Eternally Regressing Knight Novel - Chapter 967
Chapter 967: Chapter 965 – Silent Cast
Chapter 965 – Silent Cast
The angle and speed of the incoming thrust were vicious.
Of course, it wasn’t quite at the level of Rem, Ragna, or Audin, but…
‘A Knight.’
She had reached the stage of instinctively channeling Will.
According to the foundational theories Enkrid had awakened to and Luagarne had systematically organized, this was a strike typical of someone who had just crossed the threshold into true Knighthood.
Enkrid didn’t pull back the sword in his left hand.
Instead, relying entirely on the insights he had gained within his mental landscape, he moved his hands and feet purely on instinct and intuition.
He flawlessly shifted his center of gravity and used his gauntlet to catch and deflect the incoming blade.
If you only looked at the raw movement, it was identical to swinging his left hand to swat the sword away.
Claaang!
‘That was a bit clumsy.’
It was a critique aimed entirely at himself.
To be precise, his Formatting of Will had been slightly delayed, leaving a stinging impact on the back of his hand.
The blonde swordsman in his mental landscape had executed that exact maneuver as easily as breathing.
‘A few more times…’
And he would get the hang of it quickly.
Despite the sudden ambush, Enkrid was overflowing with relaxed confidence.
He was actually leisurely enough to test out a new technique mid-fight.
However, his opponent was not.
The moment her blade was deflected, her foot shot out, aiming directly between his legs.
Her response was blindingly fast and entirely devoid of hesitation.
Enkrid simply raised his own foot to block the kick.
‘Three times.’
Exactly after the third strike, the opponent’s momentum visibly plummeted.
Because he could physically feel and react to the flow of Will, he knew exactly what was happening.
Holding Today, Enkrid stared at his attacker.
Despite it being the dead of night, he had a pretty good guess as to the color of her hair.
It was likely orange.
“As expected,” the attacker muttered, her voice laced with resignation.
“Aishia,” Enkrid acknowledged her.
“I figured it was you.”
Aishia took a few ragged breaths to steady herself and nodded.
Watching from the sidelines, Rem muttered out loud.
“Man, you really like playing dangerous games, don’t you?”
It was a comment aimed directly at what Enkrid had just done.
Trying to catch a lethal, ambush strike barehanded.
Sure, he had managed to Format his Will at the absolute last microsecond to protect himself, but it certainly wasn’t a stunt anyone in their right mind would casually attempt, yet he pulled it off flawlessly.
Enkrid stared at Aishia.
Having crossed swords with her, he now knew that Aishia hadn’t officially reached the realm of a true Knight just yet.
‘She can only infuse Will into three strikes.’
She was still technically a semi-knight, but through grueling training and conditioning, she had forged a fighting style that allowed her to temporarily tap into the power of a Knight.
How?
She must have agonized over it relentlessly.
Desperately struggling to consolidate every single strength she possessed into one focal point to wield whatever Will she had.
That desperate struggle had brought her to her current level.
‘Impressive.’
Enkrid casually tossed aside his cumbersome hood.
Naturally, Aishia wasn’t the only one present.
Standing off to the side, Andrew’s eyes were practically bulging out of his head as he shouted.
“Did you deceive me?!”
Andrew wasn’t an idiot.
Naturally, he knew the Madmen Knights had arrived in the capital, so there had always been a lingering suspicion in the back of his mind that they might be involved in this chaos somehow.
But he had personally crossed swords with the ‘Noble Slaughterer’.
At the time, he was absolutely certain it couldn’t be them.
Because he genuinely believed that if they fought seriously, he stood a decent chance against that assassin.
“Didn’t you say the demonic minions were pulling some kind of trick?!”
Hadn’t Duke Marcus even secretly sent him a letter claiming exactly that?
“Yeah,” Enkrid replied nonchalantly.
Strangely enough, Andrew didn’t feel angry.
A few final puzzle pieces simply clicked into place inside his mind, and he completely understood exactly why they had orchestrated this entire charade.
‘I was the fool.’
While he was desperately drawing all the attention, they had fabricated this bizarre serial killer known as the ‘Noble Slaughterer’ to systematically eliminate the minions before they could organize or hatch any other schemes.
Because he, the Commander of the City Guard, was the one every single minion was keeping their eyes on.
‘Did they really need to go this far?’
Of course, they could have executed the operation in a much looser, less extreme manner, but this was Krais’s doing.
And Krais was a man whose absolute specialty was violently preempting every single potential variable before it even had a chance to manifest.
What if the demonic minions banded together and decided to completely vanish or flee the capital?
He was the kind of man who could only sleep soundly after brutally castrating even the slightest possibility of that happening.
