A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

"Who are you?"

The man lifted his head and asked. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow—he looked like he hadn't eaten properly in days.

He was the only one locked in the vast stone chamber.

"Gilpin Guild?"

Enkrid asked.

The torch flickered violently as a breeze swept in from somewhere. Shadows swelled and shrank along the stone walls.

"Aaaaah!"

The man suddenly screamed.

"They're watching me! Always watching me! They know everything I do!"

Bloodshot eyes wide, the half-crazed man clutched his head and slammed it against the floor.

"Ghhh... They see everything. Stop watching! Stop!"

Enkrid simply stared, unshaken. He checked the man's breathing and pulse.

There were no signs of poisoning, but the man's breath grew faint... and stopped. He died with his forehead pressed to the ground, hands still tangled in his hair.

"Lua."

Enkrid handed the torch to Lua Gharne and pulled the man's eyelids open.

Amid the bloodshot whites, there was a dark speck—like a tiny ink dot. Dust crumbled from around his eyes and landed in Enkrid's palm.

It felt like stone dust.

That shouldn't come from a dead man's eye.

The corpse resembled the one that had fallen down the stairs after ambushing them the night before.

What on earth was going on here?

Where would one even begin?

Anyone else might have panicked, but not Enkrid.

First, handle the problem right in front of you. Eventually, the one behind all this would show themselves.

Sometimes it was better to act like Rem than think like Kraiss.

This was one of those moments.

Instead of overthinking it, Enkrid moved.

But his enemies acted even faster.

That, too, was part of Rem's school of thought: take the initiative.

Was that a bad thing?

Not at all, Enkrid figured. The person he was looking for had come to him. That saved him the trouble.

He sensed many presences above the stairs now—more than just the "lord" from earlier.

Climbing slowly, Enkrid saw the supposed lord and two spearmen bound with rope, kneeling on the ground. Nearby, five guild members bled from various wounds—arms, legs, shoulders.

No need to ask who had stabbed them. The soldiers standing around made it clear.

"It's unfortunate that you caused such a commotion the moment you arrived."

At the center of it all, the orchestrator of this event—the administrator—spoke.

"Not that I liked your eyes from the start," Lua Gharne muttered.

Enkrid climbed the final steps and scanned the scene calmly.

Among the soldiers were others—different weapons, different gear. Some were the very ones who had fled during the earlier fight.

They surrounded the area with spears, crossbows, and short swords.

The administrator stood in their center.

Enkrid looked straight at him. The man's eyelid twitched as he smiled.

"I invited you to rest at the manor... Why make things so complicated?"

Enkrid saw it all: the surrounding troops, the bound prisoners, the flowers blooming amid filth, and the blue sky overhead.

A flower blooms, even among sewage.

That thought crossed his mind.

He didn't yet know what kind of man the kneeling lord was, but the five who had guarded the underground seemed gentle, and he recalled the innkeeper who had tried to protect her child.

There were surely more such unseen flowers in this city.

But the filth would choke them, rot them, ruin them.

Time would make that inevitable.

This place would become unlivable.

You didn't need to be a prophet or a philosopher to see it.

It was just... that kind of thing.

Leaving the thought behind, Enkrid asked the obvious question:

"What exactly gives you the confidence to pull this stunt?"

He was genuinely curious. Numbers, distance, positioning—none of it mattered.

"My thoughts exactly," Lua Gharne agreed.

Crossbows or not, they couldn't trap Enkrid with this force.

"You dare—!"

The bound lord spat blood as he screamed at the administrator.

His eyes blazed with fury.

"So it was you behind all this?!"

He had assumed the administrator was just some fool who sucked up to the three criminal guilds ruling the city.

But the truth was the opposite.

The administrator was the one who had enabled those guilds to thrive—long before this current lord had even taken power.

And it had all been a game to him.

Watching the idiot lord flail in vain, watching the guild leaders strut like kings...

It was entertainment. A show worth savoring.

He had put in real effort to take control of this city.

Now the Ironwall Knight was here, unraveling it all.

Since no one else could handle a knight, the administrator had stepped forward himself.

It was a matter of initiative—who struck first.

"Please, stay quiet now. Keeping you alive has been exhausting."

So, Enkrid thought, this man had been backing the three guilds all along.

But was this supposed to be a threat?

No. Enkrid's instincts told him:

No one here can stop even a single swing of my blade.

Even if the goddess of fortune herself blessed one of the soldiers, it wouldn't matter.

Even blocking once wouldn't be the end.

Enkrid's Will never ran dry.

Even now, he could do what other knights could not—cut and cut and cut, without fatigue.

Few could claim superiority in this alone.

People often spoke of the ability to "cut through cloth" as metaphor. Enkrid could do it literally.

"Fire!"

The commander barked.

Every crossbowman fired.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

Strings made from beast sinew snapped back, unleashing dozens of bolts.

Enkrid drew his sword with blinding speed and swung.

Tatatatang!

The bolts clattered to the ground, all deflected by his blade.

His silver sword, streaked with black, painted traces in the air—like black thread sewn across a silver canvas.

Lua Gharne shifted subtly to Enkrid's back, knowing how he would ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) deflect. Not a single bolt made it through.

Everyone's jaws dropped.

Of all those gathered, only the administrator knew who Enkrid really was.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

The administrator applauded.

"Incredible!"

He meant it.

To deflect dozens of bolts with a single blade—seeing it in person was awe-inspiring.

Even the bound lord gaped.

He'd already seen Enkrid fight once and been shocked. But this... this was something else.

