Arknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 99

Chapter 99: The Three-Year Period Is Up, This Is the Holy Son’s Patron Firearm!

“[We can’t track the target! Moving too fast—ahhh!]”

Faust pressed a hand against his earpiece, his voice sharp and measured. “Report. What is your status?”

The comms channel devolved into a mess of static and the deafening roar of rapid gunfire. Panic bled through the normally disciplined silence of the Phantom Crossbowmen.

“[We’re taking heavy fire! It’s a Sankta’s rapid-fire weapon!]”

“[Over here too! Suppressive fire from above!]”

“[The Sankta! They’re airborne!]”

“[They don’t even have a visual on us, but they’re sweeping the entire grid!]”

The Phantom Crossbowmen had secured the high ground, occupying exposed rooftops across the sector. They had never anticipated an assault from the sky. Under the veil of Faust’s Originium Arts, they remained perfectly camouflaged as long as they held their positions—an absolute tactical advantage.

Flight changed everything.

“Hold your positions,” Faust ordered, his tone chillingly calm. “Hitting a moving target in the air is difficult. Breaking cover to evade is a death sentence.”

He sprinted up the stairwell, kicking open the heavy metal door to the rooftop.

His squad carried fragments of his Originium crystals, allowing him to extend his Arts over them and blend their silhouettes into the urban decay. Applied directly to himself, the technique was far more potent, granting him near-perfect invisibility even while in motion.

Stepping into the biting night wind, Faust immediately raised his heavy crossbow, tracking the brilliant, glowing halo and wings illuminating the dark clouds. In the bleak skies of Chernobog, nothing painted a larger target than a Sankta.

He peered through the scope. His exceptional vision locked onto the figure, but his finger hesitated on the trigger for a fraction of a second.

‘A woman…? A female Sankta? Where did the man go?’

A cold spike of dread pierced his chest.

Despite the trap closing around him, Faust fired. He had to stop her from suppressing his squad. The heavy bowstring snapped, launching a purple explosive bolt into the sky. Its violent, glowing trajectory was a beacon in the darkness.

Before the bolt could even graze Exusiai, seven sleek, floating blades materialized around her in a tight orbit. They formed a kinetic shield, absorbing the explosive impact and scattering the purple flames into harmless sparks.

Standing on a distant, shadowed building, Lucian let out a dry, amused breath. “Quite the straightforward personality. Probably just a kid.”

Moments ago, after rocketing into the sky to blindside Faust’s squad, Lucian had instantly dispelled his own halo and wings. In that brief window of chaos, he swapped positions with Exusiai, transferring his floating blades to her control.

She was his Apostle. As long as her system was supplemented with his blood, she inherited his authorities—including the command over the floating armaments. Originally developed by Rhine Lab, the blades possessed strict DNA authentication protocols locked to Lucian. But with his blood coursing through her veins, the weapon’s biometric scanners read Exusiai as a perfect match.

Lucian turned his attention away from the sky. He reached into his coat and drew his Patron Firearm.

To call the monstrous contraption a “gun” was a severe understatement. It was a siege cannon.

The barrel stretched over three meters long, requiring a heavy, reinforced bipod just to keep it anchored to the concrete. At the rear of the chassis, four golden metallic membranes flared open like solar panels.

They did not drink the sunlight. They drank the moon.

It bore a highly official, entirely chuunibyou designation: Excavation Codename NO. Lucifer.

Lucian had named it himself, though he would sooner bite off his own tongue than say it out loud in public. He had stolen the weapon from the deepest vaults of Laterano right before his exile. He hadn’t taken it for self-defense; he took it so no one else could pull the trigger.

The weapon carried catastrophic side effects. After witnessing the unsanctioned deployment of the Saint Battle Angels, Lucian had lost all faith in the militaristic fanatics running his homeland. Leaving a weapon that demanded a human life as ammunition in their hands was a disaster waiting to happen.

The cannon hummed to life. The four microwave receivers at the rear locked onto the sky. A razor-thin silver line cascaded down from the moon, feeding raw microwave energy directly into the chamber.

Inside the barrel, a high-purity Originium rod began to superheat, emitting a low, monstrous roar that vibrated through the soles of Lucian’s boots.

Through his sights, the rooftop where the purple bolt originated appeared completely empty.

