A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 712

Chapter 712

Utilizing the tactical swordplay of the Lua Gharne style, Enkrid etched innumerable paths into the air, wiping them away only to forge new ones.
“Transform my physical form into a solitary blade.”
He treated strategy as a mere extension of his martial craft, allowing him to carve a path through the chaotic front lines.
By suppressed instinct, he masked both his physical presence and his internal Will—propelling himself solely through the raw power of his honed physique. In this state of focused emptiness, he unleashed the Three Iron technique upon his next foe.
A wider stance with his left leg might have granted him superior leverage, but the pressing reality of the brawl offered no room for such perfection.
Instead, he maintained a tight, efficient stride, whipping his waist to funnel rotational energy into the stabbing motion.
The accumulated strain within his muscles condensed into a point and erupted, reinforced by his Will.
The steel slid effortlessly through the hard exterior of the Scaler, piercing the jaw and shattering the upper reaches of its cranium.
Thunk! Splk.
He jerked the weapon back, pulling a trail of gore and grey matter with it—though the torrential downpour immediately cleansed the blade of all filth.
BOOOOM!
A sudden roar of lightning detonated nearby, punishing his eardrums. The landscape, which had been defined by the rhythmic drumming of water, was bleached into a blinding white. For a heartbeat, the radiance stole his sight entirely.
Enkrid stilled his body, intentionally muting his sensory input.
He remained frozen for a moment as the world vibrated violently, as if the very bedrock were failing.
However, this pause was not a waste of precious moments.
He lived every day with absolute intent, and in this crisis, he demanded the highest density of action from every passing second.
And so, he acted.
“Limit all excess.”
During that flash of stillness, he replayed the execution of the previous beast in his mind.
Had his approach been too sluggish?
Because of that slight delay, a small youth—one practicing a blend of Ail Caraz martial arts and sword techniques—had been momentarily ensnared by a telekinetic grip.
That single lapse had brought the boy to the threshold of the grave.
Enkrid had witnessed it—the winged Scaler plunging from above, zeroing in on the child.
While Riley’s thrown blade had intercepted the predator, the young warrior had still suffered a deep gash along his arm.
The wound was more severe than a simple graze, weeping blood. It appeared the creature’s talons were laced with toxins, as the boy’s reflexes began to falter.
He wasn’t dead yet—but their combat strength had just lost another vital piece.
If these small failures persisted, their defensive line would shatter.
To state it plainly:
“He nearly perished.”
An unbidden vision flickered in his consciousness—the body of a child discarded in the churning mud under the dark sky. Though it hadn’t materialized, the image haunted him.
It was an unacceptable outcome.
Enkrid refused to allow a single soul under his protection to fall.
What was the solution?
“Pose the inquiry. Discover the resolution.”
That was the core philosophy of Lua Gharne-style tactical engagement.
Ssssshhhhhhhh…
The rain redoubled its fury, defining the monochromatic world once more. He closed his eyes, navigating the space through the medium of sound.
To the question of “how,” there was only one conclusion:
“Eradicate inaccuracy.”
Perfection is an illusion, and simply reducing mistakes is insufficient.
What was the next step? He had to streamline his movement to reclaim time, granting his allies the room they needed to survive.
How could he map the most efficient route?
“Establish the coordinates.”
Then, bridge those coordinates using the most direct path possible.
It was like sprinting along the jagged lip of a precipice, operating at the absolute margin of his capabilities.
Crack.
His ankle snapped with precision, rebounding off the earth. His footwear bit into the saturated soil, mashing the mud into a solid platform for his weight.
Enkrid lunged toward the first mental coordinate.
To an observer looking down on the carnage, the flowing curves of his previous movements would now appear as sharp, jagged lines.
“Ignore the irrelevant.”
He would only deflect, strike, or bisect whatever stood directly in his path.
Clutching Three Iron in his right hand and Penna in his left, he surged forward with rapid, percussive movements. He internalized the pulse of the struggle. Intuition identified the next mark. He whirled—driving Three Iron outward in a casual, lethal thrust.
Shunk!
The sword’s point found the joint of a Scaler gripping a dark polearm. Enkrid didn’t break his momentum.
Crack!
Even a master-crafted edge doesn’t part flesh through contact alone, particularly against the armored hide of a Scaler.
Yet, Enkrid forced the blade through.
How? Through sheer, unadulterated power.
