A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 485

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 485: Breaking the Chains, Moving Forward

= = =

He struck.

First the arm, and now this.

"Warrior's leg, rise."

Another man-eater stepped forward and spoke the incantation.

This one seemed less capable than the one who had cast the previous spell.

He wore a colored band around his head and had crude markings painted across his face.

His filthy leg darkened and crumbled apart.

Crack, crack, crack.

The backlash of the magic.

"Ngh."

He clenched his molars and swallowed the groan.

Muscle, bone, and skin twisted together.

A sound that made skin crawl just to hear it rang out, and the leg snapped off below the knee. It turned into a black mass, pooled on the ground, and from that pool a muscular black leg grew back.

After producing one arm and two legs that way, one of the man-eaters bled from his eyes and nose and died.

His body curled inward and soon became a pool of black blood, and from that pool a dark body was born.

Thin arms and legs, no head.

To that torso, the freshly made arm, one of them, and two legs attached themselves.

What remained was the shape of a person formed from compacted black soot. A single left hand hung there alone, gripping a long rod. The rod was longer than any sword, the right shape to be called a spear.

A warrior with a black body. A Black Warrior born from a black pit, one might say.

Or perhaps a dead warrior who had crossed back over the river of death.

The distinguishing feature was that it had no right arm, only a left. One-armed, with a head that existed only as a round lump.

A knight raised from death is called a Death Knight. That is the pinnacle of necromancy, the incarnation of a monster with knight-level power.

The magic the Cultists had used here sat at a lower tier than that.

It began by capturing a warrior of exceptional skill, tearing out that warrior's heart, and keeping them alive through forbidden sorcery so they could not die.

For seven days they were kept in a state of slow decline, hovering somewhere between dead and not dead.

The heart had been ripped out, so the person was dead.

But through forbidden sorcery, the warrior was made to believe they were still alive.

Whose heart is that?

The body was dead, but the mind was left living.

In that state, they were killed through the forbidden sorcery of necromancy. That was how a warrior born from death was made.

I am not dead yet. Therefore I can fight. If I fight and win, this nightmare will end at once.

Being dead, the warrior could not hear the words of the living. The Death Knight could not speak either. It would have needed to communicate through will alone, but it had none of that left.

All that remained was the urge to struggle.

Fight. Kill. Drive this spear through flesh and leave holes.

It did not matter who or what stood in the way.

Ruagarne's whip cracked against the Black Warrior's head.

Thwack!

The warrior raised the spear shaft and swept it around to block the whip. The tip coiled around the shaft in quick loops.

The same moment she swung it. Ruagarne charged in and swept the Loop Sword.

A horizontal slash.

The heavy blade carrying Frog's strength looked ready to split the enemy's torso in two.

The Black Warrior pulled the spear shaft back by force to block.

Clang!

The black rod shuddered under the Loop Sword's edge.

Pulling back a spear shaft the whip had coiled around? It had overpowered Frog's strength.

Its single hand slid smoothly down toward the base of the shaft, gripped the bottom, and brought the whip-tangled spear crashing straight down.

Ruagarne released the whip handle, gripped the Loop Sword with both hands, twisted, and used the flat to catch the shaft and redirect it.

Thak, drdrdrdt!

The black spear shaft and the Loop Sword's edge scraped against each other and skidded apart to either side.

Ruagarne used the rebound to step back sharply.

A Death Knight is a creation shaped by the necromancer who made it. The skill of the product depends on the quality of the craftsmanship.

How capable was this one, slashing the spear shaft around with a single arm?

At least junior knight level.

Fighting it alone would be just barely manageable.

Even so, it felt like losing one arm had cut its ability roughly in half.

Thinking about where the other arm might be, the association came to her naturally.

That bastard's arm from before.

She had killed one of the Cultists while cutting down the Gnolls some time back.

The one who had cast the Warrior's Arm spell.

That spell had come with an otherwise useless body, the right arm the only thing intact.

The one Enkrid had cut down.

After that she had asked around here and there, looking for where the arm's owner had ended up.

So this was where it had gone.

Ruagarne stepped back, caught the whip handle that had come loose from the shaft on the tip of her sword, and flicked it back into her grip.

She caught it and spoke at once.

"Burn."

The will threaded through her voice called out the spell carved into the whip.

The easiest way to handle something like this was to use a magical tool. Flame spread in a rush from the middle of the whip outward.

The blazing heat warmed the air around her.

Even so, her odds were not good.

Her eye for skill, her eye for talent, her battle instincts, all of them were telling her this was a crisis.

The reason was the things staring at her from behind the Death Knight with wide, restless eyes.

And that was not even everything.

From behind the ravine where the enemy group had gathered, another cluster of people appeared.

Most of them had markings painted across their faces. Among them, two figures stood out by their dress. A Half-Elf and a Half-Giant.

Not western folk. She could tell at a glance.

Their races made it obvious, and their clothing was different too.

The Half-Elf had one ear crushed flat, with only a hole where the outer ear should have been. The Half-Giant had a flat nose bridge and a squared jaw that made the face look like a block of stone.

