Eternally Regressing Knight Novel - Chapter 872
Chapter 872: Chapter 870 – Gap
Chapter 870 – Gap
Ping-
It was not a sound actually heard.
It was just the form of the sound captured by her sixth sense.
Elma narrowed her eyes.
‘If you try to see, it’s already too late.’
She focused all her nerves, her grip tight on her sword’s hilt.
The knightly orders of the South were originally five and called the Five-Colored Knightly Orders, but as time passed, the number of orders shrank to three.
Only three of the five colors remained.
Among them, Amethyst was the weakest.
This was the evaluation within the South.
Elma’s goal was to overturn that evaluation.
People go to battle for their own reasons.
Some for loyalty, some for fame.
Elma’s purpose was to prove her own skill.
From the age of twelve, she had trained by having her side beaten with a steel hammer and had grown up fighting Knolls, Satyrs, and Lycanthropes.
From there, she had entered the knightly order.
The order’s training was even more severe.
The Empire’s knight, Balmung, had discussed knight training, and Enkrid, too, had found his own path to knighthood. Did the South not have such things?
The start was distinguishing poison by only a faint smell; next was preparing for an attack even while sleeping.
Then, she fought alone, not against one or two monsters, but against a colony.
She had to be chased for three whole days to wipe out a Lycanthrope colony, and she had also fought a “named” Satyr.
A monster with a lower body resembling a goat’s, but its whole form resembling a human’s, was a Satyr.
It wasn’t a creature that just used strength, but one that utilized techniques.
Was it just one or two such creatures?
No, there were many.
A great many.
She struggled in their midst and survived.
She proved her skill and was now one of the most promising new talents in the Amethyst Knights.
‘Build your skill with your life as collateral.’
That was the spirit of the South.
Elma was a genius who had completed all that training with excellent grades.
Her sword was a two-handed greatsword, as long as her own body.
She was used to this size, having fought monsters with a sword larger than herself since childhood.
The blade was jagged like a saw’s teeth.
It was because she had added steel to the sword she had used since childhood, maintaining its shape and making it her inscribed weapon.
The inscribed weapon’s name was Grind. Her pupils contracted.
The focal depth of her narrowed pupils increased, and she caught the shape of the object she had missed before.
‘A stone?’
To be precise, it was a stone polished like a smooth glass ball.
It was the projectile Rem called a bullet.
Elma swung her greatsword.
A blade drawing a straight line from top to bottom.
It was aimed precisely at the direction the projectile was flying from.
The muscles in her two arms swelled in an instant, adding power.
Kkiiiiiieeeeee-Kang!
A noise exploded as the lump of steel split.
A shockwave erupted from her, and wind blew.
The bullet, split in two, slammed into the ground with a peong-peong sound.
That alone sent dirt flying up as high as a man’s head.
“Hoo, I cut it.”
Elma said, with a light exhale.
Was it difficult?
Considerably.
The opponent must have thrown that strike with all his strength.
“He must have thrown it because he’s not confident in close combat.”
Galuto’s analysis followed. Elma nodded. The first one had been missed, causing some soldiers to panic, but the second one was cut.
“…Uooooh, Amethyst!”
“Elma!”
“Elma of Purple!”
Elma of Purple.
That was the name they called her.
The soldiers cheered.
In front of them, the owner of the projectile and his party approached.
“Blocked, huh.”
“They’re not all husks over there, I guess.”
“Knights of the South, eh? Shall we gauge their skill?”
“If you die, I’ll collect your remains. Should I just sprinkle them in the wilderness?”
“Who’s dying? Should I kill you first?”
The one in the lead was the owner of the gray hair.
He approached, his arms, holding an axe, swinging back and forth loosely.
Right next to him was a beastkin whose yellow pupils resembled an animal’s, and behind them, two human men.
The ones chatting were the two in the back.
They didn’t know, but their names were Fel and Ropord.
Their composure was visible in the way they approached, not even silencing their tabak-tabak footsteps.
‘Bravado?’
Galuto sized up the opponent.
‘No.’
It wasn’t arrogance or pride either.
‘Familiarity.’
That’s how it looked.
It was natural for a knight to be accustomed to battle, but even so, this was too natural.
