A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 711

Chapter 711

Under normal circumstances, the members of the Zaun house would have been divided and picked off individually, but they managed to maintain a cohesive structure. This defensive stance was established when Alexandra, the family head, and Lynox stepped to the vanguard, creating a conceptual barricade that halted the advancing tide. Because the mounted lizards were forced to maneuver around this trio, they lost the momentum required for a devastating charge and were forced to reveal their every opening. Before even a portion of the riders could launch an offensive, Enkrid had dispatched Anahera to strike first, shattering their ranks and dragging the encounter into a messy, close-quarters brawl.

Throughout this, Heskal betrayed no anxiety. He mused that sending Ragna to lead the charge instead of Anahera might have caused a total collapse of their order. However, Ragna was far too vital to risk so early. If the head of the family served as the fortification, Ragna was the heavy artillery—designed to be launched into the fray to deal maximum damage. Since the opposition wouldn’t expect a projectile-like assault, there was every reason to utilize him in that capacity. Regardless, there was no window of opportunity to reach Ragna and issue new commands. Enkrid simply had to rely on the warrior to react with his usual competence.

His attention shifted. It wasn’t a sound that alerted him, but a subtle expansion of his awareness catching the faintest trace of something wrong. Even a hand waving behind him or a single breath from thirty feet away would have been enough to trigger his alarms in this heightened state. Despite the chaotic weather, his perception gripped the environment with absolute precision. Following his gut, Enkrid scanned the area and spotted a threat closing in on Riley. It was a group of lizard riders reaching out toward her. Among them was a beast with a sharp muzzle and dark scales flecked with crimson.

It was a rare variant. The kind of creature that would eventually earn a title if it managed to survive the day. Concealed within the seemingly average cluster of Scalers was a contingent of monsters possessing supernatural gifts that made their kin look like harmless pups. Simultaneously, Anahera noticed the incoming threat and cried out that she was being held. She wasn’t physically grabbed, but Enkrid understood her meaning instantly. It was the work of telekinesis.

Enkrid drove his blade into the soil and pushed his senses even further. Several creatures moving with unnatural rhythm flickered across his mind. He refined the sensory data—visuals, sounds, scents, tastes, and textures. Everything reconstructed itself in his consciousness, clicking into place exactly as he envisioned. Like dark ink staining a clean sheet, the monsters with psychic abilities stood out clearly within his mind’s eye. Even while maintaining this sensory detection, his hands remained active.

He pulled a pair of horn-blade daggers from the harness on his chest, one for each hand. Jaxon had once remarked that these were the most hated implements on the continent because they amplified noise instead of suppressing it. To Jaxon, they were an aesthetic and tactical nightmare. Enkrid dismissed the thought as his body moved instinctively. He locked onto the targets his senses had pinpointed. The world around him, particularly the reaching Scalers, seemed to drag in slow motion. A knight’s mental processing speed far exceeds that of a normal person; it felt like stepping into the cracks of time itself, observing the world from a hidden vantage point. It was in these elongated moments that stray thoughts often surfaced.

“Single-point concentration.”

As time dilated, his limbs felt as though they were submerged in thick silt, but his Will surged through him, providing the necessary force to move. With that internal power, he could navigate the temporal sludge with ease. His objective was simple: target and execute the throw. He drew upon Jaxon’s mechanics and Riley’s observations. Both arms pulled back, condensing his strength until it was perfectly balanced, infusing his limbs with Will, and snapping forward with the speed of a whip. The horn-blade daggers sliced through the atmosphere.

The air detonated with a series of sharp, resonant blasts. The blades punched through the skulls of two Scalers currently focusing their telekinetic grip. Each impact produced a heavy, horn-like sound that pierced through the howling storm. The daggers didn’t just lodge themselves; they tore through completely, leaving gaping holes the size of a fist in the monsters’ heads. Even a creature as hardy as a troll wouldn’t survive such a cranial injury. The monsters that had been reaching through the air collapsed, their forms sinking into the saturated earth.

Enkrid pulled his sword from the mud. He realized he could no longer remain a passive observer; the presence of multiple supernatural entities meant he had to dive directly into the heart of this chaotic fray. And those telekinetic beasts were merely the opening act.

A massive crack of thunder echoed, and a heavy, oppressive aura descended from above. Enkrid glanced upward. The storm clouds spiraled, and from the dark vortex, rain droplets merged to form a colossal entity. A giant serpent manifested in the sky—not a dragon, but a long, serpentine horror that hovered over the combatants in league with the monsters. The chilling sensation crawling up his spine confirmed this was the product of high-level sorcery.

He realized they were finally showing their hand. The impact of the spell was instantaneous. The moment the serpent took shape, the monsters grew significantly more violent. The shrieks of the Scalers became more piercing, and his internal warnings blared. Passing Riley, he told her to maintain her position. She snapped back that she was already doing so. As he moved past, Enkrid executed a fluid strike with Three Iron, the blade tracing a rising path that caught a lizard monster coming from below.

