"Information control."
Luagarne spoke as if reciting. It was what she'd asked Jaxen to do.
The lords of the Demonic Realm seemed to trust the monsters they commanded and had left their posts, so she'd mentioned it.
It would be good if it worked, and if not, so be it—but it had been appropriate and effective. The enemy's reaction wasn't unusual.
Even though they'd gotten this close to the walls. So what was about to happen now wasn't anything special, just a reaction within the expected range.
"Here they come."
Behind Enkrid, Shinar whispered. It was amidst the tremendous noise of the thorn-shrouded wraiths.
From the darkness on either side of the wall, monsters approached leisurely as if they'd been waiting.
Werewolves and werebears with four arms.
The werebears were unusually massive, and some gripped pitch-black clubs in their hands.
Four clubs wielded by four hands—it looked quite threatening.
More than anything, compared to the ones they'd fought outside, every one of these radiated a more dangerous aura. Right, this place was the Demonic Realm.
"Block and break through."
Luagarne spoke.
Sometimes the simplest tactic becomes the sharpest spear.
With this much military strength, why bother with the trouble of climbing walls or searching for invisible gates?
Jaxen could perform tricks to move like flying atop the walls, and that was for assassination to control information, but separately from that, these people didn't need to do such things.
No, it should be said they had no need to.
Moreover, what had that bastard said earlier? What can you do?
Luagarne wanted to deliver to that bastard the most impressive answer of what these people could do.
Besides the approaching monster horde, when the party drew near the walls, structures placed in rows left and right atop the walls moved on their own. Their bodies were also made of bone, and the projectiles they fired were thick arrows formed from bone. In other words, they were ballistae possessed by evil spirits, and they themselves were monsters.
Creeeak.
Purple tendons twisted to form bowstrings that automatically coiled and loaded arrows to shoot.
Thunk!
The bowstring snapped and heavy arrows flew toward the center of the party.
The moment the party entered a certain range, it had reacted as if guarding the walls.
Should they be called defensive monsters guarding the thornwood walls?
Enkrid's gaze swept over them just before the arrows flew in.
Even while in a Demonic Realm, they have everything in order. Didn't they turn siege weapons into monsters and place them as defenses?
At this level, their effort was almost admirable.
He'd placed his hand on Dawnforge's grip, but Enkrid didn't need to step forward.
Someone ahead of him leaped upward and swung his sword.
Tang!
A swift sword moved to deflect the arrow. The struck ballista arrow was made of twisted bone. The deflected bone arrow struck the ground with a thunk and bounced toward a werewolf that had been approaching.
It was one with patches of missing fur all over its body, but its forearms were exceptionally thick instead.
If caught and squeezed by those forearms, an ordinary human's arm would snap like a twig breaking.
Of course, there were no ordinary humans here.
The werewolf caught the bounced bone arrow and gripped it as if to use it as a weapon. The creature swung the bone arrow club whoosh whoosh through the air.
If a monster could improvise with weapons, it was proof of considerable intelligence.
Seeing it drool pus instead of saliva while growling, intelligence or not, it was just a dog-faced appearance like a man-faced dog's penis.
It was Pel who had deflected the arrow. With both hands gripping his sword, he spoke while still in his swinging stance.
"I'll take above."
Pel thought now was a good environment to practice blocking anything with his sword. The ballista arrows were heavy but not particularly fast from a knight's perspective, so it wasn't too difficult.
"Please do."
Audin answered. He stood at the center of the party.
Grrrrrrr.
The werewolves, werebears, and other monster groups narrowed the distance. Not a single one rushed hastily—they all ambled along, and though they seemed to walk slowly, their massive size meant they closed in instantly.
Looking at the monsters swarming left and right might inspire fear, but everyone's gazes were merely calm. Pel looked at the sky while others watched the monsters. All of them breathed slowly and steadily with no wavering.
Shhring.
Teresa drew her sword. In her hands it looked like an ordinary longsword, but it was a greatsword comparable to Ragna's Sunrise.
The fact that she wielded it one-handed with ease was proof that giant's blood flowed in her body.
Aaah.
She sang quietly. With a humming-like song, white light rippled across her entire body.
