Balrog was elated. The emotion of rapture spread throughout his entire body, causing his Will to surge even more fiercely.

A fight that tempers steel and blood and will into a blossoming flame—one where he wagers everything he has, against an opponent who matches him in skill.

This was the life he longed for. This was the reason for his existence.

—Let’s fight.

His Will shaped his intent, and the air trembled. The pressure wasn’t intended, yet it pressed down on his opponent. But that was fine.

They wouldn’t falter from something like this. It was rare to find someone with a spirit this intense.

In this rare moment of battle, Balrog became intoxicated by joy. At the same time, memories of moments that rivaled this one flickered through his mind.

The first was from the time he roamed the Demon Realm with the devil known as The Last Door of Life—or The One Who Ends Life, also called The Father of the Dead.

He had eleven siblings, all consumed by battle—but he surpassed them all, even when they joined forces under their so-called father.

Black mist spilled from the corner of Balrog’s mouth, clumped together, and fell to the ground with a splat.

To humans, it would be like drool collecting and dripping out.

Balrog’s gaze turned toward the one with blue eyes and black hair.

Among them, this was the one who had reshaped his Will and used it to block Balrog. He stood out. The way he wielded his Will reminded Balrog of when he broke through the Thorned Fortress wall while facing off against the so-called Lord of Thorns.

The Thorned Fortress had collapsed twice—and the first time, it was Balrog’s doing.

Then came the third memory: his own defeat. No—rather, it wasn’t so much that he remembered it, but that he couldn’t forget it. He’d revisited it countless times.

"Go. You don’t want to die here, do you?"

Those were the words of the one who had surpassed him in pure skill.

He, too, had been human. In the end, that man cast Balrog aside and vanished into the deeper parts of the Demon Realm—as though sinking into the deep sea. He had said he’d been called.

Through the reasoned mind he’d gained by killing his siblings with force, Balrog had become a demon. He had learned how to take what he desired.

And yet, a mere human had overcome him with strength alone.

Even when he was ruled by madness, defeats were rare. But it had happened.

His thoughts raced with high-speed cognition, so the memory passed through him in a flash. Balrog returned to the pleasure of the present reality. Or rather, he remained intoxicated the entire time.

For him, there was nothing more exhilarating and joyous than struggle.

Memories are things you pass through. What’s passed is the past—yesterday. Balrog didn’t linger in yesterday. He lived today.

—Make it even more fun.

He spoke.

There were three crystals. If he killed them all before the remaining two were shattered, it would be his victory. And if, at the peak of this joy and ecstasy, he could also savor the fulfillment of survival and triumph—it would be perfect.

***

It was a battle like a perfectly meshed set of gears.

The Fire Command that Rem had thrown punched a hole in Balrog’s perception. The moment Balrog factored in blocking the projectile, an opening was bound to appear.

But if he hadn’t blocked it, that projectile would have shattered one of the crystals too.

That’s why Balrog had blocked it.

Then Audin seized the flame whip and, for a moment, neutralized the weapon known as Salamandra. At the same time, Enkrid nullified every one of Balrog’s attacks.

In that opening, Ragna transformed his Will into heat. He did it unconsciously, but Ragna’s Will adjusted to match the heat of Sunrise. It was a realm of innate talent.

He struck the crystal lodged in Balrog’s chest—but failed.

Could they ever fight like that again?

Was it all just coincidence?

Did they merely take advantage of Balrog letting his guard down?

Would they ever get a second chance like that?

Such thoughts were natural to have.

Audin’s left palm was blistered by the heat, and the heat Ragna had imbued into his blade was now gone.

Rem, having widened his distance, adjusted the spinning speed of his sling. The disc that had been whirring with a high-pitched weeeing now made a slower hum.

If he kept it spinning too fast, the sling’s cord would snap.

Shinar still couldn’t find an opening to squeeze into. As for Jaxon—no one even knew where he was.

