Volume 4 Chapter 101 The Scorching Sands and the Djinn
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The southern sky burned a deep, bloody red.
Inside the narrow strait leading to the military port of Cyclops Island, a vision of hell was unfolding. The Crete Army had surged inward like an unstoppable tide, desperate to cut down as many of the retreating Azrael Army as possible.
Some fought for coin or rank. Others sought to avenge fallen brothers. For the younger recruits, their blood reached a boiling point in their first true decisive battle; they charged with everything they had, desperate to stain the northern base crimson before anyone could even give the order.
There were undoubtedly a thousand different, heavy burdens in the hearts of those Crete soldiers, but in this instance, every one of them had pushed the situation toward catastrophe.
Massive pillars of fire consumed the northern shore of Cyclops Island, casting long, jagged shadows of broken warships across the water. Shadows, upon shadows, upon shadows.
Against that stark contrast of red and black, the screams of the Crete soldiers were a perfect, horrific marriage of despair.
Kian knew several people in that chaos. Even now, in real-time, their lives were being snuffed out one by one.
The elites of the Lightning Knights Order ¹—Eu, Circe, Meimei, and Shark—should have been striking even deeper than those flames. Were they still alive? If not, this entire assault would be a pointless waste of life.
”General Asterios, Rita, I’m leaving this to you,” the Black Panther Tribe Warrior said. “I’ll follow a short distance behind with Princess Guria-sama.”
Taking the place of the tiger beastman Sergeant who remained behind to command, the warrior twisted his scarred lips into a jagged grin. It was the smile of a predator high on the scent of battle.
”The northern shore is crawling with enemy warrior monks ²,” He said. “It looks like several have already boarded the ships in the bay to slaughter the magicians.”
”What about the warrior monks on the Crete ships?” Rita asked. “Should the General and I hunt them down first?”
”No. First, we land at the northern base,” Guria replied firmly. “After that, we head straight for my brother and Circe.”
”So you’re just going to abandon the Crete warships?” Rita asked, her voice sharp.
Guria flinched at the question. she turned her eyes toward the screams echoing from across the strait. As long as there were voices, it meant their allies were still fighting for their lives.
They could still be saved.
But every moment spent saving them increased the chance that the Scipio and Circe group would be lost.
”…A-Asterios-sama?” Guria asked, looking toward the massive bull-man.
(It’s a heavy thing to ask my opinion on…, but there’s no way around it here.)
”We have to give up on the ships, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) rumbled. “If Scipio and Circe are isolated in the southeast, we’ll lose them if we stall. If those two die, this war is as good as over, mo~”
”B-but!” Guria protested, her eyes wavering.
”Can’t we save even one ship?” Guria asked.
”If we save one, then we save the next, and there’s no end to it, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) said firmly. “We draw the line here, mo. If a leader’s will wavers, the whole operation fails. Rita, don’t say things that cloud Guria’s judgment before the charge, nmo.”
”I only thought I wanted to save our people on the ships, too,” Rita muttered quietly.
”It’s impossible, nmo. Give it up, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) said.
Rita and Guria both looked at the ground in silence. Kian turned his focus back to the Black Panther Tribe Warrior.
”Ignore the ships. We’re landing on the northern shore, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) commanded. “After we land, I’ll thin out the enemies in the base with a few heavy strikes so they can’t cut off our retreat. You protect Princess Guria Selda and follow the path Rita and I clear. Once through, take the military road left from the southeast exit, nmo. You have the map in your head?”
”Honestly, I’m not that confident-ssu,” the warrior admitted.
”Then ask Guria,” Asterios (Kian) said. “Guria, your guard isn’t familiar with the geography of Cyclops, so you have to be the one to lead, nmo. No more moping, mo. You cannot look back and say, ‘I have to save everyone.’ You absolutely cannot do that, mo~u!”
”Y-yeah. I understand. You’re… you’re right,” Guria said, her voice small. “I have to be ruthless. Or I won’t be able to save anyone… right.”
Guria’s voice trailed off. “I’m sorry, everyone,” she whispered, casting one final look at the burning Crete ships.
Asterios gave a heavy nod and raised his right hand.
’Star’s Song ³‘
Talia activated her authority. Asterios’s horns began to crack and shatter, the fragments coalescing into a weapon in his right hand. A second later, a massive, indigo battle-axe was born.
