A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Rophod had a specialty born of his calculating, layered approach to combat.

It was a wide field of vision—like observing the battlefield from above.

And from the very start of the fight, he'd been using that wide perspective to observe the enemy. He had already seen the opening in the enemy paladin formation. He just hadn't had the strength to break through it.

But now, he had just acquired the blade that could fill that gap.

Rophod began a series of mental calculations.

Pell's explosive strikes, the variables needed to support them—strength, speed, time required for motion.

Once everything was accounted for, he moved.

Rophod leapt sideways from the blood-splattered mound of dirt and shouted—making it look sudden, like an impulsive move.

"You—I'll kill you!"

It looked like a reckless charge aimed at the goateed paladin.

The impulsive movement left a clear opening in Rophod's guard, and the enemy immediately exploited it.

Clang! Smash! Scrape!

Rophod blocked the arcing blade with his sword and twisted his waist to evade a spiked flail. The evasion came a touch late—the cloak snagged and tore on one of the iron spikes.

This was the moment.

He flung the torn piece of cloak at the enemy's eyes. The fluttering cloth obscured the vision of one paladin.

But the goateed paladin hadn't been the real target.

Rophod was aiming for the junior knight-level paladin who had been waiting for an opening to land a killing blow.

"You!"

Rophod shouted with Will, directing the force toward the goateed paladin. It was the kind of intimidation you'd expect from a knight, but it wasn't meant to do actual damage—just to sell the ruse.

The torn cloak, the shout, the posture—it all screamed: I'm coming for the goateed one!

It all happened in a single breath.

At the knight-level, senses beyond sight come into play. A momentary obstruction isn't fatal.

But there's a difference between what you see and what you don't.

The Gray Army knight focused his attention on Rophod's pressure. He subtly angled his stance and shifted his guard, mentally preparing for a strike.

It was just a sliver of an opening.

Right before shouting at the goateed paladin, Rophod whispered internally:

Now.

And as if he had read that silent signal, Pell moved.

He sensed it. The instant Rophod created had arrived.

Everything is decided in a flash. The act of swinging a sword, even the decision to swing it—both happen in that singular moment.

Pell focused entirely on that beat.

"Your stance for slipping into openings is solid, but what'll you do if no openings appear? You should learn how to fight with calculation."

That was Enkrid's advice.

It had stuck in Pell's mind—especially the part that came afterward:

"Still, do whatever you want. It's not like anyone's stopping you."

Truth be told, Pell liked the second part more.

Sure, the first part was the smarter path—but he didn't want to take the obvious road.

So he didn't waste effort scrambling for a non-existent opening.

No opening? Then I'll make one. That's all.

Everyone walks their own path.

This was Pell's. And Enkrid had respected that.

So now, it was time to reveal what he had gained walking that path.

He crouched low and surged forward, skimming just above the ground.

From that position, he drew his sword upward.

Every muscle in his body twisted, compressing and releasing power like a spring. He added Will to the motion.

You can't dodge this.

He fixed the enemy in his mind's eye—froze him there.

Will responded, enhancing the strike with explosive speed.

One unshakable intent becomes strength. That's Will—a formless force forged from resolve.

Pell's upward slash created a silver curtain.

It looked like a rising veil, or perhaps a geyser of water bursting from the earth.

Slash! Splatter!

Pell's blade cut from groin to jaw, slicing through one paladin's entire body. The bisected tongue was visible in the split-open jaw.

Before blood even sprayed, the wound was plain to see.

If the knight hadn't been distracted by Rophod, he might've blocked it. He might've survived.

But it was already too late.

Whatever the process—dead was dead.

Pell stumbled back at a fraction of his charge's speed.

Splurt!

Blood erupted from the corpse.

Several paladins lashed out in reflex. Maces with rounded steel balls slammed down toward Pell's head.

CLANG!

Rophod intercepted them.

Flying swords, maces, flails, spears—he blocked them all.

His leather shoulder guard was torn, his chainmail dented. Cuts lined his arm, blood dripped from his forearm.

