A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 785-786

Chapter 785

A savage serpent of flame tore through his lower leg, and a sword saturated in ebony fire cleaved downward from his collarbone, splitting his torso in two.
—That was a good bout. Let us cross blades once more.
Balrog offered his customary parting. This promise of a future meeting wasn’t a reference to the inevitable loop of the day—it was a declaration of his intent to keep Enkrid imprisoned within the labyrinth forever.
Though their perspectives on the phrase differed, their resolve was the same. Enkrid gave a single nod and perished. That small gesture served as his final answer to the goodbye.
Thus began the nineteenth recurrence of this day.
The celestial sphere that carried the fire lost its radiance and plunged, and the oarsman upon the vessel stood ready to receive him.
“Klik-klek-klek.”
The ferryman emitted a dry, rattling chuckle. His maw was a featureless, dark pit, lacking even a tongue, appearing no different from any other hollow void. The laughter was brief and resonant, fading quickly into the air.
Then, amidst the shifting curtains of absolute shadow, the ferryman communicated his intent through pure willpower.
“You are a prisoner of this single day.”
“Does it bring you suffering? This is a fate of your own making.”
“Ultimately, you will merely struggle pointlessly until you vanish.”
“No fire possesses the power to burn eternally.”
Creak. The wood of the boat groaned as it bobbed upon the current. The vibration of that sound brushed against Enkrid’s senses.
“You shall never find a path out of this realm.”
The ferryman manifested time and again, and with every appearance, he spoke of an immutable destiny. For the first time, Enkrid deciphered the intent buried within the ferryman’s mental projection. It wasn’t a perfect understanding—it was hazy. Perhaps his instincts, sharpened by the brutal reality of combat, were beginning to permeate this transitional space. Or perhaps the sheer frequency of these encounters allowed him to perceive more than he once could.
The specific reason was irrelevant.
“Is it your wish that I overcome this?”
Within the ferryman’s dark sockets, a pair of pupils swirled with a muddy gray light. No—the hues were impossible to categorize. They shifted from gold to crimson, then to azure and emerald, before coalescing back into a dense black.
The eyes of predatory beasts were black. So were those of the ferryman. However, while a beast’s eyes seemed stained with darkness, the ferryman’s eyes appeared as though countless layers of existence had been woven and crushed together into a singular black point.
“Do you possess the strength to overcome it?”
The ferryman questioned him. Enkrid offered no verbal reply. Without moving his lips, the ferryman continued to project his thoughts.
“A path exists to move beyond this day. If you truly desire to find it—you need only ask.”
There was no attempt at manipulation. No intimidation. No weight of authority.
His words carried no hint of underlying force.
A faint emerald tint shimmered within the ferryman’s gaze—a darkness infused with green. It was a murky, somber shade of olive. It lacked the vibrant, youthful brilliance of Shinar’s spring-green eyes. Yet, within that gaze lay a flicker of intent never seen before.
Pity. Empathy. A trace of profound grief.
Enkrid’s internal compass and resolve were unyielding and straight. Even in such a surreal moment, he maintained his center. Had he lacked that stability, he would have succumbed to Shinar’s mocking words long ago.
“…You nearly had me there.”
He whispered, casually brushing aside the ferryman’s offer. The clouded green light in the ferryman’s eyes seemed to dissipate, only to churn and solidify once more.
“You truly are a madman.”
The ferryman’s inflection shifted slightly. The initial entity he had encountered was a hollow thing, devoid of essence. This version, who now proposed a solution, had displayed a minute fragment of feeling—sympathy.
It was possible Enkrid only recognized it because he had spent so much time analyzing Shinar’s emotional fluctuations. The sliver of emotion the ferryman had allowed to surface was minuscule, almost beneath notice—but now, a palpable anger had taken its place. Or more accurately: a sense of profound annoyance and frustration.
Why did that specific memory choose to surface at this moment?
There had been a period—during a run of incredible fortune where he had accumulated a significant sum of krona—not through the commerce of his sword but through sheer happenstance—that he found himself in possession of a heavy bag of gold.
He utilized those funds to enroll in a prestigious martial academy. On this landmass, where monsters and predatory creatures were a constant threat, it was customary for people to train with steel from childhood.
