The mountain’s night came quickly. The dim light of early twilight soon faded, and the moon and stars replaced the sun in the swiftly darkened sky.
Though they could not sprint outright, they were still running at a considerable pace. Whenever they reached flat terrain, their speed doubled, and as their footsteps gained momentum, the moon and stars above stretched into long, streaking lines.
Kiiii!
A beastly wild boar they had passed along the way was startled upon seeing them and attempted to give chase before quickly giving up. Had it been just a bit more persistent, it would have had the rare experience of spilling its own entrails across the ground—but luck was on its side.
Grida raised a hand toward the grip of her sword before lowering it again. In that brief moment, she decided that killing a beast here would only spread the scent of blood, attracting unwanted attention from other creatures.
Running across flat terrain could almost be considered a break.
Just as Magrun had said, he led the group through a slightly rougher path. The ground was uneven, littered with protruding rocks and tree roots that looked like nature’s own snares, ready to trip the unwary.
Such obstacles might have caught someone’s ankle—but they were all Knights. Not a single one was hindered by the terrain.
The only exception was Ann, who was unable to run at such speeds. She swallowed two small pills, then leaned against Ragna’s back, fast asleep as if dead. There was no need to worry about her.
Swish! Slash! Crack!
At the front, Magrun swung his sword, cutting away some branches. The severed limbs fell behind them.
As they avoided roots and carefully chose their footing, a waist-high boulder blocked their path, but none of them even laid a hand on it, they simply leaped over it.
From below, the steep incline they traversed would have seemed daunting, but they passed without hesitation.
Encrid ran, lost in thought. He had mastered the ability to maintain two lines of thought at once; dodging obstacles while sprinting was hardly a challenge.
His eyes, already adjusted to the darkness, could perceive his surroundings with just the moon and starlight. And since this wasn’t an all-out sprint, even if something blocked his path, it wasn’t difficult to instinctively adjust his footing.
In fact, this was the perfect time to contemplate swordsmanship. That was what Encrid thought.
‘Just as one instinctively reaches out for a flying object, just as a jerky shop owner rotates skewers before a fire…’
If Will could be used in a natural manner, even in the face of an unexpected ambush, each strike would carry its full power.
He had grasped this concept before, but unless he repeatedly put it into practice, his body would not fully adapt to it.
Encrid knew himself well, merely recalling and ruminating on an idea wouldn’t make it second nature. He needed to repeat it again and again.
This was why he actually welcomed ambushes of this sort.
He had briefly lost himself in thought when his sixth sense triggered something.
"Something’s coming."
The moment he perceived it, Ragna, who was carrying Ann, abruptly shifted his advancing foot to the side, changing direction.
Thud!
The ground under his foot caved in, revealing a hole.
Even with that sudden force, his boots wouldn’t be damaged. They were reinforced with metal plates underneath, and the outer layer was made of troll leather—extremely sturdy.
Through Encrid’s perspective, the boots, custom-made by Krais, sent clumps of dirt flying into the air.
At the same time, a long, black shadow slithered through the gap.
"Ambush!"
Ragna dodged first. Grida shouted the warning next. Simultaneously, Encrid, who had been trailing closely behind, unsheathed Penna and swung.
Slash!
The famed blade, known for its exquisite sharpness, sliced through the approaching black shadow diagonally.
‘An arm.’
As he cut, Encrid identified the shadow’s nature. His night-adapted eyes, relying on moonlight, observed its form.
A forearm covered in dense, black scales. His sense of touch conveyed additional information.
‘It’s hard.’
If he hadn’t been using Penna but a regular sword, it wouldn’t have been so easy to sever.
A forearm packed with tough, black scales—this was what he discerned through both sight and touch.
Despite losing its arm, the creature did not scream. Instead, black blood sprayed through the air, deliberately aimed at Encrid’s face.
It was shaking the severed limb to fling its blood toward him. His high-speed cognition instantly analyzed the enemy’s intent.
