Chapter 404

“It’s often said that overwhelming talent is needed to become a knight, but how would you explain that?”

Lierbart slammed his shield into the ground and used it to push himself up. He grimaced hard, forcing himself to endure the pain.

Red blood dripped from the tip of Blazeblade as Encrid lowered it toward the ground.

Encrid didn’t rush in.

Why? His intuition told him his opponent wasn’t finished yet.

How could he be fine after taking a wound that deep?

That instinct—along with a growing curiosity about what Lierbart was saying—made Encrid pause. Lierbart continued.

“Junior Knights build their skills on [Will]. Are knights any different?”

His tone was calm, but there was desperation underneath it.

Blood streamed from his abdomen. He groaned, yet straightened his back and kept talking.

“They are different. They really are. Faster, stronger. Like that vertical strike you just used—something hard to deal with, revealed in an instant.”

Encrid almost felt like rubbing his eyes. The blood flowing from Lierbart looked darker, murkier.

That wasn’t all.

A moment ago, he’d been twisting in pain. Now his expression had eased.

He didn’t look like he was faking it. He looked genuinely better.

It was incomprehensible, watching it happen.

“Ah, you know this too, right? Malten was more skilled than me, Benukt was stronger than me, and Banat’s agility was beyond what humans can easily follow.”

Lierbart listed his comrades.

Encrid didn’t answer. He kicked off the ground and went in with a diagonal slash. He sheathed Blazeblade and gripped Silver with both hands.

Bang!

Lierbart met it with strength no less than Encrid’s and parried.

Sparks burst as the blades crashed together with a deafening roar.

‘What is this?’

The shock numbed Encrid’s hands.

They broke contact and stepped apart.

Lierbart swung his sword through the air, tracing the same path as before, as if recreating the strike.

He was holding the sword one-handed.

He had blocked Encrid’s two-handed slash with a single hand.

As if getting used to a newly gained body, he repeated the motions.

Diagonal slash. Vertical slash. Horizontal slash. Thrust.

Simple, basic movements—yet the power inside them was nothing like before.

Whoosh.

The blade dropped straight down and stirred the air, the wind brushing Encrid’s cheek.

“So it’s like this.”

As he spoke, the blood seeping from his side mixed with black and turned into a dark red before slowing—then stopping.

The beard on Lierbart’s face thickened, sharpening like thorns. Fine hair spread longer and began to creep over his features.

Yet the color of his eyes didn’t change.

But the coldness he’d had at first was gone.

In its place was a hot blaze—something like slaughter and lust.

Not pure zeal.

Twisted, distorted, ugly emotion.

“All you have to do is bring every ability up to a knight’s level.”

There was nothing wrong with what he said.

If you could match everything a knight had—physical strength, reaction speed, power, agility—then compete with a knight, wouldn’t that be the way to become one?

Fur spread over Lierbart’s entire body.

A moment ago he’d been human.

Now he wasn’t.

He hated the world that drove him to this. That was why he wanted to speak—why he had no choice, why he did it.

His story.

He couldn’t stand not telling it. There were moments when people were desperate to be heard.

This was one of those moments for Lierbart.

The one who’d beaten him—someone overflowing with talent—was right in front of him.

Lierbart didn’t know Encrid. He decided the only way the other man could have reached this point was talent.

Otherwise, it made no sense.

That was why he said it.

Fur covered his arms and hands. With his sword hand hanging at his side, he opened his mouth. His mouth’s shape had shifted, but not so much that speech was difficult.

At first, he’d struggled to adjust.

Not anymore.

“Sometimes, some people have to risk their lives just to become knights. But if death is inevitable, should we still walk that path?”

He’d already reached the cliff’s edge. All that remained was to jump.

So should he jump, even knowing he’d die?

“Someone else’s single step was a step I had to stake my life on.”

Resentment soaked his words.

“If I got past it once by luck, was that the end? No. I had to overcome it again and again. More cliffs. So I gave up.”

It could have been a lie.

Encrid hadn’t come this far because of talent.

By any measure, Lierbart’s talent should have been greater.

The man complained of pain and despair. He cursed a world that didn’t grant him enough talent.

Sometimes he cursed the goddess of fortune.

Sometimes he cursed fate.

That was what he was doing now.

Even so, Encrid didn’t take it as deception.

‘Rem has Rem’s path.’

Ragna has Ragna’s path.

Jaxson has Jaxson’s path.

Audin has Audin’s path.

Dunbakel, Teresa, Esther, Andrew.

Everyone is just walking their own path.

He only has his.

Even if the other man sang despair through the lens of talent, Encrid had no reason to match his rhythm.

So he didn’t resent it.

So he didn’t show any emotion toward it.

Lierbart found that unpleasant.

There should have been some reaction to words like these. Usually, it split into two kinds.

Wasn’t that how it always went?

After he got used to this power, he went and hunted down, one by one, the people who had beaten him.

“It’s a foul.”

Someone said that, and Lierbart’s twisted heart felt satisfied.

Yes. It’s a foul.

Talent is a foul, so isn’t it right to do this?

Someone else condemned it as false power.

No. Power was truth.

Now, tell me.

Even if a knight came, were you confident you could surpass me now?

Lierbart had recognized the limits of his talent, so he changed his body.

And with that, he gained a knight’s power.

“All the chimeras were test subjects for me.”

Encrid didn’t bother telling him what Esther had said.

Things like how the Count’s true aim wasn’t even about him—trivialities like that.

Even if he said it, Lierbart wouldn’t listen.

Even if he listened, nothing would change.

Encrid raised his sword.

Lierbart stared at the blue eyes shining through black hair.

Those eyes were still upright.

Eyes that looked straight ahead and kept moving forward.

Lierbart wanted to gouge them out. He truly hated them.