‘They look as if they’ve been through this dozens of times.’
Galuto’s insight was accurate.
Rem, Dunbakel, Ropord, and Fel had fought countless times.
They had even come close to having their heads cut off while sparring with each other.
Their shoulders didn’t tense just because the opponent was a knight.
‘They look as if they have experience fighting knights dozens of times?’
It was similar on this side.
The knights of the South do not avoid fights.
Fights with monsters that pop out of the Demon Realm weren’t the kind you could avoid just by avoiding them, so they, too, were knights who had fought continuously, half by choice and half by force.
Gelric narrowed his eyes and gripped two short swords, one in each hand.
Elma alternated her hands on her sword, gripping and un-gripping.
Elma was a master of high-speed slashes based on a heavy sword; her inscribed weapon, Grind, would tear flesh just by grazing it and would chip away at any ordinary weapon.
Its name was Grind; its nickname, the Grinding Sword.
Gelric’s instantaneous acceleration was unrivaled within the knightly order.
The two swords he held were the poisoned fangs of a snake.
They were inscribed weapons, made by processing the fangs of a famed monster after killing it.
‘A poison with no antidote.’
It was Gelric’s hidden technique.
He had fused his Will with the monster’s poison.
If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to remain in the Amethyst Knights.
He would have died when he was bitten by the Lamia, a monster with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a snake.
Every time Gelric prepared the synthetic poison made in his body, he furrowed his brow.
It wasn’t intentional, nor was it because of pain.
It just happened.
He just knew it was because some abnormality had occurred in his body while he was overcoming the poison.
“I’ll take that one.”
The beastkin pointed a long finger at Gelric.
“Fine, I’ll kill you first.”
Gelric received her words.
It wasn’t Cypress.
They were all unknown faces.
That didn’t mean they let their guard down.
A moment ago, Simlak had died above their heads, and that one bullet they had just avoided had killed or maimed a dozen soldiers.
Even now, groans echoed from all over.
Some of them held on, wrapped in bandages, but some had lost too much blood and were left to wait for death.
It was not the time to be careless.
“Archers!”
Galuto called the unit he had prepared.
The archer unit, which had been on standby, drew their bowstrings with all their strength.
Kkigigik!
It was a weapon modified from an anti-personnel ballista, a method where three soldiers used one bow. Two pulled, and one nocked an arrow. The bow itself was the size of a man’s torso. It was used by planting it in the ground.
“Fire!”
Before Galuto’s words had even finished, a tudududung sound rang out.
It was an arrow several times faster, thicker, and heavier than a normal arrow.
Kwang!
Ropord and Fel smashed a total of four arrows.
The impact made their arms sting.
It would heal quickly, but that wasn’t a reason to leave the enemy alone.
Ropord knew he had to strike them.
“We must deal with the enemy soldiers.”
So he entrusted that to Fel and charged at the enemy knight who had called the archers.
“…This crazy bastard?”
Fel’s high praise followed from behind.
Right, I have to deal with the enemy soldiers, so that knight is mine.
Ropord had said with his actions.
Fel did not insist here.
This was a battlefield, not a playground.
Just because they were skilled and familiar did not mean they would do something stupid.
“A guy like a coyote. I’ll get you later.”
The sheep of the wilderness ignore most wolves, but the beast that stubbornly hunts those sheep is the coyote of the wilderness.
They are a group that even hunts monsters.
In other words, “a guy like a coyote” was the highest praise Fel could give.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Ropord replied roughly and stood before Galuto.
“Hold on. I’ll kill him and join you.”
Galuto ignored who was in front of him and shouted.
The southern commander gritted his teeth.
It was time to face the disaster.
The disaster had brown hair and long arms.
He strode forward.
His dangling arms swung back and forth like a swing.
The three knights of the South knew a massacre was about to unfold, but they let it be.
Galuto felt the discipline of the unit behind him waver.
But it couldn’t be helped.
‘Buy time with the army.’
Then one knight wouldn’t have to face two.
If even one of the three won, the tide of victory would turn.
What was the skill of the ones who had stepped up instead of the Crimson Cloak Knights?
Should he pull back the army, even now?
