Chapter 468

The journey, spent half-idly wandering while watching the clouds drift by, came to an end.

The arrival of the Giant changed the atmosphere.

Enkrid twisted his blade left and right, watching the Giant’s reaction.

The opponent was nonchalant. Pretending to be docile, he blinked like a cow.

“What are you doing—playing with your sword?”

The Giant tilted his head dumbly, his speech clumsy. Enkrid didn’t fall for the innocent-butcher act.

This bastard…

Even as he spoke like that, Enkrid could clearly see him subtly moving his hand toward his waist. A perfect spot to block a sword.

Then the Giant began swinging the club in his right hand through the air.

Whoosh—whoosh. The wind stirred by the club’s force smacked him in the face.

Whether it was meant to provoke or not, the pressure from the swinging club made Enkrid’s eyes sting.

Narrowing his eyes, Enkrid regained his composure and thought two things at once.

If that hits, something’s going to break—and not just in one place.

…Wouldn’t that help with strengthening my hair follicles, maybe?

With those thoughts,nhe adjusted his grip on the sword, positioning the tip toward the Giant’s abdomen, and shifted his footing.

“Need a hand?”

Dunbakel asked. He didn’t seem to genuinely want to help, more like he wanted to show off to Rem.

“No.”

Enkrid declined.

The Giant’s momentum was surging. And it was unique. In short, he was an opponent Enkrid didn’t want to let go.

As his skills improved, Enkrid often found desires rising within him.

There was a kind of joy found in battle itself.

Of course, indulging in it too deeply would make him nothing more than a killing machine.

But that never happened with Enkrid.

He had a dream.

Still, did he have to throw away all the joy in life to chase it?

Of course not. But that didn’t mean he’d let himself indulge without restraint.

That shard of burning blood he’d felt when fighting ghouls… Something about this opponent stirred a similar sensation.

Was the opponent dangerous?

Regardless of skill, if you got hit by a club like that, Junior Knight or not, something was going to get crushed.

“If I can’t dodge, I might die.”

There’s always danger in a real sword fight—and that’s part of what makes it exhilarating.

Lua Gharne’s book whip fluttered back and forth.

The Giant’s gaze didn’t shift much. But Enkrid knew: this guy was watching everything.

Whether it was intuition or a vivid illusion—

It was illusion, but it wasn’t.

A strange sense of deception shrouded his entire body.

“What are you looking at?”

Enkrid asked, locking eyes with the Giant.

Their gazes met.

The blue eyes were earnest and firm. They sparkled like gemstones, like starlight.

Those were Enkrid’s eyes.

The Giant’s eyes were dull and murky, like clumps of dry, cracked earth. A dark brown.

On the surface, they looked innocent and stupid, but they couldn’t completely hide the layered cunning within.

Maybe “gratefully malicious” was the right way to describe them.

The Giant’s eyes rolled a few times. Enkrid tried to read his thoughts—but failed.

Of course he couldn’t. Enkrid didn’t have the ability to read minds.

But one thing was certain.

He wouldn’t back down easily.

At that moment, the Giant stopped twirling his club.

“Aren’t you scared?”

The Giant’s voice grew much softer than before.

It had the tone of persuasion.

Maybe even faint friendliness.

The Giant was remarkably crafty. He changed his tone to lure in his opponent’s guard.

“Leave just one behind, and I’ll spare the rest.”

The Giant said again, lips dry and cracked.

Big or small, those teeth didn’t seem to matter—the only thing Enkrid saw were the Giant’s eyes.

He started to feel a bit sorry for Kraiss.

‘They’re similar, but not the same.’

What’s the biggest difference?

Truth. Or the lack of it.

The Giant seemed to enjoy deceiving and looting with gentle lies.

He reeked of something base and vile. Like a leather-slick thrill. Even a faint smell of blood.

Some giants who’d eaten human flesh did indeed have that scent.

“Is that so?”

Enkrid narrowed his eyes and asked again.

“It is. I swear on the name of Ban Naturr.”

The Giant replied without moving a single finger.

“I see.”

Enkrid answered in the exact same manner—still, without shifting a muscle.

It was like their mouths and bodies weren’t connected.

They spoke, but neither lowered their guard.

The Giant, Ban Naturr, knew his opponent wasn’t fooled.

