Chapter 532: With the Crushing Sword
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 532: With the Crushing Sword
"I knew you would become someone great, but to think the Demon Slayer was really you?"
Knight Jamal. In single combat, he was a knight who would not easily lose even to the likes of Barnas Hurier.
In the past, Jamal had once failed to cut down the black-haired, blue-eyed man standing before him. Though he had been acting under a vow to Abnayor at the time, that incident had left a deep impression on him.
And why wouldn't it?
'It was heavy.'
Though he had deflected the strike with a vibrating blade, the impact had been anything but light. It was heavy enough to be etched into his very memory.
At the time, Knight Jamal had not expected his opponent to withstand his sword. No, "had not anticipated it" would be more accurate. The conversation they exchanged afterward had been equally memorable. His opponent had called it an honor, spoken of prestige, and even remarked that the opportunity to face a knight's blade was rare.
"What a pity," Jamal said, clicking his tongue. He felt a genuine pang of regret. Meeting like this, in a place like this, was the source of his disappointment.
"Did you two have a history?" General Frok, standing beside him, asked.
Jamal nodded slightly. Frok stared intently at their opponent. Some things are never forgotten in a lifetime, and Frok was particularly good at remembering faces—especially handsome ones.
The man looked familiar to General Frok as well.
"I wondered where I'd seen you," General Frok muttered. A familiar bastard; the man was buried in his memory. He was the one who had killed one of the soldiers Frok had raised.
Frok had once tried to kill him on a battlefield he had joined for sport, only to let him slip away. And yet, that same man was the Demon Slayer?
Froks possessed a natural talent for reading the talent of others. That was true for General Frok as well. Back when he had first seen him, the guy hadn't even been worth a second glance. The grey-haired bastard wielding an axe had been far more threatening. He remembered retreating because victory on that battlefield could not be guaranteed.
Though it was only for a brief moment, General Frok had observed the man who killed his soldier. The guy had been sent flying by his kick. At that time, Frok had been certain: if the guy were thrown onto a battlefield like that, he would die in no time.
Yet, that very same man had a history of blocking Knight Jamal's sword and was now said to be Azpen's most threatening enemy.
"Something seems wrong," General Frok muttered. He raised three blunt fingers with white tips.
While some Froks might use those same fingers to chase impossible dreams of becoming craftsmen, the Frok standing here made full use of his specialty. He was a Frok who stood on the front lines of battle. Though he hadn't reached the level of a knight, he had attained the rank of an associate knight, and his leadership in commanding troops was well-recognized.
Upon seeing his signal, the soldiers dispersed to the left and right with menacing glints in their eyes. Twenty soldiers raised their crossbows, forming a semicircle around Encrid, aiming their loaded bolts directly at him.
It was a spectacular sight—twenty crossbows trained on a single man, while that man merely stared back, unbothered.
They stood in a moderately sized clearing. Or rather, an artificial clearing made by deliberately felling trees. General Frok believed it was unwise to fight in a place even slightly more familiar to the enemy than to his own forces. Thus, after entering the Pen-Hanil Mountains, he had secured an advantageous position by clearing the woods.
In essence, they had created a killing ground known only to their allies in a place the enemy had never seen before. They had done something the enemy could not predict—a preparation they could only make because they had entered the mountain range first.
But had their opponent really come without any preparation?
General Frok had kept his scouts running without rest. They kept watch over the surroundings in groups of five. The conclusion he reached was simple:
'The enemy commander is an idiot.'
This thought was directed at Krais. There were no other enemy forces prepared nearby. Encrid was alone.
With his right hand resting on his waist and his left hand hanging loosely, Encrid glanced around.
"Are you guys serious about this?" he asked out of the blue.
"Serious? What are you talking about when you've come here to fight?" Frok was skilled in psychological warfare; he smoothly deflected Encrid's words.
Meanwhile, two squads moved behind Encrid, assembling and aiming their long spears. Twenty crossbows in front, twenty long spears behind. And in the vanguard, another twenty soldiers armed with swords and shields. Every single one of them was an elite soldier Frok had personally trained.
Grind.
Several soldiers clenched their teeth. These were men who had volunteered despite knowing the inherent danger of this operation. They were former members of the Gray Dog unit—which meant they were filled with a singular resentment.
It was a resentment directed toward the man named Encrid of the Border Guard.
"I am Encrid of the Border Guard."
