Chapter 737

Chapter 737

The pair of spotted panthers split their formation, one lunging to the left while its counterpart pivoted right. Their powerful haunches bulged, crimson sinews straining as they launched themselves off the ground with such explosive power that blurry trails followed their transit. Even so, their velocity did not exceed what Enkrid could manage.

He was just fast enough to intercept them. Strengthening his frame with reinforced limbs, Enkrid gathered his internal Will. He abandoned all pretense of stealth in favor of raw acceleration. His perception of time fractured, slowing the world down.

Snap—shatter—crunch.

The stone and grit beneath his boots disintegrated. Small branches broke under the pressure and were driven deep into the mud. His right foot sank halfway into the earth from the sheer force of his leverage. The soil beneath him was crushed into a dense, hardened layer. With his right leg anchored and his left coiled like a spring, he was ready to propel himself forward.

If he pursued and landed a clean strike, the confrontation would conclude immediately. Even if the monsters reacted, he could at least lop off one of their tails. Those appendages shimmered with a cold, metallic luster under the moon’s glow—sharp as blades and clearly intended for combat. Severing even one would be a significant advantage.

They weren’t merely for attacking, though. They functioned as vital counterweights. Losing them would ruin the creatures’ equilibrium and slow their reactions. Once unbalanced, finishing them off would be a simple task.

He realized it intuitively: the tails weren’t the true threat. Even if he were facing ten of these panthers instead of two, they wouldn’t pose a legitimate danger to him. He was certain he could lure them into lethal traps, and if the situation spiraled, he had the option to retreat. A knight was a walking catastrophe, not just to fellow men, but to anything—predator or monster—that crossed their path. Their claws and predatory instincts were no match for Enkrid’s blade.

And yet, a discordant note rang in his mind. His survival instincts seemed to drag at his heels. A heavy sense of dread made his movements feel sluggish.

Snap.

The tension in his calf eased as he relaxed his stance. Letting his arms hang loosely, he looked toward the horizon. The two panthers had come to a halt and turned back toward him, their crimson eyes burning in the darkness. The moment he had stopped his pursuit, they had mirrored him.

Had they sensed the sudden drop in killing intent? Or was it some supernatural predatory intuition? Regardless, these were no common predators. They were anomalies.

Enkrid turned his frame away. He had made his choice, and there was no point in second-guessing it. Time, once spent, is gone forever. Out of a thousand paths, a man only walks one. Once the step is taken, regret is a waste of spirit. If pressed for a reason, he would simply say, “Something felt wrong.”

Turning his back on the beasts, he noted that no other threats emerged from the brush. He began the trek back toward the settlement. Upon his arrival, he found Harkvent standing as if turned to stone, clutching his spear with a silent, wide-eyed stare.

“If this isn’t handled soon, the smell will become unbearable.”

Enkrid gave the massive carcass of the bear beast a dismissive nudge with his boot. Harkvent watched him with a look of profound unease. It had finally dawned on the villager that the man standing before him was every bit as terrifying as the monsters they feared. Enkrid met his gaze.

He’s spiraling into his own thoughts.

Enkrid couldn’t decipher every detail of the man’s internal monologue, but the general gist was clear. There were no words that could effectively soothe that kind of tension. Logic cannot erase primal fear. The most helpful thing Enkrid could do for these people was to eliminate the monsters and depart the village as quickly as possible.

Yet, if that was truly his intent, he should have hunted down those panthers earlier. He hadn’t.

“Is there any water to clean up with?”

“Y-yes, of course.”

Harkvent had hauled water from the spring at the base of the hill. Though it was their precious drinking supply, he allowed Enkrid to use the majority of it for washing without a word of protest. No matter what his private fears were, Enkrid had saved their lives; this was a small price to pay.

Deep down, Harkvent was terrified. He worried that refusing the water might spark a deadly rage in the stranger. The village’s very existence seemed to balance on this man’s temperament. Harkvent briefly wondered if it wouldn’t be safer if the man just left—perhaps fighting monsters was preferable to living under the shadow of such a dangerous protector.

