Chapter 279 - 242: Forceful Slay and Advancement to 4-Star

Vast numbers of Demons fell in swathes, cut down like grass, letting out heart-rending, agonized wails.

As for the Void Knights who had betrayed their Knight’s Oaths, the Empire, and the Divine Emperor, their expressions suddenly twisted with immense shock and terror!

They looked exactly like naughty children who had just been caught red-handed by their strict father.

All will to fight and kill vanished from their hearts. All they wanted was to flee the Barge Port, to escape this terrifying place that struck fear into their very being, before the Divine Emperor’s fury incinerated their souls!

Huffman’s expression, in particular, was filled with incredulous horror!

Even the sulfurous flames in his eye sockets nearly flickered out.

He never would have dreamed that this Three-star Military Rank Earth Knight—a man who held the blessing of Avernus and was only one step away from ascending to a Venerable Great Demon—would also possess a Radiant Holy Artifact?!

’How is this possible?!’

What terrified him even more was when he sensed the same Divine Emperor’s Fury Flame blazing outside Reinhardt’s Full Coverage Helmet, like the terrifying eyes of a Great Demon, like the Eye of Punishment of Archangel Tiberius.

All he could feel in that raging flame was the gaze and judgment of the Emperor Himself.

’Dammit...’

All of Huffman’s confidence in winning this battle had vanished. He just wanted to get his ship out of this damned Orbital Port as quickly as possible.

He wasn’t a true Fear Knight, nor was he a Demon Prince.

The Devourer’s Slaughter Knife could heal the wounds inflicted by an Imperial Knight’s War Axe.

But against a Radiant Holy Artifact, he might actually die!

Unfortunately, it was too late to escape now.

As Huffman put away his Slaughter Knife, roared at his subordinates, and fled toward the ship he had arrived on, Reinhardt—wielding the Divine Emperor’s Fury—leapt down from above like one of the Emperor’s Angels, propelled by his Aikacia Nozzle.

"You damned fools! Get the ship started, now! Shelby, take your men and stop that Imperial Knight! Don’t let him get close!"

If the Battle Group Huffman served was still the Black Storm...

...whether for the Battle Group’s victory or for the sublime glory of a Knight, a horde of his subordinates would have fearlessly sacrificed their lives to cover their Battle Group Leader’s retreat.

In fact, no Battle Group Leader would ever abandon their men to escape alone.

Even if they had to retreat, they would be carried onto the ship by their subordinates.

Unfortunately, Huffman was merely serving in one of the countless Void Realm Combat Gangs that had sprung up like weeds in the Demon Void Realm after the great rebellion.

These traitors, who had long since betrayed the Empire and their Knight’s Oaths, had no honor or faith to speak of. Upon sensing the appearance of the Radiant Holy Artifact, even though the Mighty Power of the Slaughter Death Arena had severely damaged their sanity...

...when faced with a tangible threat to their lives, these vicious Flayer Knights fled, each one faster than the last. The one closest to the ship had already boarded, started the engines, and sealed the hatch behind him.

Seeing this, Huffman flew into a humiliating rage and cursed, "Keli! You bastard—! You better pray I don’t get my hands on you! Or I’ll flay you alive!"

But his rage and threats were useless. In the few short seconds he spent cursing, the ship had already taken off, vanishing into the Net Path entrance in a flash.

At that moment, Huffman cursed the fact that his Knight Power wasn’t speed-related; otherwise, he might have escaped faster.

Huffman had intended to order his other subordinates to seize a ship, but his face fell when he suddenly sensed the aura of Radiant Power appearing behind him!

He turned his head just in time to watch the blade of the Divine Emperor’s Fury, burning with Eternal Flame, viciously pierce through his chest.

At the same time.

He stared at Reinhardt in utter horror. ’Just who is this guy...’

Because according to his Knight Perception, Reinhardt had appeared behind him almost instantaneously, leaving him no room to think or resist.

"Bastard..."

That was the last clear word he managed to utter.

After that, the agonizing shrieks of a traitor’s fallen soul being burned by the Divine Emperor’s Flame completely overwhelmed his sanity and incinerated his very existence.

For a Void Knight like Huffman, blessed by the Mighty Power of the Slaughter Death Arena, ordinary methods of killing him would only result in his rebirth in the Dark Abyss.

