A Knight Who Eternally Regresses-Chapter 456: How to Seize the Initiative

Enkrid wanted Rem to handle things smoothly, cleverly, and with quick wits.

And Rem would do just that.

He would take care of it.

It wasn’t a baseless belief.

Rem had always been that kind of person.

What Enkrid wanted was simple: to kill the peculiar monster boss that spun thread and fired it like arrows.

And while at it, he wanted the number of monsters reduced.

He hadn’t spelled it all out, but Rem and Dunbakel would know what needed to be done.

Could there be dangerous monsters there too?

Of course.

But—

If I were a monster.

I wouldn’t waste all my strength on Oara. In fact, I’d try to draw even more attention here starting now.

Enkrid had repeated this day endlessly, thinking, rethinking, and planning.

And in doing so, he’d learned to view his own forces from the enemy’s perspective.

What poses the greatest threat?

There was no need to ask. It was Oara.

What is their objective?

He already knew that, too.

Knight Oara.

The enemy was focusing on killing just one knight: Oara.

If Oara sought to eliminate the Demon Realm by killing its core, then the enemy was doing the same thing.

Enkrid had read their intentions, guessed their aims, and confirmed it all by repeating this day.

"Do you have an innate sense for reading the ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ battlefield?"

Roman muttered to himself, but that wasn’t quite it.

It was experience that allowed it.

Regardless, Enkrid lived and relived this day.

And not once did he ever waste a single day just to gather intel.

Even the Ferryman had been surprised by that.

Enkrid simply spent each day—every single day—like a madman, swinging his sword and shoving every bit of information he could into his head.

And so began this day.

Conclusion: Rem and Dunbakel would take care of their own.

So Enkrid had to do what he had to do.

“Hoo.”

He puffed his cheeks, then exhaled. Pursed his lips and inhaled sharply.

Tap, tap—Enkrid began to move forward. His body felt light. His condition wasn’t just okay. It was good.

Better than usual.

His desires flared in his chest and drew out a sense of exhilaration.

Enkrid picked up the pace to a light run, and Lua Gharne followed behind.

From the top of the ramparts, Oara watched. Nearby, Roman and the short blonde—Aisia—saw too.

He would win their trust with action.

So all he had to do was show it properly.

A spider monster lunged toward Enkrid. Dozens of side eyes, a split maw, legs hard as steel though not forged from it.

It was faster than the others. The creature clattered forward and crossed its front legs like scissors.

A sixth sense opened within him, and time seemed to slow under the force of his focus.

He saw the monster’s blade-like legs. Saw the protrusions lined like sawteeth in regular intervals.

He felt the force behind those crossed legs.

Getting caught in them would mean his body being sliced clean through.

Even a graze would rip his flesh to shreds.

So he just had to move before they touched.

In the fracture of split time, he accelerated thought and moved.

Enkrid swung Acker upward from below.

The blade curved in a smooth arc, slicing through both of the spider’s legs and continuing to split its head.

No need to stop.

Think and move.

Enkrid cut down the first monster and surged forward, swinging Acker with just his right hand.

His feet slammed and slid across the ground with terrifying speed.

He twisted his waist, turned his ankle, slashed, stabbed, and cleaved with relentless strikes.

Thunk, crack, splat, stab, snap.

What do you need when fighting multiple foes?

Decisiveness and judgment.

Judgment made not by thought, but by instinct—and the skill to make those instinctual judgments correct.

The one best at that was Rem.

His axe moved on instinct, carving its own path without hesitation.

Enkrid copied Rem.

Ting—a spark ignited in his left hand.

He wasn’t copying a technique. He was copying the momentum.

I am a barbarian.

A mad barbarian.

A barbarian who enjoys cracking noble skulls.

A barbarian who picks fights with anything that annoys him.

The swords in both of Enkrid’s hands bent like whips and flashed like lightning.

The glowing ember shot downward at an angle. It looked like it was piercing empty air—but it wasn’t.

A spider monster thrust its head into that very spot.

