Chapter 247
Encrid found [Will] increasingly fun, fascinating, and enjoyable the more he learned, realized, and delved into it.
If swinging a sword a hundred times was needed to feel any enjoyment, [Will] brought change after a single touch.
It was different from the sword.
‘This is insane.’
Outwardly, he seemed calm, but inside, he was more excited than ever. He was about to lose his mind. It wasn’t just that he loved it—he even resented wasting time sleeping.
He studied and indulged in it even as he slept.
He had been someone who enjoyed the harsh path of the sword and training.
The training of [Will] was a joy beyond compare.
What if the rapier fencer unleashed that intimidation again now?
What if he saw Encrid as he was now?
He’d be even more shocked than before—no, he’d be horrified.
Normally, even when one realized a fragment of [Will], it was said to take years before it truly became familiar and natural.
A sense of accomplishment prodded Encrid onward. No, it gently pushed him, embracing him and whispering warm encouragement.
Since he’d learned and mastered it, the urge to test it out was only natural.
Above all, he was curious.
‘How far can it go?’
How far could his rejection reach?
He’d heard that among the monsters of the Demon Realm, there were general-level leaders who could constrict a human’s body with their killing intent.
One such opponent was right in front of him.
‘Is this luck?’
Did the goddess really brush his cheek with her spit or something?
A mere peck on the lips couldn’t explain this.
“Screech!”
The killing intent touched his body, and he rejected it. There wasn’t the slightest difficulty in the process.
Encrid drew his sword.
Chring.
The centaur leader approached within ten paces.
On either side, monsters that seemed to be its subordinates brushed past.
Encrid ignored them. One swung a wooden club at his head.
He bent at the waist to dodge and straightened up in one seamless motion.
It was as if he’d agreed in advance to move exactly that way. The club swept over his head.
Whoosh!
The wind pressed down his hair, and a breeze brushed his cheek.
Ragna had vanished.
He wouldn’t have frozen up at this level of killing intent, so he was probably fighting somewhere else.
Encrid fixed his gaze only on the monster leader before him.
“Why? Surprised?”
He asked softly, so pleased that he could afford such gentleness.
His rejection had completely repelled the opponent’s killing intent.
There was no difficulty at all. Because he could walk properly and move forward without issue, he felt elation.
The centaur leader, intelligent even for a monster, hesitated.
What was this human? Weren’t humans just prey? How could he withstand killing intent?
Driven out from the Demon Realm, it had come this far.
It had been a long journey. Everything it met after arriving here had crumbled before its aura.
Blue eyes stared down the monster.
“I’ll let you see what heaven looks like.”
Thinking of Audin, Encrid said those words and swung his sword. He stepped forward with his left foot, shifting his center of gravity, and his arm muscles swelled in an instant.
From the ankle, the power flowed up his waist and down with the sword.
From above to below—a middle sword-style downward cut.
His sword, like Rem’s, turned to a flash of light.
“Kyat!”
The leader reflexively thrust out its glaive. Its reaction was good; it flinched, then thrust out its weapon.
The glaive intercepted the sword’s path.
Clang!
The crash of metal sounded like a thunderbolt.
A single exchange—Encrid realized the leader wasn’t just about killing intent.
‘Strength.’
It was brute force.
He let the shock flow through his knee and stepped back.
The glaive, deflected, shot straight up into the sky.
Encrid’s senses exploded. Countless experiences let him anticipate the opponent’s actions.
His honed senses glimpsed the future.
The glaive swept diagonally down.
A blow that left nowhere to dodge.
He had to block.
For a monster, it was quite clever.
The glaive’s trajectory revealed its intent. It was like orthodox swordsmanship.
Encrid raised his sword.
He focused. At the moment of impact, he loosened his wrist and let it flow off.
It was the [Fluid Sword Technique].
Ting! Chring!
The glaive slid along the blade Encrid held, and in that gap, Encrid stepped forward.
His right hand wielded the sword for defense, but his left was free.
With his left, Encrid drew and threw a guard sword.
It was a projectile technique. Using the fluid sword technique, he twisted his waist, carrying the force straight into his left arm.
