A Knight Who Eternally Regresses Novel - Chapter 786

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.