Chapter 87 Secret History of the Saint Emperor

The City of Heaven, Nakar-Amosdock, was perhaps the most peculiar metropolis in the known world. In virtually every other city across the continent, the closer one drew to the urban center, the more boisterous the streets grew, with buildings multiplying and jostling against one another in cramped proximity. Here, however, the pattern was entirely reversed.

At the very center of the capital lay an extraordinarily colossal circular plaza, boasting a radius of roughly two kilometers, sliced directly through its core by the grand Way of Heaven.

Intersecting this vast plaza was another majestic boulevard—the sole thoroughfare permitted to cross the Way of Heaven, forming with it a titanic, monumental cross.

This intersecting road possessed an equally prestigious title—the Beam of Heaven.

Divided cleanly by these two intersecting axes, the metropolitan center was partitioned into four distinct quadrants. In the northeast quadrant lay the Imperial Palace District, sprawling over an expanse equivalent to ten full city blocks. As the supreme symbol of sovereign authority within the Parkington Holy Kingdom, this enclave was an absolute forbidden sanctuary to the general populace. In the southeast quadrant stood the Parliamentary District, dominated visually by three enormous, identical palaces whose only external distinction lay in the crests mounted above their central porticos: the Soaring Eagle, the Grey Wolf, and the Reindeer. These three grand halls housed the famed Three Estates Parliament. In the northwest quadrant was the Temple of the War God; despite its divine title, it housed no religious pantheon, serving instead as the centralized military citadel containing the Supreme Command, the General Staff, and the Knight Headquarters. Finally, the southwest quadrant belonged to the Royal Knight Academy, the single largest district in the city center, covering nearly fifteen city blocks.

At this precise moment, Richie sat sequestered within one of the academy's grand libraries.

This library was constructed on the scale of an imperial palace in its own right. Its central rotunda served as a reading hall that, by Richie's estimate, could easily accommodate twenty thousand readers at once.

Because the rotunda was circular, the reading tiers were arranged in concentric rings reminiscent of an amphitheater, gently sloping upward from a low center to higher elevations along the perimeter.

Richie occupied an obscure corner table on the uppermost tier, walled in by towering stacks of books.

These volumes had been gathered haphazardly from the archival stacks. When selecting them, he had paid little heed to their sheer volume, pulling down whatever caught his eye as potentially useful; only after wheeling the loaded cart to his table did he realize how formidable the hoard had become.

Had they been ordinary scholarly treatises, reading through such a mountain of text would have required a year or two. Fortunately, almost everything Richie had chosen consisted of illustrated albums and compendiums.

His selections were eclectic in the extreme, ranging across cultural geography, historical encyclopedias, ancient chronicles, and battle armor schematics.

Reading omnivorously while absorbing concepts intuitively rather than dwelling upon every minute detail was an intellectual method he had adopted from the prodigy Trisli. In comparison, Trisli's reading interests had been somewhat focused, revolving primarily around martial lore and knightly disciplines.

Trisli read to fortify her established foundation, treating reading as a disciplined tool for martial advancement. Richie, however, read solely in pursuit of creative epiphany. Epiphanies were like flecks of alluvial gold hidden within river sand: since no one could predict which handful of silt held the shining grain, one had no choice but to sift through every grain of sand available.

These illustrated folios were composed in the formal Parkington script. To decipher them, Richie had brought along a personal interpreter.

This interpreter was one of the twenty-seven noble captives in his entourage, and currently the most pampered among them. She possessed breathtaking beauty, an exquisite physical constitution, and a gentle, compliant temperament that made her the consummate archetype of feminine grace. Regrettably, she already had a husband and a five-year-old child back in her homeland, which meant Richie understood their liaison was destined to be transient.

Accompanied by such a striking companion, Richie had no inclination to let their hours together pass in mere scholastic abstinence. Reading required only the eyes and mind, leaving his body free; thus, he had simply invited Jeanne to straddle his lap beneath the broad study desk.

Their garments had both been specially tailored, with discrete openings concealed at critical seams, allowing them to remain intimately united whenever impulse struck without the inconvenience of undressing.

In the early days, sustaining such prolonged, quiet intimacy without active motion would have taxed the endurance of any female knight. By now, however, Jeanne had grown thoroughly accustomed to him. Resting serenely against him, she gently exerted subtle muscular control, cradling him in rhythmic, soothing warmth while her body engaged in a soft, delicate caress that yielded a constant, pleasant current of sensation.

This tender, leisurely union provided them both with a mellow, continuous pleasure. The mild, sweet stimulation was delightfully calibrated—much like savoring fine tea, growing richer with time and making one wish the quiet afternoon would linger indefinitely.

Sheltered by the towering piles of books in their secluded alcove, they had passed several days without a single soul disturbing them.

Just as on preceding mornings, shortly past nine o’clock Richie arrived at his customary seat, with Jeanne seated upon his lap as before. Closely entwined beneath the mahogany desk, a massive illustrated folio lay open between them; Richie pointed his finger along a passage of ornate calligraphy, and Jeanne leaned close, whispering a quiet translation into his ear.

Roughly an hour passed. As more readers drifted into the vast library rotunda, a young woman suddenly hurried through the doorway. She cast a swift, searching glance across the hall and immediately spotted the secluded corner where Richie was ensconced.