Enkrid kept pressing the enemy sorcerer.

Rem and Dunbakel were cheerfully slaughtering their way through a group of giants.

A sorcery-made wolf tore through the giant cluster, covering the allied warriors who were thrusting spears and hurling stones.

Several western folk moved toward Ruagarne, obsidian spears loaded in their spear-throwers.

Things do not look good.

Her battle instincts said defeat. More precisely, a pointless death.

Especially when she looked at the one with black hair and white eyes showing no pupils at all. That thought would not leave her head.

The one with a pattern of teardrops falling beneath the left eye and a dagger with the blade pointing upward beneath the right.

The moment she saw that figure, Ruagarne felt a particularly grim premonition.

I will lose.

Fighting with only herself and the western warriors, that was where this led.

Normally dull, Frog's battle instincts sharpened to a razor's edge the moment she entered a fight.

From her perspective, this was the honest answer.

But what was she supposed to do with that.

What stood in front of her were Cultists.

The Cult were her enemies.

So she would kill them.

Whether it worked or not, the premise of fighting did not change.

The ones she needed to kill were right in front of her, so her fury was entirely justified.

Grrr.

Half pleasure, half rage.

Ruagarne puffed out her cheeks.

Besides, she did not truly believe she would lose.

Her estimate had been made by setting Enkrid aside, an out-of-category factor in this fight.

* * *

Did you really think I had prepared nothing but giants?

The one being involuntarily cut off mid-speech by the ceaseless swinging of a blade was an Apostle of the Cursed Ground Holy Sect.

I split the west against itself and built giants. Do you know how many seeds I have scattered beyond that? This is years of preparation. How do you intend to stop it?

The plan had been to kindle the cult's roots in this place.

More precisely, the Apostle had intended to gather Demon Creatures and create something resembling a Cursed Ground.

To that end, the western folk were to be herded into one place and slaughtered.

Their blood and flesh, their fear, despair, and frustration, even their fragile scraps of hope.

All of it would become the material to build something like a Cursed Ground on this land.

The Apostle wanted to make a new Cursed Ground here.

The slashing blade kept the mouth shut. Magic could not flow where it needed to flow. Attempting hand seals was blocked as well.

This bastard.

Irritation rose of its own accord.

The Apostle decided that hasty anger would not help.

And so, to settle that anger, the Apostle began to pray inwardly.

Our god sleeps within the Cursed Ground.

I will wake that god and let it reign over this land.

Divine punishment will fall on all the fools.

Those who falsely call themselves kings will hang until they die.

The hearts of those who defile the one god sleeping in the Cursed Ground with their false faith will be split open.

All must die and be reborn.

And so the world will answer the call of the true god.

While that went on, the Fortune-Teller Tribe entered the battle, and two warriors the Apostle had kept hidden began moving toward the Apostle's position.

The two would handle the one swinging a blade nonstop at the Apostle's mouth and hands.

Once they had him pinned, the Apostle would bind him completely, force him to his knees, and then speak.

Why do you spend that strength walking a mistaken path?

Stand at my side. Feel true joy. Praise the god of the Cursed Ground.

If that is not to your liking, die and be reborn to stand beside the Apostle.

Whatever your will may be, I will make it so.

That is my duty. That is the path for my god.

All manner of things the Apostle had been wanting to say tangled together inside. The Apostle was a talkative person by nature.

But every time the Apostle tried to say something, a blade came whistling in.

Without the liquefaction spell to let blades pass through, death would have come long ago, but for now there was no problem.

Of course, being in a fluid state made it impossible to properly manifest the World of Spells, which was frustrating.

Still, surely there was some gap to squeeze out a voice? It seemed like there should be.

The speech-starved Apostle resorted to a workaround.

Whatever it took, all that mattered was getting the words across.

But if words could be delivered, if a voice could slip through, could a prepared spell not be voiced in the same way?

That also seemed possible.

The Apostle pried open a gap with that workaround.

* * *

"Lis!"

"Ten!"

"To!"

"My!"

"Words!"

"You!"

"Fool!"

Clever enough.

Block the mouth, so the words come one syllable at a time. Enkrid kept the sorcerer cornered with Aker alone, only occasionally jabbing with Spark.

That alone was enough to stop the chanting and the hand seals.

"If you block the chant and the seals, they have to cast through will alone, but no sorcerer can do that easily. So just cut the mouth and the fingers."

Esther's teaching had been excellent.

Enkrid followed it exactly.

The opponent still could not use any proper magic.

But how long could he keep this up?

If he kept cutting for three days and nights without stopping, would this one give in?

He did not know.

With the mouth stopped, the opponent tried to communicate with eyes alone.

Squeezing out words one syllable at a time while rolling his eyes constantly. At that rate, the man might be able to cast spells with his eyeballs.

Audin looked a bit like that when he had truly lost it.

Is that an insult to Audin?

Then never mind.

The blade sliced through the opponent's body. Same as cutting empty air. No resistance in the hand. It was like cutting smoke.

Even so, Enkrid did not stop.

"Re!"

"Born!"

"A!"

After a few more cuts, the opponent's intent shifted.

