Twin swords struck with syncopated rhythm. Enkrid blocked every attack with Dawnforge.
It wasn't about gaining the upper hand in speed—rather, it was about moving his feet to make the opponent's sword trajectory longer.
Ting, tidididing.
Then the opponent also moved his feet, closing the distance while swinging his swords. Their trajectories overlapped and crossed, sending countless sparks flying between them.
When they reached a situation where their blades were locked like a bind, the opponent spoke.
"You're pretty good, aren't you?"
Their swords were pressed together. If they were a bit closer, he could probably smell the man's breath. Enkrid raised his knee with an impassive expression.
The opponent retreated from the trajectory aimed at his groin. His body movements, bouncing off the ground tap-tap, were as nimble as a fairy.
Or perhaps Jaxen came to mind.
Enkrid predicted the man wouldn't just retreat quietly.
And his prediction was right.
Needles shot from the sole of the foot that seemed to retreat, flying toward him, and the twin swords in both hands were thrown forward at some point.
Moreover, heat that had been worked into the blades whooshed and struck his face first.
His accelerated thinking perceived the opponent's tricks in fragments.
Dawnforge became a breakwater blocking a wave—the image was clear. It was the implementation of the Wave-Blocking Sword through thought optimization.
'I'm the one using swordsmanship.'
A sword was ultimately a tool, and swordsmanship was the proper use of that tool, so separating them was meaningless. Therefore, whether Flash or Wave-Blocking, mixing them was the right path.
Enkrid blocked all the attacks along with his brief reflection.
He created wind pressure by sweeping Dawnforge as if brushing the ground, pushing the needles away, and deflected the two flying swords by tapping them with his sword pommel.
The heat emanating from the swords whooshed and grazed his cheek. It felt like briefly touching a hot pot to his cheek and pulling away.
Ttadang— The sound rang out as he deflected the flying swords.
"Nice tricks."
The man threw his swords and charged, immediately closing the distance. He bent his fingers as if to grasp anything. It looked like he intended to tear or break whatever he caught.
Enkrid caught on to the opponent's aim this time too.
'Pretending to grab, then stabbing.'
With what? With a hidden blade—that's what he'd do.
It looked like a technique superior to Hide Knife. The man actually had several short-bladed daggers hidden in his sleeves.
Enkrid swung Dawnforge down as if to press the opponent down. A heavy downward cut. It was a slash that constricted the opponent with pressure mixed with intimidation.
The man ignored it and moved his hands. There was no way his body would freeze from this level of pressure. When you enjoyed close combat, you naturally faced situations like this often.
'Therefore, this is my victory again.'
There was no need to show even better tricks than before.
The man was confident and kept extending both hands. The blade hidden in his sleeve came out grazing his skin in response to muscle movement. If he grabbed this and stabbed, it would be over. But that time felt remarkably long. When one was excessively focused, a fleeting moment could feel elongated.
It was a mystery achieved through thought acceleration.
'Even for that, it's a bit long.'
Was it because he'd rested recently and his body condition was too good?
In the stretched time, the man saw Enkrid's eyes.
Two blue eyes without the slightest waver gazed directly at him. Not shock, not even surprise.
Between those calm eyes, he could only glimpse a hint of interest.
'What is he relying on?'
Around that point, the man realized what the opponent was relying on. The hand that had been gripping the sword adding pressure had already grasped another sword and thrust upward.
That blade's speed was twice as fast as before. Because he was advancing, it couldn't be avoided.
'No, I've already been hit.'
The reason time felt more stretched than usual wasn't because of excessive concentration but because his ability to perceive his surroundings was breaking down.
In other words, it was just an abnormal phenomenon felt as his head was being split.
"Kkeok."
Even in that moment, he barely managed to turn his head to the side, so Penna's blade that Enkrid thrust split the side of the man's head. Starting from the mouth, it cut off slightly less than half his face.
After an exchange of attack and defense, deception and calculation. The man whose head was half-severed staggered back and plopped down on the ground. Enkrid only stared at him blankly.
Would this bastard also grow something from his body?
He didn't. The man simply opened his mouth. With his severed lips dangling, he spoke.
"Indeed, worthy of acknowledgment."
Not words to say while dying. It wasn't that he couldn't accept his death, nor was it an attitude denying defeat.
That was somehow quite peculiar.
The man collapsed with those words and began scattering while emitting black smoke.
"Doesn't seem like a dream."
Enkrid muttered to himself while feeling the voice resonating through his body and looked around. Not words formed mentally but words resonating through vocal cords and flesh.
His knight-trained senses awakened him to the fact that this was reality.
A path appeared before his eyes. A path stretching forward. Left and right were blocked by walls, and above, a dingy ceiling had appeared at some point.
It was as if he'd entered a cave.
