Swordsmanship began with movements designed for the efficient transmission of power.
The width of the stance needed to generate strength, the way to grip the sword, and how to deliver power from the ankles through the waist, shoulders, and wrists.
Researching the posture through which power is transmitted and honing the method of swinging the sword in that posture—that is swordsmanship.
The head of the house swung his sword as if demonstrating the basics of swordsmanship.
He stepped forward with his left foot and swung the sword from right to left.
Even though he was simply swinging the sword based on fundamental technique, everything around him changed, with him at the center. Sound vanished.
The howling wind and falling rain were sucked into the path drawn by the sword and disappeared.
Encrid heard a resonant hum as he watched the sword of head of the house.
Piiiiiiiiing.
A sword strike that swallows everything, whether it's a raging storm or a bolt of lightning.
Focus Point activated on its own, and everything around slowed down, separating the head of the house’s movements from those of the approaching beasts. His insight pulled a sliver of the near future forward.
The sword of head of the house drew a single arc. The line drawn from the right down to the left was thick and powerful. It was as if the void had been slashed by a rough-bristled brush.
The two monsters caught within that arc would be split and killed. And as they died, their extended claws would pierce the head’s shoulder and flank.
The intent of the beasts, charging from above and below, was clear.
Boom!
After the resonant hum came an explosive sound.
Encrid nodded with a low groan.
The future he saw through insight had been twisted. But that wasn’t surprising.
It was unexpected, but this was the head of the Zaun—it would be stranger if he didn’t pull this off.
The head’s sword was faster than the charging beasts. And so, the two beasts were split and flung into the air.
With the sound of impact—thud, thud—the two monsters, now nothing more than slabs of meat bleeding black blood, crashed onto the muddy ground.
The head of the house retracted his swung sword and let it hang loosely before speaking.
“Come forth, Hescal. I shall ask of your sins.”
Shhhhhh.
Amid the pouring rain, along the path revered by those who worship the sword—the Pilgrimage of the Sword.
Below that path, monsters were lined up. All of them stood side by side in formation.
The head of the house surely saw it as well.
No one would look at that scene and think today’s battle would be easy.
A man who knew the power of Zaun stood there as an enemy. Naturally, he had come prepared to win.
And yet, with just a single strike of the head’s sword, the entire atmosphere reversed. Schemes? Traps? What of them? Could they truly serve as shields capable of surviving against this sword?
The head’s sword seemed to ask just that.
“Speak.”
Opposite him, Hescal stood amidst the monster troops and replied. He was neither overwhelmed by the pressure nor swayed by the atmosphere the head of the Zaun had created.
His presence entered everyone’s awareness. Standing alone before the head of the house, he declared through his unwavering stance that he was the one who orchestrated all of this.
Their gazes met through the thinning curtain of rain.
The falling rain seemed colder somehow. A bolt of lightning cracked through the dark clouds, as if slicing between the two.
It was neither the head of the house nor Hescal who broke the silence.
“Hescal.”
From the standoff, someone stepped forward with a limp. His pupils trembled uncontrollably, though surely not as much as his heart.
“Ah, Riley. I thought the head of the house would imprison you. Then again, he’s a clever man. Bringing you here while suspecting you—it must’ve been to shake me.”
Shhhhhh.
The rain held no malice or kindness. It was devoid of emotion. Just like Hescal’s tone and demeanor now.
There was no malice. But no goodwill, either.
“Did you use me?”
Riley clenched his teeth as he spoke. He bit down so hard that blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, only to be diluted and washed away by the rain.
No one would have noticed it unless they were standing right next to him, but Encrid had somehow ended up at his side and thus saw it.
It wasn’t like he meant to stand beside Riley. It was a coincidence.
‘This spot is perfect.’
It was just because Riley stood at the center of Zaun. This was the ideal position to observe the surroundings and take the lead.