Coincidentally, his opponent had just revealed his name.
"I know," General Frok replied. As he spoke, Frok placed his hands on the two Loop Swords strapped to either side of his waist. The two swords, possessing thick blades and extraordinary weight, were his weapons of choice.
"Are you really serious?" Encrid asked again.
"Is talking nonsense on the battlefield your specialty? Or are you perhaps scared? Well, that's understandable. I get it," Frok replied.
Frok's voice was exceptionally calm—the voice of someone who had already grasped victory. The general knew exactly how that would sound to his soldiers.
"Strike."
At the general's command, the twenty crossbowmen made a motion to shoot while aiming at Encrid. Yet, Encrid did not budge.
"Really?" he merely asked back.
"This bastard..." One of the crossbowmen ground his teeth, but they did not fire.
Instead, twenty long spears thrust forward from behind Encrid. It was an incredibly fast strike considering their length—just like the thrust of the soldier Encrid had met on the first day he began repeating today. In fact, they were men General Frok had trained in that exact same manner.
General Frok predicted that Encrid would dodge to the side. Anticipating this, the crossbowmen shifted their aim to the left and right in advance. When dealing with someone at the level of a knight, reacting only to what you see is too late. They knew this, they had trained for it, and they acted exactly as they had been drilled.
But Encrid did not throw himself to the side.
Standing right where he was, he brought his sword down upon three of the twenty spearheads. Rather than being fast, it was a heavy blow, as if he were slamming down a massive boulder. It was a speed that even General Frok's eyes could easily track.
Encrid crushed the three spear shafts down, forcing their tips into the ground. He dodged the spearheads that needed dodging and casually deflected the remaining dozen or so with the leather guards wrapped around his wrists.
It was easier said than done; even seeing it right before their eyes, it was an unbelievable feat of skill. Dodging and deflecting incoming spearheads while swinging a sword? Could such a thing even be possible when twenty spearheads were swirling and thrusting at once?
If one could read the timing of every attack and possessed overwhelmingly superior strength and speed, perhaps it was possible. Even if four-year-old children rushed an adult male with twenty sticks, he would likely be flustered. Yet Encrid, as if it weren't even a trick, easily deflected, dodged, and struck back against the downpour of steel.
And through it all, not a single person died.
General Frok's cheeks puffed in shock. Even the spear shafts struck by Encrid's sword did not break. Instead, the three soldiers whose spears had been driven into the ground trembled, their legs shaking, before collapsing to their knees.
"Hah."
Seeing this, Jamal let out a breath of pure admiration. Only Jamal understood the level of control that had just transpired.
"Again!" General Frok shouted. Though he called for a retry, it was a different tactical formation.
"Waaaaah!"
The crowd of soldiers armed with swords and shields roared, and the crossbowmen, split to the left and right, unleashed their bolts.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Neither Abnayor, Barnas Hurier, nor General Frok expected to kill a knight with the troops they had brought. It was a move made knowing that even a mere scratch, or anything that could distract him even slightly, would aid their own knight's victory.
In short, these men were sacrificial lambs. Even so, they hadn't expected them to be so utterly powerless.
'Was I arrogant?' Frok wondered.
What was a knight? They were said to be disasters. The man before his eyes was exactly that.
Encrid brought his sword down from above three times. The trajectory of his strikes lingered in the air like afterimages. It clearly looked like swordplay slower than the flying bolts, yet the bolts aimed at him fell in a heap. A series of clattering sounds followed immediately after.
"How?" the general muttered. It was a realm beyond his comprehension.
The spear squad thrust their weapons once more, and this time, under the downward strike of Encrid's sword, four spear shafts snapped completely. The shafts, made of birch wood heavily soaked in oil, snapped like bending reeds. The jagged, broken middles of the spear shafts jutted out like the fangs of a wild beast.
Encrid casually swept them aside with a swing of his sword, and when another volley of crossbow bolts flew in, he brought his sword down once more, crushing them out of the air.
Then, the death squad armed with swords and shields, completely disregarding their own lives, rushed forward. These were men whose jaw muscles clenched tightly beneath their helmets. They were prepared to literally throw away their lives just to tear off a piece of his cloak. They were a death squad charging with the intent of at least forcing the enemy to exhaust his secondary weapons.
Above that death squad, a sword descended.
Every soldier within the range of the strike raised their shield. The blade fell heavily, as if he were swinging at a moderate speed just to let them block it.
