Ch.719Something feels familiar

Fighting Nidhogg was like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire, balancing on a thin thread with no end in sight.

One tiny mistake would turn their bodies into burning flesh.

Their attacks were nearly meaningless, while the opponent could turn them into burst chunks of meat with a single strike.

Therefore, it was only natural for Perneisia and Floheta to consider retreating after depleting most of their power.

Despite using every technique they had and fighting until exhaustion, Nidhogg was still going strong.

Of course, Nidhogg wasn’t completely unscathed.

One of its horns had been broken off, its front leg was half-sliced to the bone, it had three arrows from the dragon-slaying bow embedded in its side, and parts of its armor were shattered, revealing reddish muscles underneath.

However, despite all these injuries, the wyvern was raging with nearly the same ferocity as before.

Even Perneisia, who had lived for hundreds of years, felt a thread of fear at its endless resilience.

“How can we defeat something like that…?”

“Is it immortal…?”

It wasn’t just Perneisia. Everyone looking up at Nidhogg as it roared and spewed black flames felt frustration, despair, and fear.

‘This is manageable.’

Except for one man who feared nothing but Haschal.

—-

Demian swung his greatsword while repeatedly jumping, falling, and jumping again. There wasn’t a trace of fear in his heart.

Perhaps it was because he had to use all his capabilities just to swing his sword at an opponent he couldn’t possibly match with his own strength and dodge the counterattacks, leaving no energy to worry about emotions he could barely feel.

No, while that was part of it…

It was more because of the strange sensation that grew stronger each time he swung his sword at the dragon, stimulating his mind.

‘This feels familiar somehow…’

Why did it feel so familiar? As if he had been fighting dragons to the point of tedium before. It made no sense.

This vague sense of déjà vu, becoming clearer with each swing of his sword against the wyvern, allowed no other thoughts to enter his mind.

—-

“Haaaah!”

Demian leaped up, kicking off the air that had been solidified by magic.

He let the dragon’s snout pass beneath his feet, twisted his body sideways in mid-air to avoid the tail that thrust at him like a spear, then drove his greatsword down like a wedge, deeply penetrating the wyvern’s tail bone.

【 Kyahaaaak! 】

His evasion and counterattack flowed like water. Just minutes ago, such movements would have been unthinkable, but now they felt completely natural.

Demian intuitively felt that he was growing stronger at an incomparable rate through this battle with the dragon.

With each swing of his sword against the dragon, all the elements that determined a warrior’s capabilities—strength, speed, reflexes—continued to improve.

Not just his capabilities. His skill as a swordsman was also growing at an astonishing rate. The slashes he instinctively made following his instincts traced highly efficient and sharp trajectories, easily tearing through the dragon’s flesh.

‘Even this attack would have been impossible for my normal self. Am I getting stronger now? Like Haschal, who grew through battles with powerful opponents?’

Was the battle with the dragon leading him beyond the wall?

‘No, something’s different.’

Demian immediately rejected his own theory.

The sensation he was feeling now was vastly different from what Haschal had described as breaking through the wall to reach the realm of heroes.

—-

“What does it feel like to reach the realm of heroes?” Haschal had said.

“Well… it’s like walking through the middle of a forest where you can’t even tell which direction to go, looking up at the stars? Using your own soul as a guide to walk your own path where no one has gone before.”

The realm of heroes beyond the wall was similar to pioneering a dangerous, unexplored path with an unknown destination.

“You don’t understand what I’m saying? Of course you wouldn’t. It’s hard to understand without experiencing it firsthand.”

It was an ambiguous metaphor like grasping at clouds, but she couldn’t think of a better expression.

“This is just my hypothesis, but… just as desperation is the key needed to reach the realm of mastery, it seems that ‘firmness’ is needed to break through the wall and enter the realm of heroes.”

Haschal had also offered advice on breaking through the wall.

“A firm belief in yourself. Whether you call it conviction or stubbornness… you use an unshakable belief that won’t break under any circumstances as your weapon and strike it against the world.”

This was also an extremely abstract piece of advice, but Demian had memorized it without missing a single word.

“Your belief, conviction, stubbornness, soul, whatever it is—if it’s sufficiently strong and firm, that heart will break through the wall blocking you and take form in the world. As a ‘Tale of Heros’.”