“Were you tricked by an illusion spell? Or did someone find a weakness? Are you poisoned and need the antidote?”
Then Riley muttered as if denying reality, but none of his words made sense.
For others, it might be that their lives had been held hostage. But not someone like Hescal. He’d rather die than turn his back on Zaun.
That was the weight of Hescal’s name, built over decades within Zaun.
There was no hesitation in Hescal’s eyes. Standing upright with squared shoulders, what radiated from him was legitimacy and dignity.
“Would I ever do such a thing?”
Hescal denied it gently and kindly, just as he always had.
“Then why?”
Riley’s cry pierced through the rain. On the surface, he seemed calm—but within, he was screaming.
Hescal didn’t click his tongue or blame Riley. He calmly asked the head of the house,
“Head of the house, do you truly think I would be shaken by something like this?”
“Try everything you can.”
The head of the house didn’t deny it. He admitted that bringing Riley here was, in part, to shake Hescal.
“Give up now. It’s over.”
Hescal spoke again. Encrid was still observing the monster horde, unmoving even in this moment.
He was gauging the density of the massed monsters, estimating their number.
‘A little over a thousand, maybe?’
If you want to act as a scout, you need to be able to assess the enemy's strength. Encrid was capable of at least that much.
What surprised him most was that none of the monsters moved a muscle.
‘Were they trained? Or is it some kind of mental control?’
Either way, it didn’t change the fact that they were a threatening force. The monsters, calm and arranged in formation, looked like a military unit.
A force that has undergone repeated training is called an elite unit. Their individual abilities may be high, but from a commander’s perspective, what made them elite was their ability to act as trained and follow orders.
When a battle begins, inexperienced and untrained soldiers often don’t know what to do. Some break formation and run, some hide. Others charge recklessly.
But if they could fight while maintaining formation, without such chaos, they could rightly be called elite soldiers.
‘They’re about on the level of a Border Guard Reserve Unit.’
The gathered monsters looked as if they had undergone drill training. It was right to judge them as a formidable enemy.
“Why, goddammit, why.”
Riley’s heart had broken. That showed how big a presence Hescal was to him.
Riley’s body swayed as he mumbled. A shattered heart had affected his physical form.
Should one say his heart had been cut? In that sense, Hescal was indeed a master swordsman. He hadn’t even drawn his blade, and yet he had cleaved someone’s soul.
Encrid instinctively picked up on the energies emitted by those around him. Luagarne had once said something like this:
“Is there any commander more useless than one who doesn’t know the state of their own troops before going into battle?”
It’s good to know the enemy’s condition. But if you don’t know your own, it’s meaningless.
That was the essence of Luagarne-style tactical thinking.
Encrid had heard and learned that mindset from her constantly. And even now, he followed it.
‘The one who is angry…’
Those who grieved, and those who remained calm, each emitted a different kind of emotion. Among them, the most peculiar was perhaps Anahera of the Giants.
She was excited. Her breath was rough. She was ready to leap out at any moment.
Seeing the way she fidgeted with her fingers while gripping her sword, it was clear that if left unchecked, she would fully unleash the racial trait of the Red Blood Beasts—the battle frenzy of the Giants.
‘If deployed in real combat, she’s definitely stronger than a Junior-Knight.’
Encrid placed Anahera outside the categories he had formed in his mind and began mentally dividing up the others as well.
Those who mourn would likely still fight well, but those who were flustered would only increase casualties if thrown into battle immediately.
Those who could fight right away, those who needed time, and those better suited for holding the rear.
‘Not to mention, there’s a sorcerer among the enemy.’
Even ignoring wizards, sorcerer magic was a tool that easily exploited the weaknesses of the mind.
Curses, they say, worm into the hearts of the weak. That was something Rem had said. And from Encrid’s own experience, it was true.
His thoughts were clear, and his standards of judgment unwavering. Encrid, alone on this battlefield, was drawing the picture.