Was there no other clever plan?
“Hoo.”
Galuto blew away his worries with a single exhale.
He had too many stray thoughts before a fight.
“I’m bored of waiting. I held back from just cutting you, so if you apologize, I’ll accept.”
“…What?”
Ropord grated on his opponent’s nerves, just as he did with Fel.
This was, you could say, an essential skill of The Madmen Knights.
He taunted his opponent.
Rem, who heard it from afar, cackled.
“Little bastard, he talks well.”
It was the result of training with high-quality insults and high-quality beatings.
He was proud.
“Don’t be so relaxed, Ash-head.”
Elma said.
Rem nonchalantly turned his body and raised his axe.
The tip of the two-handed sword was aimed obliquely at her opponent.
Elma, looking at her opponent from behind the blade, inwardly denied Galuto’s words.
‘He threw a projectile because he’s not confident in close combat?’
Nonsense.
The hand dangling, holding the axe, kept catching her eye.
The blue veins on the back of the hand gripping the axe handle, the vambrace of the one holding it looked as if it were squirming.
It was because the muscles within had expanded and filled the vambrace.
‘One strike.’
Elma did not see the fight dragging on.
Victory or defeat would be decided in a single exchange.
Someone would live, and someone would die.
‘With all my strength.’
She steels her heart and focuses.
Veins bulged on Elma’s hands as well.
Sssss.
She raised her sword and changed to a good overhead-strike stance.
Her arms formed a triangle, narrowing her vision.
It was fine.
A knight does not see only with her eyes.
Her opponent, without a trace of a smile, raised the axe he held in his right hand.
Elma continued her thoughts in high-speed.
‘After making him recognize it’s decided in one blow…’
She had realized this when she was young, charging at a monster larger than herself.
‘There are too many opponents you can’t cut in one blow.’
The Elma of that time had revised her tactics.
If one strike doesn’t work, strike twice.
If two don’t work, strike three times.
‘Into the world of no-breathing.’
She stops her breath and thrusts her sword.
The pressure created by the blade pressed down on Rem’s head first.
Then, she saw the light in her opponent’s eyes stretch out in a long line.
‘While striking down from above.’
It was a sword that bound his whole body.
The power in that one strike was no less than Fel’s.
‘Still.’
It was not nearly as good as that lazy, directionless idiot.
Rem swung his axe upward.
If he relaxed his wrist, it would snap at once.
So, his wrist was straight, and instead, he twisted his body with his right foot as the axis.
It was the Flowing Sword Style.
The Deflecting Sword.
It was a technique that he had matured recently after facing Themares.
Kkang!
Sparks flew as the inscribed weapon and the downward-striking weapon met.
The thick-bladed greatsword flowed to one side.
Elma, as if she had expected it, pulled the flowing sword and slashed horizontally again.
Rem struck it again with his axe, deflecting it upward.
Tak-kang!
The two weapons failed to meet their objective and cut the air.
‘Three times.’
To strike just a little faster than her opponent, Elma held her breath and swung her sword down.
Rem blocked that attack by drawing a throwing axe from his right hip.
Kkwang! Udeuk!
The axe was also made by dwarven skill, but it was no match for an inscribed weapon.
Elma’s “Grind” crushed the throwing axe.
The blade shattered and scattered, and the bog-oak handle, which had been oiled for ten days and dried in the shade, split, sending fragments flying.
Ppeok.
The sound that followed was relatively small.
Compared to the sound of steel breaking and the air exploding, it was an endlessly small sound, but it was a sound imbued with death.
Elma’s vision turned red.
She tried to open her mouth, but it didn’t work as she willed.
And yet, her ears were open, and she heard her opponent’s words.
“You had some bad luck. This side plays all day with a bastard who swings a greatsword like a homicidal maniac.”
Rem often bickered and fought with Ragna.
Compared to the lazy, directionless oaf, this opponent was easy.
Rem shrugged his shoulders.
With his left hand, he had drawn and offered up the throwing axe; with the axe in his right hand, he had struck his opponent’s head and pulled back.
He hadn’t received the inscribed weapon, but rather gathered sorcery power in his right arm and struck.
In this, all the techniques Rem had experienced, including Jaxen’s stealth, were imbued.
