A Knight Who Eternally Regresses-Chapter 410: He Should Have Fallen

Not with magic, but with a sword.

It wasn’t even a particularly impressive feat, but his father marveled.

"You are truly remarkable, my son."

From then on, Dehan realized how effortless it was to take a life.

He inherited the title sometime in his mid-thirties.

His father began to look at him with a tinge of fear.

Why?

Ever since Dehan started involving himself in the affairs of the house, his father began making poor decisions—things that could have been avoided with a little thought.

Dehan corrected them from the shadows and confronted his father openly.

Sometimes, he let hints of contempt slip into his words.

At first, his father had been proud. But his eyes gradually changed.

And when Dehan finally refuted one of his father’s decisions head-on—

Even though he knew he was right—

His father snapped.

"It’s for the dignity of the nobility!"

A flimsy excuse.

A pathetic lie.

Was he supposed to pretend otherwise?

Dehan refused.

"It’s disgraceful."

Spoken without emotion.

His father relinquished control of the house after that.

His mother had never been an affectionate woman to begin with.

That was how Dehan became the head of the family.

A few years later, his parents fell into crippling debt due to the schemes of a # Nоvеlight # neighboring lord.

His mother gambled.

His father drowned himself in drink.

A true noble might have been forgiven for such things, but the neighboring lord was merciless.

He drove Dehan’s father to the edge of a cliff—

And his father hanged himself.

His mother followed soon after.

Was I too indifferent?

But there was no rule that one had to love their parents simply because they were parents.

Still, didn’t revenge seem appropriate?

So he took it.

Half a year was all it took.

"Forgive me!"

The neighboring lord knelt before him, but Dehan beheaded him.

There was no satisfaction in it.

That was the moment the House of Molsen, once an ordinary noble house, began to expand.

And three years later, Dehan noticed something.

People were gathering around him.

His actions had caused his house’s military strength and influence to grow at an unprecedented rate.

And so a question arose.

Why should I remain confined here?

As soon as the question appeared, so did the answer.

There was no reason to.

A chick must break free of its shell to fly.

Dehan decided to expand his world. To step beyond the shell.

A throne.

That was the moment ambition was born.

Everything in life had been easy, so why wouldn’t this be?

It had been a series of effortless steps—

Until he found someone standing in his way, beyond the tide of ten thousand wraiths.

***

"Well."

Enkrid responded indifferently, as if answering the unspoken question of how? His arm trembled, but it could still move. That was enough.

"Heh."

The Count let out a sigh.

His eyes scanned the ones standing behind Enkrid.

The barbarian warrior leaned his axe against his shoulder, watching silently.

The swordsman with dull eyes, holding a broken blade, casually brushed blood from his hair.

The large soldier beside them smiled softly as he adjusted his twisted forearm, setting the bone back into place with that same gentle expression, seemingly unbothered by the pain.

Lastly, there was the assassin who had attempted to kill him before he summoned the wraiths.

The man gripped a short stiletto in his right hand, his stance wordlessly asking—Are you ready to die?

The Count raised a hand to his chin and took another long look around.

These were not the ones he had expected.

If everything had gone wrong, if he were to die, he had assumed it would be surrounded by three knights.

That, in turn, would spell the end of Naurilia.

But this?

This was completely unexpected.

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His momentary surprise quickly gave way to exhaustion—no, to absurdity. He couldn't help but laugh.

The Count let out a chuckle and then asked:

"Isn't it only natural that the most capable should rise to the highest position?"

It was a question of why they stood in his way.

"That’s why I came."

Enkrid replied.

The Count had the sudden urge to seize that man's tongue and stretch it out.

That bastard always spoke so damn briefly.

How far could he pull his tongue before it snapped? He was genuinely curious.

"Fine. Words won’t solve this anyway."

The Count extended his hand.

From the air, black soot gathered, taking the form of a bird before shooting forward.

Though it takes long to describe, in reality, the crow materialized and attacked the moment the Count raised his hand.

Had Esther been here, she would have recognized the spell as Sharlenere's Life-Draining Crow, a form of necromantic summoning.

But none present knew the name of the spell.

They only reacted.

As the black bird rushed toward Enkrid, a dagger flew through the air and struck it.

Boom!

The crow exploded mid-flight, shattering the dagger into three pieces that scattered in different directions.

The Count frowned.

An artifact?

No.

No lunatic enchanter would waste such a spell on a mere throwing knife.

That would be an insane level of extravagance.

It had been a scroll, wrapped around the dagger and thrown.

An unorthodox technique.

The one who had thrown it was, of course, Bell. Several similar daggers were already in his hands.

"The throne is mine."

Even now, the Count remained resolute.

Even if they had broken through his wraiths, there was no reason for him to go down without a fight.

As he continuously summoned Sharlenere's Life-Draining Crow, he began casting another spell.

In the air, crimson masses formed, coalescing into sentient, floating swords.

They moved of their own will, targeting Enkrid.

A figure resembling a bear stepped forward to intercept them.

"A pitiful soul that cannot even return to the Lord."

He murmured as his hands and feet moved.

Despite his massive frame, his movements were swift, knocking the crimson blades out of the air. They shattered mid-flight.

These bastards...

The Count reverted some of his wraiths.

Several of the wraith-soldiers hunting the battlefield's warriors collapsed into piles of dust.

Like fading mist, they dispersed into the air.

"Rise, Wraith General!"

He condensed his dispersed wraiths, combining them into a single form.

Before the Count stood a hulking shadow wielding a massive black greatsword.

It was even larger than Audin.

The one who stepped forward to face it was Ragna.

At some point, he had dragged himself forward, his steps sluggish.

Lifting his head, he raised his broken sword and swung without a word.

