A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 780

Chapter 780

Audin was currently occupied with guiding Roman through his exercises when he picked up on a group of roughly fifteen individuals approaching.
None possessed a normal gaze. One’s pupils were whirling in circles, another’s eyes were misaligned, and many were salivating uncontrollably.
Despite their appearance, their presence was formidable.
Each emitted a pressure akin to Will, though it was unrefined and chaotic, making it feel erratic and jarring.
‘Are they Knights?’
It was a valid suspicion for Audin to harbor. He felt a flicker of doubt, but that was sufficient.
Knights were defined by their oaths and internal convictions. Their psychological endurance was far beyond that of a commoner; they were not prone to mental collapse.
Yet, what were these creatures?
They were individuals whose spirits had shattered, regardless of their physical prowess.
This dozen-strong force of knight-level fighters charged simultaneously. Whether they were true knights or not, they represented a lethal threat. Audin reacted instantly.
Among the survivors of the conflict at the Thornwall Fortress, Audin was one of the least wounded. He had been exhausted from overextending his divine power, but a brief period of rest had restored his strength.
Essentially, he was in peak condition.
“Lord.”
Audin enveloped his entire form in a shimmering holy light as he watched the figures close in.
Without a moment’s pause, he drove a blow into the face of a creature swinging a heavy axe.
He lunged with incredible speed, his footwork shifting in a flash. By manipulating his tempo, he bypassed the enemy’s reaction time. The foe was unable to defend and took the full force of the strike.
Bang!
Crunch.
‘Rotate the sacred radiance.’
The luminous armor, the legacy of Ragna’s blade, the wisdom gained from awakening his divine gifts, and the final words of his adoptive father—
All these elements were distilled and merged into one.
Sacred energy swirled around Audin’s fist. He channeled the light through the mechanics of a whirlwind.
It was an extraordinary display of skill.
The man’s face was mangled into a spiral before it detonated. Neither steel helmet nor bone could withstand that impact.
With one enemy down, Audin’s focus shifted to the rear of the mindless pack. At the back stood a man gripping an object resembling a flute, wearing a repulsive, mocking grin.
The man masked his mouth and turned the flute vertically against his face. He began to play.
No melody emerged. Instead, the front line became even more frenzied.
Through the dark vapor leaking from the fallen man’s skull, a spear point lunged at him, flanked by two others swinging heavy blades.
Even though they were little more than beasts, they moved with the coordination of a trained unit.
‘If they aren’t instinctively coordinated, that man’s flute must be directing them.’
That tactical insight was basic. Regardless, the solution remained the same—they had to be crushed.
Audin shifted his weight back, raised his left hand like the edge of a sword, and struck.
The light from his protective shroud gathered at his palm, sharpening into a luminous blade.
A combatant in rusted brown plate mail lunged with a spear.
Audin’s counter-move was technically slower than the thrust, yet he stepped into the path. He evaded the side attacks and dodged the spear tip with a precise, minimal rotation of his torso. The spearman’s head was now within striking distance.
His motions were as fluid as a practiced drill. Audin’s hand swept across the enemy’s throat.
Slice.
The sound was faint, but the impact was total. The corroded helmet was sent spinning into the air, and a geyser of black mist erupted from the neck.
Clearing another path, Audin evaded a mace, an axe, and a broadsword, leaping laterally.
His path through the air left a lingering trail of light. The horde surged toward that afterimage.
Audin’s amber eyes grew icy. The warmth he usually carried was gone, replaced by a gaze as sharp as a winter gale.
If you asked a cleric who their true enemy was, who would they name?
Heretics? Bandits? Beasts?
No.
They harbored the deepest hatred for those who disturbed the resting and manipulated their remains—necromancers. Only a few such practitioners existed, using the souls of the deceased for vile purposes.
‘Why do you restrain those who belong to the Heavens?’
The Heretic Annihilation Order was founded on this very grievance.
Members had lost family to cults, often being forced to combat the reanimated bodies of those they once loved.
Being forced to slay a loved one twice was the fuel that drove the Order to purge every cultist from the world.
‘Draugr.’
Beings who should have entered the celestial gates were instead tethered to life by dark sorcery.
Draugr was the name given to such abominations.
“Lord.”
Audin offered a silent prayer, feigned a retreat, and then exploded forward with a velocity that belied his massive frame.
To an observer, he looked like a massive temple bell ignoring gravity, leaning back before lunging with violent force.
He resembled a boulder launched by a siege engine.
His holy armor blazed. His limbs had been transformed into divine clubs and blades.
Audin understood his own power. Furthermore, he had gained fresh perspective from his time with Enkrid and the tragic members of the Mad Order of Knights.
‘There is no rule saying Holy Armor is only for defense.’
This straightforward realization was the catalyst for the devastation he now wrought.
Whrrr—
The light spiraled around his limbs, turning the radiance into a drilling force of destruction.
Boom!
Crash!
Thud!
Everywhere his glowing fists landed, they served as the hammers of a divine executioner.
A strike to the head pulverized the skull.
A strike to the chest sent ripples of black mist outward from the impact zone.
A spiked morning star descended toward his crown, and he took the blow on his shoulder.
Clinkclinkclink.
The rotating shield of light redirected the weapon.
Simultaneously, the attacker was severed in half. Audin had brought his hand down in a vertical cleave.
The two halves of the body were thrown apart as if by a violent force.
Velocity and power generated a pressure that resulted in a physical shockwave.