There was no point in giving it a name.
He had just swung his axe at his opponent’s gap.
‘I didn’t know I’d use it here.’
But she wasn’t an opponent he could take lightly, either.
Fel, regardless of whether Rem won or lost, blocked the front of the army and drew a line on the ground with his sword.
He had seen Enkrid do it once and had always wanted to try it.
“I don’t want to kill you uselessly. Don’t cross the line. If you don’t cross, you won’t die. Simple. Anyone who doesn’t understand?”
Silence.
A good quiet.
Fel was inwardly satisfied.
It was after a brief silence.
A part of the archers, in teams of four, drew their bowstrings.
Kkigik! Tududung!
Three arrows flew, aiming for him.
Fel instinctively twisted his body and dodged them all.
Peobeobeobeok!
The arrows slammed into the ground.
It was an aggressive attack.
“…Didn’t I say not to cross?”
Fel’s eyes gleamed fiercely as he corrected his posture. He had ended up in a strange posture from twisting and turning to dodge the arrows.
“The arrows! Only the arrows crossed! The people didn’t cross!”
The enemy commander shouted.
It was a stretch.
“Um, what?”
Fel doubted his ears.
What are those bastards saying?
“The people didn’t cross, so.”
The commander said, his face pale.
He would die soon.
His opponent was a disaster.
“Are you kidding me?”
Fel said, scowling.
“Are you not keeping your word? A man who calls himself a knight?”
The southern commander was an extraordinary man.
He had found the gap in his opponent’s words.
He had poked that gap with abundant courage.
Fel could have just ignored him.
He could have gone in, cut them down, killed them, and shut their mouths.
But then, he would be the one not keeping his word.
It wasn’t a knight’s oath or vow, but it was a word he had spat from his own mouth.
Should he break it?
“Fine. Let’s do it.”
Fel said.
As long as people don’t cross, I won’t kill.
He made up his mind.
Krang, who was watching, burst into a hearty laugh.
“Only madmen have gathered under a mad captain.”
At those words, the Royal Guard unknowingly nodded.
At the same time, they felt that their king was laughing like that out of true satisfaction.
He did not wish for a one-sided slaughter.
Even if the ones dying were the enemy.
***
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***
If you enjoy the series and want to get more chapters early, head over to https://payhip.com/Samowek
Next 100 chapters – 25e [Be sure to message me on discord for any information]
[SHOP BEST BUY] – 50e – Every chapter translated – Latest WN-1011 + daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 942-1011 + daily chapters from Monday to Friday for a month
I welcome you to join our discord https://discord.gg/RY7BbJpeAZ
**ANY INFO ONLY APPLIES TO THE LATEST CHAPTER HERE ON WEBNOVEL**
Chapter 871 – One-Sided
‘If a massacre is necessary, I’ll do it. But if there’s no real reason to?’
If there’s no reason to make a river of blood and build a tower of flesh, I won’t.
This was Krang’s thought.
From that perspective, what that madman named Fel was doing was quite a good sight.
Reducing the number of enemy soldiers, even by one, might be better for the future.
The enemy soldier who survived now might kill his soldiers, his people, in the future.
‘It feels like walking on a rope strung across a cliff, Enki.’
Krang repeated inwardly.
Choosing the second-worst option, not the worst, was easy, but one who walked the best path, better than the second-worst, must always perform a feat, as if walking a tightrope.
Just as Krang was doing now.
‘Hoo.’
He only sighed inwardly.
Outwardly, he showed only smiles and confidence.
That was what a king must do.
The king knew he was not a great strategist.
Instead, he was a person who knew well what his duty was in his position.
If army fought army, both Naurillia and Lihin-Stetten would end up with fatal wounds.
‘If we two fight so fiercely, who is the one who laughs last, Great Emperor?’
Krang asked the ruler of the South, who was far away.
Naturally, there was no answer.
He had asked inwardly, and the emperor would not have heard.
He didn’t need his answer.
Because he knew, even without hearing.
It would be hard for both himself and the southern Great Emperor to laugh.
Would the ruler of the Empire, hidden in the north, be happy?
Therefore, a massacre was not needed.