Quickening her steps, she strode briskly toward his table.

"Hey—do me a favor and give me a spot to hide for a minute!"

Calling out softly to Richie and Jeanne without awaiting their consent, the girl nimbly ducked underneath the long wooden bench beside their table.

Barely had she concealed herself when several young noble youths burst through the library's double doors, glancing in every direction in an obvious search.

Richie grasped the situation at once: another round of courtly pursuit and youthful rivalry between knightly peers. He exchanged a knowing smile with Jeanne. Richie was no stranger to such dramas; back in Monstoke, he had fought a formal duel against Gerod for Margaret's favor barely a year ago.

Jeanne was even more seasoned in such matters. From the age of fourteen, aristocratic youths had hovered around her in swarms, fighting countless duels over her smiles, a phenomenon that had persisted even after her marriage.

The searching youths swept through the hall row by row. With numerous scholars reading nearby, they dared not cause an outright disturbance. Each time their eyes grazed Richie’s corner, their gaze inevitably lingered upon Jeanne's radiant elegance.

Because Jeanne was so striking, she thoroughly monopolized the youths' attention, with the result that not one of them noticed the petite figure curled beneath the bench.

After a fruitless search, the youths departed with disgruntled expressions.

"You can come out now," Jeanne murmured downward.

To their surprise, the girl did not emerge immediately; instead, a slender hand reached out from under the desk.

The hand slid directly between Richie's thighs, boldly taking hold of his substantial, aroused member.

"Whoa! You two have nerve—actually carrying on like this right in the academy reading hall!"

The girl poked her head out, whispering with an impish smirk. She spoke in fluent Monstoke dialect; having observed them from beneath the desk, she had already deduced that Richie was a Monstoke native who could not read Parkington script.

Having had no chance to examine her features earlier, Richie now had a clear look at her face.

She was an exquisite young beauty, easily outshining both Margaret and Tidi. Her eyes were exceptionally large and remarkably spirited, flashing with vibrant mischief, complemented by a delicate straight nose and a pert, slender chin.

Upon taking in her expression, Richie's immediate impression was that she was the spitting image of that clever little minx Ginny.

The resemblance lay not in facial contour, but entirely in their shared, untamed aura of cheeky audacity.

"Good grief, you're enormous!" the girl marvelled, her hand refusing to release its brazen grip.

"Care to test it for yourself?" Richie blurted out, seized by sudden impish mischief.

The moment the words left his mouth, he felt a twinge of regret.

To his astonishment, the girl gave a serious nod, turning toward Jeanne with a brisk wave of her hand. "Pardon me, sister. Mind if I borrow your man for a spell?"

Jeanne was caught between laughter and disbelief, but she gracefully rose from his lap.

As Richie's aroused form slipped free from Jeanne, remaining proudly erect, the newly emerged girl reached out and touched the crown of his shaft with an intrigued fingertip. Her expression was a marvel of conflicting emotions—hesitation, startled wonder, and unmistakable anticipation.

Casting a swift glance around the reading hall, she swiftly unbuckled her leather belt and slid her trousers down to her knees.

Turning around, she swung her slender leg across Richie's lap, guiding his thick length toward her own delicate gateway.

Richie felt himself entering an exceptionally snug passage, its tightness rivaling even Lina's formidable physical tone. Her feminine chamber was remarkably shallow; when he pressed in to the end, nearly half of his length remained exposed outside.

The instant he reached her depth, he felt an astonishingly powerful suction, followed by a rhythmic, undulating squeeze from the inner walls of her flesh.

This was undeniably an advanced tier of knightly physical technique, easily rivaling Lina's caliber.

Richie's thoughts sharpened, and his guard snapped up. Could the scene moments ago have been a calculated act? Was this girl approaching him with deliberate intent?

"Let’s get one thing straight beforehand," the girl whispered intimately against his ear. "I'm just playing around. There’s no future between you and me, so don't you dare get any clingy ideas."

She glanced at Jeanne standing nearby and giggled softly. "Just a friendly warning. You’ve already got such a stunning companion, so you shouldn't have any reason to pester me afterward."

Despite her breezy words, Richie did not lower his caution; he could not dismiss the possibility of reverse psychology. Yet in this moment, he chose not to dissect her motives, focusing instead on enjoying the exhilarating physical clash.

Her technical mastery was visibly superior to Jeanne's, and Richie himself was a seasoned master of physical cultivation. Though they remained seated motionless upon the wooden chair, their internal battle of vitality surged with escalating fervor.

Determined to drain his reserves, the girl deployed every artifice of muscular control and breathing discipline she possessed. Her aggressive offensive promptly ignited Richie's competitive resolve.

Gripping her hips firmly, Richie exerted subtle pressure while compressing the core of his battle qi, slightly condensing his form.

With a muffled gasp, the remaining portion of his shaft plunged completely into her deepest sanctum.

Completely unprepared for such profound penetration, the girl nearly cried out in shock. Fortunately, Richie had anticipated the reaction and clamped his hand firmly over her mouth.

Having deployed his full physical conditioning, Richie held nothing back. Keeping her cries stifled while leaving her nose free to breathe, he unleashed the full cadence of his vigor beneath the desk.

Jeanne shook her head with an amused, helpless sigh. Reaching into her tunic, she retrieved a circular cotton pad saturated with moisture from earlier intimacy.

