Chapter 313

               

He grasped it and understood.

Having seen the path of light,

In the previous “today,” he had placed intent above [Perception of Evasion].

That had been the best choice when saving the child.

This time, he had to mix instinct and intent together.

‘The thought that I must win by force.’

Too narrow a view.

He cast it aside.

The wall was freedom itself.

Not everything that trapped him in “today” was a spear or a blade.

Of course, spears and blades were direct weapons—

Physical objects that cut his flesh and bones.

But was that all?

Was that the only reality?

What had truly trapped him was the strategist’s mind.

He had danced in the palm of that man’s hand.

‘Then where do I start?’

Once again, another “today.” When Encrid opened his eyes, he had only one task.

How should he struggle to escape this day?

The answer had always been within the experiences he’d already gained.

Encrid finally admitted that his mind wasn’t all that clever—

Because it felt like he’d been repeating the same mistake.

Before, he’d been misled by the ferryman’s words and narrowed his vision.

This time, without the ferryman’s help, he might never have seen the true wall beyond the false one.

Or it might have taken far longer.

So what of it?

Nothing.

Even if the ferryman hadn’t helped, even if he had to repeat this day dozens, hundreds of times more,

He still would have done it.

He would’ve kept fighting.

He would’ve refused to give up.

And eventually, he would’ve overcome it.

Suddenly, he missed the little herb-gatherer boy.

The child he had saved—the mother had thanked him, but he hadn’t seen the boy again.

Were his words then just something that slipped out, or did he truly wish to live as a herbalist?

“What’s your dream,”—wasn’t that a strange question?

To talk of dreams in a world like this might be a luxury.

“It’s fun.”

Still, he would talk about it.

Still, he would ask.

Muttering to himself, he rose—only to see enemy soldiers right away.

He’d slept in late—unusual for any other “today.”

“Over here—!”

The man never finished his shout.

Encrid dashed in and seized his mouth.

But the soldier beside him shouted instead.

“Ambush!”

Not really an ambush, was it? They were the ones who came while he was resting.

Encrid thought so as he yanked the man’s jaw from its socket with his grip.

Crack—he felt the bone slip through his fingers.

A trick Audin might’ve shown off once; now it came naturally to him.

After so many repetitions, every move was sharp and refined.

“Ugh!”

The soldier struggled, punching while his face was held.

Encrid grabbed the man’s wrist mid-swing and twisted.

Then he spun and locked him in from behind.

Crunch.

The captured wrist dislocated with a sound like snapping wood.

“Ghhhk!”

With his jaw dislodged, the soldier couldn’t even scream—only drooled as his face turned pale.

Would a hostage tactic work?

He’d tried before.

It didn’t.

“Fire!”

As expected.

Thud-thud-thud-thud!

Dozens of bolts flew.

Encrid threw the soldier forward and rolled aside.

Thunk-thunk-thunk!

Ten bolts buried themselves in the jawless man’s body.

He collapsed, drooling blood.

Encrid drew his sword as he moved.

Beside him, an enemy soldier’s eyes widened—

He swung immediately.

A blue arc drew a short half-circle.

Whshk—crack!

His downward cleave split helm and skull cleanly in two.

Like slicing an orange still in its peel—only the juice was blood and brain matter.

Splatter—warm blood sprayed across his face.

Encrid didn’t care.

Instead, he sharpened his [Perception of Evasion], his instincts, his sixth sense.

He’d seen this before.

A similar “today.”

The one in the cobbler’s basement inside the Border Guard market, where the mage had been.

That day.

‘Pure instinct.’

He’d had to sense spell traps with nothing but intuition.

This time, though the scale and situation were larger,

He himself was not the same man.

Not at all.

Was it thanks to the ferryman’s guidance—

Or just luck?

Encrid had learned one thing, but realized two.

Beyond instinct and intuition, something else could be added.

‘Strength is still necessary.’

It wasn’t just about uncovering the enemy’s strategy.

It wasn’t just about seeing and dodging it.

He had to layer power atop it.

That was the answer.

As his sense sharpened, Encrid felt the looming danger spread through his body.

He added his strength into the calculation instinctively.

‘Here.’

Encrid moved.

After that, he died six more times.

As always, he wasted not a single day.

Even so, it took seven more “todays.”

But that was possible only because he’d already lived nearly four hundred.

Encrid had seen every tactic the enemy strategist had prepared.

He couldn’t explain how they coordinated so seamlessly—

Nor what exact battle formation it was.

He relied solely on instinct and intuition.

He judged by feel, not reason.

When he sensed ill omens, he gauged their weight.

When he spotted even the smallest gap, he struck through it.

Disguising himself as a soldier was useless.

