Enkrid measured the enemy's position and counted their numbers.
'One Frog, one guy holding a club, one fairy, one group of black masks, two guys hiding in between and watching, one giant, and lastly, the High Pontiff.'
It wasn't a simple headcount. In his head, he divided that group into a form that would be good for breaking them apart.
What he'd learned from Luagarne and the experience he'd built up rolling across the continent guided him.
'Split them.'
He grasped it. His intuition prickled and stimulated his scalp, telling him that this was the most important thing right now.
'Treat the black mask group as one.'
While recognizing the others one by one as individual entities, he didn't split the black mask group.
'Similar technique, similar momentum.'
They were like bastards stamped out from a casting plate. It was a type he'd seen many times while fighting.
'Mass-produced knights.'
There was no reason for them not to do that. If they knew the method and had abundant resources, they possessed enough force to be called a calamity against ordinary soldiers.
Also, if their headcount increased, hadn't they judged it would be effective even against knights?
It was a guess, but it was half the right answer. If Kraiss could look into Enkrid's head right now, wouldn't he have kept shouting that he was a genius at this kind of thing?
He was piercing the past by looking at the present. It wasn't the important part right now. Still, depending on whether you knew it or not, the way you acted could change.
At the same time as measuring the enemy, Enkrid drew the direction of the fight. Everything he'd pierced, recognized, and experienced blended together. The tactical sense he had awakened when Abnaier had driven him into a corner surged and showed him the path.
In other words, he decided where and how he had to fight. And the step Enkrid took was a step faster and more certain than anyone standing on this battlefield.
"Rem, Ragna, stick to me. I'm the center. Trident formation."
Enkrid used the High Pontiff's leisurely steps and Baerlich's opportunistic nature.
'Thanks to you, Pel.'
Because they'd won the first duel, those bastards approached in a formation that applied pressure instead of charging.
Thanks to that, didn't an opening appear for this side to break out?
Of course, an ordinary person would probably ask where the opening was here. It was that he was using the short gap that formed while they reset to fight again.
Enkrid stomped off the ground. Rem and Ragna followed tight behind him.
The three ran as if forming a triangle's vertices. It wasn't that fast, but it was far faster than the enemy.
Left was Rem, right was Ragna. Like that, the three of them plunged without hesitation into the middle of the black knights' group.
In a way, it looked like a suicide act. It was like three of them were charging straight into the center of enemy lines.
"I am none other than Rem, the mad order's vice commander!"
"The vice commander Ragna is here."
Shouts burst out from both sides of Enkrid at the same time.
"Where?"
"Who?"
Right up until the moment they were about to collide with the enemy, Rem and Ragna glared at each other. Strangely, even as that nonsense exploded, the spacing between the three stayed the same.
Would that behavior itself look like an opening to the enemy? Spearheads flew in aiming for Rem and Ragna.
In an instant, Enkrid twisted his body to the left. Along with that, Ragna swung Sunrise, knocking aside the spearheads and guarding the rear, and Rem, from his spot, swung his axe and smashed the spear shafts.
Bang!
A spear shaft made from solid iron didn't break easily. Instead, the bastard holding it staggered, and in that brief stagger, a blue line struck his neck.
"One."
Enkrid murmured. At the same time, spears and swords flew in from all directions. Enkrid swung his sword and shifted position to stand on Ragna's left, and Rem shifted to Ragna's right.
The trident formation took as its strength a flexible spear shaft where the spearhead's direction at the center could change at any time and bend left and right.
The first time Enkrid moved sideways while swinging his sword, it was the flexible shaft, and now that they'd shifted the formation around Ragna, it was changing the position of the spearhead.
Ragna, holding his breath, raised Sunrise and brought it down vertically. It was a slash that would cut anything that got caught, elephant or whatever. One knight gripping a rectangular shield stepped in to block it.
Ragna's Sunrise split the shield and passed through.
Kraaaang!
With a roar, a red line formed down the center of the shield and let off heat as if it had been heated red-hot, then it split. The knight holding the shield was also cut from the head down to the collarbone. Someone who'd lost their head and an arm couldn't live.
"Two."