The weapon wrapped around the creature’s neck like a bladed lash and tore it away. The lizard had been concealing its presence with great skill, but the rhythm of the rain hitting the ground and the way the droplets were displaced gave it away. Enkrid felt he finally understood Heskal’s strategy. If masters like Kraiss or Abnaier were watching, they would conclude that Heskal intended to finish the battle with one massive blow, but only after grinding down the opposition’s resources.

He was using the monsters to tire out the knight-class combatants, perhaps even planning to use the surviving Zaun soldiers to execute their own kin to break their spirit. In warfare, knights are disproportionate threats; eliminating one is worth more than slaying thousands of common beasts. Strategically, Heskal was a master. Enkrid had to engage now. He had tried to conserve his stamina, but he couldn’t ignore the escalating danger. He had only been playing defense to keep the morale of Riley and the others from crumbling. If the line broke here, the path to the Zaun estate would be unprotected.

His instincts screamed a new warning, and Enkrid whipped his head toward the horizon, telling everyone to stay low. The serpent’s magic was already enhancing the monsters’ physical traits, but now a new horror arrived. A massive supernatural specimen rose at the rear of the enemy lines. It was adorned with hundreds of writhing snakes upon its head—the unmistakable mark of a Medusa.

This creature was five times the size of a Scaler, dwarfing even giants. While its petrifying gaze wasn’t an instant death sentence for those with strong Will, the constant effort required to resist it was a massive drain on one’s internal reserves. Enkrid now faced a battlefield where he had to fight supernatural monsters while resisting a curse that threatened to turn his very blood into stone.

In a standard engagement, his side had the upper hand. Against supernatural variants, the odds were even. With the serpent sorcery active, they were at a disadvantage. Now, with the Medusa present, defeat seemed certain. Heskal had calculated every step. He wasn’t using the Medusa as a brawler, but as a tactical anchor to dominate the field. It was now evident that the creature was the source and conduit for the ongoing ritual. Facing an army backed by a sorcerer and a legendary alchemist was a nightmare scenario. If the entity known as Drmul achieved his divine ambitions, he would surely be known as a god of pestilence.

Enkrid decided the best course of action was to fight without sight. Even with his vast reserves of Will, looking at the Medusa would eventually take its toll. He knew the Zaun practitioners were trained for this; they practiced blindfolded combat from a young age as part of their core curriculum. He ordered everyone to keep their eyes down and fight by feel. Paradoxically, Enkrid kept his own head up. He needed to verify one last thing. The curse only triggered upon visual contact.

Above, the sound of wings beat against the wind. Heskal had held back his aerial forces until the Medusa could provide cover. It was a perfect synergy of ground control and air superiority, or perhaps the flying beasts required the magical field to navigate the gale. Despite the risk, Enkrid stared forward, challenging the petrification. Because of the unique nature of his Will and his refusal to be bound, the curse failed to take hold. Anyone else would have already started hardening into stone.

He wiped the rain from his forehead. His gut and his logic both told him that if they didn’t reveal a hidden advantage and change the momentum, they were lost. Lua Gharne-style combat wasn’t something that could be managed from the safety of the rear. He allowed his subconscious to provide the solution, drawing a mental path based on his intuition. He lowered his head and focused.

He recalled how Lynox used restrained Will to create ripples in the environment and applied that lesson. Enkrid wasn’t a natural-born genius, but his capacity for Will was immense. Because he had so much of it, he could practice for durations that would kill others, making complex techniques more accessible to him than basic ones. He didn’t look at the Medusa; instead, he masked his presence and synchronized his internal frequency with the world around him. It was the same synchronization technique he had seen from Knight Jamal. He could almost hear Rem’s phantom voice berating him for taking so long to master it.

He became a ghost on the battlefield. His breathing became shallow and rhythmic, and he used his sense of taste to catch the subtle changes in the air and rain, gathering data on distance and position. He closed his eyes entirely. Hearing became his primary sense, using the sound of the falling rain as a form of sonar. The world turned into a landscape of black and white, revealing the location and intent of every foe.

Moving according to the patterns of Lua Gharne-style swordsmanship, Enkrid glided through the chaos. Neither his allies nor his enemies noticed his movements. He remained perfectly synchronized, only venting his suppressed Will at the exact moment of impact. His first target was a telekinetic Scaler. He drew Penna and drove it through the creature’s jaw. The blade exited the top of the skull, spraying dark fluids into the rain. He retrieved the weapon and moved eighteen steps in a blur of motion that looked like a casual stroll.

He intercepted an Owlbear that was preparing to launch a volley of toxic feathers. The creature’s natural defense was severed by Three Iron before it could act. Black blood geysered out, vanishing into the storm. Enkrid continued his silent hunt, navigating by sound and only striking when necessary. He took out another Scaler with a reinforced hide, driving Penna through its eye.

He focused his efforts on the three main threats: the telekinetics, the armored brutes, and the hidden stalkers. The black-and-white sensory world was his personal arena. He felt like a predator navigating a web of his own making, utilizing the principles of Aker’s Web to bring order to the chaos through his sword. By merging his training with the Lua Gharne techniques, the task became effortless. In doing so, Enkrid made certain that no one fighting under the Zaun banner near him would fall this day.