For example, Lins' teacher, Levi, is a Knight in the Sky Temple, and moreover, a Great Knight.

If Lins hadn't met Levi, he wouldn't have come this far; he might have died long ago in some chaos.

And now, there are three Sky Knights surrounding the area.

For the adventurers in the camp, with these three around, there's hardly any chance of escape.

Once the fight begins, they are bound to die; the gap in power is too great.

Among the people present, only Lins is a Great Knight, while the others are merely at Knight Level.

The disparity in combat strength is utterly one-sided.

The camp fell silent immediately, and everyone seemed to hear the breath of the people next to them.

Rayne looked at the silent crowd and smiled with satisfaction: "Lins, you know, I despise slaughter. Just hand over the Heart of the Earth, and I'll let them go—and you too."

Lins was silent for a moment, then said seriously: "Let them leave first; they're not involved in this matter. This is between us."

"That won't do, little Lins. You must make a choice; I don't have much patience," Rayne said.

Rayne would never allow others to leave; once they did, he would lose the leverage to threaten Lins.

He understood Lins' type very well—unafraid of death himself, but he values his friends greatly.

To someone like him, the threat of death is far less effective than chopping off a finger of their friend.

"Captain! Let's just fight him!" the red-haired man stepped forward and said.

Lins shook his head, knowing well these people's strength.

The people behind him are only at Knight Level, and fighting would only lead to needless deaths.

But the Heart of the Earth—Lins doesn't want to hand it over to Rayne because it's the only possibility of overthrowing the Sky Temple.

Levi originally didn't want the Heart of the Earth to fall into the hands of the Sky Temple, and that's why Rayne sent people to hunt him down, leading to his serious injury and eventual death.

"The Heart of the Earth is inside me. Let them leave. Anyway, they're worthless to you," Lins exhaled and said.

He planned to exchange his life for everyone's safety.

"You've started absorbing the power of the Heart of the Earth? I didn't expect you'd gain its approval. Lucky I arrived in time," Rayne said, somewhat surprised.

He laughed heartily: "Very well, rest assured I won't kill you before the Heart of the Earth is extracted from your body, you're safe. But as for them, as you said, they're worthless to me. So just… kill them."

Rayne's last three words sounded more like an order, directed towards the three Sky Knights behind him.

"You!" Lins drew his sword in anger and pointed it at Rayne.

"You're too naive. How could I allow the secret of the Heart of the Earth to be known by others," Rayne sneered.

"They're not aware of it—entirely unrelated!" Lins shouted.

"Does it matter if they know? As long as they become dead, it's fine," Rayne said flatly.

As his words fell, the Sky Knight behind him moved, with two other Sky Knights guarding the sides to prevent anyone from fleeing.

The Sky Knight didn't draw the giant sword from the ground but pulled out the sword at his waist, directly flying over Lins, heading towards the crowd behind him.

The first target of the Sky Knight was the red-haired man, as he was the closest.

"You dare!" Lins was about to step forward to block the Sky Knight.

However, the Sky Knight has the ability to fly, and Lins, on the ground, simply cannot reach him.

The longsword was unsheathed, emitting a long cry, and the longsword in the Sky Knight's hand gleamed and stabbed towards the red-haired man's skull.

The next second seemed like it would cleave open the red-haired man's skull.

The Sky Knight's speed was extremely fast, too fast for Lins, a Great Knight, to see his movements clearly.

This is the Secret Technique from the Sky Temple, which not only allows flying but also grants great speed.

The imagined bloody scene did not appear; two fingers pinched the downward-stabbing longsword.

Everyone looked towards the direction of the fingers and surprisingly found it to be that mysterious stranger from last night's campout.

The red-haired man realized only now, unaware of when the stranger reached atop his head, the sound of the longsword being unsheathed hadn't stopped.

Everything happened too fast.

The Sky Knight, hovering in mid-air, saw this scene and was shocked.

With his sense ability, he hadn't noticed when Herag appeared until the longsword would not move forward that he noticed the man's presence.

He tried pulling back the longsword with force but found it completely immobile, as if welded between the man's two fingers.

In the next moments, Herag acted.

He exerted force on his arm, lifting the whole Sky Knight from mid-air.

The sudden increase in force caught the Sky Knight unprepared, and he lost balance instantly, pulled downward by the immense force.

"Not good!"

The Sky Knight's heart surged with immense danger, attempting to discard the sword and fly high.

Yet, a large hand grasped his neck, the immense force from the hand squeezed his neck repeatedly, emitting the sound of cracking bones.

"Impossible..."

He felt the power in the hand, almost unable to believe the man before him was human.

He had grown up in the Sky Temple, his body strengthened by various secret techniques, greatly powerful.

But now, compared to this man in front, he felt as fragile as mud.

Herag grabbed his neck, squeezing hard while pulling the whole person forcefully down.

The Sky Knight's body smashed onto the ground, his neck intimately contacting the surface, his head starting to twist in an unusual way.

Moments later, except for his body slightly twitching, there was no sound from him.

A gust of wind blew through, and the camp fell silent.

Herag clapped his hands, looked at Rayne, and said: "You just said you don't like slaughter, I like it."

"You… Who are you!" Rayne's face still held a shocked expression, his mouth opened wide, seemingly unable to close.

"Just an ordinary adventurer," Herag replied.

Ordinary...

"..."

The adventurers in the group didn't know what to say, even doubting whether the Sky Knight on the ground is truly a Sky Knight.

They couldn't help having such thoughts because everything happened so quickly, too easily.

A Sky Knight like that—dead?

Almost everyone couldn't believe what lay before them was real.

Lins paused for a moment, then said: "Th… Thank you."

He didn't expect the wanderer he'd accepted out of goodwill to be… so fierce.

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