Lucian adjusted the muzzle by a fraction of a degree. He pulled the trigger.

A blinding, incandescent white beam erupted from the barrel. It was a light too pure to look at, carrying the absolute weight of divine wrath.

The upper half of the targeted building simply ceased to exist. Concrete, steel, and glass were instantly vaporized, leaving behind a glowing, molten crater without a single speck of debris. The beam tore onward, piercing the heavy storm clouds and carving a massive, perfectly circular hole into the sky, revealing the glittering stars above Chernobog.

Across the ruined city, thousands of eyes looked up in sheer astonishment.

Exusiai hovered in the air, her breath catching in her throat. This was only the second time she had ever witnessed that light.

It wasn’t until the beam fully dissipated that her racing heart began to settle.

Lucian was the Holy Son. The true, undisputed Holy Son. No matter how much he slacked off, no matter how fiercely he denied it to run a quiet tea shop, he was the absolute ruler of Laterano and the master of the Sankta.

“But our great Lord refuses to admit it. What a shame~,” Exusiai murmured, a complex mix of reverence and relief washing over her face.

The oppressive killing intent blanketing the sector vanished.

Lucian had deliberately angled the shot slightly upward to minimize collateral damage to the lower levels. As for the sniper who had fired the purple bolt… surviving a direct hit from Lucifer was a mathematical impossibility.

Before the remaining Reunion snipers could regroup, Exusiai folded her wings and dove toward Lucian’s position.

As she closed the distance, Lucian held up a hand, his expression uncharacteristically grim. “Stay back. The area isn’t clean yet.”

“Ah? Oh, right.” Exusiai hit the brakes, hovering a few meters away.

The concrete around Lucian’s feet was coated in a layer of fine, crimson dust. It was alive. The microscopic particles were rapidly aggregating, blooming into jagged, dreamlike clusters of raw Originium crystals.

Exusiai shuddered. She knew exactly what that beautiful red dust did to the human body.

It was an ultra-high-concentration Originium leak. If left alone, the crystals would violently expand, consuming half the city block in a matter of hours and infecting every living organism caught in the blast radius.

This was the price of firing Lucifer. The ancient superweapons excavated from the Laterano ruins boasted apocalyptic destructive power, but their internal designs predated modern safety standards. They ran on raw Originium and possessed zero anti-infection shielding.

Modern Terra relied heavily on Originium, but only behind layers of heavy industrial protection. Even the massive engines powering mobile cities used extensive filtration systems to prevent the spread of the disease. Building a city to escape Catastrophes only to flood the streets with lethal radiation would defeat the entire purpose of survival.

Lucian drew a small blade and dragged it across his wrist.

Rich, crimson blood welled up from the cut. He let the drops fall onto the encroaching crystal clusters. The moment his blood made contact, a violent neutralization reaction sparked across the rooftop. The jagged red crystals hissed, dissolving into harmless gray ash at an astonishing rate.

Only when the final speck of red dust vanished did Lucian let out a long, exhausted sigh.

Exusiai immediately closed the distance, wrapping her arms around his shoulders to support his weight. She pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

“You worked so hard~. Are you sleepy? Do you want to rest your head on Big Sister’s lap for a bit?”

Lucian shot her a deadpan look. “What is wrong with you today? Why do you keep imitating people? And specifically, stop imitating Mostima. It gives me a stress reaction.”

“Hmm~… Just mimicking Mostima’s tone gets you all worked up, huh? Interesting…”

Exusiai’s jealousy was expanding faster than the Originium crystals. The rare, intimate kiss they had shared earlier had clearly short-circuited her usual energetic restraint.

Feeling a dull ache in his temples from the blood loss, Lucian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just be yourself, Exusiai. I like Mostima, I like Texas, and I like you.”

She blinked. The gears in her head ground to a halt.

“Wait. Why am I third?” Her voice pitched up, her halo buzzing with erratic light. “Even if we’re going by who you met first, I should at least be right after Mostima! And if we’re talking about frequency, I’m definitely the one who—wait. Don’t tell me. Have you… with Texas… When did you two do it?! Have you been sneaking around behind my back this whole time?! Have you done it with her more times than with me?! Tell me! Tell me right now!”

“Ahhh, my head! Stop yelling directly into my ear!”

Arguing with women was a completely pointless endeavor. Lucian was forced to relearn that lesson all over again.