Hiding was meaningless.

The shaman could always find him, no matter how well he hid.

And hostages? Useless too.

‘As always.’

Victory would come by his own arms and legs.

His back still bore burns, and his body hadn’t fully recovered from prior shocks.

The aftereffects of battles that felt ages ago still lingered.

“This is insane.”

The words slipped out on their own.

But to walk a visible path—

The hair on Encrid’s body bristled.

It was thrilling.

Exhilarating to the point of madness.

Advancing wasn’t always about growing stronger in power.

Progress itself—the act of moving forward—filled his entire being with elation.

Realization brought nothing but joy.

“After him!”

And so began another run.

With conviction marking this “today,” Encrid’s opening move was decided.

He moved through the trees, scanning every direction for his goal.

It wasn’t easy to find.

“There!”

They gave chase.

“Where do you think you’re—!”

He stepped on one soldier’s head and slashed through the archer beside him.

He fought fiercely, struggling, surviving—and then he saw it.

“Ugh!”

The shaman.

The moment they met eyes, an invisible shockwave hit him.

[Perception of Evasion] activated—Encrid ‘saw’ the sorcery.

Not with sight, but with his senses.

The edge of his sharpened awareness, honed to breaking point, visualized it.

Perhaps he’d seen it once or twice before—his sixth sense manifesting as sight, showing him exactly what trick the enemy was using.

He detected the oncoming invisible pressure perfectly; bending his waist to evade it at the last second was effortless.

He ducked low under the shaman’s spell.

The shaman didn’t stop—his lips moved again.

But Encrid had already charged power into his toes as he crouched.

He condensed his strength there.

The frozen ground sank slightly under his feet.

[Will of the Moment] burst forth.

Boom!

The ground exploded beneath him—a charging leap.

As Encrid kicked off, dirt sprayed upward like a fountain.

Rocks shattered and scattered.

It was a charge worthy of being called monstrous.

Not even the charge of a Junior Knight could compare now.

Everything around him blurred backward.

He lunged with his gladius.

Relaxation—tension—explosion.

From the force in his legs through the twist of his waist, the power transferred into the blade—[Heavy Sword Style] cleaving through the shaman’s torso.

Bang!

The strike exploded with sound.

The shaman’s upper body burst upward.

Such was the power of the blow, born of tremendous speed.

It wasn’t perfectly refined, but its destructive force was overwhelming.

‘That’s one.’

This was the start.

The shaman’s existence always brought unease.

Without him, there was a next step.

So he used force for this one.

Next—

Amid the tightening noose of danger, Encrid stepped toward the least-threatening spot.

From a soldier’s perspective, it looked like madness—

Charging straight into the heavily armored infantry line.

Running into the densest ranks made him look completely insane.

“Stop him!”

The commander’s shout split the air of “today.”

For some, this was their only day.

For others, like him, it was the hundredsth.

—

“Nirf! Report!”

Avnaier had cornered Encrid completely.

Or so he thought.

He had killed him hundreds of times.

But for one who repeated the same day, death was merely a postponed opportunity.

Even so, Encrid had nearly been trapped.

Avnaier’s snare was that deadly.

Invisible blades had pierced his heart before—

Yet there were men who could pull them out and keep going.

“Not good. Even eels wouldn’t slip through like this—he moves as if he knows all our plans.”

They were receiving real-time updates on Encrid’s location.

That was how serious Avnaier was about killing him.

His brow twitched—a telltale sign of frustration.

His fingers tapped against his thigh.

Nervousness?

No.

Concentration.

Avnaier had no intention of letting his prey escape.

“Press him! Don’t let him through! The Gray Dogs?”

“They’re chasing. He’s tearing through clusters of troops like he knows where they are—it’s chaos.”

‘Does he know our movements?’

Impossible, isn’t it?

When surrounded by so many soldiers, instinct leads a man to move toward openings.

Feet naturally head for gaps.

Human instinct.

Avnaier had exploited that—

He left small gaps, where he placed the Gray Dogs, the mages, and the shamans in waiting.

On the map laid across his platform, he moved the pieces.

‘If he’s countering my formation—’

Then he would counter the counter.

Originally, he had stationed the Hurrier swordsmen in less dense areas.

Now, he reversed it.

He sent them to chase.

‘You’re no knight.’

Therefore, you can’t break through the wall of a thousand men.

The places where the engineers built stone barriers—

The cliffs—

The eighty-plus hidden traps—

His slow advance had been for a reason.

Bang!

Avnaier slammed his hand on the platform.

“After all this, how could he possibly escape?”

Everyone has instinct.

Encrid’s senses and intuition were not reasoned awareness—they were closer to premonition.

