Dunbakel's senses caught what Enkrid was doing.
'Vibration? A wave?'
More precisely, it was something she felt in the movement of the Will gathered along the blade. The Will flowing through his sword quivered at an invisible speed. Enkrid struck with that trembling blade.
With a single cut, a monster's body crumbled like a bone-dry biscuit. The shattering spread the way black ink spreads through dry cloth. In the blink of an eye, one monster broke apart and scattered across the ground.
Enkrid pivoted on his left foot and thrust his sword. Three ogres caught in that cut each lost one leg.
They had been swinging clubs while kicking out their right legs at the same time, as if they had matched limbs and timing.
The moment the legs were severed, their bodies shattered upward from the cut, collapsing in a cascade.
Some clumps of black ichor fell like chips of stone; others struck the ground heavily like old oil.
The instant he finished cutting the three, Enkrid stepped in, punched three holes through a cyclops's belly, and slipped past.
Monsters crumbled in heaps along the path he passed through. It was like a giant who had spent a lifetime with an axe had decided to fell trees in a single stroke and clear a road.
Dunbakel found a clear lane opening before her. The ground was still muddy, with rocks scattered here and there and trees leaning sideways in the way.
But compared to before—now that the monsters had all been killed off—you could have called it a boulevard.
"Well, would you look at that, he paved a boulevard. Let's go, stinky carriage. The road's open."
Words from Rem. He'd reached much the same line of thought as Dunbakel and was voicing his rough amazement.
Dunbakel walked the path Enkrid had cut.
Enkrid swung his sword around a few more times in all directions, and when a brief gap opened, he spoke.
What that came from his mouth was an expression of irrepressible delight.
"Ah, this is seriously fun."
***
Wave is the natural enemy of Root—no, of Silence.
One day, a single tree was infected by the air of the Demon lands. After that, the tree revealed its survival instinct.
Eat. Swallow. Adapt.
Through those three rules, the tree learned how to survive.
So it survived by eating and swallowing everything around it.
Survival alone was its ultimate goal. If other demons or Demon lords sought ascension, Silence's core value was immortality.
To endure and endure again and remain, even after all others died, vanished, and rotted away.
That was Silence's long-cherished aim.
Of course, Enkrid didn't know any of that. In fact, he didn't know it at all.
He was simply enjoying the swordsmanship the Ferryman had taught him.
Against a knight-level opponent it wouldn't land easily.
But against colony-form monsters that couldn't properly use Will, it was a natural enemy.
What could a mouse do before a cat? No—a mouse before a tiger. That was the right way to put it.
He made the Will tremble finely and injected it into the opponent. Once the vibration began, the Will rode through the monster's ichor, rippling and collapsing its structure.
If it were a person, the moment it struck they would twist and resist. Unless you hit a vital organ precisely, maybe you'd only break a bone.
But the bodies of the monsters blocking him now weren't that complex. Aside from being large and hard, they were simple structures without anything like a nervous system.
Fragments shaped with ichor for blood and tree roots for flesh.
Because of that simplicity, Wave spread through the whole body faster than ever. There was no avoiding its effect.
A sword art made solely for them showed its brilliance.
'This is fun.'
If he swung based on Wave, everything died. Even a graze killed. That was the charm of Wave.
More than anything, the technique itself was enjoyable enough.
The Ferryman had called it the applied course of property change, and that was exactly right. It was more useful for refining and training technique than for actual combat. Its foundation didn't stray far from Sword Echo.
Wave adhered to a method of training three stages.
'Change.'
Alter the property of Will.
'Vibration.'
Shake it.
'Injection.'
Drive that formed Will into the opponent's body.
Enkrid had seen similar techniques many times. He'd even heard them explained.
Audin's holy penetration was similar, but the heart-destroying art shown by Cypress, the guardian of the southern front, was on the same track entirely.
The difference was that one was a needle targeting a single organ, while this was like the handwork of a giant shaking the whole body.
