Chapter 883 - Jaxen of The Madmen Knights
Who is the strongest of The Madmen Knights?
That was the question Krais asked one day.
Enkrid, while cooking stew, answered with explanations one by one as if adding seasonings.
"If it goes to a melee, there is no one who can catch Rem.
His instantaneous judgment speed is outstanding, which is threatening, but considering how he relaxes after widening the distance and throwing sling stones, it's easy to conclude. Just thinking about it makes me want to smack Rem's head."
"Ah."
Krais agreed immediately.
Enkrid's explanation was clear and vivid.
A picture was easily drawn in his head.
"That would be annoying."
From the perspective of facing him, it would be.
Rem is that kind of person.
Outwardly, he looks like he would just rush in and swing an axe, but he uses his head well.
He fights utilizing his advantages.
"You don't think it's easy to gain an advantage against an elf in the forest, do you? Do you know the name of the demon hunter who doesn't get tired as long as it's within a forest, throws invisible slashes using essence, and now even handles spirits?"
Shinar Kiraheis is an elf, and elves are natural-born assassins.
If met in a forest, the elf named Shinar becomes the nightmare one least wants to dream.
Now she possessed the ability to beat to death even a famous monster.
If she heard the word demon, she would express anger, rarely seen in an elf, and fight more violently than ever.
"It's not easy to imagine someone beating Ragna in a one-on-one fight. Limited to a head-on confrontation, Ragna figures out the loopholes in the opponent's techniques in real-time, breaks them, and adds them to his own techniques. You're saying that guy's a bastard? Everyone beaten by him would agree."
"I never said he was a bastard."
"Next is..."
A heavy sword is advantageous when facing many alone.
But Ragna is not like that.
He is a master of one-on-one combat.
He is more skilled at fighting than anyone else.
What is called talent or instinct guides him.
Overwhelming skill that makes everyone watching from the side acknowledge him, that is Ragna.
"Is there anyone who can beat Audin in a fight where he approaches close enough to feel his breath, grabs a forearm or wrist, and holds on?"
He heals light wounds with innate divinity, and his flesh, trained beyond iron skin, doesn't easily allow such wounds.
Audin's stamina is impossible to describe even by using the word monster.
Whether a melee or one-on-one, if he decides to stall and hold out, Audin's combat power won't waver even after three days.
Enkrid ruminated on what he had learned from all of them anew.
He ruminated, learned, and mastered each of the strengths they showed now.
Like that, Will that doesn't run dry, being able to endure substituting divinity with Uske, possessing vision to run wild like Rem in a melee, and knowing how to immerse in the 'moment' through single-point concentration learned from Ragna.
Although it's difficult to learn something in real-time like him, he understands through today's repetition, and even without repetition, he ponders and agonizes to make it his own.
'And there is a useful attack technique even at a distance where a sword doesn't reach, using the blade-throwing style learned from Jaxen.'
He encompasses everything.
Based on Valaf-style mercenary swordsmanship, he learns tactics from Luagarne, learns from enemies, and learns even from those lesser than himself.
Enkrid always stands in the position of a learner.
That was his greatest strength.
"What about Jaxen?"
In the meantime, Krais asked.
The evaluation of one of the people who formed the Madmen squad in the early days was missing.
"If Jaxen fights head-on, he is at a disadvantage against anyone, but."
"But?"
Krais chimed in appropriately.
"If he tries to kill, there is no one that can be at ease."
Jaxen does not reveal his true intentions.
Also, he reached the level of a knight solely through killing arts.
Looking only at swordsmanship, he is worse than Aishia, but is that important?
It is not.
In reality, Killing Intent-less Stab, sensory arts, or whatever—all of that is meaningless to Jaxen.
Is it possible to kill by stabbing?
Must he cut?
If the method is decided, he just does it.
Even Shinar in the middle of a forest cannot be at ease, and Audin wrapped in divinity cannot afford to relax.
Even Rem in a melee situation would have to risk his life just in order to blink.
If Jaxen decided to kill, he would absolutely not fight Ragna head-on.
If necessary, he shoots arrows, uses poison, and uses invisible blades.
Jaxen will do so.
There are more peculiarities.
He does not carry an inscribed weapon.
To him, everything in the world is a weapon.
Even a broken tree branch is enough if it serves to kill a person.
Of course, he was also an expert skilled in handling various artifacts.
Since a tree branch would be insufficient to face a knight.
"The Captain is the most troublesome opponent."
Those were Jaxen's words.
He disregarded even an elf's sensitivity, but since he had taught some of his techniques, he said Enkrid was the most difficult to deal with.
"Me too."
In reality, all of them are not people who would lose to anyone in a fight they specialize in.
And Jaxen's specialty is killing.
The conclusion was that although Jaxen is the weakest in sparring, when it comes to a fight of killing and being killed, there is no one who can ignore Jaxen.
***
The shaman-cum-wizard who thrust his spear forward had his calf muscle cut.