Pivoting on his elbow, he flung the broad-bladed dagger with that momentum.
Ping, thud!
The thick blade sank into the leader’s side, with only the hilt showing.
He’d thrown it with the heart of monstrous strength.
It was a wonder it didn’t pierce all the way through.
That’s how tough the enemy’s body was.
“Screech!”
Furious, the creature’s aura grew even more intense.
‘Die, die, you’re my prey.’
That’s what it sounded like. Encrid didn’t bother replying. Something rose inside him from his lower belly, like heat.
That heat shook off whatever the opponent projected.
It was rejection.
“Hup!”
He took a breath, stepped forward again, set his knee, straightened his elbow, and swung his sword with his waist as the axis.
A horizontal slash.
Whoosh!
The creature didn’t block, just fell back.
Exactly as intended.
Encrid advanced as if dancing. Pushing off with his feet, his sword moved. He stabbed, cut, and slashed.
Whether the opponent dodged or blocked, he kept the blade moving.
He spun the sword overhead and struck down, drew it back and thrust, feinted a recovery and cut left, then swung again.
Thud! Thud, sssht! Thud!
Some blows were blocked, some landed.
The glaive’s path was thoroughly restricted.
The nameless demonic sword’s orthodox swordsmanship relentlessly pressed the opponent.
Being a monster, it probably didn’t even realize it was stepping into a trap.
The leader couldn’t use its full strength.
Strength comes from movement. Before it could put its power to work, Encrid’s sword restricted and blocked its movements.
A centaur leader, with muscles many times bigger and tougher than a human, retreated out of proportion to its bulk.
It kept stepping back—of course it looked defeated.
Encrid completely overwhelmed his opponent.
“Kyat! Kyaat!”
The leader lashed out with killing intent as if in a tantrum.
Encrid brushed it off easily. His rejection worked without effort.
When he first used [Will], it felt like he’d grown a new tail; now, it was more familiar than his own body.
It felt like having a deep, sturdy well.
A well that never dried up, no matter how much he drew.
It was from this well that the strength for rejection came.
This was nothing.
He pressed, stabbed, hacked, pulled back, slashed, driving the enemy back, until finally, Encrid’s sword cut deep into its right foreleg.
The blade split the horse leg’s muscles. The sword cut through muscle and nerve, up to half a finger deep, then came back out.
Fwsh.
Black blood spurted from the wound. He must have nicked an artery, because blood gushed out in waves.
A monster’s regeneration was terrifying. Especially for a colony leader, which might as well be a troll’s cousin.
‘This is the end.’
Encrid saw the end; the leader felt fear.
It had led the monster horde with its special abilities, but now, having met a stronger predator, it remembered why it had been chased here.
It was because of a human back then, too.
“Kyaaaat!”
The leader gave a signal and turned away.
Even with its front leg slashed, it pounded the ground with both forelegs and pivoted on its hind legs.
An incredible feat of agility.
Of course, Encrid had no intention of just watching.
He moved to cut it down, but something got in the way.
Screech!
Two harpies swooped in, claws flashing. If they caught him, the gambeson and leather armor he wore would be ripped to shreds.
Was it a surprise attack?
No. Even while focused on his enemy, all his senses were alert.
Encrid wasn’t startled by the ambush.
Instead, he slashed diagonally from his upper left to his lower belly, then cut upward along the opposite diagonal.
Slash! Crunch! Thud! Thud!
Two strikes turned two harpies into four.
The bodies sprawled on the ground.
After carving through the winged monsters, he saw the leader running off.
‘If I let it go, this’ll be a headache.’
It would. The way it had formed a horde here proved it.
If it built up another herd of horse beasts in the forest, what then?
A colony leader could very well develop even more dangerous abilities over time.
Encrid kicked off the ground.
He remembered the Junior Knight he’d seen for the first time on the battlefield.
That unbelievable charge still stuck in his memory.
‘Like the Junior Knight’s?’
Could he do it? Put the rejection of [Will] into his legs?
Of course, it wasn’t easy.
