Chapter 976 - The Invitation
The exact moment you enter the world of absolute silence, every single object in your surroundings appears to freeze completely.
Enkrid precisely gauged his own speed by actively measuring that discrepancy in perception.
'The perfect transfer of power.'
Every single movement must absolutely remain grounded within the absolute fundamentals.
It was a core principle he had awakened to while crossing swords with the blonde swordsman, and one he had fiercely reaffirmed while sparring against Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Jaxen.
It wasn't merely swinging the sword blindly fast; it was executing a flawless, fundamentally sound strike at maximum velocity.
He compressed every single thing he had learned, mastered, and awakened to into the sheer speed of his blade.
It was a strike exactly like a descending bolt of lightning.
Of course, that didn't mean the actual trajectory of the blade zigzagged wildly like it used to.
It simply earned the moniker 'Lightning' because it struck with blinding velocity and carried a deafening roar of thunder trailing right behind it.
As that strike violently plummeted straight down, Balmung viciously swung his massive club to meet it.
Baaam.
There was absolutely no sound within the silent world, but the catastrophic shockwave violently rippling through their physical bodies left an indelible sensation of a deafening collision.
The crushing impact violently cascaded through their entire frames.
The catastrophic kinetic feedback generated the exact split second Today and Balmung's club violently clashed brutally shoved both their bodies in opposite directions.
Exactly as if they had meticulously choreographed it beforehand, both Enkrid and Balmung seamlessly shifted their footwork to flawlessly shed the resulting kinetic force.
Both men slightly twisted their torsos, perfectly redirecting the residual momentum into the ground.
It was an incredibly advanced technique specifically designed to physically shed massive impacts.
Enkrid had learned it directly from Audin, and Balmung flawlessly demonstrated a remarkably similar technique.
Having perfectly shed the kinetic shock, the two men instantly exchanged their second strike.
Violently stomping his foot into the earth, Enkrid ruthlessly channeled a massive surge of Will directly into the blade of Today.
Vwoooom.
Despite being entirely submerged in the world of absolute silence, he physically felt as though a deafening, resonant hum was violently echoing through the air.
His Will, having flawlessly reached the 'Formatting' stage, coated the blade in a brilliant, radiating azure hue.
Clenching his jaw so hard the muscles in his cheeks bulged, Balmung forcefully raised his massive club into a vertical guard.
He, too, gathered his Will.
Crimson tendrils of energy violently writhed and condensed over the thick head of his club.
If they clashed head-on like this, it felt like an absolute certainty that one of them was going to be catastrophically injured.
It essentially meant they were casually whipping out highly lethal techniques far too dangerous for a simple sparring match.
Although, truthfully, it didn't really feel like either of them was actually going to get hurt.
After all, weren't both of them absolute masters of combat?
Furthermore, they were Knights.
They obviously knew precisely when to strike and exactly when to disengage.
Or at least, that was exactly what Balmung had calculated.
Yet, this absolute bastard named Enkrid violently thrust his sword forward with a ferocity that explicitly said he was fully prepared to put his life on the line.
This time, it was a brutal diagonal slash.
The stance was absolutely flawless, exactly as if it had been ripped straight from a textbook on orthodox swordsmanship.
'A Heavy Strike.'
A devastating diagonal cleave brought down from a high stance.
A highly aggressive sword technique executed while aggressively stepping forward with the rear right foot.
Balmung instinctively realized this strike was exponentially more dangerous than the vertical cleave from a moment ago.
However, if he backed down now, he would completely surrender the initiative and be violently pushed onto the defensive.
'I'll block it.'
His blunt weapon was exceptionally useful for defense as well.
Flawlessly capitalizing on the inherent advantages of one's weapon was the true mark of skill.
Balmung aggressively spread his empty left hand wide, splayed his thumb, pressed the remaining four tightly clenched fingers directly against the middle of the club's shaft to reinforce it, and raised his right hand gripping the hilt high above his head, slightly angling the weapon.
It was a flawless barricade stance.
'Block, then bind or counterattack.'
A truly exceptional Knight possesses the terrifying insight required to look several moves ahead.
In a microscopic fraction of a second, Balmung had flawlessly calculated his next five moves.
It was combat precognition; a lethal byproduct of the sheer experience he had brutally accumulated across countless battlefields.
And because his opponent was also an exceptional Knight, his precognition branched out in several viable directions.
He could clearly see one step ahead down three distinct, highly lethal paths.
'Violently twist my blade to parry the strike.'
That was the first option: a completely overwhelming counterattack relying purely on brute strength.
'Bind his blade and violently drag him in.'
That was the second: utilize a binding technique to instantly close the distance and forcefully transition the fight into close-quarters grappling using his hands and feet.