‘It’s using its severed limb as an attack.’
This was not the kind of behavior one would expect from a typical monster. Instinct should have driven it to react to the pain.
"Black!"
Grida shouted again, but Encrid had already dodged the splattered blood and swiftly moved. While Ragna had shifted to the right, Encrid had moved to the left.
He launched himself with the Frog’s Step, a movement technique he had learned from Luagarne, then swung Penna in a horizontal arc.
‘An attack shines in an instant.’
As expected, every motion was imbued with Will, free of excess movements, appearing as if rehearsed countless times.
A silver flash, reminiscent of moonlight, tore through the air with a bang, drawing a streak in the darkness.
Everything caught within that streak was severed—
—The night’s darkness.
—The black veil in which the Scalor had hidden itself.
Splat!
The creature, half-bisected, spilled black blood and entrails before collapsing sideways.
Encrid held his position, still in the posture of his finishing strike. The rest of the group halted their steps.
"These bastards…"
Grida muttered as she stared ahead.
There was no scent. No detectable presence. But deep in the darkness, pairs of bestial, slit-like eyes glowed ominously, revealing their numbers.
Dozens of pitch-black eyes floated in the shadows. The vertical slits of their pupils shimmered eerily in the dark.
Saaaaaaa…
Their cries echoed from the hidden undergrowth and the tangled roots below. Another wave of Scalors was upon them.
Encrid assessed the path they had traveled and the enemies blocking their way.
‘Scalors—not magic, not sorcery.’
This time, their numbers were even fewer than before.
"Be wary of those with black scales. Some of them have special abilities."
Grida warned.
Perhaps in place of magic or sorcery, certain monsters had unique traits.
The one Encrid had cut down earlier—
‘Its body was tougher than usual.’
Was that all? It didn’t seem like it.
‘Did they send these creatures in response to a miscalculated movement?’
Then how did they locate them? It was simple, they must have been observed.
How was the observation done? How does one track enemy movements on a battlefield?
By sending out scouts. Could the enemy have done something similar?
If they had sent visible scouts, they would have been noticed easily. Perhaps they were using an untraceable, unpredictable method.
A few overlapping clues led Encrid toward a near-answer. His mind instinctively traced the chain of cause and effect to form a conclusion.
‘The bat beast from the first night.’
Bats use sound to navigate.
If all they needed was observation, they could have used that. If there were creatures familiar with the terrain and sharp-eyed individuals among them, even broken trees and shifting movement could reveal their location.
Even if they failed to predict their path, ambushing in real time wouldn't have been difficult.
That must have been why they sent the Scalors here.
‘They’re stalling us.’
If that was the case, then lingering here was not a wise move. From a strategic perspective, it was clear.
"Go ahead."
Encrid decided.
Grida asked,
"And you?"
"I’ll catch up. Leave a trail."
Asking whether he could handle it alone was pointless. After all—
"I am just as much an anomaly as they are."
Grida nodded to Magrun. Without looking back, Ragna took off. His attitude was clear—there was no need to worry or consider alternatives.
Would the Scalors split up? No. They remained in place.
Had the enemy anticipated this split? Encrid didn’t know. There wasn’t enough information.
So he would simply do what needed to be done.
Encrid turned to face the creatures blocking his path and spoke with a hint of amusement.
"Come play with me."
If these creatures understood human speech, they might have felt a chill run down their spines.
Perhaps the monsters felt something similar, but there was no way to know.
Ching, chiling!
Encrid sheathed Penna and drew Three Irons. The blades of True Silver and Black Gold clamored, each vying to be the first to strike.
“Whoa, whoa.”
As Encrid soothed the two eager blades, the creatures took the brief moment as an opening and closed the distance, charging at him from both sides. He responded by swinging his sword alternately at the two approaching beasts.
To the right, True Silver swept upward toward the sky. To the left, Black Gold came down with a heavy slash.
Whoosh!