A self-confidence so firm that it wouldn’t waver even against the world—that was the key to crossing the wall and becoming a hero.

—-

That’s why Demian couldn’t help but feel perplexed, even as he grew stronger by the second while facing the dragon.

The sensation he was feeling now was vastly different from the feeling of breaking through a wall with a firm heart.

‘This familiarity… rather than breaking through a wall and moving forward, it’s more like…’

It was closer to the sensation of walking a path he had already traveled once before, relying on vague memories.

It didn’t feel like breaking through a blocking wall and moving forward, but rather like finding and passing through a door that had already been wide open on one side of the vast wall.

As if all his previous struggles to cross the wall had been a lie, everything felt too familiar and natural.

It was something Demian couldn’t possibly understand.

【 Kaaaaaah! 】

However, the wyvern, howling in pain from the greatsword embedded in its tail bone, didn’t seem willing to wait for Demian to realize the reason for his déjà vu.

‘Right, I’ll postpone the worrying for later. For now—’

With unanswered questions in his heart, Demian continued fighting, guided by his déjà vu and his body’s instincts.

His greatsword, imbued with a presence far different from an hour ago, was swung like a blue-silver lightning bolt.

—-

The first to notice Demian’s change was Perneisia, who had been planning to knock him unconscious with a blow to the back of his head and carry him away like a sack.

‘…That guy, did he cross the wall?’

He skillfully avoided attacks that he couldn’t have dodged without her help just moments ago, and his sword cut through the wyvern’s armor like tofu, inflicting deep wounds.

And that wasn’t all. His fighting style itself had changed dramatically.

Until just a little while ago, Demian had been fighting based on his experience with monsters.

A combat style where he threw his body sideways to avoid enemy attacks and swung his sword with all his might whenever he saw an opening. A method that wasted considerable energy.

But now, Demian had abandoned his previous tactics and was showing movements optimized specifically for dragon combat.

“Haaaaaaah!”

With minimal movement plus rotation to deflect the dragon’s front leg, he brought his blade against its forearm, using the dragon’s own strength to tear through its arm.

Then, using his greatsword wedged in the dragon’s elbow bone as leverage, he climbed onto the forearm, leaped again, and as he passed over the shoulder, he dragged his blade down in a long slash.

From behind the shoulder all the way down the back, reaching to the wing.

【 Kyaaaaak! 】

When the wyvern screamed and swung its outer wing, instead of jumping far away to avoid it as before, he rolled toward the base of the wing and swung his sword again.

The armor covering Nidhogg’s outer wing shattered like glass, and about half of its base was cut off.

【 Kyahak…! 】

The enraged wyvern created a storm of dark mana that blew Demian’s body away.

Demian held his massive greatsword in front of him like a shield to withstand the impact, creating distance without suffering a single injury.

His movements were so fluid, as if he were accustomed to fighting dragons. They truly evoked the dragon slayers of ancient legends.

“…What the hell, why is he fighting so well?”

Perneisia muttered to herself, dumbfounded by the sight.

Dragon and human. The power gap between them remained, but Demian was performing astonishingly well.

To the point where she thought they might have had a chance if he had fought like this from the beginning.

Perhaps Nidhogg felt the same way.

【 Kyaak! 】

The wyvern, frantically clicking its armored snout, curled its head and tail like a ball, then suddenly released all the dark mana covering its body in an omnidirectional explosion.

– Kwaaaaaaang!

An explosion of dark mana reaching a diameter of three hundred meters. The tremendous shock swept through the air.

“Kyaaak?!”

Floheta, who had been wearing the same dumbfounded expression as Perneisia, hurriedly deployed a mana barrier and was thrown back, crashing into a city spire.

Even Perneisia, who had blocked the shockwave by using the wind spirit’s wings as a shield, had to urgently repair the spirit’s body as it lost its wings and fell.

What about Demian?

—-

‘This is dangerous…!’

The moment the wyvern curled its body, Demian felt his intuition ringing a fierce alarm.

His déjà vu was warning him. He instinctively realized that death awaited if he couldn’t avoid this.

And that he possessed the ability to avoid it.

Following the path guided by the déjà vu that had captured his mind, Demian unleashed the power of his accumulated karma toward the world.

– Hwaaaak!

A pair of wings, so brilliant they were dazzling, spread pure white radiance through the air.