A soft yellow gleam ran along the dragonkin's white longsword. Though not a breath of wind stirred, his lemon-colored hair shimmered as if it had taken in the light.
He swung, splitting apart a flame beast larger than himself.
Whoosh.
The parted blaze twisted into two snakes and rushed him. The dragonkin spoke a Word.
"Vanish."
At that single word, the two flame serpents perished. They were within reach, closer than his sword's edge. Yet as though struck aside by an unseen hand, they were forced outward, dissolving like sand scattered on the wind, leaving only red dust.
The root of flame was close to Will itself. He had pierced that Will and unmade it.
Not every foe yielded to Words, so he mixed them with his swordplay. This fusion of incantation and steel was the essence of Temares's true specialty.
Word and sword in harmony.
As he fought, fragments of his technique returned to him, just as Enkrid had guessed—rehabilitation. And in that return, he realized just how mighty a martial race he was, blood of dragonkin in his veins.
And while he slew a single flame beast—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"Bring out more."
A human forged two disks in his hands and hurled projectiles without pause, felling six fiery aberrations.
"Ha, ha, this will not do."
Another, half-bear and half-human, radiated divinity and smashed the Salamander's forepaws apart one after another.
In the dragonkin's eyes, the Salamander's true body was faintly visible. Thus, from his perspective, Audin the bear half-blood seemed to catch the fiery beast's lunging forelimbs with his fists.
The size of his fist differed from the beast's like that of an adult against a seven-year-old child—yet that child carried unprecedented strength.
Therefore—
BOOM!
The familiar forepaw shattered again and again. Sparks scattered, and flaming boulders raining from the air burst apart in all directions.
Flaming fragments of stone, wrenched by the blast, flew everywhere.
Anyone could have suffered grievous wounds. Yet not one bore a scratch.
All met it as if it were nothing.
The dragonkin wondered if, while he was bound to his duty, the continent's martial level had soared beyond reckoning.
***
Enkrid had not forgotten Luagarne's teaching.
"From now on, you won't only meet ordinary swordsmen. Prepare for that."
If Esther had taught him how to counter spells, Luagarne had taken responsibility for personal tactics in general.
Enkrid always focused, always listened.
By brute strength alone, it wasn't hard to put down the Frog before him. Yet he never stopped running the race of learning.
'There's something to learn from anyone.'
Once he had realized the poverty of his own talent, Enkrid sought to absorb anything, everything.
He spent the silver he risked his life to earn.
For his conviction, and to protect those behind him, he did it.
It wasn't easy. Truly, it was not. Even trapped in a single day for more than a year, repeating it alone, he could not leap beyond a genius's gift at once.
Before he was caught in that day, it had been even worse, not better.
Did he spend those times of hardship and struggle without thought? Even an ordinary man would not have. All the more so Enkrid, who was no fool, whose mind worked well.
He sought what he could do in his place. He groped for a way forward, hungered for it.
'Can I catch up just by swinging my sword?'
Hard work alone could not. That was reality. Reality's blade always grazed his throat, always aimed at his heart.
Whatever the battle, recall it, repeat it, mutter it again and again. Make review a weapon.
So he did.
Advance even in faltering steps. Build strength at least. Don't fall behind in stamina.
So he did.
He endured all those days, crawled if he had to, but moved forward. Enkrid had realized: to review a fight properly after it ended, he had to see it well.
This was before he had even joined the Mad Squad. He had not forgotten what he learned then.
"Fighting properly is seeing properly."
What Luagarne said matched what he had learned then. To see was not merely to look. It was to seize the opponent's intent, to take in the process and the result, to tear apart all that lay within.
That attitude was what had let Enkrid survive when his skill was pitiful.
The attacks shown by the Salamander were not complex. Once you grasped the essence, they were simple.
So Enkrid broke down its attack patterns.
'Heat-beam tongue.'
It could strike from anywhere, as fast as Rem's axe swing. But slower than a stone from his sling. So avoiding it wasn't impossible.
'Forepaw fireballs.'
The dragonkin had called them paws, and Enkrid thought the same.
From the flame cloud, along thin lines, the fireballs dropped, two at once, sometimes four.
'Not fast, but heavy.'
Not just recognizing the pattern—he read the qualities within.
Since meeting Jaxon, his eyes and senses had sharpened as a knight, and Luagarne's tactics added to that.
'Don't measure the opponent. Take them as they are, and you'll see.'
That principle shattered Enkrid's limits. Concepts expanded, the field of thought stretched boundlessly.
'Flame-forging spells.'
The Salamander's third weapon. Separate from its paws, flames hurled like spears.
Strictly speaking, not spearheads, but sticks of fire.
Not one or two. Given the slightest pause, dozens were cast in the space of a breath.
And that wasn't the end. The Salamander's power held more.
'Aberrations made of flame.'
Fourth: creating flame golems. Masses like molten rock dropping from the cloud twisted into wolves, golems, bears, snakes, charging their band.
'And rain of fire besides.'
From the cloud of flame, finger-thick shafts of fire fell endlessly. Each one enough to char and pierce human flesh with ease.
The mountain paths were scarred into plains. Trees caught flame, everything glowed red. It was like entering a prison forged of fire.
'The last is mirage.'
The whole area was heavy with heat that conjured illusions. Let your focus slip even a little, and the sweltering air would fill your ears with phantoms and false sounds.
Nothing here was easy. Yet no one was falling to it.
Snap!
Esther flicked her fingers and murmured an incantation.
"Drmuller's Space Dominion."
To outward eyes the hand sign was simple, the syllables basic—but the spell Esther cast was a feat of pure acrobatics.
She stripped away the conditions necessary for flame.