But nothing was fatal.

Four and a half breaths—that's how long Rophod had bought him.

It was enough for Pell to breathe, recover.

"I'm going again."

Rophod didn't even look back as he spoke.

His body was flushed with heat from the rush of the last exchange.

And so was Pell.

Pell didn't reply. He just tapped Rophod's back.

They might act like they want to kill each other most days—but they were both part of Enkrid's Mad Order.

So of course, in moments like this, they fought together.

A single slash had silenced the enemy paladins.

"You crazy bastards..."

Only the apparent leader offered any commentary—half praise, half curse.

To him, if even a fraction of that strike had gone wrong, the attacker would've died instantly.

It was an impressive blow, sure—but it was the kind of reckless move you'd never attempt in formation combat.

Most people, when attacking, always save enough strength to defend.

But this?

This was madness.

"Form the wheel!"

The leader barked.

Pell just focused on his breathing.

Rophod resumed his calculations.

For a brief moment, they moved as one.

Victory hadn't been decided, but the tide was shifting.

And in that same moment, the Gray Holy Army stood face-to-face with Enkrid.

A chill wind whistled between the two forces.

If the wind had consciousness, it would've been watching them too.

Right before Teresa, Pell, and Rophod had blocked their flank, Enkrid had said something to his opponent—just enough to turn Myl's plump face red.

***

"Looks like all your blessings of Plenty went to your belly and jowls."

That was the first thing Enkrid said the moment he stepped down the slope and came face to face with Myl.

"...What?"

Myl—one of the Church's Seven Apostles and a central figure of power—had never heard anything like it before.

Not in decades.

Not even as the paladins and priests under him grew more coarse in speech, not once had anyone dared speak to him like this.

"Just saying. You're kind of fat," Enkrid added flatly.

It was a low-effort insult—easy to ignore under normal circumstances. But coming from him, in that tone, it grated.

He'd already been rubbing Myl the wrong way, and now this.

Beside him, a man draped in heated leather snorted with laughter.

Next to him, another man, lazy-eyed and holding a greatsword, chuckled too.

"You've allowed your grotesque thoughts to fester into grotesque flesh."

That was Frokk, adding his voice to the insult.

"And wouldn't it be better if your spirit grew abundant first, Brother?" said the bear-like man—Audin.

Myl didn't know what annoyed him more: the words, or the casual calm in which they were spoken.

He was not a man known for patience.

He wanted to cave in their skulls with a flail right now.

And more importantly, he saw no reason to endure this insult.

"So be it. What's there to discuss with those tainted by demons and devils?"

It was Myl's own declaration: these were heretics, no longer worthy of words—only the hammer.

But no one reacted.

"Preferably, I don't want a single one of them to get through," Enkrid said. "So. Who's stepping up?"

No one responded.

Instead, Ragna stepped forward wordlessly.

He took five slow steps away from the group, positioning himself slightly to the left.

From behind, Rem called out.

"That's the left flank, dumbass. Not the center."

"...?"

Ragna stopped, turned, and scowled.

"You seriously don't know your left from your front, barbarian?"

Rem, who'd just pointed out Ragna was wandering off-course, was about to explode.

"Can I just punch him in the face and start things that way?"

"Nope," Enkrid said, shaking his head.

Still no tension in his tone.

That only made Myl angrier.

"Are you just going to stand there and watch?" Myl snapped. His voice trembled with restrained fury.

As expected, several figures stepped forward from the Gray Holy Army.

They were unmistakable.

From their stride, the subtle adjustments of their stances, to the way their polearms pointed like accusations at the sky—it was clear.

These men weren't hiding their abilities at all.

Audin watched them with a faint smile and spoke.

"No wonder Lord Overdeer keeps lamenting."

Enkrid raised a brow in silent question.

"He complains that even when it's not enough to gather all our strength, we're still wasting troops like this," Audin said softly.

"Hey, furry brute," Rem said, pulling out his axe. "Why don't you sit this one out for once?"

