Chapter 109: Chapter 82: Enter Reinhardt
BANG—!
A New Recruit Knight from the Caster Battle Group was sent flying backward by the impact, crashing into the heavy, seven-hundred-year-old wooden doors of the Governor’s Mansion.
This masterpiece, crafted by a Master Craftsman, which had witnessed the rise and fall of the Empire and the lives and deaths of one Provincial Governor after another, utterly splintered and broke at this moment.
The old Steel Armor, salvaged from an abandoned warehouse at the Military Port, had a horrifying gash torn through the chest, from which blood sprayed and splattered!
The new recruit’s left cheek was completely charred, wisps of green smoke rising from it.
His face was a mask of agony, and his body trembled uncontrollably. But his severe injuries were mercilessly stripping him of his consciousness and strength, and he slowly collapsed to the ground.
"Alfred—! You bastards... you fallen dregs who have betrayed the Empire! Oh, Divine Emperor! Grant me Your righteous fury!"
Raphael’s right arm, drenched in blood, hung limply at his side. His Angel Holy Scripture, which he never went without, had fallen to the floor.
He let out a pained roar as a flickering Mind Force Field, like a white-hot storm high in the sky, erupted to protect his body from harm.
Under the influence of this Extraordinary Power, the furniture and dust within the Governor’s Mansion began to float into the air.
Under his pressure, a Black Armored Knight’s mind shattered completely, and he slumped against the wall, unconscious. Another Black Armored Knight knelt on the ground, roaring like a beast as he fought against the ravages of the Pain Suppression on his mind and soul.
But of the three Battle Brothers he had brought from the Caster Monastery, one was already dead, a broadsword run through his heart from behind. He lay silently in a pool of blood.
It all happened too fast.
The moment the two sides clashed, one man was dead, and another was thrown from the Governor’s Mansion, grievously wounded and near death.
Though they were all Knights who possessed Power, the gap in strength and experience between the three new recruits of the Caster Battle Group and the Knights of an Imperial Main Battle Legion was by no means small.
The sole surviving Battle Brother was barely holding on under the fierce assault of a Black Armored Knight, his body covered in wounds.
Facing the combined attack of two Black Armored Knights, Raphael’s Mind Force Field was already operating on overload. A white-hot light flooded his eyes, and blood streamed continuously from his nose and mouth.
Since the founding of the Caster Battle Group, they had fought on Seventeenth for many years, but they had never encountered such a powerful enemy.
Raphael had even thought their strength was already sufficient to deal with the rebels invading this world.
But as the spiritual leader of the Battle Group and the Monastery, his arrogance and lack of experience had led them to pay a terrible price in their very first battle with the rebels.
’Is this the true strength of an Imperial Main Battle Legion?’
’Could it be... that they could really do nothing but kneel on the ground and wait for an Angel to save them?’
Blood was even seeping from the corners of Raphael’s eyes. His expression was pained and twisted. The battle on the mental plane was silent and invisible, yet utterly brutal.
The storm of his Mind Force Field flung back a Black Armored Knight charging at him.
But in the instant the Force Field weakened, a broadsword pierced its defense and stabbed into his shoulder.
Raphael let out a low roar and gripped the blade of the broadsword, his eyes burning with white-hot light as he stared death at the Black Armored Knight before him!
The power of Pain Suppression flooded into the rebel’s mind in an instant.
At that moment, Raphael caught a glimpse of his last Battle Brother’s throat being slit. He saw Alfred, who had been thrown against the doorway, coughing up mouthfuls of bloody foam as he struggled to get up.
But the last surviving Black Armored Knight sent a brilliant signal to his superior for aid. A pillar of teleportation light pierced through the skylight of the Governor’s Mansion and descended from above.
He could only watch, helpless, as that Black Armored Knight walked, sword in hand, toward the still-living Alfred.
Raphael’s grief-stricken roar turned into immense pain, which he channeled through the Mighty Power of Mind Connection into the mind of the Black Armored Knight whose blade he held.
He still remembered the conversation he had with Reinhardt on the eve of the Battle Group’s founding. It was a principle he had written into the Angel Holy Scripture and established as the highest creed of the Caster Battle Group.
’If you want to realize your ideals and beliefs, you must fight for them.’
Raphael wanted to protect this world. Defending the glory of the Divine Emperor was his noblest ideal, and it was the very reason the Caster Battle Group was founded.
’If death is the fate of an Imperial Knight, then I will die with honor!’
Fight to the death!
Ullrich cowered in a corner, caught within the range of the Knights’ battle. The old and frail Provincial Governor’s face was ashen, and cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
He couldn’t even see how they had killed the Caster Battle Group’s Knight in a single exchange.
It had all happened too fast. The searing heat of the flames, the roaring currents of air, the Mighty Power of the Mind Storm... in less than twenty seconds of combat, Grand Lord Kles’s Knight squad had suffered two deaths and two injuries, while of the Caster Battle Group, only Combat Priest Raphael was left, struggling to resist.
And it wasn’t over yet.
Because another standard five-man tactical squad had just arrived at the Governor’s Mansion via a Teleportation Waymark!
The moment the rebels landed, the tactical squad’s leader went on high alert, drew his weapon, and said in a low voice, "A Mind Mage. Proceed with caution."
Beneath his Full Coverage Helmet, his brow furrowed. The intelligence their Battle Group had provided indicated there were no Imperial Knights stationed on this world. Aside from the local Defense Army, there was supposed to be almost no resistance.
’So what’s the deal with this Mind Mage?’
Raphael ran his sword through the neck of the Knight suffering from Pain Suppression, then glared at the Black Armored Knights who had just appeared before him and roared, "Traitors! Desecrators—! You have failed the mission granted to you by the Divine Emperor! In the name of the Caster Battle Group, I will become the Divine Emperor’s sword..."
