I Aggressively Stack Steel of the Heart in the Knight Order

In the time it took to draw a breath, the Knight’s Broadsword almost grazed the tip of Raphael’s nose.

It was a moment between life and death.

Cold sweat soaked his entire body as adrenaline surged!

Raphael’s face twisted into a ferocious grimace. The Mental Power he’d summoned, now dangerously overloaded, erupted from his eyes and mouth as incandescent white lightning. The Mind Force Field he constructed with his right hand desperately blocked the path of the Knight’s Broadsword.

In that brief moment of stalemate, Raphael roared. His left hand formed a claw, unleashing the power of Pain Suppression, which surged like an unseen demon trying to invade the enemy Knight’s mind.

But the feedback he received was one of sluggish resistance, as if his Pain Suppression’s psychic energy had sunk into a mire, unable to move an inch. Raphael was horrified. ’How is this possible?!’

No one had ever been able to resist his Pain Suppression. ’This guy...’

The enemy Knight completely ignored the defensive field created by the Mind Storm. With his other hand, he drew the short blade at his side, held it in a reverse grip, and thrust at Raphael’s throat with lightning speed.

’Death—?!’

In that instant, the hair on Raphael’s body stood on end. He could almost hear the Death God’s mocking laughter. It was a brush with death closer than any he had ever known.

And at that very moment.

A large hand, like a steel clamp, seized the enemy Knight’s wrist. Another arm, encased in a dark purple living substance, bent at the elbow and slammed like a cannonball into the Knight’s Full Coverage Helmet!

It was just one strike.

The thick, composite steel helmet caved in deeply. The sound of the neck snapping was enough to set one’s teeth on edge, and a torrent of blood poured from the seams of the helmet.

The enemy Knight dropped to his knees, swayed for a moment, then collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

Raphael’s chest heaved violently. The shock of his terror and his close shave with death made his lungs feel as if they were burning, his breath coming out in scorching gasps.

He had assumed these enemy Knights would be like the last ones—that they would at least state their intentions and only attack after a failed attempt at surrender. He never expected them to land in silence and immediately try to kill him.

If Lord Reinhardt hadn’t intervened, he would have died just a second ago.

At this moment.

The ground beneath their feet began to tremble. One after another, Knights clad in dark yellow, paint-coated Anti-Magic Steel Armor and wielding Knight’s Broadswords, charged them in silence, showing no intention of parley.

Cold sweat drenched Raphael’s body. He clenched his jaw and took a step back, fighting the demonic whispers from the depths of his mind—fighting the insatiable craving for immense power.

He now understood completely: these invaders were here to slaughter them all!

”Lord Reinhardt—!”

Reinhardt stood protectively in front of Raphael. The four ”tin cans” in his line of sight, with their dark yellow coating, all possessed Knight Power of the Destruction Force Field attribute.

Their strength was somewhere between a Three-star and Four-star Military Rank.

They were clearly an elite tactical squad from Grand Lord Kles’s Battle Group. Moreover, their Anti-Magic Steel Armor had been specially modified, making it very similar to the Ash Guard of the Death Battle Group, granting it extremely high resistance to a Wizard’s power.

These men were after Raphael.

”I’ll deal with them. You head back to the Upper City District immediately. Go to the Governor’s Mansion and retrieve the Radiant Beacon. Understand?”

The elite tactical formations of the Empire’s main Battle Groups assigned one Radiant Beacon to each tactical squad. Regular Battle Groups, by contrast, were only issued one per Battle Group.

The world of Seventeenth had been abandoned for far too long. Besides the Radiant Beacon in the Governor’s Mansion in the Desolate Wasteland Ruins, the only other one was at an abandoned Military Port two thousand kilometers away.

Regardless of whether Albert and his people were still alive, according to Imperial law, any Imperial Legion within the same Star Zone that received a distress signal from Seventeenth had to provide a definitive response within seventy-two hours. Acceptance or refusal, it didn’t matter—that was the rule.

As long as the Radiant Beacon survived, this world still had a chance of being rescued.

Though Raphael was inexperienced, he reacted quickly. He immediately understood Reinhardt’s meaning and broke into a mad dash toward the Upper City District.

One of the invading Knights tried to intercept Raphael.

A sonic boom thundered.

Extreme speed bred extreme power. The Anti-Magic Steel Armor might have helped the Knight resist the encroachment of Witchcraft Power, but it was useless against overwhelming physical force. He was sent flying backward at high speed, his body carving a long, bloody trail into the ground.

