Chapter 879

Chapter 879

The two representatives of the Ruby Order of Knights, Matia and Achilleunon, shifted into their combat intervals, swapped a quick look, and refined their balance.
Their coordination happened in less than the span of a heartbeat. Such was the speed of their reflexes. The presence of the legendary winged steed did not cause them to falter.
Though no verbal commands were voiced between the pair, a silent understanding dictated their movements.
Achilleunon fell into a deep, stoic contemplation.
‘He didn’t evade my projectile—he utilized it to accelerate his descent?’
This was no amateur strategist.
‘Could it be some unique supernatural gift?’
It didn’t bear the hallmarks of one.
Achilleunon lowered his heavy pike at a slow, deliberate angle. He moved with such agonizing gradualness that the foe had ample opportunity to observe and strike; even Aisia and Marcus, watching from the rear, could discern the sluggishness of the motion.
It was a lure. Naturally, the adversary did not bite.
‘He intends to maintain a guarded perimeter.’
Achilleunon would have made the same choice.
The warrior who had plummeted from the firmament didn’t even manifest his aura, choosing instead to merely shift his weight. He possessed the stillness of a quiet pond—a pond that was infuriatingly serene, save for a faint, mocking curve of the lips.
The man stood centered, with Achilleunon and Matia flanking his left and right.
Matia reflected on the moment her heavy blade had just clashed with him.
‘Did I pull my strike?’
Hardly.
She had used a gentle hand when dealing with the charming half-knight with the citrus-colored hair, but she had shown no such mercy just now. By all rights, even a seasoned knight should have been sent tumbling across the dirt.
Even if his bones remained intact, the sheer kinetic force should have disrupted his center of gravity and forced a desperate recovery. Had that occurred, she would have simply executed a finishing blow.
Yet, the reality defied her expectations. Her foresight had failed her. The immediate future she had envisioned through her knightly intuition had been rewritten.
Was it due to that small orange-haired youth providing support from behind?
‘Can a mere insect provide enough leverage to move a stuck carriage?’
Perhaps if that insect were a titan of its kind. Otherwise, it was impossible.
‘And if it were a titan, it wouldn’t have the dexterity to push a wagon in the first place.’
The logic led to one result. Despite her putting her full weight into a blow meant to send him flying, this man had absorbed and neutralized the energy vibrating through her greatsword.
The orange-haired boy had merely been a secondary stabilizer. Even without him, this opponent might have rolled at most, but he wouldn’t have been incapacitated.
“You’re a remarkably frustrating prick. Tell me, are you deaf? Or did you actually arrive on a Pegasus?”
Matia threw the question out. The enemy combatant replied with a steady voice.
“The travel was exceptional. I actually managed to nap during the trip.”
If one could gain a psychological edge by provoking an opponent before the steel met, there was no reason to abstain. Such mental warfare was an integral part of a knight’s curriculum.
That was the doctrine Matia and the other warriors of the south had been raised on. And yet, she felt as though her barbs were hitting a stone wall.
‘He maintains his focus even in this pincer?’
While allowing two high-tier knights to dictate the engagement distance? And on top of that, claiming he slept?
The absurd part was that he spoke with such conviction that it felt as though he had infused the statement with his very Will. Was he projecting a lie with such absolute sincerity? To what end? Or was it possible he truly slumbered on the spine of a celestial horse?
Sleeping while mounted on a galloping beast was a feat in itself, but doing so on a Pegasus without a saddle was madness.
“Look at this silver-tongued fool,” Matia muttered, realizing how skillfully the man handled his words. Achilleunon was a bit slower to process the banter.
“Are you here by yourself?”
It was a blunt inquiry: did he truly intend to duel two masters simultaneously?
“Yes, I’m not quite ready to settle down and marry just yet.”
“……What in the world is this lunatic rambling about?”
Achilleunon looked genuinely baffled. Was that confusion part of his own strategy? In Matia’s estimation, it was half-theatrical. That was Achilleunon’s style. Part of it was his sincere reaction—he really was caught off guard.
He was a man who, knowing he lacked the verbal wit to match his prowess with a spear, turned that deficiency into a tool, feigning outrage to mask his true intentions.
When he felt genuine fury, he weaponized it; when he was truly surprised, he used it to bait his foe. It was his personal art of emotional manipulation.
