A Knight Who Eternally Regresses-Chapter 460: The Highest Praise and Cheers

"That thing's not like the half-baked ones we fought before. You knew that and still blocked it?"

Rem spoke—not in reproach, just making a point.

Jericks froze mid-motion, as if wary of Rem’s sudden appearance.

If it had a name, it probably wasn’t just some ordinary monster. Which meant it might be capable of thoughts.

Normally, anything on a ghoul’s shoulders was purely decorative—but this was the Demon Realm. Nothing here obeyed the laws of common sense.

Since they were now in a standoff, their vigilance mutually raised, Enkrid took the moment to observe the ghoul—now named Jericks—a bit more carefully.

One thing was certain: that monster was monstrously strong.

Far more than the fake knights conjured by that specter-raising count from before.

"Yeah," Enkrid replied.

He’d already felt it firsthand—that ghoul knew how to fight.

Those “half-baked” ones Rem referred to were the fake knights—stitched-up puppets of flesh and muscle, broken toys at best.

"You knew and still blocked it?"

Rem asked again.

"It was manageable."

And he meant it. In the past, he wouldn’t have lasted a second—but now? He could hold his own.

That ghoul bastard was even watching Oara out of the corner of its eye.

Sure, a bunch of reasons left him with needled muscles and popping joints, but at the end of the day, he hadn’t been pierced by those claws.

His ribs were still sore from taking two hits to the chest, but this level of pain was tolerable.

‘Should I be thanking Audin?’

If he hadn’t trained under that striking method, his ribs would've snapped.

And through all that pain, he’d come to realize something else—he could feel the motion of Will as he moved during those moments he got hit.

What mattered was that he’d endured.

Thinking back on it, he now felt like he could withstand the strikes of that knight from Azpen again.

"You learned that guard from the slashing guy?"

Rem smirked and thought to himself.

Damn. That thing’s no joke.

Those half-assed puppets the count made? They imitated knightly strength, but their technique was trash.

What’s the point of strength if the one using it fights like an idiot? That’s why they were easy prey.

But this monster in front of them—this was different.

These things fought each other to survive. For a ghoul to have instincts this refined meant it had clawed its way to survival through countless life-or-death fights.

That power came from struggle. It was earned.

This wasn’t a half-baked one. Rem saw that clearly.

‘I can’t kill it.’

Not right now. He’d need sorcery for that. Improved skill alone wasn’t enough.

And he’d just returned after wiping out five trolls hiding between the villages.

Those bastards weren’t normal, either.

His left forearm throbbed, and his elbow joint creaked.

He had blocked the third troll’s axe with his left arm and taken a blow to the waist at the same time.

The fight left him with off-balance injuries.

Not life-threatening. A few days of rest and he’d be fine.

A week at most.

Even a walking trip wouldn’t be a problem.

Dealing with some dumb thieves? Easy.

Just so long as he didn’t get into an intense brawl. As long as he didn’t fight anything out-of-spec.

The problem was that something out-of-spec was standing right in front of him.

And that thing’s captain... looked totally thoughtless.

No, it almost looked like it was actively trying to keep Oara from stepping in.

‘Bit much for bad luck.’

Rem scratched his head with the handle of his club. He’d accepted the risks of heading west, but this... this was overkill.

"What do you want?" he asked anyway.

"To land a blow."

He shook himself off, ready to go. His mind was made up.

Well, yeah. He’s never been one to dwell.

Enkrid was the kind of man who moved first and then made the path he took the right one through sheer madness.

Rem found that kind of insane drive strangely fun.

Wasn’t that why he stayed?

Wasn’t that why, after watching this man, he’d finally made up his mind to return west?

The ghoul wiggled its fingers, as if calculating something.

A monster drawing out knightly power through instinct and raw combat sense...

Rem knew—he might die.

"Let’s do it."

But he had no intention of backing down.

There wasn’t time to draw up some perfect strategy—but Enkrid had been waiting for Rem since the moment he’d envisioned the plan.

What mattered was the opening.

Rem would carve that opening.

Enkrid believed that completely.

***

Ghouls don’t think.

That thing on their shoulders? Pure decoration.

But the ghoul called Jericks had rudimentary thought processes.

That was the foundation upon which the current Jericks had been built.

Through that simple cognition, Jericks could observe and assess the situation.

It didn’t matter if there were three enemies or five.

It felt they were weaker than itself.

But if it killed them, a different blade would come flying from behind.

It had crossed swords with that blade more than once.

Jericks thought.

If I buy time and endure, the being who pushed me into this place will make a move.

That was where its thinking led.

An annoying blade came flying again.

Jericks casually kicked the axe aiming for its ankle with the top of its foot, then blocked the other blade precisely.

That sword was laced with something troublesome.