His Chest Armor was completely caved in. His limbs twitched, then went still and limp as all life left him.

Two strikes, two dead Knights. This display of unparalleled power utterly stunned the three remaining Knights who had been about to attack Reinhardt.

Their mission briefing had clearly stated that the greatest threats on this world were a Six-star Military Rank Knight, who possibly possessed a Radiant Holy Artifact, and a suspected Mind Mage.

A Six-star Knight was certainly powerful, but in their combat experience, it wasn’t impossible to kill one. If ten veteran Four-star Military Rank soldiers ganged up on him, they could succeed, provided they were willing to pay a heavy price.

However, the strength of the man before them far exceeded their estimations.

To be able to kill two thousand-battle veterans of Three-star Military Rank with his bare hands, using nothing but pure strength and speed...

A life-and-death battle leaves no room for wasted words, nor does it give either side time to think.

Reinhardt’s icy gaze fell upon them. He unslung the War Axe from his back, exhaled a sharp breath, and activated his Combat Technique Split Armor. The Aikacia Nozzles unfolded behind him like wings of slaughter.

The Knightly Aura of a Six-star rank pressed down on them like a mountain.

They gripped their weapons, on high alert, but the enormous gap in their power was now on full display. Empowered by terrifying speed that surpassed their ability to visually track, the Black War Axe was unstoppable!

As the massive reflection of the Black War Axe filled one Knight’s pupils, his muscles instinctively channeled his Knight Power, raising his Broadsword to block. But the terrifying, unparalleled force behind the blow was far beyond what he could possibly withstand.

’Not good—!’

It was the Knight’s last thought.

The Broadsword shattered. The massive axe blade tore through the Steel Armor, its high-frequency vibrations and Steam Power acting like a flesh-shredding demolition machine. With the might of a single swing, the Three-star Military Rank Knight was ripped in two, man and armor alike.

But they were thousand-battle veterans, the elite of their Battle Group. Their impeccable tactical discipline did not allow them to flee. Instead, they seized the brief opening created as Reinhardt cut down their comrade, launching a pincer attack from both sides with incredible speed.

The trade-off for the Black Cutter’s destructive power, which far surpassed that of a Broadsword, was a partial loss of maneuverability. But these two veterans had clearly underestimated Reinhardt’s mastery of Body Techniques, assuming he was just another Imperial Knight who relied on the rank of his Knight Power to establish dominance.

Facing two Broadswords from the left and right, both aimed to deliver a fatal blow to his chest, Reinhardt’s combat intellect and killing instincts took over. Boosted by the enhanced neural reflexes of his Heart Steel Goliath Giant, and even without the amplification of a Second Great Power, he could easily react in a fraction of a second.

The Split Armor mobilized the living substance on his arms to form a defense.

In an instant, he released the handle of his axe and took a small step back. His left hand shot out to grab the blade of one Broadsword, while his right arm smashed the other one downward. Using the momentum from the left Knight’s charge, he launched a side kick with his right leg.

The instant before his right foot made contact with the Knight’s waist, his Split Armor constructed the Morphic Armor over his leg.

BANG—!

CRACK—!

The Knight attacking from the right, committed to his two-handed forward thrust, had no time to defend and was sent flying.

His left hand, empowered by his Knight Power, simply crushed the Broadsword!

Reinhardt used the momentum from the kick to twist his body, landing at an angle. He planted his left hand on the ground for support as his right leg, now covered in Mighty Power, swung around like a steel whip and slammed viciously into the other Knight’s neck!

In that one second.

The neck and head of the Knight who’d attacked from the left were visibly displaced, flying off to the side. His body tumbled a few times before falling still.

The other Knight was still trying to get back up, but the Aikacia Nozzles traced a brilliant Mach Ring through the air, propelling Reinhardt’s body low across the ground. An elbow strike, carrying immense kinetic energy, slammed into the Knight’s chest, sending him sliding for dozens of meters until he was thoroughly and completely dead.

With this series of moves, in less than ten seconds of combat, he had brutally crushed three thousand-battle veterans, all of them Elite Knights.

The nearby Defense Army soldiers, who had been frozen in terror, stared with shocked eyes as if looking at a monster. They watched, dumbfounded, as Reinhardt slowly walked back and pulled his War Axe from the corpse.

’Is this... really the kind of Body Technique Ability and combat strength a human can possess?’