‘So thanks to me, you managed to drag out every single bastard hiding behind the minions?’
Andrew currently had three of his personally trained elite guards standing behind him.
While they exchanged a few brief words, the torches held by two of the elite guards flickered violently in the wind.
Because the thick clouds were obscuring the moonlight, the violently flickering torches were the only source of light, causing the shadows around them to writhe and dance.
And then, one of those violently writhing shadows abruptly stood up.
This was hardly the time to be catching up or having a leisurely chat, but absolutely no one had expected something like this to happen so suddenly.
In the hand of the shadow that had stood up was a blade that was twice as pitch-black as the shadow itself.
That blade thrust straight toward Andrew’s back before abruptly freezing in mid-air.
“Crumble.”
It was Esther.
She raised her left hand, muttered a rapid incantation, and the shadow instantly collapsed back into the ground, completely losing its form.
“Child of the Stars?” a voice questioned from the opposing side.
They were standing directly in front of the city wall.
With Enkrid at the center, Esther stood one step behind him, Rem stood to his front right, Aishia had just leaped out from the bushes on the left, and Andrew and his three elite guards were positioned behind them.
And roughly twenty paces ahead, barely visible in the oppressive darkness caused by the obscuring clouds, several figures stood waiting.
Even with the enhanced vision of a Knight, they could only make out their vague silhouettes.
However, their voices carried perfectly.
The hyper-sensitive hearing of a Knight clearly caught the enemy muttering the words ‘Child of the Stars’.
“These bastards really don’t know how to wait, do they?”
Rem sneered, flicking his left wrist.
He had brought his full arsenal tonight.
The throwing axe, meticulously crafted by the dwarven master Argan, transformed into a blur of spinning steel and launched forward.
His hand speed was so blindingly fast that anyone below the level of a Knight wouldn’t have even registered the motion.
The axe was in the air before the enemy’s sentence had even finished.
BANG!
With an explosive shockwave that literally ruptured the air, the axe Rem had thrown violently ricocheted backward.
Seeing that, Esther narrowed her eyes.
Enkrid also registered the exact sensation snagging on his sharpened senses.
An invisible, intangible barrier had materialized into a wall of solid steel to deflect the axe.
While that invisible barrier was undeniably cracked and damaged, the sheer fact that it had managed to completely stop the axe was astonishing.
“It shattered,” the enemy—the Mage standing twenty paces away—stated calmly.
He was a man draped in long, loose-fitting white robes, adorned with several hanging ornaments.
The thick clouds obscuring the two moons slowly drifted apart, allowing the moonlight to spill down and reveal his figure.
Fwoosh, poof.
The torches held by Andrew’s men were instantly extinguished.
“Andrew. Take your three men and fall back,” Enkrid ordered, taking a single step forward.
His five senses roared to life, and goosebumps erupted across his entire body.
Accompanied by a suffocating wave of tension, the Heart of the Beast activated, forcibly regulating his heartbeat.
A chilling sensation brushed the back of his neck.
“He is one of the Masters of Astrael,” Esther warned, instantly recognizing the opponent.
They were individuals who had reached the absolute pinnacle of spellcraft, earning the title of Master.
Objectively speaking, Esther could not completely overwhelm a Master in a straight fight.
It would be an incredibly grueling battle.
She would have to throw several massive gambles just to stand a chance against an entity of that caliber.
She knew her own limits perfectly.
“He didn’t come alone,” Rem pointed out, clicking his tongue.
Just as he said, the Master had brought his entire entourage.
It was one of the absolute worst-case scenarios Krais had imagined.
Though, to be completely accurate, Krais had specifically orchestrated this entire operation to force this exact worst-case scenario out into the open if it existed.
The Master of Astrael had rallied every single minion he had hidden within Naurill and brought them here.
While none of them were quite on his level, every single one of them was an elite subordinate meticulously cultivated by a Lord of the Demonic Realms.
A dark-skinned fairy, a dwarf wearing a helmet adorned with two massive horns, the bastard called a Master, and standing behind them were five spellcasters draped in heavy robes.
They all stepped forward together.
The scribe who had deliberately lured Enkrid’s group here twisted his lips into a sneer.
“Every single one of you is a dead man.”
Enkrid couldn’t help but think it was an incredibly cliché villain line.
The man who called himself Master of Astrael approached and opened his mouth, yet despite only speaking once, three entirely different sentences overlapped and echoed simultaneously.
“I see you prefer to greet people by throwing things.”
“Since you are Knights, I assume you can hear me perfectly from this distance.”
“My name is Eudokia.”
It was a profoundly bizarre, almost mystical parlor trick.
He closed the distance to within ten paces and stopped.
