Chapter 429

The sky, heavy with clouds, felt lower than ever before.

It almost looked as if the clouds were brushing the small hill behind the training yard and the barracks.

While everyone went about their own business, the king and Enkrid spoke of each other’s dreams.

They spoke while drawing in the cold, crisp air left behind by the rain and exhaling deeply.

“I wish to become a knight and wield a sword.”

His tone and demeanor were so plain and subdued that the dream sounded like it belonged to someone else.

It started with becoming a knight, then extended to all he hoped to accomplish on the continent.

Upon hearing Enkrid’s dream, the king thought to himself:

‘There’s no despair, no resignation.’

He didn’t even mention the mockery of others.

He would simply move forward—and because he would, he held no doubt.

This man didn’t entertain the idea of failure.

The king’s mind briefly wandered to his past.

“Founding a nation? Spare me the nonsense! You actually think that makes sense?”

Those were the words of his younger brother, the one who had followed him most loyally.

Anu couldn't blame him. His brother was simply someone who saw things as they were.

And he wasn’t wrong. There were others who spoke just as reasonably.

“It’s impossible. You’re asking us to invest in fantasy.”

“So you’re going to become a bandit or a thief? What’s even in the East?”

“How can you waste your power like that? Put your strength into blocking the Demon Realm. I’ll grant you whatever you desire.”

The king—Anu—had listened to them all and rejected every word.

None of their arguments stirred his heart.

‘I’ll do what makes my heart race.’

For him, that was founding a kingdom in the East.

And in the end, Anu made it happen. He poured his life into laying the foundation of a nation.

Everyone said it was impossible. They all called it meaningless. They all laughed in his face.

Anu didn’t have time to care about any of that. There was too much to do.

He just moved forward.

He kept walking, and then—

“Sounds fun. Let’s do it together.”

More people began to stay by his side.

“You’ve got plenty of gaps. I’ll patch them up for you.”

And now here they were.

It wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning.

He hadn’t meant to be encouraging, yet there was weight in the king’s voice, and heat shimmered in his gaze.

“An Eastern kingdom? That’s just a checkpoint! A nation is merely a base. My goal is to conquer the entire East.”

He would explore the unknown, forge paths one by one, and plant his banner in that land.

As he spoke, the king bared his fangs. It was a smile, yet also an expression of fierce determination.

“You wish to become a knight? Do you mean knights as they once were?”

“Yes.”

“You want to erase war from the continent? If the Demon Realm stands in your way, you’ll erase it. If demons block your path, you’ll slay them. If the Empire opposes you, you’ll even bring down the Empire?”

It was an even more outrageous dream than conquering the East. This was delusion. The king respected others’ dreams. But this? This was too much.

Enkrid’s expression remained unchanged. At some point, his sweat had dried. The wind blew, scattering Enkrid’s black hair—which had grown long enough to tickle his neck.

He wasn’t of noble blood. He wasn’t royalty. Nor did he possess any extraordinary talent.

He was just a man walking forward, driven by a dream.

“You’re a truly fascinating man.”

Anu repeated the words others had once said to him, now from his own lips.

A dream on a different scale.

“If I were to wage war on the continent, you’d fight me too, wouldn’t you? Then for the sake of that future, I should kill you here and now.”

It wasn’t a real threat.

The king remembered something he had forgotten from Enkrid’s words.

For the first time since staying here, he had seen someone’s true will.

And that’s why.

The talk of killing him was just a cloak—a teaching wrapped in harsh words.

He simply didn’t want to explain the whole storm of emotion behind it, so he masked it with a convenient excuse: “I’ll kill you.”

Of course, no one could know what was truly in the king’s heart.

Wasn’t he a capricious man anyway, driven by impulse?

The king, still seated, rose and reached behind him. His adjutant hesitated.

He had followed Anu for over twenty years.

‘Is he serious?’

That hesitation came from knowing the king. But he followed the order. He was about to hand over a spear, but the king spoke.

“The Bull.”

The adjutant stopped entirely. That name belonged to a weapon he would only ever draw against a mortal enemy or a foe worthy of being compared to himself.

“My lord?”

Asaluhi asked reflexively.

“Give it to me.”

The king was firm. The adjutant took off the new weapon strapped to his back and unraveled the cloth wrapping it.

The shaft was a dark brown, making it difficult to tell what material it was made from, and the spearhead was uniquely split in two.

Both the shape and material of the blades resembled horns. Dark gray horn-blades. If seen in the dark, they might be too black to even notice.

Two horns—the blades were the bull’s head, and the shaft was its body.

