Shield of the Rose

A sharp, excruciating pain shot straight into his brain, causing Richie to lose consciousness almost instantly. His body collapsed limply inside the suit like a corpse.

It was in moments like these that the mechanical design of a hang glider demonstrated its superiority over natural birds. If a real bird lost control mid-flight, it would plummet straight down. The glider, however, continued soaring forward, losing altitude only gradually as the mountain winds blew it off its original trajectory.

After drifting an unknown distance through the snowy night, Richie’s body twitched violently as his awareness slowly surfaced from the void.

The moment he woke, the memory of that sudden, piercing agony flooded back into his mind.

He longed to raise a hand to check if his forehead was bleeding, but the tight-fitting Yaksha armor allowed no internal movement. Unlike standard magitech armors with roomier interiors, the Yaksha hugged his form like a second skin. To inspect for injuries, he would need to land and strip off the suit.

Yet battlefield urgencies left no time for self-inspection; Commander Haigert was eagerly awaiting his reconnaissance update.

Reorienting his heading and checking his operational range, Richie discovered with surprise that he had re-entered communication distance. He quickly activated his comms headset.

“Did you find them?”

“What did you locate?”

Haigert’s and Calli’s voices echoed over the frequency simultaneously.

“There is… indeed an ambush column,” Richie reported between labored breaths, his voice strained. “Their numbers… exceed the decoy force—easily more than a battalion. They are all mounted on… fast sleds and will reach your perimeter in… less than thirty minutes.”

Every word sent throbbing shockwaves of pain through his skull. That inexplicable attack had inflicted severe neurological trauma.

“Are you injured?” Haigert inquired, balancing military urgency with genuine concern for Richie’s well-being.

“I nearly lost my life securing this intel,” Richie gasped. As an attached auxiliary knight, he felt no hesitation in voicing the extreme danger he faced, unbothered by recording devices.

“You came under fire? Were you flying too low?” Haigert asked, surprised. Richie’s survival remained far more critical to him than a single tactical victory.

“I don’t know what hit me. My altitude was well over six hundred meters,” Richie replied, pulling up flight telemetry logs. “Six hundred and twenty-five meters. Aside from heavy artillery, nothing should reach that height, yet I heard no gunshots.”

Background noises echoed over the comms as Haigert issued rapid tactical commands to his staff.

A short moment later, Haigert returned to the channel: “One final favor, Richie—can you identify the exact armor models they’re fielding?”

Richie felt a surge of reluctance. Making another low-altitude pass meant risking his life once more. Yet knowing the desperate situation, he couldn’t abandon Haigert’s forces. If the ambush succeeded, Red Valley would fall.

“I’ll try,” Richie sighed.

Haigert remained silent for several seconds before offering a quiet apology: “Be careful out there.” The comms line went quiet with a soft beep.

Squad 105 remained on the channel. Lina spoke up: “Richie, what exact sensation did you feel when you were attacked?”

“Sensory details?” Richie recalled carefully. “It felt as though a white-hot steel needle pierced straight into my brain, and I blacked out immediately…”

Before he could finish, several female voices blared across the line simultaneously:

“Mind Pierce!”

Richie recognized the voices of Lina, Trisli, Dana, and Robin.

Lineage and pedigree held undeniable weight in the knightly world. Even a slacker like Robin immediately recognized the technique. Though the other female knights had never encountered it, the sharp tension in their voices signaled grave danger.

“I’m notifying Haigert immediately. We’re facing serious trouble,” Lina declared promptly.

“Richie, gain as much altitude as possible!” Dana urged her apprentice with deep concern. “‘Mind Pierce’ is an evolved form of Mind Suppression. To execute it, a knight must reach the pseudo-Glorious rank and break through the spiritual bottleneck!”

Hearing the term pseudo-Glorious Knight, Richie’s head throbbed with renewed agony.

Though only a half-step separated the peak of Honorary Knight from pseudo-Glorious rank, the gap in combat capability was vast. A pseudo-Glorious Knight ranked among the top martial figures of any nation, capable of serving as deputy commander of the Royal Guards—a post far outranking regional theater commanders. Such elite combatants were rarely deployed on standard battlefields.