He hadn’t analyzed Avnaier’s intent.

‘Feels like a bad idea to go that way.’

He simply moved with that simple, reckless thought.

And that alone was enough to confuse Avnaier.

Time passed. Reports came.

“He’s falling back again.”

What now?

The traps were set for him at the outskirts—why was he turning back to the center?

He’d already escaped the shamans’ range; surely he’d realized his direction.

And yet he was returning to the original encirclement.

Of course, that area was trapped.

If he charged there, they were ready to catch him.

But somehow—he slipped through.

“How’s his condition?”

“He’s taken two quarrels to the back.”

“Poisoned?”

“No, they weren’t.”

Only the best marksmen had been given poisoned bolts, not everyone.

‘Did he know which were poisoned?’

Did he intentionally dodge the deadly ones?

‘Nonsense.’

Absurd.

No human could know that.

‘Or is he truly a knight?’

No, impossible.

Though by reports, his growth since yesterday was astonishing—

He wasn’t a knight.

And yet, they couldn’t catch him.

He had been placed in Avnaier’s palm, clenched tight—yet he slipped free.

As if greased, he slid through the fingers.

How could that be possible?

The next report left Avnaier dumbfounded.

“Commander!”

Nirf’s voice was urgent.

“Speak.”

After hearing it, Avnaier’s smile vanished.

The man named Encrid had been in his grasp—

And yet had pried his way out.

But it wasn’t over.

He still had more prepared.

“Where are Galaf and the Junior Knight?”

“Messengers are on the way.”

“Tell them to come immediately!”

Galaf was a mage bought with heaps of gold.

Not just gold—Avnaier had made numerous promises, even secured royal approval to borrow him.

Still, since Avnaier was the commanding officer, Galaf would come when called.

That was their deal.

He couldn’t send only apprentices and keep quiet.

Galaf—and the Junior Knight.

They were his second line of defense should Encrid break through.

Each already had tasks of their own.

Avnaier’s mind was sharp and fast.

He never left his forces idle.

And even now, he was thinking ahead—

Of the future after killing Encrid and his elite companions.

‘We’ll overturn everything.’

Reverse the battlefield.

Shift the tide.

Flip victory and defeat.

If everyone did their part, it would happen.

That was his plan.

“Call in the assassins too!”

Alongside Galaf and the Junior Knight, he deployed everything.

Avnaier’s resolve was clear.

But the world rarely goes as planned.

—

‘Everything feels dangerous.’

Even so, there was still a path.

Maybe calling it a gap was too generous—but a narrow gap was still a gap.

If it’s too small, he’d just widen it by force.

Sensing danger and using strength at once—

Encrid deliberately targeted the stone wall.

He swung his gladius at the artificial barrier built by enemy troops.

‘It won’t break that easily, right?’

The dwarf who had forged it hadn’t been too confident, but Encrid was half sure.

The gladius in his hand was the toughest blade he’d ever used.

Bang!

He struck with the flat, not the edge.

Part of the wall cracked.

He kicked and pulled at it with his hands.

Meanwhile, some of the archers’ arrows he dodged—others he took on his body.

He moved entirely on instinct.

Dodging everything wasn’t always best.

He’d learned that through a week of failures.

And indeed—

To his side, a few elven longbowmen with poisoned arrows aimed.

Had he dodged the other way, he’d have been skewered with poison bolts by now.

Fast-footed and relentless, they were a nuisance.

That area reeked of danger.

The data and experience gained through hundreds of days and deaths all fed into one answer—intuition.

The tower built from experience.

The root of his foresight.

Encrid struck the wall again.

Boom!

A second blast echoed.

Crackling, the wall gave way.

Encrid struck the artificial barrier repeatedly until a narrow escape opened.

More soldiers poured in, but he finally found a gap.

At the outer edge of the poorly built wall—where it met the cliff—the stones collapsed.

That was the moment Avnaier thought, ‘“He slipped through my fingers.”’

Dust rose as the wall fell apart.

The northern winter had been dry, with days of mild weather.

The dust soon shrouded everyone’s sight.

“Mage!”

Leblanc Hurrier shouted.

They had just lost two of their companions.

Only two of the four mages remained alive.

That battle had been odd.

Encrid could have pushed harder and killed both mages, yet he had withdrawn.

Had he hesitated then, his back would have been exposed.

How could he have judged to retreat at that exact moment?

Through the rising dust of the collapsing wall, Encrid’s eyes gleamed blue.

His senses aligned—[Perception of Evasion] was opening a new path for him.

And so—

‘I can see the path.’

His five senses overlapped, blurred, and fused into one.

A virtual line appeared before his eyes.

A road of blue light.

The path that would finally end this long, endless “today.”