Chapter 498: Nelom's Formidable Strength, Domain Mimicry·Regenerating Cold Flame

The same savage roundhouse kick slammed into Reinhardt’s chest. The collision sent out a shockwave that blasted a huge cavity in the air amidst the swirling sand.

BOOM—!!

With that one blow, Nelom clearly felt bones breaking and a chest caving in.

BANG—!

Reinhardt was slammed into the ground like a lead weight. Despite possessing the physique of a Peak Level Earth Knight, the moment he made contact, his body flattened like squashed mud, sinking and deforming violently. The bones throughout his body let out a continuous, explosive crackling.

After creating a terrifying crater upon impact, Reinhardt’s body bounced violently. He skipped across the ground, shattering several large boulders in his path, and was finally flung a full three kilometers. He scraped a long scar into the earth before finally skidding to a halt, a huge mound of sand piled up behind him.

However, Nelom was already waiting for him there.

Behind him, a long, narrow ribbon of molten rain stretched out, a trail left in the wake of his passage through the sandstorm. It was a layer of gravel, melted by the intense heatwave, that resembled a magnificent natural wonder.

He stopped before Reinhardt, looking down at the Lord of Vengeful lying face-first in the dirt. ‘What a pity,’ he thought, ‘I was hoping for a real fight.’ He then said coldly, “This battle is over. You’ve lost.”

In the distance, after witnessing a battle that resembled a clash between Demigods, Stearns could no longer sit still. He led his men and rushed to the edge of the battlefield to meet up with the Holy Fire Guard.

His brow was furrowed in a deep frown, his heart filled with anxiety as he saw the two crimson bands of molten rain deep within the sandstorm.

‘If anything happens to Lord Reinhardt on our watch, I’ll never forgive myself, even if the Grand Governor executes me on the spot. It would be an absolute disgrace!’

He thought of the Radiant Angels rescue mission and the trap that was the Cyrenaica campaign.

As the Second Company Commander of the Vengeful Angels, he wished he were the one fighting Nelom right now. ‘Even if I died here,’ he thought, ‘it would be better than Lord Reinhardt coming to harm.’

“Sir! Are we just going to stand by and watch? What if…”

His voice arrived before he did.

Matthias turned to see Stearns jogging toward them and raised a hand in response. “The Lord of Vengeful warned us beforehand. No matter what happens, we are not to interfere in the battle.”

“Besides, do you really think you and I have the power to stop Nelom?”

Anxiety was clouding his judgment. Stearns tried to explain himself, but Matthias knew it was just his overwhelming sense of responsibility. The Second Company Commander had been brooding over their retreat from the Void Storm ever since it happened, right up until Reinhardt’s return.

Matthias warned him in a cold voice, “I know you’re worried, but don’t forget who killed the Fear Knight, Du Ma.”

At the mention of that incredibly ill-omened name, everyone from Stearns’s Personal Guard to the other three Holy Fire Guards frowned.

As fellow Knights, they knew all too well what kind of monster the Fear Knight, Flayer Du Ma, had been.

Morphis’s brow tightened, a flicker of shock in his eyes. He glanced at Matthias and said in a low voice, “Are you saying the Lord of Vengeful is the one who killed that traitor?”

But the only reply he received was the howling wind.

「Meanwhile.」

Nelom was ready to end the battle, but within his Knight Perception, Reinhardt’s faint Knightly Aura was flaring up like a rekindled flame, its intensity steadily climbing.

The horrific injuries—a body full of broken bones—were healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Nelom took a wary step back, his brow furrowed. He had heard more than once just how powerful Verne’s Vengeful Angels were, but he had never heard any rumors about them possessing a Self-Healing Ability.

He stared intently at Reinhardt, still lying face-down in the crater. Even though they had fought side-by-side before, Nelom had never seen Reinhardt use this kind of Special Ability.

And those grayish-white flames on Reinhardt’s body… At first, Nelom had assumed it was the intense heat from his own Ashen Battle Armor setting Reinhardt’s flesh alight, but now… the more he looked, the more familiar they seemed.