Most knights would spot a clumsy ruse. However, Achilleunon’s method was patterned after the deceptive emotional shifts of fairies who blurred the lines of reality, making his act difficult to penetrate.
However, to Enkrid, the trick was glaringly obvious.
He lived alongside a creature who, countless times a day, warped the truth under the guise of “jests” and launched psychological salvos.
“Good morning, my betrothed, it is a perfect afternoon for a ceremony. It is also a day where my passing looms closer.”
That sort of greeting was his daily bread. On the surface, both statements were factual, but upon inspection, the inevitability of death applied to every living soul.
Few knew the hour of their end, but for any sentient being, the end was a certainty. Immortality was a myth.
Even the Dragonkin would eventually fade. Those were the words of Temares himself.
He had gone as far as informing Enkrid that the conclusion of a Dragonkin’s life was almost always a choice—a suicide of sorts. And it wasn’t a tragedy.
To them, death was merely a cessation of thought, a period of rest. To pull the fish of grief from the waters of mortality was a luxury reserved for those with fleeting lifespans.
That was why fairies and Frokk often detached sorrow from the concept of passing. Dragonkin went a step further, finding the idea of mourning a death completely nonsensical.
Enkrid disregarded the spearman’s psychological feint and countered,
“You’re also alone, aren’t you?”
By no objective measure could Achilleunon be called “attractive.” He had squinting eyes and a flat bridge to his nose. His protruding lips reminded one of the bottom-feeding fish found in muddy shallows.
Being a knight meant his physique was sturdy and well-proportioned, but his facial features undermined his presence. Aesthetics had no bearing on lethality. Beauty was not a requirement of the knightly path. He knew this, yet the comment stung.
If one considered looks a form of natural talent, this was a mockery coming from someone who sat at the pinnacle of the continent’s elite. That made the insult bite deeper.
“I’ll rip that tongue out of your head.”
Achilleunon chose to ignore Enkrid’s retort in turn.
“Proceed as you wish,” Matia added.
With the two knights closing in from both flanks, Enkrid quietly regulated his pulse. The smirk he had worn moments ago evaporated.
Regardless of the banter, there was no room for levity when blades and spears were drawn in earnest. A single mistake meant a grave. Skill didn’t matter if you bled out; if your carotid was severed, you died; if your vitals were punctured, you died.
Aisia retreated, recognizing she could not survive in the center of that storm. In such a high-stakes duel, collapsing from blood loss would be a fatal distraction.
She ripped the fabric from her under-armor and fashioned a makeshift tourniquet, binding her arm to stem the flow. The gash was too deep to close by mere muscle contraction and willpower.
Marcus watched from a safe distance, Aisia from a closer vantage point, and beyond them, soldiers from both sides looked on.
The corridor the two knights had carved through the debris was on the brink of structural failure, preventing reinforcements from pouring through.
Instead, the Rihinstetten field commander showed some tactical ingenuity. They used shields to transport the earth the knights had excavated, using the soil to smother the encroaching wall of fire.
They couldn’t deploy the full battalion, but a scouting party managed to emerge to assess the exterior.
The field commander, protected by the Horseshoe Infantry, surveyed the clearing. Had his two champions decimated the opposition?
That expectation was quickly dashed. A knight had literally fallen from the heavens, after all.
If he ever wrote his memoirs, would it sound better to claim an enemy knight descended from the clouds? Or was it a detail better left in the inkwell?
Two knights on their flank, one on the enemy’s.
The numerical advantage was stark. Furthermore, these two Ruby Knights were renowned for their unique gifts.
Matia and Achilleunon were names whispered with respect even within their massive empire.
A stagnant chill took hold. The thunderous sound of the recent explosion felt like a distant memory from a month ago. Their perception of time had fractured. Too many pivotal moments had been compressed into a few minutes.
Fwoosh.
The only sound was the roar of the fire consuming the oxygen, crackling like a natural enemy.
Matia was the first to strike. Her title was Superhuman Strength; she lived and breathed by her physical power. Her greatsword, which had been resting in the dirt, swung in a devastating horizontal arc.
Simultaneously, Achilleunon’s long pike lunged toward the right side of Enkrid’s head.
Their mastery of spacing was flawless. They stepped perfectly into their optimal striking ranges, halted, and unleashed their respective styles. One with a massive blade, one with a reaching spear.
