Chapter 497: Nelom's Powerful Strength, Domain Mimicry·Regenerating Cold Flame

He faced Reinhardt’s crashing Iron Fist.

The Burning Ash Cloak behind Nelom billowed without a wind. He looked down on Reinhardt, his gaze a mixture of pity and regret, as if he were staring at a man already dead.

“This game needs to end, Reinhardt.”

From the moment he heard Reinhardt wanted to see him, he knew a battle between them was inevitable, regardless of whether the Lord of Vengeful truly intended to kill him.

Before he arrived, only he knew the immense pressure he was under.

He feared Reinhardt’s strength.

Nor did he want to cross blades with Reinhardt in a fight to the death.

However, the course of events was like a great, surging river, never swayed by the will of an individual. Even with all his power, before the grand tide of history, he was nothing more than a single leaf in the current that swept through the Human World.

The river’s surface was covered in whirlpools.

And beneath it, undercurrents raged.

He admired Reinhardt’s courage and approved of his grand ideals.

But no matter how magnificent or lofty those ideals were, no matter how they soared on the wind, they eventually had to touch down in the face of harsh reality. They had to trudge forward on a path full of mud and potholes.

Nelom knew full well that from the moment he chose to join Claudius’s faction, rebellion became a brand of shame he could never wash away.

And he was willing to give his life to prove to the Lord of Vengeful that he had never abandoned his path as a Knight.

But now…

After several exchanges, even after Reinhardt had unleashed his Domain Power, Nelom felt nothing but profound disappointment.

‘He had thought Reinhardt, the Master of Vengeful, would be the most powerful enemy he had ever faced!’

The reality was, even after their initial probing was over and Reinhardt had activated his Domain Power, his Knightly Aura was still too weak. To Nelom’s senses, Reinhardt wasn’t just far from being a strong adversary—he barely even registered as a credible threat.

‘He wouldn’t even need to use his final trump card to kill Reinhardt.’

However, Nelom still respected Reinhardt—and not just for his strength.

For Imperial Knights, fighting side-by-side just once was enough to truly understand a comrade’s character.

Ever since his defection to the Vengeful Angels, he had witnessed the unyielding spirit of every one of their members, the noble courage of Reinhardt, and the great victories they snatched from the jaws of death.

Whether Reinhardt truly meant to kill him or not, he would let him leave after this battle was over.

‘He would do so to atone for his crime of rebellion.’

All these thoughts flashed through Nelom’s mind in a single instant.

「At this moment.」

The ash covering his body, formed from pure Domain Power, had silently shifted to a charcoal red. Behind him, an extreme heat converged into a monstrous river of thermal energy!

The instant this deadly river of heat appeared,

it melted a massive cavity into the swirling sand and dust behind Nelom!

The molten sand turned to lava, then erupted into a sky-filling rain of fire!

Even time itself seemed to stagnate in that moment.

Nelom’s Domain Power was very similar to Reinhardt’s, both being the type to grant a raw boost to physical stats. But it differed from how Reinhardt activated his First Domain·Great Annihilation to enter his Vengeful Angel form, transforming him into a perfect all-rounder.

In its stable mode, the power boost from Nelom’s Domain was actually quite limited, although it did provide a moderate increase to his strength, speed, and Self-Healing Ability.

Its overall intensity wasn’t much different from a standard Domain Power.

Even so, when facing ordinary opponents, very few could match him while he was merely maintaining the stable mode of his Overlord Form.

But to show his respect for this battle between Knights, and to honor the Lord of Vengeful, Nelom decided to use one of his strongest abilities to defeat Reinhardt fair and square.

Overlord Transformation · Super Speed Form.

What does it mean to be an Overlord?

It means reaching the pinnacle in every field!

High temperatures, strength, speed, self-healing.

These four attributes represented four different Overlord Forms: Annihilation, Juggernaut, Super Speed, and Immortal.

After the transformation, a single one of Nelom’s attributes would receive an insane, near ten-fold boost. The price was losing the bonuses his Domain Power provided to the other three attributes.

Reinhardt’s speed of nearly Mach 4 was impressive, but Nelom in his Super Speed Form could exceed Mach 10. Furthermore, with the support of his Domain Power, he could ignore inertia, allowing for perfect acceleration and instantaneous stops.

Even though his body would lose its strength enhancement in Super Speed Form, a speed of Mach 10 was power in its own right!

It was like teleportation.

By the time Reinhardt’s Iron Fist arrived, only an afterimage remained. His punch met nothing but air.

Nelom’s figure was like a phantom, now standing at Reinhardt’s side, staring silently.

‘In his eyes, even though Reinhardt’s speed ranked among the fastest of the many powerful enemies he had faced, it was still too slow. He could see every single one of his movements.’

Nelom threw a simple, unadorned roundhouse kick. It tore through the sound barrier, unleashing a shocking boom like a cannon blast!

BOOM—!

Utterly unable to react, Reinhardt was instantly sent flying. He moved so fast that his body carved a straight, dark-purple line through the sand-filled sky.

In the space of a single breath, he flew for a kilometer!

But it wasn’t over.

Before Reinhardt’s careening body even had a chance to slow, he found Nelom already waiting for him halfway there.