A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 722

Chapter 722

If a person could perceive the pressure of their own Will and manipulate it, would it not be possible to reshape its very nature?
“It is possible.”
He had already felt that transformation within his own frame and confirmed it through action. That shimmering, pale radiance dancing across his steel had been the physical manifestation of his concentrated Will pouring into the blade.
If the sword could host such power, his own flesh could as well. He needed only to gather what remained of his spirit, compress it, and set it loose.
With that singular focus, Ragna lashed out with Penna four times.

—

Ragna had positioned himself ahead and slightly to the left of Enkrid as he unleashed his assault.
Drmul stood apart from his two subordinates, creating a visual divide where Enkrid and Drmul seemed like one pair, while Ragna and the other two formed a separate conflict.
Before Ragna had even made his move, Enkrid’s mind had been whirring with frantic assessments.
The tactical swordsmanship of the Lua Gharne style was never a matter of simple reflex.
Raw instinct was merely the flavor Enkrid added to the recipe. The true bedrock of his style was the cold calculation of probability.
“What is the sequence that ensures survival?”
Or perhaps—
“Which path leads to a definite triumph?”
Though his external demeanor remained steady, his internal thoughts moved at a breakneck pace. This theater of war was overflowing with shifting elements.
Among those elements, one massive factor drew Enkrid’s full attention.
Despite his exhaustion, he remained seated in the sodden earth, refusing to waste a flicker of vitality. From that vantage point, he witnessed the disaster closing in on Ragna.
The elder with the three eyes had summoned bolts of lightning with nothing more than a few sharp motions.
Directly in front of Ragna, the horned, mutated scaler thrust out a hand to release a wave of kinetic force.
The downpour was seized and molded by that invisible power. Two colossal palms, constructed entirely of rainwater, began to clap together around Ragna from both sides. It was a display of telekinesis so precise it could weaponize the weather itself. Enkrid had never encountered a scaler with such overwhelming capability.
While maintaining that crushing grip, the mutant lifted its left limb and lunged forward, aimed at Ragna’s skull. Its acceleration was on par with the desperate charge of a knight.
To Enkrid’s heightened senses, that descending hand seemed to crawl through the air.
The atmosphere distorted around the edge of the limb. Just as it seemed to linger, its velocity suddenly doubled.
He didn’t have the mental capacity left for formal calculations.
The sudden chaos had distracted him, and his body was in a state of total collapse. But above all else, it was his gut feeling that took over.
A faint command echoed from the back of his mind: Do not look away from this.
An instant before the electrical discharge reached Ragna, Enkrid’s entire focus narrowed onto the young man’s weapon.
A halo of light clung to Ragna’s edge. Even the falling rain seemed to disintegrate before making contact.
It was Will, crushed into a visible glow. Ragna struck.
The first movement was a horizontal sweep from the left. As Penna carved through the air, it caught the lightning like a tether, dragging the energy sideways and burying it harmlessly into the soil.
Without losing momentum, the sword snapped forward in a straight line, meeting the scaler-mutant’s downward strike.
Ragna’s lunge punched a hole straight through the palm and buried itself deep within the horned cranium.
BOOM!
The roar of the lightning striking the earth drowned out the sound of splitting bone and flesh. The two events occurred almost as one.
That was the sheer velocity of Ragna’s execution. One sweep to the left. One thrust forward.
It appeared as though two separate warriors had struck at the exact same moment—the transition was that flawless.
But he was far from finished.
He yanked his blade free and sprinted toward the three-eyed elder, swinging once more.
In a heartbeat, a multitude of defensive layers—magical wards, enchanted trinkets, and shielding runes—flared to life to protect the old man.
Even the singular eye embedded in his brow burned with a desperate crimson light.
Yet, not a single barrier could halt the passage of the steel.
The elder didn’t even have time to scream. Ragna’s blade drew a perfect, horizontal line across his throat.
Having landed three strikes, Ragna launched himself forward again.
His frame, much like Enkrid’s had done earlier, had transcended its physical boundaries. To a common observer, it would have looked like he had simply vanished and reappeared.
