Some are stronger in real combat than in training.
What is the reason for that?
Why do they show greater strength in actual combat?
It could be because of heightened senses, or maybe it's a difference in talent.
Or it could be that they only show concentration in moments of crisis.
In truth, Encrid possessed none of these talents. He lacked all of it.
His senses were average, so he was clumsy at countering irregular attacks.
He didn't have any brilliant, spontaneous creativity either.
Concentration that only activates in a crisis?
If he had that, he wouldn't have come close to death so many times.
He didn't have anything like that.
But what Encrid did have was experience.
There were countless hours of training, drills, and practice.
What happens if you twist this way?
What if you parry that way?
If you deflect and immediately counter?
After much thought, he would try to embody it through his body and repeat it.
This was after mastering techniques that suited the branches of each swordsmanship style.
He did this without stopping, without getting bored, and without any particular direction.
A method so brute that calling it ignorant wouldn't be enough.
There was also a process of applying what he gained through that method here and there in real combat.
Because he lacked talent, he had to repeat things countless times.
And in the midst of that repetition, he realized small differences in movement.
Where others might find ten swings enough, he had to swing a hundred times. If a hundred wasn't enough, he swung a thousand times.
What happens after that?
You start focusing on the essence of the technique rather than its efficiency.
You have no choice, because you can't move on without understanding it.
Why is it necessary to clash blades during a parrying technique?
Why do you turn your body after clashing blades?
Why make sure the middle of the blade touches the inside of your elbow?
Turning your body halfway allows you to seize the opportunity to press down on your opponent's hand.
If the middle of the blade touches the inside of your elbow, you can grab the point where pressure is applied with your arm strength, momentarily rendering your opponent powerless.
But do you really have to turn your body?
If advancing is necessary, couldn't it be solved with footwork instead?
And do you really have to grip with your hands?
What about countering after parrying?
It's about the essence.
The reason behind the movement. He practiced and repeated that over and over.
Even while facing death.
And even when he wasn't at risk of dying.
That's why Encrid was stronger in real combat than in training.
His relentless willingness to challenge himself made the difference in actual combat.
His blue eyes gleamed with light.
The Apostle was a master of necromancy.
When it came to necromancy, even Esther would have to concede some points to him.
"Phasing won't work."
In a phased state, he couldn't properly use his spell world. He could cast a veil and use prepared spell.
He had an artificial holy relic, created with a treasure obtained from the Demon Realm and imbued with magic power from sacrifices he had gained in the west.
That was what he intended to use.
He pushed aside fear. If he succumbed to it, he wouldn't be able to properly cast his spells.
Calculations began forming in his mind, but everything went wrong from the start.
The Apostle couldn't even see Encrid's sword swings.
Clang! Crash! Clang!
In the time it took to take one breath, the veil he had cast was shattered and broken apart.
'Will it hold? It will.'
Just before the veil was destroyed, the Apostle chanted another spell.
"Eight brothers of Gulak!"
He opened his spell world.
Eight ghouls emerged.
From the ground, from the air at waist height, from the space above his head. Black, lump-like holes appeared, and from them, monsters burst forth.
To be precise, they were artificial ghouls created by sorcery.
One had long arms, another had long legs, one had a long tongue, another was imbued with poison, and so on.
Each of the eight monsters had distinct characteristics.
It was bad luck for the Apostle.
Encrid had previously encountered Knight-class ghouls in the gray forest Demon Realm, the enemy of the city of Oara.
The experience he gained from that encounter remained vivid.
The owner of the blue eyes swung his sword eight times.
He stepped to the side with his left foot, slashing diagonally. He pulled back his right foot and swung horizontally.
Then he pulled his sword back again, striking down from above.
In between, he blocked the claws of a ghoul, treating them as though they were blades, and smoothly pushed the arm aside before stabbing.
Just because the motion was smooth didn't mean the weapon turned into a cotton ball. It still had enough killing power.
It was a technique called the Snake Sword, known for its fluid motions.
Next, he coiled his blade and swung horizontally, severing a ghoul's neck.
Then he twisted the sword to stab through the chest, and brought it up in a rising slash, splitting the head of the remaining ghoul vertically.
With a horizontal slash, he cut the seventh ghoul, the one with three eyes, right across the head, leaving it with a makeshift lid. He switched his sword to his left hand and stabbed with one hand.
Naturally, the spellcaster couldn't even see these movements.
Thud, crack, thump, slice, crack, split, bang, thud.
All eight manifested ghouls either had their heads cut off, holes punched through their heads, or lids carved into their skulls.
The Apostle, clutching the artificial holy relic, widened his eyes.
He saw two long lines. One was a blue line, and the other, a silver thread that followed afterward.
The movement of that thread stretched infinitely, and time seemed to slow down.
"Block it."
He still had plenty of prepared spells.
Gulak's Suppurating Veil should do the trick.
It had the power to absorb physical impacts.
In addition, he had many protective relics to guard his body. He had even modified his skin.
Once it's blocked?
He would use the holy relic. If he used the artificial relic, all the Giants present would gain monstrous power.
They would transform into beings like the two Giants who died earlier and were called monsters by the people of the west.
Then, he would kill everyone here.
If that wasn't enough, he could explode the relic.
If he did that, no one, including himself, would survive.
He would summon a Golem made of blood from his spell world and attach the relic to it, triggering the explosion.
The blood of a thousand people was condensed into it. That much blood exploding would leave no one alive.
It was a forbidden art called Blood Explosion.
That would work. He had a plan. The calculations were finished. All he had to do was act.
But even though his thoughts continued, his tongue didn't move to chant the spell.
Instead, the silver thread was faster. Aker, transformed into a silver line, reached the Apostle's neck.