That was why the current situation was quite satisfactory.
It felt like he had taken the first step on the tightrope very well.
Fel had done that for him.
‘But it’s not time to be relieved.’
The battle wasn’t even over.
Krang thought again and again about what would happen next.
The things he had to do from his position, what he had aimed for by coming this far, preparations for things that might go completely against his expectations, those who had been sacrificed for this.
The king’s mind was complicated.
He was not in a position to be simply happy.
***
“Your comrade, then, is he a bit lacking?”
Galuto asked.
He was speaking as he watched Fel repeatedly swat away and dodge arrows.
Ropord nodded his head greatly, agreeing.
He agreed with his opponent’s words to an excessive degree.
Was his opponent not saying what he himself wanted to say?
He was a man with a good eye.
To the point where it was a waste to kill him here.
But that didn’t mean he could let him live and send him off.
Enkrid had said what he needed to before entering the battle.
“Subdue all knights. Capturing them is fine, but it’s not very meaningful. Do as you see fit.”
As always, his words respected everyone.
It meant they could do as they pleased, for the most part.
“Capture? What capture. I’ll just chop their heads off with my axe.”
Rem had received those words.
Knights fight based on oaths and vows.
Just because things went wrong, southern knights did not change the king they served or the place they lived.
Even if they did, it was rare.
At least, it was right to say there was no room for such leisure on this battlefield.
Therefore, capture was meaningless.
This was the second reason Ropord had stepped up instead of Fel.
Because that bastard Fel would surely rampage, saying he’d capture him alive to show off his skill.
‘We are at a disadvantage.’
Ropord went beyond observing the small-scale battlefield and considered the flow of the entire war.
It was a conclusion reached with the help of Krais’ added words.
This was the reason he couldn’t afford to get sentimental about sparing the opponent, just because his skill would go to waste.
Naturally, the first reason he had ditched Fel was to tease that bastard at least once.
When this fight is over, I’ll tease him, calling him a slowpoke, lazy like Sir Ragna.
“That’s right.”
Ropord opened his mouth and added his words.
Galuto narrowed his eyes.
A few thoughts brushed past, and he reached a single conclusion.
Ordinary taunts won’t work.
“Knights speak with their swords,” Galuto said.
It was a moment to decide the match with skill rather than taunts.
Just because he used calmness as his weapon, did that mean his skill was lacking?
It was the opposite.
Elma fought the best within the Amethyst Knights, but if you only counted their dueling records, Galuto had won more.
He knew how to fight a winning battle.
He gauged the situation and occupied the high ground.
He forced a battle of wits on his opponent and cornered him onto a calculated battlefield.
His personal tactics were the same as when he led his troops.
‘Open the door to all possibilities and prepare for them all.’
The Blocking Sword, the Grasping Sword, the Swamp-like Sword—these were Galuto’s nicknames.
Within the Amethyst Knights, the knights who could beat Galuto could be counted on one hand.
He repeatedly calculated and exerted his insight to the extreme.
That was Galuto’s specialty.
His gaze sank, just as one cannot tell if it is dirt or a swamp before stepping.
They were dark brown eyes.
Rotten leaves, dirt, corroded animal bones, sediment piled up—his eyes were like a swamp.
The things that had not completely decomposed clumped together, looking like black masses.
The brown light faded from Galuto’s eyes, and only a dull soot remained.
He repeatedly calculated, looking at his opponent’s stance, his center of gravity, and so on.
He glimpsed the action the continental knight standing before him would take.
He saw the future.
‘A single point thrust.’
The action his opponent would take.
‘Dodge and strike.’
The match wouldn’t be decided in one blow.
The situation that would follow was also clear in his mind.
Ropord just stood with both feet on the ground, steadying his breath.
He made no preparations, no calculations.
He gauged his opponent’s skill and watched intently what he was doing.
He was a man who fought in a style similar to his own.
After grasping that, he folded his thoughts.
Ropord concluded what he had to do in one action.
To dash out and thrust his sword.
He bent his knees and put strength into the foot that was on the ground.
His right foot dug halfway into the ground.
Udeudeudeuk.
When the clod of earth, compacted by pressure, became as hard as a rock, it was enough to use as a foothold.
