A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

How many times had he already faced that familiar face?

At this point, he could probably memorize every pattern carved into the Onekiller's body. Not that he had the luxury to.

Unless you're a genius, you have to fight tooth and nail just to glimpse what they see.

Enkrid understood that better than anyone.

And in the last today, despite not being a genius, he had glimpsed it—what they see.

Now, standing behind Shinar's chair, Enkrid's eyes locked on the Onekiller's sword-arms, the blades grafted in place of hands and feet.

He didn't miss even the slightest movement, and time seemed to slow.

Accelerated thought.

The murky air of the labyrinth grew heavier, and discomfort clung more sharply to his skin.

It would've been nice to dull a few of his senses, but if he did, he wouldn't be able to keep up with the Onekiller. He needed his sixth sense. So he had no choice but to endure the pressure and unease he was feeling.

And so he did—without a thought. After all, it was nothing now, not after so many repetitions.

Within this stretched time, the orange-hued body approached, trailing long lines of light like legs made of blades. It looked like a walking sword made of glowing orange steel.

The demon Onekiller's entire body could be considered a weapon, so that wasn't far from the truth.

The long streaks of light blurred and split, only to merge again as the Onekiller drew closer.

When its glowing body entered full view, Enkrid smiled. A grin spread across his face.

"A greeting."

The voice was bright and clear, cheerful even. The madman with black hair and blue eyes moved.

Lua Gharne and Pell hadn't even seen him move—so they couldn't be shocked. The fairies hadn't even realized yet.

Only Shinar reacted, startled for just a moment.

Enkrid struck downward at the Onekiller with a vertical slash.

A sword swing that painted a half-circle above his head.

It looked like a straightforward, honest attack—but it wasn't.

Shinar had seen it correctly. It wasn't just a sword swing.

The curved motion of the True Silver Sword bent the light like a mirror, and in that moment, it seemed to split into dozens of petals, like a flower unfurling its bloom.

It didn't actually split, of course. He hadn't spent all this time just training his thoughts.

He wasn't merely pondering theories to find answers.

This had been a time of discipline. The desperation of each today had pushed his skills further.

It was an evolved form of the false blade—an expanded and refined version. As he swung, he divided his killing intent, targeting multiple points at once.

If it could shake the enemy's composure even slightly, it had meaning.

For most opponents, that would be enough. But not the Onekiller.

Born from malice and devoid of reason, the demon responded to combat with clear, calculated decisiveness. It didn't fall for tricks.

Despite its spontaneity, the Onekiller's blade drew the most rational trajectory.

Clang!

Enkrid's True Silver Sword slammed into the orange blade like a cleaving strike.

If the Onekiller's body was metal, then it was like two masses of steel colliding. The resulting shockwave rumbled the earth, and dust exploded outward.

For a moment, the unseen shock drove the labyrinth's air away from them.

"Fun, isn't it?"

Enkrid asked, flicking his sword in the air as he stepped back. That strike had shaken his guts.

He'd put real force into it. Circulating Will through his body was second nature now—after more than five hundred todays, he could do it in his sleep.

Though unintentional, the slash had drawn from techniques like Heart of Might and Giant Cleave.

Repeating today had naturally fused his techniques.

That was why even Shinar could tell something had changed.

The false blade that aimed to disrupt the enemy's mind was a mere trick—but the real slash, the vertical one, was forceful and true.

If one divided main and auxiliary roles, the false blade was auxiliary; the real strike was the main. Though the disguise reversed them visually, this was the reality.

Shaking the enemy's focus was merely a secondary goal.

It was fair to call it a strike that mixed truth and illusion.

And it wasn't just Shinar who had been surprised by it.

Crack—crunch.

Bones clattered inside the Onekiller's body as its legs shifted form. Its arms stretched out as well.

Guess he accepted the greeting properly.

That meant the bastard was serious when it changed its limbs.

"I'm having fun. Aren't you?"

Enkrid asked again.

The Onekiller didn't answer. Of course not—demons have no mouths.

"It has no vocal cords and no will," Shinar remarked.

"I know," Enkrid replied.

He knew better than she did. But even without a mouth, the demon conveyed its intent clearly enough.

