The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 94

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 94. Total Quantity of Evolution?
‘Acceleration.’
Munno activated his secret art the moment the spar began.
There was no choice.
To keep pace with Karina’s speed—clearly advanced beyond what it had been before—this was his only option.
Thud.
A surge of intense stimulation blazed through his entire body, and as his Mana drained rapidly, his fat and muscle burned as if consumed by fire.
‘Let’s move.’
A sensation as though the entire world had slowed, and only his own body moved at its natural pace.
And yet.
Even so, the movements of the female Knight in the crimson armor before him were far swifter.
Whoosh.
For an instant, as though a trick of the eye, her body stretched into a long afterimage, then closed the distance to him in a heartbeat.
‘What…?’
When he’d used Acceleration in their spar just after his awakening, she’d been 3-Star then, and he’d managed a speed roughly comparable to hers.
Yet now, with only a single tier separating them, the gap had widened even further.
– The more an Enhanced Body Practitioner evolves, the more dramatically their limits and stats rise.
That established wisdom about Enhanced Body Arts became viscerally clear to him now.
‘Tch!’
Bang.
In that same lunging stance, he threw his full weight into a swing.
An enormous Greatsword, meant to cleave everything before it in two, was wielded with rough, crushing force across the entire front.
But.
Shing!
The massive blade passed through empty air with futile grace.
He barely managed to arrest its momentum, swinging from right to left to steady himself.
And in that span, Karina’s body had already wormed its way inside his guard.
‘Damn.’
His form stiffened, caught in the fraction of a second it took to complete the Greatsword’s swing and halt.
Through that gap.
Snap.
Karina’s needle-like practice blade shot straight at his throat.
Even a dulled practice blade, at this speed and force, would easily pierce through a man’s neck.
Yet a cool smile played at the corner of Munno’s mouth as he watched it come.
‘Heh.’
Clang!
Metal Chains erupted from his left wrist, striking her blade from an unexpected angle.
Her eyes widened slightly. Her balance wavered.
‘Now.’
Thump.
He drove his left foot forward and charged with his left shoulder, the full weight of his frame behind it.
His armor, its surface mostly bristling with horn-like protrusions, was itself an excellent weapon.
But in that moment, Karina’s body seemed to rise backward with an almost eerie grace.
Crash!
‘Hm?’
His body—far heavier than it appeared—sent Karina flying cleanly backward from the collision.
Much farther than expected.
‘Of course…’
She hadn’t absorbed the impact at all; even as she slid through the air some twenty meters away, she’d regained her balance in mid-flight with effortless ease.
He had no intention of letting that gap close on its own.
‘Tsk.’
Whoosh.
From the charging stance, Munno’s body launched into a dash.
Clink-clink-clink.
Even in that brief instant, his Metal Chains moved first.
Two strands shot from his ankles, aiming for Karina’s legs as she landed.
Two more from his wrists spiraled toward her body and blade.
All four chains whipped about independently, yet Munno charged on without losing balance, his sword ready to respond to her next move.
‘All-in.’
And yet.
A faint smile.
‘She’s smiling?’
For just a moment, that beautiful face of Karina’s lit up with a grin.
A tap.
Lifting her foot just before it touched the ground, she stepped directly onto his left Metal Chains and surged forward.
A flash.
The training Rapier whistled through the air with lightning speed, striking down the incoming chains with a vicious swipe.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Under the relentless barrage—blow after blow, he lost count—the Metal Chains spun out of Munno’s control, scattering wildly through the air.
Through the gaping breach in his defense, Karina came charging, the chain trailing from her left wrist streaming behind her.
In an instant, as if distance itself meant nothing, she was before him again.
Munno’s reflexes snapped into motion. His right hand shot up to intercept her left foot as it came sweeping toward his face.
Bang!
The kick carried acceleration and body weight behind it—enough force to shatter a raised arm or send him flying backward if it connected squarely.
“What!?”
But Munno’s impossible weight caught her off guard. It was Karina who lost her balance instead, her momentum spent from the kick, unable to follow through with the Rapier strike she’d intended.
‘An opening.’
His right arm raised in defense. Her body wavering, thrown off by the scattered chains.
For an ordinary person, wielding a massive Greatsword in such a cramped position would be impossible.
A cracking sound.
His left arm—the weapon arm of a Hard Body Practitioner, evolved three times over with the Demon Devourer—generated a lightning-fast blade strike through sheer muscular force alone.
Craaaaaash!
Without his body weight behind it, the slash was lighter than it might have been, but still a strike no one could ignore.
And in that same instant.
Bang!
Crack!
“Ugh!”
“Ugh!?”
Boom-boom-boom.
Both of them were hurled backward, tumbling in opposite directions across the Training Grounds.
And nearly simultaneously, they sprang to their feet again.
Spit.
