Chapter 595: That Was Just How It Was
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 595: That Was Just How It Was
"Who are you?"
The man raised his head. His eyes were hollow and his cheeks sunken, the gaunt look of someone who hadn't eaten properly in days. He was the only prisoner held within this spacious stone chamber.
"Gilpin Guild?" Encrid asked.
A sudden draft made the torchlight flicker wildly. Shadows danced across the stone walls, expanding and shrinking in the uneven light.
"Aaaah!" the man suddenly shrieked. "They're watching me from everywhere! They've been watching me the whole time! They know everything I do!"
Half-mad, the man screamed until his eyes turned bloodshot. He clutched his head with both hands and began pounding his forehead against the floor.
"Gggh..." Saliva dripped from his mouth, pooling on the cold stone. "Ghh... they're watching everything. Stop watching! Stop watching me!"
Encrid showed no surprise. He stared quietly at the man for a moment before checking his eyes and breathing. There were no signs of poisoning, but the man’s breath grew increasingly faint until it stopped entirely. He was dead. He drew his final breath with his hands still clutching his head, his face buried against the ground.
"Lua."
Encrid handed the torch to Luagarne and peeled back the dead man's eyelids. A tiny speck was visible amidst the bloodshot whites of his eyes. Crumbs that had fallen from around his eyes brushed against Encrid's hand; to the touch, they felt like stone dust. It was not something that should come from a human corpse. The man’s appearance was remarkably similar to the bastard who had attacked them the previous night before dying on the stairs.
An ordinary person might have panicked, wondering what was happening or where to even begin, but Encrid was not an ordinary person.
If I just deal with the problem right in front of me, the bastard responsible for this will eventually show up.
Sometimes, acting like Rem was better than overthinking like Krais, and this was precisely one of those times. In other words, rather than trying to untangle the mystery, it would be faster to force a reaction through action.
Encrid made up his mind and headed back upstairs, but his opponent’s response was even faster than expected. After all, if Encrid practiced Rem’s action-first approach, his enemy could do the same.
But was that a bad thing? Not at all. Since the target he needed to find had stepped forward on his own, Encrid figured it saved him the trouble of a search.
Beyond the stairs, he sensed numerous presences in addition to those claiming to be the Castellan’s men. As he climbed the final steps, he saw the Castellan and two spearmen already bound with ropes, forced to their knees. Beside them were five guild members, each bleeding from at least one wound. They had been stabbed in the arms, legs, or shoulders—clearly the work of the soldiers gathered in the hall.
"It is truly regrettable that you caused such a scene the moment you arrived."
At the center of the soldiers stood the mastermind. It was the Administrator.
"I didn't like his eyes from the start," Luagarne muttered.
Encrid stepped into the room with a calm demeanor, surveying his surroundings. He spotted men whose armaments differed from the regular soldiers; they were the ones who had fled during the earlier skirmish. Men armed with spears, crossbows, and short swords surrounded them, with the Administrator presiding over the scene.
As Encrid reached the top of the stairs, he stared intently at the Administrator. The man’s eyes twitched before he flashed a thin smile.
"I told you to rest at the manor before leaving. Why must you blow things out of proportion like this?"
Encrid took it all in—the surrounding forces, the positioning, the captives. He even noticed the blue sky through a window and a tree blooming with winter flowers in the courtyard.
Flowers bloom even amidst filth, the thought crossed his mind.
He didn't know what kind of man the kneeling Castellan was yet, but his intuition told him that the five guards here were gentle souls. He recalled the innkeeper who only wanted to protect his child. There would be other flowers in this city he had yet to see.
But this filth would defile, uproot, and rot those flowers. It would only get worse as time went on until the city turned into a place unfit for human life. One didn't need to foresee the future or be a sage to know this.
That was just how it was.
Putting his thoughts aside, Encrid asked a question, genuinely puzzled by his opponent's confidence.
"What are you relying on to stand before me?"
It was his honest feeling. This number of men, the distance, the military strength—none of it meant anything to him.
"Indeed," Luagarne agreed.