Like now—changing its limbs was its way of saying it was going to fight for real.

Enkrid accepted that. Seeing the transformation, he shifted his foot slightly and lowered the tip of his sword.

Not a threat, but a sign—a move to seize advantage in their tactical exchange.

The Onekiller reacted immediately.

Boom!

It kicked off the ground and charged. Even in slowed time, it crossed the distance in the blink of an eye.

A lunge with those "reverse-jointed" legs.

It kicked up a spray of stones behind it, but its body reached Enkrid faster than the dust did.

Orange streaks curved like scythes, the blades of a reaper splitting into dozens to slash from head to toe.

Enkrid gripped his sword in both hands and blocked them one by one.

Clackclackclackclackclack!

From here, he had to divide his thoughts.

At first, he split his mind into dozens—just like the Onekiller.

He fought while calculating, calculated while fighting. And his nose bled faster than when using accelerated thought alone.

The demon moved as if it knew he was desperately trying to surpass his limits—more wildly, more dynamically.

Trying to compute everything made his head spin—but he kept going.

He didn't know how to give up. So he endured. But the ending didn't change.

From failure came understanding. Not in a single today—but gradually.

I don't need to split into dozens.

It didn't happen instantly, but with each today, he grew more skilled.

Focus broadly on the flow. Narrowly on the moment.

Though he knew he shouldn't name techniques, like a fool, he kept labeling things—accelerated thought, split thinking...

Definition isn't what matters—usage is.

That was the answer he reached.

The Wave-Stopping Sword is a style built for prolonged battle.

It wasn't about bursts of power—it was about sustained endurance. A sword not meant to strike all at once, but to receive and hold.

He trained himself to manage his breathing and ration his strength for prolonged combat. And when the Onekiller pushed with a sudden acceleration, he couldn't keep up—and died.

I lack the eye to read the whole flow.

That was when he awakened his eyes to the rhythm. The realm of insight. Seeing far and wide. Building strategies to sustain the fight.

But he couldn't afford even a scratch from its blade.

And I must also see the moment.

Tactics and strategy required another layer—combat instinct.

Focusing purely on the now, to block and endure incoming strikes.

That was his new realization.

Sustainability or explosiveness alone isn't the answer. What matters is coexistence.

Balance—that's what coexistence meant. Maintaining just enough explosiveness.

And it had been a hard process. Even Enkrid, who prided himself on never giving up, had paused—twice—to question the path.

The training conditions for the Wave-Stopping Sword were complete.

Maintain an appropriate level of explosiveness.

This wasn't a style based on basic swordsmanship.

It was a style that used accelerated and split thought to maximize what one possessed.

He had already understood its meaning and execution method—and with his training, now put it into action.

A meteor shower rained down.

The orange blades on both arms scattered light in every direction. The scattered light surged like fire, burning his optic nerves.

Enkrid lowered his gaze slightly and gripped the hilt of the True Silver Sword in both hands.

Expanding all five senses would burn out his brain. But by fine-tuning that expansion, he could selectively block what harmed him.

Will surged through his body, protecting his organs and flesh, and empowering his sword.

Clackclackclackclack!

The orange meteors failed to reach their target and scattered into the air.

With his sixth sense in play, he could even afford to blink, reducing strain on his eyes.

The Onekiller changed its attack pattern.

After shifting its legs and arms, it now altered its tactics.

Not merely relying on its body, but expanding how it used it.

It launched itself in every direction, kicking off like a grasshopper—leaping through the air, using walls and ceiling like the ground.

With terrifying speed, it initiated three-dimensional movement and swung its blades.

The meteor shower now targeted his neck, arms, legs, back, thighs—every part of him.

No longer just the front—every direction became a threat.

I can't follow this with footwork.

He only had to move as much as necessary at each moment. Accelerated thought found the answer and delivered it to his combat mind. No, there was no "delivery"—it all happened at once.

Then a strange thought crept into his mind.

The oppressive atmosphere of the labyrinth weighed on his shoulders. The density of the air, its scent—everything was unpleasant.

Sunlight.

As he blocked and blocked again, Enkrid longed to see sunlight. To feel a cool breeze.