Audin pivoted and delivered a back-kick. The strike was rapid, but the weight behind it was immense.
Boom!
Splatter!
After his foot tore through a target, a spray of dark mist fanned out behind them.
The torso vanished into dust. The remaining legs crumbled, dissolving into mist.
Beyond the fading Draugr Knights, the flute-player scowled.
‘What kind of freak is this?’
He was a commander of the deceased.
In a former life, he was feared across the lands as the Necromancer Knight.
The grandson of a grave digger, he had lived among spirits since his youth. A chance meeting with a dark mentor led him to master the forbidden arts.
Eventually, he realized he had a talent for the blade and achieved knighthood, but he eventually reached a plateau he could not surpass.
‘My sword skills may be limited, but I have other gifts.’
He began to envision a kingdom ruled by his blade and fueled by stolen souls. He intended to bring the entire continent to its knees.
Then he crossed paths with Balrog—and perished.
Even in death, his drive remained.
‘I will build my army here… and eventually overthrow Balrog.’
In this prison maintained by Balrog’s energy, the only constant was combat. Everyone trapped within fought endlessly.
Inevitably, some minds snapped. Those who lost their sanity usually became aimless spirits of the maze—but this man had used his necromancy to bind them to his will.
The man’s eyes flickered toward a woman. She was holding off two Draugr Knights with a blade and shield, shielding the man behind her.
She was formidable in her own right.
While fighting, she kept a sharp eye on him.
Both she and the man obliterating his phantom knights possessed eyes that were deep and unwavering.
Upon meeting that gaze, the necromancer felt a shiver despite having no flesh.
“Tch.”
The man clicked his tongue. He discarded the flute for a sword, though he knew he couldn’t defeat the monster currently turning his own body into a siege engine.
Deep down, he knew the truth. He had only been clinging to a false sense of hope. He had already fallen to Balrog. How could a puppet ever hope to defeat the puppet master?
He surrendered to the inevitable once more, as Audin closed the distance and demanded,
“Set them free.”
He was referring to the spirits bound by the flute.
“…Try and make me.”
The man mocked him. This was all a game. A sport for Balrog. Everyone inside was just a plaything for the demon. If you hated it, the only way out was to kill the entity known as the Battle God. If Balrog died, the nightmare would end.
But that was impossible.
The man understood that if he died now, he would lose a piece of himself and wake up again. If he could keep his ego intact, he would try again.
If not…
He would just become another mindless phantom.
“Damn it.”
Suddenly, the man realized something. This wasn’t his first time. He had died countless times.
Fragmented memories began to surface. As death approached, the mental seals dissolved.
‘If you want to keep fighting, you have to stay ignorant.’
It was a form of desperate denial—choosing not to know the truth so he could keep resisting Balrog.
Some days he died as Balrog’s practice target. Some days he died to other spirits. Recently, he had been slain by a female knight’s sword.
And now.
Boom!
Audin’s fist brought his thoughts to an end.
“It seems what our Captain hoped for is finally occurring.”
Audin remarked as he retracted his divine light. He could sense why the environment was shifting and why chaos reigned.
Everything here was an affront to his divinity. It felt exactly like being within a demonic domain.
‘What is the cause?’
He recalled learning that demons possessed Authority during his time as a martial priest. No one knew the exact nature of such power, but he could feel it—this environment was a manifestation of Balrog’s Authority.
‘Where are you, Captain?’
Likely, Enkrid was currently facing the source of this power.
Shadows began to reclaim the area as the light faded. With the necromancer’s fall, the spirits he controlled wavered before sinking into the soil, dissolving into dark vapor.
Teresa caught her breath and looked out into the vast cavern that the space had become.
“I suspect more are on their way.”
Her senses as a Holy Cantor had become sharper than even Audin’s. She didn’t fully grasp the mechanics of this place, but she knew the cycle would repeat. Infinitely.
Until when?
Until their lives ended.
Teresa trusted her intuition.
“Then I suppose I’ll have to keep swinging.”
Audin gave a faint, calm smile. His duty was to handle the immediate threat—a lesson he had picked up from Enkrid.
He couldn’t find his allies right now, but he could protect the people whose skin was turning a sickly violet.
‘This must be our Captain’s intent.’
The Heavens were watching. With that conviction, Audin steeled himself.
Behind them, Roman stood up, using his heavy sword for support.
He had been cut in the leg during the initial rush, and his limb was unresponsive. A local villager noticed and handed him a strip of fabric.
It was a makeshift bandage made of beast skin.
“Much appreciated.”
Roman said as he bound his wound tightly.
More are coming? And they’ll all be as strong as knights?
So what? Should we give up and wait for the end? Or should we grip our hilts and fight until the last breath?
‘Neither.’
We will hold the line. Regardless of the outcome, we will persist.
Roman’s will was no longer fragile. He wasn’t the man he used to be. Even if a mental blight tried to take him, he would cast it off.
He focused his Will. He wasn’t a knight yet, but he could still fight.
‘Even if this is the work of a god…’
He would focus on the present.
If Roman was this determined, the rest were equally unshaken. The Mad Order of Knights was perfectly composed even in this madness.
“We should move the people to the central hall.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Rophod offered, and Pell followed suit.
Gathering the villagers was a simple task for Pell, much like herding livestock.
Boom!
A massive explosion thundered from the distance, drawing everyone’s attention.
There stood Rem. Above his palm, a disc was spinning. It wasn’t a solid object, but a blur created by twirling a heavy leather cord at high speeds.