“Hmm?”
Since Ragna also knew what was happening, he lifted his head and looked forward. The mist that had started from his feet rapidly rose, and soon, nothing was visible. Thick fog shrouded the surroundings, obscuring their vision.
It was a curse he had encountered once before on the battlefield, Fog of Annihilation.
"Prepare."
Encrid pulled Ann closer to his right side as he spoke. On Ann’s right stood Ragna.
He had been wondering when it would come, and now it was here. An ambush. What would it be this time?
‘An unexpected monster? A spell?’
As the fog thickened, even Ann, standing right beside him, became invisible. But he could still hear the sounds.
The method of casting this curse seemed different from that of the Aspen’s practitioners—there was no visible flag.
"Front."
It was Grida’s voice. He didn’t know what trick she used, but she sensed the enemy before Encrid did.
Among his five senses, his sense of touch sharpened more than ever. His body hair stood on end as he felt the vibrations in the air.
Thud, thud, thud.
Instead of a sound, vibrations struck his skin. In reality, there was no actual thud sound.
Encrid did not draw and swing Penna. Instead, he adjusted his stance four times, blocking the trajectories as if sealing them off.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Each of the four incoming projectiles deflected harmlessly away. Darts.
If there had been no attack, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. But the moment something was thrown, locating the enemy became easy. Fog of Annihilation didn’t conceal presence, it only obstructed vision.
Yet, suspicion crept in immediately.
‘After all that effort to hide their presence… just a few darts?’
That couldn’t be all.
Following his instincts, Encrid remained vigilant. Ragna, understanding that his captain was protecting Ann, raised his sword.
"I'm going in."
"Alright."
With those two short words, they divided their roles. Ragna stepped forward, lifting his greatsword overhead.
He bent and extended his knees, a simple movement, but the result was anything but. His body shot forward, slicing through the fog.
Whooooosh!
As he cut through the air, his sheer presence weighed down on the surroundings.
Then—
Boom!
The sound of air being torn apart. His swing had been so forceful that the mist around him scattered.
Clearing away a curse with a sword?
A normal person would be terrified at such a feat, but to him, it was nothing out of the ordinary. That’s what it meant to be a Knight.
With that Knight’s slash, a severed head floated into the air.
Shriek!
A head with a protruding snout. Since the fog only parted momentarily from Ragna’s swing, they could only glimpse its general shape.
"Scalor."
Still, someone recognized it immediately.
Three steps away to Ann’s right, Grida identified it. A name for a type of monster typically found in the Demon Realm.
By then, a faint scent of magic began to spread, a sweet yet sickly fragrance. A spell was being cast. And it was bound to be something deadly.
Encrid expected it, and so it happened. Suddenly, a light appeared overhead.
Fwoosh!
To be precise, it wasn’t light—it was a fireball. And it was falling straight down.
Encrid watched as the fireball targeted Ann. At the same time, he predicted what would happen the moment he cut through it.
"Wizards like to prepare and chain multiple spells. Just like how casting successive freezing spells lowers the temperature, eventually freezing everything in place."
That was how Esther had slain a cultist wizard when they fought Walking Fire. And Encrid had learned from Esther. His thoughts accelerated.
The fireball seemed to slow as it fell, appearing almost frozen in midair. Encrid, with his heightened perception, processed everything within that sliver of time.
‘If I were the enemy wizard, I wouldn’t just use a simple falling fireball.’
The enemy had already seen him cut down the Bat Beast. Was this fireball more dangerous than that monster?
No.
It was slower and lacked the instincts of a living creature. It would simply descend mindlessly.
‘They want me to cut it.’
Because of his accelerated thoughts, Encrid reacted at blinding speed. Instead of Penna, he drew Three Iron.
Shing! Clang!
The speed at which he sheathed one sword and drew another was lightning-fast. And why wouldn’t it be?
Dual-wielders had techniques dedicated to just that. When it came to drawing and sheathing swords, Encrid was the most extreme among the Mad Knights.
He angled Three Iron, shifting his grip and seizing the hilt with both hands.