Ropord placed his right foot on the foothold, and the moment he leaned his body forward, he bent his knees further and then straightened them.
All his movements were as fast as lightning.
Bbeong!
The ground exploded.
Peok!
Flesh also burst.
Galuto was in his spot, and Ropord brushed past him as if in passing.
Their positions were swapped.
They were in a stance showing only their backs to each other.
The victory or defeat of the fight was decided in one blow. Jureureuk.
Both shed blood.
However, the one with a hole in his neck died, and the one whose pauldron was sent flying, receiving only a wound on his shoulder, lived.
Tung-.
The piece of the pauldron, which had been split in half from receiving the power of the blade, fell to the ground.
It was made of high-quality iron and monster hide, but it was not enough to withstand a knight’s sword.
‘Still, it was excellent.’
If not for the pauldron, the wound would have been deeper.
Ropord felt a part of the flesh on his left shoulder, where the blade had hit and passed, had been torn off.
It was hard to call it light, but on the premise that he had won against a knight, it was an injury that could be called light.
“In our unit, there’s a monster who makes it so you can’t even begin to attack, no matter what you do.”
Ropord said.
A faint light still remained in the eyes of Galuto, who had a hole in his neck.
He was on the verge of death, but his ears must still be open.
The reason the match was decided in an instant?
It was simple.
Galuto had focused on protecting his body, picturing a long fight.
Had he caught a glimpse of what happened to Elma?
That must have had an influence.
Conversely, Ropord fought like Fel.
He faced the battle with Enkrid’s mindset.
He acted as if it didn’t matter if he died today.
The dying Galuto waved his hand in the air.
Was there something he wanted to say?
It was hard to hear now.
Even a knight wouldn’t have the skill to speak with a hole in his neck.
He waved his hand and then fell forward.
Koong.
Galuto, who had fallen to the ground with his face turned to the side, gasped.
It wasn’t hard to guess what he wanted to say.
It was presumed to be “a gamble,” or something like that.
That’s what it looked like, reading his lips.
Blood gurgled and poured from his neck.
The red blood was proof that he was human.
Leaving aside winning or losing, dying or living, was he bitter?
For dying in an instant to a gamble?
To his opponent, it might have looked like a gamble.
“It wasn’t a gamble.”
Ropord muttered.
It really wasn’t.
It was the tactic with the highest probability, found through the sense he had gained from countless duels and fights.
In other words, he had just chosen the best move to win.
‘If the fight had dragged on, all factors, including stamina, would have had an effect.’
His opponent was endlessly skilled in that kind of fight. It was a tactic of cornering the opponent with calculations, a form that Ropord also enjoyed.
The difference between Galuto and Ropord was that Ropord could fight like Fel at any time, to win.
He would unhesitatingly do bold things to win, even if it meant abandoning what he usually enjoyed using.
Naturally, the foundation of all this was mixed with what he had learned.
In particular, the words the captain had said were impressive.
‘A round circle.’
Enkrid’s teaching.
After putting forward an outstanding specialty, he had said to train until that specialty looked ordinary again.
Ropord confirmed with the corpse of the knight, fallen before his eyes, that his hard work had not been in vain.
The blood pouring from his neck turned the dirt a dark red.
Almost at the same time as Ropord’s fight ended, Dunbakel also struck her opponent’s neck.
The scimitar in her hand drew a refreshing line.
She had stepped back, then dashed forward, and the blade she swung tore the air.
A jijijijik- sound was left in the air, and in its midst, the enemy’s neck was also cut.
“Secret technique: Fast Cut. You bastard.”
It wasn’t a secret technique or anything.
It was just that she had seen her opponent’s tactics and specialty, stepped back, and then ran at him and cut him.
But there was no one to answer her.
The knight with the severed neck had kneeled and collapsed to the ground.
With the slash, Dunbakel had held her breath, hopped forward a couple of times, and only then has she spoken.
By doing that, she avoided the poison left in the air.
Her sense of smell was on a different level from an ordinary beastkin’s.
She saw the traces of the smell with her eyes through her sense of smell.
It was a nose so sensitive that no one would believe it.
The fight was one-sided.
