If it was a fight between knight and knight, even the sword swings they threw would reveal and carry a lot of intent.
Enkrid saw hesitation in the other blade.
Kill? It felt like that kind of doubt was in it. And for a knight's blade to show hesitation was the same as saying it showed an opening.
'It isn't a sword that's swung by gathering Will into one.'
And yet taking the blade was difficult. Not just him—Ragna was in the same situation.
Kii-ring!
The clear metallic sound rang as Dawn met the other blade. It was because the swordsman set the edge at a slant and let it slide off through strength control. Enkrid tried to put power in and push it out, but it was heavy. Even when he tested strength with Audin, it wasn't like this.
'It's like pushing a castle wall with bare hands.'
And it wasn't over.
When to put force in and when to pull it out, the swordsman just let it flow away with that. Letting Dawn slip, the swordsman kept spare strength and struck at Sunrise like a blow. If there was something Enkrid could feel from all those movements—
'It isn't their best.'
It wasn't a sword swung while breaking a limit, it was just doing what was always done.
It was swordwork where you couldn't feel boiling elation, joy, hatred, sadness, boredom—anything at all.
Just purely more accurate, heavier, faster, smoother.
'Even if I'd had the leeway to deploy a trick.'
It wouldn't have worked. The swordsman had eyes as unusual as the dragon eyes Temares had.
Those weren't eyes that saw an inch ahead, but eyes that were certain of what would happen, swinging the sword and moving the feet.
If the swords that came out now and then had been filled with killing intent, would he already be dead?
The difference in skill was plain. Despair came close, pressed down on his shoulders, and grabbed at his ankles.
'Snuffing embers.'
If he was getting pushed by force, then what about technique.
Read the start point of the other's attack and suppress it. A technique that had been useful even against five when he fought southern knights was useless now.
He tried to take in the whole body, from toes to shoulders, and predict before the swordsman moved, but the sword came first and stabbed at his face. It was a sword thrust out without even the shoulder muscle moving, without even the toes moving.
It felt like he was being read in reverse. Enkrid barely twisted his head and swung his sword so it was level with the ground.
Thunk!
The stabbing blade clipped and struck Dawn and withdrew.
Behind the blue blade held vertical, Enkrid's two blue eyes shone.
Even in the middle of this, he swung so he wouldn't be pushed one-sidedly, and even then, he didn't take his eyes off the swordsman.
Before you even split ranks, his fighting posture was correct. It was thanks to what he'd honed from the Heart of the Beast up to the present.
Beside him, a red-coated blade dropped in a hook. Sunrise. It wasn't cutting the air, it was swordwork that seemed to ride the flow as it flew in.
Because it was too fast, it felt like it suddenly appeared from outside the range of cognition.
'Ragna.'
For a moment, he went past his limit. The far faster sword than before was the result of the property change of Will called Induless. A result where Will with a different density dragged out that change.
The swordsman swung the extended sword up. The posture should have broken, but just like that, the swordsman stepped forward a single step, caught the body's center, fixed the wrist, and took Sunrise.
It was a motion that looked trivial and natural, but if you looked only at the results, it was a string of things that were hard to believe.
'Faster.'
Stronger.
Two simple facts carved themselves deep into his bones.
That was what the current result was telling him. The swordsman was simply stronger and faster than this side.
The other blade urged him to despair and be crushed. That turned into a hallucinated voice and rang in his head.
"Effort? Does the world change if you do that? Do you think you'll become something? They say there's always someone who flies above the one who runs, right? Then what's above the one who flies? And you're not even the one who runs."
Whose words were those.
He couldn't even remember. He'd heard words like that so many times.
Ragna didn't retreat just because one attack was blocked. Above the Sunrise he held, the red light of the blade grew clearer than anything. And as his blade took on a deeper color, the enemy blade also took on a heavy golden light.
If you looked only at the gaze, it felt like a blackened blade should come out, but it wasn't like that at all. A dazzling gold wrapped the blade.
CLANG!
The two blades met and a shockwave burst. Enkrid held Dawn and crossed both arms, raising it in front of his chest, and endured the impact.
Flap-flap-flap.
The cloak that had spread for a moment flapped like it was mad in the wind. Ragna and the swordsman stuck and separated. The instant they separated, Ragna's leg wavered. It was so brief and small you wouldn't even notice if you didn't look closely, but it couldn't escape a knight's eyes.
"Mm."
Ragna let out a groan. Then blood flowed from his stomach.
"Not tightening?"
Enkrid said.
If you could use Will, tightening muscles to stop bleeding was basic. You blow Will into the body and deliver intent.
