Chapter 918 - The Spring of His Twenty-Seventh Year.
In a duel between knights, a single swing of the sword reveals much about the wielder's intent.
Enkrid saw hesitation in his opponent's blade.
It was a hesitation born of a simple question: Should I kill them?
Normally, for a knight to show such hesitation is to reveal a fatal opening.
'It's not a strike swung with gathered resolve.'
And yet, blocking it was an arduous task.
It wasn't just him, Ragna was in the same desperate position.
Kiriring!
The steel of Dawn and the opponent's blade met with a clear, ringing noise.
The enemy had angled his blade slightly, deflecting the force with perfect control.
Enkrid tried to push back with raw strength, but it felt impossible.
Even fighting with Audin hadn't felt this overwhelming.
'It's like trying to push over a castle wall with bare hands.'
That wasn't the end of it.
The opponent applied force when needed and withdrew it the moment it wasn't, letting Enkrid's attacks slide harmlessly away.
He deflected Dawn and used the remaining momentum to strike at Sunrise.
If there was one thing Enkrid could feel from every movement, it was this:
'This isn't his best.'
He wasn't swinging his sword to break his limits.
He was simply doing what he always did.
There was no boiling elation, no joy, no hatred, no sorrow, not even boredom.
It was a swordsmanship that felt nothing.
It was simply purer, heavier, faster, and smoother.
'Even if I had the leeway to use tricks...'
They wouldn't have worked.
This opponent possessed eyes as unique as Themares.
He didn't just see a few inches ahead; he moved his feet and swung his sword with absolute certainty of the future.
If there had been killing intent in those casual strikes, would Enkrid be dead already?
The chasm in their skill was absolute.
Despair crept in, weighing down his shoulders and grabbing at his ankles.
'Extinguishing Embers.'
If he was losing in strength, what about technique?
The technique involved reading the starting point of an attack and suppressing it before it began.
It had worked against five Southern knights at once, but now, it was useless.
Enkrid tried to capture the enemy's entire body in his vision, from toe to shoulder, to predict the movement.
But the sword flew in and stabbed at his face before he could read anything.
It was a strike extended without a twitch of a shoulder muscle or a shift of a toe.
Instead, it felt like he was the one being read.
Enkrid barely twisted his head, swinging his sword parallel to the ground to parry.
Tung!
The stabbing blade struck Dawn with a snapping motion and withdrew.
Behind the vertical blue blade, Enkrid's blue eyes shone fiercely.
Even in this situation, he kept swinging to avoid being pushed back unilaterally, never taking his eyes off the opponent.
Regardless of the gap in power, his fighting posture was flawless.
It was the result of everything he had honed, from the Heart of the Beast to everything up to this very moment.
From the side, a red-coated blade fell like a guillotine.
It was Sunrise.
A strike that didn't cut the air but seemed to ride the flow of it.
It was so fast that it seemed to appear from outside the range of perception.
'Ragna.'
For a brief moment, he had surpassed his limits.
That significantly faster strike was the result of Indules—the transformation of Will's nature.
A change drawn out by a different density of Will.
The opponent swung his extended sword upward.
His posture should have broken, but he simply took a step forward, regained his center, and fixed his wrist to catch Sunrise.
It looked trivial, almost natural, but the result was a series of impossibilities.
'Faster.'
And stronger.
Two simple facts engraved themselves deep into their bones.
The result spoke for itself.
The opponent was simply stronger and faster than them.
The enemy's blade seemed to urge them to despair.
The thought turned into an auditory hallucination, ringing in Enkrid's head.
"Effort? Do you think the world changes just because you try? Do you think you'll become something? They say there's always someone flying above the one running, right? Is there nothing above the one flying? And you... you aren't even running."
Who had said that?
He couldn't remember.
He had heard words like that too many times.
Ragna didn't retreat just because his attack was blocked.
The red blade of Will on Sunrise became incomparably vivid.
And as his blade harbored a deep color, a heavy golden light began to dwell on the enemy's blade as well.
Judging by his eyes, one might expect a pitch-black blade, but it was the opposite.
A brilliant golden light wrapped the steel.
Clang!
The two blades collided, and a shockwave burst outward.
Enkrid crossed his arms, holding Dawn in front of his chest to endure the blast.
Flap—
His cloak unfurled and whipped crazily in the wind.
Ragna and the opponent engaged and separated.
As soon as they parted, Ragna's legs wobbled.
It was a brief, minute shake that most would miss, but it couldn't escape a knight's eyes.
"Nngh."
Ragna groaned.
Blood began to flow from his abdomen.
"Why aren't you tightening it?"
Enkrid asked sharply.
If one knows how to use Will, tightening muscles to stop bleeding is basic.