Screeeeech!

A large spider balanced itself on its legs and reared its abdomen—only for the ember to pierce its head.

Thrust and pull. The strike came at a speed outside the bounds of normal motion.

Pffft.

As the monster died with a hole through its skull, it sprayed poison from its abdominal hole.

Thick, dark brown liquid splattered through the air and rained onto the ground.

Naturally, not a drop touched Enkrid. Nor did it affect him.

While that poison-spewing monster collapsed and died, Acker darted across the battlefield like a swallow.

Hit, strike, shatter—again and again.

Sensing something behind him, Enkrid ducked his head.

Whish—a spider leg passed just overhead. A few strands of hair were sliced and scattered into the air.

Enkrid twisted his waist and kicked backward.

Crack.

His heel smashed into the spider’s head.

As he retracted his leg, another spider crawled forward and swung its scythe-like front legs at his left foot.

Enkrid pulled back and kicked upward.

Just before the curved blade could land, the iron-plated boot on his foot smashed the spider away.

Boom!

It was a relatively small monster. The clean strike burst its body.

Black ichor splattered across the top of his boot.

Big ones, small ones, mid-sized ones, poison-spewing ones, thread-shooting ones, ones with blade-like legs, berserk chargers, tunneling ambushers, sneaky stalkers.

There were too many. More than enough to kill.

Enkrid saw a step ahead into the future.

And swung his sword accordingly.

Acker slammed downward, and the ember returned to its sheath as he drew Gladius to strike the ground.

Two movements at once, then he leapt sideways.

Bang!

A whip with an iron weight at the end lashed out to cover the gap—Lua Gharne’s assist.

The spot he leapt to was the middle of a monster pack.

Several spider beasts swung their limbs. Enkrid tilted his head to dodge and raised his sword vertically, striking their forearms with the flat of the blade to deflect them.

Only possible because of the overwhelming gap in skill.

Still, it was a half-crazed act.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Then again, crazy acts that succeed often become legendary feats.

After all, there’s a fine line between a madman and a hero.

Right now, Enkrid was walking that line.

Dodging, blocking, securing his position—smack in the middle of the monster swarm.

Enkrid plunged in between them, gripped Acker with both hands, and swung wide.

A sweeping, centrifugal slash with the heft of a greatsword.

His swing tore through the monsters like a typhoon.

CRRRAAAACK!

Everything the blade touched was slashed and cleaved.

In a single blow, he carved a hole into the monster swarm.

For a moment, the area around Enkrid was a blank void.

He steadied his breath and flicked the blade into the air. Black ichor splattered to the ground.

By now, he had memorized the monsters’ patterns through repetition.

Enkrid layered his instincts and intuition over those memorized rhythms.

He had studied and predicted the monsters’ behaviors, and now painted over the battlefield canvas with their black blood as paint.

Ordinarily, no one could know all of a monster’s habits—but now wasn’t ordinary.

The day Oara dies. The day he dies. The day Rem lies with a hole in his gut. The day Aisia is decapitated. The day Lua Gharne is pierced through the heart. The day Roman dies doing nothing.

There had been countless days like those.

Today, all that experience condensed into a single man.

And so, at least here and now, Enkrid was the most experienced hunter.

Not bad.

The more he moved, the more his body felt alive. He wasn’t tired. Even after using Will mid-fight, the Giant’s Blow, and Severance’s Will here and there.

Enkrid didn’t stop.

For a moment, he forgot about Rem. Forgot about Oara. He ran. He swung his sword. He fought without rest.

This was the moment to prove himself.

And there were eyes watching him do it.

***

Millio was stationed in front of the city gate and couldn’t see what was happening ahead.

Just as he was about to give the order to open the gates, someone shouted to close them—but he had no reason to obey that.

Even so, he almost reflexively moved to follow the command before stopping himself.

“Close it.”

Just then, Oara’s order came down.

Millio thought that even if the knight hadn’t given the command, he might’ve followed that shout from up ahead anyway.

