Chapter 832

Chapter 832

A faint amber radiance rippled across the ivory blade of the dragonkin. Despite the stagnant air, his citrus-hued hair glowed as if absorbing the surrounding luminescence.

With a fluid motion, he cleaved through a fiery monstrosity that dwarfed his own frame.

*Whoosh.* The severed inferno spiraled into a pair of serpents, lunging at him with predatory intent. The dragonkin uttered a Word of Power.

“Vanish.”

With that solitary command, the twin snakes of fire flickered out of existence. They were nearly upon him, closer than the reach of his own steel. Yet, as if struck by a colossal, invisible palm, they were shoved aside, crumbling like grains of sand caught in a gale, leaving nothing but crimson embers in their wake.

The source of this fire was rooted in Will itself. He had pierced that spiritual core and dismantled it.

Because not every adversary succumbed to Words alone, he wove them into his martial forms. This marriage of sorcery and cold steel represented the pinnacle of Temares’s true expertise.

The perfect synchronization of Word and sword.

As the battle progressed, remnants of his old mastery flowed back into his limbs, just as Enkrid had predicted—a process of martial recovery. In this awakening, he felt the surging potency of his lineage, the formidable blood of the dragonkin racing through his heart.

And while he dispatched a single beast—

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!* “Send more of them.”

A human warrior manifested two rotating disks in his palms, launching them in a relentless barrage that brought down six of the flaming horrors.

“Ha, ha, this is hardly a challenge.”

Nearby, a being part-man and part-bear exuded a divine aura, pulverizing the Salamander’s limbs one after another.

To the dragonkin’s specialized sight, the Salamander’s actual form was dimly perceptible. From his vantage point, Audin, the bear half-blood, appeared to be intercepting the fiery creature’s lunging strikes with his bare hands.

The scale of Audin’s fist compared to the beast’s limb was like that of a grown man against a small child—yet it was the child who possessed the world-shaking power.

Consequently—

*BOOM!* The creature’s appendages shattered repeatedly. Embers sprayed, and burning boulders falling from the sky detonated in every direction.

Sharp shards of flaming stone, propelled by the force of the impacts, whistled through the air.

Under normal circumstances, such a storm would have been lethal. Yet, not a single member of the group sustained even a minor wound.

They endured the onslaught with casual indifference.

The dragonkin found himself wondering if, during the long era he was bound to his post, the continent’s level of martial prowess had ascended to heights beyond his imagination.

—

Enkrid had carved Lua Gharne’s instructions into his very soul.

“In the days to come, you will face more than just common bladesmen. You must be ready for that.”

While Esther had instructed him on how to neutralize enchantments, Lua Gharne had taken charge of his overall tactical education.

Enkrid remained perpetually alert, his mind a sponge for knowledge.

He could have subdued the Frokk before him through sheer physical dominance, yet he never ceased his pursuit of mastery.

‘There is a lesson to be found in every person.’

Having once accepted the limitations of his own natural talent, Enkrid strove to assimilate every scrap of wisdom he encountered.

He invested the silver he had bled for into his own growth.

He did this for his own principles, and to safeguard those who relied on him.

It was a grueling path. Truly, it was. Even when he was marooned within a single repeating day for over a year, grinding in solitude, he could not instantly bridge the gap between himself and those born with genius.

Before that temporal trap, his situation had been even bleaker.

Had he endured those years of struggle without reflection? Not even a common man would be so careless. Certainly not Enkrid, who possessed a sharp and calculating mind.

He searched for what he could contribute from his position. He clawed for a path forward, starving for progress.

‘Can I truly close the gap simply by swinging a piece of metal?’

Endless labor alone was insufficient. That was the cold truth. The edge of reality was always pressed against his neck, seeking his life.

No matter the skirmish, he would visualize it, recreate it, and recite its lessons repeatedly. He turned the act of review into a lethal instrument.

And so he labored.

He moved forward even when his legs shook. He forged his body into a temple of endurance. He refused to let his physical limits hold him back.

He survived those trials, crawling toward his goals if necessary. Enkrid understood a fundamental truth: to analyze a battle after the dust settled, one had to perceive it clearly while it happened.

This was a lesson from his days before the Mad Squad. He held onto it firmly.

“To fight with precision is to see with precision.”

Lua Gharne’s philosophy mirrored the lessons of his past. To “see” was not a passive act. It meant intercepting the enemy’s hidden intent, dissecting the process and the consequence, and stripping away every layer of deception.

That mental discipline was the only reason Enkrid had survived when his raw skill was negligible.