Consequently, the urban centers were teeming with training halls and combat schools. Armed with his gold, Enkrid tracked down a highly regarded tutor.
Initially, the instructor—a woman—had spoken with a gentle tone, attempting to steer him away from the path of the blade.
Enkrid listened with complete indifference. He was fixated on the acquisition of form—obsessed with it.
“It would be wiser to stop. Though I serve as a teacher here, on the scale of the entire continent, I would not even rank as a defender of a single city. I only manage because I possess a slight talent for instruction.”
She had spoken with genuine modesty. However, she had once been a member of the Lengaedis caravan’s rear guard. Her capabilities were legitimate. Enkrid craved the wisdom of that legitimacy.
“So, what is the subsequent step?”
His inquiry never wavered from that singular goal.
Eventually, her soft demeanor began to crack. Her eyebrows twitched with irritation.
“I told you that walking away is your best option.”
Her politeness vanished.
“Enkrid-nim, you truly only process the sounds you wish to hear. What a remarkably selective set of ears you have.”
Then came the blunt disapproval.
“Do you fail to grasp the concept of ‘surrendering’?”
Then, pure exasperation.
That memory flooded back. It felt as though the ferryman standing before him was an echo of that long-ago instructor.
The same cocktail of sorrow and mounting anger. The parallel triggered a spark in his mind. Enkrid simply gave a casual shrug. It was his response to being labeled a lunatic.
The motion suggested: Are you only just realizing this? Or perhaps: What of it?
Either way, it signaled his complete refusal to entertain anything the ferryman had to offer.
“Very well. Then continue to languish in the cell of this day. It is a suitable enough arena for you.”
As those words were projected, the emerald-black eyes faded and pulled away. Enkrid felt the sensation of his physical form beginning to drift.
He hadn’t closed his eyes, yet the environment distorted around him. He moved through the void—and materialized, as if waking for the first time.
Today commenced once again.
His dialogue with the ferryman had numbed the phantom pains of his previous death. Due to the length of that conversation, Enkrid had less time for quiet contemplation. His post-battle critique was delayed because of the ferryman’s erratic conduct.
A plan he assumed would bear fruit—perhaps not perfectly, but sufficiently—had crumbled.
‘It was not a failure of logic.’
Enkrid had mapped out the most efficient line of engagement. Balrog had not. Therefore, his tactical perception had been superior.
“A visitor has arrived?”
The adversary had only just begun to speak.
Enkrid had intended to execute him immediately, but since he didn’t perceive the man as a genuine peril, he simply looked at him with a detached expression and answered:
“One moment. I need to process this.”
“…What?”
He was indifferent to the opponent’s confusion.
“If more of you appear, I will begin the slaughter. Just stay where you are.”
A tangible pressure—a formless, heavy weight—emanated from his person. He had engaged the sovereign of conflict in the Demon Realm eighteen times.
Even that entity, Balrog, always sought to overwhelm Enkrid with sheer spiritual pressure before a single sword was swung. Only by enduring that weight could the actual duel commence.
It was Balrog’s personal crucible. Enkrid had cleared it every single time.
Through those countless cycles, the resistance that had once boiled inside Enkrid began to evolve. The primitive Will techniques he had first mastered functioned on a subconscious level—but that was insufficient to parry Balrog’s aura.
‘If the transition from a quasi-knight to a true knight involves using Will instinctively…’
Then reclaiming the status of a knight meant discovering how to forge Will with conscious intent. This was one of the pillars of the theory he was constructing—“Will Discipline.”
He relentlessly drilled himself to consciously deflect mental pressure.
Balrog’s aura manifested as incandescent chains. From the second they collided, the heat caused his skin to crack and sizzle. A single moment of weakness, and it felt as though he would be pulverized.
Enkrid had shattered those bonds and projected his own aura. He did so now.
His pressure manifested as a bulwark—a massive wall of unknowable thickness. A barrier that no common strength, or even a hardened spike, could hope to breach.
The man across from him halted in his tracks. The fact that he did not collapse showed he possessed significant spirit and prowess.
However, he dared not advance. Confronted by the wall Enkrid had raised, he glimpsed the shadow of Balrog. He remembered a fundamental law: to resist the terror carved into one’s very essence is the defining trait of sentient beings.
To refuse to crawl, to keep one’s chin up—one had to fight back.