Divinity was indeed the most visible power among all abilities seen on this land.
To do something like that with Will would require considerable enlightenment.
Well, Enkrid knew all too well that each person's power had its own characteristics.
However, divinity lacked offensive power. It was fundamentally a force for healing and embracing rather than destroying. To compensate for that, Audin had repeatedly trained to surpass the limits of the body.
No, the entire Holy Knight Order had done so. Audin had just been exceptionally more extreme about it.
'Filling deficiency with muscle strength.'
From that perspective, divinity might be the most suitable power for a half-giant.
Of course, faith and innate talent were necessary.
Teresa's lips twisted upward. If the one singing earlier was the divine Teresa, now she was the half-blood Teresa who desired slaughter.
The white light that rippled with her humming wasn't a force for healing and embracing. It was the manifestation of violence supporting her innate monstrous strength.
Kwang!
Her greatsword struck the head of an approaching werebear. The struck creature's head didn't split.
Black blood did burst out, but the inside of its skin was hard as iron. It was an Armored Bear, one of the werebears—a monster with a hard exoskeleton.
Teresa's strike marked the beginning of renewed battle.
Thunk!
Pel blocked an arrow and Lawford stood guarding one flank. Ragna's Sunrise cut and burned through everything without hesitation.
Tsssss.
White smoke rose from a severed werewolf's neck. It was the trace of Sunrise's passage. That Ragna beheaded six monsters at once with one extended trajectory.
Oara's Lingering Sword.
In this situation, they couldn't conserve Will, so everyone used their strength.
A knight slays a thousand alone. That meant being able to kill several hundred monsters by oneself.
When several such people gathered, it was natural for approaching monsters to be sliced like butcher shop meat and strewn across the ground.
Among the advancing party, Audin finally reached the front of the vomit moat. Some of the wraiths' vomit gave off a foul smell from the ground.
Just the smell was full of poison, but it was useless against Audin. He hadn't joined the fight against monsters.
He'd left the monsters charging from left and right to everyone else.
Guwooo.
The wall's wraiths cried out. Audin watched them and assumed his stance. Left foot and left hand forward. His right fist thrust forward while twisting ankle and waist, glowing white.
Rotational force circulating through his entire body condensed into one fist, and that rotation was applied to divinity as well.
"Lord."
With a brief recitation, the surrounding air seemed to swirl fiercely around him as its center. Gathered divinity moved the wind to become a small whirlwind rising around Audin as its center.
Whrrrrr.
His hair scattered upward. In that state, Audin extended his arm. Wind, white light, everything tangled along that arm's extending trajectory and stretched forward with it.
Woong.
White light spiraled along his thrusting fist and met the thorn-shrouded wraith.
Kwang!
A roar rang out, and pressure occurred where the fist made contact, scattering the things forming the thornwood wall in all directions, accompanied by the wraiths' screams of kyaaaaa.
With a single strike, dozens of wraiths headed toward heaven.
"Lord, whether these need forgiveness or judgment for their sins is for You to decide, so I shall merely send them to Your side."
As he pulled back his extended fist, Audin prayed, and what the wraiths who heard this prayer toward heaven felt was hard for anyone to guess. It was uncertain if they even retained reason.
As a result, a single divine fist had created a dent in the wall—a hole large enough for one person to enter.
The thorn-formed wraiths didn't simply watch that punch, showing all manner of resistance, but none of it even entered his view.
The makeshift Holy Light Armor rippling across Audin's entire body deflected and rejected all of it.
The ground touching the shattered wall trembled.
"The foundation is weak."
Audin spoke in a refreshing tone and moved a few steps to the side, and the grating screams of wraiths briefly ceased.
They probably didn't really think this, but if those creatures still retained reason, they might have cried out asking what the hell these bastards were.
The apostle of the war god who believed curses couldn't dare harm him pulled back his fist again.
"Quite a loud knock."
Enkrid watched it and tossed out an offhand remark. It somehow reminded him of when they'd raided Gilpin Guild in Border Guard and discovered the underground entrance.
Back then too, he'd called it knocking while smashing a door, and nothing had really changed since then.