As if they had sprouted wings, the Scalors were split vertically along the arc of the strikes, their bodies severed in two and spilling blood.
Amidst the spray of black blood, the moonlight caught the faint curve forming on Encrid’s lips.
“Let’s keep going.”
Something felt just within his grasp, frustratingly elusive yet tantalizingly close.
As Encrid spoke and raised the tip of his sword above his head, two of the black-scaled Scalors extended their hands toward him.
They possessed telekinetic abilities.
At their gesture, Encrid felt an invisible force coiling around him, binding him in place.
‘Stronger than a manticore?’
Or perhaps just about the same. That was all.
It was useless. The disparity in strength was too vast, he could simply ignore it and move.
Crackle.
No actual sound was made, but that was how it felt, Encrid shredded the telekinetic force like tearing through a flimsy net and leapt forward.
Yet, he did not even charge at the ones who had tried to restrain him. Instead, he calmly cut down and pierced the nearby monsters one by one.
Stepping forward with his left foot, he brought down his sword in a Middle Sword Technique downward slash. Then, shifting his right foot forward in a large stride, he followed with a thrust.
Thud! Squish!
Sensing three hostile presences behind him, he pivoted mid-action and swung his sword backward. The three wooden spears the Scalors had wielded snapped and shattered under his strikes.
At times, his sword moved so fast it was barely visible. Other times, he blocked with slow, deliberate motions, as if frozen in place.
He moved exactly as much as needed, exactly when it was needed.
‘Defense flows like waves, offense flashes in an instant.’
But did defense and offense have to be separate? Was there a reason they couldn't be one?
At the level of a high-ranking Knight, swordsmanship was no longer divided into distinct techniques, it was used naturally, seamlessly. So why not now?
And so, without hesitation, he adapted.
In front of him, a Scalor attempted to bind his sword with telekinesis. To the side, another Scalor lunged with an elongated wooden spear.
The tip of the spear was blackened—coated with something. Given the circumstances, poison was the most likely answer.
A natural deduction.
‘It’s not just skill and training.’
Encrid redefined a concept he had once considered before.
He had previously categorized techniques into Finisher, Retention, and Versatility, later adding Skill and Training.
But that wasn't quite right.
‘It’s not skill and training—it’s instinct and calculation.’
That was the correct way to see it. And even if one focused more on one aspect, the nature of combat would inevitably require proficiency in both.
If Pel had no sense for calculation, Lawford would easily defeat him. Likewise, if Lawford’s instincts were significantly inferior to Pel’s, no amount of calculation would save him, he’d be taken down in a single strike.
As he delved deeper into thought, his twin swords no longer acted separately but moved in perfect harmony, flowing as one.
With each repetition, what he had newly learned and realized became more ingrained. His swordplay improved with every execution, better than before, each time sharper.
‘What I’m doing now is calculation.’
In an instant, he assessed the possible scenarios, calculated probabilities, and executed his strikes.
All of it was as natural as breathing.
‘I was arrogant.’
He had believed that high-ranking Knights wielded Will effortlessly.
‘On the surface, it seems that way, but in reality, it’s constant repetition.’
They instinctively wielded Will, refined their swordsmanship, then ingrained it into their bodies through ceaseless repetition.
Even now, he could see the gaps in his own ability.
‘Calculated swordplay, I can do that now.’
But what about instinctive swordplay?
The Madmen Platoon had warned him to hide his true skills. But rather than conceal his abilities, Encrid had chosen to acquire even more.
To an outsider, it might have looked like sheer madness. Even Rem would have thought so.
Yet, even as such thoughts flitted through his mind, his strikes were unaffected. A Knight is a disaster, a being who can cut down a thousand alone.
Against the monsters, Encrid embodied that old adage. And of course, he remained unscathed.
There was no need to look back at what he had done.
The moment he judged that his work was finished, he immediately set off toward where his companions had gone.
That was all the Scalors had managed to accomplish. Buying a little time and serving as Encrid’s live training dummies.
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