Ever since learning rejection, using it had become effortless and fun, but learning something new was still hard.
There was no way to force what wouldn’t work.
Encrid remembered the Junior Knight sprinting across the battlefield with Azpen, and exploded with monstrous strength in his thigh.
He poured all that force into his legs as he pushed off the ground.
Bang!
The sound of his foot striking the earth was as loud as a battering ram smashing into a castle gate.
Screech!
A subordinate monster tried to intercept him, swinging a club. Encrid cut it down as he ran.
Slash!
The centaur in his way had its neck sliced open.
He ducked the club by bending at the waist, and slashed as he passed. It was a series of moves he never could have pulled off before.
With his feet pounding the ground, his body became a single line driving forward.
He chased the fleeing centaur just as it ran.
And there were those watching.
* * *
Most of the soldiers had frozen up from the killing intent and felt like worthless mutts.
“Get cut down.”
Someone muttered and slashed the air. It was Ragna.
He moved straight through the frozen crowd.
The charging centaur couldn’t withstand two swings from Ragna’s sword.
Ragna knocked away a club and even split the monster’s head open.
He cleaved a charging horse torso in two, too.
It all looked simple and effortless.
It didn’t even seem dynamic.
It was like cutting dry straw with a well-honed scythe.
It was like manual labor, a rote task.
‘What is that?’
No wonder everyone was stunned.
But what was even more shocking was Encrid.
‘Why are you moving?’
For a moment, killing intent had clouded his vision, but then everything was clear again.
Torres saw Encrid fighting before his eyes.
‘Why is he fighting like that?’
He’d always been strong, but—
Even if you couldn’t judge at a glance,
Even without the eyes to see talent,
This was something else.
Encrid brushed off the leader’s killing intent and swung his sword, driving in attacks.
He completely overwhelmed his foe.
‘Wow.’
Torres’s frozen body quickly thawed.
Even so, he didn’t move.
The monster horde was being cut down one by one by Ragna.
Jaxson, who had appeared out of nowhere, was also hunting down monsters one by one.
When the leader ran, Encrid chased after it.
“Hey! If you go in there—!”
Torres started to shout, then stopped.
He thought chasing it all the way in was a bad move.
But still, it had to be done.
If they let it go, things would only get worse.
“Rem! Your boss is headed for the forest!”
Torres went with his second-best option.
“Goddamn it!”
Rem replied. It wasn’t directed at Torres, but his actions were exactly as Torres wanted.
Rem swept his axes left and right, instantly butchering half a dozen human-faced dogs. The axes flashed like lightning through the monsters. Then Rem surged forward.
He moved through the monsters as if passing through his own front yard.
Wherever he passed, only the corpses of monsters and beasts remained.
“If your body’s loose, just fight.”
Ragna muttered, then moved as well.
His sword spun, slashing down everything in his way, then he chased after Encrid into the woods.
The two hulking figures who’d cut through the beast horde also started to run.
“Let’s go!”
Audin the zealot said, smashing a ghoul’s head with his fist.
It was still a melee, but now the battlefield favored the humans absolutely.
The monsters and beasts could do nothing but get beaten down.
‘Crazy.’
Torres could only marvel on the spot.
A ghoul’s eyeball rolled to Torres’s feet.
He crushed it underfoot.
Crunch—the eyeball burst and flattened on the ground.
The battle wasn’t over yet; there was no time for reflection.
“Kill them all!”
Torres, stomping the eyeball, shouted. It was time to kill the remaining monsters and beasts.
* * *
Isn’t it too fast?
Encrid ran with all his might, but chasing a monster born to run was hard.
He barely managed to stay on its tail.
The forest wasn’t ideal for running.
That was the only reason he hadn’t lost it yet.
But if they hit open ground—
‘I’m probably going to lose it.’
A cold assessment. Should he try throwing a dagger?
But even after having its foreleg cut and a sword stuck in its belly, would it really stop if he just put a few knives in its back?
Better to run one more step than stop to throw.
Even knowing he’d probably lose it, Encrid didn’t give up.
Just because he knew the likely outcome, quitting halfway wasn’t who he was.