Blushing slightly at the sight, Jeanne remembered her practical role and placed the fresh cloth carefully beneath the girl's hips to prevent any stray moisture from staining the furniture.

Her timing was immaculate: the moment the pad was set, the girl's body shuddered uncontrollably in a violent convulsion of release, accompanied by an intense surge of feminine essence.

Richie possessed an unyielding nature. Even as her defenses collapsed, he showed no inclination to ease up, driving forward through subsequent waves of intensity.

Only after she had collapsed through seven or eight successive crests of exhaustion, her limbs rendered entirely limp, did he finally draw the encounter to a halt.

He felt no concern for her welfare; after all, she was a trained knight whose stamina would rebound quickly. When she stepped outside later, she would feel at most slightly lightheaded.

To Richie's utter surprise, the instant the girl recovered a modicum of breath, she seized his hand and bit down hard upon his little finger.

Richie nearly yelped. The bite was viciously delivered; had he not mastered the Vajra Indestructible technique, which instantly transmuted his flesh and bone into iron-hard resilience the moment battle qi flooded his skin, the little devil would likely have sheared his finger clean off.

While Richie held back his shout, the girl herself let out a sharp whimper of agony. Clasping her aching jaw, she stared at Richie in stunned disbelief, having nearly cracked her own teeth against his knuckles.

"Ouch! What kind of inhuman art have you cultivated?" the girl demanded.

She reached out, pinching his chest through his tunic. Sure enough, beneath her fingers his chest felt like a dense weave of tempered steel wire—yielding slightly with springy elasticity, yet unyielding as an anvil.

"Bronze Skin? Stone Physique? Or Steel Sinew and Iron Bone? Don't tell me it's actually the Vajra Indestructible?"

The girl rattled off an entire roster of esoteric physical arts.

Richie regarded her with rising astonishment. He was familiar with "Steel Sinew and Iron Bone" because Old Master Balmer had mentioned it in passing as an external conditioning art, though far inferior to the true Vajra discipline.

Body-refining techniques were the most obscure of all knightly paths. Ninety-nine percent of knights across the continent had never heard of anything beyond the legendary Vajra art.

Yet this girl casually reeled off three distinct varieties in a single breath. Richie grew increasingly suspicious regarding her true lineage.

Moreover, this library was situated within the Royal Knight Academy—a precinct ordinary folk had no clearance to enter.

"What? You won't even tell me that?" The girl pouted, her brow furrowing with impatience.

"Tell me who you are first, and then I'll answer," Richie replied calmly.

"Hmph!" The girl scoffed dismissively. "I told you, this was just for fun. Don't take it seriously. Why should you care who I am?"

A palpable aura of aristocratic haughtiness radiated from her, leaving Richie somewhat perplexed. Was this genuine pride, or merely a sophisticated act of playing hard to get?

"I haven't even settled the score with you for trying to bite my finger off," Richie grumbled defensively.

Hearing this, the girl glared back with even greater fury, propping her hands on her slender hips. "You dare complain? Bottoming out like that can get a girl into serious trouble!"

"Your physical capacity seemed more than adequate. You didn't seem hurt," Richie said nonchalantly.

"That's not what I mean, you idiot! I mean getting pregnant! Damn it all, now I have to go hunt down emergency herbs immediately. You’ve ruined my day!"

She threw her hands up with an expression of genuine mortification.

Just then, Richie sensed several sharp gazes locked onto him. Looking up, he saw the band of noble youths who had left earlier standing right at the entrance of the reading rotunda.

"Looks like your admirers found you after all," Richie noted. Lifting her hips slightly, he separated their bodies beneath the desk.

The girl reacted with lightning reflexes, yanking up her trousers and fastening her belt in a flash.

In her haste, she forgot to remove the absorbent cotton pad underneath, pulling her trousers over it entirely. By the time she realized her oversight, it was already too late to retrieve it discreetly.

Glaring at Richie, the girl abandoned any pretense of hiding. She stood tall with haughty composure, defiantly tilting her chin toward the youths gathered at the portal. Richie was no fool; observing her posture, he knew precisely what role she intended to thrust upon him.

"Do you really need to drag me into your mess?" Richie sighed resignedly.

Grumbling under her breath, the girl muttered through clenched teeth: "You had quite a blast just now, didn't you? You nearly worked me to death. In exchange, the least you can do is help me get rid of these pests!"

Richie casually brushed his knuckles past her lower hip, retorting dryly: "With your caliber of performance, you shouldn't be so terribly picky about company..."

Before he could finish, a dainty boot stomped down hard upon his instep. Naturally, against his Vajra conditioning, the blow felt like nothing more than a playful tap.

"I share beds for sport, but those clowns are different—all they care about is using my family's pedigree to climb the social ladder. Men like that make me sick to my stomach."

The girl cast a frigid sidelong glance at Richie, her voice turning chilly: "You aren't that kind of opportunist, are you?"

Noticing that frosty look, Richie rubbed his chin, pondering anew: Was this entire confrontation scripted?

If only Lina were here; she would undoubtedly recognize this girl. The more he looked at her haughty flair, the more she resembled Lina in temperament.

"You wouldn't happen to be another descendant of the Saint Emperor, would you?" Richie asked skeptically.