There were four presumed paladins stepping forward. The pressure they exuded—not visible, but felt—seemed to press down on the entire field.

But the moment Rem brandished his axe, that pressure was sliced clean through.

They say in battles of unseen pressure, sorcery works better than Will.

Maybe that's true.

Rem had just proven it.

The aura around him alone felt like he could take on all four of them by himself.

"Interviews come later, axe-happy brother," Audin said.

"Interview my ass."

Rem sneered.

Audin had promised discipline when he returned. Rem hadn't forgotten.

"Little tension here, holy gentlemen," said a man with coils of cloth or chain wrapped around his forearms.

It was Azratic, the paladin known as the Joint-Breaking Serpent of the Scales.

"Are you so confident in victory?"

He asked again, eyes fixed on Enkrid.

Enkrid had already been asked that same question before leaving.

It wasn't something he needed to answer again.

He'd already made peace with it—verbally and in his heart.

Even with a paladin radiating murderous pressure before him and the Gray Holy Army at his back—

"It's mine."

Audin replied instead, stepping up to face Azratic. He wore silver gauntlets Enkrid hadn't seen before.

Whether anyone else said anything, one man had already begun doing his job.

"No one's getting past this ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) point."

It was Ragna.

He had stepped to the side and spoken. His words rang with such raw clarity that everyone's eyes turned to him—Enkrid's included.

While Audin and Azratic locked eyes, Enkrid faced off with a halberd-wielding enemy, and Rem twirled his axe at Myl—one of the Apostles of Plenty—

Ragna faced the paladin squarely.

He thought it might be fun to face one of them.

But more than that, he was intrigued by something Enkrid had done once.

Enkrid had raised a wall of pure Will. An "Iron Wall."

A massive wave of pressure created through sheer force of intent.

And Ragna thought:

How would I do it?

Could he make something similar?

That kind of Iron Wall needed relentless Will, continuously poured out to maintain its form.

Ragna didn't like it.

Not because he couldn't—but because it lacked elegance.

And yet, his one simple sentence had captured not just his allies' attention, but his enemies' too.

Several of the enemy commanders clenched their jaws hard enough that their cheek muscles bulged.

"Fire."

Tududududun!

Dozens of bolts flew toward Ragna from close range.

Fwoosh.

Ragna swung his sword.

There was no visible wind-up. Not to the naked eye.

But in truth, he had turned his shoulders, opened his chest, and tilted his body to swing with full intent.

He swung his blade low and flat, sweeping the air before the bolts could reach.

BOOM!

The sound of wind from the blade echoed like a detonation.

The gust it created twisted the flight paths of the bolts.

He had created a wind barrier with a sword slash—disrupting their trajectory.

Easy to say. Not easy to do.

Azratic, watching from the side, knew that he couldn't do it.

"Down. If you stand, you die."

Ragna spoke the warning after knocking away a full volley of bolts with his sword-induced wind.

Then he gripped the blade with both hands and twisted his shoulders and waist leftward.

A clear message in that stance—it was a horizontal slash.

"I gave you a warning."

That was the end of it.

He didn't wait for them to process it. He didn't expect them to listen.

Ragna kicked off the ground and swung.

One slash—but not just a slash.

It was everything the gifted swordsman had seen and learned, condensed into a single motion.

This idiot who couldn't find his way to the center was now a hurricane of steel.

He sprinted from left to right, cutting through the field like a charging cavalry unit.

His blade was a guillotine that could slice through anything.

He used his feet and blade together to draw a long, slicing arc—the technique he'd seen from Oara.

It was something Enkrid had learned. Now Ragna had seen it, digested it, and made it his own.

CRACK! WHAM! RIP! SPLAT! GRIND!

The sounds piled on top of one another into one explosive roar.

It was a continuous combination of Oara's technique and the vibration mechanics learned from Azpen Barnaas.

No one could block that slash.

And it didn't end there.

As soon as he'd dashed to the right, Ragna kicked off again—

And charged left.

Delivering the same devastating slash as before.