“That bastard didn’t just run away, did he?”

Rem even thought that.

Not seriously, of course. If he were the kind of bastard to run, he’d have bailed from this group long ago.

He never really had a reason to stay in the Mad Order of Knights to begin with.

Then again, the same could be said of Rem himself. Was Audin any different? Or Ragna? Or Shinar?

Esther, Teresa, Pell, Rophod too. Kraiss and Dunbakel as well.

Every one of them had gathered for one reason.

Because of the person standing at the center of them all.

They saw him, realized something, learned something—and the way they looked at life changed. That’s why they were here.

The one who sparked all those changes—the lunatic who achieved an impossible dream and still refused to stop moving forward—opened his mouth.

“It’s fine. I feel it again. I can block it. Let’s go again. We just have to do it again.”

The flames still burned in the eyes of that legendary lunatic who had forgotten what defeat, despair, and hopelessness even were.

A man of modest talent who had climbed to the height of knighthood—he still didn’t know how to give up.

His face seemed expressionless, but if you looked into his eyes, you’d see clearly what he longed for.

Of course, Rem—standing a good distance away—couldn’t see that lunatic’s eyes right now. All he could see was the back of his head. But he knew anyway.

“Bet he’s making those crazy eyes again.”

Eyes filled with anticipation—like this was the most fun he’d ever had. And there were things you could know even without seeing someone’s eyes.

His tone was bright and clear. Not a trace of darkness in his voice.

Could anyone else in the world say something like that in a moment like this?

No. There wasn’t.

“Ah, fine. Do it then.”

Rem muttered with a grin.

If this went bad and he ended up dead, he’d just have to wait for Owl and the kid as a corpse. For dying first, he’d probably get his ass beat by Owl.

Still—he couldn’t help but be swept up in the force of will that man radiated.

“Yeah. Let’s fight. Let’s fight again.”

The blow that cut Balrog was no coincidence. It belonged to the realm of inevitability. If Enkrid believed that, then Rem would believe it too.

Following Rem—

“His eyes know no fear, and ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) so they are steel. His steps never hesitate, and so they are thunder. As the Lord Father watches from above, there shall be no withholding in the hand that reaches for His will.”

Audin, too, was exalted and inflamed.

The grandeur, pressure, or murderous aura radiating from Balrog as he declared how delightful battle was—none of it compared to the weight of a single word from their captain.

That man’s uprightness was like a light that pierced through even the oppressive force of a demon. As the apostle of the god of war, he could offer this demon as a pet beast to the lonely Lord and it would be a worthy tribute.

“I send this demon, who grovels at the side of the lonely Lord, as a gift.”

Audin’s prayer continued.

“It’s real.”

Enkrid spoke again. Because it was genuine. And isn’t it said that when you speak from the heart, you say it at least twice?

The cloth gauntlet wrapped around his left hand had become ragged, so he discarded it. Now his hand was bare.

And it wasn’t just the gauntlet that had broken.

He was injured in several places. The most severe wound was on his torso. Even though it was armor Esther had breathed life into, his side had been deeply gouged, and blood stains were stark above it.

Had that hit landed just a little cleaner, there would be a gaping hole in his stomach.

Ragna still hadn’t once taken his eyes off Balrog, who stood ahead. He opened his mouth.

“Again?”

It was a confirming question. Enkrid answered right away.

“Again.”

It wasn’t a question—it was a statement filled with conviction.

To synchronize in combat, you needed to know each other’s skill and even minute habits. These men could do that. Because they saw each other as rivals and had always observed one another with the intent of beating the other.

There was the condition that you had to win without killing. That meant watching even more closely.

They had what it took to turn chance into inevitability once more.

If one were to assess the current situation calmly, there would be no reason to believe they could win just by bashing their heads together again.

Audin’s left palm sizzled as it burned. Enkrid had lost his gauntlet and was injured. Was Rem, who spun the sling from afar, unharmed?