He might be a complete idiot when it came to politics, but one didn’t become a Domain Level Powerhouse without sharp instincts. Nelom’s combat intelligence was by no means inferior to Reinhardt’s!

After a moment of confusion, he quickly realized—it wasn’t just familiar. This *was* the Special Ability of his Ashen Battle Armor!

But before he could think any further, a hearty, satisfied laugh suddenly echoed from the crater.

Nelom took another step back, watching in shock as the blood-soaked Reinhardt slowly picked himself up from the ground until he was standing.

“Aside from the Fear Knight, it’s been far too long since anyone managed to break through my defenses. Nelom, you are the third Knight to do so, after Dortmund and Du Ma.”

When he heard Reinhardt’s “praise” and met his cruel gaze, a bone-deep chill shot through Nelom’s entire body!

His eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the man before him. His clothes were in tatters, but his flesh was completely unharmed. Nelom’s mind reeled in shock!

As a Body Technique Knight, his killing methods might not have been flashy, but those two heavy roundhouse kicks were not something an ordinary Imperial Knight could have withstood!

But this man…

Reinhardt ignored the utterly shocked Nelom, brushed the dust from his body, and said coldly, “Learn in battle, grow stronger through battle. That was the second lesson my Knight Tutor ever taught me.”

“Ever since leaving the Void Storm, I haven’t met an enemy powerful enough to make me go all out.”

Reinhardt had two objectives for this battle with Nelom.

First, he wanted to use the fight to break through the barrier to the Six-star Earth Military Rank. Second, he wanted to test some tactical concepts for his Second Domain·Bionic Mimicry.

Therefore, aside from his Morphic Armor and the Combat Skill·Humiliate People’s Power he developed as an Official Knight, he had not used any other abilities for the entire battle.

This approach had another benefit: it allowed Nelom to test the defensive limits of his Morphic Armor in its standard form.

Even though his Physique had reached the peak of an Earth Knight, the absolute limit for a Mortal, years of high-pressure combat had taught Reinhardt that abilities like the Blood Fury of his Second Great Power, or Great Annihilation, were bottomless pits of stamina consumption.

Therefore, he had to be meticulous about every bit of stamina he spent.

When possible, he had to rely on his low-exertion abilities to achieve victory.

In other words, this kind of stamina management was already ingrained in his combat instincts. If he could solve a problem with a single bullet from Messiah’s Gift, he would never waste his Knight Power.

That said, without the enhancement from his Second Domain·Bionic Mimicry, he couldn’t have even dreamed of defeating Nelom; just surviving the encounter in his normal state would have been impossible.

But provoking a fight and taking a vicious beating had been worth it, because he’d also reaped an unexpected reward.

Right now, within Reinhardt’s perception, the network of purple vines growing in his Spiritual Domain—the one that symbolized the origin power of his Extraordinary Armament·Morphic Armor and his Earth Ring·Mimic Evolutionary Origin Power—had sprouted a new shoot. This shoot then formed a flower bud, which finally bloomed into a flower made of chilling white flames.

Because it was born from his origin power, Reinhardt had mastered this new ability the moment it came into existence.

Domain Mimicry·Regenerating Cold Flame.

Once activated, unless he was killed instantly and his body was turned to ash, the Regenerating Cold Flame could heal him from any injury, no matter how severe.

But there was a price for mimicking Nelom’s Knight Power.

The stamina consumption of the Regenerating Cold Flame was nothing short of terrifying!

Just by recovering from the injuries Nelom had inflicted, Reinhardt could clearly feel one-fifth of his stamina vanish in a mere thirty seconds, as if a floodgate had been opened.

That was enough stamina to maintain his Blood Fury state for at least an hour of continuous fighting on a high-pressure battlefield.

The swirling sand and wind blew past Reinhardt and Nelom.

After a brief silence, Reinhardt ripped off the tattered remains of his shirt, stared into Nelom’s horrified eyes, and said coldly, “The real fight is just beginning.”