It is simply infusing Will into the body to convey an intention.
"I can't."
Ragna answered.
The opponent stood leisurely.
His hair was slightly disheveled, but there wasn't a single scratch on his cheek.
'The blood won't stop? By what principle?'
Enkrid's mind raced, his heightened cognition finding the answer immediately.
'He leaves his Will inside the other person's body.'
Foreign Will was dwelling in Ragna's muscles, preventing them from obeying his command.
What kind of mastery over Will was required to do such a thing?
He dared not even imagine.
Was he consumed by despair?
No.
He didn't laugh or smile, but his spirit and atmosphere shifted.
The opponent, despite holding the upper hand, didn't press the attack.
He read the change in Enkrid's atmosphere and spoke.
"Do you find fighting enjoyable?"
"Sometimes."
A lie.
In truth, almost all fights were enjoyable to him.
Enkrid kicked off the ground.
Dawn and the enemy's blade clashed and parted.
Clang!
As soon as he gained a momentary gap, Enkrid shifted the Will flowing in his body to be heavy.
A Heavy Sword.
He concentrated solely on weight.
If he couldn't extinguish the embers, then he would set a bigger fire.
It was a strike designed to suppress the enemy with sheer pressure, crashing down from above.
The opponent didn't dodge; he struck back.
Boom!
By the time the roar of the impact burst, three exchanges had already passed between them.
Every single one was a heavy blow.
"Is this fun for you?"
The opponent asked again, swinging his sword casually in front of him to shed the kinetic energy accumulated in the blade.
Enkrid answered the question with his sword.
'If neither Embers nor the Heavy Sword works...'
Swallow Cut.
Though he had renamed the technique as he pleased, it was his own reinterpretation of an art he had seen a swordsman use in the past—changing the trajectory mid-swing.
The sword, descending from above, suddenly snapped its direction, chasing the opponent's neck.
Ting.
The opponent held his sword vertically, blocking the blade and pushing it aside as if swatting a fly.
The gap in skill was undeniable.
If they continued fighting like this, they would die.
That fact remained unchanged.
Yet, Enkrid poured out everything he had.
Ragna, with a hole in his gut, grabbed the ricasso of Sunrise without hesitation and pressed the burning blade against his own wound.
Sizzle—
If he couldn't tighten his muscles to stop the bleeding, he would cauterize it.
He did it without a single groan.
It was a display of pure madness.
Desperate strikes flew between the three of them.
"This is an order. Ragna, get lost."
Enkrid spoke as he cut in to block Ragna's front.
Even though he had decided not to waste any 'today' and not to fight with the expectation of a reset, unless he was a fool, he knew what would happen if Ragna died and he survived.
He spoke with Will because he didn't want to see that outcome.
"I refuse."
Ragna answered without missing a beat.
Right.
If he listened to orders obediently, he wouldn't be Ragna Yohan.
Amidst the fighting, Enkrid saw the shadow of someone from the past in his opponent's face.
A brat who had looked like a child barely twelve years old back then.
'The Spring of His Twenty-Seventh Year.'
The genius kid who had punched a hole in his stomach that day.
The words slipped out naturally.
"We've met before. Do you remember?"
The opponent didn't remember.
Enkrid knew just by looking at his eyes.
His expression said, 'What does that matter?'
Perhaps implying that Enkrid was just an opponent destined to die anyway.
"I intend to go to the Demonic Realm. Follow me. You must have things to do there, too."
Perhaps that was why the man only said what he needed to say.
"It was old times, over ten years ago, I suppose."
Enkrid accepted it.
Just because he remembered the opponent didn't mean the opponent had to remember him.
Enkrid acknowledged it cleanly.
'Though it was an unforgettable event for me.'
But not for him.
Then, he just had to make sure the man wouldn't forget this meeting today.
"Why the Demonic Realm?"
Enkrid asked again.
As he spoke, he regulated his breathing and steadied his Will.
The nature transformation called Indules consumed time.
It wasn't something he could switch on and off instantly.
'I need training to become skillful at this.'
Thinking and responding simultaneously was Enkrid's specialty.
While he asked questions, he recalled fighting methods, devised tactics, and organized his next move.
He was literally doing the thinking of three people at once.
It was the divided thinking ability he had trained, starting from Wave Breaker to the consecutive use of Extinguishing Embers.
"I will stand with that side and swing my sword."
He didn't seem drunk on drugs, nor did he seem to have some grand, fiery ideal, yet he spoke of joining the Demonic Realm nonchalantly.
To Enkrid, that felt disjointed.
"Why?"
"I don't think you will change your mind even if I tell you the reason, but it's simple. I will stand on the winning side and reshape the world."
"Reshape?"
"I intend to change the future of this continent."
