Judgment (2)
Those who reached the 9th Tier could unleash firepower rivaling an entire fleet all on their own. I was living proof of that.
When I poured every ounce of my strength into a single strike, the result was equal to—or even slightly stronger than—a Dreadnought-class battleship’s full broadside.
Considering the sheer destructive power of such a warship, the fact that a human body could generate that kind of force was nothing short of astonishing.
And there was only one sure way to subdue an opponent capable of fleet-level firepower.
“You bring the fleet with you.”
The moment the words left my mouth, Charles’s charging body froze mid-stride. The “intuition” that only the finest knights possessed—an inexplicable sixth sense—had stopped him cold.
“At least your instincts are decent.”
Before the echo of my voice faded, the entire plain vanished beneath a storm of explosions.
KWAGWAGWAGWANG—!
The naval guns fired from eight kilometers away turned the fields before Porvin Fortress into a charred wasteland in less than a tenth of a second. The earth heaved, the sky shook.
In an instant everything before my eyes was swallowed by blackness. Any ordinary knight would have died from that single volley.
But I never expected Charles to fall so easily. At a casual wave of his hand, the royal guards lined up behind him surged forward.
They carried heavy machine guns that normally required vehicle mounts or fixed positions, yet they advanced through the smoke while laying down a crushing curtain of fire.
The 76mm anti-aircraft batteries refused to stay silent either.
“Fire!”
At the battery commander’s order, all twenty guns roared at once. The relentless bombardment only ended after a full five minutes. When I lifted my right hand slightly, every cannon fell silent.
“The smoke is in the way.”
A light flick of my wrist summoned a wind that swept the acrid haze aside. The hundreds of soldiers who had followed Charles had already disappeared without a trace. In their place yawned a colossal crater, the jagged scar left by the shells that had rained down on the plain.
And at its center stood Charles Raymonds. He had drawn out every last drop of his aura to block the onslaught.
“Magic and aura truly are remarkable.”
I meant it, at least halfway. Charles Raymonds’s personality and character were irredeemable, but his talent as a knight was genuine. Even after taking direct hits from battleship cannons, he still looked mostly intact.
“The 9th Tier really is in a league of its own.”
“Kuhup…!”
Of course, looking intact and actually being unharmed were two different things. Leaning heavily on the lance planted in the ground, he spat blood and spoke with bitter resentment.
“You… coward…”
“Hmm?”
“To think the Grand Duke of the South himself would… cough… not understand honor…?”
Anyone listening might have pitied him. If one conveniently forgot that he had planted a fortress on the sole land route between Sarcen and Lutetia, invited us to talks only to launch a surprise attack, and even attempted a night raid.
“I personally took the field, yet you dare attack from afar like a coward—”
“If anyone’s acting cowardly, it’s you.”
“Cowardly?”
Having lived in the twenty-first century, I honestly struggled to understand the “honor” he kept shouting about. Modern war was a brutal contest of national power. The side with superior equipment, better-trained soldiers, and richer intelligence assets won.
From that perspective, the real coward was Charles Raymonds. He had turned a blind eye to the corrupt nobles, let the entrenched powers ruin the West, and spent his days gallivanting across the countryside looking for fights.
After making every worst possible choice and cornering himself, he now wanted to cry “Let us settle this honorably in single combat” at the very last moment. No matter how you looked at it, that was nothing but an ugly, desperate final struggle.
“While I seized real authority from the hollow title of Grand Duke of the South, purged corruption, and restored order to the South, what exactly were you doing?”
“…”
“You did nothing at all, yet you call me a coward for spending ten years quietly building my foundation and preparing. Do you truly believe that’s fair?”
Insisting that someone who spent a decade playing around should fight on equal terms with someone who spent a decade working was far more cowardly.
Charles Raymonds could not refute a single word.
“You…!”
He forced himself upright once more. In response, I dismounted and stepped forward. The moment I discarded both gloves, the unleashed mana hummed through the air with a pressure entirely different from the shockwave of naval gunfire.
“The true cowards are this empire.”
Clap. At the light sound of my hands coming together, blue mana particles swirled into the sky. In an instant five colossal swords of light took form.