It wasn’t a clean cut; it was a rupture.
He buried the steel near the joint and, instead of a clean withdrawal, he wrenched it away. The resulting wound was jagged and twice as excruciating as a standard slice.
Screeeeeee!
The monster’s howl served as a beacon, alerting every nearby horror to Enkrid’s location—but he had already vanished into the gloom.
He kept moving, both blades held low and ready.
CRASHHHHH.
The deluge continued to wash over his steel and his skin. Because of the storm, he didn’t need to stop to clean the blood from his gear.
Perhaps it was due to his heightened state—or the sheer force of the gale—but it felt as though the wind was whistling through his very ribs, granting him a peculiar sense of clarity.
“Perhaps I only feel this light because I am taking charge of the outcome.”
Regardless of the cause, his limbs never ceased their work.
Clack, ping, thud, splk.
To others, it was the cacophony of war. To Enkrid, it was a sequence of sensory data etched into his mind. Guided by sound, he systematically dismantled the monstrous threats.
That singular effort began to shift the tides of the engagement.
Could one person truly alter the course of a massive river?
If someone painstakingly moved every boulder and dug without ceasing, they might eventually change the flow. Such legends existed.
It might take a lifetime of labor.
But a knight was a force of nature. He could reshape the flow of a battle in a matter of heartbeats.
Just as a tremor creates new valleys—so could a knight redefine the field.
As Enkrid was doing at this very moment.
Sssaaaaaaaaak!
The serpent hovering in the air let out a piercing cry that saturated the battlefield. Even Enkrid’s pulse aligned itself with the vibration.
“The weight of a true predator.”
The sound alone triggered a primal instinct to flee—a cold shiver running down his spine.
It was a baseless dread, a formless horror meant to provoke a reaction from his very biology.
It demanded that he succumb to terror.
Naturally, it failed to move Enkrid. And no one in this company would break under such a superficial threat—yet the oppressive atmosphere remained.
Right on time, Riley’s voice cut through the chaos from the rear, burning with fury. Enkrid tracked him through sound. Even across the distance, his perception held firm.
That was the advantage of sightless vision, despite its limitations—a world of echoes lacked color. He couldn’t see the tension in a man’s throat, for instance.
But his mind could fill in those details easily enough.
“Anyone with a spare moment—catch your breath!”
Riley’s shout undoubtedly came with strained muscles and a red face.
“WOOOOHOO!”
Anahera’s voice echoed from another flank.
These were the pillars holding back the tide. But they weren’t inexhaustible.
“Save your energy for the final push.”
In that regard, Riley was a brilliant second-in-command. Battling with a prosthetic meant his endurance faded faster than most. Even in his first major conflict, he clearly understood—if he didn’t pace himself, he would fall.
He fought with calculated restraint.
“Wait.”
Enkrid didn’t pause his slaughter, nor did he look up—but he sensed it.
A stare. Saturated with malice and a hunger for death.
From beyond the grey veil of the storm, the entity serving as the focal point for the ritual was watching him.
The gaze of Medusa.
Even without direct eye contact, the sheer weight of it was undeniable.
“A horror that only a knight would dare to face.”
That was why her mere attention carried such physical force.
Primal, high-ranking entities naturally projected an aura similar to a knight’s pressure. They sowed fear into anything they considered food.
Like a creature paralyzed before a predator—so were men and other sentient beings.
The serpent’s scream from above was likely a component of Medusa’s mental assault.
In the Abyss of the Demon Realm, such terrors were commonplace.
It was why civilization had never tamed the Demon Realm—they simply survived it.
Was he afraid? Not in the slightest.
One day, he intended to confront every horror within those borders.
If the path were easy, it wouldn’t be a dream. Enkrid’s ambitions were always steep. They always bordered on the impossible.
“I will bring them all down.”
A goal so focused left no room for hesitation.
Suddenly, the genius of Heskal struck him once more.
Rather than throwing Medusa into the fray, he used her as a battery for the ritual—the efficiency of the plan was staggering.
A superior way to utilize an asset.
A strategy designed to bleed them dry over time.
Indeed—Heskal remained as cunning as ever.
How many had Enkrid slain by this point?
The count was lost to him. He cut and thrust, thinned the ranks without flashy displays or wasted power—just the silent, surgical removal of lives through controlled Will.
His current sensory bubble was twice as expansive as normal vision allowed.