Blue lightning arced incessantly across the blade, its aura marking it as a spirit weapon of terrifying power.
His broken horns regenerated in a single shun ⁴. As they grew back, Kian felt Asterios’s heart hammer against his ribs, his face flushing with a burning heat.
’Be careful. The shore is packed with warrior monks. Don’t rule out the possibility of them using the third Black Onyx ⁵ magic sword.’
(I know, nmo. I’ve got this.)
’Good.’
The exchange was brief. After talking with their actual voices so much lately, this silent communion felt almost nostalgic.
Kian looked at Rita, Guria, and the warrior in turn.
”We begin, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) growled. “If we get separated, just look for my white back, mo.”
* * *
The northern base was a sea of enemy warrior monks.
The checkpoint was a group of allies—likely Scipio’s unit—who were bypassed further ahead toward the foot of the mountains to the southeast.
However, as Guria first noted, charging southeast immediately upon landing would allow the enemy to cut off their retreat. If they saved Scipio but couldn’t get back, they would be stranded.
Therefore, they had to thin the herd of warrior monks on the shore first.
Once the rescue was complete, they would have to find a reserve ship to cross the night sea. With enemy great-magic flying everywhere, reaching a ship would be suicide unless the reserve fleet managed to push back the Azrael ships firing from the east and west.
Even if they concentrated on the eastern fleet, the chances of being crushed were high. All they could do was pray the momentum shifted in their favor.
”Rita, on me. Follow my lead and support where you can, nmo,” Asterios (Kian) said.
”Understood,” Rita replied. “Guria, stay sharp. If you lose your composure, General Asterios might lose his grip on the battle.”
”I don’t think that’s an issue,” Guria said with a faint, bitter smile.
She placed absolute trust in him, knowing the hero residing within the beast. To keep her from losing that hope, Kian had to remain an unsinkable fortress on this battlefield, no matter how reckless things became.
Kian took one deep breath, then snapped his eyes open.
He triggered the reactor in his chest—the simulated immortal heart. Even as a reproduction, it flooded Asterios’s body with overwhelming power. His blood reached a boiling point, and the lightning organ integrated with his heart surged. Static discharge arced through his white fur, scattering blue sparks across the deck.
Crackle… snap… boom! The electricity intensified until the white bull was shrouded in a divine, pale-blue light.
”Ugh… so this is the General at full power!” the warrior hissed.
”Haha, this is insane! I’ve gotta tell the Sergeant about this later,” Rita said, her eyes bright.
”…Nmooooooo…”
Lightning stimulated his muscles. Physical Ability Enhancement ⁶.
Asterios’s massive frame swelled even further, exceeding the size of Leprobus. He stood over five meters tall, a bipedal bull-monster—an incarnation of destruction fueled by a violent spirit.
Until now, Kian had fought the strong as the underdog. This time was different. He would be the storm, overrunning the weak as if they were nothing more than a joke. That was the potential hidden in this body.
”…Hah!”
With the momentum of his Dance Swordsmanship, Kian kicked off the deck. Lightning exploded from his hooves, splintering and scorching the timber. A thunderous blast followed as he broke the sound barrier.
He vanished from the ship, leaving only the roar of the air behind.
Kian was a falling star, leaping through the sky by pushing against the very magnetic field of the earth in a single shun.
He tore through the night sky.
Below him lay red flames and scorched corpses. He could hear the final screams of those being cut down from behind.
With that despair beneath him, Kian drew an arch of brilliant blue light through the air.
The Star of Divine Might had arrived.
Crete had not fallen yet.
As long as this immortal heart beat, they could rebuild.
Look closely at the trail of the Blue Star.
”Hmph…!”
The meteor did not fall into the sea. Kian formed a magnetic field near the water’s surface, using the repulsion to skim the waves.
In a single shun, the lightning illuminated the dark water, diffusing across the surface.
In a total reversal from his leap, Kian was now a blur of lightning racing across the ocean.
”General!” Rita called out, easily matching his ultra-high speed.
She, too, was running on the water. While Kian’s movement was a powerful, lightning-fueled sprint, hers was an eerie, rabbit-like hopping across the surface. Both ignored the laws of physics, but she moved like a ghost, a Wraith devoid of any sense of reality.
