"When the hell!"
Seren's eyes widened as she bit her lips tightly. She hadn't even thought that the White House would make the first move before they could act. More importantly, they had immediately grasped their location and launched an attack. This meant they had been watching from before.
"Are you that artificial knight?"
Regardless, Osian asked casually. He wondered if this might be the type of enemy that could engage in dialogue. Since it was made by combining his own genes, it was natural for such curiosity to arise.
What came flying instead of an answer was a fist.
Crash!
Osian caught the flying fist with his palm. The door behind Osian was smashed to pieces from the impact of the punch. If an ordinary person had been hit, everything above their neck would have been cleanly erased.
"I don't know if you can't speak, or if you just don't intend to speak."
Creak creak creak. The artificial knight put strength into its body, but Osian wasn't pushed back. As Osian began to apply force, the artificial knight's arm trembled and its body gradually lowered. A sense of bewilderment could be felt from the one wearing the bronze helmet.
It would be stronger rather than weaker, certainly not lacking. Yet it was being pushed back. Why? Because Osian's strength wasn't simply genetic.
This power was ultimately his own weapon, honed through countless real battles and fights. His physical abilities were the same.
"Originally, a knight starts with 13 strength stats from the beginning. Amateur."
This was strength gained through defeating boss monsters and strengthening through the resources obtained from them. It wasn't a level that could be reached by copying genes and adding a few things to them.
Crack. Just as Osian was about to clench his other hand into a fist and swing it. The ceiling collapsed, and another knight in bronze armor appeared.
It was larger than the one engaged in the power struggle. Its armor was also correspondingly sturdy and blunt-looking. It swung the giant hammer in its hand like a swing. It was a battle hammer optimized for destroying things. Osian quickly drew his sword from his waist and held it vertically.
Crash! With a sound like a bomb exploding, his body flew backward like a cannonball. Bang! Bang! Bang! The flying Osian finally stopped only after piercing through several buildings.
Osian naturally stood up, brushing off the fragments and dust from his coat. A door in a nearby corridor opened and someone peeked out, then was seen fleeing in panic.
"Hmm. It wasn't just the shop owner who would be sad."
As he muttered this, the giant knight with the hammer had somehow rushed right up to him. There's usually a perception that big things are slow, but this one wasn't. Osian dodged the giant battle hammer aimed at his face by bending his waist backward. At the same time, he swung his sword toward the side of the one who passed by, unable to overcome inertia.
Clang!
What blocked it instead was the knight that had been losing the power struggle. The one that had quickly joined also had drawn its sword.
Even while engaged in a power struggle with it, Osian scanned the surroundings with narrowed eyes.
'These two here aren't all there is.'
There was another one, another one hiding somewhere. As soon as that thought occurred to him, the faint presence moved. A knight that had somehow approached from behind tried to behead him with a thin, long curved sword.
"Where do you think you're going!"
That's when Seren Gracia stepped in. She suddenly appeared from mid-air and pulled the trigger toward the knight holding the curved sword. It had no choice but to retrieve its sword and block the bullet. It immediately tried to target Seren, but she disappeared again into a dimensional rift. The knight that lost its target hesitated for a moment.
At that moment, flames rose from Osian's sword. Light of the heavens. Starlight Sword.
The knight that had been competing in sword strength with the starlight flames was pushed backward. However, its momentum changed in an instant.
Whoosh! Pure white flames began to rise from its sword as well.
"......"
Osian's expression hardened coldly for the first time.
"I see. I had a vague expectation. If it weren't this, there would be no reason to be so desperate to collect my genes."
The flames burning before his eyes were indeed starlight. It wasn't something that just copied the appearance of this power, but the real thing.
'The White House succeeded in transplanting the power handled by ancient beings directly into test subjects. And they even created test subjects using the power of Moon Scar.'
They already had all the know-how for that technology. So igniting starlight wouldn't be impossible either. There was a reason it had appeared before him so confidently.
A chill rises from behind. When Osian just turned his gaze, Moon Scar rose from the blade of the one holding the curved sword.
Rumble. The one with the hammer could be seen straightening its posture and approaching. The hammer was burning with flames of the sun ring.
Starlight, Moon Scar, and Sun Ring. It seemed that the White House had collected most of the powers scattered throughout the world.
"Yes. You had enough reason to appear proudly before me. I acknowledge that. The power you're using is definitely not fake."
Osian said, looking back at the knight whose starlight sword was clashing with his.
"But it's still crude."
Starlight doesn't end just by igniting flames.
Whoosh! The size of the starlight rising from Osian's sword intensified. The surging flames broke through the building's ceiling and jutted out. The artificial knight clashing swords was bewildered. Its starlight sword was being pushed back, little by little.
The cutting power of starlight is very high. What can block it is similar power, about the same level of starlight. Therefore, it should be sufficiently blockable - that was the conclusion of the White House researchers. But they still don't know how much further the power of starlight can develop from its existing state.
"Trying to discuss starlight at a level that has barely taken its first steps. You're 1000 years too early."
The highly burning starlight flames engulf the artificial knight. It could be felt trying to resist, but it was a meaningless struggle. The artificial knight with the moon scar blade could be felt rushing urgently from behind.
"That's not how you use moon scar."
Osian said this while putting strength into his waist and rotating greatly. Swish! The starlight sword cut through space horizontally along with the rotating body. The artificial knight holding the moon scar blade urgently tried to raise its sword to defend, but.
"A frontal confrontation against starlight. There's a limit to arrogance. You should have kept your distance and hit and run instead."
Slice! Osian's starlight, which far surpassed existing starlight, cut the artificial knight in half along with its moon scar blade.
Crash! What barely held out was the knight holding the sun ring hammer. Since the sun ring had excellent defensive power, it blocked Osian's sword with the hammer's head.