“You’re incredible, truly.”
Munno spat out a trace of blood from the corner of his slightly split lip and laughed bitterly.
‘How is this even possible?’
It was almost absurd.
He’d aimed for her completely undefended side, yet Karina had stopped the Great Sword using her elbow and knee, then kicked her own face out of harm’s way with her remaining leg.
Easy enough in words, but this……
“Your body responds perfectly to your will, no matter the situation—is that it?”
Even without being a Hard Body Practitioner, anyone with even a modicum of athletic training would understand how impossible that sounded.
Gazing at her with genuine admiration.
Her expression was even more astonished—almost stunned.
“That’s my line. How have you developed this much in just a few months? And what is that absurd weight? That Armor—can a person even move in it?”
Smiles crossing between them, both satisfied.
With genuine warmth lighting their faces, each could see that the other was truly enjoying themselves.
“It works because I move in it. But tell me—would you have stopped a real blade just the same way?”
“Of course. Did you think it would’ve made a difference if this were a real sword?”
“If it had been my ‘blade’…… No, never mind. That’s meaningless now.”
The penalty was already agreed upon between them. True, if she’d wielded her original Artifact Blade or if he’d taken up his own ‘blade,’ the outcome might have been different.
But such hypotheticals were pointless now.
“Right. Meaningless. So by that logic, I suppose I came out ahead this round, didn’t I?”
Munno, who’d been grinning broadly at those words, felt his mouth twitch slightly.
“This? This hardly counts as a wound.”
A split lip from where the Metal Boots had caught him.
Karina, having lost her balance while defending, had only managed to graze him with her right foot—hardly a solid blow by any measure.
All the more so, considering he was no ordinary person, and a Hard Body Practitioner who’d evolved three times over.
And yet.
“Blood still came, though.”
Karina’s mischievous smile ignited something in Munno’s chest.
“Even so, your Rapier is in pieces, Knight Karina.”
Munno smiled, pointing at the training rapier already cracked from countless impacts.
It seemed the weapon’s lifespan had already expired from being struck by chains so many times.
“A tiny scratch on the face versus a shattered weapon. Which comes out ahead?”
He spoke with such ease.
Karina lightly stroked the cracked rapier, wagging her index finger left and right.
“No, that’s not quite right. At the end, I didn’t have to use my feet—I could’ve stabbed with this instead. You think someone can’t die in this state? The mouth, the eyes… you understand?”
Munno’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the rebuttal.
He closed his eyes for a moment and mentally replayed the final collision.
Now that he thought about it.
‘Damn it.’
There truly had been an opening.
“Well, fine, let’s say that’s the case.”
“It’s not about saying—that’s how it is. You have to acknowledge what’s true, don’t you?”
This woman.
He exhaled sharply.
“Yes. I concede. I was outmatched. But surely you don’t mean to end it here?”
“You think you have more to show?”
“…Of course I do.”
The provocation, almost familiar in its sting, made Munno grin savagely.
A low hum filled the air.
Munno’s only genuine Artifact, the Red Heart, vibrated again, replenishing the Mana consumed in the last clash.
Beyond that, gray Mana began to ripple across his entire body, his armor, and his sword.
“This is a technique I’ve recently mastered, but it still triggers slowly since I haven’t practiced it enough.”
With the Red Heart, Acceleration could be sustained as long as his stamina allowed.
‘At least thirty minutes.’
Moreover, the Mana now rippling across his armor, body, and sword would grant him even greater strength, speed, and defense than before.
“Oh…!?”
“What do you say? Shall we continue?”
He looked at Karina with a provocative gaze.
She chuckled softly and drew a fresh rapier from the weapon rack at the Training Grounds.
The blade rang as she drew it.
“Of course. Let me teach you that Mana can actually be a disadvantage.”
What?
‘A disadvantage?’
Unable to comprehend her words, Munno narrowed his eyes.
“Come on then—care to attack first this time?”
At Karina’s provocation, rapier dancing, he broke into a savage smile.
“Then…”
Bang!
“I happily accept!”
Whoosh!
Munno’s body, accelerated in an instant, charged toward Karina.
His movements were noticeably faster than before.
“Ha!”
A charging thrust, his massive Greatsword driven straight forward.
The moment Karina’s body, which had been watching him with keen eyes, blade raised, began to slide into his left flank—
‘I see it!’
A tremendous crash!
His uprightly-thrust Greatsword cleaved straight through where her flank had been.
Clang!
Karina’s gauntlet struck the underside of the Greatsword directly.
‘There!’
Immediately after, her rapier thrust in again.
Bang!
But this time, Metal Chains shot from his wrist, deflecting the rapier, and simultaneously, chains from his ankle whipped toward her lower body.
Gray Mana rippled even from the chains.
A three-pronged assault pouring forth at close range, perfect execution.
