Chapter 405

The [Will] of Rejection, awakened thanks to some crazy shepherd’s sword.

The [Will] of the Moment, gained by exploring speed afterward.

The [Will] of Suppression, drawn from intimidation.

Encrid awakened and advanced with his own [Will].

In doing so, he naturally looked back on the path he’d walked and envisioned the path he would walk.

Supression belonged to the Heavy Sword, and the Moment belonged to the Swift Sword.

The [Will] of Rejection was a way to steel his heart, and there was also a swordsmanship close to a counterattack—one he called the Snake Sword for short. Just because he struck softly didn’t mean the blade turned into a cotton ball.

And now.

He had seen and faced the sword used by the man who cut off the flow.

He wasn’t fighting mindlessly, drunk on exhilaration. He saw everything he needed to see, and he learned it by taking it with his own body.

He also learned through review.

What was the secret to the swordsmanship that cut off the flow?

It was the eyes.

That man’s [Will] resided in his eyes.

He cut off the flow by seeing, grasping, and judging.

That was why he couldn’t cut off the flow of someone superior to him. It was a half-baked technique.

Encrid had also seen Lierbart’s impregnable technique from before he changed.

Absolute defense through shield and armor.

A technique meant to exhaust the opponent through a war of attrition.

What was the core of achieving that?

The stamina to maintain the iron wall? The strength to endure by training the core? Solid legs?

The most important thing was one thing.

‘Persistence.’

The [Will] to persist.

It was a technique that manifested [Will] longer than anything Encrid had seen.

That iron wall of defense endured by placing the power called [Will] at the center of the body.

Eyes and persistence.

He grasped it, recalled it, and realized it.

Then he mixed in the sense of attack. He added the sensitivity that opened the door to a sixth sense.

In truth, what he wanted was for [Will] to seep into the orthodox sword style known as the Capturing Sword.

The reason it was possible was clear.

It was something he had already experienced. He had done it before.

When he fought the centaur leader who wielded a glaive.

His senses ran wild, predicting the opponent’s actions through countless experiences. His developed five senses let him evade and strike by glimpsing the future.

It was the moment enlightenment came from accumulated experience.

The moment resolve became [Will], shone, and interfered with reality.

The moment the intangible power called [Will] manifested in the real world.

Encrid’s eyes took in the opponent’s entire body—the shifting muscles, the twitch of fingers, the angle of the feet, the change in breathing, even the way dust scattered.

His five senses raged. It was a flood of information that would have burst an ordinary human’s head.

Encrid accepted only what he needed.

A skill made possible by the experience of death piled up through the repetition of today.

With that accumulation, his judgment of what mattered and what didn’t was sharper than ever.

The fact that he had barely blocked a sword flying like a thin thread meant he could react.

And though the moment was clearly dangerous, Encrid named the technique born of [Will] for this very situation.

It was a way to recognize it properly and use it.

Eyes That See an Inch Ahead.

It was the name of the art built on [Will]. Encrid saw the opponent’s next move in advance.

He’d experienced something similar before, but this time it was several times clearer and more vivid.

In that way, a sword built on countless accumulated experiences drew a line into the future—toward tomorrow.

Ragna would have reached it in an instant, but Encrid had walked and reached it in his own way, so there was no need to envy anyone’s talent.

That was the decisive difference between Encrid and the opponent before him now.

He didn’t know frustration or despair, so he forgot envy and moved forward.

Whoosh.

For the first time, he avoided the sword that had turned into a thread. Lierbart’s blade sheared off a strip of Encrid’s hair and flashed past.

The severed strands burst and scattered through the air.

In the brief opening, Encrid lashed out with minimal motion.

It was the result of reading and rereading the opponent’s moves over and over.

A strike he had forged by blocking with the Capturing Sword, using Supression, and enduring.

The end of the Gladius—shorter now, rougher now—pierced the opponent’s chest.

Turning into a Fiend didn’t give him two hearts.

Thwack!

The sensation of the blade sinking into muscle ran up through the grip.

Encrid pulled back the instant he stabbed. Lierbart’s left fist passed through the space Encrid had occupied.

A clean hit would have shattered part of his body.

Encrid fell back as he dodged, and even with his posture broken, he kicked the sword he had buried with the sole of his foot.

Pow! Thwack!

The tip burst out through the opponent’s back.

