move in that state.”

Jacobin IV shouted.

I bent my knees slightly, then sprang upward.

Taaat!

Compared to the distance I could leap after activating bodily enhancement authority, it was short.

Yet compared to the distance an ordinary knight could leap, it was more than twice as far.

“Not bad.”

I laughed in satisfaction and, in that same state, activated neural acceleration and bodily enhancement as well.

Crackle!

Pure white electric sparks burst from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.

Krrrrk!

The muscles of my entire body tightened hard, and that familiar vitality and tension returned.

But the strain peculiar to electric arts had been reduced by more than half.

“Sword aura reinforcement… barely consumes mana.”

Admiration rose from me of its own accord.

The calculations followed at once.

At the very least, I could continue fighting one and a half times longer, perhaps more than twice as long.

【“I shall show you more precisely.”】

【The ‘dreaming thunderous star’ diagrams your authority coefficients.】

At that moment, a series of lines appeared in my stigma.

【Bodily Enhancement: 4.1】

【Neural Acceleration: 5.5】

Bodily enhancement was roughly fourfold, and neural acceleration roughly fivefold.

Four to five times that of an ordinary knight.

They were my own numbers, yet even to me they were astonishing.

【“It is better to be certain, is it not?”】

“Thank you.”

I murmured the answer under my breath, then focused again on the matter before me.

“Yes! That is the very light of equality!”

Jacobin IV thrust up his fist.

“The monopolized authorities of the ruling class are powerful, but momentary! But the sword aura reinforcement of the proletariat is the flame of labor that endures without end! The infinitely sustained power of the collective!”

The way he stomped the floor while his black robe billowed was close to madness.

“…Yes, I understand.”

I cleared my throat.

“Then now teach me how to place it into a sword.”

“The sword is the laborer’s forearm, the hammer of the people!”

Jacobin IV cried out, thumping his chest.

“Pour the flame flowing through your veins into the blade as though hammering iron! Regard the sword as an extension of your body, and breathe power into it subtly, the way your kind spread class consciousness!”

“…A little more specifically.”

“That is all! Revolutionary equality provides no kindly explanation! Since all begin from the same ground, all wander for years! That is the truest democratic training!”

I let out a sigh and drew the practice feder from its sheath.

It was my fault for expecting anything.

“Hoo, haa.”

A deep breath.

Then I unfolded the authority of Imbuement.

Crackle!

For an instant, a sort of repulsion rose from the hilt, then my lightning reinforcement ran along the blade.

Lightning spread sharply across the halo with a ringing cry.

Pale-blue energy and pure white lightning mixed together and wrapped around the sword.

A metallic tremor spread across the stone floor, while the shrieking of electricity tore through the air.

“That works.”

“Huh?”

I was satisfied with my reality.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

Jacobin IV collapsed to the floor.

Clutching his black robe, he shed tears as large as beads from both eyes.

“Revolution is always betrayed! Yet today even that betrayal has become the flame of Revolution! Even a noble has embraced sword aura reinforcement… this is the height of class contradiction! The irony of history!”

He rolled across the floor, crying out like the hero of a farce.

“This is the ultimate form of revisionism! The wretched consequence of opportunism! O red star of Revolution, are you testing us!”

It was too ridiculous to be called a tragedy, so it was a comedy.

Jacobin IV was truly at a loss for words.

Out of pride, he merely refrained from showing it any further, but the fact that Kyrie had grasped sword aura reinforcement and mana cultivation in a day or two made him want to faint on the spot.

A path that should take years at the shortest, and more than ten at the longest.

Had he not at least vented his theatrical bewilderment, he might truly have gone mad from sheer resentment.

They said the gears of history never turn all at once. Yet that Kyrie did not roll like a gear—he leaped like lightning. Is that why he is called the Lightning Blade? Then by what is the value of revolutionary patience to be proven…?

It was enough to shake even his thoroughly hardened revolutionary spirit.

“Here.”

At that moment, Kyrie handed him a practice feder.

“Are you serious?”

Without realizing it, Jacobin IV glanced toward Vane and Frey standing nearby.

“Mine is not pure sword aura reinforcement, so you will suffer a little electric shock damage. Endure it. You are a sinful republican prisoner.”

Kyrie did not look at the two of them.

“If you wrap yourself in sword aura reinforcement, I could cut your throat even with this. Do you think those guards could stop it?”

“If I had such a chance, I should rejoice.”

Kyrie aimed his own feder, took one step back, and raised it vertically in a proper sword salute.

What is with that attitude? Are you certain you will win? Fine, then. Delude yourself as much as you please. Revolutionary warriors have always fought from a disadvantage. Disadvantage itself was the comrade of Revolution! Then today’s unfavorableness too is historic legitimacy!