With or without crossbows, a force of this caliber could never hope to contain Encrid.
"How dare you!" the bound Castellan screamed at the Administrator, his voice thick with rage. His eyes were shot with red. "You were the one pulling the strings?!"
The Castellan had believed that three criminal guilds ruled the city and that the Administrator was merely a fool leeching off them. The reality was the exact opposite. It was the Administrator who had set the stage for the guilds to run rampant, even before driving out the previous authority.
To the Administrator, all of this was a game. Watching the foolish Castellan struggle in vain and the guild leaders swagger around was highly entertaining. He had put immense effort into dominating the city this way, only for a knight of the Iron Wall to arrive and throw everything into disarray. He had stepped forward because he knew he couldn't deal with a 'knight' without taking direct action.
It was a battle of who struck first.
"You, keep quiet," the Administrator snapped at the Castellan. "It was hard enough keeping you alive all this time."
Encrid confirmed his suspicion: the Administrator was indeed the backer of the criminal guilds. But was this a threat? No. Encrid knew by instinct that not a single person here could block even one of his sword strikes. Even if the Goddess of Fortune favored one of these soldiers, it would still be impossible.
And blocking once wouldn't be enough. Possessing an inexhaustible, welling source of Will, Encrid could perform feats other knights at his level could not—he could slash and slash again without ever tiring. In this regard, very few could claim to surpass him. While the skill to slay a thousand was usually a figure of speech, Encrid could truly do it.
"Fire!" the commander shouted.
At the command, the crossbowmen pulled their triggers.
Twang-twang-twang!
Strings of animal sinew snapped, unleashing dozens of bolts. Encrid drew his sword and swung it at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
The magic wrought by his swordsmanship struck every single bolt, sending them clattering to the ground. The silver surface of his blade, mingled with black, left an afterimage in its wake, looking as though black thread were being embroidered onto a silver canvas.
Luagarne, specialized in utilizing her surroundings, slipped behind him. Standing at his back, she was perfectly shielded; not a single bolt could reach her.
Jaws dropped. Among those gathered, only the Administrator truly understood what Encrid was.
Clap, clap, clap!
The Administrator clapped in genuine admiration. "Impressive!"
He meant it. Witnessing someone deflect dozens of bolts with a single sword was a marvel. The Castellan was equally dumbfounded. He had known the man fought well, but this transcended any normal standard. Perhaps this was what it meant to be a knight of the Iron Wall. Having never seen a knight in battle, the Castellan was struck by the vast gulf between legend and reality.
Encrid intended to end it immediately. He launched himself forward, swinging his sword downward in a continuous, fluid line—the Connecting Sword he had learned from Oara. It seemed slow, yet because it never stopped, it was incredibly fast.
Encrid felt the world recede as he entered the split crevices of time. It was a speed impossible to react to unless one was a knight. Since the man had revealed himself as an enemy, there was no reason to hesitate. Encrid brought his sword down.
Thud, split!
Two distinct sounds rang out. He pulled the sword back immediately after the swing, a technique that transferred the entirety of both the downward and pulling forces directly into the opponent's skull.
As he stepped back, however, Encrid felt a strange sensation. The resistance was hard and leathery. He had cut through, but it didn't feel like human flesh.
"Back off!"
The bastard whose head had been split in two shrieked, his mouth tearing wide from ear to ear. An invisible pressure surged, pushing against Encrid. Normally, the force would have sent anyone flying, but Encrid deflected the invisible power using a technique he had learned from Audin.
The spell, Invisible Hand, was brushed aside to no effect.
"Truly magnificent!" the Administrator shouted again.
As Encrid lowered his sword, he saw a new head growing from inside the split skull. The Administrator clearly had a trump card; otherwise, he would never have stepped forward. He was drawing out a power hidden within his body.
The newly growing head had no mouth—only a single, massive eye. The Administrator's human flesh melted away like candle wax, transforming into a brownish, sinewy mass. A horizontal split ran across its entire body as it floated into the air. He had transformed by transplanting a monster's power, becoming a grotesque aberration.
"...A monster?"