There was no blur, no delay. He bridged the gap in a flash, and his final blow descended toward Drmul’s head.
Regrettably, the steel never found its target.
CLANG! CRAAAACK!
An invisible wall intervened.
Was it misfortune? No, it was inevitable.
“Sorcerers are full of tricks.”
Enkrid thought back to the lessons Esther had given him.
A web of fractures spread through the air around Drmul. The very space seemed to shatter like a windowpane, splintering into a thousand shards.
That was the protective enchantment that had shielded Drmul for four decades—now finally pulverized.
“Commendable,” Drmul whispered, a lazy wave of his hand following.
A blunt force of telekinesis slammed into Ragna’s chest.
WHAM!
After those four explosive movements, Ragna had nothing left to give. He was tossed aside like a discarded toy. This time, he lacked the strength to recover in the air and simply tumbled across the muddy field.
Thud. Thump.
In his current state, he likely couldn’t have fended off a common scavenger.
Even so, his fingers remained locked around the hilt of Penna.
Collapsing in the dirt, Ragna spat out a mouthful of red. He attempted to haul himself up by shoving his sword into the muck. His entire body trembled.
Soaked with filth and rain, his hair was plastered to his face, which was now a mask of gore and grime.
Blackened rainwater, stained with his own blood, ran down his jawline and dripped from his chin.
“I have sowed the seeds of pestilence within you. Do not move. You will find that death will not claim you, even if you beg for it.”
Ragna was beyond responding. Blood leaked from his nose and lips. His gaze was vacant—perhaps he was unconscious, or perhaps he was simply hanging on by a thread.
Nevertheless, he continued to struggle, using his sword as a crutch against the earth.
Enkrid could no longer remain silent.
“Did you catch that? A ‘mere swordsman’ managed to do all that.”
Two of your companions are rotting in the mud. Only one is left.
It was a blatant attempt to goad him.
“You are all remarkably touched in the head,” Drmul answered.
He sounded vaguely annoyed, but there was no sign of true alarm.
The reason was simple: the two who had perished meant nothing to him.
His only concern was his own divinity and his manifestation in this realm.
“Step forward, then. I still have some fight in me,” Enkrid challenged.
Observing Ragna’s grit and endurance had ignited a spark of heat in his own chest.
He wanted nothing more than to butcher the decaying monster standing before him. Let it happen.
He reached for Three Iron—
But then, Ragna’s voice cracked through the air.
“Come on. I’ll deal with you.”
The specific meaning of his words didn’t matter. The sheer defiance behind them was unmistakable.
Even in a state of near-delirium, his willpower was burning bright.
Enkrid ground his teeth together.
His perceptions were too frayed to notice someone approaching.
“That is enough. My son.”
A silhouette blocked the falling rain above Ragna’s broken form.
The man walking toward them was Tempest Zaun.
Ragna’s father.
He rested a heavy hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“It is finished.”
His tone was devoid of sentiment. It was merely a statement of fact.
Lynox limped up beside him, grumbling about his back acting up.
Enkrid was on the verge of asking why they had arrived so soon, why they hadn’t waited for the dawn as discussed—but the words died in his throat.
This wild card, the one he had hoped for, hadn’t been late at all.
And now, Enkrid found himself speechless.
Neither of the newcomers looked well. Lynox, in particular, was in a grim state.
His left arm was gone.
Catching Enkrid’s eyes, the veteran warrior who had spent his life guarding the Zaun line smirked.
“Looks like I’ll have to get used to using only three blades now.”
He had been famous for handling six with both hands. Now, only one remained in his possession.
And yet, he still found the breath to joke.
Could such a limb be restored? Not unless Seiki negotiated a miracle with the deities she had turned her back on.
“I… I…”
Ragna continued to mutter to himself, oblivious to the hand resting on him.
Everyone present had witnessed his feat.
The three-eyed elder was missing his head. The horned chimera had a hollowed-out skull.
After plunging Penna into her, Ragna had twisted the steel, grinding her insides to pulp. The exit wound was ragged—torn apart as if by a blunt instrument.