"I can't."
Ragna answered.
The swordsman was only standing at ease. The hair was a little disheveled, but there wasn't even a scratch on the cheek.
'The blood won't stop? By what principle?'
Enkrid thought, and his outstanding cognition and thinking found the answer right away.
'They leave their Will in someone else's body.'
They lodge Will in the muscle and stop it from moving.
What kind of skill is it, for someone to be able to use Will that freely.
He couldn't even dare imagine it.
So was he getting eaten by despair? That wasn't it, but—
There was no laughter spilled, no smile shown. But there was something that seeped out of momentum and atmosphere.
Even though the swordsman had the upper hand, there was no rush to press the attack. Reading the atmosphere Enkrid gave off, the swordsman opened the mouth.
"Is fighting fun?"
"Sometimes."
A lie. The truth was that almost every fight was fun.
Enkrid kicked off the ground and leapt. Dawn and the enemy blade collided and separated.
CLANG!
The moment he got a brief gap, Enkrid changed the Will flowing through his body into something heavy. A heavy sword, focused wholly on just that one thing.
If he couldn't snuff embers, then what if he lit a bigger fire from this side.
It was a sword swing that crushed the enemy with pressure and drove down from above. The swordsman didn't dodge and struck back.
BOOM!
By the time the thunderous sound burst, three exchanges had already gone between them. And every single one of them was a heavy sword.
"Is this fun?"
The swordsman asked again. Saying it while flicking the sword a few times right in front of him. It was the process of letting the power on the sword flow away. Enkrid answered the question with his sword.
'If snuffing embers won't work, and a heavy sword won't work.'
It was Swallow Sweeping.
He changed the technique name on his own, but it was something he'd reinterpreted and practiced in his own way—a feat where some swordsman long ago changed the trajectory mid-swing.
The sword that had been cutting down from above bent its direction in the middle and chased for the swordsman's neck.
Ting.
The swordsman raised the sword vertical, blocked, and shoved it away like brushing aside a fly.
The difference in skill was plain. If he fought like this, he would die. That fact didn't change.
And yet Enkrid poured out everything he had.
Ragna, with a hole in his stomach, grabbed Sunrise near the ricasso without even hesitating and put the blade against his own belly.
Sssss.
If you can't tighten muscles to block it, then you sear it shut.
He did it without letting out a single groan. Like he was showing what madness was. Desperate swordwork went back and forth among the three.
"It's an order. Ragna, get lost."
In the middle, Enkrid spoke and blocked Ragna's front. Even if he wasn't going to waste any "today," and even if he decided not to fight with repetition in mind, as long as you weren't an idiot, you knew what would happen if Ragna died and you lived.
He didn't want to see that kind of sight, so he put Will into what he said, but—
"Refused."
Ragna answered without even breathing.
Right. If he listened to words exactly as spoken, he wouldn't be Ragna Zaun.
While fighting, Enkrid recalled someone from the past in the swordsman's figure.
Back then, it was just a kid who looked like they were maybe twelve at most.
'Twenty-seventh spring.'
That day, the genius kid who punched a hole through his belly.
His mouth opened naturally.
"We've met before. Do you remember?"
The swordsman didn't remember. You could tell just by the eyes. No—more like, what does that matter. Like Enkrid was someone who would die anyway.
"I'm going to the Demon-lands like this. Follow me. You'll have something to do too."
Maybe that was why the swordsman only said what was wanted to be said.
"It was more than ten years ago."
Enkrid was the same.
Just because he remembered didn't mean the other had to remember too. Enkrid acknowledged it cleanly.
'For me, it's something I can't forget.'
For the swordsman, it wasn't.
Then all he had to do was make it so the swordsman couldn't forget this time, now that they'd met again.
"Why the Demon-lands?"
Enkrid asked again. Asking, he caught his breath and steadied his Will. The property change called Induless ate time. You couldn't just do it whenever you felt like it.
'To get skilled, I need training.'
Thinking and responding at the same time, in multiple threads, was Enkrid's specialty. He asked while recalling a way to fight, built tactics, and organized what he had to do next.
It was literally like doing the thinking of more than three people at once, alone. It was split-thinking ability honed by starting with Wavebreaker, then chaining snuffing embers after.
"I'll stand on that side and swing my sword."
The swordsman didn't look drunk on anything, and didn't seem to have some grand ideal, but said, like it was nothing, that the Demon-lands' side would be taken.
To Enkrid, it felt off.
"Why?"
"Even if I tell you the reason, I don't think you'll change your mind, but it's simple. I'll stand on the winning side and reshape the world."
