After the ceremony inside Tear Knight Cathedral ended, the Shadow Gate at its center opened again, and cheers poured in from outside.
Shien rose from the main seat. Raymond, Edwin, and the other senior Holy Knights followed behind him.
The Holy Light outside fell across the Mask of Mercy, drawing a silver gleam from it.
Shien stepped out of the cathedral, and the area around the central sacred road soon fell quiet.
Because he so often went to the front lines himself, many of them had seen Shien before. Some had even spoken to him.
But today was the first time they had seen the white-haired young man wearing the Mask of Mercy stand before them as the Tear Knight Governor. His entire bearing was different.
Shien walked to the center of the dais and stopped, sweeping his gaze over the crowd.
He saw the people from the Reconstruction Institute, Maren, and the Legion officers who had fought beside him.
Farther away, he spotted Victor standing with several master craftsmen. He recognized those familiar faces almost at a glance.
There were also many people he had never met, but considerable Grace Values floated above their heads.
In the years since arriving in this world, Shien had grown used to speaking before crowds. Thousands of eyes turning toward him at once rarely put him under pressure anymore.
Today was different. He had reached the pinnacle of this world and become one of its few dozen most powerful people. A single sentence from him could shape the fates of tens of thousands.
As Shien calmly regarded the people below, a sense of purpose rose within him.
The path the Twelve Defense Zones would take from here would begin with what he said today.
Low conversations still lingered along either side of the