In short: they were finished.
He had ended two of them—and nearly claimed the third.
Drmul watched the newcomers arrive, but his expression remained indifferent.
“You survived. Somehow. Did Heskal fail his duty? Or did your lot simply surpass my estimates?”
Drmul didn’t show fear—he showed curiosity. To display such resilience…
Everything he had set in motion now lay ruined on the ground. He had prepared burials for them, but he hadn’t anticipated this outcome. It was genuinely surprising.
And because of that, he felt a small sense of gratification.
This would be his final bit of entertainment before ascending to the divine.
He looked down on the group.
His physical form had expanded. Now, his head sat two levels higher than Enkrid’s.
Charred bone protruded from his rotting skin like a support structure, holding up his grotesque shape.
Throbbed, swollen veins snaked between those bones, reinforcing the massive frame.
“You shall all be reborn. I will grant you a new existence by saturating you with my divinity.”
He spoke as if anyone had asked for such a thing.
“You,” the head of the family said.
He moved forward, completely disregarding Drmul’s speech. The monster’s growing stature was a curiosity, but clearly irrelevant to him.
He was also covered in lacerations. The cuts didn’t bleed red; they had turned a sickly black. Tainted by poison.
He advanced with heavy, purposeful strides.
Ten steps or fewer. If he charged now and swung his massive blade, Drmul’s throat would be within his reach.
Meanwhile, Drmul’s neck lengthened in an unnatural fashion, his chin tilting up as he peered down at them.
“You are even more repulsive than I pictured,” Tempest Zaun remarked.
Behind him, Lynox gave a curt nod of agreement.
“Quite right. He is a mess.”
Drmul looked down at the survivors.
“You helped that boy survive. I truly should have ended him sooner.”
Drmul’s motivations and movements were beyond human comprehension.
And he had no desire for them to understand.
A deity does not seek validation from the things it creates.
Nonetheless, he felt compelled to speak:
“Why do these miserable, flailing things fight back so desperately?”
Even if they couldn’t grasp his meaning, surely his magnificence and his trials deserved to be voiced.
That was not a request for understanding—it was the delivery of a sermon.
“There was a time when a reaper whispered in my ear. Yes, many years ago. I concocted a very particular elixir during that era. It allowed me to exist on a different plane of time.”
He spoke with the cadence of a priest.
“What do you imagine would happen if a single day lasted twice as long for me?”
Drmul had always been gifted with rare skill—but his hunger was bottomless.
He had plunged into the depths of alchemy and eventually breached the realm of sorcery.
In that pursuit, he had crossed into the Demon Realm. He had walked through the Empire. He had pried into the deepest mysteries of the continent.
And only then did he discover his true ambition:
To ascend as a god.
“That elixir was merely a minor byproduct of my investigations into eternal life and the state of undeath.”
His decaying lips pulled back into a grin—bits of dead flesh sloughing off onto the ground. It was a nauseating sight.
Now his skin began to glisten like a polished stone—smooth and incredibly dense.
But it lacked clarity. It was like a jewel filled with sewage.
“Pay heed. These are the opening words of my holy decree.”
Drmul’s voice began to layer upon itself, creating a haunting echo.
To Enkrid, it felt exactly like the pressure of standing before a demon.
A creature with a motive and a worldview so foreign it felt fundamentally wrong—completely at odds with man or beast.
A suffocating weight settled over the world. Even the falling rain seemed to vanish from awareness.
It was a sense of total dominance—or perhaps a gravitational pull. It drew in every bit of consciousness.
Once he had completely suppressed the area, Drmul began to recite the first line of his gospel with his putrid tongue:
“One day for the masses was ten for me. And I have lived through more than a hundred of those spans. This is the path by which the mundane overtakes the extraordinary. The rise of a man who moved beyond demons to become a god!”
The booming, layered voice rattled the very soul.
Even the atmosphere seemed to bow to his proclamation, as if the air itself were kneeling.
In that moment, Enkrid whispered, almost without realizing it—
“Is that all?”
The words were soft. But in that heavy silence, everyone heard them.