However, because it couldn't completely block it, part of the hammer head's edge was cut off. It looked down at the hammer for a moment, then burned the sun ring flames even more intensely.
Hissss.
The air around the artificial knight rippled, metal objects began to melt, and wood started to catch fire. Osian quietly watched this, then produced blue mist from his starlight sword.
Moonlight Blade. The blade imbued with cold chill was lightly swung toward the air. A deep blue cold wave swept through, extinguishing the fire and cooling the sun ring's heat.
"It's not a power that works just by stupidly generating heat."
Crack. Crack. Frost formed on the artificial knight's armor. It tried to shake it off while trembling, but it didn't work as intended. Osian slowly approached it, then lightly thrust the moonlight blade into its body.
Like a well-heated knife penetrating butter, the moonlight blade slid in without resistance. The convulsing artificial knight soon stopped. Its body instantly froze and crumbled into ice fragments.
Seren, who had been watching this scene, revealed herself again and muttered quietly.
"My goodness."
Admiration at Osian's overwhelming, almost toying defeat of enemies was brief. She immediately hardened her expression and said.
"Let's get out of here first. We don't know when their follow-up forces might come rushing in."
"Let's do that."
"It was a secret shop I used to frequent, but I feel sorry for the owner. More than that, where should we go?"
Even the place for secret meetings had been discovered. For Seren, it was quite a difficult situation to know what to do.
"Then let's go to a place I know."
"A place you know?"
Seren was quite puzzled by those words, but didn't ask questions because they needed to get away from the scene as quickly as possible due to the situation that had occurred.
Thus the two moved while avoiding people's gazes. Finally, they were able to arrive at the secret space Osian knew, the Knight Training Hall.
"This place is......"
Seren knew this place too. She had visited a few times.
"Isn't this too obvious a place to call secret?"
"But no one would dare think someone would secretly hide here. More precisely, they couldn't."
"I can't deny that."
"And I didn't come here to buy time. Because this matter isn't mine alone."
When Seren made an expression asking what kind of nonsense that was, Osian chuckled and said.
"You'll understand when you see."
When Osian opened the door and entered, the knight order members who happened to be training immediately recognized him and stood before Osian.
"Successor! You've come!"
Asmer stepped forward as representative and spoke. Osian looked around the knight order. The second-generation members selected last time had grown beyond recognition. They said they'd select third-generation members soon. Seeing the knight order grow was quite a rewarding task.
But that wasn't what was important right now.
"Since everyone's gathered, listen well. A great crisis has befallen the knight order."
At Osian's sudden words, the knight order was bewildered but soon listened earnestly to his words. They knew he was never someone who spoke carelessly.
"You are proud knights. Through endless training, you honed your strength and finally grasped the light of heaven in your hands. You may take pride in being knights. However."
Finally, it was the main point.
"There are beings who dare to steal our realm and threaten us with it."
He had merely said those words. But the atmosphere of the training ground itself changed.
The space that had been filled with hot fervor from harsh training instantly became as cold as the northern regions. Seren, who was watching from the side, unconsciously rubbed her forearms. Even she, who had been confident that she'd built resistance to most things through this work, felt chills.
Osian told them about the White House, and the story of how they used his genes and power to create artificial knights.
"They dare to handle the power of knights carelessly, and even desecrate that power. And now, they're trying to kill me with that power. Can you stand by and watch that?"
"No!"
A resounding voice echoed loudly. It was forceful enough to tear apart White House researchers with bare hands if they were present.
"Listen. What they're targeting is me. But I don't think it's only me. Those who have never even held a sword dare to covet the position of knights. This isn't just my problem. It's a problem directly connected to all of us, and furthermore, to future juniors who will become knights. Can you stand by and watch that?"
"No!"
"Then take up your swords and show them that manufactured beings can never, ever defeat the real thing that rose through effort. That the calluses embedded in our palms were never wrong."
Osian drew his sword. And he burned starlight with all his might. All the other knights also drew their swords. Starlight and moon scar rose from their respective swords.
"This is war."
It wasn't simply a fight between Osian and Doctor Cromwell. This was war staking the fate of the organizations called the knight order and the White House.
"Knight order. Prepare yourselves."
Osian said while turning his back.
"We march."
[Reporting. The three test subjects sent in advance were killed on site by the codename Knight.]
The White House leader, Doctor Cromwell, received the report from the modified human.
"The important thing isn't the result. Were their abilities indeed useful?"
[At first, they seemed to push forward advantageously. But after that one wore the starlight, it was one-sided.]
"One-sided."
Cromwell tapped the desk with his finger.
[......If I may give a personal opinion, they were flawed among the test subjects. I think such results were actually natural.]
"If that's not it, that one might be stronger than we think."
Cromwell looked at Osian's information displayed on one wall. There, his footsteps up to now were visualized and captured at a glance.
What stood out most was his recent appearance in District 44. Didn't they say he withstood bombardment fired simultaneously by dozens of Tirna Defense Force escort ships with his power alone?
"Interesting."
Truly an unknown entity whose end couldn't be fathomed. Therefore, as a scholar, the desire to thoroughly investigate it arose.
[......Doctor?]
"They'll come soon."
[You mean they're coming.]
"We've stirred up a beehive, so the bees will come. And since they've been growing their forces lately, it definitely won't be alone. So prepare thoroughly."
[Understood, Doctor. I'll convey this to everyone.]
"And is the preparation for that thing complete?"
[You mean that thing......you're referring to Alpha Prime. Yes, don't worry. It's currently being calibrated.]
At the news that it was proceeding without error, Cromwell nodded satisfactorily.
"Good. Finish it as quickly as possible. All these experiments have been conducted solely for Alpha Prime."