Chapter 938 - Hard for Some to Understand
"You really go out of your way to play the fool."
"You've doomed yourself to a lonely death."
"What an absolute idiot."
Illusions of the Ferryman flashed before him—one lamenting, one speaking with cold indifference, and another giggling in wicked amusement.
'What if this is the wrong path?'
It was a question explicitly designed to breed doubt.
What if this choice led to the slaughter of everyone standing behind him?
What if he couldn't stop any of it?
Doubt and mistrust sap a warrior's resolve.
That was why Enkrid entertained none of it.
He ignored the insidious anxieties that anyone else would naturally harbor, refusing to let stray thoughts muddy his conviction.
Self-deprecating attitudes were useless baggage; he simply threw them away.
Just as Rem and Dunbakel looked at him and trusted him with their lives, Enkrid trusted himself.
'I will stop them.'
He forged his resolve.
Night Stroll hummed at his hip.
His Will would surge through his entire body, ready to transform at his command, prepared to carve his desires into reality.
'Resolve.'
Over this, he layered the teachings of Cypress, the Guardian Deity of the South.
'Not a single one gets past me.'
He swore it as an absolute vow.
He had no intention of wildly expanding his Will the way Cypress did.
Instead, his mind was sharper and clearer than ever before.
"Hoo."
A faint blue mist mingled with his exhaled breath.
It was the physical manifestation of his Will.
With it, the oppressive, suffocating pressure bearing down on the surroundings was violently pushed back.
To Rem, Dunbakel, and Juol, it looked as if an invisible force—the grasping, suffocating hand of the Demonic Realm itself—had been physically shoved away.
It was a breathtaking spectacle.
It looked as though a single human was standing his ground against the sheer weight of the Demonic Realm.
In moments like this, Rem and Dunbakel were creatures driven by pure instinct.
Rem took his place on Enkrid's right, and Dunbakel fell in behind him on his left.
"So, we're fighting, right? It definitely felt incredibly ominous a second ago, but I feel a bit better now," Dunbakel said.
"I saw a hallucination. Something like a dragon flying around. It'll probably keep trying to pull that kind of bullshit, so brace yourselves. There's a reason they named this place Silence; it breaks a person's mind without making a sound—"
"What is that supposed to mean?" Dunbakel cut him off.
Rem opened his mouth to explain, then shook his head.
Silence.
Just because a place makes no noise doesn't mean it isn't reacting.
The name encapsulated the true, insidious danger of this Demonic Realm.
Silence violently rattled the minds of those who drew near.
Rem had been about to explain the shamanic significance tangled within the name, but decided against it. If he had experienced the hallucinations, these two definitely had as well. One real experience was worth a hundred words of explanation.
"It means the Demonic Realm plays dirty tricks," Enkrid summarized.
Rem nodded in agreement and recalled the hallucination he had just witnessed. Was the realm trying to tempt him, to lure him blindly inside? Was that how lethal the illusion was meant to be? Rem had almost fallen for it, but now he saw through the haze clearly.
"It's an insidious bastard. Extremely so."
It was an entity that masked its intentions and employed every possible psychological weapon to manipulate its prey. It felt like a Demonic Realm forged by combining the worst traits of Jaxen and Krais.
"Here they come."
Enkrid was about to share the hallucination he had seen, but shut his mouth. There was no need. The gray rocks distorted, shifting their shapes. They were the very monsters from the hallucination. Shadows stretched from beyond the fog, and nightmarish creatures poked their heads out one by one. There was a sickening variety of species. But the one standing at the vanguard immediately caught his eye.
'A manticore.'
Its entire body was pitch-black, and instead of eyeballs, thin, writhing tentacles spilled from its eye sockets. It deviated from a standard manticore, but the overall anatomy was identical. Beside it, countless other monsters began to slither out of the mist.
"Ugh."
A soft groan escaped Dunbakel's lips the moment she laid eyes on a mental wraith with a gray-hooded head drifting toward them. Just as Rem had warned, the Demonic Realm was playing its tricks. More precisely, the monster had directly tapped into Dunbakel's psyche. Enkrid couldn't see the mental attack, but he felt it intuitively.