The patterns employed by the Salamander were not overly intricate. Once the core logic was identified, they were quite linear.

Enkrid began to categorize the creature’s arsenal.

‘The thermal-tongue strike.’

It could emerge from any angle, possessing the velocity of Rem’s heavy axe. However, it was slower than a projectile from his own sling. Therefore, evasion was a matter of timing.

‘The fireball barrages.’

The dragonkin had identified these as paws, and Enkrid concurred.

From the shifting magma-clouds above, fireballs descended along tethered lines of energy—sometimes in pairs, sometimes in quads.

‘Lacking in speed, but immense in mass.’

He didn’t just label the attacks; he analyzed their physical properties.

Since his time with Jaxon, his knightly intuition had reached a razor’s edge, further refined by Lua Gharne’s strategic frameworks.

‘Do not attempt to quantify the foe. Observe them without bias, and the truth will manifest.’

That philosophy allowed Enkrid to transcend his previous boundaries. His tactical horizon expanded, his thoughts stretching into new dimensions.

‘Flame-shaping incantations.’

This was the Salamander’s third method of engagement. Independent of its limbs, it launched spears of concentrated fire.

In technical terms, they were more like rods of solidified heat than bladed spears.

They came in waves. If given a second of respite, the beast would manifest dozens in the time it took to draw a breath.

But there was more. The Salamander’s arsenal ran deeper.

‘Flame-born aberrations.’

Fourthly: the creation of thermal constructs. Boulders of liquid fire dropped from the sky, reshaping themselves into wolves, automatons, bears, and vipers to swarm the group.

‘The torrential fire-rain.’

From the overhead furnace of clouds, thin needles of flame poured down without ceasing. Each one was capable of searing through a human body with ease.

The rugged mountain trails were being leveled into scorched plains. The forest was an inferno; the world was bathed in a hellish crimson. It felt as though they had walked into a dungeon made of pure heat.

‘Finally, the thermal mirage.’

The atmosphere was thick with a shimmering haze that birthed hallucinations. If one’s concentration wavered for an instant, the roasting air would whisper lies and echo with phantom sounds.

Nothing in this environment was trivial. Yet, the line held.

*Snap!* Esther snapped her fingers, her lips moving in a quiet rhythmic chant.

“Drmuller’s Space Dominion.”

To a casual observer, the gesture was minor and the words simple—but the enchantment Esther unfurled was a masterpiece of magical precision.

She stripped away the physical requirements for combustion.

In the sector where the fire spears and rain descended, she created a localized vacuum. Using her mastery, she stilled the currents and erased the oxygen from the air.

Deprived of their medium, every fire-sculpted projectile disintegrated in midair.

Space Dominion was a flickering, temporary spell. It lasted only a heartbeat.

Usually, such a brief effect would be useless. Here, it was applied with surgical timing.

Its effectiveness came from its economy—the perfect tool for the perfect moment. It was a testament to Esther’s uncanny magical intuition.

“Trivial. Utterly trivial.”

Roughly ten meters behind her, Rem grumbled as he discharged round after round. Each projectile was infused with ancient sorcery.

Every shot found its mark, shattering the internal engines of the flame golems. To the eyes of a sorcerer, locating the nucleus of such constructs was elementary.

Rem had always excelled at combating the ethereal and the shapeless.

A flame construct wasn’t exactly a spirit, but it was raw energy given a temporary shell. Even without exhausting his mana, he could pinpoint the weak spot. It was easy work.

And because Enkrid had defined this as a battle of endurance, Rem conserved his reserves. The others followed suit.

Audin intercepted the heavy masses of fire with his knuckles, absorbing the kinetic energy through his shoulders.

“Lord.”

The elegance of his movement was striking. He pivoted his torso halfway, leading with his shoulder. As the fireball grazed the surface of his glowing plate, his hand shot out in a direct strike.

*BOOM!* Invariably, the phantom’s limb was blown apart.

He redirected the crushing momentum of the strike, then hammered the structural flaw to dissipate the energy.

It was a simple concept in theory. But it represented thousands of hours of agonizing practice to perfect.

Audin’s foundation was the Balafian martial style. From that base, he had engineered his own techniques, entering a higher tier of combat. Under Enkrid’s guidance, those seeds were now blooming.

As the broken embers washed over him, he shifted with minimal effort, staying just outside the danger zone. His movements were efficient, his strength perfectly measured.

‘Less taxing than fighting the captain brothers.’

That was his internal assessment. Enkrid, when paired with Uske, was a nightmare. Audin was a monster who relished the challenge of facing that nightmare every single day.

