A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

“They’ve hidden something in the forest. I followed the trail, and it led me there,” Finn said confidently. He had a knack for tracking people, noticing signs most would overlook. A broken twig, faint footprints, or even a barely perceptible shift in scent were all he needed to piece together someone’s path.

Enkrid suspected Finn’s skill came from experience, possibly even a past as a bounty hunter. While Enkrid didn’t pry into Finn’s history, he recognized its value and appreciated the results it yielded.

Thanks to Finn’s guidance, they discovered a hidden tunnel in the forest near the village, to the north, overlooking the distant Pen-Hanil River. Inside the forest, they found where the Black Blades had concealed their beasts—a cavern packed with grotesque creatures.

Each monster was a twisted abomination, barely holding onto life. Drugged and drooling, their grotesque forms bore the hallmarks of Laivan, the alchemist they had killed earlier. Even in death, his handiwork persisted.

One such beast, a wolf-like creature with deer-like legs, showcased the gruesome success of Laivan’s experiments. It was a chimera—a man-made monstrosity neither beast nor monster.

“Who’s there?” Five men, presumably handlers or fodder for the beasts, confronted them.

“Stand down, or you’ll die,” Enkrid said plainly.

Predictably, they attacked. Predictably, they died.

One man, hanging back and observing, released one of the beasts in desperation. It roared—a lion with the tail of a snake, a half-finished chimera resembling a manticore. It charged clumsily, its malformed body betraying its ferocity.

Enkrid’s sword cut through its head with a clean sweep, splitting its skull in two. Brain matter and dark crimson blood spilled across the cavern floor.

Meanwhile, Jaxon and Shinar engaged the remaining threats, fighting with ruthless efficiency. Esther climbed a nearby tree and watched, her role more observer than participant.

The man who released the chimera tried to flee but was struck down mid-step by an arrow to the head. Finn’s aim was impeccable.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Finn muttered. The weapon he used was one Enkrid had confiscated from a Black Blade thief—a specialized device capable of concealed shots.

“You’re far better with it than its last owner,” Enkrid thought, watching Finn’s precision. Finn used the distraction to fire arrows directly into the back of fleeing enemies, ensuring none escaped.

The remaining beasts, though vicious, were unfinished experiments—half-formed and far from dangerous in their current state. They were dispatched quickly. Cleaning up the village and its hidden horrors took half a day.

“Four days on foot to the next one,” the company commander reported. Enkrid nodded, acknowledging the task ahead.

What followed was akin to a traveling circus—a relentless cycle of locating villages, storming them, slaughtering bandits and beasts, and cleaning up the mess. Each new village told the same story: stolen people, monstrous experiments, and carnage.

The mere sight of the fallen chieftains and their beasts was enough to scare many bandits into fleeing.

“Do you think the kingdom will just let us keep doing this? From the outside, it’ll look like we’re staging a rebellion! Anyone who values their life, follow me!” shouted one of the more pragmatic bandits, gathering his allies before disappearing into the wilderness.

Ambitious ones among them always sought to regroup and rebuild. However, Enkrid didn’t waste time hunting down every straggler. It wasn’t worth it.

“Unsettling,” Finn muttered, watching some of the more cunning bandits vanish. “Leaves a bad taste.”

In one of the villages, the bandits had prepared for an assault, having received warnings from others. Yet preparation meant nothing. Enkrid and his group moved swiftly, taking out the guards with surgical precision.

Five men who guarded the village fell without a sound, their throats slashed. The sight of their fallen comrades filled the remaining bandits with terror.

“Shit! What are we dealing with, ghosts?” one bandit cried out.

Even the chieftain, a former assassin, was unnerved. His six personal guards vanished silently, their deaths unnoticed until their corpses were discovered.

In the shadows, the chieftain hurled a poisoned dart, one potent enough to kill with a scratch. It disappeared into the darkness. His guards stabbed wildly into the blackness where their comrades had disappeared.

That’s when they saw it—a hole in the ground beneath one of the bodies.