"No, but close enough," the girl snapped, a flicker of resentment crossing her eyes at the mention of the Saint Emperor's bloodline.

Richie understood immediately. If not of imperial blood, she had to be the progeny of an illustrious Sword Saint.

Such legendary lineages carried a peculiar hereditary trait: wielders of transcendent bloodlines found it notoriously difficult to produce offspring. No one knew the underlying cause, though scholars had debated the riddle for centuries.

Because of this scarcity, heirs to transcendent bloodlines were treated as supreme national treasures by their respective empires. Even if they achieved nothing and possessed zero talent, they were pampered like sacred relics. It was hardly surprising that ambitious noble youths fixated on such heiresses in hopes of soaring to power.

Richie disliked complications, yet in his current standing he harbored no dread of them. Thus, as the cluster of youths marched toward his table, he greeted them with an easy, unruffled smile.

A rapid barrage of foreign chatter erupted from the youths, leaving Richie completely bewildered; he could not comprehend a single syllable.

"Slow down, hold on. Do any of you speak Monstoke?" Richie asked aloud.

The youths halted, looking at one another in mutual confusion, whispering among themselves without answering him.

"Monstoke dialect is considered an obscure border tongue," the girl explained. "It isn't on the academy's required language curriculum."

"Yet you speak it fluently," Richie pointed out, his suspicion flaring again.

"No choice. I was forced to study from childhood—I speak over thirty continental languages," the girl said, looking Richie up and down with an increasingly puzzled expression. "I honestly assumed you were the scion of some great foreign house..."

She tapped her temple with her knuckles, realizing her foolish assumption. If Richie couldn't even speak basic Parkington dialect, how could he possibly belong to her aristocratic circle?

With that realization, her gaze cooled considerably, though a trace of bewilderment remained.

She had misjudged his status because, as a foreigner bearing only an Apprentice Knight's insignia, he nonetheless enjoyed free run of this restricted sanctum. Under imperial custom, only highborn nobles possessed such privileges. She was genuinely stumped as to what kind of anomaly stood before her.

His companion's disdain did not offend Richie. The Monstoke Republic championed equality and freedom, yet rigid tiers persisted even among its knights; an ordinary knight attempting to breach elite social circles faced fierce exclusion, let alone within an aristocratic hierarchy as entrenched as Parkington.

Another stream of sharp Parkington speech issued from the youths. Richie glanced inquisitively toward Jeanne.

Before Jeanne could interpret, the girl spoke up: "They're issuing a challenge. The Festival of Heaven is fast approaching, and they want to settle accounts with you during the festival tournament."

"The Festival of Heaven?"

Richie recalled the name. "Isn't that held only once a decade? If memory serves, the next one shouldn't be for another two years."

Concerned that his memory might have failed him, he calculated the dates in his mind.

Over a thousand years ago, on the twenty-second of June, the Parkington Empire had engineered the continent's very first true battle armor, inaugurating a millennium of imperial glory. Ever since, every ten years on the twenty-second of June, Parkington hosted a magnificent grand jubilee. That was the origin of the Festival of Heaven.

For Richie and fellow armor artificers, however, the paramount event was the international Battle Armor Exhibition held immediately following the festival ceremonies.

"Didn't you know? The festival scheduled for two years from now was officially rescheduled for this summer," the girl clarified.

Richie stroked his chin. When he had parted ways with Old Man Manuem back in the capital, no such decision had been announced; otherwise, the old craftsman would surely have traveled alongside him.

Rescheduling the Festival of Heaven two years early could never be a unilateral Parkington initiative; it had to be a joint consensus among the supreme leadership of the Allied Powers, concealing major strategic intent beneath the surface.

Richie felt out of his depth. When it came to high tactical maneuvers he was an amateur, to say nothing of continental grand strategy.

Seeing the youths clamoring before him, Richie needed no translator to deduce their question: they were asking whether he had the courage to accept their duel.

"Why don't they challenge me right now? Why wait until the Festival of Heaven?" Richie asked the girl.

The girl glanced at the Apprentice Knight insignia upon his chest and shook her head with a patronizing smirk. "They can't afford the public disgrace. A band of formal, accredited knights bullying an apprentice in broad daylight? Even if they won, they’d be expelled from the academy for dishonor. But on the day of the festival, everything is fair game. They can thrash you in front of the entire realm with total impunity."

Hearing this, Richie grasped their reasoning. During his journey here, the female knight driving his carriage had explained Parkington customs, noting that the imperial upper class strictly avoided direct oppression of lower orders, as such vulgar bullying invited widespread aristocratic scorn.

"Looks like they despise you quite thoroughly," the girl added, patting Richie’s shoulder with roguish familiarity. "Under normal circumstances, nobles of their stature wouldn't deign to dirty their own hands on someone like you. They'd just dispatch lackeys to beat you bloody. And those lackeys, eager to impress their patrons, would hit twice as hard."

"Would you mind keeping your hands to yourself?" Richie brushed her hand off his shoulder. Her street-urchin demeanor made it impossible to associate her with high aristocracy. Even though Lina was famously unruly, she at least maintained an immaculate veneer of ladylike poise in public.

In contrast, the youths striving to curry favor with her appeared impeccably refined in dress and carriage.

Unfortunately, her cynical explanation thoroughly extinguished any lingering sympathy Richie had felt for the scene. There was truly nothing pure under heaven; ambitious minds could always exploit loopholes. If highborn nobles wished to crush their inferiors, they merely employed willing proxies.