As the king took the spear, a pressure unlike anything before radiated from him. A presence that made one instinctively want to bow their head in reverence.

Enkrid, who had been sitting beside him, felt like he was sinking into the ground—but he immediately activated his Will of Rejection.

Enkrid’s will pushed back against the pressure the other exuded and proved itself.

He refused to be crushed, so it was resistance—defiance.

Enkrid pressed his palm against the ground and stood.

That alone was impressive enough to make Asaluhi’s eyes widen.

To stand without trembling before the king holding the Bull.

More than anything, that man had already been knocked down twice by the king today.

He should’ve been exhausted. His spirit should’ve wavered.

But it hadn’t.

Enkrid stood, holding Acker.

The true meaning behind the king’s words? He didn’t care.

His legs weakened from two duels? Didn’t matter.

His opponent had heard his dream and declared he’d crush it. Even voiced a killing intent without hesitation.

So Enkrid did what he always did.

He took up his sword and resisted.

He stitched back together his torn dream, as he always did.

He took his stance and stared directly at his opponent.

As always, he walked with nothing but his dream in sight.

He grounded his stance and steadied his breathing.

As always, he lived as if it was a moment he could die in.

The king’s spear moved. The twin horns thrust forward with such speed that even their pale afterimage blurred as they pierced toward his chest.

Enkrid raised Acker diagonally to block it.

Had he been unlucky, he might not have managed.

Ting.

The spear reached him in a blink, grazing the blade of Acker raised before his chest and halting.

Then, between the two horns, the blades caught his sword and spun to the side.

Stopping was more impressive than striking. Despite the speed of the thrust, it had halted with nothing but a soft ting, then tried to break the blade caught between the horns.

Crack.

The blade trapped between the horns screeched.

Enkrid gripped the sword tightly as it tried to tear from his grasp, enduring it with the Heart of Might and the grip strength honed every morning.

Neither did the blade snap, nor did the sword escape his hands. Seeing this, the king spoke.

“Then block this too.”

The king, still composed, pulled back the spear and thrust again.

In Enkrid’s eyes, the bull now had six horns.

The thrust had split into three directions. All of them seemed real. And they were.

Speed is relative, after all.

To Enkrid, each of the three-pronged thrusts was real. It was a miracle wrought by the king’s continuous strike-and-withdraw technique.

He didn’t even have time to shout.

Enkrid released his strength, then in an instant tensed every muscle in his body and swung.

If any soldier watching recognized the technique woven into that strike, they would be worthy of Lua Gharne’s instruction.

A slash that mixed oppressive force with the Will of Swiftness met the bull’s horns.

Like before, the horns merely grazed the blade and fell back.

Ting.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Enkrid pulled Acker back. It was time to catch his breath. For some reason, the sword felt heavier than before.

No—more than ever, the weight of Acker transmitted clearly through both arms. He thought maybe it was because he was tired.

Rather than charging, the king opened his mouth.

“You awaken your Will, craft techniques from it, and when you surpass that, you fight with Will itself. That’s what you call a knight.”

Enkrid had no room to respond. The king continued without pause.

“If one is to fight with Will itself, don’t they need a weapon worthy of that? The answer’s obvious. The Bull is such a weapon. What they call an engraved weapon. My Will is embedded in it.”

As he spoke, the king thrust the spear again. It was impossible to guess when he even had time to breathe.

Enkrid raised his sword to block once more.

Ting!

Once again, the blade and the horns only grazed each other.

Enkrid couldn’t even tell if this was the right moment to bet everything on a decisive strike.

Even with his Foresight, it felt like everything beyond was hidden behind fog.

He was supposed to predict the next move by observing shoulder shifts, the grounding of feet—but his opponent showed none of those signs.

That’s why it looked like mist clouded his vision.

The sword in his hand felt even heavier than before. With every clash against the spear, it was as if someone had secretly welded more metal onto it.

The fog, the weight—it was all irritating.

‘So what?’

Enkrid ignored it, filled his mouth with air, and held his breath. His cheeks puffed out.

He did everything he could.

Same as always.

Enkrid’s sword seemed to vanish from the air with a shik.

A thrust powered by everything he had. The activation of Swiftness.

No breathing, single-point focus, Heart of Might, even the feel of the strike—all fused into one blow.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The king extended the spear and deflected the blade’s path.

Ting!

That same sound rang out again.

Enkrid pulled the diverted blade back with strength. If once didn’t work, then twice. If twice failed, then three times. And if that didn’t work, ten times.

If you stopped just because you hit a wall that had no end in sight, then you’d never overcome it.

