A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 714

Chapter 714

The shimmer in her gaze, the metallic gauntlets, the conditioned muscle once clad in plate, the minute adjustments, the downpour, the gale, and the murderous intent permeating the heavy air—
Alexandra took in every vital detail and stored it in her consciousness.
It was the identical process Enkrid frequently utilized—analyzing the environment and converting it into a combat asset.
However…
‘You aren’t the only person capable of such feats.’
Despite the tempest’s fury, Alexandra’s concentration remained fixed on the adversary.
She blocked out the world, shrinking her awareness until only two beings remained—herself and her foe.
By doing so, she could nullify the petrification of the Medusa’s gaze.
Naturally, the hex would still exert pressure from beyond her focused perception.
But she lacked the opportunity to decapitate the Medusa at this moment.
Consequently, she opted for total apathy toward it.
She discarded all distractions, centering herself with absolute resolve.
The rain ceased to exist for her. The howling winds and the battering storm faded into nothingness.
She entered a realm where only she and her rival stood.
Within the companion who had crawled back from the grave, traces of the living woman remained.
Past the helmet leaking dark mist, she caught sight of the familiar long plait.
Andante had always kept her hair at a great length.
It was Alexandra who had discouraged her from cutting it, insisting its beauty shouldn’t be squandered.
After receiving lessons on how to braid it, Andante had never changed her style.
‘You really did keep it long after that conversation.’
Eventually, she had even tucked daggers within those braids—though it had started as a jest.
Ssssss…
The dark vapor coalesced, flowing into the visor.
It resembled a grim sacrament performed before the onset of carnage.
Alexandra dug her toes into the earth with renewed tension.
She and Andante never engaged in drawn-out skirmishes.
Their preference had always been for the decisive, single-strike duel.
Because of this, Andante had cherished their training sessions while alive.
“When death feels like it’s breathing on my neck, the world stops looking so violently crimson.”
She would remark with a grin, even while blood poured from a gash in her leg.
The crimson world—Andante often claimed that was her visual reality.
To a stranger, it sounded like madness, but to her, it was the result of a dark history that birthed a ravenous hunger.
A hunger only sated by the act of killing.
That bloodlust sharpened into a literal edge, thrusting directly toward Alexandra.
The aura became a jagged, gory blade that almost grazed her skin.
Yet Alexandra remained motionless.
They were like two acrobats balanced on a wire high above the ground.
‘Let’s conclude this with one movement, Andante.’
What is the result of a warrior combined with disaster—and then touched by the void?
The conclusion stood before her.
Andante was destined to move with more ferocity and speed than she ever possessed in life.
Alexandra didn’t need to test her steel to realize that.
Andante held various tactical edges now.
Principally, she did not respire. One cannot predict the rhythm of a corpse.
Furthermore, she required no physical preparation or wind-up—she could unleash maximum power instantly.
That raw, predatory reflex was a gift bestowed upon the death knight.
The solitary relief was that her Will remained static.
A soldier’s Will is difficult to cultivate—and after the heart stops, it ceases to grow entirely.
Only the resolve held in life remained accessible.
Additionally, her physical form could mend itself with speed.
This dictated that only the skull and spine were viable targets.
And inevitably, the foe was aware of this vulnerability as well.
‘She will move with the pure instinct to slay.’
To an observer, the pair simply stood in a hollow silence.
Neither had unsheathed their weapon.
Their limbs were relaxed, their stances seemingly careless.
A passerby might have mistaken them for friends about to clasp hands.
But death knights are not known for their hospitality.
CRACK!
A streak of brilliant lightning tore the firmament between them.
Even then, there was no movement.
After a tension-filled pause that felt both eternal and fleeting, Alexandra initiated the strike.
She dropped her weight, launched off the sodden earth, and charged.
Before her frame had fully displaced, her palm was already locked onto her hilt.
Blitzkling—she was known as the “Lightning Blade.”
Named so because her draw was as swift as a bolt from the heavens.
She had never revealed this level of velocity even during her bouts with Enkrid.
Even with Lynox watching, she maintained hidden cards that were never played in practice.
Of course she did.
She compressed the internal Will and triggered a total eruption.
That violent release allowed her to transcend her physical constraints for a heartbeat.
BOOM!
A concussive blast.
Her steel shredded the atmosphere and bypassed the flow of time to reach her target.
CLANG!
