Chapter 404 - Resolve Becomes Determination and Shines

“People say becoming a knight takes overwhelming talent. But what does that actually mean?”

Lierbart planted his shield on the ground and pushed himself upright against it. His brow knotted as he endured the pain. Red blood ran down Spark’s lowered point and dripped onto the ground.

Encrid did not immediately attack. Why? His intuition seemed to tell him his opponent was not finished. Surely no one could be fine after a stab wound like that? Between that instinct and his interest in what the man had to say, he held his hand for a moment. Lierbart continued.

“Proto knights learn arts founded on Will. Are knights any different?”

How to describe it? His tone was calm, yet there was something desperate about it. Blood streamed from his abdomen. With a groan, he finally straightened his back and went on.

“They are. They certainly are. They’re faster and stronger. Sometimes they unleash a momentary burst of power that’s hard to withstand, like that downward stroke of yours earlier.”

Encrid wondered whether to rub his eyes. The blood flowing from Lierbart seemed to be growing murkier. And that was not all. The man who had been grimacing in pain now looked considerably more comfortable. It did not seem to be a lie or a trick. He genuinely seemed better. Encrid could not understand what he was doing, even as he watched it happen.

“Ah, did you know this? Malten is more skilled than I am, Benukt was stronger, and Banat’s agility was beyond what a human could readily match.”

Lierbart named his companions. Naturally, Encrid did not know all those names, so he swung his sword instead of answering. He kicked off the ground and surged forward with a diagonal cut, having sheathed Spark and gripped Silver in both hands.

CLANG!

Lierbart knocked the sword aside with strength to rival Encrid’s own. Sparks flew fiercely as the two pieces of steel met with a deafening crash.

‘What?’

The impact nearly numbed Encrid’s hands. He withdrew after that exchange and saw Lierbart swinging his sword through the air, as though retracing its last path. He held it in one hand. He had blocked Encrid’s two-handed slash with a single hand.

He repeated the motions as though getting accustomed to a newly bought sword. Diagonal cuts, vertical cuts, horizontal cuts, stabs. Basic, simple movements, but the strength behind them was nothing like before.

WHOOSH.

The sword fell perpendicular to the ground, stirring a gust that brushed Encrid’s cheek.

“This is what I mean.”

As he spoke, black mingled with the blood flowing from his side, turning it a dark crimson. The bleeding soon stopped. His beard grew out, becoming sharp as thorns, while the fine hair on his face lengthened and began to cover it.

Yet his eyes did not change color. Only the cool look they had held at their first meeting vanished. They burned with heat, with flames that looked like slaughter and lust. This was no pure passion, but an ugly emotion, twisted and warped.

“You just have to bring every ability up to knight-level,” Lierbart said.

He was not wrong. If one caught up with a knight in everything—physical ability, reaction speed, strength, explosive speed—and could then contend with a knight, would that not be the path to becoming one?

Fur covered Lierbart’s entire body. He had been human moments before. No longer.

He resented the world that had driven him to this. That was why he wanted to tell his story: why he had been forced to go this far, why he was doing all this. That was the story he wanted to tell. He could not help himself. There were times when people ached to have their stories heard. For Lierbart, that time was now.

Wasn’t the man who had defeated him standing right before him, talent in every fiber of his being? Lierbart did not know Encrid, so he assumed his opponent had reached this point on talent alone. Nothing else made sense. That was what prompted his next words.

His arms and hands were covered in fur. Letting his sword hand hang, he opened his mouth. Its internal structure had changed slightly, but not enough to make speech difficult. Of course, getting used to it had been quite a struggle at first. Not anymore.

“Some men have to risk their very lives to become knights. But if death is inevitable, should they walk that path?”

You had reached the edge of a cliff. All that remained was to jump. Should you jump, then? Even knowing you would die?

“A single step for someone else was a step I had to stake my life on.”

His words held nothing but resentment.

“Suppose you were lucky enough to make it across once. Would that be the end? No. It wasn’t. I had to cross not once, but over and over. Face another cliff. So I gave up.”

It could have sounded disingenuous. Encrid had come this far without any such talent. By any measure, Lierbart must have possessed more. His opponent poured out resentment, spoke of suffering and despair. He blamed his lack of talent and cursed the world. At times, he would have cursed the goddess of luck. At others, fate. And so he had arrived at this moment.

Even so, his words did not sound disingenuous to Encrid.

‘Rem has his own path.’

Ragna had his. Jaxon had his. Audin had his. Dunbachel, Teresa, Esther, Andrew. Each simply walked their own path. Encrid, too, had his own.

His opponent might sing of despair over talent, but he had no need to keep time with that song. So he did not consider it disingenuous. So he felt no resentment. So he showed no emotion toward the man.

Lierbart felt affronted. Words like these should have drawn some sort of response. Usually, it fell into one of two kinds. Hadn’t that been his experience? Once he had grown accustomed to this power, he had sought out everyone who had beaten him and killed them, one by one.

[“That’s cheating.”]

Some had said that, satisfying his twisted heart. Yes, it was cheating! Talent was the real cheat. Didn’t that make this fair?

[“Why would someone of your ability do this? What a foolish choice.”]

Others had rebuked him for taking false power. No. Power itself was truth. Go on, then. Tell him. Could even a knight confidently claim to surpass him now?

Having felt the limits of his talent, Lierbart had changed his body. And so he had obtained a knight’s might.

“Every chimera was an experimental subject for my sake,” he said.

Encrid did not bother to repeat what Esther had told him. All those incidental details, such as how the count’s real aim had nothing to do with him. He would not listen even if Encrid told him. And even if he listened, he would not change. Encrid raised his sword.

Lierbart looked at the blue eyes shining beneath black hair. Eyes as unwavering as ever. Those damn eyes looked straight ahead and pressed onward. He wanted to gouge them out. He hated those eyes.