Before the wraith general could react, Ragna’s blade slashed through its throat, split its chest, and severed its waist in half.

Enkrid nearly marveled at the sheer skill.

What the hell was that?

Three slashes in a single breath.

Each one had been in a different direction, yet they appeared as a single seamless movement.

It was as if he had erased the act of recovery between swings.

By preemptively calculating his strikes, he minimized unnecessary motion—

A high horizontal slash, immediately followed by a downward vertical strike, finished with a mid-level horizontal cut.

Every motion imbued with the Will of Severance.

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It looked as if he had painted strokes with his sword, but it had been so fast, so precise, that there had been no room to counter.

Even Enkrid doubted he could have blocked that.

Ragna took two steps back—then collapsed into a seated position.

Clearly, he had fallen.

But—

"Hah. A moment to catch my breath."

He spoke casually, as if he had meant to sit.

The Count nearly gaped.

What the hell was that man?

A wraith general capable of devouring lesser knights in an instant had just been... cut down in a single move?

To the Count’s eyes, it had seemed like only one strike.

A strange sense of unease crept into his chest.

Anxious, uncertain, he forced himself to ignore it.

There were still more cards to play.

The Count bit down on his tongue.

Crack.

His molars sliced through the flesh, filling his mouth with the coppery taste of blood.

Red streaks dribbled from his lips.

He pulled his left hand to his chest, catching the blood before it fell.

"Come forth, my Guardian of Blood."

He swung his staff.

The lump of blood in his palm wriggled, growing rapidly in size.

In mere moments, the blood expanded to the size of a person, sprouting limbs.

Now that the form had taken shape, it needed a soul.

To fuel it, the Count reverted even more of his battlefield wraiths.

The battlefield became quieter.

More soldiers who had been on the brink of death barely managed to survive.

Most of the soldiers possessed by wraiths snapped back to their senses.

The Count, desperate, was pouring everything into this final confrontation.

Before long, the creature stood fully formed.

A Blood Golem—its body entirely crimson, with only two vacant eye sockets.

"Even here, you’re playing with strange magic? Judging by your tricks, you must've been meddling with the Undying Lunatic."

The words came from the barbarian warrior.

As soon as the Count laid eyes on him, the man was already reaching into his coat.

The Count, watching from behind his golem, saw what he pulled out.

It was easy to guess.

The barbarian swung it overhead.

A sling.

He loaded a spherical bullet, beginning to spin it.

He had started winding it the moment the golem had begun forming.

The whirling sound of the sling filled the air.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Whiiiiiing.

Rem used the last totem orb he had taken from the Undying Lunatic as a sling bullet.

He hadn't expected to use it as ammunition, but this was the perfect moment.

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

The sound that ripped through the air made everyone’s spine crawl—friend and foe alike.

The Blood Golem's gaze was drawn toward it.

A construct born of sorcery, the golem brought its hands together.

It was preparing to release a torrent of blood.

Rem’s arm moved.

Whiiiiiing—whoosh!

The noise above his head stopped for a single breath, replaced by another sound.

Boom!

The Blood Golem’s head erupted.

Normally, a golem wouldn't be affected by mere physical impact.

But this bullet was anything but ordinary.

It was the crystallization of over a decade’s worth of accumulated sorcery from the Undying Lunatic.

That magic detonated, consuming both the golem’s life force and its own energy in a violent explosion.

That was why it had perished.

"Guh!"

The Count clutched his chest with his left hand, driving his staff into the ground with his right.

A wave of loss and emptiness flooded him, nearly stopping his heart.

He felt the golem's death. The sudden void left him with an oppressive, sinking despair.

The construct had been bound to his own blood and heart.

It should not have been destroyed so easily.

"You bastards!"

The Count roared in fury.

Rem, having expended his last enchanted tool, felt his entire body weaken.

Am I about to die like this?

No, surely not.

But his body had lost all its strength, enough to make him wonder.

The backlash from using someone else’s sorcery had finally caught up with him.

Rem wavered, stumbling backward before collapsing onto his rear with a solid thump.

Coincidentally, he landed right next to Ragna.

Rem glanced at him and muttered,

"Guess it’s my turn to watch."

Ragna gave a slow nod. Their eyes met.

Neither had the energy to insult the other, and this wasn’t the time for bickering anyway.

For once, they seemed to be in agreement.

Audin, meanwhile, could not afford to simply watch. The flying crimson swords were too dangerous to leave alone.

Compared to the Blood Golem, they might have seemed insignificant, but in reality, they were anything but.

They were magical constructs, the kind one might only see in demonic realms—manifestations of pure sorcery.

This was undeniable proof of the Count's immense power.

There was no choice but to endure the pain of the forbidden seal.

Forgive me, Father.

Audin drew upon his divinity, not to radiate light, but to fortify his body.

My left hand is a sacred blade, my right hand is iron.

If he used his bare hands, the swords would be like steel and stone.

But now that he had infused his hands with divine energy, they were a holy blade and unyielding iron.

As one of the crimson swords came slashing toward him, Audin raised his left hand.

Clang!

The moment it touched the sacred blade, the crimson sword shattered.

He followed up with a strike from his right hand.

Boom!

The bent and crushed blade lost its force and spun into the dirt, embedding itself deeply.

The wraith trapped inside lost its power and faded, turning to dust.

One by one, Audin crushed the flying swords.

The pain from breaking the forbidden seal spread through his entire body.

For a moment, he couldn’t move at all.

Audin’s limbs trembled violently. His entire body stiffened like a felled tree, leaving him frozen in place.

"Tch."

Watching this, Rem clicked his tongue.

Why the hell is that guy still standing?

"Hmph."

Ragna glanced at Audin and furrowed his brow.

This is annoying. That priest should have collapsed too