Squad 105 speculated anxiously: were the Varedins targeting Haigert’s corps, or had they learned of Yiluo’s prototype armor research?

Amidst his growing migraine, Haigert’s voice returned over the channel, heavy with uncharacteristic tension: “Brother, everything rests on how much support you can provide. I need you to hold out and identify those armor types—it’s vital for our defense.”

Richie understood completely. Countering light armors required entirely different tactical formations than engaging heavy units. Knowing the enemy’s exact layout could turn the tide of battle.

Gritting his teeth, Richie cast aside his doubts. Reversing his flight path, he activated the Yaksha’s high-intensity headlight, casting a brilliant beam downward while maximizing his observation scope.

The moment the light illuminated the valley below, startled shouts echoed through his listening apparatus.

Below, the enemy column was led by Anderson—the top Varedin Honorary Knight who had once captured Lina in Morena. Since that battle, Anderson had broken through his spiritual bottleneck during a period of disciplinary reassignment, ascending to pseudo-Glorious rank!

Detecting Richie’s aerial presence, Anderson instinctively launched a Mind Pierce while hurling a heavy single-handed sword upward into the night sky!

As the mental assault struck, Richie activated the Heavenly Hearing circulation route, concentrating his Aura into a psychic shield at his pineal gland. Though the mental spike breached his defense, the buffer significantly reduced its force.

Suffering a blinding headache without losing consciousness, Richie angled his forearm shield at seventy degrees to intercept the incoming sword.

CLANG!

The metal shield deflected the glowing blade, sending it scraping past his glider wing. The kinetic impact numbed Richie’s entire arm and torso. Realizing he was an easy target at six hundred meters, Richie banked sharply into a dive, sliding five hundred meters sideways to break line-of-sight.

Safe for the moment, Richie scanned the rear of the enemy column, identifying their light armor complements: Valkyrie, Leopard, and Centaur—a low-cost patrol armor used by the Bikna Republic.

Having gathered the crucial intelligence, Richie transmitted the data to Haigert. However, the physical toll of the mental attack and high-G maneuvers overwhelmed his nervous system, causing severe vertigo and nausea. Losing control of his glider, he tumbled into a snowbank near Sector Six.

Paralyzed in the deep snow, Richie activated the safety lock on his armor’s self-destruction mechanism—a reverse core overload trigger set by a left-6, right-6, left-5 sequence. If enemy knights discovered him, he preferred quick oblivion to capture.

Crunching footsteps approached through the snow. Richie readied the mouth-switch trigger in his teeth.

A suit of Green Iguana armor emerged from the blizzard—a Republic reconnaissance armor.

“Where are you hurt? Is it serious?” a youthful male voice called out as the pilot knelt beside him.

“I’m managing,” Richie mumbled around the trigger mechanism.

“I don’t carry medical supplies, so hang in there,” the young scout offered. “I heard your crash landing and came to assist. Can you stand?”

The scout introduced himself as Raz, a seventeen-year-old replacement assigned to the perimeter outpost. Using Richie’s hang glider as a sled, Raz dragged Richie back to his hidden mountain bunker.

Inside the dimly lit outpost, they listened to the distant thunders of artillery echoing through Red Valley. Haigert’s hidden 2-inch rapid-fire cannons were engaging the Varedin column.

As they rested, Richie conversed with Raz, learning about the social divides within knight academies—ranging from high nobility to commoner backgrounds.

Grateful for Raz’s assistance and curious to test his techniques on a fresh subject, Richie offered, “I can teach you two core disciplines: Wind-Control Art, which enables aerial flight, and Heavenly Hearing, a high-tier reconnaissance manual.”

Raz stared in stunned disbelief. Receiving an aerial discipline and a high-tier scouting manual was an opportunity beyond his wildest dreams.

Richie smiled quietly. By observing Raz’s progress with Wind-Control Art and Heavenly Hearing, he could validate whether non-noble knights could master aerial flight without dual-cultivation, unlocking new insights for his own eventual breakthrough.

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