He might even have seen it as a blessing in disguise, a chance to fully transform from a mortal body of flesh and blood into the ethereal form of a Demon.

And at the very moment the Divine Emperor’s Fury pierced Huffman’s body,

the crisp sound of the Steel of the Heart rang in Reinhardt’s ears.

CLANG—!

At the same time, faint blue system text flashed through his vision.

[Heart Steel Layers Increased: 850.]

Adding the Heart Steel Layers from the Void Realm Combat Gang that Reinhardt had slaughtered earlier at the Barge Port, his total number of layers had now broken through twenty thousand!

[Giant Devouring Current Layer Number: 21,830]

[Physical Enhancement Coefficient: 21.830]

[Heart Steel Goliath Giant Current Permanent Physique Buff: 63%]

After the faint blue system text faded, a searing power surged through Reinhardt’s body. At the same time, his Knightly Aura began to rise sharply!

It continued until he broke through the Three-star Earth Military Rank and reached Four-star!

Earth Knights were different from Official Knights. The Earth Ring was a supernatural tool for combat. Aside from needing to develop an initial Earth Ring to advance to the Earth Military Rank in the first place,

the number of Earth Rings one possessed was not directly related to an Earth Knight’s Military Rank.

However, the more Earth Rings a Knight mastered, the stronger they would be compared to others of the same Military Rank and star level. Defeating higher-ranked opponents was not impossible for them.

Before reaching the Four-star Earth Military Rank, an Earth Knight would be tempered through countless battles, honing their Physique through long periods of training and cultivation. Once their Knight Power grew to a certain point, they would advance.

Reinhardt’s Heart Steel Layers and the Goliath Giant’s permanent Physique buff made the gains he received from combat more tangible and visible.

After being tempered by the Verne and Kemola Battles, and after fighting numerous powerful enemies,

his promotion to the Four-star Earth Military Rank was a natural progression!

However, the Five-star Earth Military Rank was completely different from the ranks before it. Without the support of Domain Power, no amount of tempering through battle would allow one to advance.

This was the watershed that separated the truly top-tier experts of the Earth Military Rank from those just below them.

During the Kemola Battle, Reinhardt had personally experienced the power of Warlord Nico’s Pseudo-Domain. An Earth Knight who had mastered Domain Power was a terrifying existence that a Four-star Earth Military Rank Knight could not hope to contend with!

Reinhardt pulled out the Divine Emperor’s Fury. As the wails gradually faded, Huffman’s massive, four-meter-tall body collapsed heavily to its knees before Reinhardt, witnessed by the many Mortal Auxiliary Army soldiers and Imperial Knights at the Barge Port.

The Divine Emperor’s Flame blazed brightly, and his body disintegrated like burnt cinders, scattering across the ground.

A complete death in both the physical and spiritual sense—utterly annihilated, reduced to ash and smoke.

As Huffman’s aura faded from Florian’s Knight Perception, the shock felt by the Ash Guard’s Iron Crown was beyond words.

He was part of the Ash Guard’s elite formation, an Iron Crown whose combat strength was second only to the Battle Group’s champion. His immense power had been tested over a two-hundred-year service career and a thousand battles!

But as an Ash Guard veteran, born to suppress Wizard rebellions, his entire service career had been spent dealing with Wizards.

When the Battle Group was first founded, Sedon had already established the Ash Guard’s overall combat style.

Mobility, stealth, assassination, capture...

Matthias’s Knight Power was a perfect match for these characteristics, as was Florian’s.

Although Sedon had re-evaluated the Ash Guard’s combat style and carried out a large-scale expansion of personnel after the great rebellion and the establishment of the Imperial Administrative Regions, twenty years was too short a time for a Battle Group with such a glorious history.

He had heard his Ash Guard colleagues speak more than once of the legendary Vengeful Angel, who had once dueled Lord Sedon on Grillers World without being at a disadvantage, invoked a Miracle of Radiance, and shattered an Abyssal Great Demon’s head with a single punch.

He had doubted the truth of these claims, because they sounded even more exaggerated than the tales of the Hero Knights from ancient legends.

But now.

He finally understood why Lord Sedon, when speaking with them in private, would refer to that Vengeful Angel as one of their Battle Brothers.