Should I do what I did in the hallucination?
Enkrid was a man who, having experienced something once, executed it flawlessly the second time. He opted for a far more efficient, definitive method. He abruptly raised his left arm, drew a tight semi-circle, and slammed his elbow straight into Dunbakel's forehead. The strike was lightning-fast and so stealthy it didn't even disturb his breathing. With her mind half-submerged in the illusion, Dunbakel couldn't even attempt to dodge.
Thwack!
She took the hit squarely on the forehead. Her head snapped back, but clarity immediately flooded back into her eyes.
"Ack!"
The scream came a beat late. It sounded more like an indignant protest—a vocalized, 'Why the hell did you hit me?' Regardless, Dunbakel's senses were jolted completely awake. She then glared at the wraith trying to re-establish its mind control.
"Want another one?" Enkrid asked.
At those words, the lingering traces of the entity's control shattered completely. This man kept his promises. If she let herself get mesmerized by those things again, he would happily beat her to a pulp.
'And that bastard Rem will probably jump in and add a few extra hits from the side.'
A continental proverb suddenly resonated deeply within her: A beating is the best medicine for a lost mind. The medicine worked perfectly. The hallucinations, the illusions, the resentment, the suffocating sense of unfairness—the gloomy emotions attempting to override her mind swarmed toward Dunbakel, but failed to take root.
"Are you shaking?" Enkrid asked again.
"Khaaaat! I am Dunbakel, the one who will become the Beast King!"
It was a battle cry she used to scream back in the East whenever her confidence wavered. It was the first time she had yelled it out loud since returning.
"What the hell is a Beast King?" Rem muttered, shaking his head, while Enkrid nodded approvingly.
Comforting her with promises of good liquor wouldn't be a permanent fix. He needed to forcibly snap her mind awake. It had been necessary in the hallucination. But his current method meant there was no need for coddling. She overcame it herself. He had only given her the physical push she needed.
"Tell me anytime if you need another hit," Enkrid offered considerately.
"I'll handle it myself," Dunbakel replied without even pausing for breath.
Her forehead throbbed. But was it painful enough to kill her? Not even close. Taking a hit was something her body could easily endure. What bruised her pride was a different matter entirely.
'My mind wavered, and I almost got rolled over by trash like this?'
It must look pathetic in Enkrid's eyes. Dunbakel hated that.
Grrr.
A bestial growl rumbled in her throat. She shored up her resolve, vocalizing her newly unshakable will.
"Snap out of it, Smelly. Stop whining," Rem clicked his tongue, throwing Dunbakel a side-eye.
To his eyes, the dark aura imbued within the advancing monsters was blatantly obvious. Every single one of them was massive. While they might not reach the apocalyptic tier of Divine Generals in terms of shamanic power...
'They're at least sitting right below that tier, aren't they?'
The giant bandit group they had butchered on the way here was a joke in comparison. But if someone called this a crisis... well.
"Rem."
Enkrid called his name. It felt like an answer to the question Rem had swallowed. That single call seemed to state clearly that this wasn't anywhere near a crisis. Enkrid drew a line in the dirt with his sword. Scraaaape. With a light stroke, the blade carved the earth. It was merely a line drawn on the ground, yet it felt as if a massive, impenetrable wall had materialized before the Demonic Realm.
'An invisible rampart.'
Just a single stroke of a sword, yet it evoked the unyielding presence of a fortress.
"There are too many of them," Juol said, his face draining of color.
He wasn't exaggerating. An entire army was pouring out of the Demonic Realm. Their numbers reached into the hundreds. Every single one of them was a monstrosity capable of triggering a city-wide emergency if they attacked a settlement. A few pitch-black Gnolls immediately dropped low to the ground and melted into the fog the moment they emerged.
'The battlefield favors the enemy.'
Their numbers were overwhelmingly superior, and assessing the opposition's full strength was impossible. So, did that constitute a reason to retreat?
"Not a single one crosses this line," Enkrid declared.