“Right then.”

Enkrid finished his washing, maintained a distant politeness with Harkvent, and went to rest. The night slipped away. By the first light of dawn, Enkrid was already patrolling the outskirts, searching for signs of the pack.

Locating their trail was easy.

Too far.

He had assumed that if the beasts were hunting the village, they would be nesting nearby. They weren’t. To engage them meant traveling a significant distance from the settlement. He moved to follow, but his intuition wasn’t fully committed to the hunt. Enkrid tracked them at a moderate pace, neither rushing nor lingering.

Then, he caught it. That stench.

The metallic tang of blood and the rot of monsters filled the air. He tried to place the familiar note within the odor. He recalled entering the sunken house earlier, where a sharp fragrance had met him. The villagers had explained it was a local fruit used as a spice to mask the foul taste of monster meat—something they only ate to survive. He remembered Brunhilt clutching her spear and a young boy talking excitedly about the spice.

That smell had been alien to him. But this current scent—he recognized this one. A sickening, artificial odor was mingling with the decay. It wasn’t a scent you expected to find on a wild animal. It smelled of human premeditation.

He didn’t just smell it; he perceived it. Humans utilize their intellect to add layers of complexity to a fight. In its noble form, it is called strategy. At its most cynical, it is a cowardly cunning designed to win while risking nothing. Enkrid could sense that same twisted logic in the trail the monsters had left behind.

He came to a halt.

As if his realization triggered them, the monsters moved, and the air became thick with that foul musk. There were no growls or snapping twigs. They were silent, pressed low against the tall grass, watching him with those glowing red lanterns for eyes.

They were utilizing the wind. They had positioned themselves downwind to hide their presence, using the breeze to blow their scent away from him. More accurately, they had left a trail of waste and blood specifically to entice him into this spot. He could almost see the monsters intentionally wounding one another to create a breadcrumb trail of blood.

Now, dozens of wolves stepped out of the shadows. They fanned out into a wide arc, closing the circle around him. It wasn’t a shock. Ambushes and flanking maneuvers were exactly what he expected now. The earlier wild dogs were merely the opening act. Enkrid understood the tactic being employed here.

Distraction.

This realization told him exactly where the real threat was. He spun on his heel and sprinted back toward the village. The heavy unease that had plagued him earlier now acted like a tether, pulling him back home.

A howl!

The lead wolf barked a command, and the pack surged forward to cut off his path of retreat. Enkrid scanned the line of predators blocking his way.

Nine of them.

The third wolf from the left was the largest. The second from the right was hunkered down, ready to lunge at his throat. There was no metallic ring of Enkrid drawing Three Iron, because the blade had never been put away.

He visualized the wolves’ heads as fixed coordinates in the air and traced a single, lethal line through them in his mind. Then, he let his Will take the reins. He thrust Three Iron to the left and then whipped it back to the right. The steel moved in a jagged, lightning-fast pattern.

It was a display of martial skill refined by his accelerated cognition—a storm of flashes where every micro-movement followed the most mathematically perfect path of destruction. It looked like a jagged bolt of white light.

CRACK—CRACK—CRACK—

Nine wolf skulls split open. The strikes were so rapid they seemed simultaneous, though a master knight would have heard the distinct rhythm of each kill. It was a technique born from the violent power he’d seen in Alexandra, polished by his own mental optimization. It was almost like a dance. On the surface, it seemed a simple, fast cut, but the internal manipulation of Will was incredibly complex.

Nine wolves fell dead instantly. His path was clear.

He ran. Ahead, he spotted a colossal serpent, a beast large enough to consume a child like Brunhilt in a single gulp.

CRACK!

The snake wrapped its coils around a massive trunk and shattered it, letting out a piercing, terrifying shriek that could freeze the blood of any lesser prey.

“I’ll stop it!”

