WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 486: A Few Coincidences Overlapping

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Some people perform better in a real fight than they ever do in training.

Why is that?

Why do they show a stronger side when it counts?

It might be sharper senses, or the difference in raw talent. Or maybe they only find their focus when their life is on the line.

For Enkrid, none of those applied. He had none of it.

His senses were ordinary, so deflecting tricky attacks felt clumsy. He had no flash of brilliant originality. Focus that only triggered in moments of crisis? If he had ever had something like that, he would not have died as many times as he had.

None of it. What he did have was experience.

Countless hours of conditioning, training, practice.

"What if I twist here? What if I shove it that way? Deflect and strike immediately?"

He thought it through, tried it with his body, and repeated it.

After learning the techniques suited to each branch of the Five Sword Styles, that was exactly what he had done. Without rest, without ever growing bored, just grinding forward.

Brute force does not quite cover it. Calling it dim-witted stubbornness would not be far off.

And along the way came the process of taking what he had earned and applying it to real fights, one piece at a time.

Because he had no talent, he had to repeat everything more times than anyone else. Where others needed ten swings to understand something, he needed a hundred. If a hundred was not enough, he swung a thousand times or more.

So what happened from that?

He stopped focusing on how useful a technique was and started focusing on what it actually was. He had no other choice. If he could not understand it, he could not move past it.

Why did certain parrying techniques deliberately cross blades with the opponent? Why turn the body to avoid the edge afterward? Why position the blade's midpoint inside the elbow?

Rotating the body halfway created an opening to pin the opponent's hand. Getting the midpoint of the blade to sit inside the elbow let him press down at the point where force was applied, neutralizing the opponent's strength for just an instant.

Did the body have to rotate at all? If stepping forward was the goal, footwork could handle it.

Or did he even need to grip the hand? What was the reverse of a parry? What were the counters to a deflection?

That was the essence. That was the reason each motion existed.

He had repeated, puzzled over, revisited, and drilled all of it endlessly.

While dying, he still did it. Even when he was not dying, he kept going.

That was why. Enkrid was far stronger in a real fight than in training.

That relentless drive to challenge himself was what made the difference when it mattered.

His blue eyes threw off light.

The Apostle was a master of Necromancy. Good enough that even Esther would have conceded a step when it came to that field alone.

Fluid form won't work.

In a fluid state, the World of Spells could not be used properly. Block with a Veil, then cast a prepared spell.

The Apostle had an artificial Sacred Object, made from a treasure found in the Cursed Ground and infused with magical energy drawn from the Offering taken in the western lands.

That was what would be used.

Fear, set aside. If dread swallowed the mind, the spells would not come out right.

The calculations had already begun inside the Apostle's head, but every single one of them unraveled from the very start.

The Apostle's eyes could not even track Enkrid's blade.

Clang, crash, clang!

In the time it took to draw one breath, all that was visible was the Veil the Apostle had built cracking apart and shattering.

Hold? Hold.

An instant before the Veil broke, the Apostle mouthed another incantation.

"Eight brothers of Gulak!"

The World of Spells opened. Eight Ghouls burst out. From the ground, from the air at waist height, from the space above, dark clumps tore open like bruised holes, and Demon Creatures poured through.

Artificially constructed Ghouls, to be precise, made through magic.

Long-armed ones, long-legged ones, long-tongued ones, poison-filled ones. Eight monsters, each distinct.

This was simply bad luck for the Apostle.

Enkrid had faced a knight-grade Ghoul in the Gray Forest Cursed Ground, back when it was the enemy of the City of Aoara. That experience had stayed with him, vivid and intact.

The owner of those blue eyes swung the sword in his hand eight times.

Left foot stepping out at an angle, a diagonal cut. Right foot pulling back, a horizontal slash to the side. Drawing the blade back, a straight downward cut.

In between, one of them thrust its claws forward. Enkrid treated the arm like a blade, pressed his flat edge against it, pushed it aside gently, and thrust. Gentle did not mean harmless, so the lethality was more than enough.

That was the Snake Sword, the Flowing Sword Style.

Next, winding around a blade and swinging sideways, he took a Ghoul's head clean off. After that, wrapping over and around to stab through its chest, then pulling the sword upward as if dragging it, he split the last Ghoul's skull vertically. A horizontal cut from above put a lid on the seventh Ghoul, the three-eyed one. Then, switching the sword to his left hand, a one-handed thrust.

All at a speed the spellcaster's eyes could not follow.

Thud, crunch, thunk, crack, snap, thwack, thunk.

All eight Ghouls that had manifested died, throats cut, skulls punctured, or heads split open.

The Apostle's eyes went wide, Sacred Object still clutched in hand.

Two long streaks. A blue line first, then a silver thread trailing after it.

Those lines stretched and stretched, and time slowed.

Block it.

There were still plenty of prepared spells.

The festering Veil of Gulak would do. It had the power to absorb physical impact.

Beyond that, there were protective artifacts as well. Even the skin had been modified.

And after blocking?

Use the Sacred Object. The artificial Sacred Object would give every Giant standing here the power of a monster, in other words, every Giant would change to become like those two monsters the dead western folk had called by that name.

Then everyone present could be killed.

And if even that was not enough, release the power stored in the Sacred Object. No one would survive that, including the Apostle.

A golem built from blood inside the World of Spells would be summoned and strapped to the Sacred Object before it detonated. A thousand lives' worth of blood compressed together. If that volume exploded, no one would walk away.

The forbidden sorcery called blood detonation.

That was enough. There was a way. The calculations were done. All that remained was to move.

The thoughts kept running, but the tongue never moved to begin the incantation.

The silver thread was faster. The silver line that Aker had become touched the Apostle's throat.