Hearing those words, Rem grinned.
'Damn right. That's our Captain.'
Rem pulled out two slings and wrapped the cords around his hands. His eyes, brimming with shamanic power, glowed a harsh, steely gray.
"There are just too many," Juol repeated.
At that, Rem answered his Captain.
"I'm starting."
Enkrid calling his name earlier was a silent command to open the engagement. They didn't need to spell it out. As Dunbakel lowered her stance and rested a hand on her scimitar, Rem spun his slings.
Fwooosh—Vrrrm!
Two loaded slings blurred into deadly halos above his head. To the enemy, it was the unmistakable arrival of a reaper casting his net.
Juol suddenly wondered if he had neglected his training as a warrior too much.
'I have been lazy, haven't I?'
He admitted it freely. However, even if he had coughed up blood and ground his bones to dust in training, he still wouldn't be able to comprehend the spectacle unfolding before him. None of these three were human. Had a few of the eight Divine Generals of Western mythology descended from the heavens?
Rem built momentum and let the stones fly. Every time he did, a cluster of the monsters swarming out of the fog simply detonated. Flames erupted, flesh exploded, and the fog was violently blown back.
Boom—!
The concussive crack of the explosion, followed by a blast of searing heat, washed over Juol's face.
'The Sky-Flinger.'
The legend of the man who brought down a flying Divine General with a single sling stone naturally came to mind. Rem's slingshots shattered and obliterated everything in their path. The slings wielded in the hands of the man were faster and had more reach than a Divine General's spear. Furthermore, the moment the projectiles made contact, they incinerated and detonated their targets.
'Even if the Sky-Flinger returned from the dead...'
Could he really do it like Rem was doing now? Except for the occasional flare of gray light from his eyes, Rem didn't waste a single drop of his shamanic power.
'Perfect control.'
He loaded raw power into the sling bullets and hurled them. Because Juol was a Westerner, he understood the sheer impossibility of it. There was zero loss of energy. Rem manipulated his shamanic arts flawlessly, without leaking a drop. Juol could only feel the faintest ripples of shamanic power; in reality, his eyes couldn't properly track what was happening. He only saw the devastating aftermath. Thick, pitch-black blood splattered in all directions. Occasionally, he saw monsters so dense that even their blood seemed solid. When one beast covered in thick scales detonated, crystalline shards resembling black quartz shattered and rained down like shrapnel.
"He said not to let a single one cross this line, didn't he?"
The beastkin muttered as she stepped forward beside him. Juol couldn't even begin to gauge her strength. It was only natural. Dunbakel was a knight. And not just any knight, but one who had ascended to a higher tier under Enkrid's relentless influence. Her nose caught everything. Some of the bastards slithering out of the Demonic Realm tried to conceal their presence in the fog, but she instantly sifted through the stench of rot and locked onto their exact scents.
Of course, Juol couldn't follow the process even while watching. To his eyes, the beastkin simply kicked off the ground and vanished. Then, a wet thwack echoed from somewhere ahead, and black masses tumbled to the earth like felled trees. They were Gnoll-like monsters demonstrating the terrifying ability to seamlessly assimilate into the fog. But before they could even get close enough to attempt an ambush, Dunbakel had already sliced them apart and slaughtered every last one. After finishing the kill, she casually returned to stand in front of the line, scanning her surroundings.
"Hey, you. It's fine that you're just standing there, but step back a bit more. And don't step on that line."
Startled by the beastkin's warning—delivered as casually as if she hadn't just slaughtered a dozen monsters without breaking a sweat—Juol looked down. He realized his foot was hovering over the line Enkrid had drawn in the dirt. He flinched and quickly scrambled three or four steps back. He had been so mesmerized by the carnage that he had subconsciously drifted forward, drawn in like a moth to a flame.
Juol threw his gaze forward again. There was still more to be shocked by. Rem and the beastkin Dunbakel were astonishing enough, but...
'The Savior.'
