Chapter 608: I Have Saved You, So Worship Me
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 608: I Have Saved You, So Worship Me
“Aaaah!”
“It’s a monster!”
“Run!”
Except for a few, the bastards nearby scrambled back in waves.
Amidst the retreating tide, a single steadfast rock held its ground. It was a crusader radiating a dim, gray holy light. He watched the intruders charging in.
They fight well.
The men who had suddenly burst onto the scene were in the middle of a fierce slaughter, but he couldn't guess who they were. Mercenaries? Or had the monastery requested reinforcements from somewhere?
He saw their navy-blue cloaks, but he couldn't make out any crests engraved on them. He only recognized that they were formidable fighters.
And that was enough.
Where did these bastards roll in from?
The reason Mull could so confidently play at being a prophet and cry out to God was partly due to the absence of a true God, but the underlying reason for such nonsense was the formidable powerhouses who had gathered under her command one after another.
Where there is power, there is purpose. If a powerful enough bastard insisted on it, it seemed entirely possible to create a new god from scratch.
That was the level of military might gathered here.
With half of the crusader order present, that said it all. The one currently watching Encrid was one of those skilled Crusaders of the Scales.
Could they be troops Lord Overdear secretly raised?
Rumors were already rampant that Prophet Overdear was leading an army here. But why launch a surprise attack now? Was there a tactical advantage?
It didn't seem like it.
Then why? Pushing his doubts aside, the crusader moved. He realized that breaking their momentum was a higher priority than finding the reason behind their actions.
One man swung a two-handed sword without so much as a battle cry, yet the army buckled and wavered before him. It wasn't as if he were chasing away bugs with fire, yet he scattered the ranks with terrifying ease.
“Hah.”
The Crusader of the Scales kicked his horse's flanks. The warhorse began to gallop, carrying him forward.
Similar scenes unfolded across the battlefield. There were several crusaders who had been trained in strategy and tactics since childhood. Some of them targeted those tearing through the army—namely, Rem and Ragna.
“That’s far enough.”
The Crusader of the Scales spoke as he thrust his sword. He had taken the flank and approached silently, wielding his signature thin sword. It was a stealthy, insidious ambush.
Encrid had noticed the opponent's approach long ago. When it came to this kind of surprise attack, he had already suffered more than enough at the hands of Sachsen. According to Sachsen, even if an assassination master like the Dagger of Geor came for him, he shouldn't die.
So there was no way he would fall for a mere sword strike like this. Nor should he.
Encrid moved his sword only as much as absolutely necessary. Raising Spark, he brought it diagonally against the trajectory of the incoming blade.
Ting!
The blades crossed, and the trajectory was deflected.
He blocked that? Utter disbelief was written all over the opponent's face. Even so, he pressed his blade flat against Encrid's, applying force to push him off. Seeing that Encrid was riding bareback, the crusader tried to unseat him—a foolish move.
Odd-Eye gave a sharp snort and braced a hind leg, allowing Encrid to maintain a stable center of gravity. Then, with a fluid twist of its torso, the horse rammed its head straight into the opponent's mount.
Bam!
Neigh!
“What?!”
The crusader cried out in shock. As his warhorse stumbled, his own balance shattered.
Encrid silently thanked his mount for the timely assistance and thrust his Truesilver sword. Is it impossible to exert force with one's legs without a saddle? No; Odd-Eye naturally arched his back, providing the lower-body support Encrid needed.
Thanks to Odd-Eye, all Encrid had to do was twist his waist and shoulders and thrust. His entire body's center of gravity remained perfectly anchored. As a result, a golden flash sliced through the air with a sharp whoosh and pierced a hole in the crusader's neck.
It was a strike delivered with precise force control and meticulous technique, slipping right through a gap in the armor. After all, no armor could wrap a body completely—especially plate armor.
Squelch.
With the sound of tearing flesh, the flash returned after doing its job. It had pierced a hole in the opponent's neck, from which blood now spurted with a wet, rushing sound.
Around the same time, Rem buried his axe into his own opponent's forehead.
Crack!
“What, do I look like some passing ghoul to you?”
The opponent was a bastard who had been swinging a hammer while radiating gray holy light. Rem discarded the spear he was holding, bashed the guy's head with his axe, and punched the warhorse's head with his fist.
The crusader who took an axe to the skull naturally couldn't finish his sentence. After all, dead men tell no tales.
The mount was no different. Though not quite on par with Audin's, Rem's fist was more than enough to be classified as a deadly weapon. The axe-struck bastard sprawled onto the ground, his eyeballs bulging out. If there was any consolation for the dead man, it was that his companion, the warhorse, collapsed right beside him.
Ragna cleaved both man and horse in a single strike. Drawing a line with his sword, he split them in two in an instant. It was a slash he unleashed by running straight toward the approaching enemy the moment he saw him.
It was a technique that combined the Will of Severing with the method of pouring out Will at full power—the very thing Encrid had demonstrated the moment he arrived.
The technique thief had stolen another skill.
Neigh!
Because he had exerted too much force through his lower body, the knees of the mount he rode buckled, but he resolved that by properly distributing his center of gravity and continued swinging his sword. Even if the force behind the blade was reduced, it was still more than enough to cut down the opposition.
Splat.
He cut through the iron plate, the warhorse, and the crusader. Caught in the trajectory of the blade, the crusader's torso was severed in half. The warhorse died with its head split open.
There were three crusaders responsible for this area, but all three had fallen, unable to withstand a single blow. On top of that, Encrid's relentless culling of the high-spirited bastards scattered throughout the enemy ranks had played a major role.
“Run!”
“Aaaah!”
“Those fucking monsters! They're monsters!”
“Save me! Mom!”
“Lona, Lona!”
As terror-stricken screams began to echo in all directions, the surrounding area rapidly cleared out. Encrid looked at the open space before him. A path had opened.
The areas around Ragna and Rem had become just as deserted as Encrid's. All the members of the Mad Knights gathered around their leader.
“Let’s go.”
Encrid advanced as if he were out for a casual stroll. It was a short path, but as he walked, he reflected on the situation from moments ago. He had reflexively, yet precisely, severed their momentum.
He analyzed the process of what he had just done so naturally. What was the cause? How did it happen? An ordinary genius might not need to retrace the steps of their achievements, but since Encrid was no genius, he retraced them one by one. As he did, he felt he understood.
Thought Acceleration.
Cutting down the Walking Fire wasn't the only thing that had taught him how to explosively release Will. Within those countless repeating "todays," Encrid had continuously accelerated his thoughts. It was a desperate struggle to find a solution in a brief window of time.
The experience born of that struggle had condensed, shining through as instantaneous judgment.
Not bad.
On top of that, the sword Eitri had crafted for him fit perfectly in his hand.
In front of Noah's Monastery, tangled thorn bushes and broken wooden pillars—clearly once part of a palisade—were visible. The jagged, unevenly broken edges and the exposed wood fibers all indicated that a fierce battle had already been fought here.
Bloodstains were visible, along with a few bandaged archers and a man in an iron breastplate guarding the front. The owner of the iron breastplate spoke. His face looked exhausted, but his eyes were clear.
“Who are you?”
His voice was filled with bewilderment. And with good reason. Just when they thought they were all dead, a small unit had suddenly cut through the enemy forces. Moreover, they had torn through the army without showing a hint of exhaustion, cleanly slicing through the three crusaders forming the encirclement.
Even looking at the three corpses lying in the distance, it was hard to believe. Who were those three? They were opponents whose defeat even he couldn't easily guarantee.
So, while he had asked who they were out of sheer shock, internally, he was desperately screaming for them to be allies.
His wish was granted.
“I am an acquaintance of Abbot Noah—may we enter?”
The owner of the black hair and blue eyes spoke. Confidence radiated from his helmetless, steady gaze. The man in the armor wanted to nod, but he hesitated. Just a few days ago, Noah had almost died due to an internal traitor.
Conveniently, Noah was right behind him. The man from the Heresy Purging Priests looked back.
The gentle shepherd who had lost an eye, the abbot himself, spoke with wide, surprised eyes.
“No... how are you here?”
Having seen an unexpected face, he was asking why they had come. Under the gaze of the priests, the newcomer spoke.
“For a cup of tea.”
It was a simple, dry answer. Encrid happened to recall what he had said before and used it as an excuse.
“Next time I come, serve me some good tea.”
Yes, he had said those words. Noah remembered too. He had even dried some decent tea leaves for the day he might visit. Though they had been starving for about two days due to a lack of food, they hadn't eaten the tea leaves. Besides, where would they have found the time to brew tea, a luxury they couldn't afford?
“Do you not have tea?” Encrid asked again.
“I do,” Noah replied, utterly dumbfounded.
“Then let’s go.”
There was no gate, only the thorn bushes and the wooden palisade blocking the narrow path, but just as the Heresy Purging Priests had scaled the wall before, the entire group leaped over it.
Since they couldn't bring all the horses over, some of them began opening a gap in the palisade, but the horse Encrid rode leaped right over the wall. Without even a running start, the horse took a few steps back, kicked off the ground with a light thud, and cleared the barrier. It was a spectacle that left even the enemy soldiers—who were already staring blankly after being routed—gaping in shock.
“Whoa.”
“Ooooh.”
A small murmur of awe rippled through the enemy soldiers. But those inside the palisade were twice as shocked.
“Whoa!”
“Argh!”
Among those holding makeshift spears out of desperation, some were so startled they fell flat on their backs.
“He doesn't bite,” Encrid said nonchalantly, dismounting and walking forward. Noah followed behind him.
Sinar, who had been watching the entire sequence of events, asked Luagarne beside her.
“It seems he is acting that way out of embarrassment. Am I seeing this correctly?”
Chuckling, Rem answered in her stead.
“You've got sharp eyes. That's exactly right. He felt too awkward to say he came to help, so he claims he's here for tea. That crazy bastard is surprisingly shy.”
Since Sinar didn't bother making elven jokes when Encrid wasn't around, she simply nodded. At those words, Luagarne puffed out her cheeks and giggled.
“Come to think of it, he has always spoken like that. Even before, he said he merely swung his sword once.”
To save an entire city and claim all he did was swing his sword once. Strictly speaking, it wasn't just once, but several times.
“Right? 'I have saved you, so worship me.' He wouldn't say something like that even if you beat him to death. Yet, when people shower him with praise, he secretly loves it. Didn't you know?”
Rem snickered alongside the two who agreed with him. Hearing this, Ragna spoke up.
“Was there a need to detour to get in? Instead of going straight through the front?”
In truth, where he had been was the front, so he was questioning why they had moved toward the captain's side. Hearing this, Rem replied with utter disbelief.
“I wish someone would plant a compass in that bastard's head.”
Sachsen walked a short distance away from them in silence. To him, it was only natural, as being seen with them would lower his own dignity. But to an outsider, they were all the same. A man walking calmly with precise spacing in a situation like this could hardly look normal either.
Pel, Ropode, and Teresa wouldn't have been able to join in on this kind of atmosphere in the past, but they had spent years in the Border Guard.
“Hey, how about a sparring match to celebrate our arrival?” Ropode spoke to Pel first.
“Let this sister join in too,” Teresa chimed in.
“With your level of talent, you can never catch up to me,” Pel replied.
Ropode snorted. From some point on, this bastard had gone beyond training in secret; he rolled around sweating bullets whether anyone was watching or not, yet all he ever talked about was talent. Before they knew it, Pel was regarded as the hardest worker in the Border Guard, but he was the only one who denied it.
“No, I am a person of outstanding talent,” he would say.
Thus, the Mad Knights marched through the monastery, and naturally, those around them heard and saw everything.
They hadn't eaten properly for two days. It was a time when anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain felt that death was inevitable. Their outlook on life was like a story with a predetermined ending, devoid of any hope. Some had even contemplated taking their own lives, but to believers, suicide was the ultimate sin.
They were merely holding on, but the people who had just entered seemed excessively carefree.
The member of the Heresy Purging Priests, who was leading the group in Noah's stead, could no longer contain himself and asked:
“Who are you people?”