Yet, was this the appropriate moment for such defiance? He had bowed a thousand times to Balrog—yet here, he chose to stand firm against Enkrid’s weight.
In the window of time he had secured, Enkrid contemplated the previous encounter.
He didn’t just replay the fight in his mind. He delved into its depths. Instead of merely running a simulation, he scrutinized the lead-up and the aftermath of every swing, every shift in mental state.
But there was no requirement for complex deduction. The reality was transparent.
He gathered his wandering thoughts and filed them into a neat structure.
‘In terms of sequence and strategy—I was superior.’
He had calculated, weighed, and executed—like a mathematician dealing with cold integers.
No wasted energy. Every action adhered to a strict, optimal path. The steel moved with fluid elegance. The footwork required to anchor it was flawless. His martial art was fused with cold logic—it was nearly an art form.
In specific frames of time, his sword radiated a light that suggested it might actually shatter one of the jewels in that very instant.
‘I cannot push my tactical advantage any further than that.’
And then Salamandra, the whip of flame, had lashed out.
As if it possessed its own malicious intellect, it reveled in the martial choreography. Balrog followed its lead with his wings, his strikes, his kicks, and his sword—navigating with total freedom within the very trap Enkrid had set.
In that instant, Enkrid had introduced an element of chaos—a strike born of pure chance. He attempted to entangle the demon once more in a net of probability. Yet, even with that, he could not pin Balrog within those constraints.
‘It was a different nature.’
Balrog’s mastery of the sword was of a different sort. At a certain threshold, it transcended all logic—becoming swifter, more devastating, and more powerful than any calculation allowed.
—Observe.
Balrog had projected that thought in the heat of the clash.
Enkrid’s focus was pulled toward the demon’s right hand. The blade of black fire—Surtr.
Its embers pulsed like a rhythmic breath, over and over. Enkrid was well aware—it was a blaze that could never be extinguished. He had evaded every strike.
The heat had scorched his hair. He had been forced to tear away and discard the fabric protector from his left hand—but he had held his ground.
To deconstruct the mechanics of the duel now would require an immense amount of time.
‘It is futile.’
There was no value in searching for meaning in the process. The final result had not been determined by numbers or paths.
Surtr’s flames stopped radiating outward and instead collapsed inward. Then, they solidified into a physical edge along the metal.
‘A physical edge.’
Instead of an amorphous burn, it became a defined shape—refined into a killing edge. That blade could not be parried. It could not be dismantled by logic.
That was the point of divergence.
And within that divergence—Enkrid perceived a truth.
‘The difference.’
He had encountered this sensation before—and not solely with Balrog.
He had seen it in the arc of Ragna’s sword. In the divine protection of Audin’s armor. In the swing of Rem’s heavy axe. In the precision of Jaxon’s lunge.
He had sensed that fundamental difference in all of them.
What set them apart? What was the source of that distinction?
He envisioned the figures who had carried him to this point in time—those who had contributed pieces to his ambition. Time after time, like a man possessed, he retraced the path of those memories.
He revisited every second, every lesson they had inadvertently provided.
“Huah!”
His current foe had finally managed to crack through Enkrid’s aura. He drew blades from his sleeves, clutching one in each fist.
“Where the hell did a bastard like you come from?!”
Bellowing, he charged—launching two throwing knives while executing a feint. It was a skillful maneuver. To hurl daggers while maintaining a grip on two primary swords was a feat of coordination worth noting.
Tadang!
In his right hand—Dawn Tempering. In his left—Penna.
Enkrid engaged the dual-wielder with his own two blades. The skirmish was brief.
Before the man could unleash his true technique, Enkrid had already dismantled him. Reliving this moment more than ten times had made the man’s flaws glaringly obvious. His strengths had withered, and his weaknesses had been sharpened to a point.
He resumed his forward march. His mind never slowed. The deconstruction of his failure against the demon continued.
Enkrid endured yet another cycle—and met his end once more.
The scarlet edge tempered in fire did not sever everything.
The blade of Will that Enkrid brandished—was capable of stopping it.
‘And yet…’
He lacked the necessary magnitude of power. He was cut down once more.
What was the missing piece?
Twenty cycles. Thirty. Forty. More than fifty deaths occurred.
In days saturated with agony and suffering, Enkrid held the one advantage no other soul possessed—infinite time to look within.