“Cough!”

Lierbart spat blood. Dark red blood poured over Encrid’s face.

Encrid rolled back with the falling blood, hid the Whistle Dagger in his left hand, and gripped Silver with his right.

Dark red dripped down his jaw. Encrid didn’t even blink as he raised his sword from one knee on the ground.

His eyes burned, and his head throbbed.

With his sixth sense layered onto senses already running wild, he was predicting the opponent’s movements. A headache was inevitable.

He wouldn’t be able to use this against a real knight.

But the opponent in front of him wasn’t a knight.

Because he had fought him, Encrid knew it clearly.

“God damn it, God.”

Lierbart stared at the sword lodged in his chest. Blood began to run from his eyes as well.

His gaze didn’t reach Encrid.

Instead, he looked back on his life.

They called him a genius. They said he would raise his family. He kept going and going—and what was waiting at the end of that road?

A cliff with no end.

Darkness with no future.

A wall his hand could never reach.

“You dog-like God.”

He hated the world.

He cursed without end.

Lierbart grabbed the metal in his chest and tore it out with his own hand.

Blood gurgled from the hole it left behind.

It was a fatal wound. He couldn’t live.

No, maybe he could.

Lierbart knew the Count’s secret. If he crawled back to the Count, he might stitch this life together again.

Wasn’t his body already a chimera?

So there was nothing wrong with struggling to live.

But even if he lived, then what?

There was no way back now.

‘I can’t become a knight even with this?’

After throwing everything away for that alone?

So it was over.

His eyes turned to the man who had forced him to face reality.

Because he had once again reached a world marked only by resentment, despair, and frustration, Lierbart poured his curse onto Encrid.

“You’ll end up the same.”

Struggling to become a knight.

“You probably won’t survive here either.”

A curse loaded with the desire for him to die.

Of course, Encrid didn’t listen. So he didn’t answer.

Lierbart collapsed like a doll, folding from the knees and falling forward.

Dark red blood pooled around his fallen body and seeped into the ground.

Encrid watched, thinking with dull indifference.

Blood, earth, death.

He still didn’t like it.

The battle was still raging, yet the area around Encrid had gone quiet.

No one cheered for victory or lamented defeat.

The aftermath of what Encrid and Lierbart had shown was too heavy for that.

The old commander of the royal guard, watching from far behind, clenched his fist.

“Have you ever seen a fight between royal guard and royal guard? I just saw something even greater than that.”

The commander muttered. The adjutant nodded faintly.

A thrill ran through the commander’s body.

Then Encrid’s voice rang out.

“I’ll end this war here.”

It sounded like he was telling them to stop fighting.

“Everyone, stop fighting. I’ll end this damn war.”

He repeated it.

If he didn’t like it, he would stop it.

They’d already started fighting—how could he stop it?

If words didn’t work, he would stop it by force.

And if someone kept urging the fighting on, he would just smash their nose in.

He was already at the level of a seasoned knight when it came to stopping fights, after holding back Rem, Ragna, Jaxson, and Audin over and over.

“What, you’re saying we should stop fighting now?”

Rem said as he approached. He must have been watching for a while.

It wasn’t just Rem.

“What do we do now?”

Ragna was there too.

“It wasn’t bad.”

Jaxson was there as well.

All three had been cutting through enemies. They had felt Lierbart’s change and come running.

For Ragna, it had been a path where he refined his art while carving through the shield unit that tried to trap him.

Rem had split the head of a man wielding two hammers, then cleaved an elf’s torso into upper and lower halves on his way here.

Jaxson had killed every adjutant among the hidden five weapons.

From the start, they were in a league that ordinary soldiers couldn’t compare to.

They could have interfered in Encrid’s fight, but they didn’t.

A sword changing before their eyes—there was no way it didn’t shock them.

So they watched.

Encrid’s [Will] to win had been blazing.

Rem, Ragna, and Jaxson admired him, each in their own way.

Now they really couldn’t treat him like a joke anymore.

It was natural the battle didn’t stop all at once, even when Encrid stepped forward and spoke.

But it began to slow—starting from where he stood.

“Tell them to stop fighting.”

Encrid said with a deep sigh.

He was tired.

And he wasn’t thinking about repeating today.

So he had to move forward.

Rem liked this kind of leader. A lot.