"An Evil Eye?" the Castellan and a spearman muttered.
An Evil Eye was a rare monster even in the Demon Realm, possessing telekinesis and a curse of petrification. Since it was now nothing but a giant eye and had lost its vocal organs, it could no longer speak. As a creature born of an experiment, it was rapidly losing its reason, leaving only raw, monstrous power.
The Evil Eye unleashed its telekinesis, exerting crushing pressure on Encrid. An invisible weight like a boulder flew toward him, but Encrid withstood it through sheer physical strength. It pushed him, but it lacked the overwhelming force he felt when Audin shoved him or Rem struck him.
At most, it's around Pel's level.
That was his assessment. While Pel was strong, his raw power fell short compared to the true monsters Encrid knew. Seeing its telekinesis fail, the Evil Eye ripped the spears from the hands of the surrounding soldiers. Twenty spears floated in the air, circling Encrid. They targeted his head, neck, and shins simultaneously.
With telekinesis, the creature could execute a simultaneous thrust equivalent to twenty elite spearmen. Normally, physical space limited how many people could attack at once, but telekinesis ignored such constraints.
Encrid held his Ink Gold sword in his right hand and gripped Spark in his left. He didn't draw Spark, only held the hilt. The spears rained down.
Encrid steadied his breath. Tucking his chin, he drew both weapons the instant the spearheads entered his range.
Clang-clang-clang! Crack!
The trajectory of the Ink Gold blade shattered the spearheads, while Spark cleanly severed the wooden shafts. The combination of extraordinary weapons and superb skill left the spears in splinters.
"Whoa..." a soldier gasped, momentarily forgetting he was in a life-or-death struggle. It was a spectacle rarely seen in a lifetime.
If telekinesis was the Evil Eye's first trick, it still had another. Gathering the remaining scraps of reason within its instincts, the monster transmitted a mental wave.
«Let's see! Can you fight without looking?»
The Evil Eye opened wide. The horizontal line split apart, spewing a grayish light. The curse of petrification.
"Everyone, get down!" Luagarne shouted.
At her warning, the captives and guards ducked. The Castellan hastily lowered his head, and the guild members followed suit.
"Huh? Argh... ghh..."
A few soldiers and criminals who were too slow to react turned to stone instantly. With a grinding, cracking sound, they transformed into grayish statues from their eyes down to their feet.
Encrid also cast his gaze downward. In truth, since something far worse than petrification resided within him, he likely would have been fine even if he had looked—but he didn't know that.
Did fighting blindly put him at a disadvantage? Not at all.
"Try blocking with your eyes covered."
It was one of Sachsen's training methods—fighting by sensing presence alone. Even with his eyes open, Sachsen's movements often made him seem to vanish. Training with a blindfold had been an ordeal, a cycle of endless repetition and slow progress.
Compared to those hellish training sessions, this was easy. He could see the shadow of the floating creature, catch its scent, and hear its movements clearly. The curse of petrification was a checkmate for most, but not for him.
This wouldn't work on anyone in the Order of Madness.
Except perhaps Krais. If Encrid fell to something of this level, all those years of training would have been a waste.
Encrid tracked the creature's position by the movement of its shadow. The Evil Eye's gaze was useless against someone who refused to look. Frustrated, the creature flung fallen blades and bolts with telekinesis. Encrid casually deflected them all as he approached with unhurried steps.
Having closed the distance, he raised his sword. With his head lowered, he gripped the Ink Gold sword with both hands and raised it high.
The long shadow connecting the Evil Eye and Encrid fell into the Castellan's field of vision. Unable to look up, the Castellan stared at the ground. To him, the shadow looked like the blade of a guillotine.
Then, the blade fell.
Swoosh. Thud, split.
The eyeball, the size of a grown man, split in half. Black blood sprayed in all directions.
Thud.
The heavy body crashed to the floor. The spray splattered onto the back of the Castellan's head, his hands, and his face. It was warm and carried a pungent, fishy stench. A few drops trickled down his neck. Anyone else would have flinched, but the Castellan remained perfectly still, his head bowed low in the presence of the knight.