 

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Chapter 786

Sifting through the vast reservoir of his consciousness, Enkrid summoned one of his most potent attributes.

A staggering volume of Will.

“Uske.”

A term representing a Will pulled from a bottomless fountain.

It functioned as a weapon, though it was one few were capable of handling.

Even a prodigy like Ragna, who had reached heights reserved for the divinely gifted, lacked this specific trait.

‘This is precisely why I held the upper hand in combat.’

It was a sensation he had recognized during training bouts with Rem and the rest. Now, the realization was sharper than ever.

After his confrontation with Count Molsen and his duel with Rearvart, the incomplete knight, Enkrid had discovered how to anchor his strategy in persistence. He fought by utilizing that limitless Will.

“Why ignore the tools you possess?”

Lua Gharne had hammered that point home during their strategic sessions.

“Anything at your disposal can be forged into a blade. Refine it. Your very face should be viewed as an instrument of war. Broaden your perspective. Do not trap yourself in a narrow mindset.”

She wasn’t a warrior of the order, but a Frokk scholar of war. Her insights were heavy with truth. Enkrid took them to heart.

‘Everything is a weapon.’

He applied that philosophy strictly. Whether he was clashing with comrades or lethal foes, he led with his inexhaustible Will.

‘However, Balrog cannot be defeated through a mere war of attrition.’

Balrog had existed for eons. His reservoir of Will was undoubtedly immense.

‘Quantity alone won’t secure victory.’

What if he won through the art of change?

While in Zaun, he had mastered the ability to accelerate Will.

It was a method that took a toll on the physical form, but a sturdy body could withstand the pressure.

‘Endure.’

The collective term for the arts focused on absorbing and resisting agony.

If Assimilation was born from the essence of fairies, then Endure was a discipline perfected by monks.

Audin had explained that physical conditioning was the bedrock of Endure. What if he fortified himself with a toughened frame and Endure, and then triggered a point explosion?

‘I will triumph through the mutation of Will.’

Not by cold math, but by instinct in the heat of the moment. If he could capitalize on Balrog’s overconfidence—

‘I’ll commit everything to the opening gambit.’

What was the first step?

‘Neutralize that monster’s aura first.’

Balrog judged his rivals by the intensity they projected. That weight had to be cast off in a heartbeat. That was the requirement for seizing the initiative.

“What are you supposed to be at this moment?”

It was the fifty-sixth cycle of this day, and his third adversary since moving past Donapha. The female warrior, a practitioner of the single-edged blade known for her swiftness, tilted her head in curiosity.

As Enkrid locked eyes with her, she recoiled instantly, like a prey animal spotting a high-tier predator.

Ching!

She unsheathed her sword as she retreated, her gaze filled with sharp caution.

‘That cursed look…’

Her eyes trembled with a faint shiver.

Enkrid’s blue eyes were deep like a still lake—except it was as if a subterranean fire had erupted nearby, turning the water into a boiling cauldron.

Had Rem or his other friends seen him, they would have remarked, “There go those eyes of his again.”

Once Enkrid committed to a path, he pursued it without second-guessing. It was one of his core traits.

This swordswoman was merely another stepping stone.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” he remarked, then lunged.

“…Tch!”

The woman caught her breath and initiated a counter. She knew that retreating further meant certain defeat. She understood her own capabilities well.

She couldn’t let herself be cornered; she had to maintain the pressure.

Ka-ga-ga-ga-gang!

She dragged the tip of her sword against the terrain as she sprinted. The floor was a mosaic of earth and stone. Embers danced as her steel bit into the rock.

She looked as if she were charging while pulling a tail of fire behind her. The moment of contact arrived—and so did the maneuver she needed to pull off.