The white fox swordsman gripped the hilt of her curved blade, her presence sharp enough to kill as she jerked her chin forward.
”Enemy meteors! They’re coming down on our ships!” Rita yelled.
At the end of her gaze, past the burning Crete warships, five flaming rocks were screaming down from the heavens, hidden among the stars.
Great-magic ⁷.
The Azrael magicians lurking in the western cliffs had unleashed everything they had.
The five massive meteors arched toward the trapped Crete fleet. Based on their size, they would bring destruction equal to Aliona’s highest-tier lightning magic. They were truly top-class magicians.
A direct hit would vaporize a ship. Even a near miss would leave the larger vessels unnavigable due to the shockwaves and massive swells.
On the Crete warships, defensive barriers were beginning to flicker to life, but they wouldn’t be in time. There was no way to maintain a barrier while fighting off the warrior monks on their decks.
(Melee warriors really are just disposable assets, aren’t they?) Kian thought.
In this age where magic reigned supreme, a warrior monk’s only role was to die deep in enemy lines while trying to kill a mage. Once the allied mages finished their great-magic and the enemy failed to block it, their lives were considered spent.
Therefore, he would consign every magician to the sea foam.
It was heartless, but it was rational.
”I won’t just stand by! I’ll cut that meteorite down myself!” Kian shouted.
”No, I’ll do it!” Kian screamed as he pushed his speed even further.
The immortal reactor pulses red.
Blood courses through his body more violently than ever, his muscles hardening and superheating.
Plumes of white steam erupt from his skin.
For an ordinary creature, the instant their heartbeat was so disturbed, their arteries would burst and it would be the end. But this cursed body, forged by Zeus, is different.
”BOOM-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”
He let out a roar of overflowing fighting spirit.
Aside from the blue lightning shrouding him, Asterios’s arteries glowed red from the extreme heat. Thump, thump, thump-thump-thump-thump-thump – matching his quickening heart, the outlines of his heart and major vessels emerged through his white fur as flickering vermilion.
The fur on his head stands on end.
”V-RAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
He howls toward the heavens.
A roaring howl.
A vibration, a shockwave that the mind cannot even process as sound.
Asterios’s cry shook the sea and made the very air of the night go numb.
(My cells are on fire…)
Inside the bull’s body, Kian’s face twisted.
A tremendous destructive impulse surges through him.
Listen, gods – Asterios is shouting.
From this moment on, I rebel against you.
(I can fly now…)
”■■■■■■■■───!!!!!!!!”
The white and blue bull was gone, replaced by a crimson demon god.
The steam geysering from his body exploded. Using that propulsion, Kian performed a second great leap, charting a path to intercept the meteorites before they could strike the warships.
The moment his hooves kicked the magnetic field, the sky rushed down to meet him.
At the same time, the roar of falling, burning rock filled his ears.
Five meteorites loomed before him.
He would smash every last one.
(Azrael, look at this power. Look at me…)
This was the grand magic unleashed by the magicians of Azrael.
Each stone was as massive as the head of a giant sea serpent.
A mass-bearing Phantasm⁸ where magic twisted physics into a tangible reality.
The heat, the wind, and the sound were all real.
Human will could rewrite the world to this extent.
But a Phantasm is always defeated by a stronger Phantasm.
(You aren’t the only one capable of miracles. The lightning of a pagan god will now strike with the force of myth.)
The bull’s right arm creaked under the strain.
Lightning raced through the giant battle-axe.
A meteor heading back toward the sky.
Below, the soldiers of Crete and the Warrior Monks of Azrael stood frozen. Every soul on the battlefield bore witness to Asterios’s feat.
(Beastman Martial Arts… Secret Rite.)
The activation was quiet.
As emotionless as the act of killing itself.
Kian narrowed his eyes and swung the great axe at the first meteorite.
The meteorite shattered.
The blade of the axe was a blunt instrument of destruction.
The meteorite, hundreds of meters wide, fractured into a web of light the instant it was struck, then detonated from within.
It was no longer a feat a human body could perform.
The blue comet flickered red as it reached its limit, punching through the first stone.
Then the second.
Lightning dwelled in his left hand as well.
Kian spun in mid-air, striking the next meteorite with a massive left fist.
The rock didn’t push back.