"Well? Do you dare accept, or are you going to cower? Give them an answer," the girl urged mischievously. She detested those fawning suitors, but she held no fondness for Richie either—in fact, she nursed a vengeful grudge over the agonizing exhaustion he had just inflicted upon her. By her fiery nature, that grievance demanded retribution.

Richie weighed the matter. He cared nothing for petty rivalries, but the Festival of Heaven inevitably concerned him; at the very least, his flight armor was slated for public unveiling during the festivities.

"Since you haven't refused, that counts as acceptance," the girl chirped with a sly grin, turning to rattle off a long sentence in Parkington dialect to the youths.

The youths exchanged glances before turning toward their leader, who stepped forward beside the girl with a triumphant, self-satisfied boast.

Richie was beginning to find his language barrier thoroughly inconvenient. He glanced at Jeanne.

Jeanne took the cue, leaning close to explain softly: "Participation in the Festival of Heaven is heavily restricted. That young nobleman said he would personally arrange your entry clearance."

Having delivered their terms, the youths turned on their heels and marched out, ignoring Richie completely.

Once they had cleared the double doors, the girl wheeled around, glaring at Richie with a stern, threatening scowl: "You’d better keep your word. If you back out and make a fool of me, I will never let you hear the end of it."

She glanced at the massive fortress of books surrounding him and nodded thoughtfully. "These should keep you busy for a week or two. I take it you'll be here every day?"

She did not bother demanding his identification documents; for someone of her standing, tracking down a foreign apprentice within the academy grounds would be child's play.

Having delivered her parting warning, the girl strutted away, though her unsteady, slightly trembling gait betrayed the physical ordeal she had just weathered.

Peace returned to the secluded alcove. Jeanne pointed downward with an embarrassed blush: "I gave her the clean cloth earlier. If we continue, we’ll make a mess of the chair."

Richie glanced down, chuckled awkwardly, and patted the adjacent seat, gesturing for Jeanne to sit beside him.

Time slipped by quietly. As three o’clock approached, one of the noble youths from the morning reappeared at the library threshold, accompanied by a frail young lad Richie had never seen before, who appeared barely twenty-two or three years old.

The youth clutched a printed parchment—the official registration dossier for entrants of the Festival of Heaven.

Marching up to Richie's table, the noble youth slammed the document onto the wood and nudged the scrawny lad forward.

The lad spoke up hastily in Monstoke tongue: "This is the special registration form arranged for you. Please fill it out immediately so we can submit it to the committee. Make sure every entry is accurate; the organizing commission will dispatch inspectors to verify every detail."

Richie glanced sideways at the parchment. Though he could not read the ornate script, the layout was easy enough to decipher: standard entries for name, age, birth date, and lineage. Further down, however, was a prominent column requiring the model designation and serial number of the registrant's personal battle armor.

A wry, mischievous smirk touched the corners of Richie's lips. He currently owned three suits of armor. Aside from the rarely deployed Dragon, both Yaksha and Wisdom King were classified as highest-grade military secrets of the Grand Alliance. Anyone attempting to investigate their registry numbers would be kicking a hornet’s nest of imperial proportions.

The frail lad dragged along as translator possessed a decent heart. He whispered conspiratorially: "The Festival of Heaven occurs only once a decade. Getting to witness it in person is a rare privilege. If you truly don't want to fight those nobles, you can simply scratch a couple of superficial grooves onto your armor’s plating before inspection. The inspection officers will reject any damaged armor from entering the arena, and no one can blame you for a technical disqualification."

The lad had no fear of the nobleman beside him overhearing, as the pompous youth understood not a word of Monstoke.

Richie felt a surge of surprise. Had an imperial official offered him such courteous advice, he would have paid it no mind.

He studied the young translator carefully.

There was a distinct undercurrent of nervous dread in the lad’s eyes, clearly directed toward the arrogant youth at his elbow. The cuffs of his academy uniform showed distinct signs of fraying and wear.

Richie easily deduced that the boy came from modest, impoverished circumstances.

While all knights were maintained by their state and lived free of basic material wants, immense disparities persisted within their ranks. A highborn scion like Lina could scatter luxury artifacts with casual indifference, earning princely stipends and bounties. In contrast, back in Unit 105, the three veteran sisters had initially endured hardscrabble poverty; their initial defiance and dueling challenge against Lina had stemmed largely from bitter frustration over such institutional inequality.

Richie was tempted to play along with the charade, finding the game amusing. Unfortunately, matters had reached an impasse where playful deception was no longer viable.

He could never record the serial numbers of Yaksha or Wisdom King upon an open registration sheet; doing so would constitute a flagrant breach of supreme military secrecy.

"I don't know how to fill this out," Richie said, nudging Jeanne with his elbow. "Go fetch someone qualified to handle it."

Jeanne smiled knowingly and rose to her feet.

During Richie's first audience with Princess Mithra, he had explicitly requested that he not be shadowed by obvious guards. The princess had promised that no observer would approach within five hundred meters of his person—meaning intelligence agents remained stationed five hundred meters away, observing through discreet long-range surveillance.

Under the puzzled gaze of the noble youth, Jeanne carried the registration form to the grand library entrance and casually waved her hand.