She concentrated.

It seemed they would collide head-on, but the timing shifted. For a split second, the swordswoman wavered.

‘He stopped?’

Enkrid, who had been moving at a blur, suddenly became stationary. The deceleration was so violent it created a visual afterimage of him still moving forward.

As he braked, a thin line of blood escaped his nose, the red beads flying forward.

He didn’t care.

The swordswoman couldn’t halt her momentum. Her focused Will and her instinctual drive were both committed to the strike.

If she tried to stop now, a nosebleed would be the least of her concerns.

Clack!

Her single-edged sword, glowing from the friction against the ground, used that resistance to build speed. Like a blade being drawn from the earth itself, her steel sliced through the air with a resonant roar.

At that exact moment, the stationary Enkrid crouched and surged forward with renewed force, swinging his blade.

It appeared as though they had both charged and struck in the same instant.

‘How is this—?’

Clang!

Her blade met Enkrid’s—only for her to witness a pale blue serpent slithering up her arm to sink its fangs into her neck.

The serpent tore through her collarbone and pierced her heart before dissipating.

Dark soot began to cloud her vision.

She was fading. The final sight she beheld was Enkrid practicing a few more swings into the empty air.

That sight alone sparked a final surge of indignant energy. Choking on dark vapor, the dying warrior screamed with her last breath.

“Khaak—did you just… use me for training?”

From the gash left by the sky-blue serpent, black fog erupted and pooled on the floor.

Enkrid didn’t bother responding; he had heard similar complaints far too often. He pushed it aside. In over fifty duels today, he’d heard that sentiment in more than thirty of them.

The wielder of the single-edged blade was particularly sensitive to being brushed off. It was a flaw in her character. Enkrid had faced her over fifty times now.

As the cycles continued, the vulnerabilities of his foes became transparent. He ignored her outburst and mentally reviewed the brief exchange.

‘Will Regulation.’

He hadn’t focused on linear or point bursts; he had focused on the transition. He had come to a dead stop and immediately transitioned into a point explosion.

The velocity of his Will had shifted in a flash. Like a stallion going from a standstill to a full gallop in a single stride, Enkrid had struck with high-velocity force from a frozen position.

His arm was vibrating slightly.

Even the most conditioned body would feel the strain of such a maneuver. No one could slaughter a thousand men without their muscles tightening or their breath growing short.

Enhancing one’s body with Will to become a knight didn’t mean shedding human limitations.

That truth applied to giants and fairies as well.

Regardless—

‘I’ve picked up something new, Odd-Eye.’

He thought back to his time with the Border Guard, remembering how Odd-Eye could effortlessly switch between stopping and accelerating. He had just successfully mimicked it.

Back then, he had been so moved by her skill that he tried calling her “Unyielding.”

Though, eventually, “Odd-Eye” returned as the default.

She had only scoffed at the “Unyielding” title. Her face usually asked: why even bring that up?

In any case—

‘I can bait them into a lapse of judgment and open the fight with a move they can’t foresee.’

That was the takeaway.

The sword strike that followed was a composite—merged with the essence of the fire snake Salamandra and styled with various techniques he had stitched together.

A rigid sword could never truly be a whip.

However, the path of his blade had shifted so erratically that it mimicked one, deceiving the eyes of his opponent.

In that exchange, Enkrid had accelerated twice.

Once when his body moved, and once more when his blade traveled.

‘A double-point explosion.’

To be precise, it was a point explosion embedded within a line explosion.

It was no wonder his limb throbbed. Only the grueling sessions with Audin allowed him to endure the torque. Without that foundation, his muscles would have snapped.

As his mind raced, his feet kept pace. Enkrid pressed on. The shadows looked ready to swallow him, but the darkness of the cavern was now just a familiar road.

No terror. No doubt. Only the hunger to refine his skills and test his resolve.

“…Oh, you’ve returned? What’s with that look? You seem… excited.”

Oara spotted the change and questioned him.

Enkrid approached and took a seat by her near the flames.

“Do I?”

“Yeah. It’s written all over your face.”

“I am doing well. Roman is…”

He began his scripted response. Oara needed to hear those words before she would call forth Balrog.