To this fist, a meteorite was no more than paper.
Lightning fell from the void, and the second stone turned to dust.
”OOOOOOOOOOOOOH!” Kian roared.
He bared his fangs.
Asterios’s white body was now dyed a deep crimson.
A primal madness dwelled in his yellow eyes.
The beast of myth.
The hair on his arms and head whipped like flames in the wind of his own aura.
His hooves caught the empty air.
The stars would not fall.
Lightning Flash and Roaring Thunder.
He sprinted across the sky.
He became a jagged line of light, pre-calculating the destruction of the remaining three meteorites.
Stepping with his right, then his left, he accelerated.
Kian obliterated two meteorites almost simultaneously, then used the blast wind to catapult himself into his final leap. The last of the five strikes. He tucked his head, leveling his sharp horns at the fifth stone.
(Rage, Asterios! Show them your brilliance!)
”BOOM-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”
The once-comical lowing had become the war cry of a legend.
A red body wrapped in blue static.
Looking like the end of a star, he slammed his entire weight into the giant rock.
There was no impact.
He was the greater force.
Asterios was the meteorite.
The final rock summoned by the prayers of the Azrael magicians shattered as if it were nothing. It detonated more violently than the rest, blooming into a massive flower of fire in the sky.
The assault had lasted only a few seconds.
To an onlooker, it appeared as though a red beam of light had simply threaded through the five meteorites. But the result was undeniable. The Crete fleet, destined to be crushed, sat safely beneath a rain of ash.
As light pumice drizzled down, Kian plummeted back toward the burning North Base.
His hooves hit the earth like an explosion.
A shroud of dust rose.
In the purgatory of the North Base, a new whirlwind began to howl.
Kian rose from the crater, his massive silhouette looming through the smoke. Every person there stared in silence.
The few surviving Crete soldiers.
The assassins in black robes.
”A demon…” someone whispered.
”Pshhhhhhh…”
White steam hissed from his crimson mouth.
Through Talia’s power, a second axe formed from his broken horn.
The horn super-regenerated.
Kian raised both axes to the sky and addressed the insects surrounding him.
”Asterios has arrived! Men of Crete! It isn’t over! We take this ground back now! Look at this body! Behold the glow of an immortal heart! As long as the pulse of this star does not halt, your heavens will not know defeat! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!”
He coiled his muscles.
He caught the black shadows of the assassins in his range. He didn’t need the strength that broke the stars for this. A tenth would do.
Kian’s frame swelled as he swung both axes in a massive horizontal arc.
The resulting shockwave was absolute.
Lightning radiated from his body in a perfect circle, scouring the burning earth. The frozen warrior monks were scorched and blown away, vanishing into the fire.
The surviving Crete soldiers, their hair whipped by the gale, stared in disbelief at the sudden erasure of their enemies.
”Retreat! Everyone, retreat!” Rita shouted.
Rita came flying through the clearing, finishing off any warrior monk who had survived the shockwave.
She dodged a tiger-beastman’s lunge and cut him down in the same breath.
”Anyone who can walk, carry the wounded! Head Northeast! The reserve ships are almost here!” Rita commanded.
”R-Rita? Why are you here?” a soldier asked.
”Rita!” another cried out.
”Commander Rita…” a guard muttered.
The soot-stained members of the Lightning Knight Order staggered toward her. Rita looked sharply toward the thicket behind the base.
She didn’t need to see them; Asterios’s senses already felt the weight of the approaching army.
”Everyone run! Head Northeast! Our ships are there!” Rita screamed to her former colleagues.
She dove toward the thicket, and Kian followed with a single leap.
”Hmph! Boom-oo! OOOOOH!” Kian grunted.
The black-clad assassins danced forward with twitching, irregular movements, but they were met with the crushing weight of the battle-axes. The swings were slower than Kian’s human form, but the power and reach were on a different level.
Whatever Asterios didn’t crush, Rita hunted down with the speed of a gale.
WHOOM.
Kian’s great-axe carves through the air with a heavy, bone-chilling WHOOM, while beside him, Rita is a blur of motion, leaving ghost-white trails as she leaps across the battlefield with predatory grace. Despite their vastly different styles, the two melee specialists move in a perfect, lethal synchronicity.
”…!”
