WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 634: The Last Dance

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"They can't die?"

Enkrid asked.

"That's right, they can't die. Evil Spirits themselves can't be cut by a sword. If we could use vital energy, this would be simple, but it can't be used in here. That's what makes them as dangerous as death itself."

As he spoke, several drowned corpses stretched their necks forward. Unnaturally far. The spines elongated as though they'd grown elastic, pulling long and loose. It was the kind of trick only something inhabited by an Evil Spirit could manage.

Patches of frost covered their bodies too. The Evil Spirits themselves seemed to carry cold within them.

"Cutting them with Will won't work either. You don't need to ask."

Bran was almost certainly the sharpest of all the Woodguards.

He'd answered before Enkrid even asked.

Enkrid had been about to ask exactly that, whether Will-infused cuts would do anything.

"Zero."

Bran called the name, and Zero shot forward, severing an arm from a drowned corpse that had noticed them and was closing in. While Zero made the cut, the Evil Spirit riding the corpse's shoulder reached out a translucent arm, but it moved slowly enough that anyone who spotted it could dodge without much trouble.

It was pale enough to see, which was why they'd been able to avoid it.

Depending on the angle of the light it occasionally vanished, but there was no chance elven senses would fail to track it.

Zero slipped past the Demon Creature's reaching hand and stepped back.

He had cut off one arm, and the severed limb twitched a few times before pressing its fingers against the ground and beginning to crawl.

"You see that. Cut off an arm and the arm moves on its own. Cut off a leg and the leg does the same. Burning them isn't easy either."

Nothing you could know without having faced it before.

Which meant the elves had already attempted a serious exploration of the Labyrinth, this Cursed Ground, before. That was where the knowledge came from.

It was what Enkrid had already suspected when Bran mentioned they'd been here once.

Even knowing these things couldn't be killed, Bran hadn't panicked. Which meant he knew how to solve it.

Enkrid had figured as much and was watching him, and Bran continued without missing a beat.

"Get past them, find the orb nearby, and break it. That's their life vessel. The others hold them off while one of us goes through."

Enkrid listened and nodded. A tedious method, he thought.

They'd have to keep fighting with no end in sight, right up until they found that orb.

It seemed like a mechanism designed to drain stamina and pile on fatigue.

'If there's a demon in this place.'

It would be a deeply scheming, trick-loving thing.

"Unless someone carries a weapon that can cut souls, there's no fighting them. Buy time and Brisa will find it."

One of the elves said she would push through them at considerable risk.

The female elf named Brisa had swapped her Needle Blade for a short dagger. Her eyes worked through the space between the drowned corpses. She was likely mapping out the best path in her head.

That was as far as the discussion got before Fell spoke.

"That won't be necessary."

He gripped his sword and stepped forward. The weapon in Fell's hand was the Idol Slayer, a sword that cut Evil Spirits and souls.

Their natural enemy. Against foes that existed as spirits, as formless entities, it was a weapon that bordered on unfair.

"Open a path."

Enkrid said it, and Fell tapped the ground lightly with each step as he advanced.

"Dangerous."

The elf named Brisa spoke. When Fell moved forward, every drowned corpse in the area, not just the nearby ones, but those drifting at the edges too, had all reacted at once.

She was right. It could have been dangerous.

If the one stepping forward hadn't been Fell, and if the sword in his hand had been an ordinary blade, it would have been.

Fell didn't answer. He shifted his left foot to the side and swung.

In that swing, Enkrid saw traces of the wall-of-cuts Ragna had once shown him. The blade stretched long, cut through a drowned corpse's neck, and didn't stop there, it carried on along its own path.

Enkrid had noticed something while sparring with Fell.

'Exceptional talent.'

Without Ragna, it would stand out without question.

With Ragna, it still stood out.

His swordsmanship had gone past stealing techniques and into something reinterpreted through his own understanding. On top of that, Fell had been born with eyes for spotting an enemy's openings.

That was why he didn't think and then swing. He swung, and the blade found its ideal arc on its own.

Calling it natural talent was no exaggeration.

The Shepherd's sword moved through dozens of drowned corpses, and the Idol Slayer's blade danced.

The frozen drowned corpses were genuinely dangerous. Even while dying they tried to latch on and drag you down. Hadn't they already seen what a severed arm could do on its own?

Even just an arm would try to cling.