Andante, in her undead state, reacted to Alexandra’s incredible speed.
However, she didn’t parry—she counter-thrusted.
Had Alexandra maintained her trajectory, she would have been impaled through the midsection, achieving nothing more than a dent on Andante’s armor.
Instead, she accelerated a second time.
BOOM—
A second detonation echoed in her mind.
It wasn’t a physical sound, but a sensory overload caused by the combustion of her remaining spirit.
Her torso rotated mid-lunge.
The blade traveled in a jagged lightning pattern and impacted the death knight’s visor.
CLANG!
The metal shattered, and dark smoke erupted.
Alexandra’s vision bled into red.
Hot fluid leaked from her nostrils, and her knees buckled.
She pivoted, her sight clouded by a ruby haze, and glimpsed the decayed cranium within the ruined helm.
WHRRRRRRRRR.
In her wake, a vortex had formed—a hollow tunnel carved out of the falling rain.
Only now, after the singular clash, did the environment show the physical trauma of her movement.
“Ghhh…”
A sword saturated with Will—a branded blade—had cleaved the skull.
Even the dead can be ended.
Sever the head, and the spirit departs.
Andante’s final utterance was a low groan.
Her genuine final words had likely been reserved for Heskal.
“Khak!”
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut, allowing the bloody droplets to be swept away by the storm.
She sank to a knee, using her sword as a crutch.
Then she whispered,
“Andante, if you’ve found peace… then leave.”
Andante had once expressed a wish to witness a blade faster than her own.
She finally had.
A double-detonation of Will—it was a suicidal maneuver.
And she had executed it twice.
The second burst was far more destructive than the first.
Her stomach felt as though her organs had been shredded.
Her head felt as if it were being split by an axe.
The agony was so profound she felt the shadow of death loom.
Her insides were a knot of pain, and she couldn’t find the strength to stand.
But it was acceptable.
She had mastered this technique in her youth, and though it had rendered her barren, she harbored no bitterness.
She had not carried a child in her body, but she had nurtured one in her soul.
And ultimately, the skill she had perfected served to defend her people.
‘Still… this is quite punishing.’
Back in Zaun, Alexandra’s condition hadn’t been severe. Merely a nagging cough.
But with her body broken like this, the sickness flared up in response.
An intense shivering seized her.
It was only a single strike—but that one cut had put down a death knight.
She had fulfilled her duty.
The issue was that the war raged on.
‘But I am paralyzed.’
Aerial predators circled above, closing in.
And the Medusa’s gaze continued to burn.
The curse she had previously bypassed now felt like an iron shroud.
Alexandra lowered her head to escape the creature’s stare.
The arcane serpents still thrashed above, and the Medusa drifted over the carnage, wings beating, sending her minions to finish the job.
‘This is a dire situation.’
As if the intellect within one particular lizard-beast was especially lacking, it charged her with reckless abandon.
Alexandra appeared to be barely clinging to life, leaning heavily on her weapon.
The wild lizard-beast unhinged its jaws to crush her skull.
Alexandra drew and cut.
Then she hammered her sword back into the mud.
Her arm moved with a velocity that defied human sight.
SPLAT!
The creature collapsed before her, the top of its head sliced clean away, its mouth still locked open.
That act alone spoke volumes of her remaining lethality.
‘I really mean it, this is not good.’
She lacked the breath to even form words.
Furthermore, the swarm of beasts was only increasing.
The reason was easy to deduce.
‘Tempe.’
He was being obstructed—even with Lynox at his side.
‘That snake Heskal… his scent is all over this.’
He had orchestrated every detail.
Turning Andante into a monstrosity.
Deploying her to this exact spot.
Who he predicted would emerge victorious, Alexandra couldn’t say.
But her death here would significantly damage Zaun’s chances of survival.
Her perception began to fade, and she felt the heavy chill of her soaked garments.
A terminal sign.
‘Someone needs to deal with that hideous snake-woman.’
Between the petrification and the spell-serpents, the field was a nightmare.
One of the scalers utilizing telekinetic power seized her weapon.
A spectral force tightened around her steel.
Then, behind her, she felt a shadow.
Her failing senses didn’t alert her until the figure was practically touching her.
‘This is a disaster.’
She wrenched her sword from the mental grip and swung blindly behind her.
She possessed the strength for one final effort.
If this was the curtain call, she would strike and cry out her husband’s name.
