Chapter 138: Chapter 103: They Are Awestruck by Reinhardt’s Mighty Power
From the moment they awaken their Knight Power, a New Recruit Knight needs three years of arduous training to be promoted to the Two-star Military Rank and become a mainstay of a Knight Order or Battle Group.
To reach Three-star and become a Tactical Captain capable of operating independently requires another five to eight years.
The Four-star Military Rank is a dividing line, the first major threshold on a Knight’s path.
To be promoted to the Five-star Military Rank, to stand out from the vast multitude of Knights, requires one-in-a-hundred talent and the good fortune of the Divine Emperor’s favor.
...
You are exceptionally talented, and you’ve spent your life surrounded by the praise and adulation of others.
You were the only youth in a metropolis of millions to possess Knight Talent, and you were fortunate enough to be scouted by a local Knight Order’s training camp.
After a long Squire Stage, you became an Official Knight.
Your instructors and commander unanimously believed you had the potential to be a Tactical Captain. After an evaluation, they recommended you for one of the Empire’s main Battle Groups.
Your horizons broadened upon joining a main Battle Group. You learned that the Empire’s territory was boundless, its population numbering in the countless trillions.
The Knight Talent you once took pride in was, in fact, utterly ordinary.
You were merely a talented youth from a city on a single world, in a single Star Zone, in a single domain of the Empire. Across the Empire’s vast territory, youths with your "one-in-a-million" talent were as numerous as grains of sand in a desert, simply uncountable.
You were just one of them.
You studied theory diligently and clawed your way through battles. Your career as a Knight reached its twentieth year of service.
You knew full well that if you could just complete the development of your Combat Techniques, you would be promoted to the Five-star Military Rank and reach the threshold for joining an elite tactical unit.
But unfortunately, during the very battle that would have led to your promotion to Five-star, your Battle Group fell into a trap meticulously designed by a Great Demon.
After a brutal battle and desperate resistance,
you ultimately fell.
It sounds cruel, but such is the fate of a Knight.
More than talent, simply surviving on the grand battlefield is the most difficult hurdle in advancing to the Five-star Military Rank.
The Demon Legions of the Four Gods, the Imperial Rebel Army, Knight Warlords, Wizard Lords, the Scaya Dragonfolk—these enemies wield Extraordinary Power, and their technology and war machines are powerful beyond imagination.
Even though a Five-star Official Knight is qualified for promotion to the Earth Military Rank, the path of a Knight remains incredibly difficult, to say nothing of the Six-star and Seven-star ranks beyond.
Of course, given the Empire’s terrifyingly vast population base, the number of Five-star Knights—these so-called "geniuses"—serving in the Imperial Main Battle Legions alone exceeds one million.
And that’s not counting those serving in local Knight Orders, rebel armies, or as Knight Warlords.
Even at the Seven-star Military Rank—transcendent beings, geniuses among geniuses, champions among champions, with only one born across the vast populations of a thousand worlds—the number serving in the Imperial Main Battle Legions still exceeds ten thousand.
This data isn’t top secret. Across the Empire’s vast territory, the number of publicly known Seven-star Knights, the Empire’s Chosen Knights, is in the thousands.
That is why Stein was initially so dismissive of the title "Chosen Knight of the Reinhardt Empire."
But...
The more a Knight understood this complex knowledge about Knights and the Empire, the more they understood the hardships of a Knight’s path, and the more they understood the kind of power a truly mighty being should possess.
This was especially true for these Fallen—the Knights of the Ten Thousand Changes Demon Monarch’s Destiny Weaver Legion, whose knowledge and strength had been forcibly infused.
The shock of Reinhardt’s immense power was, to them, like seeing the Radiant Divine Emperor perform a miracle, like watching the seventeen Legendary Immortals who stand at the pinnacle of the Empire’s might arrive on the battlefield in person!
It was a horror and terror that mere words could not describe!
For an Official Knight, the intensity of Reinhardt’s Knightly Aura completely shattered their understanding. It was a level no Knight had ever reached before; a realm that, it was said, only Divine Spirits and Demigods had ever attained.
As Reinhardt’s gaze swept across the battlefield, his oppressive might became tangible, weighing down heavily on the minds of the Weaver Knights.
These traitors, who had been besieging Reinhardt just an hour ago, had lost all the courage and arrogance their newfound Demon Power had given them. They stood rooted to the spot, trembling uncontrollably.
After all, the man standing before them was not Stein, who reveled in verbal threats and elaborate schemes.
One only had to look at the shredded flesh and bone fragments clinging to that Black War Axe, or the mountain of corpses piled high.
He had single-handedly slaughtered all the Destiny Abominations on half the bridge. Under immense pressure and surrounded on all sides, he had charged through their ranks and brutally hacked down over fifty Weaver Knights.
Terrifying.
In the distance, the slaughter in the Upper City District continued. The Defense Army’s line had completely fallen back to the streets near Caster Monastery. Meanwhile, Stein’s telepathic messages, as pesky and persistent as a fly, buzzed incessantly in Reinhardt’s mind.
It was as if he felt Reinhardt’s rage wasn’t burning fiercely enough and was madly fanning the flames.
High above, the Void Storm drew ever closer to the world, an encroaching tide that blotted out the sky.
Reinhardt started forward.
Every Destiny Weaver Knight who saw him move shuddered and took a step back, terrified that the horrifying Black War Axe would fall upon them. They scrambled backward, clearing a path.
The vast number of Destiny Abominations crowded together, letting out unsettling shrieks. But as Reinhardt walked among them, his Knight Power transformed into an intangible pressure, like the aura of a Fear Knight, physically pushing them aside and parting a path through the torrent of flesh.
「Meanwhile, at the Caster Monastery defense line.」
The Mortal Soldiers watched in horror as Stein, now a Demon Prince after his Demon Ascension, descended from above. The mere sight of his dark, unholy aura made them dizzy.
Raphael, the strongest combatant on the front line, was completely unable to resist the disparity in their mental power. After a brief clash, he collapsed to his knees in agony, his face deathly pale.
Stein looked down from on high, reveling in the might of his Demon Power. He savored the feeling of weaving plots to control everything, the superiority of gazing down upon all other beings.
’Killing Reinhardt, corrupting this world, and severing their future is only one part of my master’s grand plan.’
’The Void Storm is about to tear an unprecedented fissure in the Real Cosmos, and this world will become one of many gateways connecting the Void Realm to the Real Cosmos.’
’When that happens, the Ash Soil Star Zone, and perhaps the entire Empire, will be shrouded in the shadow of the Demon Legions.’
Beyond that, Stein had his own agenda.
’If I help my master complete this magnificent plan, our actions are certain to please the supreme Formless Divine Monarch. And if I can earn a reward from that highest being, I can find a way to escape the Ten Thousand Changes Demon Monarch’s control, maybe even usurp his Mighty Power...’
As Stein lost himself in delusions, weaving his schemes and dreaming of his future ambitions, an incomparably powerful Knightly Aura approached him at incredible speed!