Rem placed a hand on his axe.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Warrior of the West. If you stand on our side, we will ensure you become a Grand Warrior of the demons, so just quietly obey,” the dwarf ordered, addressing Rem as if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
Bathed in the moonlight, the dwarf’s eyes were a chilling, cross-slit silver.
Just looking at him, it was obvious he was far from ordinary.
“I am already a Grand Warrior belonging to the Goddess, born and raised in the West. You half-pint piece of shit,” Rem retorted without missing a beat.
Enkrid tore his gaze away from the Mage and stared blankly at Rem.
“What are you looking at?”
“Ayul?”
Did he just say ‘Goddess’? Didn’t he mean Ayul?
“Ah, yeah, whatever.”
“I was just wondering if you could say that with a straight face while standing in front of your wife.”
If Ayul had heard that, she probably would have been deeply moved.
“Stop talking shit and focus on the front,” Rem grumbled.
Although Rem’s cheeks didn’t turn red, Enkrid was absolutely certain he was embarrassed.
“The Romantic Axe.”
Because of that, the words just naturally slipped out of Enkrid’s mouth.
“What?” Rem snapped.
“It’s your new nickname.”
“Are you completely out of your god damned mind?!”
Listening to their absurd banter, Esther let out a flat, utterly defeated scoff, while Aishia nodded sagely, marveling at the fact that these crazy bastards were still just as glorious as ever.
“You guys do realize we are currently in an incredibly, overwhelmingly dangerous situation right now… right?”
Andrew firmly believed in the Madmen Knights, but standing face-to-face with the absolute root cause of every single problem that had plagued the capital recently was making his palms sweat profusely.
Master Eudokia wasn’t angry.
He wasn’t flustered either.
He was certainly dumbfounded by their complete lack of tension, but they would all be dead soon anyway.
‘If I turn him into my own Grand Warrior, he will be quite useful.’
With that thought, he forcibly tore open his own Domain of Spells.
“Greeting.”
With that single, heavily abbreviated word, an unfathomable amount of mana surged, violently dragging the power of an entirely different dimension into reality.
Hearing that single word, ‘Greeting’, Esther instantly glimpsed the hyper-dimensional spell structure woven into it.
Originally, that spell was the ‘Greeting of Agraba’.
He had compressed the entire incantation into that single word.
And ‘Agraba’ referred to an entity possessing an invisible, intangible body armed with catastrophic physical strength.
And so, with that single ‘Greeting’, an invisible boulder plummeted directly toward the heads of Andrew and his three private guards.
It was completely invisible, but its crushing weight and physical mass were undeniably real.
Andrew didn’t even have time to scream before desperately raising his sword above his head.
But could a mere sword catch a falling boulder?
Absolutely not.
He had never trained to defend against something like this, nor had he ever experienced a situation even remotely similar.
However, somewhere in this world, there was a man who genuinely enjoyed subjecting himself to exactly this kind of deranged, suicidal training every single day.
Granted, that man happened to be standing right next to him.
Enkrid violently kicked off the ground, caught the invisible boulder plummeting toward them on the flat of his blade using pure instinct and spatial awareness, and brutally shoved it to the side.
BOOOM!
The invisible mass violently slammed into the ground just beyond the bushes, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and debris.
“Guaaagh!”
In a stroke of horrific luck, the scribe they had been chasing happened to be standing exactly where it landed, instantly flattened into a bloody paste by the invisible boulder.
It was a deeply bizarre, horrifying spectacle.
You could clearly see he had been crushed flat by something massive, but because the object itself was entirely invisible, only the mangled, bloody corpse was visible to the naked eye.
“Come forth, Legion of Steel Puppets.”
Master Eudokia casually chanted his next spell.
He couldn’t care less that one of his own minions had just been brutally crushed to death.
Before he even finished speaking, a massive, vertical tear violently ripped open in the empty air, and a giant hand forged entirely of solid steel clawed its way out.
The steel hand ruthlessly tore the spatial rift wider, exactly like ripping open a tightly stretched canvas, and violently dragged its massive body out into reality.
As the first one emerged, dozens of new tears ripped open in the air beside it, and in the blink of an eye, the number of steel golems pouring out easily surpassed twenty.
When one reached the level of a Master of Astrael, it was only natural to look down on mere Knights.
‘Have I remained secluded for far too long?’
They should be prostrating themselves on the ground, desperately begging for their lives just from looking at him, yet they actually dared to bare their fangs.
It was definitely because his seclusion had lasted too long.
The Masters of Astrael were individuals who lived their entire lives utterly consumed by their research and their Spell Worlds.
It was incredibly rare for them to step out into the world and actively exert their influence.
That was exactly what the lower-ranking grunts were for.
