The moment the words “high Meister” left Count Landerck’s mouth, the faces of the imperial knights standing nearby turned even paler.
But just as despair threatened to spread and morale began plummeting into an endless abyss…
Kain, wearing a strangely relaxed smile, asked Count Steiner Landerck once more.
“Count Landerck. If I act as bait and force them to reveal an opening, can you definitely finish one of them?”
At Kain’s declaration that he would be the bait, not only Count Landerck but even Baron Heinrich Denver—standing right beside him—stiffened.
In place of the speechless Denver, Count Landerck roared with wide eyes.
“Your Imperial Majesty! How can you say such a thing? Even if every one of us becomes a corpse here, Your Majesty must survive!”
As expected, the opposition was fierce.
Among the loyalists who placed the Emperor’s safety above all else, Count Landerck was infamous for his inflexibility and stubbornness.
The moment Kain suggested becoming bait, he raised his voice.
Yet Kain merely shook his head slowly with a gentle smile.
“Yes, yes. Count Landerck, I would appreciate it if you said that when we are not facing two high-Meister assassins. But right now, I am speaking of reality.”
“To lay down our lives for Your Imperial Majesty is a life more valuable than surviving for ourselves!”
Aaron Valerian, holy knight of the Emperor’s Cult standing nearby, shouted.
Kain turned a cold gaze upon him and spoke.
“Lower your voice, Valerian. Your Emperor did not say he would ‘die’—he said he would be bait.”
Kain quietly revealed the back of his left hand.
As he raised it and gently infused mana, the hidden Sigil began to emerge clearly.
“I possess a Sigil. The earlier ambush was too sudden for me to prepare, but no longer.”
The Baron of Protection, Vendelhaven.
If he invoked its authority, no matter how powerful the assassins, he could preserve his life even while acting as bait a few times.
“I will not repeat myself. I will be the bait, so watch for the assassins’ openings. That is the only way.”
Neither Aaron Valerian of the Emperor’s Cult, Baron Denver, nor Count Landerck were fools.
They simply could not accept using the Emperor as a means rather than an end to resolve the situation.
But in the end, was this crisis not caused by their own weakness?
With ashamed expressions, they could only nod.
“There seems no other way. Though I dislike it, we have no choice but to gamble.”
Baron Heinrich Denver lent his support to Kain’s opinion, and Count Landerck no longer objected.
Having confirmed everyone’s resolve, Kain acted immediately.
“Uwaaaaah!”
Kain pretended to be a terrified wastrel and feigned a panicked charge out of the escort formation.
Baron Heinrich Denver and a few imperial knights hurriedly followed.
At this performance, one of the two assassins confronting the escorts reacted instantly.
Its body of thick black aura blurred for a moment before appearing right beside Kain, leaving a strange afterimage.
“Damn it!”
Baron Denver’s aura blade shone even brighter, but before his sword could swing, the assassin’s blade aimed for Kain’s throat.
A mere Grand Chevalier could never track a blade from a high-Meister assassin.
Yet even if the assassin’s strike far surpassed Kain’s perception, his Sigil had already been primed long ago.
[The Sigil of the Baron of Protection, Vendelhaven, activates.]
[The authority of the Baron of Protection, Vendelhaven, protects you.]
[Wanderer who inherits the sacred imperial bloodline, fear not. At this moment, the protection of a Star Throne is with you.]
The Sigil on the back of his hand erupted in brilliant golden light.
An overwhelming presence of golden aura gathered, forming an impenetrable shield around Kain.
The assassin’s blade could not pierce the divine protection of a Star Throne.
The moment the assassin faltered in shock at its blocked attack and tried to retreat hastily, Baron Denver swung his aura blade.
Shrrk!
The assassin’s left arm, shrouded in darkness, was severed.
Though the one-armed assassin counterattacked immediately, Denver was a Grand Chevalier swordsman.
A deep wound was carved into his abdomen, but he had retreated in time and preserved his life.
“Protect His Imperial Majesty with your lives!”
Dozens of imperial knights stationed nearby charged the assassin like moths to flame.
Thanks to them, Denver was able to disengage at the perfect moment.
Yet no matter how well-trained the imperial knights were, they could not withstand a high-Meister assassin.
To buy time for Kain and Denver to withdraw, the knights rushed the assassin.
A feast of blood began.
“Argh!”
“Guh!”
“Aaaah!”
Yet amid the helplessly collapsing knights being slaughtered, the power of the Star Throne manifested by Kain snowballed into another miracle.
“For the Felberg imperial house!”
The sight of the Star Throne’s power awakened Aaron Valerian, holy knight of the Emperor’s Cult.
His eyes turned golden, and in his hand, the faith of a fanatic who had worshipped the Emperor and imperial house for so long coalesced into a greatsword of light.