This was the result of several coincidences coming together.
Recently, Encrid had gained an epiphany.
He realized that the sword in his hand was a magic sword.
He had learned how to pressure a sorcerer from Esther.
And the Apostle hadn't expected the battle to start this way.
Normally, the Apostle enjoyed revealing his intentions and preaching his beliefs.
Because of that, he intended to speak first.
But Encrid had cut through all of that and answered with his sword.
Thud, thud, thud!
The silver line that Aker had become was blocked for just the briefest moment, right in front of the Apostle's neck.
Of course, it was just a fraction of a second. A time too short for the Apostle to perceive.
His defensive relics had activated.
One of them turned his skin slick and slippery, like that of a greasy toad.
Another created a steel-like barrier around the struck area, an inch thick.
The Apostle of the Sacred Cult of the Demon Realm had prepared for battle.
Naturally, he had many relics on him.
His body had also been grafted with the skin of a monster, making it far tougher than human skin.
But all of that meant nothing when his head was severed.
It was a perfectly controlled strike, executed with a precise stance, pivoting on the planted left foot.
A blow delivered with the essence of technique, wielded with the force of a Knight's strike.
Aker cut through all of the Apostle's defenses and preparations. The relics crumbled from the Apostle's grip, having served their purpose.
Was sharpness lacking? Then it was compensated with strength.
With perfect focus on a single point of impact, the Heart of Great Strength added power to his muscles.
Splat!
The Apostle's head flew into the air.
His head, which shot upward, eventually fell to the ground, and his body, now a corpse, collapsed on top of the hybrid Giant and Fairy.
"Father!"
One of the members of the Fortune-teller tribe emerged from the ravine. He was a young, too-young man, with tear and dagger tattoos etched onto his skin.
His cry was followed by this:
Roarrrrrrr!
Suddenly, all the Giants let out screams, like howls of anguish. They raised their heads and bellowed, and purple veins bulged across their muscles.
Crunch!
Their muscles swelled, and their eyes glowed as if torches had been lit inside them.
Their hair rippled, and their skin darkened to a deep maroon.
The appearance of the transformed Giants seemed to push aside even the surrounding sunlight and wind.
Though most of the Apostle's will had burned away and failed to manifest, one part of the will embedded in the artificial relic activated through the spell.
It was the awakening of all the Giants present.
"You bastard!"
No sooner had Encrid slain the Apostle than he sensed a threatening force closing in from behind and turned to swing Aker.
It was a light strike, but it wasn't something that could be easily dodged or blocked by just anyone.
It was enhanced by both tricky angles and added speed.
Clang!
But it was blocked.
Surprising?
Perhaps, but Encrid didn't react that way.
He simply retracted the interrupted swing and brought his sword down again at the same angle.
This time, he used the Middle Sword Technique with added weight to sever the opponent's collarbone. Instead of cutting, it was more of a thrusting motion.
The opponent's body was half-lifted.
As Encrid swung his sword, his eyes took in the opponent's attire, posture, and everything else.
A vest of short fur, trousers, armguards, facial tattoos, and that black stick angled across his back?
A blade made of obsidian.
What had blocked Aker was a dagger known as a Karam Bitt.
That dagger was incredibly hard, neither breaking nor being cut by Aker.
It had only slightly chipped the blade.
The opponent's eyes were filled with resentment and curses.
And in the end, he blocked the second strike too.
He twisted the dagger, redirecting the force of the sword.
That was truly something to be impressed by.
In terms of raw talent, he could be on par with Rem.
Right now, he might fall behind, but if left unchecked, he would quickly grow.
The man blocked Encrid's attack by simply changing the direction of the sword with his dagger, and once he landed on the ground, he rolled backward.
Encrid was about to pursue but stopped. His sixth sense had warned him.
As the man rolled backward, an obsidian spear floated in the air.
A trick? No, it was a spell.
Though he hadn't touched it, the spear hovered in the air on its own and then flew toward him.
The sense of danger made Encrid stop in place.
Though he couldn't see anything, Encrid believed there was something gripping that spear.
Perhaps it was one of the ancestors that the west talked about, or something similar.
Ting!
Blocking it was no big deal.
He assessed the speed of the flying spear and placed his blade to deflect it.
Then, with a big step forward, he swung Aker, moving it over his head in half a circle and bringing it down vertically toward the ground.
All of this happened in a single breath.
Huaang!
Yet again, Aker didn't cleave the enemy. It struck empty air.
The opponent, who had seemed ready to rush in recklessly, had suddenly leapt backward.
As he retreated, the man extended his left hand.
Jingle-jingle.
Golden bells were attached to each of his fingers on his left hand.
He raised his left hand and shook it as he spoke.
"I will steal your sight."
Encrid blinked. Nothing happened.
The man with the raised left hand froze in place.
Grit.
He ground his teeth and shouted again.
"Walk three steps and fall!"
The first was a curse of blindness, and the second was a curse of lameness.
Naturally, neither had any effect.
Encrid didn't feel any sense of foreboding.
All that came to his mind was the idle thought that maybe somewhere, a ferryman was hiccuping with a loud burp.
"Tastes good!"
Or perhaps the ferryman was shouting that right now.
"You...you swallowed the curse."
A youthful voice sounded.
The man glared at Encrid with murderous intent, then turned tail and fled. As he stomped the ground a few times, his body blurred and faded into the distance.
As he fled, Encrid threw a dagger.
Whizz!
The dagger flew straight and embedded itself in the fleeing sorcerer's back.
Though his body staggered for a moment, the sorcerer kept running and eventually disappeared from sight.
Though he could chase him down if he wanted, there was a more pressing issue.
The Giants and the black-armored warrior were still fighting behind him.
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