Jacobin IV found that composure unpleasant and frightening, yet slightly welcome as well.

“I will not use any authorities beyond bodily enhancement, neural acceleration, and Bio-radar.”

“You will regret that.”

Jacobin IV laid the sword horizontally and took the Dawn Council’s sword salute.

Whoosh!

He kicked off the air in a single bound.

Sword aura reinforcement rose from his heart like flame and flowed into his arm and blade.

Colors like fivefold sunlight wrapped around the sword and roared long.

Clack!

Kyrie lightly blocked the first strike.

Thunk!

Smiling faintly, he pushed away the guard and flicked upward in counterattack with a blade wavering with lightning reinforcement.

He is skilled in swordsmanship too?

Center of gravity, counterattack, breathing, footwork.

These were virtues ordinary superhuman knights ignored in drunken dependence on authority.

Kyrie was different.

Whoosh!

He did not rely solely on enhancement through authority.

In every slash and every step lived the seasoned mastery of a warrior forged through tens of thousands of drills and hundreds of real battles.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Dozens of rapid exchanges followed in quick succession.

But!

Jacobin IV dropped low and rotated toward the eyepatched right side.

It was the pattern in which he had the greatest confidence: always seizing the opponent’s blind angle and driving in a sudden thrust.

It will work even better on you!

The sword of a revolutionary warrior always flew in from the shadows.

Whoosh!

“Huh?”

But Kyrie pulled up the corner of his mouth.

It had already been years since he began wearing the eyepatch.

Thanks to Bio-radar, he no longer relied on sight alone to perceive his surroundings.

Kyrie slashed downward, locking their guards together.

Thunk!

In that instant, he flicked the opposing blade upward and rammed shoulder to shoulder, driving him back.

“Kh!”

Jacobin IV let out an involuntary groan as numbness pierced into his wrist.

He had not lost to sword aura.

He had lost to technique.

It would have been better to lose to sword aura.

“That’s enough!”

Frey called an end to the spar.

Jacobin IV stared at Kyrie with a face still stunned by shock, then was half-dragged away by Frey and Vane.

Do not feel too wronged. I always did my best, anywhere and everywhere. And there is a reason I went out of my way to learn this in the little time I already lack while focusing on electric arts. It is a reason your side should quite like as well.

Kyrie left the royal palace just as he was.

He descended into Sky Castle’s city district and headed toward a luxury hotel.

“Joi.”

“My lord! No, Your Highness! Why have you come in person? If you had summoned me, I would have run to you at once!”

There, Joi was drafting marching plans together with officer knights, mercenary captains, and cadets of the marksman school.

“Shall we go up for a moment? Do you have time?”

“Yes. Today’s meeting just ended.”

Joi ran over.

Kyrie handed her a bottle of the elixir of sacred radiance he had brought from above, then climbed back toward the royal palace with her.

“It turns out one thing those people said was true.”

“Heh. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“Yes. Sword aura reinforcement really could be used by anyone. I managed it quickly because of electric arts, but it will take you longer.”

“You mean sword aura reinforcement?”

“Yes. Sword aura reinforcement.”

“Y-you mean that same sword aura reinforcement used by the cathedral knights of the Myriad Star Church and the sworn warriors of the royal house?”

Joi’s jaw fell open.

Shock and delight raced through her bright yellow eyes.

“I will teach you.”

Kyrie gave the gift with a cheerful smile.

“Ah, ah… that truly…”

Joi was so moved she could barely speak.

She had secretly worried that she might have been pushed aside by Erica even from the position of most useful subordinate.

For a moment, I wavered. I am sorry, my lord. You had not forgotten me, yet I nearly forgot you. What use is loyalty that expects a price? Even when the wind blows, lightning falls in a straight line. I will never waver in such winds again.

It had been a needless worry.

Good. She likes it after all. If Andromeda later moves Nereus to do something to me, the chances of Joi betraying me too have just become lower. Perfect.

In many ways, it was.

They arrived at the same conclusion for different reasons.

That they were special to one another.

“Hm?”

Just as Kyrie was about to enter the training ground, he saw a familiar figure from behind.

“Huuuu…”

Nereus was sitting cross-legged, practicing mana cultivation.

Over his shoulders, crimson lightning reinforcement flickered like heat haze, rising precariously and fading again.

He was drenched in sweat, yet showed no sign of giving up.

Of course he’ll succeed.

Kyrie stared at the sight for a moment, then turned away with Joi.

At least almost as quickly as I did.

There was no shortage of training grounds.

Chapter 195

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