‘If I must step forward, I will permanently engrave the terror of my existence into their souls.’
It was one of the very few unspoken rules the handful of Masters strictly adhered to.
Eudokia was simply fulfilling that obligation.
With a single wave of his hand, the Legion of Steel Puppets charged forward.
Their immediate targets were the pathetic, useless humans cowering in the back.
Thump!
Thump!
The deafening footsteps of the golems shook the earth and the very air itself.
To Andrew and his subordinates, it looked exactly as if towering nightmares were violently bursting out from the rising dust clouds.
“Haa, do these bastards just not see me or something?” Aishia spat venomously, adjusting her grip on her sword.
Triple Fang.
The moniker ‘Three Fangs’ was earned precisely because she could only swing her sword with the true, devastating power of a Knight exactly three times.
After executing those three strikes, her muscles would scream as if they were tearing apart, but if she backed down here, every single day she had spent agonizingly training to reach this point would be completely wasted.
The exact moment she stepped forward and Andrew desperately raised his sword…
Eudokia chanted yet another spell.
“Mirror Room of Vanna.”
Before the activation word had even finished leaving his lips, a massive, shimmering circular portal manifested directly in front of him.
The horn-flute dagger Enkrid had just hurled vanished directly into that portal.
BWOOOOM!
The deafening, air-shattering blast of the horn-flute echoing from the void was the only thing left behind.
Enkrid had deliberately packed his full arsenal tonight.
If asked why, it was entirely because of Krais’s warning.
That large-eyed bastard had explicitly predicted that the enemy would launch their full-scale counterattack tonight at the earliest, or tomorrow at the latest.
Looking at it now, that large-eyed friend of his had casually pulled off a feat worthy of a true prophet.
“Prophecy? No, it’s just prediction. It’s about comprehensively calculating the opponent’s intentions, the current situation, and what they ultimately desire. How do I do it? Well, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to be in pain, so I furiously rack my brain to figure it out. If I’m wrong, I prepare contingencies for being wrong. I prepare for absolutely every single variable, and then I desperately pray to the Gods that those contingencies actually work.”
As a fleeting thought crossed his mind, Enkrid was abruptly pulled back to the conversation he had with Krais yesterday afternoon.
‘Did I die?’
Has ‘today’ repeated itself?
It was only natural for that exact suspicion to instantly cross his mind.
After all, hadn’t he experienced this exact phenomenon countless times before?
Of course, the very moment that thought surfaced, he also instantly realized that this was not reality.
His five senses, his sixth sense, and the hyper-tuned perception forged from unraveling spells were violently screaming at him.
He finally understood exactly why his entire body had broken out in goosebumps the very second he laid eyes on that bastard calling himself a Master.
The moment he saw them, the bastard had already cast an illusion spell, and now, it had fully taken effect.
‘Silent Cast.’
What exactly had Esther called this specific stage?
Tacitus, was it?
That bastard had been continuously chanting completely different spells out loud, while secretly preparing this exact illusion the entire time.
Ultimately, a fragment of the terrifying World of Spells that Eudokia had polished and refined over a long, brutal lifetime of survival had completely swallowed Enkrid, welcoming him into a flawless, inescapable illusion.
***
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-1115+ daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 1045-1115 + 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**
***
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-1115+ daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 1045-1115 + 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 966 – I Was Deceived?
“If there’s one opponent a Knight finds most excruciating to deal with, it would undoubtedly be a Mage.”
At Audin’s statement, Ropord nodded heavily in agreement.
Of course, if a Knight relentlessly trained their senses to perceive spells, they could somewhat mitigate the threat.
However…
‘A fully prepared Mage is far more insidious than a determined assassin, and vastly more troublesome than a Knight resolved to fight to the death.’
That is the fundamental nature of spells.
They boast terrifying versatility, and their exact destructive output is near impossible to predict.
If an invisible steel spike suddenly burrows its way into your flesh without making a single sound, who in their right mind would enjoy that?
That is exactly what a fully prepared Mage is.
Even if they aren’t quite at Esther’s level, fighting them is a miserable experience.
Every single swordsman on the continent likely shares that sentiment.
Even when dealing with the magical corps Esther personally trained, if three or more of them banded together and laid traps, even a fully-fledged Knight would occasionally find themselves backed into a corner.
‘Well, assuming you’re willing to endure a certain degree of injury…’
It’s entirely possible to slaughter them all, but if things go wrong, the damage sustained by the Knight could be catastrophic.
That is exactly what a Mage is.
A minuscule scratch is all it takes for a lethal poison to seep in and force you to amputate an entire arm.
“Does utilizing divine power make it any easier?”
Fel interjected from the side.