It was something both the Madmen and Krang had expected, but for the enemy army, it was a truly dumbfounding moment.
***
Enkrid balanced on Weird Eyes and surveyed the battlefield.
While he was rampaging in the sky, he had seen a part of The Madmen Knights—to be precise, Rem, Dunbakel, Ropord, and Fel—charge out and slaughter the enemy knights.
And at the same time, Fel’s acrobatics.
“Why do you think he’s doing that?”
He asked Weird Eyes, and it just shook its head with a Heeigh-.
Right, you wouldn’t know either.
You can’t know what’s in a person’s heart unless you become that person.
Even a Dragonkin like Themares only read a part of the heart.
‘If you put up a false front, even a Dragonkin can be fooled.’
It was a simple but firm logic.
For a knight, deceiving one’s own intentions was commonplace.
They might pretend to settle the match in one blow, but then demand a battle of stamina, or conversely, act like they would fight for a long time, and then settle it in one blow.
If you deceive the opponent, you have an advantage.
There was no one who didn’t know that simple logic.
‘Deceiving the opponent by deceiving yourself first.’
That was the basic of the Valen-style mercenary sword.
Now he knew that that swordsmanship contained the essence of the deceiving sword.
It was worthy of being called the parent of the Enkrid-style orthodox swordsmanship.
‘Anyone can be good at deceiving.’
But the best at it was an elf.
Shinar threw jokes even using the Dragonkin.
The elf, whose specialty was distorting the truth, had the skill to not just be unread by the Dragonkin, but to use him.
It was a thought that came to him as he watched.
Applying a part of these passing thoughts to his swordsmanship was a habit.
Anyway, the fight was one-sided.
The tide of battle had turned.
It was only natural that the troops, who just a few days ago had been battered by the Demon Realm’s rain and the griffons, would cheer.
“Uooooooh!”
“We are!”
“The Protectors!”
“We are!”
“The Guardians!”
Each unit had its own traditional slogan.
For example, the Border Guard shouted, ‘The flower of the battlefield is the infantry.’
The enemy army had shouted that they just fight, even in hell.
The Border Guard’s slogan had solidified that way because the majority of their main force was infantry, not a small number of cavalry.
The enemy’s slogan must have solidified in that form because it was connected to the spirit of the South.
‘The place that created tactics where soldiers would drag down a knight even in death.’
To put it more simply, the “knight’s thousand-man cut” had first happened in the South.
The knight who had cut down a thousand soldiers, who had charged him, high on drugs and prepared for death, was still gripping his weapon and breathing in that very South.
Finally, the slogan of this place, which called itself the guardian wall of the South, was simple and clear.
We are the Protectors, We are the Guardians.
It was a slogan filled with the pride of those who had endured the South’s invasions and the Demon Realm’s incursions for long years.
Enkrid was just an assistant; he had no intention of disparaging the work they had done, just because of his own final slash.
Even if it hadn’t been him, even if The Madmen Knights hadn’t been there, the Crimson Cloaks would have won.
What’s more.
‘It’s not enough at this level.’
The number of knights was only four.
The number of soldiers was a bit high, but considering the fame of Cypress, who had protected them until now, it was too few, and too young.
‘Why?’
The question was short.
He was about to continue his thoughts, but he saw a few dots approaching the rear of the allied forces.
It was the enemy’s detached force.
To be precise, they weren’t human, so they couldn’t be called an army.
Galuto had not just died.
He had poured out every card he had, including his trump card.
In truth, he must have predicted victory, but the arrow he had shot had reached the allied camp.
That was what Enkrid saw.
***
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**ANY INFO ONLY APPLIES TO THE LATEST CHAPTER HERE ON WEBNOVEL**
***
If you enjoy the series and want to get more chapters early, head over to https://payhip.com/Samowek
Next 100 chapters – 25e [Be sure to message me on discord for any information]
[SHOP BEST BUY] – 50e – Every chapter translated – Latest WN-1011 + daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 942-1011 + daily chapters from Monday to Friday for a month
I welcome you to join our discord https://discord.gg/RY7BbJpeAZ
**ANY INFO ONLY APPLIES TO THE LATEST CHAPTER HERE ON WEBNOVEL**