A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 640

Chapter 640

It was the same loop once more, but his spirit had shifted.
‘I’ll take his head and end this.’
That was the primary objective. Sever the neck and break the cycle. Naturally, achieving that was far more complex than planning it.
As he always did, Enkrid refused to let a single iteration of this day go to waste.
He didn’t believe in simply gathering data or sharpening his wits through the act of dying. With every reset, he attempted to conclude the struggle by discovering a path to victory, never allowing exhaustion to take root.
Was this persistence what made him appear so remarkable to the Ferryman?
Perhaps.
“You… can’t even crawl, yet you’re attempting to sprint?”
The Ferryman seemed to trip over his own words. A human might stumble over their tongue, but the Ferryman was no mortal. He projected his intent through sheer will, bypassing vocal cords entirely. Within this mental landscape—this dream—it should have been a physical impossibility for him to misspeak in such a human way.
Yet, during their encounter on the second loop, the Ferryman had spoken with that distinct, awkward hitch. It was peculiar, but Enkrid didn’t dwell on it.
His focus was entirely consumed by the monstrous entity known as OneKiller.
‘The bastard utilized both blades with identical precision.’
The demon could even manipulate the weight behind his strikes. When Enkrid had managed to shatter the sword in the creature’s left hand, the impact had been intentionally softened. Because of that diversion, the right-hand blade had bitten deep into his shoulder.
That cunning wretch had wounded him and immediately leaped back.
‘If my guard had been just a hair tighter, I could have reached his throat. Grimy bastard.’
Enkrid spat silent vitriol at the demon’s deceptive nature.
To rely on such constant trickery—was that the essence of a demon? Or was it merely pathetic?
He wasn’t exactly in a position to judge, being a practitioner of Valen-style mercenary swordsmanship himself.
Moves that felt efficient in his own grip felt remarkably cheap when wielded by his opponent.
‘Well, it’s a demon. That’s the nature of the beast.’
But what did it matter? Was there pain? Was it grueling? Was he drained? Should he simply collapse? Was it enough to just lie in the dirt and breathe?
It was a void-black night, stripped of even the faintest starlight.
A barrier even darker than the midnight sky loomed before him. But that was no reason to speak of hopelessness.
If his eyes were useless, he would simply scale the wall by tracing the cracks with his fingertips.
That was Enkrid’s method.
The first time he attempted to feign an opening using Valen-style mercenary swordplay, he succeeded in grazing the neck—but paid for it with a crushed foot.
The second time he tried a Valen-style deception, the demon saw through it, driving a blade into his leg before Enkrid could even swing for the throat.
Forearms, digits, thighs, shins—he was methodically carved up.
He couldn’t even guarantee the first strike during their most intense exchanges. They claimed the gap in their prowess was microscopic, but in truth, he was slightly behind. That was why the cycle of victory and defeat continued to spin.
Naturally, as the days piled up, Enkrid began to decipher and memorize the movements of OneKiller.
A confrontation that had once required over 180 attempts was eventually finished in just three moves.
And for more than 300 cycles, they clashed amidst a storm of sparks, their blades dancing against the dark.
“You are as pliable as silver. Far too soft.”
The Ferryman peppered the silence with insults between bouts.
“To kindle a flame, one requires both the timber and the tinder.”
Occasionally, he spoke with the gravity of a philosopher.
“This is pointless avarice. To rescue everyone? To guard your flank? It is excess upon excess.”
While the Ferryman droned on, Enkrid endured dozens of resets.
“So, are you going to be my savior?”
He traded similar lines with Shinar. Of course, the dialogue wasn’t a perfect script every time.
The timeline was fluid. A day experienced once wasn’t a carbon copy when it began again.
“You’ll swing that blade for my sake?”
“Am I permitted to stand at your back as well?”
“You must have come ready for a wedding? If we make it through, let’s marry on the spot.”
That was the flow of their interactions.
When that specific proposal arose, he once provided a resolute reply.
“Are you really going to abandon me?”
“No. Stand with me.”
Shinar’s words always cut through him. They were as sharp as the adrenaline of clashing with OneKiller.
Like a torrential downpour from which there was no shelter, her voice brought an ache—a heavy, concentrated sorrow he had carried for a long time.
The Ferryman chimed in once more.
“You dimwit. You haven’t learned to quit? Don’t make me laugh. Shift your perspective. Reliving the same day over and over will rot your mind. That is the road you’ve chosen.”
Enkrid narrowed his focus to a single point. Consequently, he tuned out the Ferryman’s chatter.
It wasn’t a new occurrence.
However, he used the words as a calendar for the loop. He roughly tracked the number of cycles based on the Ferryman’s repetitive dialogue. That was why he committed them to memory.
On the second day, the Ferryman had stumbled over his words while mocking Enkrid’s inability to walk.