He was genuinely curious about the most effective methods to counter spells.
It was an innocent question born purely of curiosity.
It was just idle chatter meant to pass the time while taking a brief break from training.
Though, truthfully, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to experience a sudden epiphany during exactly these kinds of seemingly meaningless conversations.
“Do you honestly believe the reason spells are so troublesome is because Mages attack head-on?”
Theresa chimed in from the side.
Audin simply offered his polite, trademark smile and nodded.
Of course not.
While channeling highly pure divine power can occasionally neutralize or completely obliterate spells and mana, a Mage facing an opponent wielding divine power will never, ever launch a frontal assault.
That was basic common sense for any spellcaster.
“That Knight who visited us a while back—the Guardian Deity of Evergart who wielded both magic and a sword—he must have had quite a few hidden tricks up his sleeve, didn’t he?”
Ropord muttered, mentally reviewing exactly how one was supposed to fight a spellcaster.
“If you suspect the opponent is casting a spell, the first thing you do is throw something at them.”
Force them to either fail to react to the projectile and die, or interrupt their cast to defend themselves.
This was a core tactic drilled into them since their days training with the Crimson Cloaks.
Naturally, the spellcasters were also acutely aware of this tactic and would do everything in their power to block it.
That is precisely why they constantly wander around wrapped in layers of defensive spells.
‘What if I thrust from completely outside their range of perception, exactly like Sir Jaxen?’
Would that be the absolute best strategy?
“No matter how perfectly you erase your presence, the moment you physically pierce their defensive barrier, the opponent will instantly detect the entity causing them harm.”
That was what Jaxen had told them once.
‘Meaning it’s incredibly difficult even if you’ve mastered the pinnacle of assassination arts.’
But do all Knights absolutely loathe fighting spellcasters?
As far as Ropord knew, there was at least one major exception.
When asked to name the single most terrifying opponent to face, every single member of the Knights Order would point to Esther without a second thought.
Yet, the person that very same witch, Esther, loathed fighting more than anyone else was…
‘The Captain.’
Enkrid.
He actively looked at the very fabric of a spell and physically severed it.
When Ropord asked how on earth that was possible, Enkrid simply replied,
“You just do it.”
Even Rem, who had been listening in, violently shook his head, implying it was a bizarre talent he couldn’t even begin to replicate right now.
“That is absolutely not within the realm of ordinary instinct or intuition. It’s a localized form of sheer madness.”
That was Rem’s exact assessment.
Would Jaxen, Audin, or Ragna say anything different?
They were all geniuses.
They possessed a level of raw talent far surpassing any other Knight Ropord had ever met.
Yet, despite that, when it came to the specific technique of perceiving, severing, and completely unraveling spells, not a single one of them could hold a candle to Enkrid.
“That is a feat only achievable after having your body violently mangled and outright killed by spells hundreds, if not thousands, of times.”
That was Jaxen’s evaluation.
“It is surely a profound mystery known only to the Lord, and a miraculous gift bestowed by Him.”
That was Audin’s take.
“Hell if I know. I just vaguely look at it and swing.”
Ragna, whose combat style was arguably the most similar to Enkrid’s, compared his own method of severing spells to a naive country boy sitting at a high-stakes gambling table.
It meant he just took a wild guess and swung.
If it hit, great.
If he missed?
He’d either violently flip the table to ruin the game or just take the hit.
Ropord briefly recalled something the witch had said a while ago.
It was a fleeting memory.
If those who had purely dedicated their entire lives to cultivating the path of magic were to meet him…
“They would look at Enki and absolutely lose their minds in sheer terror.”
The witch Esther had said exactly that as the corners of her lips curled upward.
That smile had been so unimaginably captivating.
It was an appearance so bewitching that anyone who saw it would instantly lose their train of thought.
Vibrant red lips adorned pristine, snow-white skin, perfectly straight teeth peeked through, and a cascade of raven-black hair rippled down to frame her cheeks.
Of course, that didn’t mean Ropord actually viewed her as a woman he desired.
Ropord was the type of man who, rather than hopelessly hacking away at a tree he could never climb, would simply turn around and find a different tree.
‘I suppose that is why they call it demonic charm.’
Regardless, even a witch of that caliber faithfully followed the Captain.
Enkrid was an undeniably extraordinary human being in countless ways.
“It will be incredibly entertaining to watch.”
Esther had repeated herself and let out a soft, chilling laugh.
He had no idea exactly what she was anticipating so eagerly, but she had looked absolutely brimming with expectation.
***
Master Eudokia did not take on many disciples.
Yet, for this specific operation, he had brought every single one of them with him.
And of the eight highly skilled disciples he had personally raised, the five currently standing here were among the best.