Otherwise, the interaction would drag on pointlessly. Enkrid was speaking faster than he usually did in these cycles.

“Have you always talked like that? You sound so stiff and formal.”

Even in her spectral state, Oara possessed the sharp intuition of a knight.

“Ah, is that so?”

Enkrid gave a nod.

“Well… yeah. Just watch yourself.”

Wings manifested from her shadow.

Enkrid caught a smile forming on his lips before he could stop it.

That small grin might have been what provoked Balrog.

—So you’re an individual who wishes to perish by a demon’s hand?

The question was essentially: I was summoned, and this is the madman waiting for me?

The person who called him didn’t tremble under his aura—instead, he was grinning.

Balrog had encountered many peculiar souls.

From those who laughed at the brink of death to the mortals who managed to best him despite their fragile bodies.

One such encounter was actually quite recent.

But even among those legends, the figure before him left a startling first impression.

‘He looks at me and starts to chuckle?’

Then the human spoke—

“Come on then.”

Enkrid goaded him out of habit and tightened his grip on his weapon.

‘It starts by shattering his pressure.’

Enkrid had formulated his strategy against Balrog after only three “todays.” His thinking had expanded naturally. Now, having lived through more than fifty iterations, he possessed the requisite experience.

Balrog didn’t waste words; he simply released his aura. It was a silent ultimatum: If you can’t even stand against this, you aren’t worth my time.

Which was… actually quite entertaining.

And the thought of how he would deflect that weight—even more so.

Before Balrog even fully unleashed it, Enkrid was already weaving a Will of absolute defiance.

‘Can persistence ever outmatch raw talent?’

He had spent a long time searching for that answer, and all that condensed time had formed a massive bastion within him.

A towering, unbreakable rampart—Enkrid had sworn to defend whatever was behind it.

That was his knightly vow.

A vision appeared: a wall of sky-blue masonry parrying chains of hellfire. Thunk. The flaming links struck the barrier and fell harmlessly to the ground. A wall of pure rejection.

Or perhaps, armor forged from the very time he had spent building himself up.

Or maybe, it simply stood because he refused to break.

—You won’t stop smiling.

Balrog, seeing his aura neutralized, didn’t seem annoyed. Enkrid realized from the demon’s words that he was indeed still grinning.

At this stage, he was genuinely losing his mind.

From a logical standpoint, there was nothing fun about this.

But—

‘Am I a logical person?’

Kraiss might claim he was sensible.

‘But I don’t care.’

There was no room for such thoughts. No point in them. The moment he squared off against Balrog, he began to synthesize the scattered fragments of his Wavebreaker technique.

He was wagering his entire existence on one move.

‘Focus on a single point.’

Total concentration. He needed only one train of thought.

To an observer, it might look like a desperate gamble—something only done because he had infinite retries.

But that wasn’t it.

Enkrid never wasted a single day. He lived every cycle as if it were the final one.

‘Even if this is the end…’

He would die having finished what he set out to do.

He would die on the path he had carved.

So it didn’t matter if this day never repeated. What the Ferryman viewed as a curse, he saw as a gift. He had no intention of leaning on the loop. His spirit was high—and now, it was fully infused into his steel.

Chiririririring.

The edge of Dawn Tempering sang against the sheath as it was pulled free.

The strange part was that Balrog’s mouth curved into a smile as well.

If the demon simply crushed his foes with his natural pressure, winning would be simple. That was an option.

But he didn’t take it.

Rather than relying on his suffocating presence, he prepared to use his limbs. It wasn’t a logical choice—it was an emotional one.

In that regard, Balrog and Enkrid were identical.

Both wore distorted smiles as they bridged the gap. Enkrid’s boots kicked up dust as he moved. Balrog advanced with massive strides, his wings unfurled. That, too, was a stroke of fortune for Enkrid.

Wings slowed down sudden pivots. The membranes caught the air, and for a split second, unseen weights would pull at Balrog’s feet.

—Ah, this is why I can never walk away from a fight.

Balrog, filled with a dark thrill, emitted a wave of mental energy.

Enkrid couldn’t help but feel the same way.