A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

There are those who are stronger in actual combat than in training.
Why is that?
Why do they show greater strength in the heat of battle?
It could be due to heightened senses, or perhaps a matter of talent.
Maybe it’s because they can only concentrate when their lives are on the line.

But in truth, Enkrid possessed none of those things. He had none of it.
His senses were average, which made him poor at responding to unpredictable attacks.
He lacked any kind of brilliant ingenuity or spark of creativity.
Concentration that only ignites in moments of crisis? If he had something like that, he wouldn’t have died so many times already.
He didn’t have any of that.

But what Enkrid did have was experience.
An endless amount of training, drilling, and practice.

“What if I twist this way? What if I push that way? What if I deflect, then immediately strike back?”
He would think, then translate that thought into movement—repeat it, again and again.

This came after he had mastered the core forms of proper swordsmanship and their variations.
He never stopped. Never got tired. Just kept at it.

It was a method that couldn’t be called anything but foolish—no, even calling it brainless would be generous.
There were times when he tried applying the techniques he’d gained from that process directly into combat.
Because he had no talent, he had to repeat everything dozens of times.

In the midst of that repetition, he would come to notice the smallest differences in movement.
Where others could master something with ten swings, he needed to swing a hundred times. And if a hundred wasn’t enough, he swung it over a thousand times.

So what happened then?
He ended up focusing more on the essence than the utility of the technique.
He had no choice—if he didn’t understand it, he couldn’t move on.

Why is it that some deflection techniques involve intentionally matching blades?
Why do you then rotate your body to avoid the blade?
Why bring the middle of the opponent’s sword into the crook of your elbow?

By turning his body halfway, he could gain a chance to press down the opponent’s hand.
If he caught the center of the blade with the inside of his elbow, he could use the strength of his arms to disrupt the opponent’s force at a crucial moment.

Then does he have to twist his body?
If closing the distance is necessary, couldn’t it be solved with a single step?
No, is grabbing the opponent’s hand even necessary?
What about countering during the deflection?

It’s all about the essence—the reason the movement exists.
He repeated that kind of thing relentlessly.
While dying.
And even when he wasn’t dying.

That’s why. That’s why Enkrid was stronger in battle than he was in training.
His relentless pursuit, his constant challenge—that was what made the difference in real combat.

His bright blue eyes shimmered with light.

The apostle was a master of necromancy.
In terms of necromancy alone, even Esther would have to concede a step.

“Ethereal Form won’t work.”

While in Ethereal Form, he couldn’t fully utilize his spell realm.
Instead, he blocked with a veil and used pre-cast magic.
He had an artificial relic, made by imbuing power into sacrificial offerings obtained in the West and treasures pulled from a magical domain.
He planned to use that.

Forget fear.
If he were overwhelmed by it, he wouldn’t be able to cast his spells properly.

Forget fear.
If he were overwhelmed by it, he wouldn’t be able to cast his spells properly.

The calculations began in his head—but everything went awry from the start.
The apostle couldn’t even see Enkrid’s blade.

Clang, crash, clang!

In the span of a single breath, all he could see was the veil he had cast being shattered and destroyed.

“Will it hold? It will hold.”

Right before the veil broke, the apostle began chanting another spell.
Right before the veil broke, the apostle began chanting another spell.

“Oh, Eight Siblings of Gulrak!”

He opened his spell realm.
Eight ghouls burst out—one from the ground, another from the air at waist level, another above his head.
Black holes like lumps of pitch appeared, and from within emerged the monsters.

More precisely, they were artificial ghouls crafted by magic.

One with long arms, one with long legs, one with a long tongue, one filled with poison—
Each of the eight had a different grotesque trait.

It was simply the apostle’s misfortune.
Enkrid had already encountered knight-class ghouls in the Grey Forest magic domain, once enemies of the city Oara.
That experience was still vivid in his mind.

