Eternally Regressing Knight
Chapter 611: Chapter 611 - Time of Retribution
From the perspective of the Gray Holy Army, it seemed as if some lunatics had suddenly broken through the heart of their unit.
To make matters worse, these individuals calmly walked into the monastery, leaving four dead templars in their wake—a single strike that delivered a significant blow.
This act served as the signal for the battle’s beginning.
"Instead of meekly awaiting divine punishment, they attacked first?"
Müel pondered what kind of mad fools had shown up.
He watched as they loitered inside the monastery, which was situated in a basin, accessible only via a steep incline.
The monastery’s gate was at the top of this incline, and while a palisade and thorn barriers partially obscured the view, they couldn’t fully block it.
From the inside, one could also see outside.
Müel’s gaze settled on a figure at the center of the intruders—a man with black hair, standing without a helmet, as if unconcerned about hiding himself.
Something about this man rubbed Müel the wrong way.
It wasn’t that he could see the man’s eyes, but his demeanor seemed overly indifferent, irritatingly so.
"Is he faking composure? Laughable fool," Müel sneered.
Even though four templars had died and their forces were breached, Müel didn’t feel threatened.
He acknowledged the intruders’ skill but believed the situation remained in their favor.
Surely, the intruders had expended all their effort to take down those four templars, Müel thought—a mistaken belief born of overconfidence.
"Let’s end this," Müel declared.
One command was enough for a battle like this.
After all, how could a mere monastery withstand an army?
The holy priests, specializing in combat magic, began channeling their divine power.
Gray light coalesced, forming the shape of a spell.
"The time of retribution has come," Müel proclaimed with theatrical flair, believing appearances were vital for someone aspiring to become a pope.
"Gray Explosion Spell!"
Before it could launch, the gray mass sprouted eight elongated wings and prepared to surge forward.
The unnamed templar, seeing this, was alarmed but tried to remain calm.
"Everyone, dodge!" he shouted.
Yet no one moved.
Instead, someone unfamiliar was suddenly standing beside him.
’When did this woman—?’
The templar was startled to see a strikingly beautiful woman with black hair.
Her appearance was unforgettable.
As he warned others to evade, this mysterious beauty raised her hands, her fingers moving as if playing an invisible organ.
The air around her trembled.
Soon—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The gray projectiles, designed to seek out and explode upon living targets, detonated harmlessly against the monastery walls.
The woman, her face and tone devoid of any amusement, remarked coldly, "Trivial."
Esther, now in her human form, opened her spell domain and used her sight to directly analyze the enemy’s magic.
Her natural intuition, a gift of her innate talent, allowed her to discern the nature of the spell.
’They’ve combined sorcery with divine magic,’ she realized.
The Gray God’s corrupted holy magic, as they called it, was dismantled in an instant.
With understanding came a solution, and Esther infused the intangible magic with life energy, reversing the explosion spell.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The orbs, each larger than a human head, would have been awe-inspiring under different circumstances.
"Hmph," Esther muttered.
"Dremuler’s Wind Cliff," she incanted softly.
The power she’d condensed in her spell domain surged outward, forming a wall of wind that blocked the oncoming orbs.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The unnamed templar heard a noise resembling iron balls striking a wall. The invisible barrier created by Esther clashed with the gray orbs, causing them to shatter and disperse.
The enemy priests, now agitated, began chanting more spells.
"God, strike our foes with holy lightning!"
"Crush them with the hammer of judgment!"
"Burn and sear their sins away!"
Bolts of gray lightning, massive hammer-shaped projectiles, and fiery gray masses all surged toward Esther’s position.
The crusader recognized these as advanced spells, cast by skilled priests rather than novices.
"Evade—" he began to shout again, but his words trailed off.
To Esther, the spells were riddled with flaws. Before the templar could finish his warning, she had already chanted her next spell.
"Dremuler’s Scythe. Del Gretcher’s Sneeze. Bonhead, run wild."
Though many spells came her way, three of hers sufficed.
As her spell domain unleashed its power, the wind coalesced into a scythe that sliced through the incoming lightning.
Crack! Boom!
The spells collided, creating whirlwinds that dissipated the lightning into harmless sparks.
A chilling frost formed midair, extinguishing the fiery mass and shattering the hammer.
It didn’t stop there.
A flesh construct had materialized before the Gray Holy Army, its arms swinging.
Whack!
Thud!
Crack!
Though it wielded no weapons, Esther had observed Enkrid’s sparring and training for some time, absorbing his martial techniques.
A magician’s duty was to utilize accumulated knowledge, and Esther fulfilled it.
As a result, Bonhead’s movements were far superior to anything it had displayed before.
The typical
Flesh Golem
was most often used as a massive meat shield.
However, the
Bonehead
that Esther summoned was entirely different.
Bonehead seized a soldier’s spear and wielded it skillfully in combat.
He yanked the spear back, kicked a soldier’s stomach, and swung the spear sideways, striking the shield of another soldier with its shaft.
His attacks were not only strong and fast but also surprisingly precise.
Coupled with the fact that he felt no pain and was incredibly hard to kill, Bonehead became a nightmare for his enemies.
Even attempts to counter him using divine magic proved futile.
"Corpses must return to the dead!"
A priest attempted to cast
Turn Undead
, a sacred spell designed to banish the undead.
However, the spell was ineffective.
This type of exorcism magic, often referred to as banishment, was inaccessible to those who wielded the
Grey Sacred Light
Instead, it required someone capable of utilizing the
White Sacred Light
, and even then, it would have failed.
Although undead typically returned to death when confronted with divine power, Bonehead’s movements were driven by Esther’s mana.