Monsters were generally weak to silver. Silver, being sacred metal, hurt.

But silver was also soft and brittle. Only skilled smiths could forge proper silver blades.

And without blessings, silver had no effect on its body.

Still, the blade its opponent wielded clearly felt different.

Of course. It was mixed with Jinun—a metal known as True Fortune.

Jericks thought: avoid it.

As long as it didn’t cut or stab deeply, it wasn’t a real threat.

Be it a sword laced with Jinun or a blessed club—if it didn’t hit, it didn’t matter.

Jericks was confident.

That weak slash wouldn’t land.

Its long years of life told it that instinctively.

It had already assessed its opponent’s skill.

Whoosh—the axe came flying again.

Jericks struck with a knife-hand faster than the axe.

Crack!

Hardened skin blocked the blade. The opponent dragged the axe downward.

Rrrrip!

The silvery blade grated across the flesh, tearing away chunks of the hardened hide.

It wasn’t sliced or cut, but a patch of thick skin was ripped away.

A fresh wound—unfamiliar to even a ghoul’s defenses.

Still, it had blocked the strike.

Jericks blocked with its left hand, then thrust with the right.

Gahk!

But the right hand was intercepted by another axe.

Pulling and striking, the exchanges repeated.

Jericks gauged the opponent’s skill through their aura.

They didn’t have what it took to kill something like it—a being that refused to die.

So the issue was itself.

Since it had no blade, it simply needed to bite and grind them down slowly.

The ghoul was still learning.

It had learned to run from frightening swords. And it was learning even now.

This time, it learned to delay and wear down.

It suppressed its bloodlust and waited.

Time was on its side.

But all creatures are prone to delusion.

"Aaah!"

A scream rang out. A human scream.

Jericks’ pupil-less eyes narrowed. It turned toward the sound.

A small-bodied female human was clutching her shoulder, rolling on the ground. Blood streamed down from the wound.

The scent of fresh blood. Tender flesh.

Bloodlust surged. Hunger flared. But Jericks suppressed it and observed. That was another step forward. Evolution.

The ghoul’s mind, once limited, evolved rapidly under pressure.

At this rate, it might even be called a god of the Demon Realm.

And then—

"Now..."

The moment its gaze shifted.

A blur—a slash so fast even shadows stretched into lines—came screaming in.

It targeted the wrist. There was no time to dodge.

All it took was a split second of distraction.

An axe swung for both of its hands.

Why had it looked away? Not because of the wounded human.

Because a terrifying blade had moved right next to it.

The human who’d been grinding it down took a step back.

And that same blade slashed past the scent of blood.

To be precise—it cut down the owlbear that had been targeting the wounded human.

Slice. Thud. Crack.

Everything happened in an instant.

Oara twisted her body and swung her sword.

The owlbear was nearly cleaved in half, smashed into the ground.

The ghoul narrowly dodged it and twisted his wrist upward to catch the axe blade, palm now facing the sky.

There was no need for brute strength—he simply raised the back of his hand and snatched the axe.

Crack. Crunch. Thwack.

The blade caved in, pierced, and shattered.

Shattering the weapon, Jericks launched a kick straight ahead.

That kick, launched dead-on, was like his hidden trump card.

His leg shot out three times faster than his hand.

BOOM!

A deafening roar exploded.

The axe, hit full-force, flew far behind its wielder.

Everything was unfolding inside the ghoul’s calculations. It had all been anticipated.

But in the few seconds spent contending with the axe—

Jericks went beyond perception. He confronted something outside his calculations.

That light had closed the distance to his eyes in an instant.

It advanced so fast that all he saw was ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) a single dot of light before it entered through his gaze and passed through his skull—so of course he saw nothing after that.

The ghoul couldn’t grasp what had happened in that moment, but one thought surfaced.

That terrifying blade he’d been avoiding—he remembered it.

It was that kind of light again.

His skull burst open. In his final moment, Jericks thrust his claw forward with all his might.

There was no emotion. It was a purely instinctive act.

The tip of that claw barely sank into flesh with a muted tock.

***

If until now the method had been squeezing every last drop from his muscles, Roman’s strike was a little different.

“Will in every motion.”

From stepping forward to breathing.

He couldn’t be a knight yet, so to mimic a knight’s strike, Roman poured Will into everything.

Enkrid saw the method and absorbed it swiftly.

Will—also known as Wayl—could be felt and used, but not controlled at will.

Then how had he used Rapid Step and the Giant’s Strike?

“Everything is within me.”

If you commit fully, you can use it. So when you step, step like your life depends on it. When you draw a blade, do it the same way.

The realization came in a flash, but reaching it had taken a long, long time.

He repeated his movements again and again until they aligned with that realization.