"You mean you'll change it into a world dominated by demons?"
The man, who had once been a kid, shook his head as an adult.
"The opposite. Because it is a world already dominated by demons."
Was it stubbornness?
Obstinacy?
Or the childishness of a kid lost in delusion?
None of them.
He was a man who believed in his path and moved towards it.
In a way, he was just like Enkrid.
'The dream of the Knight of the End.'
Enkrid used to spit those words out ceaselessly.
This opponent was the same.
"I will eliminate conflict from this world."
Their dreams were the same.
Only the methods differed.
"I will erase all intelligent races and restart the world, leaving only the good ones."
Standing on the side of the Demonic Realm was just a method.
The most efficient, fastest, and rational path.
"Right. So you're a crazy bastard."
Ragna intervened.
The Will he had gathered with quiet concentration revealed itself on Sunrise.
The Will wrapping the blade was clearer than ever before.
"The Stage of Shaping."
Enkrid didn't perfectly understand what he said.
Ragna understood only half.
"You barely achieved Transformation, yet you attempt Shaping? Outstanding talent."
"Are you evaluating me?"
Ragna shot back.
He was a genius, a man who received attention for his exceptional talent even among other geniuses.
His heart pounded.
The desire for improvement, awakened by Enkrid, boiled hotter than ever.
'He's strong.'
He dared not imagine what one must be born with to do such things.
Could he divide the continent with a single sword strike?
No, he couldn't.
'But he can cut anyone he desires.'
That is the most powerful strength a knight possesses.
This opponent was the pinnacle of martial power.
"Using the Lords of the Demonic Realm, I will cut down everyone and leave only a few to open a new world. That is the purpose of my ascension."
The words sounded like the ramblings of a drunkard, but his eyes were settled and cold.
He stood here and acted with icy calculation.
"Sorry, but I'm the opposite."
Enkrid said, readjusting his grip on his sword.
It was a declaration of his will to stand and fight again.
Enkrid didn't give up.
The exchange of blades began anew.
'I'm going to die.'
He overcame the crisis of death several times in seconds.
For a moment, genuine killing intent flooded the opponent's blade, and that strike flew straight toward Ragna's neck.
It happened after Ragna stabbed the opponent with the blade of Will he called 'Shaping'.
Precisely, Ragna had swung Sunrise vertically and extended his left hand forward, creating a short blade of Will to stab—but the opponent had grabbed it and crushed it with his bare hand.
The red, materialized blade shattered, and the opponent's blade, having cleared Sunrise, rushed in for the kill.
Enkrid forcibly intervened in that gap.
His blade, coated with Will, met the opponent's strike head-on.
BOOM!
An explosion rang out.
The opponent withdrew leisurely, but Enkrid and Ragna stood their ground.
"I am truly surprised."
The opponent said.
Ragna answered with a wet cough.
Gurgle.
Blood flowed freely from his mouth.
His internal organs were damaged.
Enkrid, meanwhile, gripped the blue blade stuck in his own abdomen.
'He swung to break, and grabbed to stab.'
It was an infinitely efficient, masterful way to fight.
Enkrid's pupils, which rarely shook at anything, trembled finely.
'Dawn broke.'
Literally.
Dawn had snapped cleanly in half.
And that broken blade had pierced his abdomen.
Feeling his Will scattering into pieces, he imagined a terrible end, but he never thought an Inscribed Weapon would break.
"Can you survive that wound?"
The swordsman asked.
Before Enkrid could answer, he spoke again.
"There is no need for me to finish you myself."
He turned away.
Next to him, where Enkrid thought there was no one, a figure appeared.
He had missed the presence entirely because he was so focused on the swordsman's terrifying display.
It was a Witch, her face hidden under a wide-brimmed hat pressed low.
"You're leaving them be?"
"It's meaningless."
The conversation between the two faded into the distance.
Enkrid closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Rem's face filled his vision.
He tried to say something, but his mouth wouldn't open.
"Don't overdo it. Even if you die, I'll take revenge, so don't worry about that."
"...Water."
His throat felt like it was tearing just to force out that single word.
Someone supported his neck and brought a cup to his lips.
He spilled more than half, but as he swallowed a little, a voice reached him.
"Tell me if it's hard. Fiancé."
The Fairy's voice.
Shinar.
Her words stuck in his ears.
It was hard to hold onto consciousness.
His eyes drifted shut again.
Fragments of chatter floated into his fading mind.
"Save him somehow. Audin."
"It's a miracle he lasted two days. Brother."
His memory cut off, and his thoughts severed.
Darkness encroached.
When he opened his eyes again, it wasn't reality.
Splash—
"Are you satisfied with this end?"
The Ferryman appeared and asked.
***
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