To step within their reach was to choose between being pulverized or decapitated.
Panic rippled through the ranks of the warrior monks emerging from the stygian depths of the thicket. These weren’t the hardened zealots Jibril had fielded before; their training was shallow, their conviction brittle. They weren’t the kind of fanatics who would gladly trade their souls for their faith.
Faced with a hulking white monstrosity and a pint-sized reaper, they began to falter.
”General! Meteorites incoming from the east!” Rita shouted.
She claimed the head of a monk who had tried to drown his terror in a suicidal charge. She blurred left, then right, dancing through a thicket of blades before a lightning-fast riposte opened the bellies of two men at once.
(Meteorites! So the eastern fleet is joining the bombardment too!) Kian thought.
He ground his teeth in bitter frustration. Had he been the true Asterios, he would have cleared the distance in a single, earth-shaking leap, but in this counterfeit body – lacking the Immortal Heart – his pulse couldn’t keep pace. He needed time. He needed a window.
”This is bad-nmo! I’m still charging-mo!” Kian growled.
”I’ll clear the way with a draw-slash! Just keep these bastards off me!” Rita replied.
”You got it-nmo!” Kian said.
Kian lunged forward, trading places with Rita as she settled into a low, lethal iai-jutsu stance. He forced his heart to thrum with a violent rhythm, releasing a massive surge of electricity. A blinding flash of lightning seared the retinas of the closing monks.
”Gah!” “My eyes!” “Azrael save us, what is – !?”
”Composite Secret Technique,” Rita whispered.
The trigger words. A self-imposed hypnotic suggestion designed to overclock her metabolism into a state of hyper-velocity.
Kian felt the air behind him grow sweltering, as if he were standing too close to a roaring pyre. Rita’s Tachyonian cells were screaming, venting an ocean of mana. This wasn’t a standard technique – it was something primal, something that made the very atmosphere feel brittle with dread.
”Slay the Fox-Beastman!” an enemy commander shrieked from the edge of the woods. He was a magus-priest, clutching a staff heavy with cursed energy. “Forget Asterios! Take the woman’s head! At once!”
”Like I’d let you-nmoooo!” Kian roared.
Kian became a conduit of raw storm. Bolts of lightning arced indiscriminately from his body, charring anyone who dared draw near. Rita remained unmoved by the static dancing across her skin as Kian unleashed the full, unbridled fury of the gale.
The rank-and-file broke, but the commander charged, his movement a ‘Leap’ of startling refinement. He had the polish of a master – perhaps on par with Sadiq, the man Kian had seen in the memories of Rita’s mother.
But Kian was faster. He intercepted the commander in a blur of white fur. The monk’s eyes bugged out in shock.
”A decent ‘Leap’,” Kian rumbled. “But you lack the madness. You lack the obsession. You’re not even close.”
”I don’t care! Kill them! Kill them all!” the commander screamed.
’O, Star’s Song…’
Talia’s support hummed through him.
Kian’s right arm moved with a mind of its own, slamming into the earth. A forest of jagged stone spears erupted around Rita in a radial burst, impaling every monk within twenty yards. The commander scrambled back, staring at the sudden wall of earth-magic with wide, unbelieving eyes.
”Draw-Slash Technique,” Rita muttered.
Kian felt the air behind him snap.
”T-this… this is Lord Nizaam’s technique…?” the commander stammered, his voice trembling. “So it’s true. You’re the Demon’s final disciple…!”
”Looks like he’s one of Malc’s monks-nmo,” Kian remarked, casually shouldering his twin axes. “Just stay put-nmo. From here on out, both you and I are just background noise.”
”I won’t allow it! Charge! Stop that woman! Don’t let her finish the sequence!” the commander yelled.
(Too late.)
Kian knew that look. It was the same stillness that had preceded the death of Almeisa. Rita had reached the point of no return.
”Composite Secret Technique: Draw-Slash.”
The words were an epitaph. In the next heartbeat, the world would belong to her.
”……!”
Black lightning crackled around her, held together only by the reinforced fibers of Talia’s specialized gear. The ground beneath her boots groaned and buckled, sinking a full foot into the earth as the sheer pressure of her mana stabilized.
”Searing Sand. Smokeless Fire. Phantom Spirit – Gale of the Djinn.”
”- SHAITAN -“
With the final word of the mantra, she let go.
