Chapter 166

What is the Perception of Evasion?

It was not merely a technique to avoid attacks.

There had been many puzzling things when looking back.

Encrid had left a scratch on Rem’s cheek.

But before that, had he ever seen his squad members suffer injuries like that?

Even when facing him directly or in the midst of battle, they hardly ever got hurt.

They did not sustain wounds.

Unless they were deliberately allowing themselves to be hit, they fought without suffering injuries.

How was that possible?

‘Perception of Evasion.’

It was not just a simple skill for dodging.

A vague understanding had begun to form, and now it was time to dissect and uncover its essence.

Facing the incoming gnolls, Encrid scattered his hands into the air.

To an uninformed observer, especially Krys, it would have seemed as if he was merely flailing his hands in empty space. But that was not the case.

Thud-thud-thud.

Using his hands as a bowstring, his chest as a launching pad, and the elasticity of his entire body, he threw his daggers.

The blades, turned into streaks of light, struck the heads of the charging hyena beasts, embedding themselves in the gnolls’ throats and skulls.

The motion of drawing and throwing was so fast that it was barely visible.

Would it not be natural for his throwing technique to improve over time?

It had indeed improved. The Isolation Technique, strength training, and the balanced development of his control over his own body had contributed to this progress.

Three monsters died instantly. Their bodies tumbled to the ground at full speed, turning into corpses.

The gnolls and hyenas behind them tripped over their fallen kin.

The ones that had fallen turned into obstacles, and more gnolls and hyena beasts trampled over them.

The sound of their rapid footfalls was an irritation to the ears.

“Cultists!”

Ruagarne, who had been whipping her weapon beside him, shouted the same as she charged forward.

“Damn it! What the hell is this?!”

Krys’s voice rang out in disbelief.

“Kyaaa!”

Esther, too, stood guard at his side.

“Th-th-th… Uwaaah!”

Even the worker who had come out to relieve himself screamed in terror.

It was the same today.

But this time, he faced it differently. Encrid’s hands never ceased moving.

The second today.

This version of today had a slight difference—he had more composure.

He already knew that an indiscriminate wave of monsters and beasts would come rushing in.

So, he threw every last one of his daggers.

Piiiiiik!

Whistle Daggers or whatever they were—all of them.

He killed dozens of charging monsters and beasts.

But some things remained unchanged.

There were simply too many of them. The horde of monsters and beasts surged forward once again. Those that leapt over the corpses came crashing down on Encrid.

“Captain, in front!”

Krys shouted, drawing his short sword with a sharp metallic sound.

Encrid adjusted his breathing.

What he had learned from the previous today, what could only be sensed through life-or-death battle—

He honed the edge of his perception. Inside the realm of intuition and instinct, he sequentially blocked, deflected, and countered the gnolls’ attacks.

Stronger than ever.

If there was one thing Encrid was confident in, it was his endurance.

Now that experience had been added to it, he was like a relentless grinder that crushed through monsters and beasts alike.

Crunch!

Some had their necks severed.

Some were stabbed to death.

Amidst the chaos, metallic clashes and the sounds of flesh being torn apart filled the air.

Watching this unfold, Krys’s eyes widened in shock.

‘Is he a monster?’

It was the same feeling he had when watching Rem and the other squad members.

Such was the level of his movements.

He blocked everything. He deflected everything. And with every swing of his blade, gnolls and hyenas fell lifelessly.

Whether Krys was impressed, astonished, or muttering nonsense—

Encrid heightened his focus. Or rather, he naturally slipped into a different world.

He severed his awareness of his surroundings.

All that remained was the blade.

Time slowed down, leaving only the enemy, himself, the sword, and his sharpened intuition.

Against the oncoming waves of monsters, this was the best a lone human could do.

Encrid swung his sword.

But the outcome remained unchanged.

Once again, noon arrived, the sunlight shone down, and though he had fewer injuries than before—

This time, both of his thighs were deeply slashed.

He had failed to avoid two cursed gladii.

And this time, Krys’s body was nowhere to be found.

Encrid endured the same amount of time in this repeated today.

‘Should I consider that fortunate?’

At some point, Esther had climbed onto the roof of a hut.