That declaration that he would end the war—arrogant, stupid, and perfect.

It wasn’t something said because he could do it.

It was something said because he would do it until he could.

Resolve.

[Will].

That was why Rem liked it.

“Anyone who keeps fighting dies by my axe! Everyone stop!”

Encrid was terrifying, but Rem was also a madman.

Worse—Rem had the madness to smash allies and enemies alike.

He let that madness show. His gleaming eyes and blood-soaked axe filled everyone’s vision.

Naturally, they stopped.

“If you want to fight more, I’ll be your opponent.”

Ragna stepped forward as well.

Jaxson, meanwhile, turned his eyes to the rear.

Only to the commanders.

It was a look that demanded a choice, and it carried the intent to pick them off if they ordered more killing.

“Everyone stop!”

One of the commanders shouted.

More than one commander had been shaken by Encrid.

“Fall back! Fall back!”

“The unnecessary killing ends here!”

Voices rose one after another.

Even Marcus was drumming in the rear.

A signal to halt the battle temporarily, not to retreat.

Dum-dum!

Not everyone under the Count was an idiot. They knew what the Chimera Unit was, and they revered the Count’s “great intentions.”

‘Is this right?’

To some, it felt like a fight meant to die, not a fight meant to win.

They moved, and they stopped.

“Stop! Stop and retreat!”

A sight that would have left even a bard speechless.

The battle stopped.

Encrid looked over the frozen battlefield and walked forward.

The sky was dim. Clouds swallowed the sunlight, so it wasn’t bright even in daytime.

Still, Encrid’s figure burned into everyone’s mind.

Rem, Ragna, and Jaxson followed behind him.

Then Dunbakel—who knew where she’d come from—joined at the end.

As they advanced, the Count stepped out to meet them, veins bulging.

Five guards stood with swords, spears, and axes.

Encrid glanced at them and couldn’t tell whether Lierbart had been an idiot, or the Count was the real son of a bitch. He could smell the stink of old men from those five as well.

“That panther—she has quite the talent.”

The Count smiled, veins still throbbing on his forehead. His face looked split in two: the upper half furious, the lower half smiling.

Something wasn’t going his way.

Esther must have done something.

“My talent is even more amazing. Want me to show you?”

Encrid answered, and the Count’s smile deepened. The corners of his mouth lifted, and the teeth he bared looked strangely black.

“Do you think Lierbart is everything?”

The Count gestured, and even the gesture felt wrong somehow.

At that motion, the five armed guards stepped forward.

Crack.

Their muscles warped and swelled. Hair burst out. Their bodies changed.

They couldn’t be called werewolves.

Parts of Fiend bodies had been transplanted—fur and muscle mixed into human flesh.

They looked exactly like that.

“They’re disgusting.”

Rem said, resting his axe on his shoulder.

Lierbart had claimed he was the complete form.

These five looked broken—patched together.

Even if the power imitating a knight was mediocre, it wasn’t normal for parts of their faces to swell into bubbles of trapped air.

Still, five was a lot.

Encrid wondered if he could handle one, and whether he could keep fighting afterward.

He had pushed his body near its limit against Lierbart.

Even so, he had no intention of retreating.

“I will end the war.”

A declaration.

An expression of [Will].

And therefore, visible intimidation.

Encrid stepped forward.

The five guards glared at Encrid with eyes gone red.

“Are you going to do it alone?”

Rem moved to the left.

“Two are mine.”

Ragna moved to the right.

“You can just watch quietly.”

Jaxson, having drifted three steps away, spoke.

Dunbakel bared her teeth and stood beside Rem.

A precarious balance.

The Count looked at them and said,

“Time is on my side.”

Was he trying to make them anxious?

Tension packed the space between the two groups.

If a dry leaf fell, it felt like the world would ignite.

Step. Step.

Then, a bold, indifferent set of footsteps sounded from behind Encrid.

He didn’t need to turn his head. He didn’t need to ask.

“Brothers and sisters, please step back for a moment.”

Reinforcements.

A man with a bear-like physique came up and stopped right behind Encrid.

“Who was bothering my fiancé?”

And he wasn’t alone.

A thinner, easygoing voice followed right after.

“Moreover, he wasn’t alone. There was also another thin but pleasant voice.”

(T/N : The gang is completeeeeee yoooowwwwww this is fireeeeee)