He didn't even realize when his leg was cut.
It stung, and then strength left his leg.
Jaxen dodged the spear blade and cut the opponent's calf muscle with a blade hidden in the sole of his boot.
Lowering his stance, he extended his foot in a way that made it easy for the opponent to dodge.
The wizard pulled his leg back, and in that short moment, Jaxen accelerated his extended foot and cut with the blade hidden in the sole.
Hiding weapons all over the body was the basic of basics for Geogr's dagger assassins.
Besides the blade under the boot, Jaxen had hidden at least thirty blades on his body.
"Tanun!"
The wizard chanted a spell even while collapsing as his leg gave way.
His spell activated immediately.
It was possible because he had done this and that to his blood usually.
Fire erupted from the blade attached to Jaxen's sole.
He took off his boot naturally as if he had intended to do so from the start.
The boot resisted the heat, then caught fire and rolled on the ground.
Jaxen, now barefoot, stepped on the ground.
His stance was low.
He looked ahead with his waist bent and head raised.
In one hand, he held a dripping dagger in reverse grip, and in the other, he held his Stiletto.
Both were Jaxen's cherished items from the Carmen Collection.
He collects items to use them, not to keep them for viewing.
How was the knife?
It was satisfactory as expected.
The grip felt perfect.
Invisible Blade—besides being invisible, its hardness and sharpness were no ordinary matter.
It would hold up even against most inscribed weapons.
This is exactly why Jaxen loves the Carmen Collection.
Imbuing various characteristics into weapons, and even their strength and finish are perfect.
Carmen.
He was indeed a genius.
He inwardly admired him.
"Kkeu, kkeuek."
Kung.
The spear decorated with feathers dropped tuk in front of Jaxen.
It was because the guy holding it fell sideways.
The spear lost its owner.
A throwing knife was already stuck in the fallen guy's forehead.
Silent Knife, it is one of the projectile weapons Jaxen uses mainly.
It is several times harder to make and handle than a Whistle Dagger, but for Jaxen, it was a tool familiar to his hand, enough to even juggle with.
When the opponent chanted a spell, he shook his left hand at high speed.
It was natural that the dagger held in that hand struck the target.
He could hit with something like this even with his eyes closed.
"Chase and tear!"
The Blood Appraiser, the vampire wizard, shouted spreading his grasp.
His reaction was worthy of being called first-class.
Even while surprised, he was faithful to what he had to do.
Guiding the blood left by the dead wizard under his feet, he spread his hand and shot elongated projectiles made of blood.
Jaxen began a performance with the daggers in both hands.
Tadadang, pang! Tadadang, peong!
The total number of flying projectiles was twenty-six, and he deflected them all with the daggers in both hands.
His waist straightened and bent, his upper body left afterimages, and it looked as if he became three people and his arms increased to six.
The vampire wizard wasn't surprised even seeing that.
He expected him to block.
Therefore, instead of being flustered, he prepared the next spell.
He stopped sucking up the blood of the dead under his feet and focused.
"One sleeping underground, rise and swallow."
"Noctua's Gluttony."
"Surdus's Whisper."
The Blood Appraiser specialized in multi-chanting.
He chanted and used three spells simultaneously.
Noctua is an owl that covets light.
The owl steals light from the targeted subject's eyes.
Jaxen closed his eyes.
He sensed the spell and reacted.
It was a spell sufficient to block just by closing eyes.
In the first place, it's difficult to chant spells with high consumption through triple chanting.
Noctua's Sight Stealing was one of the common swordsman-hunting spells for wizards.
Therefore, blocking it wasn't difficult.
Of course, all of that was what the vampire aimed for.
Isn't closing eyes no different from having vision stolen?
Then isn't it the same as succeeding in the spell?
Since he wouldn't be able to open his eyes while Noctua watched the opponent.
Surdus is a deaf beast; because it cannot hear, it doesn't know how loud its voice is.
This spell was to affect the opponent's hearing by bursting a roar.
And by gathering sound waves to shoot, it affects only a single target.
Bii-iiiiiiii.
In reality, only this sound was heard in Jaxen's ears.
Sound exceeding a certain range strikes the hearing.
This was a type of spell that couldn't be blocked without separate preparation.
Jaxen was hit.
He went deaf.
Eyes closed and ears deaf.
Two of the most sensitive sensory organs usually were blocked.
"Cough."
The vampire coughed up blood.
It meant he had overexerted himself that much.
The third spell was raising a grand warrior made from a vampire's corpse.
When a vampire becomes corrupted and depraved, they become a monster that tears and covets flesh, not blood.
A variant called Greed.
He created a rift in his Spell World and woke the one sleeping underground, a vampire who once fought at a knight's level.
It was a trump card he hadn't told anyone around him.
As soon as the two wizards died, he felt threatened and poured out everything he had.
It was truly a spell accomplished through the sacrifice of two people.
From the ground, a variant vampire with a shiny gray head and wearing no clothes came out.