Those large, clear blue eyes carried some emotion, but there was no time or luxury to discern what it was.

“Guwooooh!”

A hyena’s signature howl rang out as the colony’s leader emerged.

The commander of the monsters.

It was exactly the same. His thighs were wounded, making dodging impossible. If anything, his situation was worse than before.

And yet, Encrid was certain—his skills had improved in just one day.

Brutal and merciless as it was, the edge of his perception had been sharpened even further.

“See you again.”

He muttered something incomprehensible to the gnoll before dying in a frenzy of poison and madness.

Darkness.

The Ferryman did not appear.

A new today began.

This time, he did not waste time questioning Ruagarne.

No matter what, she was going to leave. There was no point in asking meaningless questions.

Asking why she did not stay to protect this place was pointless.

Even if he told her to return, it would mean nothing.

If she were going to come back, she would not have left in the first place.

Charging off like that meant that whatever she was pursuing was more important to her.

Instead—

Clatter. Clatter.

“You have a peculiar way of waking people up.”

As he gathered his equipment, he needed to wake up as well.

“The weather is nice. I thought it’d be good to get up early.”

“Ugh. It’s still dawn. The moon hasn’t even disappeared yet.”

Krys grumbled beside him. He ignored it.

Once again, he broke into a sweat.

Today was a short day.

Or rather, there was little time to invest in training.

So what should he do? He would turn battle into his training ground.

That was Encrid’s decision.

Pain from withdrawal, excruciating agony and torment?

They were merely things to endure.

After all, what helps one forget pain?

The exhilaration of growth, even if it meant crawling forward.

And right now, he did not feel as if he were crawling.

He was walking—no, marching forward at a brisk pace.

How could he not find joy in that?

‘This time… just a little further.’

An unending cycle of challenge.

Encrid set his own goal.

A simple yet clear objective.

In this repeating today, he would push the moment of injury back as far as possible.

At first, he was struck in the shoulder after only a few fights.

The next day, both his thighs were slashed, and after that, a spearhead pierced his abdomen.

Thanks to his sturdy armor, he did not die outright, but had he reacted even a moment later, it could have been a fatal wound.

‘I’m still lacking. Again and again, I’m not enough.’

It was self-awareness. Encrid had come to understand his shortcomings through experience.

– “Squad leader, in martial arts, repetition is key. It must be ingrained in the body, not just the mind. So, keep rolling.”

Audin’s words resurfaced in his mind.

– “The moment you see it, your body should react. Then you can evade. You don’t need some lazy man’s weird concentration technique.”

Jaxson’s voice also came to him.

If the natural way was to train reflexes by enhancing dynamic vision and sensory coordination, Encrid approached it differently.

‘What if I let my muscles remember every situation?’

And so he did.

Inside the endless waves of monsters in these repeating todays—

On the third today, the fourth today, the fifth today.

He struggled, and struggled again.

More than twenty todays passed like that.

Training was a given, but if the monstrous tide was the wall the Ferryman spoke of, it was an insurmountable one.

Unless he became a knight.

Or unless he had a force equivalent to one.

But Encrid did not allow such thoughts to distract him.

He simply stacked today upon today for the sake of tomorrow.

There were no unnecessary thoughts.

He did what needed to be done in each repeating today.

At first, he could handle barely ten monsters. By the twentieth today, he could hold his ground in the middle of the gnolls with enough time to take dozens of deep breaths while deflecting and evading every attack.

– “Wow.”

A worker, who should have been running away, gawked in amazement.

But that did not mean he could weave through the enemies without getting a scratch.

So what was the solution?

Repeat.

Thirty todays passed.

Then forty.

Being poisoned repeatedly, he became so accustomed to pain that his body trembled with it.

But even that led to newfound efficiency.

Even if he was poisoned, he learned to endure and keep swinging his sword.

What happened when he charged into the gnoll horde immediately after being poisoned?

Blades, hammers, axes, and spearheads came flying from all directions.

Thwack, thwack, thwack.

Being hacked apart was still better than slowly withering away from poison.

So he rolled through gnolls and hyenas, gambling his life every time.

And amidst these struggles, he found moments to ask about the cult.

– “Have you ever heard of the Cult of the Demon Realm?”