Within moments, a plainclothes operative jogged briskly into view.

Jeanne thrust the registration document into the operative's hands, pointed toward the noble youth standing at Richie's table, and spoke a brief string of crisp commands.

The plainclothes agent's expression instantly turned grim. Striding purposefully into the rotunda, he marched directly up to the noble youth, withdrew an official identification wallet from his inner breast pocket, flashed the insignia before the young noble's eyes, and uttered two curt sentences.

The faces of both the noble youth and the frail translator turned ash-white simultaneously. Just as the Ministry of Internal Affairs was feared by all citizens in the Republic, the intelligence apparatus in Parkington was an institution of utter terror, magnified manifold by the kingdom's ruthless social hierarchy.

In the Republic, if an individual was detained by Internal Affairs, prominent relatives or friends could organize public protests to demand accountability and transparent hearings. Here in Parkington, associates would clamp their mouths shut in terrified silence, dreading the slightest association.

The young noble realized with horror that the foreign apprentice he had intended to crush underfoot was not a soft target, but an impenetrable slab of iron armor bristling with razor-sharp spikes.

The operative did not arrest the pair immediately. Stepping back toward the entrance, he signaled into the distance, summoning a second plainclothes agent. After a hushed exchange, the second agent seized the registration parchment and sprinted away at full speed.

Watching this unfold, Richie realized his quiet study session in the library was effectively over for the day.

Barely twenty minutes later, Princess Mithra appeared at the grand entrance of the library rotunda, flanked by an escort of thirty armed female knights.

At the arrival of the imperial princess, every scholar and reader across the vast amphitheater rose to their feet, bowing low in reverent court etiquette. The solemn display caused Richie a moment of hesitation: ought he to offer a formal bow as well?

For a fleeting second, his mind drifted back two years to the first time he had glimpsed this royal maiden. Back then, he had not even possessed the status to offer a bow, relegated to standing in a far corner among common youths, holding decorative flower baskets as mere scenic garnishment.

After an instant of deliberation, though he did not bend his waist in a bow, Richie rose politely from his chair. Basic courtly courtesy remained appropriate.

Princess Mithra beckoned the plainclothes operative and whispered several concise instructions into his ear, receiving a series of deferential nods.

Her voice was muted, yet to Richie’s acute hearing, every syllable rang clear. While he lacked an aptitude for foreign grammar, his phonetic mimicry was extraordinary.

Leaning close to Jeanne, Richie faithfully repeated the phonetic phrases he had overheard and waited for her translation.

"Her Highness instructed the intelligence bureau to record the identities and addresses of everyone present, followed by a stern warning that anyone who speaks carelessly of this matter will face severe consequences," Jeanne whispered back.

Richie marveled privately at the sheer, sweeping authority of the crown.

Back in the Republic, military secrecy would be handled by quietly relocating the individual to a secure facility to avoid disrupting civilians. Princess Mithra's royal decree ensured his immediate comfort, yet for the innocent patrons of the reading hall, it was an intimidating display of monarchical power.

Glancing around, however, Richie observed that none of the scholars wore expressions of resentment; to their minds, absolute imperial prerogative was entirely natural.

"Why was the Festival of Heaven moved forward?" Richie asked directly as the princess approached.

"I originally planned to visit your residence the day after tomorrow to discuss that very subject," Mithra replied smoothly.

Turning slightly, she gestured toward the armed retinue behind her. "Do you recall my earlier request for you to train our flight corps? These are the thirty candidates selected for the initial cohort."

Richie had already taken note of them. The squad comprised thirty female knights, their distinct physiological traits clearly demarcating their origins across the Three Empires. The female knights of the Omore Empire were slender and tall, predominantly dark-haired with lightly tanned skin. The knights from the Rosotto Empire were robust, statuesque, and generously curved, with pale yet weather-hardened complexions. The Parkington knights, with whom he was thoroughly familiar, possessed petite, graceful frames—fuller than Omore’s maidens yet less imposing than Rosotto’s, endowed with the finest porcelain skin on the continent.

When Richie perceived the depth of their battle qi, he inwardly drew a sharp breath.

"Every single one of them is an Honor Knight," Richie said, staring at Princess Mithra in disbelief.

At the outbreak of the war, the entire Monstoke Republic had possessed barely over a hundred Honor Knights, most of whom had since perished in combat, leaving perhaps five or six survivors.

Here lay the gulf between nations—an abyss vast as heaven and earth.

Female Honor Knights were rare to begin with, let alone thirty young women specializing exclusively in wind-attribute battle arts.

Though knights aged far slower than ordinary mortals, none of these thirty women appeared to exceed thirty-five years of age.

An Honor Knight under thirty-five was universally recognized as an elite prodigy—not quite at Trisli’s monstrous tier, but easily one in ten thousand.

"Do they understand what their training will entail?" Richie inquired.

The moment the question left his lips, several of the female knights blushed faintly. Clearly, a few understood the Monstoke tongue and had wildly misinterpreted his double entendre.

Richie had zero appetite for romantic dalliances at present.

"If we wish to demonstrate tangible aerial mastery before the Festival of Heaven arrives, this is the only viable path," the princess explained. "You need only impart a foundational cultivation method to them. When the festival commences, the skies above Nakar-Amosdock must be filled with their aerial formations. That spectacle will serve as the supreme deterrent against the Alliance."