"Reshape?"
"I plan to change the future of this continent."
"Change it into a world ruled by demons?"
The kid, now grown, shook the head.
"The opposite. Because it's already a world ruled by demons."
Is it arrogance, is it stubbornness, or is it the tantrum of a child soaked in delusion.
It was none of those.
The swordsman had something he believed in and was moving toward it.
In some ways, it was like Enkrid.
'Dreaming of a knight that would end all wars.'
Back then, those words were spat out without stopping. The swordsman was the same.
"I'll erase fighting from this world."
The dream was the same too. Only the method was different.
"I'll erase all intelligent races, leave only the good ones, and start again."
Standing on the Demon-lands' side was only a method. The most efficient, fastest, most rational path.
"Yeah, so you're saying you're a crazy bastard."
Ragna cut in. The Will he'd tightened while staying focused showed over his Sunrise. The Will wrapped around the blade was clearer than it had ever been before.
"It's the shaping stage."
Enkrid didn't understand those words perfectly. Ragna understood only half.
"You can barely manage transformation, and you call it shaping. Impressive talent."
"Are you judging me?"
Ragna asked back. A genius—one who had been noticed even among geniuses as an outstanding talent. His heart pounded. The drive to improve that had awakened after being affected by Enkrid boiled up more than ever.
'Strong.'
He couldn't even dare imagine what you had to be born with to do something like that.
Can you split the continent with a single sword swing?
No. You can't.
'But you can cut whoever you want.'
That was the strongest power a knight possessed. The swordsman was the pinnacle of the force a knight possessed.
"I'll use the Demon-lands' lord to cut everyone down, leave only some, and open a new world. That is the purpose of my ascension."
It sounded like words spoken as if intoxicated by something, but the eyes were sunk and settled. The swordsman stood here and acted with cold calculation.
"Sorry. I'm the opposite."
Enkrid said, and adjusted his grip on the sword.
It was a declaration of will to rise again and fight.
Enkrid didn't give up. Then swordwork went back and forth again.
'Die.'
Again and again, they crossed the brink of death. In an instant, killing intent lodged in the other blade, and that blade drove straight for Ragna's neck.
It was after Ragna stabbed with the Will-blade called "shaping."
More precisely, he swung Sunrise vertical, thrust his left hand forward, formed a short blade, and stabbed—only for the swordsman to snatch it with bare hands and crush it.
The red, formed blade crumbled and shattered, and the other blade, after stripping Sunrise away, slammed in.
Enkrid forced his way in through that gap.
A blade coated in Will met the other blade head-on.
BOOM!
With the explosion-like sound. The swordsman withdrew at ease, but Enkrid and Ragna held their ground.
"I'm truly surprised."
The swordsman said.
Ragna answered with a cough—hack. Blood poured from his mouth. It was because his insides had been damaged.
Then Enkrid grabbed the blue blade stabbed into his belly.
'Swing, break it, snatch it, stab.'
An utterly efficient and skilled way of fighting.
Enkrid's pupils, which didn't waver even at most things, trembled in tiny shakes.
'Dawn broke.'
Literally.
Dawn snapped clean in half. That broken blade pierced his belly.
He imagined a horrific end while feeling Will scattering in fragments, but he hadn't expected an engraved weapon to break.
"Can you live with that wound?"
The swordsman asked. Before Enkrid could answer, the swordsman spoke again.
"There's no need for me to kill you, I suppose."
The swordsman turned as-is.
Someone appeared beside the swordsman, where it had seemed like there was no one. A presence he'd missed because what the swordsman showed was shocking.
It was a witch, pressing down a wide-brimmed witch hat.
"Leaving them and going?"
"No point."
Their conversation faded far away. Enkrid closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Rem's face was there. He tried to say something, but his mouth wouldn't open.
"Don't push yourself. If you die like this, I'll get revenge for you, so don't worry about that."
"…Water."
Even getting out this one word felt like his throat would tear.
Someone supported his neck and brought a cup of water to his mouth. He spilled more than half and swallowed only a little, and then a voice came.
"If it's hard, say so. My fiance."
A fairy's voice. It was Shinar.
Her words drilled into his ears. It was hard to come to his senses. His eyes closed again.
In the gap, a few words of chatter entered his ears.
"Save him no matter what. Audin."
"Enduring two days was already a miracle, brother."
Memory cut off, and thinking cut off too.
When he opened his eyes again as darkness swallowed him, it wasn't reality.
Slosh-
"Are you satisfied with an end like this?"
The Ferryman came out and asked him.