Chapter 80: Chapter 60: Battle of the Strong

A rainy night.

Lightning split the sky.

Its ghastly white light, there and gone in a flash, illuminated a brutal battlefield strewn with corpses.

Shoving Sedon’s body before him, Reinhardt became a human cannonball. The two of them smashed through heaps of corpses, brought down a section of ruined wall, and crashed heavily into Baihe Town.

The clock tower tilted.

The giant Copper Bell let out a dull hum.

Reinhardt pinned Sedon’s body, his face twisted into a ferocious, wrathful mask, and brought his right fist smashing down toward Sedon’s face!

BANG—!

The Iron Fist passed through Sedon’s Elementalized body, leaving a deep crater in the ground!

Then, dense Magma Tentacles shot out from the ground, wrapping tightly around Reinhardt’s body. Their immense strength, like the anchor cables of a steel warship, yanked him violently downward!

In the space of a single breath, Reinhardt’s legs had been completely submerged in the pool of magma beneath him.

The living matter of the Morphic Armor hissed as it touched the searing magma. The sound, like flesh scorching, was piercingly loud on the dead-silent battlefield, where only the rain fell. Smoke billowed up!

His stamina was draining away rapidly.

Sedon had vanished from Reinhardt’s sight, reappearing silently behind him. A flash of ghostly lightning revealed his tall frame, casting a massive shadow!

His expression was cold and chilling, as if everything was under his control.

The fingers of his mechanical prosthetic twitched subtly, an almost imperceptible movement. Invisible threads of Knight Power connected him to the Magma Tentacles. The tentacles crept steadily up Reinhardt’s body, seeking to wrap around his neck and, with the absolute Mighty Power of an Earth Knight, force the young Knight to his knees in surrender!

To make him take back those disrespectful words!

But in a battle between the strong, victory and defeat are decided by the slightest deviation in a single instant.

Just as Sedon believed this foregone battle was about to be decided, his eyes suddenly caught sight of a brilliant Mach Ring formed by a high-temperature energy flow.

Immediately after, the threads connected to his fingers all snapped. The Magma Tentacles lost control, liquefying and splattering into the rainwater, sending up a cloud of boiling steam!

A dark purple afterimage flashed past his eyes at a speed the naked eye could not follow!

A piercing sonic boom and a wave of intense heat washed over him!

Sedon’s pupils shrank. He took a sharp step back and looked up at the sky.

A giant Steel Boot, wreathed in the terrifying pressure of a Destruction Force Field and propelled by a high-temperature energy flow, descended from the heavens!

Like a meteor crashing to earth, it plummeted straight for his head!

However, by the time his eyes caught Reinhardt’s movement, it was already too late to dodge.

A life-or-death instant!

An absurd combat intuition surfaced inexplicably in Sedon’s mind.

Because the last enemy who had made him feel pressured in a fight was fifteen years ago.

The Steel Knight Order’s strength and experience could not have produced a genius Knight like Reinhardt—a man who seemed born for battle.

He never imagined that the unremarkable young follower from Frostfire Fortress could have grown so powerful in just one year! 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Sharp combat instincts.

Extraordinary combat intelligence.

Mastery of both the Attribute and Body Technique Streams, perfectly developed and fused!

All these elements combined to form an overwhelming pressure, like the gaze of the Death God himself! It was a feeling one could only experience by facing this killing machine, Reinhardt, head-on!

His offense and his ability to exploit weaknesses were flawless.

He gave his opponent no chance to even breathe!

At this moment, Sedon had nowhere to run!

Elementalization could only evade ordinary physical attacks; the moment it encountered Extraordinary Power, its balance would be instantly shattered.

If he took this blow head-on, even with the Physique of an Earth Knight, he would be severely injured, if not killed outright!

As Reinhardt’s Steel Boot was about to crash down on his head, a flicker of enraged disbelief flashed deep within the eyes of the Earth Knight who had, until this point, treated the battle with a casual, disdainful confidence.

He dropped to one knee and raised his right arm. With the sharp CLICK of machinery, a jet-black shield abruptly deployed from his forearm!

BOOM—!

The terrifying aftershock from the collision between the Steel Boot and shield swept across the land like a storm. The blast wave momentarily froze the raindrops in place, forming a massive, aqueous Ring in the air that tore through the ruins of Baihe Town as it expanded outward at high speed!

As the ring-shaped shockwave passed over Matthias, passed over the heads of every Knight on the battlefield...

The curtain of rain soaked their Armor and boots.

Overwhelming shock filled their vision.

Even the Radiant Angels were moved by the battle between the two!

This level of conflict was no longer a duel to determine a victor between Imperial Knights; it was a no-holds-barred, life-or-death battle!

But they could only stand there in silence.

Because this was a duel between Reinhardt and Sedon—the oldest and most sacred tradition among Imperial Knights.

This battle could only end with one man’s death or surrender!

The profound rage in Sedon’s eyes twisted his face into a snarl, and a furious roar echoed across the battlefield.

"Reinhardt—!"

He could not accept that a mere Official Knight of a Five-star Military Rank had forced him to use the Knight Power of his second attribute!

He could not accept that the course of this battle was gradually slipping from his control!

He could accept even less...

...that the gentle, wise, and benevolent lord—who had once stood before the Radiant Holy Image, extended a trusting right hand, and told him the Empire needed his dedication and sacrifice—had now fallen into the Abyss and become the greatest traitor within the Radiant Empire!

In the minds of the Death Battle Group Knights, Sedon had always been the image of the Upper Ranks: elegant, wise, and unsmiling.

It was as if nothing in this world could anger him.

As if everything in the world was part of his plan and under his control.

Yet now, in this moment, Sedon’s two consecutive roars of fury were a sign of a complete loss of composure, utterly unlike his former self.

Perhaps seeing such a great man lose his composure in public would have been amusing. But for both the Loyalist Knights of the Death Battle Group and the Dark Gold Blood Knights led by Heinrich, hearing that hysterical roar filled their hearts with nothing but endless sorrow.

For this was a Knight who had dedicated his everything to the Empire, only to one day discover that his Loyalty, his perseverance, and his sacrifices—his willingness to bear any sin for the unity and stability of this corrupt Empire—had all become a joke. The collapse of his beliefs brought immense pain!

They didn’t know what had happened between Reinhardt and Sedon.

Nor did they know why that young Knight would publicly expose the scars deep in Sedon’s heart, only to viciously rub salt in the wounds.

But all of this, once the battle was decided, would fade into the river of time, becoming little more than dust sealed away in memory.