Since the other three had already been killed by Enkrid, Rem, and Esther a few days prior, these five were also the only disciples he had left.
The chest of one of the disciples suddenly expanded drastically before he violently regurgitated a thick cloud of green mist with a sickening burrrrp, sounding exactly like a prolonged belch.
Simultaneously, Esther chanted a spell.
“The Wind Cliff of Dmule.”
A massive barrier of wind instantly materialized to block the approaching toxic mist.
The invisible, yet undeniably present air currents violently clashed with the green mist in mid-air, looking exactly like two armies desperately fighting for territory.
If you ignored the terrifying fact that being pushed back meant your internal organs would instantly rupture and explode, it was a genuinely spectacular sight to behold.
The green waves crashed against the invisible wall, violently pounding the wind barrier with loud thumps.
As the toxic mist violently compressed against the barrier, its color grew increasingly darker and more concentrated.
“The Target of Solisaider.”
At the muttered words of another disciple, a glowing, cross-shaped reticle materialized directly onto Esther’s black robe.
She had blocked this as well.
If she had simply stood still and done nothing, that glowing target would have been branded directly onto her thigh.
And what naturally follows a target is an arrow.
It was an incredibly common, highly standardized attack pattern utilized by Combat Mages.
Solisaider was an entity that used molten lava as its bowstring and roaring flames as its arrows.
While perfectly maintaining the wind barrier blocking the toxic mist, Esther simultaneously cast an entirely different spell.
“The Luncheon of Vartan.”
Vartan was an entity that eagerly devoured light and fire, while violently rejecting earth and wind.
Therefore, she used earth and wind as her shield to block, while actively swallowing the light and fire.
Executing a flawless double incantation to simultaneously block two entirely different spells, Esther extended her left index finger, utilizing a perfectly calculated and fully prepared ‘Glint’.
A Glint is a highly advanced type of spell designed to fire reflexively without requiring a verbal activation word.
Esther was currently demonstrating an absolute masterclass by deliberately infusing her own conscious intent into that reflexive trigger.
Someone ignorant of the World of Spells wouldn’t understand the sheer absurdity of what she just did, but to any Mage watching, forcefully injecting conscious intent into a purely reflexive Glint was nothing short of a miracle.
With that single flick of her finger, an invisible blade of wind the length of a finger shot forward.
However, the opponents didn’t just stand there and watch it happen either.
“The Flame Wall of Maerak.”
The third disciple immediately stepped forward, absorbed the incoming wind blade, and used it as fuel to drastically expand the size of the spell he had just formed.
Having devoured the wind, the wall of roaring flames violently surged upward.
Every single one of them was a highly skilled Mage.
Three were women, and two were men.
One of the men was the bastard currently spewing the toxic mist, and the other had a face completely covered in jagged scars.
Neither of them possessed an appearance you could call pleasant.
Of the three women, one was a middle-aged woman with a severely bulging stomach, while the other two sported identical short bobs and remarkably similar features.
All five wore entirely different colored robes and clearly demonstrated mastery over entirely different schools of magic.
“The Child of Stars.”
The woman with the bulging stomach spoke up.
“They would be incredibly pleased if we managed to capture her alive.”
“Do you think her skills are superior to ours?”
“There are five of us.”
“All we have to do is hold out until Master finishes his business, but… you don’t really want to do that, do you?”
It had been a very long time since they had gone on an outing.
No matter how deeply satisfying it was to learn spells, conduct research, and relentlessly pursue the ultimate truth, getting out and breathing some fresh air every once in a while was equally exhilarating.
A vicious, bloodthirsty aura swirled in the eyes of all five Mages.
These were people who wouldn’t blink an eye even if hundreds of innocent lives were brutally snuffed out right in front of them.
That was the fundamental nature of the group known as Astrael.
Under the self-righteous guise of ‘seeking truth’, they casually joined hands with demons, orchestrated scenarios where mothers murdered their own fathers, and forced children into deathmatches with their parents.
Furthermore, they were incredibly insidious.
“Wither.”
Esther unveiled another spell.
An elongated tendril forged entirely of shadow that had secretly slithered right up to her feet instantly crumbled and scattered, exactly like dry sand baking in the sun.
“She caught it.”
The heavily scarred man muttered.
He didn’t sound particularly disappointed.
Esther knew exactly what it would take to completely annihilate these five in a single breath.
To be precise, she had multiple viable options.
She could execute a massive, highly dangerous gamble, put half her own life on the line, and instantly obliterate three of the five right here and now.
She could also simply accept the heavy toll it would take on her Spell World and systematically dismantle them one by one.