“Ah, Encrid of the Border Guard. You wished to return, yet here you are. Did you stay thinking there’s still something more to gain?”
In the middle of all that, Hescal spoke.
Though he didn’t come close and instead shouted from a distance—which might seem cowardly—it was, truthfully, a clever choice of position.
If the head of the house and his wife truly targeted him, Hescal would die. He wasn’t giving them that opportunity.
“What was your dream? You said you’d tell me, and that’s why I couldn’t leave.”
Encrid shouted back. Even through the downpour, their voices carried clearly to one another.
“Were you always this curious?”
“Since I was a kid, I couldn’t sleep if there was something I didn’t understand.”
It wasn’t a lie. At least when it came to swordsmanship, that was entirely true. Though he ignored most other things.
“You really are an interesting one.”
For the first time, Hescal revealed something close to emotion. What he showed was a spark of interest.
“Behind me stands a man who seeks godhood. Not many would fail to recognize the name Drmule, the alchemist.”
A name passed down like a legend for carving a mark in continental history.
If Ann were here, she would’ve questioned whether that could possibly be true.
Drmule was Laban’s mentor, the one who developed the seed of the plague, a mad alchemist who dreamed of mass genocide.
Even if he were dead, it would be fair to call him a wraith from the past who should have perished long ago.
Hescal calmly spoke of his dream.
“As he shapes divinity, I too will shape divinity.”
He was serious. The content may have been absurd, but then again—wasn’t absurdity a natural part of dreams?
The impossible, the difficult to achieve, the desperately longed-for—those are what we choose to call dreams.
But.
‘It doesn’t feel like he told us everything.’
Shaping divinity could be a process—or a tool. What would he do once he became a god?
If he feared death, he might have said he wished to become immortal. If he wanted to revive a dead son, he would’ve spoken of resurrection.
But Hescal said nothing more.
He merely revealed that his dream was to usurp divinity. That was likely all he had intended to say.
In just a few words, he had bought time—and during that time, a few individuals showed the reactions Encrid had hoped for.
“You lunatic.”
Riley Zaun declared his allegiance with a single word. He was the sword of Zaun.
The wavering in his eyes had lessened. Even if the sea still raged, a person who stood firmly on the ship would feel less shaken.
Riley Zaun had done just that.
‘Not bad.’
Encrid viewed that change positively. A few had silently finished preparing for battle. Though, not everyone had.
Aside from Riley Zaun, there were many who had received something akin to salvation from Hescal.
Which meant, a considerable number were still shaken by the waves. Those individuals should not yet be used as frontline forces.
‘The head of the house, his wife, Lynox, me, and Ragna.’
That made five Knights.
Aside from them, there were two others whose skill could be said to lie between Knight and Junior-Knight.
One was Anahera of the Giants.
The other was a man who had once stood at the head of the opposing group, clashing with Riley Zaun.
He had once earned Lynox’s recognition, but was struck by self-doubt after seeing those more talented and wandered for a while.
Though it wasn’t as if he had vanished for over a decade. That didn’t mean his struggles were trivial.
Everyone has their own personal hell, and every person walks the path they choose.
His so-called wandering was limited to living in the Retirees’ Village for a few months.
No, it was said he even visited the Hunters’ Village and the Intermediaries’ Village as well.
At any rate, after that wandering, he returned and refocused himself as a swordsman. He could be considered on par with Anahera.
He simply fought better in actual combat.
‘Anahera’s prowess is understandable, she is of the Giant race.’
This man who clashed with Riley and once wandered—Kato Zaun—was known for using all kinds of techniques.
He was even somewhat skilled in Ail Caraz-Style Martial Arts, which Encrid had seen before, and he armed himself with handleless blades across his body.
That’s why he earned the nickname Kato of the Blade Armor.
Five plus two.
The number of others in Zaun who could fight was about seventy. And even more had been left behind.
This could be called the entirety of Zaun’s military strength.
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