A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

Enkrid reacted. Dunbakel and Rem moved.

Arrows tore through the pitch-black sky.

A few torch stands were knocked over.

In Enkrid’s mind, everything unfolded like a picture.

In a moment of crisis, his instincts gleamed cold as ever. A blade of intuition sliced through the darkness.

“Half will survive.”

Some of the hostages tied to the poles were moments away from death.

The massive spiders had no intention of keeping them alive.

It was a purely calculated attempt to break morale.

Monsters thinking that far?

Unbelievable—but this wasn’t the time to question it.

What mattered was how many could be saved.

He couldn’t save them all. Beneath the pale-blue glowing stones, a giant spider raised one of its legs—long and pointed enough to be called a spear.

“Exactly half.”

He could throw something and kill it, but that wouldn’t save anyone.

Will activated. With eyes that could see an inch ahead, the prediction expanded, revealing fragments of the future—intuition’s vision.

But even so, there was nothing he could change.

In the meantime, Rem and Dunbakel had already killed two spiders.

An axe and a curved blade split monster skulls.

Enkrid reached another one, thrusting his firesteel.

He lunged, striking swiftly and boring a hole through the monster’s head. He stabbed, withdrew, and planted his feet again.

Even after seeing an unchanging future—was he supposed to give up?

Enkrid didn’t.

Whether it worked or not, he stepped forward toward the next.

There were nine poles in total.

Even if he charged, some would die. That was the image drawn on the canvas of the future he’d seen. But still, he wouldn’t stop.

And then—silver light sliced through the canvas.

Fwoooosh.

A monstrous spider’s leg, just as it was about to stab a hostage, was cleanly severed.

Enkrid froze mid-sprint. He forgot to breathe.

He thought he’d seen a knight’s sword?

No—he’d been mistaken.

What does it mean to cut cloth alone?

Why is she called a calamity?

The mercenary king thrusting spears at impossible angles.

Ragna’s lightning, striking down with incomprehensible force.

Shinar’s sword, taking impossible shapes.

And now—this.

Oara moved with impossible speed. Her sword—like a brush—redrew the image on the canvas.

She had been farther away than Enkrid.

And yet now, she was everywhere.

There were six poles with hostages that Enkrid couldn’t reach—and there were six Oaras.

Divine skill, born of violent speed, unfolded before his eyes.