Well, she could also just wait for them to let their guard down and brutally shatter their cervical vertebrae utilizing the explosive physical strength of a Lake Panther.
‘Though if I fought like that, I would have to dedicate the next few months entirely to recovery.’
That was exactly the caliber of opponents they were.
If she had encountered them individually, it would be a different story, but right now, all five were flawlessly coordinating their attacks against her.
During a brief lull, the plump witch stole a quick glance at the man named Enkrid, who was currently facing off against her Master.
His appearance was exactly her type.
You could call it a face that severely stimulated her appetite.
Even with just a fleeting glance, it wasn’t difficult to accurately gauge his current condition.
It was the textbook posture of a swordsman who had completely fallen victim to the Master.
‘He got him.’
A completely vacant stare, arms hanging limply at his sides, and the tip of his sword resting heavily on the ground with a dull thud.
It was the only natural outcome; the Master’s illusion magic was something not even a Mage operating at the level of a Sage could easily break free from.
Esther had also clearly registered it.
While she couldn’t meticulously analyze Enkrid’s physical condition right now, she could absolutely feel the overwhelming momentum radiating from his body violently wavering.
And yet, despite sensing that, Esther deliberately chose an option completely outside her usual repertoire.
‘If those bastards decide to throw their lives away and launch a desperate suicide attack, it will become incredibly troublesome.’
She completely discarded the massive gamble.
She absolutely loathed the idea of depleting her World of Spells.
Therefore, she wouldn’t use that method either.
Resorting to the brute strength of the panther wasn’t exactly an easy path either.
Then what should she do?
“Bone Head.”
Esther planted her left foot, instantly drew a magic circle in the dirt with her toe, and pulled out her Flash Golem.
Just as the towering steel golem violently stomped its way directly in front of Enkrid—who still had the tip of his sword resting on the ground—the plump witch spoke up.
“Do not even think about trying to run away, Child of the Stars.”
Perhaps she was the leader of the five, as she spoke on their behalf.
Esther actually smiled.
Letting out a soft, almost hollow scoff, she thought to herself.
‘You absolute morons.’
Her chosen strategy was simply to maintain the status quo.
From this point forward, all she had to do was hold the line.
Ever since she had first fought Enkrid, she had dreamed of this exact moment for a very long time.
She had eagerly anticipated the day a scenario exactly like this would unfold, fully expecting Enkrid to deliver a spectacularly violent performance.
***
Rem instantly recognized the catastrophic physical strength loaded into the dwarf’s axe swing.
If that hit him, it felt like it would effortlessly crush solid boulders into dry sand and easily shatter even the Silent Gold of his battleaxe.
‘Is his muscle density completely different?’
Just glancing at the swing, it felt as though the raw physical strength of five full-grown giants had been compressed into a single strike.
That was exactly how terrifying it felt.
Did he use an explosive burst of Will?
Rem’s eyes, heavily imbued with shamanic arts, meticulously scanned and dissected the dwarf’s entire body.
That was how he reached his conclusion.
‘A modified body.’
The overwhelming stench of a demonic beast violently radiated from the dwarf’s flesh.
Just as Rem brutally shoved the dwarf’s thick-bladed axe aside and slipped away, the dwarf’s gaze locked onto him perfectly.
Rem fully intended to brutally cave the bastard’s skull in with a kick, and was just about to extend his leg when he abruptly slammed his foot into the ground and violently threw his body backward.
Because the horns on the helmet the dwarf wore suddenly crackled with electricity before violently discharging a blinding white bolt of lightning straight at him.
Every single one of these actions occurred in a fraction of a second.
Attacking, evading, calculating, and the explosive discharge of lightning—all of it happened in the blink of an eye.
KABOOOM!
A deafening roar threatened to violently rupture his eardrums.
For a split second, Rem went completely deaf.
The lightning strike gouged a smoking crater into the earth, and the blinding white flash that erupted as the clouds obscured the moonlight temporarily blinded him.
‘He was never aiming to hit me with that in the first place.’
His sole objective was to violently strip away Rem’s sight and hearing.
This little shit is actually pretty good, isn’t he?
With that thought, Rem entirely abandoned trying to perceive his surroundings by using his sight or hearing.
It didn’t matter anyway.
Because the Angry Bird had already descended.
His hyper-sensitive tactile perception instantly took over, perfectly replacing all his other senses.
Rem casually swung his axe, effortlessly deflecting the rapier thrust by the dark-skinned fairy who had stealthily crept up on him.
Clang.
Along with that sound, his hearing—though not his sight—returned.
He had briefly entered a world completely devoid of sight and sound, but his senses were already recovering.
Perhaps noticing that fact, the dark fairy spoke up.