Ragna said. Even though two were dead, the shape of the fight didn't change. The three had entered the middle of enemy lines. From the enemy's perspective, if they retreated here, there was nowhere to go.
A few more exchanges followed. If you struck, bastards died. Naturally, the side falling was the faceless knights.
The Faceless Knights maintained their encirclement formation and pulled out the hidden move they'd kept.
Even the bastards who had been standing a step back and half-holding themselves back joined in.
There were six of them, and they were ones who had reached their current level through a different process than ordinary Faceless knights. Those six came out one by one from between the encirclement and circled around with the three in the center. All six held long spears that were half again as long as normal spears, and their movement and momentum were different as well.
Their feet were light, their long spears were ready to slam down or thrust at any moment, and the form of their intimidation pricked the skin of Enkrid, Rem, and Ragna like sharp spearheads.
"Ohh."
Rem, in the middle of fighting, recognized them and showed expectation, and Ragna looked at them without any reaction, not particularly letting his gaze linger on them.
If they come, cut them. He just faithfully followed that simple proposition.
Right now Enkrid was leading, so it was a moment where there was no need to find a path on their own. It wasn't Pel but Ragna who was the original when it came to fighting well only when there was a simple goal. Where else would that stubbornness come from, the stubbornness of walking and walking until the destination came out?
Enkrid changed the formation entirely in response to the opponent's movement.
While stirring through them in trident formation, they killed eight enemy knights. That meant only seven of the fifteen Cypress had left alive remained.
The remaining six used those seven as shields. The six cut in between, hiding half their bodies behind the shields. Like that, the remaining bastards wrapped around them. It was like pitch-black shadows covered them from head to toe.
Between them, the cool blue of dawn gleamed, Sunrise let off red light, and gray pupils shone.
***
The High Pontiff raised knights in two forms.
If one was the traditional method, the other was mass-production.
Among them, the method of raising mass-produced knights used a method you could say had shed the skin of being human.
He gathered those said to have outstanding talent in one place, made them duel once a month, and only raised up the ones who survived.
It was a kind of sorcery. It had been borrowed from the method of gathering bugs and making a vicious sorcery poison.
'Only the survivors get the chance to prove themselves.'
The High Pontiff's policy was clear. Wasn't it a similar form to how the Mud Knights came to be?
'Among the bastards who committed crimes worthy of death, those who struggled desperately to survive became knights.'
That wasn't all of the reason for the Mud Knights' birth, but it was clearly the strongest element.
Like that, he locked people in a designated area and made them kill and kill each other. If one out of a hundred survived, he gathered dozens of those survivors again and picked out one.
That's how a knight was made.
'A living weapon that obeys only my orders.'
It was what the High Pontiff wanted. By taking away their reason through sorcery, they were no different from his hands and feet. That was the Faceless Knights.
Having no face symbolized having no self. That too was made that way with a sorcerous meaning. And among them, the six selected and selected again were the High Pontiff's prized weapons.
'They even killed Balrog's fragment.'
The High Pontiff found Balrog's fragment, imprisoned it, and used it to raise knights. He committed acts worse than what a demon called the Lord of the Demonic Realm did.
'If necessary, I'll do worse.'
The High Pontiff was serious.
He would put the continent under his feet. He would put the world under his feet. The Five-Colored Banner, the Five Colored Army would kill every last one who rebelled and make all the land he could see his own. That was the High Pontiff's dream.
***
Among the Faceless Knights, the six fought Balrog for three days and nights. Of the more than ten knights of outstanding talent, four died.
The remaining six finally won against Balrog's fragment.
That was why the High Pontiff guaranteed victory.
He just didn't know that the three they were facing were ones who had fought Balrog himself and won.
Of course, there was no one here who knew who had killed Balrog.
Some demons knew, but they didn't tell the High Pontiff.
To them as well, the High Pontiff was someone who might become a cumbersome enemy. There was no need to teach him everything. Was it the result shown by that gap in knowledge?
Rem suddenly ignored the formation and burst out. The unexpectedness of breaking the opponent's notion was his trait.