Of course, the title "Ironwall Knight" made sense now.

He had heard of knights before—but never seen one fight.

Now he understood the difference.

Enkrid prepared to strike.

He stepped forward, launched his body, and brought his sword down in a single seamless motion—the "Flowing Blade" he had learned from Oara.

It seemed slow, yet had no pauses—thus, it was faster.

He felt the world recede as he moved.

It was the sensation of slipping between slivers of split time.

Only a knight could react to this speed.

The enemy had revealed themselves—no hesitation needed.

Enkrid's sword fell.

Thunk. Crack!

Two sharp sounds.

He sliced downward, then pulled back as if yanking the blade—transmitting both the downstroke and the pull into the enemy's skull.

He stepped back—but something felt wrong.

The sensation in his hand was off.

Hard. Tough. Not quite the feel of cutting flesh.

"Fall back!"

The administrator, his head now split in two, spoke.

His bisected mouth shouted, and an invisible pressure slammed into Enkrid.

Ordinarily, such force would make someone stumble.

But Enkrid flowed with it—the deflection technique he learned from Audin.

A casual thing to him. To the onlookers, it was unreal.

The spell "Invisible Hand" simply passed through him.

"Amazing!" the administrator cried again.

Enkrid lowered his blade.

From the split skull, a new head was growing.

Of course he had something up his sleeve.

He wouldn't have stepped forward otherwise.

The administrator unleashed his hidden power.

The new head had no mouth—only eyes.

His human form melted like wax, transforming into a brown, floating mass.

Tendons pulsed beneath the surface, and a horizontal slit split across the body as it levitated.

He had fused with a monster's power.

To the others, he was a monster now.

"...A monster?"

"An Evil Eye?"

The lord and the spearman each muttered.

The Evil Eye—a rare monster of the Demon Realm, capable of telekinesis and petrification curses.

It had no mouth. No longer capable of speech.

Born of some experiment, its remaining intelligence was fading.

What remained was pure monster power.

The Evil Eye used its telekinesis.

It exerted pressure on the threat before it—Enkrid.

Invisible boulders slammed into him, but Enkrid stood firm.

The force wasn't as strong as when Audin pushed or Rem punched.

This Evil Eye was a half-baked version, a failed experiment.

Not the real thing.

At best, it's on Pell's level, Enkrid judged.

Pell wasn't weak, but he lagged behind the rest.

So Enkrid stood his ground.

Then the Evil Eye snatched spears from nearby soldiers with its power.

Twenty of them floated in the air, aimed at Enkrid—from above, behind, his calves, everywhere.

With telekinesis, twenty stabs could come at once.

Ordinary soldiers couldn't do that—there just wasn't space for them to stand.

But the power made it possible.

Twenty spears. All launched at Pell's strength level.

Enkrid gripped his mukgeum sword in his right hand, and Spark in his left. He didn't draw them—he just held on.

The spears flew.

Enkrid waited.

And just as they reached the edge of his range, he drew both weapons.

Clang! Crack!

Mukgeum's arc shattered the spearheads, and Spark split their shafts with ease.

Both blades had superb sharpness—and wielded by Enkrid, the result was overwhelming.

"Whoa..."

One of the soldiers muttered, awestruck.

Who could blame him?

These were rare sights indeed.

If telekinesis was the Evil Eye's first trick, it had more.

Monsters could transmit thoughts with a kind of mental pulse—echoes of fading rationality.

Let's see—can you fight without looking?

The Evil Eye opened its great horizontal slit, unleashing a wave of gray light—a petrification curse.

"Everyone, heads down!"

Lua Gharne shouted.

All obeyed.

Even the "fool" among the guards shoved his friends' heads down. The lord quickly bowed his as well.

"Ugh! Oh no...!"

Those who looked too late—some soldiers, some guild thugs—turned to stone.

Their eyes, their bodies—solid gray statues.

Enkrid lowered his gaze.

Truthfully, something far stronger than petrification resided in him. Even if he looked, it likely wouldn't affect him.

But he didn't know that.

Was it a disadvantage?

Not at all.

Fighting blind wasn't so hard.

"Let's try blocking without seeing."

A lesson from Jaxon—training in fighting by sensing alone.

Even when watching, Jaxon could vanish at times.

Fighting blind meant you had to sense every move.

Enkrid had trained like that for ages.

And he had never stopped, never grown lazy—even when progress was slow.

Compared to those days, this was easy.

The monster floated. It cast shadows. It made noise. It stank.

To most, the Evil Eye's petrification was a death sentence.

To Enkrid, it was nothing.

No one in the Mad Squad would fall to this... except maybe Kraiss.

Letting all that training go to waste now? Unthinkable.

He watched the shadows. He judged the position.

The Evil Eye's cursed eye was useless against someone who didn't look.

It flung broken weapons and bolts his way.

Enkrid casually deflected them all.

He walked toward the monster—not rushed, not slow.

Then raised his sword.

Head lowered, both hands on the mukgeum blade, lifted high.

Their shadows stretched long across the floor, visible to the lord still kneeling, head bowed.

In his field of vision, the image looked like a guillotine's blade.

And then—

Whsssh. THUNK. CRACK.

The massive eyeball—about the size of a full-grown man—split cleanly in half.

Black blood sprayed everywhere.

Thump.

The floating body crashed to the ground.

The lord flinched as the hot, metallic-smelling blood splashed on his face, the back of his head, and his hands.

Some trickled down his back.

But he said nothing.

He simply kept his head bowed.