“If you are captured by the Master of Astrael, you will be transformed into a mindless Death Knight devoid of all reason. It is far better for you to just stand on our side.”
Rem simply scoffed.
“So what you bastards are basically saying is, you actually think he’s going to win?”
Rem spoke with his eyes completely closed.
By casually referring to the Master of Astrael as ‘he’, Rem brutally shredded the aura of absolute terror and overwhelming majesty the Mage projected.
“Listen here, Axe Friend. That man is an absolute master of casting spells. Even though this fairy and I absolutely despise each other, neither of us could dare refuse that Mage’s request tonight. Do you honestly believe you will fare any better? Rather than being turned into a mindless puppet, it is vastly better for you to just join us.”
Another persuasion attempt.
Is this literally the only thing these crippled fucks know how to say?
Rem finally answered both of them.
“You retarded fucks.”
Neither the dwarf nor the fairy displayed even the slightest hint of offense.
This was strictly business.
They were simply doing exactly what they had been ordered to do.
If their Lord hadn’t explicitly desired to recruit these warriors, they would have just tried to kill them immediately instead of wasting time talking.
“You are deliberately choosing to drink from the poisoned chalice,” the dwarf stated coldly, raising his massive axe once more.
Rem steadied his breathing, completely withdrew the Angry Bird, and instead flooded his entire body with pure shamanic power rather than divine energy.
He was fundamentally different from Esther.
He had absolutely no reason to drag this fight out.
‘False Descent.’
Instead, he unleashed a brand-new shamanic art he had recently created.
Naturally, even while doing so, he wasn’t worried about Enkrid in the slightest.
***
Eudokia had established a very clear, highly specific role for the Legion of Steel Puppets he had summoned.
‘A barrier.’
To be precise, a completely physical barrier.
The charging steel golems were solely meant to violently bind the hands and feet of his enemies.
If the enemy happened to be crushed to death by mere golems, that was perfectly fine, but if they weren’t?
The one who would definitively end this battle was, naturally, his own spell.
And so, exactly like a subtle, creeping incense, he laid down a massive illusion spell to completely completely dominate the enemy’s mind and reason.
The opponent’s pupils instantly dilated and lost focus, and his jaw hung slightly slack.
It was the only natural outcome.
With that confident thought, Eudokia internally commanded his twenty-four steel golems to capture that human completely alive.
In that exact moment, the bastard who had been staring blankly into space abruptly vanished.
Eudokia instantly realized that two specific spells he had meticulously prepared in advance just in case—a Cognitive Interference spell and a Cognitive Expansion spell—had triggered simultaneously.
This was one of his signature Glints.
A spell that deployed purely on reflex.
The Cognitive Interference was designed to forcibly feed the opponent false coordinates regarding his physical location, while the Cognitive Expansion violently accelerated his own thought processes.
With his violently accelerated perception, Eudokia watched the bastard who had been standing there blankly suddenly launch himself directly at him.
The bastard’s physical body left behind a blurred afterimage.
Even within his accelerated vision, the bastard’s sword was already plunging directly toward him, emitting a bizarre, terrifying szzzzzt noise.
He didn’t have the luxury to leisurely analyze the situation.
A ring on his left hand flared with intense light, forcefully and instantly swapping his physical coordinates.
When he reappeared, he was standing directly in the center of his Legion of Steel Puppets.
And the exact thought that crossed his mind the moment he evaded was this:
‘The Cognitive Interference completely failed.’
The bastard had perfectly pinpointed his true location on the very first try.
“Ah, what a shame.”
And those were the exact words the bastard uttered right after.
“I was decieved..?”
Eudokia was utterly flabbergasted.
For the first time tonight, his emotions violently fluctuated.
He hadn’t actually fallen for the illusion spell; he had merely been pretending?!
He had completely overpowered the spell in that microscopic fraction of a second and then intentionally pulled a stunt like that?!
“He is an absolute master of deception! He deceives even his own allies! The only idiot here is the one who actually fell for it!”
Standing far in the back, the man who had been thoroughly deceived and felt incredibly wronged by it—the man named Andrew Gardner—screamed at the top of his lungs.
He simply couldn’t suppress the burning urge to throw that exact comment out there.
To be precise, he threw out three separate comments.
His voice was incredibly loud and entirely unapologetic.
Aishia couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing with a loud Pfft!
It was a profoundly bizarre sensation, but for the first time in nearly a century, genuine, burning rage ignited within Eudokia’s heart.
‘I was deceived?’
That exact question violently echoed inside his mind.
***
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-1115+ daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 1045-1115 + 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**
***
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-1115+ daily chapters from monday to friday for a month.
-KNIGHT – Cost 20e – Chapters 1045-1115 + 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**