It was neither Black Gold nor True Iron—it was the Star Iron section of the blade that met the fireball.
Encrid swung upward, using the flat of his sword to strike the fireball away.
Boom!
The fireball shot upward, then exploded into dozens of smaller fireballs. They spread in all directions, parting the mist and creating a spectacular sight.
For a brief moment, the Fog of Annihilation itself was split apart.
"To fight against magic, you have to think outside the box."
Esther’s words had been right. Who could have anticipated that a single fireball would fragment into dozens? But magic had that kind of unpredictability.
Though magic’s source might be the same as other forces, on this continent, it felt completely different, almost incomprehensible.
Did the enemy wizard falter for a moment, staring at the explosion in shock? There was no immediate follow-up spell. The fragmented fireballs fell and fizzled out.
Instead, a sudden, putrid stench filled the air, strong enough to make one want to pinch their nose shut. The mist, briefly parted by the fire, had thickened once more.
But they couldn’t keep their curse’s medium hidden forever.
Then—
Thud!
A sickening sound of flesh being torn apart. The mist began to dissipate.
Encrid’s eyes caught sight of a bipedal monster with snake-like skin, collapsed on the ground.
These creatures were at least a head taller than an average human. Near Ragna, several quadrupedal lizard beasts lay dead, their bodies split apart by his greatsword.
Grida had been right.
Scalors—monsters resembling lizards, covered in scales.
Encrid saw that the spell had lifted the moment the Scalor died.
‘So a living creature can act as the medium for a curse?’
That meant there had to be at least one wizard and one curse caster among the enemies.
Now that he looked, the area was filled with Scalors. It seemed the mist had been deployed to conceal their approach.
"They specialize in concealing their presence and striking from behind."
Magrun commented.
Grida drew her sword and scanned their surroundings. Even at a glance, there were over a hundred lizard heads scattered across the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the stench lingered. It was so overwhelming that it nearly overpowered the sweet scent of magic.
"What is that smell?"
"Aren’t Scalors supposed to be odorless?"
Grida and Magrun spoke in succession.
"It’s a Bride of Plague."
Now that the fog had cleared, Ann could see clearly.
And just as she said, amidst the Scalors, a few bizarre creatures stood out.
"They spread disease with the slightest touch. Be careful."
One of them was approaching Ragna. Its bare feet were mottled gray, and it wore something akin to a tattered dress. Its hair was wild and spiky, and its eyes were hollow pits.
A thick, green fluid dripped from its nose—a nightmarish sight. It shrieked and lunged at Ragna. Its dress billowed in the wind, a mockery of actual dresses.
But Ragna, unfazed by Ann’s warning, rejected its approach outright.
With a sidestep, he crushed a Scalor’s head with a pommel strike, then sliced the Bride of Plague in two. But the severed spirit reformed.
Ann quickly threw something. Ragna caught it mid-air, a corked glass vial.
"If it gets urgent, break it and coat your sword!"
Encrid, watching, couldn’t help but ask,
"Where the hell did you learn to throw like that?"
Ann smirked.
"Not from alchemy. Just something I picked up playing as a kid."
Children who grow up in the slums learn the harshness of life early on. Catching and eating birds in mid-flight was one of their survival methods, something they did with their lives on the line.
If they accidentally hit a messenger raven or pigeon, its death was inevitable, meaning their own survival was truly at stake.
"Here."
Ann handed a vial to Encrid as well. Inside, an amber-colored liquid swirled, proudly displaying its presence.
"I'm a healer, but I'm also an alchemist. That means creatures like that pathetic spirit pose no real threat to me."
Holiness was the natural enemy of all evil spirits, but nothing could kill them as easily as alchemy.
It was an old saying across the continent, a phrase passed down from a renowned alchemist of the previous era. And it was not wrong.
Encrid poured the amber liquid onto Three Iron.
The liquid trickled down and clung to the blade. The moment it met the air, it hardened like crystallized sugar, coating the blade in a soft amber glow.
"I'm good."