It was like after fighting while stuck together in a formation and leaning on that advantage, he suddenly threw it away. Even though they were bastards who had lost their emotions, their coordination got tangled.
Even if only the thinking ability about battle remained, it was natural to be surprised by this.
Rem got right up close to one enemy knight, grabbed the edge of his shield with his left hand, and yanked. He could break it too, but was there any need?
'The strength of a bear.'
He packed sorcery into his body. He already used a monstrous-strength heart, and on top of that, he packed in the strength of a bear.
Even though he was yanking the shield with only his left hand, when the bastard holding it resisted trying not to have it taken, three fingers snapped with a crunch.
When the broken fingers let go of the shield, Rem threw it back behind him.
'The agility of a leopard.'
At the same time, Rem smashed the bastard's head with his fist. The knight who'd lost the shield drew his sword and slashed upward.
Rem extended his left fist, then pulled it back and swung his axe to the right. He mixed in a feint. The spearhead caught on the axe blade falling diagonally from above to below.
Clang!
A roar burst, and Rem moved both feet again. When he sprang forward like that, the axe blade ran along the spear shaft.
Kkagagagak! Sparks flew, and in the moment the bastard holding the spear stepped back, Rem's left hand passed his waist and aimed forward. The posture of fingers spread and thrust out was the posture after throwing something.
Rem was a sorcerer outstanding at throwing things. What he threw was a throwing axe, and it held sorcery power clumped gray.
The startled bastard tucked his chin and twisted the helmet's direction, trying to deflect it down, but it wasn't even close.
It was a throwing axe packed with a weasel tail enchantment that doubled cutting power. The axe flew like a discus and split the bastard's skull and lodged in.
Thunk!
Because he tried to endure to the end, his neck bones didn't snap back, but with an axe blade embedded in his head, it was clear he was dead.
"Why? Do I look easy?"
Rem said, letting both arms hang down. One of the six died.
In the meantime, two more black knights behind them also died. Without even needing to watch the process, Rem knew what had happened.
Enkrid would've caught the shield Rem threw and hurled it horizontally like throwing a blade, and while their attention was pulled by the shield, that brute swordsman would've swung that hot blade around like he was showing it off.
Like that, one bastard's helmet was cut in half from around the nose, and Dawn, the sword so called, was stuck in the other bastard's skull.
Enkrid had no intention of dragging this fight out. He was just about to swing Dawn toward another bastard.
A white light pushed into his vision from above. In an instant, everything around him slowed. His thinking accelerated and he recognized something falling from above his head.
Reflex together with strength naturally swung his sword. Like that, Dawn struck what had been falling above his head.
Kwarung.
The sound came a beat late.
Kraang!
A streak of white lightning struck down above Enkrid's head, and blocked by Dawn's blade, it scattered its branches in all directions.
Zzzzzzt.
Along with a sound like thousands of rats crying at once. Against the background of empty air, white light drew a pattern like tree branches. Enkrid's black hair snapped up as it stood on end.
"It's the first time I've seen someone block Guhinna's rootstalk with their bare body."
It was the mage who had sent lightning down at Ragna's head.
Rem tried to react right away, but from all sides, the Faceless Knights bastards rushed in without holding back.
"So annoying!"
Rem shouted, swinging his axe and kicking the bastards away.
Because lightning had run through his body, a tingling sensation remained across Enkrid's whole body. It was a spell with considerable power.
'Think I cut it? No, did I only cut it halfway?'
If it was this much even when he'd cut it halfway, if he took it cleanly, his whole body might be paralyzed.
To stand stiff and defenseless in front of a hostile mage was the same as asking to be killed.
'I can't take a clean hit.'
While measuring and calculating various situations against the mage, Ragna spoke from behind.
"The one I'm supposed to face is back there."
He wasn't exactly asking, but Enkrid nodded.
Do what you want.
Either way, things here were already settling, and Rem could handle the rest on his own.
Hearing their conversation, the mage tilted his head. The bastard was floating in the air. It was outside the reach of a sword.
"You're saying you'll face me alone?"
The mage asked.
Enkrid corrected him.
"No, I'm saying I'll kill you alone."
You had to say it right.