“Felberg forever!”
The greatsword of light infused with the Emperor’s Cult’s fervent wish cleaved the assassin’s skull.
It happened in an instant.
The assassin whose head had been split tried for mutual destruction in its final breath, but Aaron Valerian did not allow it.
“Blasphemer!”
The golden greatsword swung again and crushed the assassin’s upper body.
“T-this is the power of the Emperor’s Cult…?”
“What in the world…”
The imperial knights were stunned by the unbelievable sight.
These were the same unidentified assassins who, during the Founding Day catastrophe, had slaughtered dozens of elite imperial knights in moments and overwhelmed even the Empire’s Meister sword-saint, Count Steiner Landerck.
Yet one had its skull split in a single blow.
To the onlookers, it could only appear that the holy faith the Emperor’s Cult had upheld had become a miraculous blade to destroy the enemies of the imperial house.
In any case, having witnessed the fall of what had seemed an insurmountable calamity…
“We did it!”
“As expected…!”
Not only the imperial knights and loyalist nobles but even the citizens of the Felberg Empire—who had been unable to escape the plaza due to the dark barrier and had watched the battle in hushed silence—erupted in thunderous cheers and applause.
Yet.
“It is not over yet!”
Despite the torrent of cheers and applause, Kain did not get swept up in the mood.
He did not know who had shouted “We did it!” but Kain sensed it instinctively.
These were not foes who would end here.
At Kain’s sharp cry, Count Steiner Landerck was the first to regain composure.
“Destroy the enemies of the imperial house and Empire!”
Count Landerck charged the remaining assassin in front.
Fortunately, the assassin—greatly shaken by the unexpected death of its comrade—could not properly respond to Landerck’s ferocious assault.
Reacting half a beat late and retreating, the remaining assassin swung a longsword infused with thick darkness.
Yet its blade was soon blocked by a shield radiating brilliant aura.
“!”
The dark power in the assassin’s longsword began devouring the brilliant aura on Landerck’s shield.
But Landerck swiftly discarded the tainted shield and gripped his longsword with both hands.
“I will not let you escape!”
With a roar of fury, his aura blade swung, drawing a vivid azure arc toward the assassin.
“We join you!”
“Felberg forever!”
Behind the retreating assassin appeared Count Gard Apeldio—commander of the Fifth Imperial Knight Order—and Aaron Valerian.
Apeldio’s aura blade and Aaron’s golden greatsword struck simultaneously from left and right.
Yet the assassin had merely been momentarily flustered by the loss of its comrade.
As a being evaluated at high Meister, it was not an opponent to fall easily to such an attack.
It twisted its leg joints in an unnatural, inhuman evasion to dodge both strikes.
But…
Its opponents were not only those two.
The second slash from the Meister sword-saint Count Landerck—who had swiftly recovered his longsword after the first strike—cut the assassin in half.
Shrrk.
With a chilling sound of something being severed, the assassin’s body split in two.
As it died, the black aura consumed its flesh.
“They erased the evidence.”
Watching the corpse vanish without trace from a short distance away, Kain muttered tiredly to himself.
At the same time, he racked his developer memories to deduce the assassins’ clear identity and their backers.
But that lasted only a moment.
There were still two uninvited guests remaining in the grand plaza.
“Two still left.”
At Kain’s words, Baron Heinrich Denver’s face grew even paler.
A priest from the Emperor’s Cult had rushed over to treat Denver’s wounds and hastily stop the bleeding, but the injury was far from light.
It would be difficult to count Denver as full fighting strength immediately.
“We must kill those two. Only then will the barrier fall. Concentrate the mages’ firepower to disrupt their focus.”
Though his life had been threatened, Kain did not lose composure.
He had always been a cold-headed man even before possession.
First… to destroy the barrier sealing the grand plaza, we must kill the assassins.
Having dealt with the immediate assassination threat, Kain set the next priority.
“Move the citizens back. If they stay too close, they will be caught in the backlash of high-level magic.”
At his command, the imperial knights began evacuating the citizens away from the two assassins maintaining the barrier.
Then Viscount Philips Grey—known as a direct disciple of the deceased Grey Tower Lord and a high-ranking mage—joined the main force with excellent mages in tow.
Gradually, the distance to the assassin maintaining the eastern barrier narrowed.
“Everyone be careful. They are staying still now because they are focused on the barrier, but they may counterattack if assaulted. Prepare for every possibility.”
Yet just as Viscount Philips Grey and the imperial mages were about to cast their attack spells in unison…
It was not the assassin in the east before them, but the one maintaining the western barrier that moved.
“They’re targeting the citizens!”
Their blades were aimed where innocent people stood.