Cut them, slash them, stab them, they didn't die, only split apart and kept coming.

Troublesome enemies. Burning them all would have meant dealing with Evil Spirits driving back the flames, and the floor was too damp to set fires easily anyway.

Vital energy could purify and kill them cleanly, but not here. Without it, they were genuinely difficult to handle.

Two of the elves had their hands drifting toward the oil flasks at their hips. If things went bad they'd throw them and light the place. But their hands never got that far.

This oil was a blend of Woodguard sap, linseed oil, and the pressed extract of several unusual herbs.

Given the materials and the effort that went into mixing them, it had been produced through high-level alchemy.

Which meant, if Krais had ever found out this oil existed..."You're going to burn something that expensive just to kill Demon Creatures? Oh, please, don't do that. Let me have the oil and we'll kill the Demon Creatures ourselves."

That was almost certainly what he would have said.

As it happened, the oil wasn't needed. Fell savored the pleasure the Idol Slayer sent through him, back in his hand after so long.

He split skulls and drove the point into the rough location of a heart, then withdrew. His skill exceeded junior knight level by any measure.

That was to be expected.

His own innate talent was part of it, but the people Fell sparred with every day were Enkrid, Ragna, and Rem.

Daily training against people better than himself, plus the existence of Ropord as a rival.

All of it was fuel driving a genius's talent forward.

Fell didn't hesitate even with a hundred drowned corpses swarming ahead to block him.

Not one fled. They all rushed in. Even a graze would leave a cursed wound.

And still Fell felt no fear. The Shepherd's sword moved the way a dancer might, like a dress hem sweeping out across a ballroom, like feet finding their steps.

Crack.

The thick fluid spilling from a split skull was the corpse of an Evil Spirit.

Shlick.

The keening shriek that burst from beneath a severed head was an Evil Spirit's death scream.

Evil Spirits, as soul-like entities, were the easiest enemies Fell could face.

Easier than cutting Vampire Flies one by one, twice over.

Once they were all down, a stairway appeared beyond them, leading further below.

A faded orb rolled among the corpses.

Bran had said to get past them and search for the orb, but in reality one of the drowned corpses had been carrying it inside itself.

If they'd followed Bran's strategy, they would have spent considerable time and effort for nothing. Not that anyone was going to hold that against him.

"We should spar sometime."

Zero said it to Fell, even after watching all of that. He was a rare elf, one with a fierce competitive streak.

In Enkrid's view, a fine elf, though the other two showed no reaction to Zero's words at all.

"That Frog of yours, and you as well. Some remarkable fighters came along."

Bran said it. His flat voice carried a trace of something, quiet hope, said plainly.

"We can't leave Sinar as a demon's bride."

The male elf said it. Enkrid didn't answer. He started moving toward the stairs.

The stairway, unlike the one before, had been built in clean, deliberate lines. Whatever had shaped it, person, monster, or demon, there was a clear intentional hand behind it.

"Do you know how many floors there are?"

"It's a labyrinth, but I doubt it qualifies as a Great Labyrinth. Most likely the demon is hiding somewhere on the next floor."

Bran said it. There were gaps in that, naturally, but he couldn't be expected to know everything about the labyrinth.

They descended the stairs, and this time clean walls greeted them.

A rectangular passage, with only darkness at its far end. Darkness so thick that even the heat-sensing elves could see nothing within it.

'Magic.'

That was the smell of it. His instincts told him so.

"Rest now. This is the only chance."

Bran encouraged them to take a break.

It wasn't a good environment for sleeping or eating, but it was better than when the floor had been soaked.

In exchange, the foul and oppressive air was denser here, and the pressure weighing on the body had grown heavier.

Two of the elves had gone pale. Zero and Bran, at least, looked intact.

Fell and Ruagarne had no problems at all.

"I think this is still better than that training where Audin and Rem kept us awake for a whole week in the mountains."

That was Fell. What he described was a training course Enkrid had also gone through, pushing through extreme fatigue and maintaining your responses under duress.

Audin and Rem had designed that training. Naturally, both of them had endured it without much trouble. Ragna hadn't participated at all.

He'd only said, "Why would I?"

It was one of the legendary courses in Border Guard's training hell.

Fell had passed it without flinching. Frog had a base physical constitution that put her in a different category altogether.