Torches were stuck at regular intervals on the left and right walls, illuminating the surroundings.
What was the acknowledgment the opponent uttered while falling?
And what was this situation?
All he knew was that he had to move forward.
Just standing still didn't seem like it would accomplish anything.
'Feels like I've entered a maze.'
It was a feeling that something had completely scrambled his sense of direction.
It made him think anew whether Ragna always lived like this.
In any case, Enkrid moved forward. Before long, he encountered another person.
"Did you struggle so desperately because you want to die?"
He wondered if this could even be called a person.
A knight holding his own head atop a phantom horse greeted Enkrid.
It was a Dullahan, a high-level demon beast hard to see even within a Demonic Realm—a headless horseman.
The face of the one atop the phantom horse wasn't mangled like a demon beast. It just wasn't placed atop his body—it was an aged face with white whiskers grown to about a finger's length.
That head was tucked under his arm.
Blue veins stood out above the short neck and the face flushed red, looking quite ferocious. The body united with the phantom horse also looked large and solid.
"This Donapa will end your struggling... Kiyaak!"
Instead of opening his mouth, Enkrid swung his sword. Putting strength in his left foot, he kicked off the ground and closed the distance with the opponent. His body, surging forward while crouched, broke through a wall of air as it advanced, and simultaneously his thinking stretched as Dawnforge in his hand meshed together with a click.
Following that, he awakened his senses and brought it down vertically as is. The opponent couldn't avoid it. No, he didn't avoid it. It was insight seen in the realm of sixth sense beyond the five senses.
It was a clean slash without waste. A trajectory honest enough that anyone seeing it could use it as a textbook.
Moreover, it was incredibly fast and filled with power accumulated by twisting his entire body.
It was a strike created by weaving Flash and Vortex together.
The Dullahan tried to swing a large axe to counter but failed. When he moved both arms, the head tucked under his arm fell to the ground and rolled.
Thud, degureu-
"This bastard, this bastard."
The rolling head kept chattering with only its mouth alive.
The exchange ended in an instant. Enkrid reviewed the recent fight once more from his downward-slashing stance.
The opponent had revealed his fighting method through his tone and attitude, the weapon he carried, and his stance.
'An enemy who enjoys heavy attacks, favoring powerful strikes.'
How would such an enemy react when seeing an honest trajectory slash?
Enkrid predicted the opponent's actions and split the opponent's body vertically with a powerful strike beyond that prediction.
Then he also reviewed what to fix about his own slash.
'I used too much force, making it a bit awkward to continue the next motion.'
It was because this was his first time. Enkrid knew he didn't have the same talent as Ragna.
Still, having come this far, if he practiced a few more times it would work out. Things somehow worked out if he kept at it. Now it was okay even if the path wasn't clearly visible.
The path he'd walked, the experience he'd accumulated, gave him confidence.
"How dare you do this to this Donapa!"
The name Donapa was quite old-fashioned. With that thought, Enkrid raised his sword and cleaved the head.
Though it was his first time seeing a Dullahan, when he split that head, both head and body scattered like black mist simultaneously.
That made two. Between pulling out the sword embedded down to the ground with a tug.
"Impressive."
He also met the third opponent after advancing a bit more down the corridor. This time that path was a bit shorter. Conversely, the opponent had come out to meet him, but Enkrid couldn't know that nor wanted to.
Also, it was because Donapa had died that they could come out to meet him, but that too was unknowable.
"You beat Donapa? Must have been a bad matchup."
It was a woman who only spoke her own words regardless of what Enkrid said. Her waist was abnormally long, making her body bring snakes to mind.
Her height itself was as tall as Audin, but there wasn't a feeling that her body was large. Rather, it brought to mind a flexible pole. Her arms were as long as her waist, making for quite a unique body type, and lean muscle was packed densely throughout her body.
And stranger than her body type was her outfit.
Instead of armor, she wore skin-tight cloth clothing, and the way she wore those clothes was like a foolish older sister who'd stolen her young sibling's clothes.
The clothes didn't fit her body, too tight everywhere.
He couldn't help but say something about this.
"Where'd you steal those clothes?"
It wasn't intended as provocation, but the woman's face filled with murderous intent.
"I'll chew that tongue of yours to bits, so try mocking me again then."
She charged with an archaic manner of speech. She wasn't an ordinary swordsman.
It was a charge with her chest lowered to nearly skim the ground. That speed was as fast as an arrow.
Tung— A sound followed after, and kwaaaaaa— noise trailed where she'd passed.
The approaching woman twisted her waist from a posture with her chest nearly touching the ground. Her waist, resembling a snake or bending pole, showed impossible flexibility.
It was an irregular attack piled on irregularity. What she held was a Falchion, a wide single-edged blade with a curved tip.