The fairy city always smelled of grass and flowers, no matter where you were.

A beautiful place.

Just imagining sunlight and wind—just those good things—let Enkrid briefly forget the pressure weighing on him.

Because his mind was divided, he had space for such thoughts.

Will is intent—desire born in the heart, affecting the body. His arms and legs moved more freely.

One side of his mind understood this. The other side executed it.

The split thoughts did their jobs.

The Onekiller's attacks were fierce and sharp. From the outside, it looked like Enkrid was barely hanging on. But that made it all the more remarkable.

"You're doing something impossible," Shinar murmured.

That's how astonished she was. And she wasn't alone.

Blade after blade was deflected. The demon's killing blows were reduced to meaningless sweeps through the air.

Time passed.

Enkrid didn't forget himself. He didn't turn away from the present. He held on to the now.

The Wave-Stopping Sword blocked every single one of the Onekiller's attacks.

At one point, the demon tried to strike Pell. But it was useless. Enkrid cut its blade-arm away as if he had been waiting.

Blocking didn't just mean holding a sword like a shield.

Attack was also a form of defense. He had learned that long before becoming the commander of the Mad Squad.

He had learned it, so of course he used it.

Today passed.

Clack! Clackclackclackclack!

He had spent a full day just blocking.

The sword of coexistence—of burst and endurance—hadn't killed the Onekiller. But it hadn't let him die either.

Ah...

Enkrid, somewhere in that day, had been overtaken by joy more than once.

"To complete a sword technique is to open a world."

He had heard someone say that once. Back then, it was just a passing phrase.

Neither the speaker nor Enkrid had been close to such a thing.

That man had been just a sword instructor in a small town—barely a low-rank mercenary.

So surely, when he said "sword technique," he hadn't meant anything a knight would use.

Still, Enkrid recalled the phrase. And now, it rang true in his heart.

After surviving a full day.

He began mixing meaningless gestures into his Wave-Stopping Sword style.

Lifting his left foot, sticking out his tongue, spinning in place.

Blocking alone doesn't end a battle. So this was the method he found.

The demon Onekiller lacked intelligence—but it repeated rational combat patterns.

Therefore, it would try to assign meaning even to meaningless acts. That would overload its calculations.

He had done it many times before—he knew it worked.

A gap.

Enkrid swung through that opening.

Rip!

A piece of the demon's forearm tore.

It wasn't a deep wound. Just a sliver of flesh no bigger than a pinky nail, and a spray of black blood.

It healed quickly, orange light stretching to fill the gap.

But it was the beginning.

To cut its neck or arm, he had to drop the Wave-Stopping Sword. But doing so would leave him vulnerable.

If that sword was a shield, then he'd just expand its coverage. He'd split his thoughts further and add some new tricks.

You could say he had added a personal style—Enkrid-style—to the formal technique.

From mastery to application.

All within a single day.

"A genius," Pell murmured, having seen a glimpse of the process with his own innate talent.

"Not just a genius..."

He muttered again.

But he was wrong.

This wasn't raw talent—it was the result of stacking hundreds upon hundreds of todays.

The demon's flesh tore further, orange patches stretching as more pieces peeled away.

The demon was dying. Or rather—being carved apart.

A whole day had passed. The kind of time that would leave most men asleep on their feet.

Then the second day began. No rest. No sleep. The fierce battle continued.

Split thought reduced strain on the body. There was no longer any need to push himself past his limit with accelerated thought and full-body Will.

That was the result.

The creature with no mouth, no vocal cords, had no way to speak.

Instead, with severed wrists and arms, legs, ankles, toes, and fingers—it accepted its defeat.

It wasn't a dramatic, one-strike victory. Enkrid knew that.

But to those around him, it probably looked like it.

Pell thought it was the kind of fight he couldn't even begin to explain.

Enkrid had just endured. Peeled the demon like an onion. Sliced it, piece by piece, until it died.

That was all.

The Onekiller collapsed to the ground.

Enkrid had won.

"...Now we just need the wedding ceremony," Shinar said.

"I told you, we're not doing that," Enkrid replied immediately, eyes locking on the fairy.

A fairy-style joke—and Enkrid gave it a direct answer.