At the village perimeter, Harkvent stood his ground alone, spear leveled at the beast. Blood was flowing from a wound on his arm, staining the dirt a bright red that contrasted sharply with the dark gore of the monsters. Enkrid saw him and immediately recognized the man’s intent.

A sacrifice. He was using himself as bait.

Harkvent had claimed he only failed against the wild dogs because they surprised him—otherwise, his traps would have handled them. But a beast of this magnitude wouldn’t be stopped by a simple pit.

Enkrid charged without a second of doubt. His sword was already high. The snake didn’t even turn to face him; it lashed out with its tail, sending a heavy log flying toward his head. Enkrid transitioned into a Penna strike, a downward flowing motion that sliced through the timber as if it were air.

Slice.

Penna was far sharper than Three Iron. The log fell in two pieces with surfaces as smooth as glass. The sound was a soft whisper through meat. Enkrid lunged through the gap between the falling halves.

He had already returned Penna to its sheath, both hands now locked onto the hilt of Three Iron. The falling blade met the crown of the snake’s head.

Whoosh—BOOM.

The sword broke the sound barrier. To Harkvent, standing just a few paces away, it looked like Enkrid simply materialized, a log split in two, a white blur flickered, and the snake’s head simply came apart.

It was a perfect vertical bisection. Dark brain matter spilled from the wound. The blade had moved with such velocity that there was a vacuum of sound, and the blood hadn’t even had time to spray before the two halves of the head separated. It wasn’t just a clean kill; it was a feat that defied human limitations.

Enkrid had entered the state known as a Knight—or more accurately, a Calamity. He wielded his weapon in a way that transcended the biological constraints of his race. In a duel between two such knights, the difference is hard to perceive. Against a beast, the gap was undeniable.

Tap. Thud.

Enkrid landed softly just as the snake’s massive weight hit the earth, causing the ground to shudder. He looked up, ears straining.

It wasn’t over.

Several fanged deer, their tusks longer than any predator’s, were storming the village center. High in the branches, fox-like beasts watched with glowing, predatory eyes.

“Move, Harben!”

A villager screamed a warning. Their defenses consisted of pit traps filled with stakes, all concentrated at the main entrance. But these creatures were flanking them, entering from the sides.

They know where the traps are.

The wolves had been a delay. The bear had been a distraction. They were trying to lure him away from the vulnerable. It was undeniable now: this pack possessed a collective intelligence. They were cunning enough to outmaneuver the average human.

“En-Ki!”

Brunhilt’s voice pierced the chaos. She didn’t call for her father; she called for him. It was a pure, survival-driven instinct. She knew her father couldn’t save her from this. Only the stranger with the sword could.

Enkrid blurred into motion. He vaulted off the ground, ran along a tree trunk, and decapitated a lunging deer in a single fluid arc. The head spun away before hitting the grass. He landed, regained his balance, and in one motion hurled a spear and a horn-handled knife he’d pulled from his belt.

FWOOM!

The strength of a knight is effectively superhuman. The dagger shattered the deer’s skull like a piece of hollow pottery. Enkrid then locked eyes with a white-furred, two-tailed fox.

The creature retreated. It was intelligent. Having watched him dismantle several of its kin, it had recalculated the danger. It perched high in an ancient tree, moving across the limbs with an impossible, ghostly grace. It watched him as if this entire slaughter was merely a test of his capabilities—as if it still had more cards to play.

Enkrid looked away. He couldn’t afford to hunt it. If he stopped to pursue a single target, someone else would die. He couldn’t let that happen.

Fewer than twenty creatures had actually breached the village, including the giant snake. But Enkrid knew that if he hadn’t been there, the village would be a graveyard.

Brunhilt, gasping for air, raised her spear when she saw him approach. “I killed one!”

The girl had managed to impale a fox beast, though the shaft of her weapon was splintered.

“We need to gather everyone,” Harkvent rasped, scanning the carnage.

No villagers had been lost yet, but that fact did nothing to quiet the terror screaming in his mind.