* * *
Composite Secret Technique: Draw-Slash – Shaitan.
Kian watched her, thinking of Nizaam. In the memories of Rita’s world, that man had created this technique as a protest against the direction the Azrael faith had taken.
Nizaam had been a legend a decade ago, but the seeds of this technique had been sown thirty years prior – before the rise of Umar. Back then, the battlefield was shifting. It was becoming a game of numbers: mass-producing disposable monks to meat-shield for magicians, only for those same monks to be incinerated by their own side once the enemy lines were broken.
Nizaam hadn’t been a pacifist. He was a warrior, and he took pride in that. He was, in essence, just like the old Kian. He despaired at a world where warriors were treated like discarded husks.
Never forget the soul of the warrior, he had taught.
A warrior was a person who, despite their human limits, wielded the power to transcend humanity. Therefore, the warrior must use their own soul to decide who lives and who dies. To do that, one’s heart must be as transcendent as their blade.
Nizaam’s philosophy was an anachronism. But the root of the Theocracy was supposed to be a ‘True Doctrine’ that the masses could embrace.
Love thy neighbor. Destroy evil. Take up the sword only to protect the faith.
The warrior monk was supposed to be a shield. Never the aggressor.
But that ideal had been buried under decades of blood. Even Nizaam, weathered by time and politics, had lost that initial purity by the time he sought a successor. Rita believed he just wanted his technique to live on, but Kian, looking in from the outside, saw something else.
Nizaam hadn’t wanted to pass on a move; he wanted to pass on a conscience. He wanted Rita to be the version of himself that hadn’t been corrupted. The ‘Draw-Slash’ was so difficult that only someone with her talent could even attempt it – but it was her heart he had truly been testing. Kian hoped, at least, that was the truth.
”Lord Nizaam’s… Draw-Slash… a perfect recreation…”
Rita was a streak of light ascending toward the heavens, the shockwave of her departure flattening everything in the vicinity. The commander’s face-mask was torn away by the blast, revealing the wrinkled, handsome face of an elderly Azraelian man.
”Master Nizaam… to see your light once more…”
The meteorites vanished.
From the sky, Rita unleashed a five-fold draw-slash that reduced the falling rocks to fine gray powder. She was a silhouette against the stars, wreathed in black lightning, her blade a flash of blinding, holy white.
To the dying commander, perhaps that was the original light of the Azrael faith he had once believed in.
”Satisfied?” Kian asked.
”….”
”I see. You found your peace. Good for you. Now die.”
Kian’s axe was a blur, crushing the man’s skull before he could even blink. One strike. The commander’s upper body exploded, his life snuffed out like an insect. With a grim sort of mercy, Kian used his remaining charge to incinerate the remains, ensuring the man was properly consigned to the flames. He then turned to meet Rita as she touched down.
”The monks in the immediate area are thinned out-nmo,” Kian said.
”Now we just have to hope the rest of our side can regroup before the next volley,” Rita replied, her eyes fixed on the harbor.
The Crete fleet was a graveyard of fire. The sparks from the city had turned the warships into pyres; most were already half-submerged, and Kian couldn’t hear a single heartbeat coming from the water.
”We were always going to lose the ships-nmo. Don’t hesitate now. Focus on the lives you can save,” Kian rumbled.
”- !”
Rita’s golden eyes flared with a brief, sharp anger. But she knew Kian – or the thing wearing Kian’s skin – was right. She turned away, breaking into a run toward the military road to the southeast.
Behind them, the presence of Guria and the Black Panther warriors was drawing close. They had a window. The death of the commander would buy them time before the next wave hit.
”Move out-nmo,” Kian said.
”…Right,” Rita whispered.
—
Summary:
Kian (as Asterios) and his small team arrive at a burning battlefield where the Crete army is being decimated. Kian makes the difficult command decision to abandon burning warships and trapped soldiers to ensure the rescue of key leaders Scipio and Circe. He then powers up his ‘Pseudo-Immortal Heart’ to launch a high-speed assault across the sea to intercept incoming meteors and warrior monks.
After obliterating the threat in mid-air, he lands at the North Base to rescue the remnants of the Crete military. Rita joins the fray, organizing a retreat while Kian holds off the pursuing assassins.