Unless this constant mana supply was severed, no exorcism spell would halt him.
"Stop him!"
"Where do you think you’re going?"
"Crush him!"
When divine magic failed, the soldiers turned to physical means, attacking Bonehead with all they had.
They stabbed, slashed, and struck, desperately trying to destroy the Flesh Golem.
Despite repeated attempts, including
Grey Sacred Light
attacks and lightning spells, their efforts amounted to monotonous repetition.
Esther stood alone, shielding herself from dozens of holy spells cast by enemy priests.
"...Can she block all of this?"
The crusader muttered in astonishment.
While he was impressed, this was only the beginning.
As Esther blocked spells and Bonehead drew the enemy’s attention, a man who had been silently standing beside Enkrid vanished unnoticed.
Even in broad daylight, he moved like a shadow, scaling walls and evading detection.
Once he confirmed the locations of the priests casting holy spells, he began his work.
Thunk.
The enemy first realized something was amiss when Noma, Muel’s most prized disciple, was found dead.
Noma was the most skilled holy magic user in their ranks, second only to Muel.
"Noma has been killed!"
Someone shouted.
"What?"
"How?"
A crusader tasked with protecting Noma was stunned.
The one who revealed the news was
Jaxen
, who had distorted his voice to draw attention to himself.
By announcing the death, he ensured that all eyes turned toward him.
This was a deliberate tactic to create confusion and buy time for further action.
As everyone fixated on Noma’s death, Jaxen moved silently, killing another priest.
He approached his target from behind and slit their throat below the vocal cords, ensuring no sound escaped from their lungs.
Only the faint wheezing of escaping air could be heard before it was drowned out by the gurgle of blood.
Next, he stabbed another priest in the back, piercing their lungs.
Without adequate air pressure in the lungs, the victim couldn’t even scream, let alone cry out in their final moments.
A third priest, who had just received divine energy from their comrades to cast a high-level spell, found a
Whistle Knife
lodged in their throat.
Squelch.
The concentrated divine energy scattered like dust, dissipating into the air.
"Ugh."
Some priests coughed up blood as the energy they had been channeling backfired.
Only then did one of the crusaders manage to pinpoint Jaxen’s location.
"There he is!"
Among the beleaguered defenders, a few skilled individuals finally reacted.
However, Jaxen was one step ahead.
Before the Templar could finish pointing, Jaxen had already moved.
The soldier’s finger ended up pointing at empty air, marking only where Jaxen had been moments ago.
Feigning shock, Jaxen blended into the ranks of the soldiers, slipping away unnoticed.
As he passed by a soldier, the man dumbly asked, "Hey, where are you going?"
"To take care of something," Jaxen replied nonchalantly.
His casual demeanor disarmed the soldier, who simply nodded in confusion.
Meanwhile, the chaos spread through the Grey Sacred Army as their key priests were systematically eliminated.
The death of Noma and several other priests created an uneasy atmosphere.
"What is this? Why are they dying? Who’s attacking us? We haven’t even seen them!"
People feared the unseen more than the visible.
Jaxen exploited this fear to perfection.
Such pressure was necessary when fighting against overwhelming odds, and he was well-practiced in this method.
But the enemy’s response was swift.
"It’s the work of an evil spirit!"
It was Muel’s cry.
Upon learning of his disciple’s death, he quickly deduced a way to manipulate the situation, labeling the attackers as demonic agents.
The claim worked to some extent.
"So, they’re truly demon-spawn!"
Those unaware of the truth were deceived.
Even those who knew Noma’s monastery had no connection to demons nodded in agreement.
For those with a guilty conscience, this was the perfect justification to ease their doubts.
Even if there were no actual evil spirits, the events unfolding around them seemed to align with Muel’s declaration.
Should anyone question their actions later, they could easily claim it was the only logical explanation at the time.
Meanwhile, Enkrid continued to observe silently.
"Quite an entertaining bunch."
Among those serving the Grey God, some stood out due to their exceptional skills.
Though they had yet to officially earn the title of Templar, their abilities rivaled or even surpassed those of current Templars.
These individuals were part of the Holy Nation’s hidden strength.
While the past decades could hardly be called an era of peace, most powers across the continent had concealed their full capabilities.
The Holy Nation was no exception.
In a way, the chaos unleashed by the
Madmen Unit
had drawn out this hidden power, forcing it into the open.
"Give me my spear."
One among them held his weapon, a barbed spear.
A chilling aura emanated from it, a magical weapon imbued with frost enchantments.
It was also his engraved weapon.
Though his name was unknown, he wielded divine power strong enough to rise above the rank of a knight.
"Hmm, very good. I like it," he muttered.
Beside him, a paladin called Azratik wound a long strap around his wrist, whispering to himself.
Still, neither of them stepped forward immediately.
The advance began with the army.
Like rippling waves, the soldiers started to move, step by step—a full march.
As the army began its ripple-like motion, a new ally joined the monastery.
"I nearly missed this."
It was Audin Fumrei, a member of the Madmen unit, a man with a bear-like physique.
"Oh, you’re here?"
Rem greeted him first.
Naturally, there was no hint of warmth in his tone.
It was more a matter-of-fact acknowledgment, as if stating that someone expected had arrived.
"Yes, my leave was long," Audin replied nonchalantly, equally unbothered.
A return was inevitable, so there was no need for fanfare.
Everyone seemed to think alike.
Even Enkrid gave a brief nod and said,
"Ropord, Fel, Teresa—go out and hold the line."
It was the response to the ripples the enemy forces sent forth.

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