“When...?” the chieftain muttered.

Those were his last words. A thin blade, like a string, descended from above, slicing through his neck in one fluid motion. His headless body crumpled, his guards scrambling in panic.

Jaxon, perched on the ceiling, observed the chaos. He finished off the remaining guards with two thrown knives before dropping silently to the floor.

With the village cleared, the remaining bandits fled, leaving it eerily empty. The wind whistled through the abandoned buildings, and Finn commented dryly, “Now all we need is a wraith to complete the scene.”

Enkrid agreed silently but didn’t let up. Shinar sent a trained crow to deliver news to their allies, ensuring reinforcements would move into the evacuated villages.

In the meantime, Enkrid’s group pressed on to the next village, scaling treacherous cliffs and navigating hazardous terrain. Finn, ever resourceful, led the way, planting daggers into cracks and leveraging his gear to climb.

“If someone falls and dies here, it’d be a hell of a punchline,” Finn joked, glancing back.

Even Esther scaled the cliffs with ease, her claws digging into the rock like tools forged for the task. It was as if she were strolling on flat ground.

The group moved methodically, each member proving their skill and resilience. Shinar, ever lighthearted, quipped to Enkrid as they climbed. “Ever kissed your fiancée on a cliff?”

“No, I haven’t,” he replied flatly.

“Sometimes I wonder if your fiancée’s even kissed anyone at all,” she teased, her tone light as though they weren’t suspended over a deadly drop.

Enkrid, despite himself, found her humor oddly grounding.

At the next village, they uncovered a horrific scene—dozens of slaves, including three of Shinar’s kind. Her gaze hardened as she took them in.

“Idiots,” she muttered, her voice laced with disdain. “Getting yourselves captured like this.”

The freed elves offered no excuses. One male elf, after being unshackled, picked up a fallen dagger and immediately stabbed a clean-shaven bandit in the stomach multiple times.

The bandit, who had been groveling for mercy, let out a choked scream. Blood poured from six wounds as he collapsed. The elf’s rage was palpable.

“Not even a peach worm would eat scum like you,” he hissed, his voice trembling with fury.

Finn muttered under his breath, and Enkrid, overhearing him, mulled over the meaning of his words. Thanks to his time with the fairy company commander, Enkrid had grown accustomed to their expressions.

Finn hadn't spoken in the fairy tongue but rather in the Empire's common language, making his words easy to understand. The metaphor was vivid: a peach untouched by worms, rare and unspoiled, used to describe someone utterly useless and despicable.

It wasn’t hard to figure out where Finn’s resentment stemmed from. The two female fairies shared the same haunted look, suggesting they had endured the same horrors. Their captors had violated them, regardless of gender.

"A man who doesn’t discriminate between men and women," Enkrid thought grimly. Such a man had an appallingly wide range of tastes.

It wasn’t a sight he wanted to dwell on, but in the grand scheme of the continent, wasn’t this kind of atrocity everywhere? Could he cut it all down with a single sword?

As a child, he'd believed that becoming a knight would make it possible. After leaving his village, he'd learned the bitter truth.

Talent wasn’t the issue. Losing to some kid barely into his teens wasn’t the issue either.

Enkrid had been young and naive, and his understanding of the world had been limited to his small village. That concept expanded to include estates, then entire continents. It was only then that he realized the futility of his youthful dreams.

Even as a knight, even as a catastrophic force capable of cutting down a thousand on the battlefield, this sort of evil couldn’t be eradicated.

So what was he to do? Abandon the fight? Become just another polished butcher wielding a sword for show?

When he’d first dreamt of becoming a knight, his vision hadn’t been of someone clad in shining armor, radiating light. That had never been his goal.

What he had envisioned was something greater. A knight wasn’t merely a tool for slaughter.

His thoughts spiraled as he tried to reconcile his ideals with reality.

“Do you want to burn it all down?” Jaxon’s voice interrupted him. “Sweep it all away? I’ll help you if you need me to.” His eyes burned red, flickering with a dangerous energy. It didn’t seem like he was speaking with clarity—he was intoxicated by the moment.