'Violently destabilize my Will to inflict a massive shockwave.'
That was the third: deliberately detonate a massive, localized burst of Will at the exact point of impact to inflict significant kinetic damage on the opponent's body.
He heavily favored the third option.
Because honestly, a blunt weapon was vastly superior at absorbing and redirecting massive kinetic shocks than a bladed sword.
Balmung fully steeled his resolve and braced for the impact, yet Enkrid completely bypassed Balmung's weapon and viciously cleaved through empty air instead.
Moving exactly as if that wildly missing slash had been his true intention from the very beginning, he violently drove his shoulder straight into Balmung's chest.
It was a completely devastating body check.
'You son of a bitch.'
It was pure deception.
The vicious sword strike had merely been a feint.
The exact moment Balmung realized what Enkrid had just done, he desperately twisted his torso to brace for the incoming, crushing impact.
Fweeeet.
Rem let out a sharp, highly appreciative whistle.
Out of everyone present, he was the absolute only person perfectly capable of clearly seeing exactly what had just transpired in that microscopic exchange.
'Absolutely brilliant.'
Genuine admiration naturally spilled from his lips.
'He completely played him.'
It had been a deceptive strike right from the very beginning.
By initiating the sequence with a blindingly fast vertical cleave, he had forcefully manipulated the opponent's thought processes.
And through that flawless manipulation, he had successfully landed a devastating body check completely uncontested.
The act of violently locking the opponent's focus entirely on the descending blade—every single micro-adjustment was an absolute masterclass in deception.
'Enkrid-Style Orthodox Swordsmanship, wasn't it?'
He had given it an absolutely infuriating name specifically designed to piss people off.
While Rem watched closely, the distance between the two combatants rapidly widened.
Balmung violently scrunched his face into a furious scowl before smoothing it out and speaking.
"What the hell was that just now?"
Enkrid replied with a profoundly serious, entirely deadpan tone.
"Enkrid-Style Orthodox Swordsmanship."
He had literally attached the word 'orthodox' directly to his own name.
To anyone else, it looked exactly like a highly refined, fundamentally flawless style of swordsmanship, but its true nature was a combat style entirely dedicated to ruthlessly deceiving the opponent.
To everyone else watching, they merely heard the deafening CRACK of lightning followed by a massive, echoing BOOM in rapid succession.
"Looks like he won the first round," Krang remarked, expertly reading the atmosphere.
"It certainly appears that way," Krais agreed, relying purely on context clues as well.
The Royal Guard watched the fight with suffocating, paralyzing tension.
Just witnessing a clash of this apocalyptic caliber was enough to make their hearts pound uncontrollably, let alone the terrifying fact that it was happening literally right in front of the King they were sworn to protect.
"What do you think, Rem?"
Because Krais was highly intelligent, rather than attempting to blindly guess the outcome of a battle he couldn't even properly see, he simply deferred the judgment to someone who could.
"He can't lose."
Rem stated with absolute certainty.
Balmung was an undeniably exceptional Knight.
He was significantly faster and possessed vastly more raw physical strength than anyone they had encountered recently.
However.
'He's hovering right around the level of Beelrog.'
That was exactly how Rem evaluated Enkrid's current combat prowess.
Enkrid slightly narrowed his striking blue eyes and raised his sword once more.
Seeing that, Balmung spoke up.
"It's not exactly a situation where we can fight to the death, and holding back is incredibly frustrating."
His eyes gleamed dangerously.
They were eyes violently overflowing with raw killing intent and an absolute, burning thirst for battle.
"Don't worry. I won't kill you."
Conversely, Enkrid's gaze was profoundly apathetic.
"Do not regret this, Swordsman of the Continent."
Balmung declared before aggressively swinging his massive club.
This bastard was incredibly stubborn as well.
Since he had already fallen for a deceptive feint once, you'd think he would try an entirely different approach, yet he opted to use a trick of his own.
He violently feigned a massive swing with his club, only to abruptly hurl it directly at Enkrid's face.
Enkrid simply raised his palm, effortlessly caught the crushing projectile, and casually deflected its momentum.
It was a highly specific technique he had already seen back when he slaughtered that bastard named Gelt, or whatever his name was, who was being relentlessly hunted by the Empire.
"I absolutely shouldn't have shown you that back then!"
Balmung roared in sheer frustration.
Enkrid didn't even bother replying; he simply whipped the flat of his blade brutally across Balmung's abdomen.
WHACK—!
If you called the fight long, it was incredibly long; if you called it short, it was incredibly short.
To the highly trained eyes of a Knight, it was a terrifyingly prolonged exchange; to anyone who lacked the insight to properly see it, it ended in the blink of an eye.