Except that the target was now a fortress wall situated in a Demonic Realm.
Kwaaaang!
The second punch also erupted with a roar. Audin created a hole in the wall with two earnest punches. Seeing the sunken hole squirm to repair itself again, the wall itself seemed alive.
Seeing that, Shinar furrowed her brow. It was an emotional expression clearly showing displeasure.
"Are they mimicking a fairy city?"
Her city—more precisely, the city where she'd lived and that bore her name—was composed of living, moving trees. In other words, the foundation of the city was alive, and this Demonic Realm fortress was imitating that, which was deeply unpleasant to her.
That clearly meant they'd stolen part of fairy knowledge and utilized it here.
The repair speed wasn't slow, but one thing was certain—Audin's punching was faster.
Moreover, after just two punches, though it was barely a peephole, the other side of the wall was visible.
"The door's opened."
Seeing that, Teresa spoke quietly. She'd just grabbed one of a werebear's clubs and thrown it aside. Before that, she'd killed an Armored Bear that had charged at her by beating its body to pieces rather than cutting its neck. In other words, it was something she said while briefly catching her breath.
"Shouldn't you say one was made?"
Pel spoke while blocking an incoming ballista bone arrow. He deflected the arrow efficiently while floating in midair. He'd used the rotational force from spinning in the air to swing his sword. It was remarkably skillful to show such a trick without any footing.
Enkrid thought Pel's words were correct, but didn't argue. What did it matter—what mattered was that a path had opened.
And glancing around, Enkrid thought it looked good to lend a hand himself.
Ting.
Dawnforge seemed to ask why it still wasn't moving. Enkrid soothed his sword and stepped forward.
He could see Jaxen moving atop the wall, disposing of bone ballistae one by one.
Thanks to that, the fired arrows were gradually decreasing.
Then there was no need to stay here to catch what Pel missed.
Enkrid sprang forward just like that.
A werewolf's claws, a black club falling from above his head, four arms pressing the ground reaching for his ankles, claws like daggers before those feet that looked like they'd carve out chunks of flesh with just a graze.
Attacks targeting high, middle, and low simultaneously. They were all creatures that had learned combat techniques.
Enkrid advanced with Dawnforge in his right hand and Penna in his left, striking thunk thunk as he went.
It was a continuous series of slashing motions, excluding thrusts. With just that, the monsters' limbs were severed and rolled on the ground.
Before their attacks could reach him, flashes formed by thought optimization severed their limbs.
When those flashes continued in succession, they became lightning.
Tztztztz— Kwarrrrung.
Swords that moved continuously with piercing sounds erupted with thunderclaps.
Black blood trailed long along the path he walked.
Now he could accomplish this much lightly. It was growth in capability born from the mindset of always trying to extend the best sword anytime, anywhere.
'The one using the sword is a person.'
Swordsmanship divided into five categories was always used by people.
It was an extension of thoughts from before. Though only threads were visible now, he didn't know how they'd connect—it was the path of the sword.
He shook off the contemplation briefly.
Enkrid reached within an arm's length of the wall and put Penna away.
The degree of strength entering his muscles felt just right, and there was no lack in the Will he channeled.
So should it be said he felt energetic like waking from a good sleep?
On days like this, it felt like he could do anything. You could even say omnipotence surged. Though he wouldn't foolishly challenge things he couldn't do.
"Hello, wraith friends."
Enkrid gave a simple greeting and raised Dawnforge parallel to the ground. The blade flowed sky-blue light and trembled ting. It was a reaction as if looking at Enkrid who couldn't be more excited.
In reality, the sword's trembling was resonating with the Will Enkrid possessed, but wasn't that up to the one holding the sword to interpret?
Since Audin was breaking through with divinity, it would be good to lend strength.
Will boiled up and was imbued into the sword. This was a Demonic Realm, and before his eyes was a fortress of the Demonic Realm.
All of that was already in his head. So what? What had that bastard said earlier—what can you do?
Grrrrk.
"Crazy."
He thought he heard Luagarne's mutter from behind. Enkrid's face had no trace of a smile. He was just serious.
What can I do now?
This was the answer to that question.