Enkrid broke through and advanced. No monster survived in the place he passed.
It was like old dust being swept away. Monsters crumbled and split in showers.
Enkrid understood the principle of the Demon land Silence and what he had to do.
Because the rate of killing far outstripped the rate of new births, a path opened. And along that path, they saw the dagger Silence had hidden.
"A flower that births colossi."
Enkrid muttered. A scene he'd glimpsed faintly in the Ferryman's memory.
An oval bud hanging beneath gray branches. Blue veins bulged on its surface, and a faint light flickered. A shadow showed through faintly—a curled figure with two wings neatly folded. A dragon still in bud form.
They hadn't been born yet. For that to emerge, Silence would have to devour many more people.
That was likely why it had moved this time.
Yes. One of the reasons Silence had moved lay before their eyes. It had swallowed the surrounding cities to grow its bulk and create a guard. Dragons grown from plants were Silence's guard.
"Dunbakel."
Enkrid called the beastwoman. The bud formed atop the gray tree was dizzying just to look at, but that wasn't the important thing now.
"Still vague."
Her answer came back. The reply to his order to find something different by smell. It was a moment of choice. Enkrid had to decide which way to go.
"It's time to accept the result of the action you chose, mortal. You're wondering if this is the right answer, aren't you? Sorry, but the right answer is something you have to prove with your actions. That's my first piece of advice."
Wherever he went, he would move until he found it. He recalled the Ferryman's advice and was about to step—
"Wait."
Rem, having released possession, steadied his breathing. He'd lost some strength from the price of sorcery, but not enough to collapse.
He exhaled, settling his sorcery.
Rem added intuition to the keen senses Fire Bird left behind. A shaman's sixth sense peers into the future. A proverb of the West.
"Let's go straight."
The only shaman among them spoke, and Enkrid heard the Ferryman—who had briefly played teacher to him—whisper in hallucination:
"If you walk blindly in impatience, sacrifices you can't bear to carry will occur."
A principle of life. It's true that a choice isn't the end, but before that, it's also important not to grow impatient—to calmly perceive and grasp the situation.
The Ferryman had failed to do that and lost everyone. Enkrid had realized that point.
"That's the right answer."
The Ferryman's hallucination spoke again. Her braided hair blurred, and green eyes vanished into the dark.
It was all an illusion, but it felt like he'd said a final farewell to her.
Enkrid stepped forward, straight ahead. Gray trees and rocks moved to block the way. The terrain itself shifted, as if monsters alone weren't enough. Enkrid broke through without hesitation.
If trees blocked him, he cut trees; if rocks blocked him, he shattered rocks.
Without the Ferryman's help, how many times would he have died repeating today? Would he have lost one of these two?
If so, this was the Ferryman's gift.
Or perhaps the price she paid so that what she had never achieved could be fulfilled.
At the end of the place he forced through monsters, trees, and rocks, he saw it—a massive flower. The core of the Demon lands transformed from a tree to a flower.
Hadn't there been something similar in the gray forest too?
He'd heard a similar story when he met Roman. That one had been some kind of flesh mass, he'd said.
Monsters were being born along the path they'd come at several times the previous speed, but Enkrid's Night passed over the ground and reached the flower.
Kyaaaar!
Behind them, monsters shrieked. Flowers and trees couldn't scream. So the copies they had made screamed in their place.
Wherever Night's blade touched, petals shattered. They scattered like bone-dry leaves.
Between the petals, Enkrid found a dark-brown, pulsing root, reversed his grip, and drove the sword in.
Thunk!
The blade plunged in. At the same time, a deep, booming pulse rang out and spread a wave in all directions.
Even Enkrid's whole body vibrated and shook. The main body burst, and a shriek rang directly in his mind. Silence's death cry.
"Did it gather all the living souls into one?"
Rem muttered. This was the end.