Its dark gray skin resembling a dark cloud gave off a gloomy atmosphere.
The guy placed one hand on the ground and pulled his body out at once.
Jaxen still couldn't see or hear, but that didn't become a big problem.
'Stench.'
He knows how to draw the situation just by smell.
It's a beastkin's specialty, but he knew how to mimic it.
On top of this, sensing waves through touch is his specialty.
Senses on a different level from ordinary knights allowed him to hide from detection abilities usually at the knight level.
Because one must see what they don't see, hear what isn't heard, and feel what isn't felt to do so.
Jaxen did as he always did.
He felt the waves, grasped via smell, and moved.
Spinning a full circle in place, he kicked the head of the guy popping out of the ground with his bare foot.
Pang!
The sound is cheerful.
The neck of the guy hit in the head bends sideways, but he doesn't die.
One already dead doesn't die that easily.
Jaxen threw two daggers to an appropriate height.
At that abrupt action, both the wizard's eyes and the gaze of the guy crawling out of the ground hole turned upward for an instant.
Jaxen lowered his body in that interval.
Lowering his stance, he throws his body to the blind spot of the opponent's vision.
There is no sound, and his movement is faster than a hunting hawk.
It was a skill called Owl Step.
A step that makes no sound but has extraordinary speed.
While the gaze of the vampire hit in the head came back down and his claws grew to respond, two daggers emitting white light were held in Jaxen's hands.
The variant vampire was as big as Audin, but didn't have techniques like Audin.
Even though Jaxen jumped forward again after using the blind spot and stuck close as if embracing him, the reaction was late.
If it were Audin, combination attacks of elbows and knees would have come in without a break even before entering his embrace.
'Slow.'
Relatively so.
Although it would be hard for an ordinary soldier to distinguish the difference.
Jaxen leisurely stuck two daggers into the side of the exhibitionist corpse with gray skin, and stuck one more dagger above the guy's knee that kicked up a beat late.
Every time his hand brushed his chest, a new dagger was held, and white light shimmered on all the blades.
Jaxen, having stuck seven daggers into the side, knee, chest, shoulder, etc., threw his body sideways, and cracks formed with a jjeok- sound wherever a dagger was stuck.
Former Saintess Seiki personally imbued divinity into those daggers.
The daggers serving as vessels were artifacts collected for this purpose in the first place.
The seven daggers that once held divinity are rechargeable.
Also, the imbued divinity disperses in two days, but that was enough.
The variant vampire screamed, but it wasn't heard.
Only felt through waves.
Bbeo-eong.
He feels the air bursting through his senses.
The variant vampire's body, engulfed in white light, exploded, scattering blood and flesh in all directions.
Blood spattered on Jaxen's face too.
The dark red blood was sticky and stank.
He walked barefoot as he was and picked up the spear dropped by the guy he killed just a moment ago.
Then he opened his eyes.
The time for the spell to affect him was over.
Something coveting the light in Jaxen's eyes scattered without achieving its wish.
Jaxen's gaze headed to one side.
"...!"
The vampire bastard says something and gathers both hands.
The process of forming hand seals.
All those movements are truly slow.
Even if he realized it through killing arts, outwardly Jaxen also possessed knight-level martial power.
Meaning he possessed muscular strength far beyond the category of an ordinary person.
He pulled the spear back and threw it.
Pang- the spear flew, but as expected, sound is still not heard.
The spear strikes the wizard's head.
A bbueok- bone-breaking sound must have occurred.
The guy, with the spear stuck in his head, had soot form all over his body, then scattered and tried to fly backward.
Jaxen intended to throw the Silence Knife subsequently if he dodged, but the guy was hit as is.
To be precise, he could have dodged, but because someone suppressed him from behind, he just got hit and died.
Behind the spot where the vampire died.
A man held a flail and stared at Jaxen.
He pointed to his ear and shook his head.
Seemed to ask if he couldn't hear.
"Just read my lips."
Jaxen said.
While speaking, he gripped a dagger hidden in his sleeve.
"Ah, you know lip reading? I guess. Something like this is easy, right?"
The opponent said.
He approached laughing.
His gaze didn't even brush the sleeve, but Jaxen judged the opponent knew he was holding a weapon.
He approached with large strides.
Within five steps.
A distance sufficient to kill and be killed if he put his mind to it.
"Let's start when your hearing returns."
Then he said.
Speaking with a laugh.
"My name is Pustis. A member of the Mud Knights."
Jaxen didn't know he was going to say these words with his own mouth, but he opened his mouth more unhesitatingly than ever.
"Jaxen of The Madmen Knights."
Now, that is his affiliation.
Not killing people, but himself as a person protecting everyone behind his back.
Should he call it a moment more fulfilling than ever?
Jaxen showed a smile without realizing it.
Even something like this might have been an infection from his Captain.
It was embarrassing, but words that came out because the fulfillment was greater than that.
"You're smiling?"
The opponent reacted seeing that smile.
***
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