“To the top of the wall. All of you, ready your bows.”

Millio gave the order to his unit and started moving.

That damn Admor bastard. He better not be dead already.

Enkrid may have interfered, but Millio was the one who decided to send him.

A subtle worry rooted itself in one corner of his mind.

But now wasn’t the time for that. The monsters were swarming more fiercely than ever.

This was a large-scale wave—even among other waves.

With everyone, including Oara, engaged on the battlefield, he couldn’t afford to mess up by worrying over a single comrade.

Millio took another step.

He knew there was no need to push himself. But his feet moved faster on their own.

Why aren’t they firing?

It was common sense in Thousand Brick: to reduce their numbers, you had to shoot them before they reached you.

But no arrows had flown. Not yet.

Millio climbed the wall with hurried steps. Behind him, soldiers readied their bows and notched arrows to the string. All they needed now was the command to fire.

Oara was there—but someone else was in charge of giving that command.

That was the standard when the knights went to the front: someone else coordinated the archers from behind.

That was how Thousand Brick had survived.

Millio saw that the one responsible for giving that command was speechless.

The soldier next to him, who should’ve been waving the flag to signal, was no different.

Even Oara was the same.

“That crazy bastard,”

Oara muttered with a twisted smirk on her lips.

She was always smiling—but there was something different about her true, exhilarated smile.

A subtle difference that only Millio could recognize.

It was his specialty, earned from years of quietly watching her with interest.

Millio’s unique skill: reading Oara’s smile.

And right now, to his eyes, Oara looked genuinely thrilled.

Naturally, Millio’s gaze shifted forward.

There was a time long ago when someone rose from squire to knight in the Red Cloak Order, and he’d seen them fight.

It was during a battle between Naurillia and Azpen, right in the middle of Green Pearl beyond the border guard.

That knight launched off the ground with all their resolve.

What followed was swordplay like a butterfly, movement like lightning.

Just one such fighter could tear through a battlefield. When someone at the level of a junior knight entered a swarm of ordinary soldiers, that was possible.

That kind of force could flip an entire battlefield.

Millio hadn’t witnessed that fight himself. He could only see what was in front of him.

But right now, he was seeing something just like it.

Outside the city gate.

That’s what Oara was smiling at.

At the center of the monster horde—his only ally being Frokk following from behind.

Even Frokk’s battle didn’t stand out.

A man stood there, in a place where Millio himself wouldn’t last more than a few exchanges before dying.

And that man was swinging his sword. Slashing. Stabbing. Cutting. Smashing.

He rampaged to Oara’s right, then by the time the explosion rang out on her left, he had already shifted over.

Black dirt exploded from the spot where he landed.

Before the chunks even hit the ground, four monsters already had holes in their heads.

What kind of human could do that?

The torch on a nearby post shook wildly, casting flickering light on the scene.

Few soldiers had seen knights fight up close as often as Millio had.

So he knew—squires and junior knights weren’t invincible.

They got tired when they didn’t sleep. Weakened if they didn’t eat.

Millio’s palms were sweaty. His heart pounded. A rush of adrenaline surged through him.

He didn’t know what that man was fighting for.

But if someone asked who was leading the charge on this battlefield right now, Millio would answer without hesitation.

Thud.

“Oah,”

One soldier stomped his foot and shouted.

“Oah!”

Another followed. Then a few more opened their mouths at once.

The chant spread. A cheer for one man.

Everyone in the city, everyone defending the walls, watched together with one mind. Even Oara.

“Enkrid!”

Someone shouted his name. It was strange.

Was what Enkrid just did really so different from what the knights had done before?

Not really.

And yet—there was something in that man’s fight that set hearts ablaze.

Hearts pounded. Chests burned. Heads went blank with a white-hot rush. A wave of exhilaration surged through their bodies, and Millio felt like he could crush every last monster to death himself.

Even though the twin moons had risen, no one looked up.

No one spoke of danger.

They were all watching the same thing—one man, alone, slaughtering the very threat that loomed over them.