Instead of useless nonsense about whether his words were being heard, the opponent tried something different. A spell. The stirring of magic reached into the range of his sixth sense.

Still squeezing out one syllable at a time between cuts, reciting a spell.

What kind of people were the Apostles of the Cursed Ground Holy Sect?

These were people called geniuses in their own right.

The Apostle moved the magic with full awareness that Enkrid's cuts were disrupting the spellcasting.

Not even a long incantation was needed. Something had already been prepared here.

"Be!"

"Re!"

"Born!"

Be reborn.

A six-syllable spell.

An Offering buried in the ground responded to the Apostle's words.

Thanks to Rem and Dunbakel, the number of giants had fallen sharply.

But at the words of the one who kept blurring into a liquid state, dead giants pulled themselves upright again.

GROOAARRR!

Burst flesh knit back together. Above severed necks, heads grew back.

Lumps of flesh squirmed and gathered, rising upward, forming eyes and nose, mouth and ears.

A grotesque sight. Something that turned the stomach just to look at.

The giants came back to life with dull, glazed eyes and moved again exactly as they had before death.

What was this?

Even Trolls and Frog could not match this rate of regeneration.

"Come!"

"To!"

"Me!"

The sorcerer read a summoning chant at the same time.

A red rooster's comb burst out in front of Enkrid's eyes.

Bigger than the head of a full-grown adult.

Below it was a rooster's head and a body covered in feathers hard as steel, yellow feet with sharp talons that looked ready to shred a human body in an instant, and last came a snake's tail sweeping the ground with a long, sinuous swish.

Enkrid recalled what he had just seen.

A red magic circle had appeared on the ground, a rooster's comb rose from it, and a Demon Creature pulled itself up and out.

A Cockatrice, the Demon Creature said to fire a petrification beam from its eyes.

The moment it appeared, it intended to fire that beam, then peck with its beak and rake with its poison-laced talons.

First, peck the human right in front of it and taste the flesh.

The neck muscles of the Cockatrice were just beginning to move. Before it could even lower its head, a flash of light came in first and cut through its neck.

From one angle it almost looked like the creature had stretched its neck out to be cut.

Of course it had no such intention. It was simply what the difference in speed produced.

Schwick!

Thump, the head shot into the air. The light in the Cockatrice's eyes went dim.

The summoned Demon Creature died without firing a single petrification beam, without even getting out a cry.

But thanks to that, its master gained a brief opening.

"Chains of Gulak!"

The Apostle dropped the fluid state and recited the spell without hesitation.

From beneath Enkrid's feet, green chains burst out and wrapped around his calves and forearms.

They coiled tight.

Going to just cut through a liquefied opponent? You are a bit of a brute, aren't you.

In that moment, Enkrid heard something that might have been a hallucination.

He ignored it. He ignored the chains binding him too.

What is Will?

It is the desire to act.

Enkrid put into it his intent to advance and cut.

The chains squeezing, the hallucination, none of it mattered.

Crack, boom!

The chains could not hold against the force and burst apart. Thighs trained through repetition beyond counting. Enkrid shattered the spell with raw strength.

If Audin had seen it, he would have called out to his father in desperate prayer.

"You!"

The Apostle shouted, having just dropped the fluid state to prepare another spell. The shock was real.

Why would it not be? What kind of person breaks a spell with brute force?

Startled, the Apostle watched as the Half-Elf and Half-Giant taken on as subordinates came rushing in.

Both intended to grab Enkrid. They did manage to catch his legs.

For exactly half a breath.

Enkrid looked at the two blocking his path and moved both arms at once.

Splitting single tempo in half. Half tempo, swinging the swords on an off-beat, cutting and thrusting.

Bang, crack! Thud!

The Half-Elf had a trick of hiding two short daggers out of sight and driving them in, sleight of hand, almost like a conjuring trick. The hands were that fast.

That was why the Half-Elf was able to react to the diagonal downward cut at all.

The read was good. But too late to get clear.

The Half-Elf crossed both daggers and braced both forearms.

The heavy blade pushed the daggers down and split the Half-Elf's head halfway open before pulling free.

A loud crack rang out and the head split with a sharp sound.

The tremendous force sent a shockwave through the Half-Elf's neck vertebrae, driving them downward.

At the same moment, a hole opened in the Half-Giant's face.

Enkrid's work, naturally. He brought Aker down while thrusting Spark with his left hand.

Two sword strikes in the span of half a tempo, simultaneously. A technique he had drilled dozens of times and only recently mastered exploded into effect.

It was a variation on the two-handed swordwork he had originally used, blocking with Aker and thrusting with Spark.

The Half-Giant had a mace, and died with blood pouring down its face while in the middle of raising it to swing.

Dead, but the mace still moved by inertia.

Thud.

It came down and struck the ground for nothing.

In that same moment, Enkrid swung at the sorcerer's Magical Barrier, now that the fluid state had dropped.

A chain of strikes with no room to breathe.

Slash, crack!

A single cut cracked the Magical Barrier.

Seeing that, the Apostle's pupils began to shake.

What is this one?

Why does this person fight so well?