Enkrid remained anchored and gripped Dawn with both hands. This was not the time for a dual-wielding defense. It would have been ideal to fight two knights with two swords, but the mechanics were too complex. He was at his most lethal with a single focus.
When outnumbered by knights, the solitary fighter is statistically destined for defeat. That was the consensus of any observer.
In this arena, however, only one man radiated certainty.
Clang!
Enkrid pivoted like a coiled spring and intercepted the greatsword with Dawn. Matia felt her momentum momentarily stalled by a counter-force.
There was no time for analysis. She had to overpower him through the contact of their blades. Matia followed her warrior’s intuition and exerted downward pressure to crush him.
Achilleunon adjusted his aim the moment the target shifted. He lengthened his stance, coiled his arm, and snapped it forward.
‘The outcome is settled in a heartbeat.’
Matia and Achilleunon shared the same instinct.
“If the opponent is an unknown variable, create distance.”
“Never commit to a deciding blow without gauging the enemy first.”
“Utilize the environment and the passage of time as your subordinates.”
In this moment, the maxims of their mentors were useless. There was no window to implement such wisdom.
The enemy, caught in a pincer, hadn’t yielded an inch, nor had he adopted a purely defensive posture.
He had daringly exposed his back to one side to meet the other’s assault. It was possible his feet had begun to move even before Matia’s blade had begun its swing. His reaction speed was terrifying. It was suicidal.
Because of this, the conventional tactics expected before a clash had disintegrated.
While these two had been drilling formal maneuvers and mock skirmishes within their order, Enkrid had been scraping by through raw survival, and later, had been tutored in personal combat by a Frokk who was arguably the most gifted martial genius of the era.
Enkrid simply made a cold, logical choice and executed it.
Who did time favor? It remained to be seen. If a prolonged fight benefited the enemy, he simply wouldn’t allow the fight to be prolonged.
“It’s a basic concept. Direct actions are superior. A man who contemplates strategy while swinging his steel is a fool.”
That was a quote from Lua Gharne.
When it came to the capacity for split-second decisions and controlling the flow of a melee, few in the Mad Order of Knights could rival Enkrid.
The two knights facing him searched for the optimal path within their heightened perception.
‘If I don’t know you, then you are equally ignorant of me.’
Matia understood that logic. Achilleunon was of the same mind. Both committed their full reserves.
‘Giant’s Strength.’
Matia activated the extraordinary gift that allowed her to best a giant in a test of power. In that same breath, Achilleunon unleashed his invisible hand.
In the southern regions, many were born with supernatural traits. Here, two knights gifted with Superhuman Strength and telekinesis stood united.
‘Your luck has run out.’
Achilleunon’s head throbbed with heat, and a nosebleed began to flow. As he lunged with his pike, he used his telekinetic grip to seize Enkrid’s ankle.
His vision blurred and his chest tightened. These were the physical tolls of overextending a supernatural gift. Matia felt the same; the veins in her arms looked ready to snap.
The opponent lifted his foot to break the invisible tether, parried the greatsword empowered by Giant’s Strength, and then slid his blade down hers, targeting her wrist.
In that fraction of a second, Matia shifted her grip to her left hand alone and used the flat of the heavy blade to shove him away.
Enkrid remained aggressive. He made no attempt to retreat or reset.
Bang!
He used his left forearm to absorb the impact of the greatsword, redirecting the energy. It was a Balaph-style defensive maneuver from his martial repertoire. Simultaneously, the sword in his right hand lashed out like a viper, aiming for Matia’s throat.
For one accustomed to the dual-wielding style, such a maneuver was second nature. It was a matter of desynchronizing the strikes of the two hands.
More accurately, he had desynchronized his body’s defense from his right hand’s offense.
Enkrid had launched his thrust before the block was fully completed, a timing Matia had not foreseen. It all boiled down to one undeniable reality.
A disparity in sheer prowess.
One side was swifter, possessed more visceral combat experience, and was not physically inferior in power.
Gurgle.
As blood bubbled from Matia’s lips, Achilleunon’s spear bit into Enkrid’s side. Even then, it wasn’t a lethal puncture.
“That stings.”
For a man who had just run a blade through a knight’s throat, his commentary was jarringly mundane, despite the gravity of the situation.