What came after that? He combed through his mind. Using the Ferryman’s speech as a landmark was a tactic he had employed in previous cycles.
“Respond to me. Do you not crave guidance? Even if you remain silent, I shall provide it. That is my mercy. Now, here is the path to flee from today.”
It happened during one of those cycles.
As he fought and died, Enkrid realized that even the way OneKiller broadcasted pure bloodlust was a tactical lie.
‘Has he concealed blades in his feet as well?’
Even the demon’s humanoid shape was a deception. Sharp edges could emerge from any point on his frame.
He wore no helm, yet never targeted the head initially. He focused on accumulating shallow cuts on the limbs—then, without warning, he would pivot for a lethal strike to the skull.
‘He is formidable.’
Not just formidable. Out of every adversary he had ever encountered, this one was among the most grueling.
Power, velocity, tactical mind, mastery of the blade—he had it all.
He didn’t adhere to a single style. He lunged, hacked, and struck with no discernible rhythm.
‘Which makes him a nightmare to predict.’
As Enkrid processed this, the Ferryman finally voiced his intent, despite the lack of a response.
“If you continue to disregard me, you will rot here for eternity. So pay attention, captive.”
While still calculating his next move against the demon, Enkrid felt the Ferryman’s words vibrate through his very marrow. He didn’t understand the mechanics, but the voice was impossible to ignore.
It was as if someone had seized his ear and was screaming directly into his mind.
The actual advice, however, sounded like the barking of a madman.
“Pick up a shield.”
“A shield?”
When he finally gave a sign of listening, the Ferryman’s next suggestion was appalling.
“Shove Frokk to the front. Use a human as a wall. Let a fairy take the impact. Only then can you slay him.”
They say demons whisper tempting lies. Was the Ferryman such a creature?
Likely not. Enkrid found nothing tempting about those words.
“Ah, I see.”
So he dismissed them.
Though, in a cold sense, they were logical. Pragmatic, even. Sacrifice those around you as decoys to secure the win—wasn’t that the core of the message?
So Enkrid did incorporate a fraction of the Ferryman’s logic.
He kicked the carcasses of fallen beasts into the air, using his blade to hold them up as grisly, improvised barricades.
It was a grotesque spectacle, truly.
During one of those many loops, while he was intentionally stretching out the duel, the words of Lua Gharne reached him—and he couldn’t find a flaw in them.
“Mankind behaves without logic, but the demon is a creature of reason.”
The demon was treacherous, but his reactions followed a rational pattern.
Enkrid, conversely, did not. He performed suicidal maneuvers just to crack that wall of cold logic. He gripped a knife in his teeth, flailed wildly, used dead bodies as cover, and shattered the very ground to use stones as missiles.
To an observer, the contrast would have been jarring.
Enkrid persisted through those days.
He chose the path of the irrational.
He distracted the foe with feints, collided again, and perished again. He mistook a sensation for venom and attempted to purge it using the Will of Rejection.
He was forced back. Perhaps it could be cast out.
‘The issue is when the frame simply locks up.’
In the heat of a struggle so intense that blinking was a luxury, there was no time to calmly push back against something invading his bloodstream.
Even a microscopic lapse would allow OneKiller to butcher him where he stood.
Thus, it was virtually impossible to expel what had wormed its way inside.
It was pitch black. The trail was gone. Yet he marched. The agony provided insight.
His senses began to bleed into one another; his perception widened, and he began to grasp more.
‘The origin is identical.’
He recalled the words of Esther: the demon also tapped into a formless energy. The root was mana—the breath of the world.
‘It is refined mana.’
That was the realization. Information gathered through the lens of instinct, by feeling through the dark.
And then he uncovered a truth he hadn’t sought.
‘She intended to sacrifice them all, herself included.’
That was the depth of Shinar’s conviction. Data pulled from repeated days, confirmed with a well-placed strike, revealed the reality.
“If everyone retreats and stays back, I will finish this.”
Even if it required a century—or a millennium—she would remain locked with the demon until they both turned to dust. The fairy kin shared that resolve. They were prepared to offer up their own lives if it meant the demon’s end.
They claimed fairies were not driven by spite. Then why were they fighting with such ferocity?
“The path we took was flawed. Instead of shunning the beasts, we should have learned to hunt them.”
That was a comment he’d heard from Bran. It was clear the fairy race had turned the wheel, choosing conflict over quietude.
‘A hunger for battle, not the endurance of peace.’
And they were preparing for that shift, one brick at a time.
Sending fairies into the wider world. Establishing commerce. These were the foundations of that shift.
Enkrid parsed the information—taking what was vital, discarding the dross.
Still, the secret to killing the demon eluded him.
But he hadn’t wasted a single moment in idleness.
If he didn’t have the answer, he would simply keep walking until he tripped over it.