The one with the blue eyes swung his sword eight times.
Stepping left, he slashed diagonally. Pulling his right foot in, he sliced horizontally.
Then he drew his sword and struck the top of a ghoul’s skull.

When another ghoul thrust its claw, he treated it like a blade—pressing gently with the flat of his sword and then thrusting in.

Just because it was a soft movement didn’t mean the blade had turned into cotton.
Its lethality remained intact.
It was a snake-sword technique—what they called the flowing blade.

Next, he wrapped his blade around another ghoul’s neck, slashed sideways to sever the head,
then swept it back, drove it into a chest, and pulled it upward to split the head of a remaining ghoul vertically.

With a horizontal slash from above, he gave a three-eyed ghoul a new lid for its skull.
Switching the sword to his left hand, he finished with a one-handed thrust.

Naturally, it was all too fast for the spellcaster to perceive.

Thud, crack, thunk, rip, crunch, pop, thunk.

All eight ghouls that had manifested were killed—beheaded, pierced through the skull, or with their heads split open.

The apostle’s eyes widened as he gripped the relic.
The apostle’s eyes widened as he gripped the relic.

He saw two long lines.
A blue strand that extended, and after that, a silver thread.

He saw two long lines.
A blue {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} strand that extended, and after that, a silver thread.

Time slowed as those lines moved, stretching endlessly.

“Block it.”

He still had plenty of spells prepared.
The Boil Veil of Gulrak should be enough.
It could absorb physical shocks.

He had other protective relics for his body.
He’d even modified his skin.

What then, after blocking it?
Use the relic.
If he used the artificial relic, the giants over there would gain monstrous power.

They would transform—just like the two giants the Westerners once called monsters before dying.

Then he could slaughter everyone here.

If that still wasn’t enough, he’d detonate the relic’s power.
No one would survive—not even himself.

He would summon a blood-forged golem from his spell realm, attach the relic, and detonate it.
It contained the blood of a thousand.
If that much blood exploded, no one would survive.

It was a forbidden art—bloodburst.

That would do it.
There was a way.
The calculations were complete.
He just had to move.

His thoughts continued, but his tongue never moved to chant the spell.
The silver thread moved faster.

The silver thread that Acker had transformed into touched the apostle’s neck.

It was a chain of coincidences.

Enkrid had recently come to a realization.
That the sword in his hand was a magic weapon.
That through Esther, he had learned how to pressure a mage.
That the apostle hadn’t expected the battle to begin this way.
That the apostle normally opened with declarations and proselytizing.
And that Enkrid had skipped all that—and simply answered with his sword.

Rrrrmmmmm!

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

The silver thread that Acker had become was halted, if only for the briefest moment, in front of the apostle’s neck.
It was only natural—it was a sliver of time too small for the apostle to perceive.
His defensive relic had activated.
Among them was one that turned his skin slippery like an oiled toad’s.
Another created a steel-like barrier a finger-width thick just before the point of impact.

He was a prepared body—an apostle of the Sacred Demon Domain cult.
Of course he carried a variety of relics on his person.
His body had even been modified with monster skin, far tougher than any human’s.

But none of that mattered if his head was no longer attached to his body.

The sword strike was centered with precision on his grounded left foot.
A blade swung with perfect control, embodying the core essence of the technique.
A sword strike imbued with a knight’s blow.
Acker sliced through the apostle’s defenses, through his preparations.
The relics fulfilled their purpose and then shattered in the apostle’s grasp.

Lacking sharpness? Then compensate with strength.
He pinpointed the strike with perfect focus, and the Heart of Might amplified his power.

Splurt!

The apostle’s head floated into the air.
It bounced once and dropped to the ground.
His body collapsed atop the corpses of the half-giant and the fairy.

“Father!”

It was one of the seers from the canyon.
A young—no, a downright boyish—man, marked with tear and dagger sigils.

With his cry—

KWWEEAAAAHHHH!