The more he looked, the more uncomfortable he became. Like those eyes were condemning his path as wrong—like a whip that hurt ten times more than any words.

So he would kill him.

He would kill him.

“My lord gave me this power.”

Encrid shifted his grip, angling his sword diagonally.

The pressure pouring off Lierbart after his change was different.

The weight on Encrid’s shoulders was different.

If the oppression from Azpen’s knight had felt like a cord wrapping his whole body, then what Lierbart radiated now felt like a violent lump of iron crushing down on his shoulders.

“That’s how I became a knight.”

The declaration fell, and the pressure doubled.

Encrid did not retreat.

The man spoke of knights, and Encrid remained a Junior Knight.

Did that change anything?

Even so, he would win.

Even so, he would not lose.

Resolve shines as will.

Whoosh.

It was a motion that seemed to fold space. Lierbart’s sword turned into a thread and dropped.

Encrid raised his sword to meet it.

It was a knife-edge timing. If he’d missed, he’d have had no excuse even if his body had been split in two.

The blades met, and a roar burst out.

Clang!

Encrid felt his body sink into the ground, his knees trembling.

No—it was only a feeling, because the strike carried oppression.

He forced his feet out of the earth they’d dug into and held his sword upright.

Lierbart’s blade struck as if it had been waiting for that exact line.

Clang! Crack.

A fissure split across the middle of Silver.

Lierbart’s sword still looked like a thread.

That thread was fast and faint, yet the instant it touched, the impact multiplied tenfold and swept through Encrid’s body.

But he could block it.

He could react.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

He met the incoming blade again and again, refusing it, taking it head-on.

If Encrid weren’t here, he would have given up long ago.

What Lierbart said was true.

He had surpassed human limits with a chimera body.

He believed he had gained a knight’s power.

Encrid kept receiving the sword.

Precarious, but enduring.

Seeing the crack in Silver, he switched to Gladius.

The thick, hard blade was clearly dwarf-made, and it didn’t shatter easily even under repeated impact.

The thread bent toward his shoulder.

Encrid raised his sword and struck diagonally as if to smash it aside.

If he only blocked and endured, he would be pushed back.

So he had to counter.

It was what he’d learned while facing Azpen’s knight.

Encrid did exactly what he’d learned.

Attack and defense alike followed the same principle.

After more than thirty exchanges—after countless razor-thin saves—

Lierbart took a step back.

There was no way he wouldn’t question it.

“You’re taking a knight’s sword?”

A Junior Knight? That couldn’t be.

The sword’s level was different. The speed and power were different.

So how could he endure?

In answer, Encrid roughly pressed a hand to his partially torn earlobe.

The wound came from the tip grazing him as he dodged and blocked.

Blood ran down his neck.

His gear was ripped and torn in multiple places. He wore no helmet, and blood threaded through his hair as well—his scalp had been split.

It was a brutal assault.

A sword that moved like a thread.

And yet he could still block it.

It was easier to take than Ragna’s slash.

Easier than Rem’s axe.

Easier than Jaxson’s silent sword.

Easier to endure than Audin’s ignorant fist.

He could do it because he’d lived through all of that.

At least, that was how it felt to him now.

“Are you really a knight?”

Encrid shot back.

If he truly were a knight, it wouldn’t be like this.

As soon as Encrid asked, he understood, and spoke again.

“You’ve never fought a knight before, have you?”

That was the answer.

Lierbart feared defeat and death.

He feared confirming the difference in talent.

So he had only hoped—secretly—that this time he could fight a knight.

Because he believed he had surpassed his limits.

Encrid saw through it.

Anger mixed into the displeasure in Lierbart’s eyes.

A mere Junior Knight?

Encrid spoke, dimples showing.

“In my opinion, you’re not even as good as Ragna.”

Who was that?

Lierbart didn’t ask. He understood the intent.

Encrid was throwing the names back at him, just as Lierbart had done earlier.

“Rem will catch you if he just tries. Knight?”

Encrid lifted the end of the word, needling him.

That snapped at Lierbart.

What if he still couldn’t become a knight after all this?

What, then, was he—after giving up being human?

He’d walked this path by killing his family and slaughtering everything tied to his house.

Starting with his fiancée, he’d thrown multiple families into his experiments.

He’d dragged everyone who followed him onto the altar.

But even after all that—he still couldn’t become a knight?

“You might come to your senses if Audin hits you a few times. Why not take this chance and return to God?”

Encrid was panting. The arm holding his sword trembled.

That cut the last thread of reason Lierbart still held.

“I’ll kill you, then I’ll find every one of the people you mentioned and kill them one by one.”

With that, Lierbart charged with twice the speed and power he’d shown after changing.

When he said “one by one,” his sword was already flying to split Encrid’s crown.

Encrid barely blocked again.

Clang!

Metal rang across the battlefield.

Before he knew it, more eyes were watching. Enemy and ally alike slowed, then stopped, drawn to the clash.

This duel would not decide the war’s victory or defeat.

Even so, it was impossible to look away.

It was life against life, a proof of which path had been right.

They had carved their lives with swords to reach this moment, so it was only natural to let swords replace words.

The blades struck again.

Encrid gathered more wounds.

His shoulder guard flew off.

A scratch opened along his cheek.

Drops of blood scattered.

A cut split his thigh.

He was being pushed back.

And still, the same thought remained.

Esther had said he mustn’t lose.

If he lost here, he would be driven back, and he would have to start again from morning.

So is death just another repetition of today?

If he had lived thinking like that, he would have already been trapped in a convenient today.

‘I will win.’

I will not lose.

It was still his resolve.

Once again, resolve shines as will.

And it became the manifestation of a new [Will].

The fourth [Will], after [Will of Rejection], [Will of the Moment], and [Will of Suppression].