The training grounds of the Arcknight estate serve as the stage for Reinhardt's first major show of force since waking from his three-year coma. When the arrogant Marquis Boulevard, a corrupt council elder clad in gaudy gold-stitched clothing, attempts to halt the assembly and assert crown authority over the military order, Reinhardt does not argue. Instead, he activates his Divine Presence, releasing a wave of raw pressure that instantly forces the Marquis to his knees, causing him to foam at the mouth and pass out on the dirt. With the political nuisance silenced, Reinhardt addresses his assembled knights, revealing that his comatose state was not a simple battle injury, but the result of a deliberate demonic curse planted by an insider during the crusade at the Lost Valley. To root out the rot, Reinhardt raises his fist to the sky and activates Radiant Ascension. A colossal pillar of white fire tears through the clouds, descending directly onto the training grounds. The divine light is highly selective, acting as a purifying wave that leaves the loyal human knights feeling physically energized while instantly incinerating the hidden demon infiltrators among their ranks. As the demonic squires and servants disintegrate into black smoke and ash, the remaining knights are left in absolute awe of their commander's revived power. However, this purge leaves the Temple of Light severely short-handed, having lost several key members to the demonic corruption. To rebuild his forces and replace the ash-heap traitors, Reinhardt must travel to the capital of Solaris to recruit untainted talent at the Magic Knight Entrance Ceremony, setting up a tense journey where he must manage his unfaithful head maid, Anastasia, and her oblivious husband, Bob.

The Magic Knight Entrance Ceremony in Solaris City becomes a battlefield when a high-ranking demon with pale, rotting skin and pitch-black eyes infiltrates the arena. The demon activates the Abyssal Compass, a dark relic capable of wrapping space, trapping the seven great commanders and the entire coliseum behind an impenetrable spatial barrier while his gargoyle minions terrorize the city outside. While the rival commander Guren of the Iron Wolf order attempts to steal the glory by shooting the demon with a mana-infused arrow, his attack only temporarily halts the beast. As the demon regenerates and attempts to flee with the compass, Reinhardt steps forward to show the true gap between a level nine marksman and a level ten Divine Paladin. He raises his index finger and unleashes Lightforge Ascension, dispersing the dark clouds and summoning a massive, artificial sun into the sky. The sun rapidly reshapes into a colossal sword of light that space itself struggles to support, slamming down to disintegrate the demon general into nothingness. With the barrier shattered, Reinhardt turns his attention to the recruitment stage. While the other commanders fight over flashy noble prodigies, Reinhardt uses his Eyes of Divine Clarity to scout two overlooked talents: Gwen, the agile daughter of Earl Odessa who fought her squire examiner to a standstill, and Kevin Arlett, a peasant youth with zero mana who was rejected by every other order. Reinhardt publicly extends his hand to Kevin, promising to beat the path of demon-slaying into him despite his inability to use magic. This highly unconventional recruitment outrages the elitist Council of Elders, who view the inclusion of a mana-crippled peasant as a sign of the Arcknight family's decline, prompting them to conspire with the Queen to send the Temple of Light on a dangerous investigation mission to the hostile borderlands of Toto Village.

Upon arriving at the demi-human settlement of Toto Village, Reinhardt and his squires are met with extreme hostility from the local elves, dwarves, and panthers. The village chief, Elmond, demands their immediate departure, explaining that the settlement is safe from demon attacks only because of the protection of the local fire god. Reinhardt quickly uncovers the dark truth behind this protection during the annual fire festival, where the village chiefs prepare to sacrifice a young maiden named Elina to the bonfire. Reinhardt intervenes, exposing the fire god as a demonic hoax designed to harvest demi-human souls. He dives into the local dungeon, navigating a winding cavern filled with luminous moss and dense demonic fog that runs from his divine light. At the heart of the dungeon, Reinhardt confronts Xolvoth the Insufferable, a demon general responsible for historical genocides. Activating his divine circuits, Reinhardt easily slays the general, breaking the spatial laws of the dungeon and freeing the village from its generational torment. To ensure the demi-humans are not slaughtered by the surrounding monster hordes now that the fake protection is gone, Reinhardt coordinates with his father to initiate a massive migration of the entire village to Arcknight territory, directly defying the kingdom's strict anti-demi-human laws. This massive political movement is punctuated by Reinhardt's surrender to his Endless Ardor trait, leading to a highly scandalous bathhouse encounter with Elina, the elven wife of the local warrior Eldrin. The migration of these demi-human tribes outrages the neighboring capital nobles, setting the stage for a physical clash with Baron Chetak, a corrupt lord running an illegal demi-human slave trade along the border.

To protect his newly acquired demi-human vassals, Reinhardt leads his young squires on an aggressive, unsanctioned siege against Baron Chetak's slave-trading stronghold. Standing before the massive, reinforced city gates, Reinhardt draws a mythril sword and channels his strength to the absolute limit of his current control, unleashing Exalted Strike. The resulting wave of holy energy completely obliterates the massive stone and metal fortifications in a single blow, carving a thirty-foot-long gouge into the earth. Instead of fighting the entire garrison himself, Reinhardt orders his young squires to charge, forcing Kevin and Gwen to put their hellish training into practice against Chetak's veteran knights. While Kevin uses his raw physical stats and the Holy Blade Art to hold the line without mana, Reinhardt confronts the corrupted commander Rattleboots, who has mutated into a demonic beast using dark magic. Using his superior divine stats, Reinhardt easily crushes the mutated knight, liberating the captured demi-humans and securing the absolute loyalty of the panther chief Zerina, who later sneaks into his chambers to offer her submission. This decisive victory solidifies the Temple of Light's reputation as a force that operates entirely above corrupt noble laws, proving to the kingdom that Reinhardt's new training methods can turn raw squires into deadly warriors. This unsanctioned crusade, however, pushes the capital aristocrats to their limit, setting up his ultimate political confrontation with the hidden mastermind behind the demon infiltrations, Earl Malmond.