All of the giants suddenly let out screams, like howls of agony.
As they raised their heads and roared, purple veins bulged across their muscles.

Crk-crk-crk-crack!

Their muscles swelled, their eyes glowed as if torches had been jammed into their sockets.
Their hair surged upward, and their skin darkened into a deep bronze hue.
The sheer presence of the transformed giants seemed to push away sunlight and wind.

Most of the apostle’s will was destroyed before it could manifest—but the will sealed inside the artificial relic had activated.
It was the awakening of every giant present.

“You bastard!”

The moment Enkrid killed the apostle, he sensed a force bearing down behind him.
He turned and swung Acker.
It was a light strike—but not something anyone could casually dodge or block.
It was delivered at a difficult angle, with both speed and power.

Thud!

But it was blocked.

Did that just get blocked? It might’ve been surprising, but Enkrid didn’t flinch.
He recovered the blade from its slicing motion and struck again with the same angle.
This time, it was a weighted middle-sword style meant to split the clavicle—not a snapping cut, but a driving one.

The opponent was mid-air.
As he swung, Enkrid scanned the opponent’s outfit and posture.

A vest of short fur, trousers, armbands, facial markings, a black stick strapped diagonally across his back?
A blade made of obsidian.

The weapon that blocked Acker was a curved dagger, known as a karambit.
The dagger was so sturdy that it neither broke nor was sliced by Acker.
Only a single notch appeared on Acker’s edge.

Hatred and malice burned in the enemy’s eyes.
He blocked the second strike too—
twisting the dagger to deflect the sword’s power.

That was truly something worth being surprised at.
In terms of innate talent, he could rival Rem.
Though he lagged behind for now, he’d catch up quickly if left alone.

He merely twisted the direction of the sword’s force and blocked it.
As soon as he landed, he rolled backward.
Enkrid moved to chase—but then stopped.
It was instinct, warning him.

As the man rolled back, an obsidian spear floated into the air.

A trick? No, it was sorcery.
Without touching it, the spear hovered and then flew straight forward.

His martial intuition flared in alarm, so Enkrid remained still.
He couldn’t see it, but he knew—
something had grabbed the spear in midair.

A guardian spirit, maybe? Something like what they spoke of in the West.

Clink!

Blocking it was trivial.
He matched its speed as it flew and guided the spear’s edge aside with his blade.
Then he took a large step forward—
and as he moved, spun Acker half a turn behind his head and brought the sword down vertically, perpendicular to the ground.

All of it happened in a single breath.

FWOOOM!

But even then, Acker failed to cut his target.
It sliced only air.

The foe who had seemed ready to charge straight at him suddenly leapt back.
He retreated and raised his left hand.
Jingle.

What kind of accessory was that? Each of his fingers had a golden bell attached.
He raised and shook his left hand, then opened his mouth.

“I will steal your eyes.”

Enkrid blinked. Nothing happened.
The enemy stood frozen with his hand outstretched.

Gnash.
He ground his molars, then shouted again.

“Take three steps and collapse!”

The first was the Curse of the Blind.
The second, the Curse of the Lame.
Naturally, neither worked.

Enkrid didn’t feel even the faintest ill omen.

Instead, some idle thought came to him:
“Is the boatman somewhere letting out a big belch right now?”

Or maybe he was shouting something like:
“Delicious!”
Or—
“It’s you. You’re the one who swallowed the curse.”

A youthful voice rang out.
The enemy glared at Enkrid with murderous eyes, then turned and bolted.
With a few taps of his feet, his figure blurred and shot into the distance.

Watching the retreating figure, Enkrid hurled a dagger.

Fwoosh—

The spinning dagger embedded itself in the back of the sorcerer.
The man staggered for a moment, but still dashed off and vanished.

He was fast.
Not so fast that he couldn’t be caught—but Enkrid had more pressing matters.

The giants and the black-armored warrior were still fighting behind him.