“Are you mocking me?”

The Giant suddenly exploded in rage, leaning forward. He was faking a charge.

Enkrid saw it and remembered the Valen-style dual sword technique.

That was exactly what the Giant was doing.

Though the method of deception and insult differed, it aimed in the same direction.

Even now, he feinted with a lunge, stomped the ground with a boom, then stopped midway and calmly swung his club downward.

KWA-AANG!

A sound that ripped the ears.

Though it wasn’t a full-force strike, and only aimed to graze with caution, the sheer strength tore through the air.

The Giant wasn’t called that for nothing.

Regardless, he was calm.

Аnd so was Enkrid.

Whether it was talk of eating or sparing lives, whatever was said—he remained steady.

The heart of a beast.

That training had cultivated composure.

He’d been through something similar before—Acker had taught him never to forget his calm.

The moment club and sword met.

Like shaving wood with a plane, Acker’s blade pushed against the club.

The black-brown club was covered in spikes, which clattered and fell away.

The Giant shifted his weight to his right foot and kicked.

The wind pressure from the kick turned the fallen spikes into flying projectiles.

Enkrid twisted his body gently to the side, dodging them.

While dodging, he switched Acker into his left hand and struck the Giant’s shin.

CRACK!

The blade struck something like a city wrapped around the Giant’s shin, but it didn’t feel like flesh was splitting.

Still, he felt something solid being split.

“ARGH!”

The Giant screamed.

Even then, Enkrid looked only at his eyes—and those eyes hadn’t changed.

Still calm.

As he screamed, the Giant pushed his hand forward.

He was pretending to be in pain—and counterattacking.

It was as if he believed he could break anything he caught.

And honestly, with his brute strength, he probably could.

He was a Giant—a species that could carve stone with their bare hands.

Something was wrapped around his shoulder under cloth, protecting the shin. It looked like a crude binding—but it was deception.

Even the scream wasn’t from pain. Just acting.

Another trick.

Then he reached out with his hand—not for the club, but to grab and crush.

The intent was clear: Get caught, and I’ll snap your fingers. See how you like it.

Even that ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) was just another deception.

Enkrid cut through it all and reacted instantly.

The Giant screamed, reaching out.

In that moment, the club with broken spikes dropped from above.

This time, no loud BOOM. It was swift and clean. Earlier, the club was swung wide to catch wind resistance—but now, the angle was slanted.

Huff.

Enkrid exhaled shortly, then held his breath.

One Point Focus.

Time slowed.

His senses perceived everything. The situation laid itself bare.

Vitality surged through his body. And with that, Enkrid moved.

His right hand extended like a blade; his left pulled Acker upward.

He stepped forward and stomped on the Giant’s foot.

CRACK! CRUNCH! SNAP!

His hand-strike broke the Giant’s wrist.

The stomp crushed the top of his foot.

Acker stabbed into the center of the club—

Snap!—wood fragments fell from above.

“GRAAAAAAAAH!”

Only then did the Giant let out the scream he’d been holding back.

Тhis one was real.

Enkrid retrieved the torn Acker and stepped back.

The Giant didn’t give up—he dropped the club and started swinging fists.

Whoosh!

One hit would’ve been fatal—his punch sliced the air.

“You bastard.”

The Giant cursed.

That was real, too.

Enkrid stared at the tears forming in the Giant’s eyes.

That, too—

Was real.

He sniffled.

***

While Enkrid toyed with one Giant, Rem had already killed two.

It hadn’t even been a long fight.

At first, they exchanged weapon strikes at mid-range, but Rem soon closed the distance and pushed into the Giants’ reach.

The two, having lost the advantage of distance, tried to draw their cleavers, but Rem shoved them aside and created a new mouth with her axe.

One of them died with his guts spilling from the gaping wound in his abdomen. The other stood with a hand axe buried in his skull for a while longer—before finally dropping.

Purple blood pooled on the ground.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

Seeing a Giant continue attacking with an axe stuck in his head made one wonder where the limit of their vitality lay.

But still—no matter how durable, no one could survive with their guts spilled and skull split completely open.

The three Giants were simply unlucky. Of all people, they ran into monsters like these.

“What are you things?”

Rem approached after the brutal fight and asked.