It was a slash drawing an irregular trajectory from bottom to top.
Her arm as long as her waist, packed densely with flexible lean muscle, swayed as flexibly as Luagarne's whip and whirled fiercely.
Tang!
The woman's slash was blocked by a sky-blue blade raised horizontally to the ground.
Crimson sparks flew between them.
The woman's irregular attacks were extremely difficult to block twice, three times consecutively even if blocked once.
Knowing this herself, she specialized in continuous strikes rather than deciding victory with one blow.
When her weapon that struck the opponent's blade bounced out, she used that recoil to add speed. Feeling the load on her arm muscles, she drew out Will and concentrated it in both arms.
She did so, and the Falchion became faster as its irregularity increased.
Attacks continuing with abnormally long breaths would fluster an opponent devoted to defense.
As a result, their hands would soon get tangled.
Her long arm curved and, following the exact principle of a whip, the blade tip accelerated and drove down above Enkrid's head.
Pyeong, pyeong, pyeong!
Each time an attack continued, the sound of her arm and sword ripping through the air spread.
Before long, only roaring filled the cave.
Pyeong— jjaeng! Tang! Kwang!
The sky-blue sword blocked all her continuous strikes. Sometimes deflecting, sometimes flowing aside, but never flustered.
The woman attacked again and again without even breathing. She drove on until she could endure no more.
What she gained from that was only slightly grazing the opponent's cheek.
Pik— Red blood, which she didn't have, beaded on the cheek grazed by the blade.
Thanks to the high-speed movement, the beaded blood soon scattered into the air.
She needed to catch her breath and needed to collect her Will. The woman retracted her mercilessly swung sword and leaped back.
Pararak.
Due to the vigorous movement, the opponent's cape, shrunk small, fluttered in the wind.
In the woman's eyes, Enkrid appeared raising his sky-blue sword horizontally to the ground up to his mouth.
His blue eyes seemed to push away the yellowish torchlight filling the cave. Seeing that, the woman's spine tingled. It was because of the ominousness instinct conveyed.
Thanks to the blade covering his mouth, only his eyes were visible, yet his voice was heard from that position.
"My turn."
What?
The woman hastily twisted her waist and raised her sword. It was to block the slash swung by the bastard who'd approached at some point.
The moment his words finished, he charged and swung—his sword was blocked by the Falchion and now positions were reversed.
She had to defend and the opponent attacked.
"Eeet!"
Unlike Enkrid, she couldn't endure more than a few times. It was because she originally only possessed tactics devoted to attack.
She was vulnerable to defense. Of course, this was only visible to someone at Enkrid's level though.
"You."
With her neck half-severed, the woman sprawled on the ground, spilling black mist from within.
Her gaze was directed at the bastard who'd cut her. That bastard stopped slashing and waved his hand swish-swish several times in the air.
She'd realized before seeing it, but seeing it now made it certain.
"You!"
She shouted in anger.
Enkrid looked at her with an indifferent, calm gaze and spoke.
"You were a good opponent."
The woman shouted with fury.
"Did you use me as a training scarecrow?"
Her outburst caused the neck wound to open further, spewing more mist, and the woman became unable to speak anymore.
She scattered and disappeared as mist.
Enkrid stepped forward again while looking at her.
Her words were correct.
The first opponent used personal tactics utilizing Hide Knife, so he'd faced him based on Enkrid-style orthodox swordsmanship.
The second opponent enjoyed powerful strikes, so he'd decided victory with one blow.
The woman now fallen before his eyes specialized in subduing opponents with unilateral irregular attacks and continuous strikes.
Enkrid identified the opponent's specialty and used it as a training opportunity.
"Not quite a scarecrow though."
The muttering Enkrid felt it was somewhat fun.
Every appearing opponent had exceptional swordsmanship levels and all different specialties, making training enjoyable.
After always facing off against Rem, Ragna, Audin and others, encountering opponents like these was refreshing too.
Walking a few steps that way, he met the next opponent.
Tadak-tadak.
It was a woman who'd lit a campfire inside the cave. She leaned a longsword in its scabbard diagonally against her body and hummed while warming herself by the fire with a peaceful face.
Heung-heung.
The moment Enkrid saw her face, he stopped walking. The distance wasn't far. If he tried, he could swing his sword right now. But he didn't.
"Ah, you came?"
Sensing his presence, she welcomed Enkrid. As if meeting a friend after a long time.
In reality, Enkrid felt something similar and simultaneously seemed to understand whose doing the current events were.
Enkrid's mouth opened.
"Knight Oara."
Knight Oara acted according to the name of the sword she possessed. She smiled. That smile, in Enkrid's eyes, was purely clear without pretense.
It was the same kind of smile as when they'd finished their last fight in the city of Oara.