Ragna remained largely observant, but when his blade finally flashed—

It severed whatever it touched. Whether it was a physical aberration or a magical bolt, his sword ignored the distinction.

With every swing, he seemed to gain a new insight. Ragna possessed that rare, innate brilliance.

Enkrid watched this unfold and came to a realization:

‘This is a team-based application of Wavebreaker.’

He had decoded the enemy’s rhythm and established the counter-strategy. He provided the necessary cues to Rem and the rest, and they executed them flawlessly.

There was no struggle. They maintained their pace, traded blows, and even allowed themselves a moment of calm.

The Salamander, sensing a primal threat, began to reclaim the energy from its dispersed minions.

This internal pull forced it to abandon its march toward the Border Guard.

Within the churning fire-clouds, a sharp crack of thunder echoed. Suddenly, fire erupted in jagged, electrical arcs.

Enkrid accelerated his perception to meet the threat. He raised Dawn Tempering to parry the strike. Simultaneously, a white longsword entered his field of vision.

The bolts of fire—lightning born of flame—collided with Dawn Tempering and the ivory blade, detonating into a harmless shower of sparks.

*KRA-KOOM!* The blast produced a violent pressure wave. A howling wind tore through the clearing, strong enough to sweep an ordinary person away.

Enkrid remained rooted, as did the dragonkin.

“You could have handled that alone.”

“I intended to.”

The dragonkin, by instinct, sensed the warrior’s resolve.

“I see the truth in that.”

Their gazes met for a brief second before they returned to the fray.

The dragonkin’s goal was to prevent the Salamander from hurting the group, while also preventing the group from slaying the beast.

It was a preposterous ambition. Even for someone of his stature, neutralizing a Salamander without casualties on either side was a near-impossible feat.

Temares would have sacrificed his own life-force to achieve it if necessary. But now, that sacrifice was unnecessary.

The Salamander’s tongue whipped between them. Enkrid stepped a single pace to his right, Dawn Tempering knocking aside the falling embers.

The dragonkin moved gracefully through the rain of fire, dancing past the thermal beams.

‘Pointless.’

The Salamander’s efforts were failing.

In the hands of Enkrid and his Mad Order of Knights, there was no room for doubt. Whatever the Salamander threw at them, they either sidestepped or neutralized.

The fire-rain continued to fall, but it lacked the overwhelming density required to break them.

They were knights—warriors who had surpassed the limitations of mortality.

They observed and reacted; those who lacked the speed to dodge simply blocked.

Esther, for instance, maintained a protective veil of magic around herself.

It was sufficient.

Wave after wave of attacks was halted. Nothing the Salamander possessed could penetrate their defense.

At the same time, they systematically dismantled the creature’s constructs and held their ground. Managing their breath was second nature.

Ragna and the others were experts at energy management, a skill forged in the crucible of fighting Enkrid.

Uske was a reservoir that never ran dry.

Training day and night against a man possessed by such an indomitable Will taught one how to conserve strength for the long haul.

Enkrid swung Dawn Tempering several more times before shifting his focus to observation. He wasn’t being lazy—he was hunting for a opening.

As he continued to analyze the patterns, the phantom’s true silhouette became clearer: a beast on four legs.

‘If I strike there, it will fall.’

Since surviving Abnaier’s trap, his tactical mind had reached a new level of clarity. He saw the sequence that led to triumph.

‘If Rem grounds it, and Ragna delivers the cut—’

It wasn’t a simple task, but if he coordinated the effort, it would be enough. They could neutralize this spirit of fire, whether it was beast or demon.

He placed his faith in Dawn Tempering. It was an Engraved Weapon. A sword sharpened by Will could pierce any defense.

It wasn’t a belief in magic, but a belief in the strength of his own conviction.

The dragonkin was taking all of this in, clearly moved by what he saw.

With his heightened perception, he caught a glimpse of Enkrid’s internal resolve.

Not just his surface emotions, but the depth of the man. It was a talent he had nearly forgotten—the ability to read the underlying Will of another.

The dragonkin was a master of such insights because his refined senses allowed him to perceive the spirit. That gift was returning to him.

“My charge is to protect the phantom beast and ensure it does not commit a massacre it never truly wanted.”

He reiterated his position. If forced, he would back those words with action.

“I understand,” Enkrid replied.

What followed then?

Enkrid was prepared to hold this line for days if necessary. Was that all that was required?

So, each member of the group fulfilled their role, holding the line. Shinar, while avoiding the fire-rain, had not yet engaged. More accurately, the flow of battle had not yet demanded her intervention.

But the fairy could feel the frantic drumming of her own heart.