Rita activates a high-intensity secret technique inherited from her mentor, Nizaam, to destroy the incoming projectiles. After the threat is neutralized, Kian executes the enemy commander and urges Rita to abandon the burning ships and focus on the living.
—
Trivia:
- Asterios’s horns are literally his weapon, the ‘Star’s Song’, which he can regenerate.
- The ‘Warrior Monks’ are being used as disposable shock troops by the mages.
- Kian is actually inhabiting Asterios’s body, which is a ‘Pseudo’ reconstruction.
- Rita’s movement technique is explicitly described as rabbit-like and physics-defying.
- Guria’s decision-making is being tested as a future leader.
- Asterios’s body is a product of Zeus’s curse.
- The meteorites are not natural rocks but ‘Phantasms’ given physical mass through magic.
- Kian’s transformation involves his internal organs becoming visible through his fur.
- The ‘Secret Rite’ of Beastman Martial Arts was executed with complete lack of emotion.
- Talia is the one providing the power for Kian’s weapon regeneration.
- Kian is currently a ‘fake’ or counterfeit body and lacks the pulse required for massive jumps.
- The meteorite bombardment is coming from the eastern fleet, not just the sky.
- Rita’s technique involves self-hypnosis to overclock her metabolic rate.
- Nizaam originally created the Draw-Slash as a silent protest against the treatment of warriors as disposable meat-shields.
- The enemy commander finds spiritual peace through Rita’s display before Kian kills him
—
Character Insight:
Kian takes on the mantle of a ‘ruthless leader’ to force Guria to understand the weight of wartime sacrifices. His transformation into a 5-meter giant signifies his shift from an underdog fighter to a dominant force on the battlefield.
Kian shifts from a rational actor to a mythic rebel, explicitly declaring war on the gods. His desire to be ‘seen’ by Azrael suggests a deep-seated rivalry or need for validation. Rita shows her leadership by prioritizing the wounded despite the chaotic appearance of the ‘Demon’ Asterios.
Rita demonstrates a perfect mastery of Nizaam’s legacy, but her hesitation to let go of the military assets (ships) shows her lingering attachment to the ‘mission’ versus Kian’s cold, pragmatic focus on survival and specific lives.
—
Behind the Scenes:
The ‘nmo’ speech tic is a recurring element that signifies Asterios’s bovine nature, even while Kian is at the helm. The mention of ‘Black Onyx’ swords suggests a recurring tier of powerful weaponry in this universe.
The use of ‘Gensou’ (Phantasm) reflects typical Nasuverse-style or high-fantasy light novel logic where conceptual strength determines physical outcomes.
The ‘Smokeless Fire’ terminology is a direct reference to Jinn mythology, fitting the desert/theocratic setting of the Malc/Azrael factions.
—
TL Notes:
Notes:
• Rita – Female warrior monk with fox ears, last direct disciple of Nizaam, wears a fox-ear hooded jacket. A ‘killing doll’ beastman created by Nizaam.
• Talia – A high-ranking vampire spirit currently possessing the body of Lyritisse. In this form, she has flaxen hair, blue eyes, and thick lips.
• Leprobus – Rou’s comrade who sacrificed his chance to escape during a pirate raid by pushing Rou off in a small boat. He returned to the deck, sword in hand, to protect the others. Distinguished by his giant blood and burning red hair, marking him as more than human. He is released by Kian on Cyclops Island jail.【v4c23】.
• Sadiq – A man in his late twenties with a scar on his cheek and sun-baked skin. A warrior monk with high muscle mass.
• Nizaam – A former member of Azrael’s Twelve Divine Generals and the current head of the Malc family, though he has passed both titles to his daughter to return to the battlefield. He is a prominent warrior noble in Azrael, known for his love of beautiful boys and fierce battles.
• Gensou – Eccentric young Eastern monk-general in Azrael’s army, playful yet ambitious. Wields sun-like magic, swordsmanship, and assassination tactics. Linked to three masked wives—Seishi, Oushoukun, and Yougyokukan (Head Magician). Ally of Mansoor and Oji, serves under Jibril, proposes Operation Assassination. First appears Vol. 4 Ch. 45. Reminder: playful Eastern general with masked harem wives, always late but magically explosive, contrasting serious monks with his bathrobe vibe and schemes.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply