Chapter 712: Reducing Errors
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 712: Reducing Errors
Through the Luagarne-style tactical sword, Encrid drew, erased, and redrew countless lines in his mind.
‘Treating my body as a single sword.’
Tactics became the whetstone for his swordsmanship. In this manner, he carved his way through the battlefield.
Exercising absolute restraint, he concealed his presence, his Will, and every other trace of his intent, running solely on the honed strength of his physical form. Spotting his next target, he thrust Three Claws forward.
Stepping outward with his left foot would have allowed for a more powerful strike, but he could not afford such a luxury in this chaos. Instead, he kept his stride narrow, twisting his waist to channel rotational force into the blow.
He condensed the elasticity of his entire musculature and released it all at once, layering his Will over the physical snap.
The blade skillfully bypassed the Scaler's armored plates, drove past its jaw, and tore through the crown of its head.
Thud! Squish.
Blood and brain matter clung to the steel as he ripped it out, but the storm-ravaged battlefield offered no respite. The torrential rain quickly washed the blade clean.
Boom!
A bolt of lightning struck nearby, the thunderous crack nearly shattering his eardrums. The world, which he had been perceiving through the rhythmic patter of rain, was instantly bleached pure white. For a moment, the blinding flash robbed him of his sight.
Encrid temporarily dulled his senses and came to a halt.
Moving immediately was impossible. His vision shook violently, as if the world itself were undergoing an earthquake. Yet, even in this brief pause, he refused to waste a single breath.
He had always done his utmost never to let a day slip away, but now, he had to utilize every fraction of a second with even greater density. And so, he did.
‘Minimize all movements.’
In that brief window of blindness, he mentally reviewed his last kill.
Did I waste a fraction of a second while closing the distance?
Because of that slight delay, one of the kids—who fought with a frantic mix of Eilkaraz-style martial arts and swordsmanship—had been momentarily caught by telekinesis. That split second of vulnerability had nearly cost the child their life.
He had seen a winged Scaler dive-bombing from the clouds, targeting the boy. Although Riley had brought the beast down with a well-timed thrown dagger, the young swordsman had still taken a deep gash to the forearm.
It was too severe to be called a mere scratch, and the wound bled heavily. Perhaps the monster's claws carried poison, for the boy's movements had grown sluggish immediately after. He wouldn't die, but their active combat strength had been reduced by one. If this pattern continued, they would eventually be overwhelmed.
To put it bluntly: They had almost died.
A child, turned into a corpse, face-down in the storm-churned mud. It hadn't happened yet, but Encrid’s mind automatically conjured the grim image.
He had absolutely no intention of letting anyone behind him die.
What did he need to do to ensure that?
"Ask questions. And find the answers."
That was the core tenet of the Luagarne-style tactical sword.
Shhhhh—
The torrential rain poured down, unveiling the black-and-white world once more. He closed his eyes and saw with his ears. To the question of how, there was only one answer.
‘Reduce errors.’
No one was perfect. Even reducing errors wouldn't be enough. What lay beyond that? Shortening his paths to buy time. Giving everyone a moment to breathe.
How could he minimize his movements?
‘Plot the points.’
And connect those points via the shortest possible distance. Like traversing a precarious cliffside, he had to run along the tightrope of his own limits.
Crunch.
His ankles flexed smoothly, pushing off the ground. The soles of his boots dug into the mire. The wet earth, compressed beneath his weight, packed tight to form a solid foothold.
Encrid leaped toward the first point he had plotted.
Anyone looking down at the battlefield from above would have seen his previously flowing, elegant curves sharpen into straight, piercing lines.
‘Strike down anything in my path with minimal effort.’
He shoved, struck, and sliced only what stood directly in his way. With Three Claws in his right hand and Penna in his left, he advanced with light, rhythmic strikes. He felt the flow of the battlefield with his entire body. His intuition selected the next target, and he pivoted toward it, casually thrusting Three Claws to his side.
Thrust!
The tip of his sword caught the elbow of a Scaler wielding a black spear. Without stopping, Encrid ran, dragging the blade with him.
Screeech!
No matter how sharp a masterwork blade was, it would not cut flesh simply by being pressed against it—especially when the opponent was a Scaler, a monster covered in iron-hard scales. Yet Encrid continued to tear through them.
How? Through sheer, brute force.
It was more accurate to say he ripped through them with raw power rather than clean cuts. He had pierced the joint of the elbow and, instead of pulling the sword out, he used his momentum to tear the limb apart. The severed edge was ragged, and the pain was undoubtedly twice as agonizing as a clean cut.
Hiss-s-s!
The Scaler shrieked in agony. The scream served as an alarm, alerting the surrounding monsters to an intruder's presence. Every beast turned its head toward the sound, but Encrid was already long gone.
He continued to run, his swords dangling loosely from both hands.
Whoosh.
The rain washed over his body and blades, ensuring he remained unstained by the monsters' blood. Whether due to his attunement or simply the sheer ferocity of the gale, the howling wind felt as though it were passing right through his ribs. It felt incredibly refreshing.
‘Or perhaps I just feel refreshed because I finally stepped onto the field myself.’
Regardless of his thoughts, his hands and feet remained busy.
Thud, clang, squish, tear.
To anyone else, it would have been mere noise, but to Encrid, these sounds left vivid afterimages in his mind. They were the auditory markers of his movements as he navigated by sound, systematically striking down the monsters possessing supernatural abilities.
And with this alone, a shift occurred in the river of the battlefield.
Can a single human change the flow of a raging river? Perhaps, if they painstakingly stacked boulders one by one and carved out a new path. After all, there were people who did exactly that to redirect waterways. But such an endeavor would take days at least, and months or even years at most.
A knight, however, was a walking disaster. They could carve a new channel through the battlefield's currents in an instant. It was akin to a natural disaster reshaping the landscape. Just as an earthquake tore open new paths, a knight possessed the power to do the same.
Exactly as Encrid was doing now.
Hiss-s-s!
The sorcery snake hovering overhead shrieked, its cry blanketing the entire battlefield. Encrid’s heart thudded in sync with the serpent's call.
‘Is this the intimidation of a high-ranking monster?’
The mere sound of its cry sent shivers down the spine, urging him to look back as the fine hairs on his body stood on end. An irrational, formless dread demanded a physical reaction from his body, commanding him to tremble in terror.
Naturally, it had no effect on Encrid. Nor was there anyone among his companions who would break under such pressure. Still, it would undoubtedly hinder them.
Right on cue, Riley's voice rang out from behind, filled with grit. Encrid could hear his shout and perceive his form. Though they were far apart, distance was no obstacle to his senses.
This was the advantage of his auditory vision. Of course, it had its drawbacks. The black-and-white world consisted entirely of lines and achromatic shades; it could not show details like the bulging veins on a man's neck. Still, even without seeing them, it wasn't hard to picture.
"If you're out of breath, fall back and take a breather!" Riley roared, his voice strained.
"Woo-hoo!" The same went for Anahera, who was shouting in the distance.
They were holding the line against a surging tide of monsters, but they couldn't hold out forever.
‘We must conserve our strength to fight to the end.’
In that regard, Riley was proving to be an exceptional adjutant. Fighting on only one leg meant he expended twice as much energy as anyone else. Even though this was his first time in such a battle, he knew instinctively that fighting recklessly would only lead to dying of exhaustion. Thus, he focused on pacing the unit.
‘Hold on.’
Encrid neither paused his steps nor raised his head, yet he felt a gaze lock onto him. It was a violent gaze, dripping with murderous intent.
From beyond the storm-sketched black-and-white world, the monster serving as the medium for the sorcery stared directly at him. It was the gaze of a Medusa. Even without looking at it, he could feel the crushing pressure.
‘A monster that anyone below a knight wouldn't even dare to challenge.’
That was why its mere gaze exerted such immense pressure. High-ranking monsters instinctively utilized a technique similar to a knight's Intimidation. They planted primal terror in those they deemed prey, paralyzing humans and turning them into helpless frogs before a serpent.
The shrieking of the sorcery snake overhead was likely a manifestation of the Medusa's Intimidation. The Demon Realm would be teeming with such monsters. That was why, throughout history, the intelligent races had never been able to conquer the Demon Realm, forced instead to merely fight and survive.
Did that make him afraid? Not in the slightest.
Someday, he would face every single monster that dwelled within the Demon Realm. If a dream were easy to achieve, it wouldn't be called a dream. Encrid's dream had always been difficult, seemingly impossible to attain.
‘I will cut them all down.’
In the face of such a simple, unyielding goal, there was no room for trivial doubts.
Once again, he felt a begrudging respect for Hescal's capabilities. The tactic of using a Medusa as a medium for sorcery rather than deploying it directly to the battlefield was remarkably clever.
‘A far more efficient deployment.’
It was a strategy designed to slowly grind down their stamina. Hescal was undeniably brilliant.
How many had he killed by now? He had sliced and thrust so many times that keeping count was meaningless. By strictly rationing his Will, he was steadily thinning their ranks without unleashing any intimidation or explosive bursts of energy.
Currently, Encrid's sensory range was twice as wide as his normal field of vision. This allowed him to read his opponents' movements even before his intuition could sound an alarm.
‘They are skilled.’
Someone had observed his movements and prepared a net. As he leaped from point to point among the monsters, eight archers had positioned themselves around him, and dozens of black-tipped arrows hovered in the air despite the raging storm.
Among them, he spotted a lone 'human' wearing a helmet. The figure wore thin plate armor made of an unknown material that emitted a faint glow even in the pouring rain.
From an outside perspective, he looked like prey that had blindly charged into a net after chasing bait. Given that they had only just appeared within his auditory vision, this trap was likely not a hasty creation.
Well, even if it was, it didn't matter.
*
"Didn't you say that guy had the strength of an ordinary knight?"
Demuil's chief disciple was able to track Encrid's movements thanks to the monster's eye embedded in his forehead. Hescal possessed no such eye, preventing him from sensing Encrid's presence or tracking his movements visually, but he knew the knight was up to something.
The moment Encrid vanished, the monsters with supernatural abilities began dropping like flies. Connecting the dots made it easy to grasp the situation. Furthermore, observing the battlefield from a distance made it even easier to comprehend.
‘Up close, one sees the trees; from afar, one sees the forest.’
A woodcutter only needed to fell the tree in front of him, but a forester surveyed the entire forest and cleared trees selectively. In that sense, Hescal was closer to a forester.
"I am surprised as well," Hescal admitted.
"Not a single thing is going as expected."
"Our opponent is House Zaun. It is only natural they display this level of strength."
"Though it doesn't seem to be Zaun showing that strength, does it?"
That was what made it even more surprising—along with the fact that the disease, which was practically a curse, had failed to spread any further.
‘Encrid of the Border Guard... you fight well.’
To Hescal, this was the more fascinating development. Though he might have voiced his admiration, Hescal merely spoke in his usual, calm tone.
"I have prepared a countermeasure. It was originally meant for Rynox, but it should be more than enough for him."
As Hescal spoke, the eye embedded in the chief disciple's forehead blinked twice, shifting its focus. His gaze drifted toward the Clan Head and Alexandra Zaun.
"Are you going to leave them be?"
Despite the abrupt question, Hescal understood immediately. After all, this entire battlefield was a canvas painted by his own mind.
"We can't even say we've weakened them yet. The people who should have been incapacitated by their chronic illnesses are perfectly fine."
"Sacrilege. Are you blaming the power of God?"
"Hardly."
He had expected House Zaun to be capable of at least this much. Even though he had killed Milestia to prevent this very outcome, they were still holding out. Yes, nothing ever went perfectly to plan. If it were that easy, he wouldn't have had to go to such lengths in the first place.
"This is only the beginning."
Having spoken, Hescal raised his head to look at the sky. The dark, heavy clouds and the driving rain made it difficult to keep his eyes open. Unless one pried a monster's eye from its socket and shoved it into their forehead, it was impossible to see the sky clearly.
Perhaps that was for the best.
"Sigh."
Despite declaring it was only the beginning, Hescal let out a long, heavy sigh. A trace of bitterness seemed to linger in his breath, but Demuil's chief disciple likely failed to notice. For though his eye was extraordinary, his ears were still merely human.
Since the chief disciple could not leave his post, the ones who would act were already decided. Even if a portion of the picture in his mind had been ruined, the overall frame remained intact. Hescal looked toward the future. Nothing had changed. Victory would still be his.
"Do you wish to obtain divinity? Then remain faithful, Hescal Zaun."
"I am well aware."
Hescal took a step forward. It was time for him to make his move as well.
"Tell your master to release what we prepared."
"A single Death Knight is enough to slay that Clan Head and those by his side."
"That is your opinion. The command of this battle belongs to me."
Andante had become a knight returned from death—a Death Knight. Would that be enough to kill someone like Alex? Who knew.
"If we lose even with my master's guard deployed, your life will be forfeit as well."
"If I somehow survive a defeat, I will gladly hang myself."
His promise to hang himself if they lost was entirely sincere. Hescal approached everything with absolute sincerity. And that was a lesson he had learned from the Clan Head.
‘Whatever you do, you must do it with absolute sincerity.’
Even when attempting to deceive someone, one had to invest true sincerity into the lie. Observing the Clan Head's creed and way of life was what had allowed Hescal to realize his current swordsmanship. Even a deceptive sword was wielded with absolute sincerity.
He did not expect his sword to work against the Clan Head. Where, then, should his blade be aimed? The answer was already decided.
‘My apologies.’
If he killed Ragna, the returned prodigal son, first, even the Clan Head's stone-like heart would waver. That would ultimately cloud the Clan Head's judgment, creating an opportunity for Hescal's side to seize the upper hand.
As four monsters moved to pin down the Clan Head, Hescal set off to find Ragna. By some coincidence, Ragna was just beginning to move as well.