Richie now fully grasped the strategic imperative behind advancing the ten-year jubilee. The Allied Powers intended to deliver a crushing psychological blow to the enemy coalition before full-scale hostilities erupted.

"I will do my utmost," Richie conceded cautiously, though within his heart he held eighty percent confidence.

"Could you give me advance notice when arranging matters of this magnitude in the future?" Richie added with mild reproach.

Mithra let out a helpless sigh. "Circumstances left me little choice. The Festival of Heaven involves monumental geopolitical stakes, and numerous arrangements remain fluid even today. I feared notifying you prematurely only to revise the plans repeatedly."

She gestured toward the colossal mountain of open manuscripts. "Furthermore, you appeared entirely immersed in your studies. We hesitated to disrupt your creative momentum."

"It seems our liaison channels are somewhat deficient," Richie said, scratching his head. His eyes fell upon the pale, trembling young student standing nearby. "We need a dedicated liaison officer."

Pointing toward the impoverished lad, Richie said, "He might serve the purpose well."

The frail student had been standing frozen throughout the exchange between Richie and the imperial princess, listening in mounting terror and shock.

Initially, he had assumed Richie was merely an eccentric descendant of some foreign Sword Saint—a common enough sight within Nakar-Amosdock.

Yet the deeper he listened, the more petrified he became.

Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that this unassuming foreign youth was the supreme flight instructor commissioned by the Allied monarchs, tasked with training an entire elite squadron of Honor Knights. The revelation completely shattered his comprehension of reality.

Having inadvertently overheard state secrets of such magnitude, his face was drained of blood.

Under imperial precedent, the luckiest fate awaiting someone privy to such clandestine knowledge was conscription into the secret intelligence corps; the darker, far more common alternative was quiet elimination.

Such an outcome was all too plausible; he was a nobody within the academy, having clawed his way into its halls through relentless, desperate toil while lacking noble patronage.

Thus, when Richie pointed a finger at him, the lad genuinely wondered if terror was playing tricks on his hearing.

Princess Mithra turned her gaze upon the youth. After a moment of deliberate contemplation, she signaled to the plainclothes officer.

The operative stepped forward, receiving a series of whispered directives from the princess.

The lad's heart leaped into his throat. A single sentence from this royal lady could cast him into heaven or plunge him into the abyss. Though he still had no idea what grand title Richie held, he knew beyond doubt that this foreign youth was an insurmountable pillar of influence; sheltering beneath such an umbrella would guarantee a radiant future.

The arrogant young noble who had instigated the confrontation and the trembling student translator were swiftly escorted away. Where the noble youth was bound remained known to none; the student was delivered to the intelligence headquarters for comprehensive background vetting, where imperial interrogators would dissect his ancestral lineage down to eighteen generations.

Richie, meanwhile, strolled alongside Princess Mithra.

The Beam of Heaven was an immensely wide avenue, yet not a single carriage traveled its surface. Regardless of rank, all who traversed its length were required to walk upon their own two feet.

Upon such a vast, monumental boulevard, the grand center lane remained utterly deserted, reserved solely for Richie and the princess walking shoulder to shoulder.

Throughout their stroll, Princess Mithra spoke while Richie listened attentively, their conversation centered entirely upon the upcoming Festival of Heaven.

Some aspects Richie had heard in rumors, but the vast majority of the protocol was entirely new to him.

Only now did he understand what the young nobles had been scheming.

Near the conclusion of the Festival of Heaven, just before the public Battle Armor Exhibition commenced, an elite traditional tournament took place: a grand melee contested exclusively by knights under twenty years of age.

The crucible of this melee yielded twenty-two elite victors. These twenty-two champions were granted the supreme honor of entering the sacred imperial shrine alongside the royal family for the climactic veneration rites. Following the prayers, they were permitted to gaze directly upon the legendary ancestral armors enshrined within the holy sanctum.

The continent's very first operational battle armor was preserved there, alongside the God Armors and Spirit Armors safeguarded by the Parkington Holy Kingdom.

"Aside from members of the imperial house, the heirs of the Thunder Emperor, and the four guardian lineages, ordinary knights have no opportunity to lay eyes upon these holy relics unless they achieve the Celestial Realm and are formally bestowed a Spirit Armor," Princess Mithra murmured with subtle allure.

No armor artificer could resist the siren call of a God Armor, and Richie was no exception. He had long yearned to examine the transcendent relics bequeathed by the ancient civilization.

Noting his rapt fascination, the princess continued in a serene tone: "In truth, for the young knights who enter the lists, beholding the relics is merely a secondary prize. To achieve a top placement in the festival melee brings boundless renown, especially for the champion. Curiously enough, every single champion in the history of the melee has ultimately broken through into the Celestial Realm; thus, many revere the tournament as the ultimate crucible of future titans. You are well acquainted with Trisli, are you not? She was the undisputed champion of the tournament seven years ago."

"You sound as though you are urging me to enter the lists," Richie remarked cautiously. He was not afraid of defeat; with his present combat prowess, claiming first place would be an effortless formality. Yet he sensed an underlying political scheme lurking within the offer.

"When the intelligence agents delivered their report earlier, I was attending Her Imperial Majesty, so my mother and their imperial majesties were briefed immediately," Mithra confessed. "Her Majesty was struck by sudden inspiration: she intends to utilize this public arena to showcase the terrifying combat efficacy of the Wisdom King."