Yet Karina only smiled deeply and began to execute an odd, intricate footwork.
Tap, tap.
Her body, moving left and right like lightning, created the same afterimage as when they’d first exchanged blows.
This time, rather than a trail of afterimages following her trajectory, it felt as though four separate clones were lunging at him from different directions, each thrusting a blade.
A flinch.
In that instant, the Metal Chains lost their target simultaneously and cut uselessly through empty air.
Then all but one of Karina’s clones vanished.
‘What is this…?!’
Of the four clones, only one real attack came—assailing Munno’s body, which had yet to regain its balance.
Even in his bewilderment, Munno twisted his frame desperately to evade that strike.
Screech-screech-screech.
Still off-balance, he slid across the Training Grounds’ stone floor with the aid of his Metal Chains, then saw Karina charging after him and spun his Great Sword in a wide arc, leveraging the centrifugal force.
Crash!
For an instant, Karina—who had been diving forward—retreated in a wide arc as if defying inertia itself, then simply closed the distance again, slipping through the opening in his assault.
It felt as though afterimages were trailing both front and back.
And then again.
The moment Karina’s blade trembled, Munno felt once more that sensation of her offensive thrusting toward him from four directions.
But this time, he thought he knew why.
‘Optical illusion…!’
Yet knowing the reason didn’t prevent him from flinching.
Munno barely dodged the blade that lunged toward his throat, then—off-balance—he drove his Metal Chains forward, hurling himself bodily into her.
Bang!
Karina slid back with a scraping sound.
Yet she never lost her balance; she glided across the stone like a figure skater, her posture stable and controlled.
Instead, a thin line of blood traced across Munno’s temple from the rough collision.
But there was a smile on his face as he charged forward.
‘Let me show you something entertaining.’
Thud.
Whip-whip-whip.
From his charging body, the Metal Chains shot out as if to engulf her entirely, then each halted at a different moment.
Confronted by this unfamiliar pattern, Karina’s body flinched repeatedly before coming to a standstill.
A gap—infinitesimal.
In that space, Munno’s frame was already before her, sweeping his blade in a massive arc.
Crash-crash-crash!
Rumble-rumble.
The Greatsword—bluntless—drove through the Training Grounds’ floor and embedded itself.
Beyond the cloud of dust, Karina stood holding a Rapier with no blade left, staring at him in shock.
“How did you…?!”
“It’s merely an evolved form of a feint technique. I didn’t even do it with my body itself.”
“Still….”
Munno smiled as he watched the bewilderment cross her face.
In truth, what had appeared to be her clones weren’t clones at all.
His well-trained senses had registered Karina’s minuscule movements as the harbingers of attack, and that was what created the optical illusion in his mind.
Had Knights a few ranks below them witnessed this, they wouldn’t have understood why he was flinching at all.
Nor would they have appreciated how extraordinary the crystallization of technique was in those trivial micro-movements she displayed at close range.
‘Can a human body even do such things?’
Munno himself possessed neither the skill nor the talent for it.
To attempt this technique, one would need to control their entire body—from the crown of their head to the tips of their toes—with perfect, conscious precision.
‘Depending on my reaction, any of those attacks could have been the real one.’
Regardless of how many times one had evolved, only someone born with talent—someone who’d honed both bladework and body technique to their absolute limit—could dare attempt such a chilling technique.
But Karina seemed to have taken greater shock from this than he’d expected.
“How could you replicate my secret technique after seeing it only a few times…?”
Her vacant stare as she dragged the hilt-only remnant through the air looked so dire that he felt compelled to explain.
“My Metal Chains move with my will—’perfectly.’ That’s how I could imitate even an imperfect copy. And your senses are so keen that even my crude approximation caught you off guard.”
“Ah….”
Only then did the light return to Karina’s eyes, and she nodded as though understanding dawned.
“I was only trying to show you that exceptional senses can become a liability instead… but I was the one who fell for it.”
“Ha. Then I came out ahead this time, didn’t I?”
Karina hesitated for a moment before biting her lip and nodding again.
“…I concede.”
A look of wounded pride crossed her face, but then she laughed softly and said:
“But this is fun. Another round then. We need to settle the match.”
She picked up a fresh blade from one side of the Training Grounds.
Munno found that overflowing drive rather appealing.
“Hah-hah-hah. Excellent. But before that…….”
There was one thing he wanted to settle.
“What exactly did you mean by saying it might be a waste to use Mana?”
“Ah. That just means it could be, that’s all.”
“Then what does that actually mean? That’s why I’m asking.”
The answer to that nagging question from before—
“Well. There’s a concept called ‘Total Quantity of Evolution’ at play, so for you to grow further down the road, you’ll need to commit yourself to a clear path forward.”
It was similar to what his father had once told him, yet somehow different.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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