Enkrid had been the one who enjoyed that training most. So it hadn't been particularly tiring for him.

More like warming up.

Still, they rested. When stamina dropped and exhaustion set in, the mind suffered for it. Body and mind couldn't be separated. No matter how strong the elves' mental endurance was, fatigue would open cracks.

The group rested briefly and moved on. The corridor ran in a straight line, no chance of losing their way. As they advanced, the darkness thinned slightly and Demon Creatures rushed out.

"Trolls," Fell said.

Before the word was fully out, Enkrid had seized a Troll by the cervical vertebrae and ripped them free, then cut the throat of another swinging a club from the side.

It was over in an instant. The passage was wide enough that swinging a sword wasn't an issue.

The glow stones barely lit the front and rear, but the corridor was wide enough that the darkness on both sides seemed to shift and crawl.

Things actually did emerge from that darkness, like black soot given shape.

Zero noticed them.

"Evil Spirit," he said, and Fell's sword cut it apart before the echo faded.

After that came Cockatrices and Basilisks, which would petrify you if you met their gaze.

For Demon Creatures, they seemed somehow thin, underpowered.

They fought through what felt, in the body, like a full day.

"Makes you wonder if something's just printing monsters somewhere."

Fell muttered it. Fatigue aside, he was starting to get bored. That boredom didn't last long.

He looked at the next creature blocking the way, and it was alone.

It stood in the middle of the path without moving, like armor hung on a rack. Black armor, cheekguards caved in, the hollow inside writhing with maggots, eyes dull and unfocused.

Looking at the state of it, calling it alive would be a stretch. It was genuinely dead. Not the faintest trace of life remained.

Black eyes and rotting skin seemed to confirm it.

A slender frame. A heavy sword held in one hand.

The sword's tip rested against the ground, too large for the body holding it.

The blade was a dull reddish-brown, and rather than reflecting the light from the glow stones, it seemed to absorb it.

Light couldn't cross past a certain radius from the sword.

That was what drew the irregular shadows across the floor.

"Arjila?"

Zero recognized the figure.

She was an unfortunate, ill-fated being who had died here and been claimed by the Cursed Ground.

Enkrid didn't have time to hear what Zero or Bran said next.

Krrreek.

The dead one's head tilted sideways.

No killing intent. But the motion and the presence behind it were sharp.

Enkrid crossed his feet and stepped forward. A soft ring of steel, and the silver-steel sword he'd drawn somewhere along the way scattered light in every direction, opposite to the sword she held.

Why step forward? Because his instincts told him this was not an opponent to hand off to someone else.

That was all.

Black soot-like shapes rippled behind the dead one, and then she launched forward.

KRRRANG.

The blade scraped against the floor and drove upward from below.

Bran looked at the figure, then at the sword in its hand.

He shouted.

"Get back!"

What he actually wanted to say was that they must not clash blades with her.

* * *

Bran had watched Enkrid throughout the journey here, and hope had risen in him naturally.

That man was skilled enough to warrant it. The reputation for having killed a demon was not an empty one.

Even so, he'd known they couldn't avoid using what they had prepared.

'Being unable to project vital energy isn't the same as being unable to use it at all.'

Projection was suppressed here, but what about vital energy already refined and contained?

The elven kin weren't fools. They had come prepared to fight.

The refined vital energy had been condensed into a gemstone in the shape of a fruit.

Its name was Kiaos.

In the common continental tongue: The Last Dance.

Consume it and you would die without fail. But in the moments before death, you could detonate your vital energy and fight with it.

That was the hidden weapon the elves had prepared.

By Bran's judgment, the time for Kiaos had come.

The enemy was Arjila, an elven knight who had once entered this labyrinth. The sword in her hand was a Demon Sword.

Arjila's companion weapon, the Demon Sword she had bonded with, carried this property: after clashing with it seven times, whatever weapon the opponent held would feel twice as heavy.

It was the technique of a genius elven knight, forged from vital energy and Will.

What trick the Cursed Ground had worked to place Arjila here like this, Bran didn't know. What he did know was one thing.

"Clash with it and you lose."

Thud.

Before the warning was finished, the blades met, and with that sound Bran shouted again.

"Don't meet her blade!"

Enkrid was in the middle of blocking Arjila's high-speed slash.

Bran couldn't fully track it with his eyes, but what he knew for certain was this: stand still and they all die.

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