“You… monster.”
Achilleunon couldn’t mask his shock. His eyes bulged. When faced with the unexpected, humans either choke or gasp.
Trained knights usually gasp, seeking to flood their lungs with oxygen for a final, violent burst of energy.
They saturated their systems with air to fuel the coming exertion.
Gurgle.
The wound in Matia’s neck stopped its frantic bubbling as she used her muscles to clamp the artery, raising her massive sword once more. While a neck wound was a death sentence, a master knight could sometimes defy the end through sheer tenacity. Her spirit refused to break.
“That… khrrk, power?”
Speech was a struggle. Even if she persisted, it wouldn’t be for long.
“I earned it by sparring with a bear-beastman every waking hour.”
From the moment their steel touched, he had identified her gift as physical strength. The answer was simple, even if the context was missing.
“Again.”
Matia managed to speak as she pressed an emergency recovery scroll against her throat. Blood seeped out from under the parchment.
Would she survive? Achilleunon doubted it. It wasn’t a superficial prick; the sword had passed clean through.
The puncture was roughly the width of three fingers.
“We’re out of time.”
The momentum had shifted. Now, if the clock ran, Enkrid held the advantage.
But he didn’t wait for them to wither away.
“You bastard!”
When Achilleunon and Matia charged again, he met them at the center. He didn’t yield. He didn’t curl into a defensive shell.
He did this despite possessing a secret technique designed specifically to extinguish such desperate flames.
His foes were people betting a lifetime of elite training and innate genius on a single moment.
‘It would be an insult not to face them directly.’
Such was the philosophy of the madman.
In their first exchange, Matia had felt as though fate itself had played a cruel joke.
She attempted once more to force a decisive clash, but this time, two of Achilleunon’s fingers were severed in the fray.
He had tried to use his telekinesis to pull the man’s cloak over his eyes and failed. That failure cost him. The blood beneath Matia’s neck-scroll began to pour. If the previous flow was a stream, this was a flood. No matter how legendary a knight might be, one cannot fight while standing on the threshold of the afterlife.
Enkrid made the reality clear to both of them. Even at their absolute limit, they were outmatched. The gap in their abilities was a chasm.
“Do you dodge by sight?”
Achilleunon managed one final question. His left arm was a useless weight severed at the joint, and he had lost an eye. His plate was shredded, and beneath it, his organs were beginning to spill out.
Enkrid considered his response. It was a difficult question to answer simply.
He had hounded a man named Jaxon to sharpen his senses, and his supposed fiancé—an ancient fairy with a penchant for lethal humor—had rained invisible strikes of pure energy on him daily.
Consequently, he had become conditioned to parrying what could not be seen. Detecting hidden energy had become a reflex, and Jaxon’s training had taught him to mask even the intent to kill.
The spearman’s telekinesis followed a similar logic.
Judging by how he used it—tripping ankles or tugging fabric—it was clear he was trying to hide his lethal intent within mundane movements. But would the man survive long enough for Enkrid to explain the nuances? No.
So, he answered in the tradition of the Mad Order of Knights.
“I just move.”
That was the standard reply within the order, and Enkrid adopted it.
“You… arrogant… son of a…”
Achilleunon choked on a curse and collapsed. His head struck the earth with a dull thud. Enkrid snapped the blood off Dawn’s edge. Despite all the talk of spiritual resonance, in the end, it was a weapon bound to him.
Just now, it had felt like an extension of his own hand. It was a gratifying sensation.
Two knights were dead. He had neutralized two master warriors on his own. It was a feat of legend.
“The pinnacle of warfare is—”
“The Mad Order?”
A field officer who recognized the crest blurted it out. The name traveled through the ranks like a contagion.
The conflict had barely ignited, and Rihinstetten had already lost six of its elite. It was a massive boon for the Naurillian cause.
The winged horse trotted to Enkrid’s side as he wiped the gore from his face with his sleeve.
At the sight, Marcus began shouting commands and rode forward at a gallop.
The Rihinstetten forces could only look on in a daze. How was this possible? They had the numerical edge in knights, yet they had been slaughtered.
When reality shatters common sense, the human mind tends to seize. Much like those who first witnessed the power of knights, those watching this singular warrior stood paralyzed, as if they had looked directly into the eyes of a Gorgon.