Grida spoke first to Ann, then pulled out a small leather pouch. Holding the string between her teeth, she untied it and sprinkled its contents over her sword. It was a fine powder, shimmering with a faint pearlescent hue.
Magrun took the amber vial from Ann.
Meanwhile, Ragna once again rejected the Bride of Plague's proposal, with his greatsword, now coated in alchemical medicine.
This time, he swung horizontally, neatly separating its upper and lower halves.
Thud!
A small noise followed. The Bride of Plague, now split in two, was purified.
Evil spirits were amorphous creatures, manifestations of malice and hatred, taking shape through negative energy.
For such beings, purification quite literally meant losing their form, another way of saying they had died.
The Bride of Plague disintegrated into dust with a faint whispering sound.
Saaaaah...
As Ragna annihilated one of them, the Scalors howled in unison, sounding eerily like hissing serpents. Their cries vibrated through the air, making it difficult to perceive movement through touch.
"They’re masking their presence with sound."
Grida observed.
Having fought Scalors before near the Demon Realm, she spoke from experience. She also knew just how much of a headache they could be.
There was a reason the Demon Realm was called the graveyard of Knights.
Countless creatures existed within it, all capable of threatening a Knight’s life. The Scalors might not be among the strongest, but they were a nuisance.
They constantly targeted their enemies’ backs and were cunning enough to strategize.
"Hah!"
With a sharp exhale, Grida swiftly turned and decapitated three Scalors creeping up behind her.
She had only swung once, yet her strike zigzagged through the air, slashing through all three creatures before they could react.
"Going somewhere?"
Grida readjusted her grip on her sword as she spoke, while Encrid silently scanned the battlefield.
"Assuming the curse caster isn't here…"
Was the wizard waiting for the right moment? Or had they already withdrawn, unwilling to take even the slightest risk?
He wasn’t sure what kind of perfume the Bride of Plague had used, but even its sweet stench had been suppressed.
‘Did they realize I was tracking them by scent?’
No, that was too much of a stretch. That was just paranoia.
‘No matter how skilled a wizard is, they can’t read my sensory perception.’
Magic had its limits. After spending time with Esther, Encrid had learned the boundaries of spells.
There was no such thing as a spell that could read someone’s thoughts. That was an absolute truth.
‘So let's assume the wizard is still here.’
Even so, cutting through the monsters ahead wouldn’t be a problem.
Thud, swish, crack!
A Scalor closed in within three steps. Encrid swung his sword in a smooth arc, slicing its snout cleanly in two.
Its forked tongue flopped lifelessly out of its mouth, and its vertically slit eyes dulled as the light faded from them.
Encrid knew his blade had reached the creature’s skull. But he also knew something else, this Scalor was playing dead.
"Cunning creatures."
Grida muttered, confirming his thoughts.
Encrid spun his sword downward and drove it into the Scalor’s head.
The creature had no time to react. Just as its eyes regained a glimmer of life, Three Iron paid a brief visit to its brain.
When he withdrew his blade, a mix of dark blood and grayish brain matter dripped from the tip.
"Terrifying."
Ann murmured.
It was understandable.
The remaining Scalors and the eight remaining Brides of Plague were all staring directly at her.
"Don’t worry. The Lady in Amber—Three Iron—will protect you."
Encrid chose his words carefully to reassure her.
"...That sword is a woman?"
"Today, it is. She’s wearing an amber dress, after all."
"So it changes gender whenever necessary?"
"That’s the advantage of a genderless sword."
He spoke while holding up Three Iron, its amber-coated blade glistening. Dark blood still dripped from its tip.
"You lunatic."
Ann’s lips moved in a whisper. She had tried to say it quietly, but Encrid heard every word. Still, he chose to overlook her insolence with a generous heart.
She was clearly just spitting out whatever came to mind, overwhelmed by fear.
"Now then, Lady, shall we dance?"
He said smoothly.
Ann groaned.
"Oh, for the love of—just fight already."
In the end, she abandoned her fear and settled into a stance of reluctant support.
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