He had marched into the training grounds, exchanged exactly a few strikes, and now Balmung was violently staggering backward.
Throughout the entire grueling exchange, Rem had clearly watched Enkrid completely overwhelm his opponent using pure, unadulterated swordsmanship.
"I lost."
Balmung admitted.
Completely contrary to the aggressive, bloodthirsty demeanor he had displayed while fighting, it was an incredibly clean, straightforward declaration of defeat.
"I won."
Perhaps because he was genuinely in a good mood, Enkrid gleefully mocked his opponent until the very end.
Rather than allowing a thick vein of anger to bulge on his forehead, Balmung simply shook his head in absolute disbelief.
This bastard really doesn't know when to shut the hell up, does he?
He merely kept that thought to himself.
"How about we resume this discussion during the evening banquet?"
Balmung suggested, formally correcting his posture and addressing the King.
Krang simply nodded.
And with that, their very first, highly aggressive preliminary meeting concluded.
"That was fun."
Enkrid's sentiment was incredibly simple.
Krang's thoughts were significantly more complex.
"I suppose this means everything is officially beginning."
"You caught on quickly, Your Majesty."
As Krais agreed, Krang, acting completely unbefitting of a King ruling a sovereign nation, curled one corner of his lips upward in a deliberately wicked smirk.
"Did you honestly think I was just going to sit back and politely let them walk all over me?"
The forced, exaggerated villainy felt exactly like a highly dramatic scene ripped straight from a stage play.
"Since we have absolutely no idea what they truly desire, making an accurate prediction is incredibly difficult," Krais admitted frankly.
Readily admitting what he didn't know was one of his greatest strengths.
"Since I won the fight, why don't I just use that as an excuse to bluntly ask them?"
Enkrid casually offered his own straightforward solution to their dilemma.
"Do you honestly think they'll just politely give you an honest answer if you ask?" Krang countered.
Even if they adamantly refused to answer, could he truly use overwhelming martial force to violently subjugate them?
Did they really have to wage a full-scale war against the Empire itself?
Did he really have to ruthlessly shove thousands of his soldiers back onto another blood-soaked battlefield?
The agonizing dilemmas intrinsic to his role as King relentlessly tormented Krang's mind.
However, it wasn't a truly crippling agony.
He knew perfectly well that agonizing over a future that hadn't even occurred yet made it incredibly difficult to focus entirely on the present.
Because Krang perfectly understood that fundamental truth, he simply turned his attention back to the reality right in front of him.
"Thank you."
When he said that directly to Enkrid, Enkrid simply stared at him blankly.
His completely unbothered expression seemed to ask, What the hell are you thanking me for?
"For winning the fight."
"And if I had lost?"
"I would have thanked you anyway."
"You'd thank me for stepping up even knowing I was going to lose?"
"If you already know the answer, why bother asking?"
Rem interjected from the side, a deep scowl etched on his face.
"Why the hell are you guys suddenly spouting such wildly embarrassing, cringeworthy bullshit?"
"Shh, there are far too many ears listening right now. It's actually highly beneficial to publicly display this kind of profound camaraderie every once in a while."
Krais smoothly defended their exchange.
Rem had only made the comment because he already knew exactly what they were doing anyway.
There were countless eyes surreptitiously watching them from the perimeter of the Royal Palace training grounds.
Servants, the retinues of nobles, and even the nobles themselves actively stealing glances.
They were exactly the same people who frequently wandered past whenever Enkrid and his group were staying in the palace.
After all, it was physically impossible to strictly control the movement of every single person within the castle walls.
Furthermore, the sheer number of people employed within the Royal Palace wasn't exactly small.
Ever since Krang had officially seized the throne, he had more than doubled the total number of palace staff.
Because merely establishing the Council of Ten and executing a handful of deeply corrupt, idiotic nobles absolutely didn't mean the Kingdom would instantly run flawlessly on its own.
Krang firmly believed they were suffering from a severe, chronic shortage of truly competent personnel.
Regardless, precisely because there were so many eyes watching, the fact that Enkrid had definitively won, and the King was now engaging in highly intimate, friendly conversation with that exact same Enkrid sent a very clear message.
Watching the scene unfold, Krais genuinely felt exactly as if he had just successfully pulled off a blatant, impossible cheat in a high-stakes card game.
'The King and the Knight, the Assassin and the Spy, and the Tactician.'
Every single one of them was an absolute, unwavering ally, trusting each other implicitly without a single shred of doubt, and aggressively taking the lead in combating the demonic threat.
In a simple card game, the 'Soldier' card is typically the primary pawn deliberately sacrificed and discarded to secure a necessary advantage.