Which was why, before his reflexes even signaled danger, he had already mapped out his attackers.
“Talented.”
Someone had been observing him and had constructed a snare.
As he moved between his mental coordinates, he sensed eight marksmen with bows leveled at him—even through the gale, their projectiles hovered with a dark, oily menace.
Among them stood a ‘human’ in a helm—his plates glowing softly in the rain, crafted from a material that was both delicate and radiant.
By all appearances, he was the target who had walked straight into a trap.
The fact that his auditory senses had only just detected them meant this ambush was expertly hidden.
Perhaps it was luck. Perhaps not. But it felt intentional.

—

“I thought they said this man was merely a standard knight?”
The protégé of Drmul possessed a monster’s eye grafted into his brow—allowing him to follow Enkrid’s blur of motion.
Heskal lacked such an organ and couldn’t perceive Enkrid’s presence directly. But he was a master of reading the results.
Wherever Enkrid passed, the elite monsters began to fall. Connecting the dots was simple.
And from a distance, the layout of the struggle was easier to parse.
“When close, you see the bark. From afar, you see the timber.”
A laborer only needs to swing at the trunk in front of him. But a master of the land watches the whole territory—only removing what is required.
Heskal was the master of the land.
“I am surprised as well.”
“Nothing is aligning with our forecasts.”
“We are engaging Zaun. It is only natural they possess this level of grit.”
“It doesn’t look like Zaun is the one providing that grit, does it?”
Which made the situation even more remarkable. That the plague—potent enough to be deemed a curse—had been contained was equally impressive.
“Border Guard Enkrid. You are a formidable combatant.”
To Heskal, that was the true variable.
He could have voiced his respect, but he simply answered with his characteristic coldness:
“I have a contingency. It was intended for Lynox, but it will suffice for this one.”
Heskal stated.
The eye in the student’s forehead pulsed twice, refocusing.
He looked toward the patriarch and Alexandra.
“Are you simply leaving them be?”
The question was blunt, but Heskal grasped the meaning instantly.
This entire theater of war was a painting within his own mind.
“They haven’t been pushed far enough. Those who should be crippled by the sickness are still fighting with vigor.”
“Blasphemy. Are you suggesting the gods have failed?”
“Not at all.”
He had anticipated Zaun’s resilience.
Even after eliminating Milescia to prevent this outcome—they persisted.
Well, life rarely follows a perfect script. If it were simple, they wouldn’t have needed such elaborate schemes.
“This is merely the opening act.”
With those words, Heskal looked toward the heavens.
The heavy clouds and biting rain made it nearly impossible to look up.
Without a mutated eye, there was no way to see the sky clearly.
Perhaps that was for the best.
“Huuuh.”
Despite claiming it was only the beginning, Heskal released a heavy breath.
There was a trace of regret in that sigh, though Drmul’s apprentice likely missed it.
His eye was supernatural—but his ears were still bound by flesh.
The student couldn’t interfere. Others would have to step in.
Though the mental image had been smeared, the final goal remained unchanged.
Heskal saw the road ahead. The destination was the same. Victory belonged to him.
“Do you desire a seat among the divine? Then remain steadfast, Heskal of Zaun.”
“I understand.”
Heskal took a step. It was time for his personal intervention.
“Inform your master to release the final preparations.”
“With a single Death Knight, the patriarch and those with him can be erased.”
“That is your assessment. I am the architect of this engagement.”
Andante had been pulled back from the veil as a knight. Perhaps that was enough to end Alex.
Perhaps not.
“If you fail, even your master’s protection won’t save you.”
“If we fail and I remain, I will end my own life. Rest assured.”
He was dead serious.
Heskal approached everything with absolute sincerity. He had learned that from the patriarch himself.
“Whatever your path, walk it with sincerity.”
Even in betrayal—you must be sincere.
That philosophy of the patriarch had dictated Heskal’s very style of combat.
Even his feints were delivered with honest intent.
He didn’t expect his sword to reach the patriarch.
So where should he strike?
The path was obvious.
“I ask for your forgiveness.”
If he took the life of Ragna—the returned son—then perhaps the patriarch’s iron resolve would finally crack.
That moment of weakness would provide the opening they needed.
As four horrors moved to pin down the patriarch, Heskal began his advance toward Ragna.
At that exact moment, Ragna also began to walk forward.