A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 777

Chapter 777

Matched blades swung at him in an erratic cadence. Enkrid parried every single blow by employing Dawn Tempering. He wasn’t necessarily the faster combatant; he simply adjusted his stance and footwork to extend the distance the enemy’s steel had to travel.

Ting, tidididing.

Reacting to this, his adversary shifted his own steps, closing the gap while maintaining a flurry of slashes. Their trajectories tangled and collided, birthing a shower of sparks between them. Eventually, as their weapons locked in a tight bind, the opponent spoke.

“You possess some skill.”

They stood eye-to-eye, so close that the man’s breath was almost palpable. Enkrid, wearing a mask of indifference, drove his knee upward. He targeted the groin, but the foe sprang back with the grace of a forest sprite. The fluidity of the movement reminded Enkrid of Jaxon.

Knowing the man wouldn’t retreat without a parting gift, Enkrid braced himself. His intuition was correct. As the man’s retreating foot hit the floor, a projectile needle hissed through the air toward him. Simultaneously, the twin blades were hurled forward. The weapons had been modified; a wave of intense heat washed over Enkrid’s skin before the metal even arrived.

Heightened perception allowed him to dissect the trickery in real-time. In his mind’s eye, Dawn Tempering transformed into a bulwark against a rising tide—a mental manifestation of the Wavebreaker Sword Style powered by his sharp focus.

‘The swordsmanship belongs to the wielder.’

The blade is a mere instrument; the style is the execution. Segregating them was pointless. Whether utilizing Flash or Wavebreaker, the true path lay in their integration. With a brief internal nod, Enkrid swatted away the barrage.

He deflected the needle with a low-sweeping motion of Dawn Tempering, the resulting air pressure blowing the projectile off course. The two thrown swords were swiped aside with precise taps from his hilt. The searing warmth from the blades licked his skin, feeling like the brief touch of a boiling cauldron before it was yanked away.

As the discarded swords clattered against the stone—

“Clever maneuvers.”

The man lunged forward the moment his hands were empty, closing in to grapple. He hooked his fingers, clearly aiming to snap bone or tear flesh. Enkrid anticipated the sequence immediately.

‘A feinted grab to mask a puncture.’

He likely held a concealed weapon. It was a step above the Hide Knife technique; several small spikes were tucked away in the man’s sleeves. Enkrid brought Dawn Tempering down with crushing force—a heavy, intimidating overhead strike meant to overwhelm.

Yet, the man didn’t flinch. Such pressure wasn’t enough to deter a veteran of close-quarters murder. Those who thrive in the clinch are accustomed to such stakes.

‘Which is precisely why I prevail.’

There was no requirement to reveal any further depth of his abilities.

Confident in his opening, the man pressed on. The hidden spikes in his cuffs slid forward, guided by his tensing muscles. He only needed to seize one and drive it home. But the passage of time felt unnaturally sluggish. It was the distortion of hyper-focus where every millisecond is magnified.

The result of his accelerated cognition.

‘And yet… this feels excessively slow.’

Perhaps his physical vessel was over-energized after his recent period of rest?

In that stretched-out moment, the man locked eyes with Enkrid. Those blue eyes were steady and piercing, showing no sign of alarm or hesitation. Only a flicker of academic interest remained in that frozen gaze.

‘What grants him such certainty?’

The man realized the answer too late. He saw what Enkrid was truly doing. The hand that seemed occupied with the heavy downward pressure had already transitioned, gripping a second edge and swinging it upward. This strike moved with double the velocity of the previous one. Escape was impossible.

‘No… the blow has already landed.’

The dilation of time wasn’t just focus; it was the total collapse of his sensory processing. It was the specific hallucination one has when the cranium is being split.

“Grrk.”

He jerked his head desperately, but Penna’s edge, guided by Enkrid, tore through the side of his skull. It nearly sheared off half his face. Following the intricate dance of feints and counters, the man—now missing a portion of his head—stumbled back and slumped to the stones.

Enkrid watched him, waiting. Would some monstrous growth erupt from this one as well? No. Instead, the man’s mangled lips moved.

“You… are indeed a warrior worth noting.”

The sentiment was strange for a dying man. It wasn’t a denial of his fate or a refusal to concede. That made it peculiar. The figure fell over, and tendrils of dark soot began to rise from his frame as he dissolved.

“This doesn’t feel like a hallucination.”