Her words caught Richie completely off guard. Stunned for several moments, he shook his head with a bitter, incredulous chuckle. "A mere few days ago, your high command treated the Wisdom King as the most guarded supreme secret on the continent. Now, in the blink of an eye, you decide to broadcast it to the entire world."

He was gaining a profound appreciation for the mercurial caprice of imperial rulers.

"Her Majesty faces grave dilemmas of her own," the princess explained softly. "The enemy agents who infiltrated Stein have all been apprehended, and we took every measure to prevent word of the Wisdom King from leaking outward, yet in statecraft no guarantee is ever absolute. Furthermore, before your arrival, Grandmaster Espol and Madam Shar formally concluded that the Wisdom King offers exceptionally narrow margins for technical modification. In essence, aside from transcendent prodigies like yourself, Lina, and Trisli, only warriors of Honor rank or higher possess the neural fortitude to pilot it. Consequently, its tactical versatility is severely restricted. We initially hoped the Wisdom King could serve as a mass-produced countermeasure against the Franza Empire's suicidal battle qi; without broad accessibility, its strategic value is substantially diminished..."

Though unspoken, Richie caught the subtle note of devaluation underlying her appraisal. Whether this reflected the true military consensus of the Allied high command or merely served as diplomatic posturing to depress his bargaining leverage, he could not tell.

"So you intend to salvage what you can from a 'flawed' project, leveraging the Festival of Heaven to bluff the Alliance into believing the Wisdom King is already perfected and poised for mass production?" Richie remarked with dry irony.

The princess smiled unperturbed; Richie’s sharp deduction was entirely expected. "That is indeed the primary objective. Yet there is a secondary aim: to deliver a psychological shock to Poronov."

"Is Poronov attending as well?" Richie asked in surprise. The continent had plunged into total war; an engineering genius whose intellect could sway the fate of entire theaters should have been kept under ironclad protection. How could the Alliance risk sending him directly into the enemy's sovereign capital?

"Naturally," Mithra replied, understanding his astonishment. "Poronov travels under open, official diplomatic auspices. Under continental protocols, we are forbidden from harming him; in fact, our knights are obligated to guarantee his security. Such are the universal laws of civilized diplomacy. Of course, if he were to be provoked into an apoplectic stroke by someone's brilliant creations, that would hardly be our responsibility."

As she spoke, Mithra darted a pointed, knowing glance at Richie.

Richie stared straight ahead, feigning utter ignorance; he had zero interest in becoming a cat's-paw for court intrigues.

"In truth, there is no need to provoke him to physical collapse," Mithra noted thoughtfully. "You have designed three groundbreaking suits of armor within an astonishingly brief span, each exhibiting unprecedented combat properties. That alone exerts monumental pressure upon Poronov's pride. His health has always been fragile. Our intelligence networks report that he is currently running two rival projects concurrently, both conceived specifically to counter your designs, driving himself to physical exhaustion. If you deliver another crushing conceptual blow at this critical juncture, his frail constitution will inevitably break under the strain."

"If I push him that far, the Alliance will dispatch legions of assassins to sever my head," Richie countered, shaking his head.

"You need not harbor such fears," Mithra assured him. "For the Alliance to assassinate an artificer would be diplomatic suicide. Battle armor artificers hold a transcendent status. The Grand Guild is fundamentally an international, neutral entity; while the majority of its masters favor our cause, there remain factions aligned with the Alliance. Should the Guild ever pivot entirely against one coalition, the war would be decided instantly—the abandoned side would suffer total industrial collapse within a year. Such an embargo occurred once in historical records."

The princess paused, adding pointedly: "Naturally, this immunity hinges entirely upon your status as an artificer. If you march onto the battlefield under the banner of a combat knight, the Guild will not raise a single finger to protect you."

Her veiled meaning was transparent, and Richie understood it completely.

A few months prior, he would have experienced no conflict whatsoever; avoiding the battlefield was precisely what he craved. Now, however, his heart was divided; he had genuinely embraced his identity as a warrior knight.

As he pondered his reply, he noticed that Princess Mithra had halted her steps.

Without realizing it, they had arrived at the exact geometric center of the monumental plaza.

"You have always harbored a keen fascination for our ancestral relics, have you not? Would you care to see them?" the princess offered.

"I thought the sacred shrine opened its gates only during the Festival of Heaven?" Richie replied. Though his heart leaped with excitement, his face betrayed not a flicker of impatience.

"Do you truly believe a sanctum sealed for ten full years can welcome imperial dignitaries without being cleansed and inspected beforehand?" Princess Mithra laughed delightfully. "The shrine is far less mystical than common legends claim; we treat it with such pomp merely because it embodies imperial majesty. Moreover, with your standing, you possess every qualification to visit. I look forward with great anticipation to whether you can unlock the deeper secrets of the God Armor."

With that, Her Highness stamped her dainty boot firmly against the stone pavers.

Accompanied by a deep, resonant rumble of grinding granite, the stone floor beneath their feet began to descend smoothly, revealing a yawning, subterranean abyss of colossal proportions.

That the supreme sanctuary of a city named after Heaven should be entombed beneath the earth was a paradox Richie could never have imagined.