The monster horde rushing them from behind crumbled and scattered. The mist dispersed, and light fell from overhead.
"Dawn's broken."
Rem said. His heart churned. Not that he'd show it outwardly.
The Demon lands Silence was an ancient pain of the West. It had moved twice before, and each time people had died in droves. Now they had faced its true body and shattered it.
'The Violet Monster and the Tail-Needle.'
The Violet Monster had spread a plague-like curse, and the other had killed the West's greatest hero.
Those were just the two greatest incidents. Silence had killed countless others. It had swallowed endlessly and digested.
Now they had put an end to that Demon land.
Of the monsters they had actually fought inside, how many had been on the level of Tail-Needle?
At least in the hundreds.
'What's different between then and now.'
Himself and Enkrid. And of course Dunbakel had played her part.
They had chosen the straight path, but without Dunbakel guiding by scent, reaching here would have been difficult.
'The Lord of Living Souls is mixed with the Lord of Devouring Souls.'
Seeing the sorcery soaked into the shattered core, he understood.
It covets life and survives by draining it in. What is born from that body, meanwhile, are only rotten, diseased things.
'Disgusting bastard.'
That was what Silence looked like to Rem.
"Good work."
Rem said. The gray trees didn't crumble into dust, and the rocks didn't melt away.
It had begun as a monster called Root that evolved into Silence, but after enduring here for so long, it had already become the terrain itself. The surrounding corruption wouldn't vanish overnight.
"The smell's gone, though."
Dunbakel said, narrowing her eyes. Something about her expression was displeased. Rem felt the same. So did Enkrid.
Given time, it wouldn't exactly be Silence, but something similar would be born.
To kill the Demon land Silence completely would take time. The core was shattered, but remnants remained. The air left here was still that of a Demon lands; it would turn nearby beasts into monsters.
'On rainy days, drowned corpses will keep appearing.'
That would be something the warriors of the West could handle well enough.
It wouldn't spew monsters recklessly like this again. Its influence on the surroundings would fade.
The Demon land Silence was over. Enkrid, Rem, and Dunbakel turned and left. On the way out, they saw Juol standing speechless in shock.
"Why? What?"
Rem asked, and Juol pointed in one direction.
Silence had gathered the surrounding demonic energy. At the same time, it had spread Demon land air.
And now that the core was dead, the gathering of surrounding energy remained, but the spreading had stopped. That produced a miracle.
"Barley's growing. Crops are growing."
Juol said. Before his eyes, sprouts had emerged and crops were growing.
Something that should take a full year was happening in the span of a few breaths.
He was so shocked his explanation was a mess.
Yes—barley had grown.
As Enkrid muttered inwardly, Juol spoke again.
"It grew incredibly fast."
Just as he said, the surroundings had already turned into something like a field sprouting with grass. Not a sight you'd expect in winter.
"Ah, smells good."
Dunbakel said. After smelling nothing but rot in the Demon-lands, the scent of life hit her nose the moment they stepped out. No wonder she was delighted. A broad smile spread across her face.
"Yeah, incredible."
Rem admired it too. From a shamanic perspective, he could roughly tell what had happened.
The West had always been barren land. Since when? No one knew. But one thing was certain.
Silence had always been there with the West. Silence had been the beginning of the West.
With it gone, the land's original vitality surged up.
'Even shamanically, this is a miracle.'
Rem was impressed.
Enkrid looked at the newly grown grassland and thought:
'All of them…'
They were someone's descendants. In the Ferryman's memory, he'd seen many comrades with black hair.
Those who had continued the fight against Root even after the Ferryman died.
Those who had inherited her will must be the ones who now formed the West. They had endured and fought here so Root—becoming Silence—could not swallow the continent.
The West was the descendants of those who had guarded this land.
"Good work."
Enkrid spoke in place of the Ferryman's heart.
They would all be dead and gone now, but it was a dedication for those who had carried on her will.