In short, the more he looked at the bastard, the more uneasy he felt. As though Encrid were chastising him for taking the wrong path. It felt like a lash twice as painful as the words of those who had actually said so. So he would kill him. He would.

“That is how my lord gave me power.”

Encrid shifted his sword to an oblique angle. The oppressive presence Lierbart exuded had changed since his transformation. The pressure bearing down on his shoulders was different. If the Aspen knight’s intimidation had been like cords winding around his whole body, Lierbart’s now felt like a brutal mass of iron crushing his shoulders.

“And so I became a knight.”

The declaration fell. The pressure doubled. Encrid did not retreat. His opponent spoke of knighthood, while he remained at the level of a proto knight. But did that change anything? He would win regardless. He would not lose regardless. His resolve became determination and shone.

WHOOSH.

The movement seemed to fold space itself. Lierbart’s sword thinned to a thread as it descended. Encrid swung upward. His timing was perilously close. Had he missed, he could hardly have complained when his body split in two. The swords met in a deafening crash.

BOOM!

Encrid felt as though his body were being crushed into the earth. His knees shook. No. It was only a sensation, caused by the intimidation imbued in that swing. He wrenched his sunken feet free and held his sword perpendicular to the ground. As though waiting for that very moment, Lierbart’s sword struck the flat of his blade.

CLANG! CRACK.

A crack formed in Silver’s middle. His opponent’s sword still looked like a thread. That thread was swift and faint, and at contact its impact doubled, battering his entire body. But he could block it. He could react.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

He swung Silver at the incoming sword. Met it head-on. Blocked, and blocked again. Anyone other than Encrid would have given up long ago. Lierbart had spoken the truth. Through a chimera’s body, he had far surpassed human limits. That was why he was confident he had gained a knight’s power.

Encrid met his opponent’s sword again and again. Barely, but he held on. Seeing the crack in Silver, he took up his gladius. Its thick, solid blade was truly dwarven work: even under repeated blows, it did not readily break.

The thread curved toward his shoulder. He raised his sword and struck diagonally. Merely bracing to block would force him back, so he struck against it instead. He had learned that while facing the Aspen knight. He did as he had learned. Every exchange followed much the same pattern.

After more than thirty sword strikes and as many narrow escapes, Lierbart took a step back. He could not help wondering.

“You’re blocking a knight’s sword?”

A proto knight? Impossible. Their swordsmanship was on different levels. The speed and strength of their attacks were different. How could he withstand it?

At Lierbart’s words, Encrid pressed a hand roughly over his sliced earlobe. A sword tip had grazed it as he dodged and blocked. Blood ran down his neck. His protective gear was gouged and torn in other places, too. Without a helmet, he also had blood flowing through his hair from a small cut in his scalp.

The attacks were savage. That sword moved so freely it seemed like a thread. Yet he could block it. It was easier to block than Ragna’s slashes. Easier than Rem’s axe blows. Easier than Jaxon’s sword that gave no warning of its presence, and easier to endure than Audin’s absurdly powerful fists. All that experience made this manageable. At least, that was how it felt now.

“Are you really a knight?” Encrid asked in return.

He knew a true knight would be more than this. In asking the question, he realized something and spoke again.

“You’ve never fought a knight, have you?”

He was right. Lierbart had feared defeat and death. He had feared seeing the difference in talent confirmed. That was why, deep down, he had hoped to face a knight this time. He had to overcome his limits now. He believed he could. And Encrid had seen through him.

Anger joined the displeasure in Lierbart’s eyes. This mere proto knight dared? Encrid spoke with a dimpled smile.

“The way I see it, you’re not even as good as Ragna.”

Who was that? Lierbart did not ask. He could see what his opponent intended. The bastard was running his mouth, throwing Lierbart’s earlier mention of his companions back at him.

“Rem could take you, too, if he more or less gave it his best. A knight?”

Encrid raised his voice at the end. It shook Lierbart to his core. What if he could not become a knight even after this? What had he become, then, by forsaking his humanity?

He had walked this path by killing his own family and slaughtering everyone in his house. Beginning with his fiancée, he had handed over several houses as experimental subjects. He had laid everyone who followed him upon the altar. And even after all that, he could not become a knight?

“A few blows from Audin might bring you to your senses. Why not take this chance to turn to God?”

He said it while gasping for breath, his sword arm trembling. That snapped the last thread of reason Lierbart clung to.

“I’ll kill you, then hunt down every last one you named and kill them, too.”

Lierbart lunged as he spoke, with twice the speed and strength he had possessed before transforming. By the time he reached “every last one you named,” his sword was already sweeping down to split Encrid’s skull. Once again, Encrid barely blocked.

CLANG!

The ring of steel resounded across the battlefield. More eyes were watching now. Friend and foe had stopped fighting to watch where this battle would lead. Their fight would not determine who won the war. Even so, it was a battle, a duel, from which no one could look away.

Two lives met in a moment that would prove whose path had been right and whose had been wrong. Both had drawn their lives with their swords and arrived at the present. It was only natural that their swords should speak for them. Their blades clashed again.

More wounds opened on Encrid’s body. A pauldron flew off under a blow. A cut appeared on his cheek. Droplets of blood scattered. His thigh was slashed, too. Yet even as he was driven back, his thoughts remained the same.

Esther had told him he must not lose. If he lost here, they would be pushed back, and he would have to start again from morning. So did dying merely mean another repetition of today? Had he lived thinking that way, he would already have settled for being trapped in some tolerable today.

‘I’ll win.’

He would not lose. His resolve was unchanged. Once again, resolve became determination and shone. A new Will manifested. His fourth, following refusal, the Instant, and Crushing.