Chapter 322 - How Do You Block Lightning?

How do you block lightning? Today repeated. Whether the ferryman watched or not, Encrid persevered. As always, he remained unchanged. He was no different now from when he had first taken up a sword and set out to become a mercenary, or when he had swung his sword at a tree after taking a beating. No, some things had changed. His perspective had changed. What he looked at had changed. His way of thinking problems through had improved. His body had changed. The sword in his hand had changed. His dream had drawn closer. Even so, Encrid was Encrid. Day after day, he pondered. 'How do I block it?' No answer came. Of course, that was no problem. It had always been this way. Problems Encrid could answer were rare. Everything around him told him to give up. It forced him to settle for today. Ways to give up came to mind, too. Whether it was the ferryman's trickery or simply the nature of things, there had always been more than one way to get through today. 'What if I take everyone and run?' What if he dragged his injured body out of bed the moment he woke and fled like mad? There were several wagons in the Green Pearl encampment. What if he picked one and simply ran? Would the knight come all the way to Border Guard? The man only appeared in the evening. Would he pursue them if they set out that morning with every intention of fleeing? Could he? He did not know. In truth, he did not need to know. Encrid would not do that. There were plenty of easy ways to run. Even if Garrett tried to stop him, asking where he thought he was going in that condition, it would make no difference. 'I need to rest in the rear.'

Or:

'There's something I must return to do immediately.'

That was all he would have to say. Who could stop the foremost contributor to their victory, the most distinguished man on this battlefield? A quiet excitement was already spreading through the camp. As soon as Aspen withdrew, there would be a party. They would feast on meat and drink. Could he greet a tomorrow like that? ["Despair."]

The ferryman's repeated words churned through his head.

["You cannot overcome it."]

The ferryman repeated the same words. Idle thoughts. None of that changed anything. Encrid swung his sword ceaselessly in his mind, seeking a way. 'What if I retreat as I deflect it?'

How did the sword sway and bend like that? How could he bring his own blade into contact with it? Encrid considered the curse that repeated today a privilege. The pain of death remained the same even after a thousand experiences, but he endured it for the exhilaration that would follow. He faced the knight's sword again and again. His concentration burned through these repeating todays. And so, he could see more. "It's a matter of honor."

The knight had come, speaking of honor and telling him to block a single strike. For an instant, Encrid saw everything in discrete fragments. The shackles of foreboding that had gripped his body when this today first began played a part. Born of his dodging sense operating at its utmost, that sensation drove his concentration to still greater extremes. 'The blade?'

As he stepped back to deflect it, the blade accelerated. Its speed changed. Before it accelerated, Encrid saw something. It quivered. He was certain he had seen it. At the same time, he brought his sword against the knight's at an angle. It was a desperate effort that felt as though every muscle in his body were snapping. Focused solely on the blade, Encrid missed the knight's face, where a trace of surprise had replaced the boredom. Of course, it vanished almost at once. CLINK! The instant the blades met, the shortsword cut through the dwarf's gladius. 'A superior weapon gives me...'

No advantage. THUNK! His heart was pierced. Encrid died. He died, and today repeated again. This time unfolded much the same way, but he added another trick. As he blocked with the gladius, he activated Will of the Instant, willing to let the muscles of his left arm burst. It was half a gamble. Will was, ultimately, a power—a mystic art—manifested through its wielder's body. It was not something to attempt before that body had recovered. He felt strands of muscle snapping in his left arm, but at last he thrust Spark in the direction he wanted. Thanks to that, though the knight's sword quivered and bent to pierce his heart, it did not cleave it completely. He had bought a little time. Death had been briefly postponed. "Cough!"

Encrid staggered back and vomited a gush of blood. His body crumpled beneath him. He tried to brace himself against the ground with his left hand, but it had no strength, and he pitched forward. Just as he was about to fall, someone caught him. Looking down, he saw the top of a foot. Sinar was supporting him with her thigh. Encrid did not make the same mistake twice. He braced his right hand against the ground. He lacked the strength to stand. Blood kept streaming from his mouth from the damage to his heart. "What is this?" Sinar said.