'Yet our King and our Captain are desperately fighting tooth and nail to protect every single one of those soldiers.'
Reality truly is fundamentally different from a simple card game.
He felt that profound truth once again.
It was just a fleeting, sudden realization.
Having completely rested until the evening banquet, the group gathered once more.
While the Grand Chamberlain meticulously preparing the table, calling the guests in first, and having the King sit down at the absolute very end was the strict, orthodox standard of royal etiquette, Krang genuinely couldn't care less about any of it.
"We are formally receiving Envoys from a foreign nation. It would be highly beneficial to strictly adhere to proper etiquette," Marcus advised.
The man who had officially ascended to the title of Duke Baisar spoke up.
As he spoke, he shot a highly pointed look at the Duke of the Fertile Lands.
Originally, delivering this exact advice was the other Duke's explicit role, not his, but because Okto had remained completely silent for whatever reason, Marcus had proactively stepped in.
"If you phrase it like that, do you honestly expect me to just politely say 'Okay, I understand'?"
"No, absolutely not. But I still have to say what needs to be said."
"Fair enough. Say your piece."
While Krang and Marcus exchanged their familiar, casual banter, the Imperial Envoy officially entered the hall.
The exact same lineup as before.
The Knight, the Mage, the Priest, the two women, and the squire.
"Does the Empire consume entirely different food than we do?" Krang asked casually, remaining firmly seated.
"Is there really a profound difference in what humans put into their mouths? Do the brave warriors of the West perhaps consume something entirely different?"
While Krang was waiting for Balmung's reply, one of the women confidently stepped forward and answered the question instead.
Perhaps she had taken a quick bath in the brief time they had apart, because her complexion looked significantly brighter and clearer than before.
Her hair was meticulously braided and tightly tied back, clearly showing the painstaking effort of a skilled maid.
The question was aimed entirely at Rem.
Staring at Rem, her face radiated a pure, elegant, and refined aura.
"Fundamentally, it's pretty much the exact same, but if you look at the intricate details, it's entirely different."
Slouched heavily in his chair, Rem answered with deeply apathetic, highly lethargic eyes.
His attitude explicitly conveyed that he was merely tossing out a half-assed answer to an incredibly annoying question.
The core of his answer was simply that while they both ate meat and grain, the specific cooking methods and the exact ingredients used varied slightly.
"In the Empire, a proper fish dish is generally considered an incredibly rare delicacy. The fresh fish provided by the Trade City is treated as an absolute luxury."
"Then I suppose we should be incredibly thankful for that."
Krang seamlessly carried the conversation.
A massive, perfectly steamed flatfish was presented on the table.
It was a premium flounder absolutely bursting with roe—a deeply coveted delicacy completely exclusive to this specific season.
The Trade City had literally caught the fish directly from the ocean and had it sent here on the exact same day.
It was an absolute luxury that could only be transported using an incredibly rare, highly specialized Spell Object resembling a basket heavily imbued with absolute zero frost.
It was truly a dish only fit to be served in the heart of a Royal Kingdom.
In reality, Krang genuinely didn't care much for rare, wildly extravagant food like this.
But since it tasted good, he enjoyed it, and since he absolutely couldn't just throw the wildly expensive Spell Object away, he used it.
Well, Krang was only human; he certainly didn't think it was a bad thing to occasionally reward himself with this level of luxury considering the agonizing hell he endured sitting on the throne every day.
"Please, eat."
Krang commanded, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the meal.
Enkrid was actually someone who took immense pleasure in eating.
Were Rem and the others any different?
Absolutely not.
Krais, in particular, genuinely fancied himself a highly refined gourmand.
While they were actively eating and drinking, the woman elegantly wiped the corners of her mouth with a fine linen napkin and spoke.
"We absolutely could not arrive empty-handed for a formal audience with His Majesty, so we have prepared a small gift."
It was an incredibly abrupt, blatantly transparent shift in the conversation, but this was exactly how diplomatic negotiations were conducted.
While Balmung had aggressively utilized overwhelming martial force to set the stage, the woman formally established her official position as an Envoy and presented a gift.
It was a small, ornate wooden box containing several vibrantly colored gemstones.
"Every single one of those stones contains a highly concentrated spell. All of them are exclusively intended for absolute physical protection."
It was a truly priceless treasure.
They weren't mere Spell Objects; they were genuine, ancient Artifacts.
"Could we perhaps just cut the bullshit and get straight to the point?"
Krang casually glanced at the box and asked.
His tone explicitly implied, You obviously didn't march all the way here just to hand me a box of rocks, did you?
"Yes, of course."
The female Envoy replied smoothly, completely unfazed.
"His Imperial Majesty has formally invited you, the King, to the Empire."
***
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