No. They called him the Monster Slaughterer. The West had far more interest in Enkrid than he realized. He was, after all, the benefactor who had saved the West from annihilation. Naturally, they listened eagerly to tales of his deeds, the places he traveled, and the bonds he forged. And through those tales, the moniker he had naturally acquired was the Monster Slaughterer.
Right before Juol's eyes, he proved exactly why he bore that title. He vanished in the blink of an eye, driving himself straight into the center of a pack of five pitch-black manticore-type monsters. Juol didn't know it, but Enkrid was simply taking the most rational and efficient path. He had judged that diving into the dead center of the monster horde was tactically advantageous.
Crash, Clang, Crash, Clang.
The same sounds repeated in rapid succession, as if keeping a flawless, deadly rhythm. Juol watched as the heads of four manticores simultaneously launched into the air. At the exact same time, the monsters swarming from all sides were detonated, felled, and crushed. A calamity that human minds struggled to comprehend had manifested. A localized hurricane of destruction ravaged the battlefield.
'Ah.'
All Juol could do was marvel. His hands trembled uncontrollably. A profound thrill surged through him, making every hair on his body stand on end. A chilling sensation traced the line of his spine. Juol couldn't track the exact movements, but as he watched, a bizarre, beautiful order emerged from the chaos.
Using the drawn line as his anchor, Rem strafed sideways, hurling sling stones to detonate and decimate the monster hordes. Then, the beastkin would abruptly vanish and reappear, methodically erasing any unpredictable variables. Finally, Enkrid—the Monster Slaughterer—carved a bloody path straight through the heart of the hundreds-strong horde. He cleaved forward, advanced, and returned. From Juol's vantage point, it was a ceaseless cycle of explosive sprints forward and immediate returns. Through that simple, repetitive motion alone, monsters burst like rotten pumpkins and fell like dried leaves in autumn.
'Monsters of that caliber...'
If a horde of that size had descended upon a Western city, what would have happened?
"All personnel, combat stations immediately! Everyone who can hold a weapon, get out here! Everyone else, fall back!"
Ayul would have undoubtedly been screaming those exact orders right now. Yet, this catastrophic threat was merely a warm-up exercise for these three, a casual sparring session to synchronize their teamwork. Of course, Juol had no idea whether they were actually warming up or fighting with everything they had. However...
"Hey, one's leaking through, Smelly! If you miss it, I'll split that head of yours the Captain just smacked right in half!" Rem occasionally shouted over the din of battle.
"Worry about your own damn side," Dunbakel shot back without missing a beat.
Listening to their banter, the overwhelming sense of leisure they possessed was undeniable. In the midst of the slaughter, a massive, leaden fist came flying from deep within the Demonic Realm. The creature it belonged to was twice the size of an average giant. The fist slammed into Enkrid, who was at the vanguard. His body was launched backward. His cape snapped wildly with a loud flap-flap-flap. He flew backward, hovering in the air for a moment before landing softly on the ground. The movement was so fluid it didn't look like he had been hit, but rather as if he had coordinated with his opponent to perform an aerial stunt.
The creature that threw the punch was a monster so gargantuan one had to crane their neck straight up just to see its face. It resembled an ogre, but the grotesque tentacles writhing out of its eye sockets made it an entirely different, sickening aberration. Watching the tentacles squirm was nausea-inducing.
'Huh?'
Juol was as panicked as he was thrilled. How do you even fight something like that? The answer was provided immediately. Enkrid launched himself forward twice as fast as he had been pushed back after blocking the punch. A blur of green light rocketed upward, using the monster's massive foot as a stepping stone. It launched into the sky, erupted in a flash of blue light at the creature's neck, and plummeted back to the earth.
Thud.
The sound arrived late. The colossal ogre, now missing its head, tilted to the side and crashed to the earth with a resounding boom. A thick, viscous liquid oozed from the decapitated corpse, spreading agonizingly slowly due to its tar-like consistency. Enkrid casually stepped to the side, avoiding the coagulating pool of black blood.
Before anyone realized it, the number of monsters had been reduced to less than a quarter of the original horde. To Juol, it was an utterly incomprehensible spectacle, but to Enkrid, Rem, and Dunbakel, it was just another day at work.