At that moment, something swept down over the knight's head. Ragna. His sword tore through the tent roof. RRRIP! With the sound of tearing canvas, the sword in his hand shot forward with terrifying force. Faster than an arrow, the blade plunged from above. Hadn't Ragna spoken of lightning when Encrid asked him? There had been a reason for that. His blade became lightning. Imbuing it with the Will of Scission, he unleashed the swordsmanship of the northern House Zaun. It was Lightning Strike, from House Zaun's Heavy Sword Technique. KRA-BOOM! That sound actually rang from Ragna's blade. And the knight thrust his sword upward. What about Lightning Strike? He was not a knight for nothing. He was not a wielder of Will for nothing. A knight could accomplish things impossible with mere fragments of Will. He received Ragna's sword with his left palm as he thrust. Encrid took it all in. He kept the bowstring of his concentration taut, determined not to miss a thing. His dying body did not matter in the slightest. 'Ah.'

Even Encrid could dimly see it. For an instant, the knight's sword seemed to multiply into dozens. "Grrk."

Encrid was no longer merely vomiting blood; bloody foam gathered at his lips. Seeing that, Sinar spoke beside him.

"A Fairy who loses her mate never forgets vengeance." Wait, since when was he her mate? Just what sort of relationship did they have to warrant talk of vengeance? Still, it was reassuring. The nerve to joke at a time like this. This Fairy could do anything she set her mind to. Pierced by the sword, Ragna rolled across the ground. It was a fatal wound. His eyes darkened in death. Of course they did, with a hole through his heart. "Fuck."

Krais stepped in front of Encrid just as before. This time, Dunbachel stood with him. GRRR. Esther was no different. Ah, did none of them intend to run? This time, Ragna had actually died. Was it because he had gotten carried away and suddenly attempted a major technique? Still, thanks to that, something had changed in the knight's body. Through the gap between Krais and Dunbachel, the dying Encrid saw the knight examining his palm. Blood dripped to the ground from the tip of his shortsword. Red blood also ran from his left hand and dropped to the floor. It was the deepest scarlet. "He cut me?" the knight muttered.

No wonder. However much Will the attack had held, his opponent possessed only an incomplete fragment. He himself was a knight. Yet the man had cut his palm, cloaked in Will? How could it have been cut? "He actually cut me?"

The knight muttered again. That was how shocked he was. Fortunately or unfortunately, that was all Encrid could see before his eyes closed. The time he had bought by sacrificing his left arm had run out. "Gwaaagh."

He tried to hold it in, but in the end, Encrid collapsed with something like a scream that was decidedly unpleasant to hear. He had reached his limit. "You really do make a racket even when you're going."

Krais's voice reached the dying Encrid's ears, somehow melancholy yet chilling. He closed his eyes, died, woke, and today began again. The swaying sword. The bending sword. Above all, he vividly remembered the knight as he faced Ragna at the end. He had shifted his feet and changed his stance. He had changed the strike he used according to his opponent's skill. Of course. If the strikes had always followed the same trajectory with much the same strength, Encrid would have overcome them long ago. "Good."

"What is?"

"Good!"

"Again, what is?" Was it normal to wake first thing in the morning and start shouting like a madman about how good something was? Krais kept asking beside him, but Encrid was lost in his own world. He had never been so immersed. "Did he hit his head? It looks like he's really hurt it badly this time," Krais muttered beside him. Even Sinar had similar concerns. An already strange human had become stranger. Well, that was part of his charm. Encrid lived through several more todays, then sorted through his discoveries one by one. In the most recent today, he had also witnessed something curious. Ragna and Sinar had happened to attack together, and the knight's sword had cried out as he faced them. HMMMMM! The sword cried out through tremors and vibrations. A sword's resonance: Blade Echo. Known simply as the Echo. The blade sang, and white light streamed from the knight's eyes, bright enough to see with the naked eye. Will had become visible. HMMM—THRUM! The knight's shortsword quite literally traced streaks of white light to either side. Caught in their paths, Ragna's sword was split in half, and Sinar's Nidle was severed too. Encrid had attacked first and once again earned a brief reprieve. He could see it clearly. 'With that old shortsword?'

At this level, it was no mere martial skill. It was a mystic art, a feat worthy of a god. Both Nidle and Ragna's sword had been cut through. One was a renowned blade; the other was so thick that cutting it seemed impossible. Yet both had been severed. Not even a spark flew. 'Like cutting rotten branches.'

Was that possible through the power of Will alone? What was Will? What was willpower? Encrid pondered, but no answer came. His thoughts turned in a slightly more constructive, productive direction. Several times, as the knight killed Ragna or cut off his arm or leg, he said much the same thing.