If she was doomed, he’d better be the one to settle the score.
And if not…
She would die here and haunt his next attempt at happiness.
Without a doubt.
‘So rescue me, Tempe.’
She calculated the space between her and the shadow at her back.
She tore her blade free and lashed out.
CRACK—WHOOSH—THUD!
The strike was parried.
The intruder raised their blade in a vertical guard and stopped her momentum effortlessly.
Then they closed the distance—instantly.
Too rapidly for her to even whisper her husband’s name.

—

Enkrid surveyed the collection of arrows suspended in the air.
From that sight alone, he realized—this location had been the destination for nearly every monster with psychic gifts.
There were undoubtedly many creatures capable of telekinesis, but those were mere distractions.
He didn’t need intuition to see it. The proof was manifest.
Without moving a muscle, five monsters stood paralyzed with focus—each levitating more than ten arrows.
Fifty poisoned-tipped shafts hung in the void, all centered on him.
Once they were unleashed, the situation would become chaotic.
Moreover, the tips were a suspicious pitch-black.
Enkrid would have staked Rem’s limb on the fact that they were coated in toxin.
“I am Panito, the right hand of Lord Heskal.”
The commander of the trap finally spoke.
Enkrid shifted his gaze to meet him.
The muted glow of the warrior’s plate suggested it was an artifact of significant power.
Kraiss would have been obsessed with it.
Panito seemed certain that he had Enkrid trapped. His body language radiated confidence.
Observing that arrogance sparked a realization in Enkrid.
‘Does being ensnared in a trap mean the game is over?’
Hardly. A concept flooded his mind in a heartbeat. No—a moment of clarity. A flash of brilliance.
‘Integrate the Blade of Coincidence with the Tactical Sword.’
Use the Tactical Sword as the foundation for calculation—inject flashes of brilliance, and bring luck and random chance under his command.
Everything is a tool for leverage. That is the essence of strategy.
His brain, operating at a fever pitch, provided the solution.
And so, Enkrid spoke—his voice sounding like a tuned instrument, steady and purposeful.
“Everything is unfolding exactly as I intended.”
It wasn’t. He was genuinely trapped.
But if he could weave coincidence into his narrative, then this predicament was also a component of his design.
“…You predicted this?”
Panito asked, his voice thick with skepticism.
“Naturally.”
Enkrid’s delivery was unwavering.
Compared to Ragna, who could lie about the very sun in the sky with a straight face, this was minor deception.
“Astounding. Enkrid of the Border Guard.”
Enkrid had never faced Panito in combat before.
Many of Heskal’s elites were seldom seen due to overseas assignments—Panito was likely among them.
Panito was visibly shaken, and Enkrid’s thoughts drifted for a moment.
Since he had decided to claim coincidence as intent, making it believable was now a matter of martial philosophy.
Tactics rely on misdirection—therefore, the Lua Gharne-style Tactical Sword was effectively the sword of mirage.
An epiphany struck him.
The Valen-style mercenary blade never bothered explaining the mechanics of a swing.
That was because it was an illusion.
Strategy is built on falsehoods. If he continued to probe the Tactical Sword, he might discover the next evolution of his path.
A combat style rooted in deceit—no, a philosophy of the blade based entirely on misdirection.
He couldn’t codify it now. It was a seed to be planted for later.
For now, there was the immediate threat.
“You concentrated all the elite psychic monsters here, planning to eliminate a single knight and then steamroll your legions into Zaun, correct?”
He said it because he had deciphered the enemy’s goal.
Once the opponent shows their cards, the logic behind the play becomes clear.
“Correct. You even saw through that?”
Panito was clearly not gifted enough to mask his astonishment. Either that, or Enkrid’s performance was flawless.
Enkrid stepped forward, moving as if walking the exact line the Tactical Sword dictated.
“Yes. Everything is proceeding according to the plan.”
If Kraiss were present, he’d label him the finest charlatan on the continent.
If Lua Gharne were observing, she would be gleefully applauding.
“Nobody passes me.”
That part was the absolute truth. Regardless of whether it was a plan, the moment Enkrid stood his ground, his duty was set.
By now, even that scoundrel Ragna likely understood his own objective.
“Knowing the truth won’t give you the power to stop it.”
Panito ground his teeth.
Realizing that someone had dismantled his master’s grand design sparked a bitter jealousy. That envy surged into fury—and a desperate need to extinguish the man before him.