In his struggle with OneKiller, he realized the demon processed mana and used it as a core. It functioned remarkably like Will.
‘Beasts are forged using refined mana.’
If that refined energy settled within a predator, it became a magic beast.
Outside of his combat instincts, his thoughts wandered during the gaps of accelerated perception.
Enkrid didn’t fight them.
What truly separated Will, holy power, sorcery, and mana? Where was the boundary?
‘Boundaries are unnecessary. Definitions are what matter.’
That was his final thought.
Will is forged through physical discipline and personal drive.
Magic exists to reshape reality.
Esther’s deeds proved that. She could alter her attire, or turn mana into flame and frost. She could physically manifest things like frozen lances.
The heart of mana is transformation.
Holy power? That is permanence. Like a boulder that refuses to budge.
‘Because it utilizes conviction as its rampart.’
If it held a trace of genuine divine authority, it could even rewrite another’s physical form. Recovery was a facet of that.
‘That is why those ashen fools cannot manifest the glow of restoration.’
Through his observations, he finally understood.
The so-called Gray Holy Units couldn’t produce healing light—but they kept their capacity for violence.
Their tainted faith could no longer be called holy.
He began to grasp the nature of sorcery as well. If Will used refined strength, sorcery harvested potential from the future—assets not yet earned.
‘The Beast’s Heart, the Heart of Might—they are one and the same.’
They violently dragged out what hadn’t been achieved yet.
The cost was the catch. You paid in agonizing muscle failure or a shortened life.
Not all of this was immediately applicable, but categorizing it helped him see his objective.
He began the loop again. He saw the flicker of hope on the fairies’ faces. As OneKiller arrived and the steel began to sing, their looks shifted.
From hope to total despair.
Enkrid watched it all, enduring with a cold mind.
‘High-density muscle.’
The demon OneKiller possessed a physical makeup far beyond the norm. A different density entirely. Like a biological experiment.
‘Was this place designed to breed unique horrors?’
Perhaps OneKiller was the ultimate result of that dark intent.
By some miracle or stroke of genius, he had once succeeded in cutting through the demon’s neck.
That was how he discovered OneKiller didn’t stop once his head was off.
‘Heartless has no heart.’
So piercing the chest wouldn’t end him either. He was like the Undead that Pell had once fought and failed to put down.
How then could he triumph?
He hunted for the solution. Constantly. Violently.
Then he saw a vision. A dream that had nothing to do with the Ferryman.
He had held out as long as he could, using every trick—including the Will of Rejection—and still died from a minor wound.
The dream was fleeting.
Golden hair, eyes of blue, powerful arms, and a massive kite shield that shielded half their frame.
The figure spoke:
“Focus on the initials.”
What?
When the vision faded, the Ferryman was there again.
“Ultimately, you will linger in this cycle of agony.”
This was after more than two hundred loops.
“Just surrender.”
Enkrid detected a flaw in the Ferryman’s speech.
And he had sensed that flaw before.
There were phrases that didn’t align.
The Ferryman couldn’t stumble over words. He projected intent, he didn’t speak.
So the way he had stammered—“You… can’t even crawl, yet you’re attempting to sprint?”—was an anomaly.
His mind raced through the data, skipping steps to find the pattern.
He looked back. Recalling words from months ago was a grueling task, but he managed.
He had used the Ferryman’s lines as markers to count the days.
“You… **c**an’t even crawl, yet you’re attempting to sprint?”
“You’re **s**oft like silver. Too soft.”
“To **f**an a fire, you need both wood and straw.”
“It’s **e**xcessive greed. Save everyone? Protect your rear? Excess upon excess.”
“You **h**alf-wit. You don’t know how to give up? Don’t make me laugh. Change your thinking. Repeating today will drive you mad. That’s your path.”
“**A**nswer me. Don’t you need advice? Even if you don’t reply, I’ll still tell you. That’s my generosity. Now, here’s the way to escape today.”
Take the first letters.
C, S, F, E, H, A.
Crawl, soft, fan, excess, half, answer? No, that wasn’t it.
Just before meeting OneKiller again, his mind—which had once absorbed the collective trauma of the fairy people—accepted this new puzzle.
He didn’t discard everything just because it came from the Ferryman.
‘Crawl… soft… fan… excess… half… answer.’
Waking into a fresh loop, Enkrid caught a glimpse of something.
Perhaps the Ferryman was trying to mislead him. But his gut told him this was a lifeline.
Between the black, unyielding walls, a fissure appeared, and a beam of light hit his hand.
The reason one can find pleasure in facing a wall that seems impossible—because the moment you break through, the satisfaction is unparalleled.
A surge of joy set his nerves on fire once more. Even more intensely than before.
“Hey, demon. Shall we see who breaks first this time?”
That joy was aimed squarely at the monster.
To anyone who wasn’t trapped in the cycle, he was just the same crazed Enkrid.