Of course not. He hadn’t even started this battle in good condition.

Thanks to fighting while guarding Ragna, his entire body was screaming.

And Ragna wasn’t in good shape either. Just sleeping didn’t make a body that had been overworked return to full function overnight.

Enkrid, for his part, had already died over a hundred times at Balrog’s hands. Every attempt had ended in failure. And every time a new “today” arrived, he attacked again—aware of his growth and change. He had found several methods. Some even looked like a way out.

But all had failed. Every single one had led to death. The pain might as well have been etched into his bones. Being overwhelmed by the opponent’s presence was only natural.

In other words, it would make sense to feel fear or hesitation. But there wasn’t even a crumb of such negative emotion in his voice.

“Let’s go again.”

All that filled him was anticipation.

The Ferryman, watching the situation unfold from within Enkrid’s inner world, couldn’t help but marvel. This bastard really acted like he had never died even once.

And it wasn’t as if he found comfort in being able to repeat today. He simply never thought of death at all.

He was wholly focused on the fight itself.

He fought like someone who had never died. Like it was his first time.

—Again.

The word again crisscrossed and spread.

Even Balrog uttered it.

From within Enkrid’s mind, built on everything he’d learned and experienced so far, a question arose.

'How do you beat an opponent like that?'

If the opponent moved once, he had to move twice. Block once, strike once. When others swung a sword once, he would swing twice.

It wasn’t simply about being fast. If you played inside the enemy’s combat computations, speed alone would just lead to wasted strikes.

From all his past battles with Balrog, from his accumulated experience, Enkrid now began to grasp the answer.

‘Not just speed and power—but superiority in understanding and depth of Will as well.’

Like drawing a circle—raising everything to a high level equally.

‘Then overlay your specialty on top of that.’

It was the same theory knights used when they categorized skill into intermediate, advanced, and master levels. It was repetition.

Like drawing a circle to elevate all your techniques—then developing a specialty within that. Then drawing another circle with that specialty at the center.

Through countless repetitions, what once began as a special move or top-tier technique eventually became internalized as a basic skill.

‘Repeat. And repeat again.’

It was the path from knight... to monster.

Even becoming a knight in the first place had come from endlessly repeating things like that.

And standing before him now was the monster who had obsessively repeated the process of building and breaking that circle.

That was Balrog. And the bastard had taken it even further.

‘He makes his entire body into a weapon.’

Something only a being that evolved from beast to demon could do. With skin denser and harder than any human’s, he could use his flesh itself as a weapon. It was likely similar in level to the kind of bodily reinforcement used by exceptionally gifted giants.

Where fairies might use spiritual essence, and Western warriors wield inherited weapons—giants refined their Will into specific body parts for battle.

They didn’t even call it Will—they called it Fury.

‘Audin could probably do it too.’

His Radiant Armor was a weapon in itself.

That was the point. Fists, feet, elbows, fingers—everything could be a weapon.

Enkrid’s gaze never left Balrog’s eyes, which spun with swirling flame. But he also noticed the demon’s tail had drooped.

His awareness was wide enough now that he could take in peripheral details and factor them into his calculations.

‘If one fights while maintaining optimal distance, using the entire body as a weapon with minimal movement and energy—’

Balrog’s movements were always the most efficient. The more you fought him, the clearer that became. Enkrid had even stolen pieces of that motion into his own style.

As a result, while others swung once, Balrog could swing—whether it was sword or fist—three or four times.

That broke all combat calculations.

Balrog fought like that. Which meant—calculations alone wouldn’t be enough to block his attacks.

Still, Enkrid felt it.

Thoughts brushed through his mind like sparks. High-speed cognition sliced them into fragments, processing each one.

Even so, it was just a drift of thought—like oil floating on water.

Enkrid had been pouring all his senses into the monster standing before him. But now, the fleeting thoughts shattered—

Because the opponent had moved.