It was a question he had planned. With today repeating endlessly, and his time limited, the best he could do was ask one new thing every day.

He marked time by asking about the cult once every ten days.

Since he was asking anyway, he made sure the questions had meaning.

– “A rotten pack of fanatics.”

Ruagarne, as expected of a Frok, did not hold back her hatred.

It was pure loathing, the kind that made her pale cheeks flush red with rage.

– “I’ll kill them all. Every single one I see.”

So that was why she had rushed off.

– “I swore it. On my heart.”

When she spoke the word heart, she sounded like a seasoned Frok warrior.

She hesitated slightly but ultimately spoke.

That alone showed how remarkable she was.

The Cult of the Demon Realm.

Was that its official name? He did not know.

But these lunatics believed their god was imprisoned in the source of all monsters, a place no human could step foot in.

The heretics among heretics.

The continent’s greatest sect of blasphemy.

And they did not just perform bizarre rituals—

They sacrificed humans in their summoning rites.

And what did they summon?

Monsters.

Sometimes, even malevolent spirits.

Not all monsters were the same.

There were some on the continent infamous enough that people suspected they were summoned through these rites.

At first, he thought this was just another mercenary’s tall tale—

But Ruagarne confirmed that it was no mere rumor.

– “You know Salamanders?”

Of course, he knew them.

A monster that not only scattered flames from its skin but also breathed fire.

– “That thing? Those bastards made it.”

The rumor was true.

– “I was there when it happened.”

Ruagarne was the witness.

So was this revelation important?

Not really.

It was just another landmark in his repeating todays.

Another checkpoint in this cycle of training and discipline.

And in that process, he revisited every mistake he had made in previous todays.

By the fiftieth today—

‘Too reckless.’

He had been too confident in his stamina and had exhausted himself too early.

‘I need better energy management.’

Fighting within multiple layers of encirclement—

He naturally adapted to it.

Days passed, reeking of gnoll stench.

Encrid had repeated eighty-nine todays.

Yet, he still could not stand before the leader without suffering injuries.

Or rather, unless he was wounded, the leader would not show himself.

What had once been a struggle to survive until noon now stretched to evening.

But nothing changed.

Except now, he could watch the sunset before dying.

– “You’re scheming, aren’t you?”

He had to be injured—fatally wounded—for the leader to emerge.

A gaping wound in his abdomen.

Or his ankle nearly severed and left dangling.

Of course, the leader was not someone who could be reasoned with.

In ninety-six todays, he had lost his life to the leader’s dagger every time.

The end result of all his struggles was still death.

A fate seemingly set in stone.

Yet, in the endless repetition of time, he naturally learned the gnolls’ habits.

‘Gnolls have long torsos and short legs.’

He analyzed their physiology.

Their feet were slow, but their hands were fast.

They wielded human weapons, but without formality. They simply swung with brute force.

Their strength was roughly that of an average adult male, but because of their short legs, their charge was slower than expected.

They enjoyed attacking from blind spots and had no hesitation in biting when up close.

Getting bitten was to be avoided at all costs.

Their jaw strength was extraordinary.

Hyenas and gnolls alike.

That meant if he ever got bitten, unless he activated Heart of Monstrous Strength and forcibly tore himself free, escaping would be nearly impossible.

And yet, there was something else he learned.

‘Two swords.’

If he wielded two blades while activating Heart of Monstrous Strength—

For a single moment, he could pull off feats that defied reason.

– “I could cut through everything.”

Even Krys, usually nervous, could afford to sound relaxed.

The problem was sustainability.

No matter how well he managed his stamina, he could not maintain this state indefinitely.

So he repeated it again.

Dodging, and dodging again.

The Perception of Evasion had always been, to some degree, a matter of talent.

Jaxson claimed it could be developed through training, but naturally, it only worked for those who had the potential.

Encrid resolved it by engraving it into his body—one movement at a time.

In other words—

‘Muscle memory.’

By endlessly repeating the process of seeing an attack and reacting with his body, he burned it into his muscles.

It was no longer a technique stored in his mind, but one embedded into his body.

And through that repetition, it became second nature to him.

The moment he saw an attack—he dodged.

The moment he noticed movement—his body reacted.

Now, it was truly instinct.