Acker’s blade broke through the sunset light and began to dance through the air.

The king deflected every single strike with the Bull’s horns.

Tududuk—raindrops began to fall from the dark clouds above.

Tidi-di-di-di-ding!

Acker and the Bull clashed countless times and separated just as often.

In that brief moment of flurry, Enkrid staggered and stepped back.

Rain streaked across his sword, hissing into steam with a sharp sizzle.

“So you really do need to die.”

The king said, and though Enkrid staggered, he never loosened the grip on his sword.

After a moment of staring each other down—

“Axe, I know you’re behind me, so don’t bother throwing anything.”

The king spoke again.

“You’re probably still awkward with your senses, but if you take the wrong path now, you’ll suffer for life.”

He continued.

“If you get ticked off and try to close the gap—I won’t even give you that chance.”

The king raised the Bull upright, stabbed the spear shaft into the ground with a firm thud, and withdrew his killing intent.

“And I am a beastman who hasn’t even transformed yet!”

That final shout raised the goosebumps on everyone’s skin. It wasn’t arrogance—it was confidence built from years of proof.

He was a king whose personality swung wildly with age, so his speech patterns were unpredictable—but the meaning inside was crystal clear.

“Why so suddenly?”

Lua Gharne asked.

She had been off to the side, stroking the grip of her Loop Sword.

That Frokk had been ready to charge in at any moment, too.

The king knew it—but pretended not to as he replied.

“A whim, Asaluhi.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The king tossed the Bull back. Asaluhi caught the still-warm spear, shook it to cool the horn-blades, then wrapped it back in cloth.

“Let’s go.”

The king made his decision and moved. Just as impulsively as he had come.

And no one tried to stop him.

As the king passed the barely conscious Enkrid, he paused, whispered something, then patted him once on the shoulder.

Then he continued walking away, arms swaying.

“Well then, if something comes up next time, I’ll see you again.”

His aide, Asaluhi, turned back and said.

No one responded.

Asaluhi made eye contact with Dunbakel, who had been watching from a tree, frozen in the cold. He offered her a soft smile before withdrawing.

Every one of them had been ready to leap into battle.

At the exit, Teresa stood holding her shield.

“Farewell.”

Asaluhi followed the king out.

***

“Why did you do that? They didn’t seem like the kind of people to come East.”

Asaluhi hastened his pace to match the king’s unhurried gait and asked.

He had followed the king for a long time. Though caught off guard for a moment, now he more or less understood.

What the king gave was a gift.

Including what he whispered at the end—he had left a gift for Enkrid.

“The gift came to me first.”

“Pardon?”

Asaluhi asked again, and the king chuckled as he answered.

“I was good with the sword and spear the moment I picked them up. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

There was a time when the king was called the Mercenary King for his natural talent.

He was born with physical prowess and personal charm.

“Born the son of a slave, but before I turned sixteen, I had even freed my parents from slavery.”

Later, he earned fame by slaying a lion with a single spear.

“And yet.”

The king paused. The brief rain had already stopped. The air and sky were cold but dazzlingly clear.

A cool wind brushed his cheek.

‘I once wondered if devoting my life to conquering the East was really the right path.’

The king kept those thoughts to himself. It was the burden of time. He had forgotten the fire of ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) his youth for a moment.

He thought he needed capable people. But was that really essential?

Why couldn’t he move forward alone?

Even after founding a kingdom in the East, why did he still feel it wasn’t enough?

Because he had lost that fire.

In the span of ten days—a short time or a long one depending on how you look at it—the king saw Enkrid and remembered.

That forgotten fire sparked again.

“The will I saw in that clumsy swordsman… it was greater than mine.”

Asaluhi tilted his head, then suddenly asked,

“Do you think that man will become a knight?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not an easy path.”

Asaluhi had eyes of his own. Enkrid couldn’t become a knight. He showed no signs of the required talent.

To his aide’s remark, the king smiled and replied,

“He’s got pitifully little talent. Never seen someone so lacking in ability.”

Compared to others, he had nothing that could be called a gift. Having sparred with him directly, the king could say with certainty—Enkrid’s talent was mediocre at best.

And yet, the king still believed he would become a knight.

“Swinging a sword all day doesn’t make you a knight. Being born with talent doesn’t guarantee it either.”

“Don’t you need both?”

Effort and talent—weren’t they both prerequisites?

With a familiar smile, the king answered.

He spoke of the man who reminded him of what he’d forgotten.

“If someone carries dreams in their sword… then they just might be able to surpass all limits.”

That was what the king believed.