Only the one Giant remained alive—the one whose windpipe Enkrid had crushed and whose ankle he’d shattered. So, of course, the question was for him.

He blinked slowly, as if chewing over Rem’s words.

“Why are things like you here? You don’t live here.”

Rem asked again.

The Giant, Ban Naturr, blinked once more.

“Agony… it hurts. Why are you asking me that?”

Still playing dumb.

Enkrid wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Rem didn’t bother replying in words. She pulled out a dagger and placed it just below the Giant’s eye.

Lua Gharne moved like a living whip and bound the Giant’s arms.

Still, getting that close was dangerous.

But it was Rem—so it was fine.

She wasn’t the type to fall for some cheap trick.

Even kneeling, she aimed her dagger at the Giant’s eye, which was still a bit above her line of sight. Meanwhile, her foot pressed down on his thigh.

If anything went wrong, that foot would shatter the bone in his upper leg.

“I’ll start with the eyes. But hey—if there’s somewhere else you’d prefer, like those little eggs between your legs, I’m open to suggestions. We usually pass through there at least once anyway. Oh, and I can keep you alive for two days. Minimum.”

Jaxon was the master of torture. He’d certainly given off that impression more than once.

As for Rem… if needed, she would do it.

Even if she wasn’t a master, she’d killed enough people firsthand to understand the structure of the wicked body.

The Giant wasn’t some demonic beast with four hearts.

He was at least humanoid in some regard.

“Wait—if I talk, will you let me live?”

For some reason, Enkrid found the situation unfamiliar.

He hadn’t seen many Giants in action, but they weren’t called Beasts of Red Blood for nothing.

Their very posture in combat screamed of madness.

Even in defeat, they never gave up—they fought with reckless abandon.

That was what Giants were. Or so he had believed until now.

Back during his mercenary days, the Giants he saw on the battlefield were like berserk siege engines.

He could still picture them, coated in blood, charging headlong into crossbow-armed platoons.

‘Heheh—see? Told ya you could count on me.’

Crazy bastard Giants had their own kind of tactics—and they trusted each other.

Of course, not every human was the same, nor every beastkin. So not every Giant would be either.

Still, this guy… you’d want to pluck out his eyes and study his behavior.

He was breathing, barely talking—and as soon as something broke, he folded? Was that really a Giant?

They’d already whipped him into shape, but if he still had the will to resist—

He could’ve resisted.

And yet, here he was like this.

Rem jabbed her dagger just beneath the Giant’s eye. A sharp spurt of purple blood came out.

Then she spoke.

“…I’ll kill you cleanly.”

She didn’t lie. That was just like Rem.

“You humans are cruel.”

The Giant replied.

So he had some brains left, though his language skills had clearly deteriorated.

His speech was still clumsy, his voice echoing like it came from deep inside a cavern. If he slurred even slightly, it became hard to understand.

Now that they were listening more closely, they could tell.

“Damn it… what’s so good about land where no one keeps their promises… we endure.”

Or something like that. The meaning had to be inferred from surrounding words—it was barely intelligible.

“All is as the god wills.”

Suddenly saying that, the Giant tried to slam his head into Rem’s dagger.

Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.

Rem struck him across the cheekbone with the hilt of her dagger.

Crack.

The Giant’s head snapped back.

Lua Gharne tightened around his arms. Veins bulged across the glistening surface of the whip like Frokk’s forearms.

“It hurts!”

The Giant cried out.

“Did you think I hit you to give you pleasure?”

Rem said, twirling the dagger to bring the blade back forward—and stabbed it straight into the Giant’s eye.

Her motion was clean, without a moment of hesitation.

Thunk.

“GRAAAAGHHH!”

Another scream.

And that one was real.

The Giant found a kind of happiness in that.

“This land is ours now. That was the command.”

“From who?”

“The Great Prophet.”

They still couldn’t make out much from his speech.

They pressed for answers a few more times. But once it was clear there was nothing left to gain—

Thunk.

Rem slit the Giant’s throat with her dagger.

Blood sprayed forth. A dark purple, nearly violet.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Rem said, “but I figure I’ll understand more once I go deeper.”

Then she added,

“You shouldn’t follow me.”

And with that, Enkrid remembered the time he told her to charge into the demon realm without question—

He had spoken, and Rem had followed.