The zone where flame spears, flame arrows, and flame rain descended—she made it vacuum. As she understood it, she stopped the wind and erased the air from the space.
Thus, every projectile sculpted of fire unraveled in midair.
Space Dominion was not a lasting spell, only volatile. It flared in an instant and vanished.
Normally its effect would mean little. Now, it worked with perfect timing.
That was why it fit so well—the right spell at the right time. Proof of Esther's sharp instinct for magic.
"Easy. Too easy."
About ten paces behind her, Rem muttered as he sent projectile after projectile. Each one carried sorcery.
Each bullet struck true and shattered the cores of flame golems. To a sorcerer's eye, finding the core of such aberrations was child's play.
Rem had always been better at facing the insubstantial.
A flame aberration wasn't a ghost, but it was unshaped fire given shape. So even without pouring out sorcery, he could judge the core. That made it easy.
And since Enkrid had declared it a war of attrition, Rem held back his strength. So did the others.
Audin met the surging fire masses with fists, taking the blows on his shoulders.
"Lord."
What impressed was his movement. He twisted his body half around, swinging his shoulder. As the fireball skimmed the surface of his radiant armor, his palm thrust straight out.
BOOM!
Every time, the phantom beast's forepaw burst apart.
He diverted the pushing power of the flame paw, then struck its central weakness and dispersed it.
Said in words, it sounded simple. But how many grinding hours had it taken to make it real?
Audin's base was Balafian martial arts. From there he built his own methods, crossing into a new realm of martial craft. All of it was under Enkrid's influence. And now it bore fruit.
Shattered flame fragments washed over him, but he stepped lightly aside and out of their reach. He struck with minimal movement, minimal strength.
'Easier than the captain brothers.'
That was the thought he had. Enkrid with Uske was a monster. Audin was a monster who enjoyed sparring him day after day.
Ragna mostly watched, but when he thrust his sword once—
Whatever it met, it cut. Aberration or flame projectile, it didn't matter. His sword cut it all.
And no doubt, he found another realization in each stroke. Ragna had that gift.
Enkrid saw it that way, and thought at the same time:
'A group-tactic form of Wavebreaker.'
He had read the opponent and fixed the method of response. He told Rem and the others what they needed, and they carried it out.
Nothing difficult. They quickened their pace, hammered blows, and even a margin of leisure showed on their faces.
The Salamander felt the instinctive press of danger and drew in the power of its own scattered aberrations.
That was what made it halt its advance toward the Border Guard.
Between the flames of the cloud, a zzzzt of thunder cracked. At once flame shot out in jagged bolts.
Enkrid sped his thoughts to react. He lifted Dawn Tempering to deflect. At the same time, a white longsword crossed into his vision.
The bolts of fire, like lightning hidden among the rain of flame, met Dawn Tempering and the white sword, and burst, scattered.
KRA-KOOM!
With the explosion came a shockwave. A gale roared, enough to lift an ordinary man off his feet.
Enkrid was, of course, unshaken. The dragonkin too.
"You could have stopped it alone."
"I would have."
The dragonkin read his heart by habit.
"Truth."
Their eyes crossed for a moment, then they went back to their tasks.
The dragonkin sought to keep the Salamander from harming them, and to keep them from harming it.
It was madness to even attempt such a thing. Even for him, subduing a Salamander without letting it kill anyone was near impossible.
Temares would have burned his life away to do it if need be. But now, the need was gone.
The Salamander's tongue lashed between them. Enkrid moved one step to the right, and Dawn Tempering tapped aside the falling rain of fire.
The dragonkin strolled among the fire-rain, slipping past the heat-beam tongue.
'Futile.'
So all the Salamander's attacks were.
And in the hands of Enkrid and the Mad Order of Knights, there was no hesitation. Whatever the Salamander tried, they dodged or deflected.
The rain of fire came for them again and again, but it lacked the true density of rain.
They were knights—those who had gone beyond human limits.
They saw and dodged, and those who could not dodged blocked.
Esther, for example, cloaked her body in a shield through spellwork.
It was enough.
Attack after attack was stopped. None of the Salamander's powers reached here.
At the same time, they crushed and smashed and endured. Regulating their breathing wasn't difficult.
Ragna and the others were masters of pacing, all from fighting Enkrid.
Uske was a bottomless well.
Sparring day and night with a man wielding such Will naturally taught you how to ration stamina and fight on.
Enkrid swung Dawn Tempering a few more times, then became half a spectator. Not idle—watching with intent.
As he repeated his pattern-reading, the phantom's true body appeared faint to his eyes: a four-legged beast.
'If I cut, it will die.'
After falling into Abnaier's trap, his tactical sense had awakened. Even here, he saw the path to victory.
'If Rem drops it, and Ragna cuts—'
Not simple, but if he joined them, it would suffice. They could subdue this phantom of flame, beast or monster.
He trusted Dawn Tempering. It was an Engraved Weapon. A blade imbued with Will could cut anything.
Not omnipotence—trust and faith.
The dragonkin was watching all this. Of course he was impressed.
And with his sharpened senses, he read part of Enkrid's Will.
Not the heart, but the inside of the man. A talent remembered in battle—reading the will within another.
The dragonkin was a master of mind-reading, because his hyper-precise sense let him read Will. That sense had reawakened.
"My duty is to guard the phantom beast, and keep it from slaughter it does not desire."
He said again. And if need be, he would act on his words.
"I know."
Enkrid answered.
Then what to do with it?
Enkrid could endure three days and nights like this. Was that all that was needed?
So each of them did their part, enduring. Shinar, aside from dodging the fire rain, had not stepped forward. More precisely, no moment had called her to.
But the fairy felt her heart beating.