“Is he in pain again?” Enkrid wondered, noting Jaxon’s strange behavior.

He collected his thoughts and asked, “Why the sudden offer?”

“Your eyes were burning,” Jaxon replied simply.

Enkrid closed his eyes briefly, then reopened them. The flames Jaxon had claimed to see were gone. At least, they were no longer visible. Whatever destruction Jaxon had perceived had vanished.

“Let’s go,” Enkrid said, focusing on the task at hand.

He had grown skilled with his sword—skilled enough to rival a knight-in-training. But his dreams hadn’t changed. The fire in his chest had always been there, only now was it beginning to show.

"Well, look at that. A dwarf too?" Enkrid muttered, surveying the village.

It was as if someone was collecting various races as part of some twisted game. The village was riddled with underground tunnels used to hide slaves.

“Who the hell are these bastards?” one bandit shouted, his voice shaking as he lunged forward.

Jaxon answered with silence—and his blade.

His footsteps were soundless, and his presence undetectable as he used a relic he’d picked up.

“I got a pretty useful gift,” Jaxon said smugly, his confidence unshaken as he claimed the belongings of the dead.

The bandits never even realized he was behind them. One by one, Jaxon slit their throats with precision, leaving them no chance to react.

When eight loudmouthed bandits lay dead, the rest dropped to their knees, trembling.

The village chieftain, if he could even be called that, had already been killed. He hadn’t been a mage or an assassin. He wasn’t even skilled with a sword.

His only talent had been setting traps, many of which he’d placed around his bedroom. But with Shinar and Jaxon standing in his way, his fate had been sealed.

“Enough said,” Enkrid thought.

He hadn’t needed to intervene much this time. He’d swung his sword just once—when two bandits foolishly charged him. Using the Flowing Blade technique, he countered and finished them off with Serpent Blade strikes.

Thwack, thwack!

Two dull sounds marked the creation of two new corpses. After that, no one dared challenge him.

Once the village was subdued, they freed the remaining slaves. Those who resisted were swiftly cut down.

Every village seemed the same: a handful of fighters would resist, only to be slain, while the rest either surrendered or fled.

It took them two months to find and destroy five such villages.

Only two months—because their methods were swift and merciless. By the time the Black Blade officer overseeing these operations realized half of his hidden villages were gone, it was already too late. The remaining villages were beyond salvage.

“Those lunatics!” he roared, slamming a candlestick into his desk.

The force split the center of the purpleheart wood desk, sending shards flying. His breathing was ragged, his anger uncontained.

In his fury, he hurled the silver candlestick through a stained glass window.

Crash!

Shards of red, yellow, and blue rained down onto the garden below.

A gardener, trimming a hedge, jumped at the sound. Looking up, he quickly collected the candlestick and hurried to find the steward. Something was clearly amiss.

Not that it would help. The Black Blade officer had hidden his identity well. To his employees, he was just another noble bureaucrat.

His stomach churned as he tried to think of a solution. The city’s backstreets had been rapidly falling under the control of a mysterious new guild.

“What the hell is this ‘Revival Guild’?” he grumbled. Their stated mission was laughable, but their methods were terrifyingly effective. Many of the criminal organizations he had backed were now gone, swallowed by this new power.

He couldn’t even consider retreating.

“Damn it.”

The situation with the villages was no better. His forces were too depleted to mount a proper defense. Whoever was attacking them was meticulous and relentless.

All he could do was send word to the main headquarters. But the thought of dying here, his life’s work in ruins, consumed him.

“Shit, shit, shit!” he growled.

Everything he had built, every piece of his grand plan, was crumbling. His villages were gone. His network was in shambles.

He wanted to scream, but his steward stopped him.

“Will you throw away your value like this? Find out who did this. That’s your best move.”

It was sound advice.

He threw his remaining gold into the hands of an information guild and hired mercenaries in droves.

Eventually, he got a name.

“Marcus, you bastard!” he screamed.