I Aggressively Stack Steel of the Heart in the Knight Order

Two hours and eighteen minutes since the Vengeance Angel Squad landed at the Third Orbital Port.

The Iberian Glory.

The vast, palace-like bridge.

Grand Governor Sedon, who hadn’t worn Power Armor for many years since taking office, was now clad in a suit of black-painted Power Armor, its full-coverage helmet bearing the unique skull insignia of the Death Battle Group.

Behind him, thousands of members of the Think Tank, staff officers, and advisors... bustled about ceaselessly.

In the frontline command center further back, tens of thousands of masters from the Military Affairs Department processed, in real-time, the myriad requests flooding in from across the entire Verne Star System warzone.

Ammunition resupply, troop replenishment, battlefield support, casualty processing...

Holy Sheepskin Papers flew from the Radiant Beacon like scattered fireworks. Every minute, tens of thousands of requests for coordination arrived, and tens of thousands of replies were dispatched.

Sedon tucked the sweltering helmet he’d removed under his left arm. His gaze pierced through the viewport, fixed on the Demon Mother Ship deep in space. From there, he could sense the presence of the Abyssal Great Demon with chilling clarity.

The scenes from Grillers World were still vivid before his eyes.

Though he never betrayed any emotion or spoke of it to another soul, in the eyes of others, he was a cold-blooded, ruthless machine of power and politics, one who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

A pure bastard, in Reinhardt’s eyes.

But Heinrich’s death was the one thing from his many years of service that he could never get over.

In a life both magnificent and so filled with sin that the crimes could not be fully recorded, this man had never once been troubled by what he owed or what he had plundered.

For power and the good of the Empire, he could sacrifice anyone or anything without batting an eye.

Heinrich was the sole exception.

Perhaps.

This was the first, and last, time he would ever possess something called friendship—a luxury so expensive that he, caught in a vortex of power and conspiracy, simply could not afford it.

But the man was gone.

The only thing Sedon could do was to kill the Abyssal Great Demon that had invaded the Empire and, with its death and its blood, honor the memory of his fallen friend.

The thought was a fleeting one in Sedon’s mind. The entire warzone, and even the regions behind it, presented too many matters that required his personal attention and decision.

The crimson light of the Verne star cast itself through the viewport, falling upon Sedon’s cold, grim face.

He reached out to take the sheepskin paper from a subordinate. The script was Lady Catherine’s own hand—two hastily scrawled lines, yet the gravity of the situation bled from the page.

Kles’s men have attacked three of the family’s tax caravans. Internal resistance within the Administrative Region is immense. I have already negotiated with the Mechanical Order to delay our payment by two months.

Grand Lord Kles kicking him while he was down was entirely within his expectations.

It wasn’t just the Capet Dynasty’s caravans. During this time, cult rebellions had erupted one after another across the Administrative Region’s major worlds, and even on the Forging Worlds controlled by the Mechanical Order.

Near Kemola, at the far end of the Ash Soil Star Zone, the war between the Space Dragon Race and the Abyssal Demons threatened to spill into the Star Zone’s interior. More than ten days ago, he had begun receiving reports from the Provincial Governors of remote worlds in the Administrative Region. They spoke of roving bands of the Space Dragon Race that had infiltrated their planets, embarking on a spree of killing and pillaging, plundering mineral and agricultural resources.

Although Legions had been dispatched to suppress them, this was a very dangerous sign.

Once their own wars exhausted their reserves, these barbaric Space Aliens would undoubtedly go on a rampage throughout the Ash Soil Star Zone, igniting a new wave of conflict.

Before he could even draft a reply to Lady Catherine’s message, a new sheet of sheepskin paper was brought to him.

”Lord Governor, this is a secret message sent by the Oreno Family.”

’The Oreno Family?’

’The largest neutral power in the Ash Soil Star Zone... For twenty years, he had tried to win them over, but every envoy he sent returned empty-handed. In recent years, there were even rumors that the Oreno Family was leaning toward Kles.’

Sedon quickly read the sheepskin paper.

The contact was a caravan leader named Spencer. He stated bluntly that the ruler of the Oreno Family had already decided to lead the entire dynasty in defecting to Grand Lord Kles.

Spencer even claimed his secret agents had told him that the Overlord of the Oreno dynasty had already been in secret contact with the Prophet of Baze World.

Spencer and his supporters, while not eager to serve the Empire, claimed they had no choice. This act of betraying the Emperor had crossed their line. They were secretly contacting the Imperial Administrative Region in the hopes of receiving the Grand Governor’s protection after they fled their family.

In return, they would provide a large sum of military funding to the Verne Front Line—in the name of a donation to the Imperial Administrative Region. Furthermore, they would bring three Agricultural Worlds with them, defecting to the Administrative Region, submitting to its authority, and accepting its rule.

At a time when the Imperial Administrative Region was beset by threats both internal and external, such news was nothing less than a shot in the arm!

Sedon’s slightly furrowed brow gradually smoothed.

’In peacetime, a matter concerning three Agricultural Worlds and six merchant caravans would have been entrusted to Reinhardt’s Vengeful Angels. But now, he had almost no one to spare.’

’Iberian World required the Ash Guard and half the Death Battle Group to be garrisoned there, to prevent Cicero from losing control of his men and them launching a rebellion to seize power while the war on the front raged.’

’For the mission to rescue the Radiant Angels, he had spared no expense, dispatching one hundred members of the Ash Guard—nearly a third of the entire Battle Group.’

’He knew full well what those traitors were plotting.’

’The Radiant Angels were the spiritual symbol of the Empire. Securing their support was inextricably linked to the legitimacy of his rule in the Administrative Region. If the Radiant Angels were to be corrupted, to utterly renounce the blessings of the Divine Emperor...’

’He couldn’t imagine what would happen if news of the Radiant Angels betraying the Divine Emperor were to be spread throughout the territories of the Imperial Administrative Region by those with ulterior motives.’

’At that point, the legitimacy of his own supreme authority would likely be the least of his problems.’

After a moment’s consideration.

Sedon gave his directive.

”In my name, issue an order to the Ash Guard garrisoned on Iberian World. Have Li De lead a three-man squad to secretly investigate the veracity of this matter.”

’Although the message came from the Oreno Family, he would not decide whether to accept their offer until he had personally confirmed the intelligence.’

”I will see to it at once.”

The man standing before Sedon was a slightly stooped, elderly Mortal. The years had bleached his hair white, and the heavy workload had left his body weary and frail.

But as one of Sedon’s many scribes, this man—who was destined to work himself to death at his post—had never once complained. In fact, he felt immensely honored to serve a true High Table Noble of the Empire.

To Sedon, who had forsaken his status as a High Table Noble, the legitimacy of his rule lay with the Radiant Angels.

But to the bureaucratic apparatus of the entire Imperial Administrative Region, he himself *was* legitimacy.

High Table Nobility was merely the respectful term used by commoners. As Eternal Lords personally ennobled by the Emperor, the ancestors of every High Table Noble had been powerful beings who followed at the Emperor’s side, fighting for the Empire.

Sedon’s personal history was no secret. The old man had long since heard the stories of how this Lord Governor had willingly forsaken his High Table Nobility, become a common Imperial Knight, and clawed his way step by step to his current position.

The rises and falls, the sheer epic scope of it all, left him in deep admiration.