“Corrupt nobles who failed to change with the times. Mages who refuse to accept the changing era and cling desperately to power.”
“And parasites like you who leech off that very empire.”
A mage’s weakest moment was during casting. Charles, an outstanding warrior, knew this better than anyone. Without hesitation he leveled his lance and charged.
Mana Sword: Maximum Acceleration
Kiiiing—!
Coordinate Lock
The five swords hanging in the air suddenly plunged downward at a speed the eye could not follow. Charles, already occupied with blocking the 76mm shells hammering his aura barrier, had no leisure to defend against the descending blades.
KWAGWAGWAGWANG—!
A single flash of blue light swallowed his body. When the radiance faded, Charles Raymonds’s crimson aura had vanished. Five blue greatswords now impaled his kneeling form. The blades that had once been the size of buildings had shrunk to ordinary sword length to pin him in place.
“Kk… krrk…”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
I approached with a cold voice.
“It’s a spell designed to immobilize your body. Even for me, instantly crippling a 9th-Tier aura user isn’t easy.”
A simple death would have been far too merciful for everything Charles Raymonds had done. Building a fortress in Sarcen. Launching two surprise attacks. The Southern citizens who had died in those attacks. Compared to that karma, a clean death was far too comfortable.
“So first, let’s shatter your Aura Core.”
Woooong— My right hand glowed blue. Only then did he seem to realize what I intended, but it was already far too late.
Shuk. My hand, half-transformed into particles, pierced his lower abdomen. Inside, I felt an irregularly shaped crystal. That was his Aura Core—the organ that gathered aura through breathing techniques and circulated it throughout the body.
I clenched my fist. Cracks spread across the crystal.
“Kk, krrrk… krrk…!”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be over soon.”
The moment I finished speaking, the Aura Core in my grasp literally shattered. When I withdrew my hand, a jewel resembling a ruby remained in my palm. I melted it completely with mana, then looked back at Charles.
“He fainted.”
I dispelled all five mana swords that had been pinning him. His body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
For a 9th-Tier knight and the Grand Duke of the West, it was a rather shabby end. Of course, I had no intention of stopping here. Destroying his Aura Core had merely been to make capturing him easier.
“Call the military physicians from the royal guard.”
I had pondered it throughout the march to the West—what would be the most miserable end for Charles Raymonds. The conclusion I reached was simple: take away everything he possessed.
Having lost the West and now his aura, the only thing left to Charles Raymonds was Aria. And the simplest way to ensure a romance-novel male lead was abandoned by the heroine?
The answer was obvious.
“Grit your teeth. This is going to hurt.”
A blue magic circle appeared above his wrist. Charles’s consciousness snapped back instantly. The moment he regained awareness I summoned a mana sword and swung it.
“Krrraaaagh?!”
Slash—! The sharp blade severed the tendons in his arm. When he thrashed in agony and tried to faint again, I used magic to force him awake once more. Without pause I cut the tendons in his legs.
“Kyaargh?!”
By then Charles finally seemed to understand what I was doing.
“I-I was wrong… khk, wrong… I was wrong…”
He tried desperately to move his paralyzed arm while begging pitifully. But it was already far too late.
“If you wanted to apologize, you should have done it sooner.”
Right after the Albion air raid. Right after the surprise attack on Sarcen harbor. And before the incident at Sarcen Fortress. He had had plenty of chances. Charles Raymonds himself had thrown every one of them away.
Two more blue slashes severed the tendons in his remaining arm and leg. Only then did the royal guards who had been waiting behind me step forward.
“Take measures to ensure this bastard’s severed tendons cannot regenerate, then send him to the imperial capital.”
The unconscious Charles was dragged away by the guards.
“The remaining army will enter the capital.”
Since Charles had only been able to bring a few hundred troops, the capital was clearly half-empty by now. All that remained was to occupy the city, station our forces, and install a puppet government.
The real work of annexation would begin only after the puppet regime stabilized and public sentiment calmed. After we laid railroads, built factories, and the West had begun to assimilate.
Thus the Southern army crossed the gates of Porvin without encountering any resistance.
And a few days later, news of the fall of the western capital Porvin reached the imperial heartland. The capital immediately fell into chaos.