Whispering to himself, Enkrid felt the hum of his own vocalizations through his chest. It wasn’t just a mental projection; his lungs and throat were physically working. His trained knightly intuition told him this was objective reality.

A path laid out before him, stretching into the distance. High walls rose on either side, and a grimy roof had manifested above. It felt as though he had transitioned into a subterranean passage. Sconces were fixed to the walls at steady intervals, casting light on the stone.

What did the man mean by “worth recognizing”? And what was the nature of this place? He only knew one thing: he had to advance. Lingering would provide no answers.

It felt as though he had entered a labyrinth. Something was warping his internal compass. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was the perpetual state of Ragna’s mind. Regardless, Enkrid walked on until he met a new figure.

“Was that clumsy display a heartfelt prayer for an early grave?”

The speaker was hardly human. A warrior carrying his own decapitated head sat upon a spectral horse, watching Enkrid. It was a Dullahan, a high-tier demonic entity rarely encountered outside the Demon Realms.

The face held by the rider wasn’t a nightmare of gore. Though detached, the head featured a long white beard and the dignified features of an old man. It was tucked securely under his arm. Thick veins pulsed in the stump of the neck, and his ruddy complexion suggested a robust vitality. The torso fused to the ghost horse was massive and powerful.

“I, Donapha, shall grant your—Gyak!”

Enkrid offered no dialogue, only steel. Springing off his left foot, he bridged the gap instantly. Diving low, he felt himself pierce through an invisible barrier of tension, Dawn Tempering settling into his palm as his awareness expanded. He sharpened his focus and delivered a surgical vertical cleave.

The rider couldn’t evade. In fact, he didn’t even attempt to. It was a sensation beyond logic—pure, unadulterated instinct. The strike was efficient and clean, its path a masterpiece of fundamental form. It was incredibly fast, powered by the full rotational torque of his frame.

It was a blow that wedded Flash and Vortex.

Donapha tried to intercept with a massive axe, but his coordination failed him. As his arms rose, the head he was holding slipped and hit the ground.

Thunk. Roll.

“You insolent—! You little brat—!”

The severed head continued to shout even as it tumbled across the floor.

The exchange was over in a heartbeat. Holding his follow-through posture, Enkrid analyzed the encounter. The enemy’s bravado, his equipment, and his stance had broadcasted his intent.

‘A brawler who relies on massive, crushing strikes.’

How would such a fighter react to a direct, honest overhead slash? Enkrid had foreseen the reaction—and then cut through him with more power than the rider could handle. He then critiqued his own performance.

‘Too much commitment in the swing. It made the recovery clumsy.’

It was a fresh technique for him. Enkrid knew he lacked the innate genius of someone like Ragna, but he had progressed this far through sheer repetition. If he kept practicing, it would become second nature.

Now, even if the destination was obscured, it didn’t bother him. The history of his struggles and the depth of his experience provided all the certainty he needed.

“How dare a worm strike the great Donapha—!”

The name “Donapha” felt archaic, like a relic of a bygone era. Thinking this, Enkrid raised his blade and brought it down on the shouting head. Though it was his first encounter with a headless rider, once the skull was split, both the head and the mount dissolved into black vapor.

That was the second one. He pulled his sword from the floorboards with a casual tug.

“Quite impressive.”

He encountered the third adversary a bit further down the hall. The gap between them was shorter this time. Essentially, she had come to intercept him—though Enkrid didn’t know the specifics. The only reason she could be here was that Donapha had already fallen.

“You took down Donapha? A matter of a bad tactical matchup, I’m sure.”

The woman spoke as if to herself, ignoring Enkrid’s presence. Her torso was freakishly elongated, giving her a serpentine appearance. She stood as tall as Audin, but lacked his bulk. She looked more like a flexible spear. Her arms were as long as her torso, a strange anatomy built from corded, lean muscle.

However, her attire was even more bizarre than her body. Rather than mail or plate, she wore a skin-tight fabric suit that looked like it belonged to a much smaller child. It was stretched to its limit across her frame.

“From whose wardrobe did you pilfer those clothes?”

He hadn’t intended it as a taunt, but her expression twisted with lethal intent.

“I’ll turn that tongue of yours to pulp—let’s see you joke then.”

She lunged with a sophisticated vocabulary but an animalistic ferocity. Dropping so low her chest nearly brushed the stone, she shot forward like a bolt from a crossbow. A sharp crack followed her movement, and the air she displaced roared like a gale.