This was the product of a few coincidences stacked together.

Enkrid's recent breakthrough in understanding.

The fact that what he held was a Magic Sword.

The lessons he had learned through Esther about how to pressure a Mage.

The Apostle not having expected the fight to begin this way.

The Apostle's habit of declaring intentions and enjoying the act of preaching before any confrontation.

The intention to speak first, because of that habit.

And Enkrid cutting out every one of those steps and answering with steel instead.

Drrrrr!

Aker, now a silver thread, stopped, just for an instant, right in front of the Apostle's throat.

A heartbeat, naturally. A gap of time too small for the Apostle to perceive.

The defensive artifacts on the Apostle's body had activated. One turned the skin slick and greasy, like an oil toad. Another wrapped the area just in front of any struck point in a steel-like Veil one knuckle's width thick.

An Apostle of the Cursed Ground Holy Sect, prepared for battle. Carrying various artifacts was only natural.

The body itself was different too. Demon Creature skin had been grafted on, making it incomparably tougher than any human flesh.

Of course, none of it meant anything once the head left the shoulders.

The sword was controlled with perfect form, left foot planted as the axis. A swing that cut through to the very essence of the technique. A strike enhanced by the Knight's Strike.

Aker split through every defense and every preparation the Apostle had built. The artifacts finished their work and crumbled.

Not sharp enough? Then fill the gap with force.

Focus Point captured the exact point of impact, and the Heart of Superhuman Strength poured strength into the arm.

Thwack.

The Apostle's head rose into the air.

It bounced with a dull sound and dropped to the ground.

The Apostle's body crumpled on top of the corpses of the half-blood Giant and the Elf.

"Father!"

One of the Fortune-Teller Tribe came shooting out from inside the ravine. A young man, young enough to call a boy, really, with the tear mark and dagger mark tattooed into his skin.

His cry rang out, and at the same moment,

GRRROOOAAARRR!

Every Giant suddenly let out a scream that was almost a wail. As they threw their heads back and roared, purple veins rose across their muscles.

CRRRACK.

The muscles swelled, and their eyes blazed as though someone had shoved torches inside. Hair rippled and skin began to deepen into a dark copper brown.

The changed Giants seemed to push back the surrounding sunlight and wind.

Most of the Apostle's will had burned away, never given form, but one piece of will loaded into the artificial Sacred Object had activated as a spell.

The awakening of every Giant present.

"You!"

The moment Enkrid killed the Apostle, he felt a surge of killing intent crash down on him from behind. He spun and swung Aker.

A light cut, but not the kind just anyone could block or dodge.

The angle was hard to avoid, and it carried real force and speed.

Clang!

It was blocked.

Could this really be blocked? That should have been surprising, but Enkrid did not show it.

He pulled back the sword he had snapped out and brought it down again along the same angle.

This time it was the Heavy Sword Style's collarbone split, with weight behind it. Not snapping, but driving through.

The opponent was half lifted off the ground when it landed.

Enkrid's eyes swept the enemy as he swung, taking in the clothing and the stance entirely.

A short-furred vest, trousers, arm guards, face markings, and something wedged diagonally at the back, a black rod? A blade made of obsidian.

What had blocked Aker was the short curved dagger called a Karambit.

The dagger was extremely hard. Aker had not broken or cut through it. Only a small chip had come off the edge.

The enemy's eyes were full of grief and hate.

The second cut was blocked too. The Karambit twisted, diverting the force of the sword.

That was genuinely impressive.

In terms of raw talent, this one was close to Rem.

Right now the gap was large, but left alone, the growth would come quickly.

With the Karambit, the enemy redirected the blade just enough to turn Enkrid's attack aside, and the moment both feet hit the ground, rolled backward. Enkrid moved to give chase, then stopped. His gut told him to.

While the enemy rolled back, an obsidian spear rose into the air.

A trick? No, Sorcery.

Without anyone touching it, the Throwing Spear floated up on its own and shot forward.

He had stopped because the Sensory Technique had given a warning.

Enkrid could not see what was holding the spear, but he was certain something was there.

It might have been one of those ancestor spirits the western folk spoke of.

Tink!

Blocking it was easy.

He watched the spearhead's speed as it came in, pressed his edge against the shaft, and let it slide past.

Then he took one big step forward. Mid-step, he looped Aker back over his head halfway and brought it straight down, perpendicular to the ground.

All of it in one breath.

Swoosh!

Again, Aker cut nothing but air. The enemy had jumped straight back, having looked ready to charge in headlong just a moment before.

After stepping back, the enemy extended a left hand. Jingle, whatever ornament was strung there, a golden bell hung from every finger.

Left hand raised and shaking, the enemy spoke.

"I will take your eyes."

Enkrid blinked. Nothing happened.

The enemy froze with the left hand still extended.

Crunch.

Teeth ground together. Then one more shout.

"Walk three steps and fall!"

The first was a curse of blindness. The second, a curse of lameness.

Neither landed.

Enkrid felt not even a flicker of unease.

The only thought that drifted through his head was idle wondering whether the Boatman was somewhere out there letting out a satisfied belch right about now.

"Delicious!"

Or maybe shouting something like that.

"It's you. You swallowed the curse."

A young voice. The enemy stared at Enkrid like he wanted him dead, said those words, and ran. A few sharp stomps of the feet and the figure blurred, growing distant.

Enkrid threw a dagger at the retreating figure.

It flew and buried itself in the Sorcerer's back.

The body stumbled for a moment, then kept running and disappeared.

Fast enough to make pursuit a question, though not impossible. Still, there were more urgent problems left behind.

The Giants and the Black Warriors were still fighting at his back.

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