The result was the same as before. A sword as heavy as a massive boulder slammed down upon the shields.
"Gark!"
"Guh!"
Several soldiers fell to their knees. The shields they held shattered, blood splattered from their arms, and a few others tumbled to the ground, unable to withstand the impact.
"Aaargh!" An unlucky soldier whose arm had snapped screamed in agony.
"The Crushing Sword?"
At Knight Jamal's muttered question, Encrid nodded.
"Ha!" Jamal let out another exclamation of admiration. This made it certain. Though he hadn't expected him to return as an actual knight when he said he would become someone great, that man had indeed returned having grown truly great.
"You've become an interesting fellow."
If it were those who had only recently become knights—those who had experienced their limits but were still inexperienced—then yes, such a crude death squad tactic might have worked. Even leaving a single scratch would be a gain. Above all, just having a well-trained unit nearby could impose a psychological burden.
If one fought an enemy and was left without even the strength to lift a finger, then even a victory wouldn't truly be a victory. Since one wouldn't be able to block a flying crossbow bolt in such a moment, only death would remain even after winning. And the moment such doubts crept in, wouldn't the blade forged in one's heart grow dull as well?
A battle between knights could be decided by such trivial things. Abnayor was indeed a meticulous man to have aimed for even this. Even if Naurilia possessed knight-level forces, Abnayor had assumed they must have become knights only recently and would therefore lack experience. His prediction was only half right.
Encrid had only recently become a knight, but he already possessed experience. He was skilled enough in leading a battle to provoke his enemies through actions rather than words. From the very beginning, Encrid hadn't even spared a glance for the likes of General Frok.
As proof, though Frok had swung his two swords, Encrid had shattered Frok's weapons with a single downward strike and kicked him aside. The charge of the death squad, the interference of the spear unit, and the bolts fired by the crossbow unit were all useless.
His opponent was a knight.
"Good. Very good," Jamal said, almost shouting. This man had a knack for making one's blood boil.
The Crushing Sword—it was the strike that had blocked his own sword in the past. He had asked back then: what was it that had blocked his sword?
"The Crushing Sword." That was what he had been told.
What was the reason he had faced the entire unit using only that single technique? It was to call him out. Jamal made his decision and stepped forward. With that action alone, refined Will erupted from him, turning into an intimidating pressure that bore down on Encrid.
Encrid naturally rejected that pressure.
"I didn't like Abnayor's methods from the start," Jamal said.
In a battle between knights, there are things more important than victory. When speaking of conviction and honor, why must one's heart be entirely free of shame? Because an upright heart is the very proof of the martial might a knight displays.
"Sir Jamal?" General Frok called out as he picked up his fallen sword.
"Step back. From this moment on, even standing nearby could mean death," Jamal said, staring at his opponent.
Only then did Encrid show something resembling a smile. He had found his enemy. As he looked at Jamal, memories naturally resurfaced.
There was a "today" where he had died by this man's blade.
There was a Ragna who had died by this man's blade.
There was a sword that had made him recall the "today" that made him wish for death.
That sword was now within reach, right before his eyes.
"Are you ready to die?" Encrid asked.
"Ha, arrogant bastard." Jamal smirked.
No, both of them were smiling.
Were they worthy rivals? Or perhaps not even that? Was it the natural outcome for Jamal—who had been a knight for a long time and whose specialty had fully matured—to win?
Encrid had already forgotten about victory or defeat. Instead, a joy that had turned into a burning flame surged through his heart, warming his entire body.
"It'll be fun, won't it?"
The way he asked, filled with anticipation, was no different from a madman's, but for someone at the level of a knight, this much was only natural. Jamal, too, had once had a time when he ran wild with madness. Encrid's momentum was stimulating enough to bring back memories of those days.
"It certainly will be," Jamal confirmed.
In an instant, the two of them closed the distance as if folding space and clashed swords.
Hum.
Jamal swung, making his blade vibrate, while Encrid deflected the strike by slashing upward with his Gladius instead of his Valerian steel sword.
Clang!
Two pieces of iron with clear purposes met, bursting into harmony. Encrid and Jamal exchanged a blow as they crossed paths, then turned back around. They had swapped positions and were facing each other once more.
"It didn't work?" Jamal spoke.
Even though his vibrating sword had just been blocked, he did not show any panic. It was only natural.
Because this wasn't his specialty.