Closing in, she whipped her waist from her crouched position. Her snake-like middle displayed terrifying flexibility, acting like a coiled spring. It was an erratic, layered assault. She brandished a falchion—a heavy, curved blade. Her slash traced a jagged upward path from the floor.

Her long, muscled arms snapped like Lua Gharne’s whip, generating brutal speed.

Clang!

The strike was caught by a sky-blue blade held in a perfect horizontal guard. Red sparks erupted at the point of contact. Her unorthodox style might catch someone once, but defending against a sustained, chaotic barrage was the real challenge.

The woman knew this. She didn’t seek a one-hit kill; she was a specialist in momentum. When her falchion hit his steel and recoiled, she used that energy to accelerate. She funneled her Will into her arms, ignoring the strain.

The falchion moved faster, its path becoming more impossible to track. The attacks blended into an unnaturally long sequence designed to overwhelm any defense. Eventually, their limbs would inevitably tangle. Her arm snapped like a whip, and the accelerating metal crashed toward Enkrid’s skull.

Wham, wham, wham!

The air in the tunnel shrieked as her blade tore through it. Soon, the only sound was the thunderous percussion of metal on metal.

Wham—clang! Bang! Crash!

The sky-blue sword held firm against the onslaught. He parried some and slid others away, but he never lost his footing. The woman didn’t stop for air, doubling down on her aggression. Until she hit her limit.

All she had achieved was a single, shallow cut on his cheek. A thin crimson line appeared—actual blood, a luxury she lacked. Due to the velocity of their movement, the droplets were instantly vaporized into the air.

She needed to reset her rhythm and her Will. She leaped back, pulling the falchion into a defensive posture.

Fwhip.

Enkrid’s cloak, frayed by the intensity of the fight, settled in the air. By the flickering orange light of the tunnel torches, she saw him raise his sky-blue sword to his face, holding it level with his mouth. His blue eyes seemed to burn through the dim, yellowish haze of the cave. The sight made her blood run cold.

It was a primal warning of impending doom. Only his eyes were visible above the steel before he spoke.

“My turn now.”

What?

She pivoted her waist and brought up her weapon. He had crossed the distance before she could even process his movement—she had to block. Before his words had even faded, he was upon her. His strike smashed into her falchion, and the roles were instantly reversed.

She was now the one struggling to survive his tempo.

“Tch!”

She couldn’t hold out like he did. Her entire style was built for the hunt, not the hide. She was fundamentally fragile on the defensive. Of course, one needed Enkrid’s level of perception to exploit that flaw.

“You…”

Her throat was half-opened, black smoke erupting from the wound. She collapsed onto the floor. Her eyes remained locked on the man who had defeated her. He had stopped his assault and was casually stretching his hand.

She realized what he had been doing.

“You—!” she hissed in a rage.

Enkrid looked down at her with cold, vacant eyes.

“You provided excellent opposition.”

The woman let out a scream of pure fury.

“You were using me as a training tool?!”

The scream tore her neck wound wider, and the deluge of black mist choked her voice. She dissolved into a swirling cloud of fog and was gone.

Enkrid moved forward, glancing at where she had been. She wasn’t wrong. The first foe used trickery, so he practiced his fundamentals. The second used power, so he practiced his finishing blow. This woman used chaotic speed, so he practiced his counter-tempo. Enkrid had deconstructed their strengths and used them to sharpen his own.

“Not exactly a straw target, though,” he mused.

He found the process somewhat enjoyable. Each new enemy brought a distinct flavor of combat. It was a refreshing change of pace from sparring with Rem, Ragna, or Audin.

A few paces later, he found his next encounter.

Crackle, crackle.

A woman was sitting by a small fire inside the cave. A longsword leaned against her, still in its sheath. She was warming her hands and humming a light, airy melody.

Hm-hm, hmm-hm.

Enkrid froze the moment he recognized her. He was close enough to strike if he chose to, but he remained still.

“Oh, you’ve arrived?”

She greeted him as if they were meeting for a scheduled appointment. Enkrid felt a strange sense of familiarity. At that moment, he realized who was behind this entire trial.

Enkrid spoke the name.

“Sir Oara.”

Knight Oara moved with the same grace as the city that shared her name. She smiled at him, and to Enkrid, it was a look of genuine warmth. It was the exact same expression she had worn when their final encounter concluded in the streets of Oara.