"What a waste. You shouldn't have attacked."

He coveted Ragna's talent. Encrid recalled Ragna facing the knight. He drew out the memories etched into him by repeated todays. He recalled Sinar's resistance, Krais's death, Dunbachel's desperate struggle. And he revisited his own death again and again, picturing the knight's sword. Swordsmanship, swords, desperate struggles. Everything swirled and tangled in his mind. "That place is a mire. Those who sink into it shall never escape."

Between times, the ferryman still tried to push Encrid into some abyss, but naturally, it was useless. "Don't you have things to do?"

Sometimes Encrid would say that first. On those days, the ferryman fell silent. To Encrid, it looked very much like sulking. An absurd thought. Wasn't this a being whose very nature was beyond fathoming? And so came the fifty-sixth today. 'How do I block lightning?'

He worked backward, repeating the question and pondering it, then asked Ragna again, and Sinar. He let no today pass idly. He did everything he could. He saw the knight's sword bend as it came at him and died to it again and again. He saw it tremble, and died. Sometimes Spark was cut through, sometimes the gladius. He could not see Blade Echo again. That required chance and luck. Others might think the goddess of luck was practically stalking him, but Encrid knew perfectly well that he was not that lucky. He could not expect the same good fortune twice. Without chance, he would have to deliberately coordinate his attacks with Ragna and Sinar. 'I don't want that, either.'

His heart refused to budge. That would mean accepting the lazybones' death, or the joke-loving Fairy's, as a premise. He would be pushing them into it himself. That was utterly unacceptable. He could console himself that earning a reprieve and watching them die was something he did for tomorrow. But to push them into it himself?

'I'd rather charge with a sword between my teeth.'

That was how he felt, what his heart told him. So he swung his sword alone, agonizing and pondering. Through endless thought and deliberation, advancing even a quarter step, Encrid's thoughts returned to the beginning. How do you block lightning? ["You start by looking directly at what it is."]

Ragna's words. Now he could understand. He had to see it and recognize it before he could block it. ["Then you react to its speed."]

Sinar's words. React, then strike. Block. ["So you just have to do it 'well.'"]

Ragna's words. That one word, "well," held everything. Still.

"Whew."

A knight's sword. A knight's strike. Wasn't it truly exhilarating? "Again."

The word slipped out unbidden, along with a smile. Amid the repeating today, Encrid felt an unprecedented exhilaration rising within him. His dream had come as a reaper, but the sword it wielded seemed to have become his guidepost. And that guidepost was like light spilling into a dark tunnel. What the ferryman saw as despair, filled with nothing but darkness, was light and exhilaration to Encrid. Today began again. The seventy-second. His body was still a wreck, but as always, Encrid moved. Half-dead, he had watched Ragna strike with his sword, and had then watched Sinar struggle desperately more than ten times. The way forward? He did not know. Tomorrow? It would not come. He did not care. And so the ferryman could not understand Encrid. During those repeating todays, there were days when baseless confidence surged within him. Naturally, he died. After that, he experienced twelve more todays. A sword he felt he could block, yet could not. Such was a knight's sword. "You."

On the ninetieth today, the knight drew his sword and frowned. Then, looking at Encrid, he said:

"What a waste." The words did not make Encrid particularly happy, but it would have been a lie to say he felt no pride. Of course, at that very moment he felt nothing. He was concentrating. He always was. Whenever he faced the knight, he immersed himself and focused. The slightest lapse would see his heart cleaved with nothing gained. Even when it felt as though his mental strength was being worn away, he could not release Concentrate on a Single Point. Still, he would never forget that his dream, appearing as a reaper, had acknowledged him. The knight spoke of honor and a single strike. Encrid exhaled and prepared. He felt he could block it, yet he could not. Then something was wrong. Did he have to rise to the level of a knight here and now? No, that was impossible. Possessing a fragment of Will did not allow him to advance like that. Then how? HMMM. The instant he heard the faint Blade Echo, that resonance, the knight's sword mercilessly cleaved his heart. THUD! This was a different speed from before. Blade Echo, here? 'Ah.'

It truly was like lightning. At the same time, lightning struck inside Encrid's head. The bolt that smashed into his skull illuminated the path beyond today, toward tomorrow.