He imbued Wayl into his strikes, just as he had with Rapid Step or Giant’s Strike—into each movement, each flick of the hand.

He dissected each motion and infused them all with Wayl. As a result, everything became cleaner, more efficient.

Of course, embedding Wayl into every motion would take more than three hundred todays to master.

“Thrust.” 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

He committed. And the blade extended.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

After dozens of failed attempts, one movement finally reached it.

He now understood how to strike with peace. He also understood how to strike with warning.

Just from placing a foot on the ground, he could now sense dozens of layers of intent.

But at first, it was just movement. He simply acted as he had practiced.

He focused entirely on putting Wayl—Will—into every piece of motion.

Enkrid thrust his sword.

More precisely, he dissected the act of thrusting. He broke it into fragments, internalized each component, executed them as individual arts, and acted with absolute, singular focus.

If someone asked what made this different from his usual attacks, he wouldn’t be able to explain.

But what touched every fiber of his body in that moment gave him, however briefly, a taste of omnipotence.

“Thrust.”

The enemy couldn’t dodge. That’s just how it was. It felt inevitable.

And it was.

The tip of his sword pierced straight through Jericks’s brow.

Roman had once said—with one proper knight’s strike, you could pierce through a specter, and nothing from your body would remain.

But Enkrid wasn’t Roman.

He’d experienced this before.

He knew that when Wayl ran out, it didn’t leave you feeling hollow.

It just left every muscle in your body screaming like it had been ripped apart.

As Jericks died, he raised his claw once more.

And just then—a white shadow slid in front of Enkrid.

It was Dunbakel.

The moment she saw the monster, her body trembled violently.

She wanted to run. But she didn’t.

Run. Bolt. Flee.

Those words only come when you’ve faced the threat.

Dunbakel threw herself forward. It wasn’t a decision made in her head—her body moved first.

‘Why am I...?’

The question trailed behind her, followed by a sharp impact.

“Uurgh!”

Dunbakel felt a phantom pain pierce through her stomach. As if her intestines had been torn out.

But tensing from the fear made her abs tighten—and no pain came.

Vrrrrrr.

Her trembling eyes caught the sight of her straining arm muscles. She saw her dented vambrace. And in her hand—part of the monster’s corpse.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Enkrid asked.

Right after Dunbakel stepped in front of him, he had lifted a chunk of the monster’s body.

“Aren’t you coming out?”

Enkrid felt an overwhelming fatigue.

It wasn’t just the thrust—it was the act of lifting a monster’s corpse using Wayl that drained him.

The fatigue hit every fiber of muscle in his body.

Even the time he hovered at the brink of emptiness, collapsing under its weight, had felt easier than this.

The problem with glimpsing omnipotence was that he had no real awareness of just how incredible his own action had been.

Because right now, that wasn’t what mattered.

Instead, his gaze turned sideways.

Jericks was dead.

Somewhere in that chaos, Roman had nearly killed the sword-wielding specter with a knight’s strike.

The owlbear had been cleaved by Oara.

Enkrid saw her standing there, next to the monster she’d slain, a short blade at her side, injured during the desperate effort to shape its form.

And standing beside it—Oara.

“What are you?”

She looked at him, stunned, and asked.

Enkrid answered her question.

“It’s your turn.”

Despite the suddenness of his reply, Oara didn’t press further. She turned her head forward.

There, she saw the true lord of this section of the Demon Realm.

A shard of Balrog's blood.

Oara couldn’t fight for long because of the poison in her body.

If she pushed herself now, she’d be forced to rest for a while. That was why she hadn’t abandoned the city.

She only stepped in when she absolutely had to.

If she had fought Jericks and the others first, then faced that, she would’ve had to sit out, waiting quietly, incapacitated.

Enkrid had seen those eyes before.

***

Show them. Show them what a knight protected by Oara can do.”

A guest from the city said, standing behind her.

The guest was incredibly handsome, a uniquely strange man.

As if he’d known this would happen all along.

But was that a problem?

No.

Oara knew what she had to do, and smiled.

She raised her sword and spoke:

“Then cheer me on. Just like you said.”

Returning Enkrid’s own words, she brought her blade down.

As she swung, she stepped forward. Her blade traced a gentle arc aimed for the Balrog’s head.

CLANG!

Red-stained fragments clattered. The Balrog raised its weapon and blocked her strike.

A knight and a monster—blades crossed, deadlocked.

And Enkrid wished for it.

To see Oara truly fight.

That’s why he repeated today.

He had already cheered her on.

By killing the ghoul Jericks.

This stage—this moment—was the highest praise and support Enkrid could offer.

He simply wanted to see it.

To know what it means to be a knight. What a knight can do.

And through the repetition of this day, Enkrid finally said what he’d wanted to say all along.

And Oara showed him exactly what he hoped for.