Treatise Of A Failed Knight-Chapter 261: Last Hurdle

I don’t respond to Enrydral’s ultimatum with words.

Instead, I draw my blade.

White Serpent Fang—or simply Serpent—materializes in my hand, its silvery edge gleaming with an otherworldly sheen.

The B-Grade Armament hums with latent power, eager to feast on mystical characteristics.

"Tyrrion," I say without turning my head. "Get back. Find somewhere safe and stay there."

The dwarf scrambles backward, his misshapen legs carrying him with surprising speed. I hear him take cover behind the rubble of a collapsed building.

Good.

Now I can focus entirely on the monster before me.

Enrydral’s transformed body tenses, every mutated muscle coiling in preparation.

Then he lunges.

WHOOSH!

The speed is inhuman.

One moment he’s twenty feet away, the next he’s upon me, claws extended toward my throat.

I activate Tracing.

My body shifts through the Layers of Existence, phasing through his attack. I rematerialize three feet to his left, Serpent already in motion.

The blade cuts across his ribs, and I feel the familiar sensation of the Armament drinking deeply.

Mystical essence flows into Serpent—power stolen from Enrydral’s hybrid form.

Strength.

Regeneration.

The savage ferocity of a Magivore tempered with human depth.

Enrydral howls and spins, faster than should be possible for something his size. His clawed hand catches me across the chest, tearing through my armor and drawing blood.

Pain flares, but I’ve endured worse.

I dance backward, putting distance between us while Serpent processes what it has consumed.

Already I can feel the borrowed power integrating into its form—enhanced its form to become more ferocious.

While my opponent is stunned, I ingest Potions to accelerate my healing and sharpen my combat awareness.

My strength and speed also drastically improve.

Enrydral staggers, clutching his wounded side.

The cut should have been devastating, but even as I watch, the flesh begins to knit together.

Not healing, exactly. Changing.

His body convulses.

Grey skin ripples and bulges. The wound seals over, but the tissue that replaces it is darker, harder, covered in scales that weren’t there before.

His frame expands, muscles swelling to accommodate new mass.

The bone spikes along his spine elongate, becoming more pronounced.

When the transformation completes seconds later, Enrydral stands a full foot taller. His features have become even less human—the jaw more pronounced, the eyes sunken deeper into a skull that has reshaped itself into something predatory.

He now appears more monstrous.

But there’s something else.

’He’s stronger!’!

"Yes," he hisses, his voice now layered with harmonics that make my teeth ache. "YES! This is what I needed!"

He charges again, and this time there’s no technique, no strategy—just raw, overwhelming force.

I meet his charge with Serpent, the blade finding the gap between his ribs. The Armament drinks again, stealing more of his hybrid nature. But even as I wound him, even as Serpent feasts on his essence, I realize the problem.

Every injury triggers another evolution.

His body convulses around my blade. Flesh hardens into bone plating. New limbs—vestigial, malformed things—begin sprouting from his shoulders. His height increases again, the skeletal structure reorganizing itself to support the additional mass.

I pull Serpent free and leap backward, Tracing to a position I occupied moments ago.

The teleportation puts me behind him, and I slash at the base of his spine, severing what should be critical nerve clusters.

Enrydral barely notices.

He spins with impossible speed for something so large, and one of his newly formed limbs—ending in a serrated blade of bone—nearly takes my head off. I duck under it, roll forward, come up with Serpent already cutting upward.

The blade opens his throat from collarbone to jaw.

Blood sprays—thick, dark ichor that hisses when it hits the ground.

And he evolves again.

This time the transformation is more dramatic. His body mass doubles in seconds. Four arms now, each ending in different weapons—claws, blades, crushing pincers. His face elongates further, becoming something between reptilian and insectoid. Wings—malformed, bat-like things—burst from his back, though they seem too small to support his weight.

He’s becoming a chimera of Magivore traits, each injury forcing his body to adapt, to overcome, to become something stronger and uglier than before.

"Is this all you have, Knight?" Enrydral’s voice booms from his distorted throat. "Every cut makes me more! Every wound pushes me beyond! You cannot win! You can only make me perfect!"

I grit my teeth, mind racing through possibilities.

Direct combat isn’t working.

Every injury I inflict only strengthens him. Serpent is stealing his power, yes, but he’s gaining more from each evolution than I can absorb.

I need a different approach.

’The Magivore den,’ I think, making a decision as quickly as possible. ’I evacuated them before, but it appears I might need them now.’

I sheathe Serpent and run.

"COWARD!" Enrydral roars behind me. "FACE ME!"

RUMBLE!!!

His massive footfalls shake the earth as he gives chase. I can hear the buildings crumbling in his wake, his enlarged form too massive to navigate the streets without causing destruction.

I activate Tracing repeatedly, teleporting to positions I was in hours ago.

Each jump puts more distance between us, but not enough. He’s faster than his size suggests, driven by rage and the insane momentum of his continuous evolution.

The terrain begins to change.

Fewer structures. More wilderness. The outskirts of the plains.

I can sense them ahead—dozens of Magivores, their presence like pressure against my consciousness. This colony consists of Razorbacks, territorial predators with armored hides and crushing jaws.

They don’t like intruders.

Perfect.

I burst into their den, a massive clearing surrounded by rocky outcroppings. The Razorbacks react immediately, their heads snapping toward me with predatory focus.

But I don’t stop.

I Trace to the far side of the clearing, putting the entire colony between myself and the charging Enrydral.

The hybrid monster crashes into the den seconds later, his massive form flattening two Razorbacks that were too slow to dodge.

The colony erupts in fury.

Twenty Razorbacks converge on Enrydral from all directions. Their armored bodies slam into him with bone-breaking force. Jaws clamp down on his limbs, tearing flesh and crushing bone. Razor-sharp claws rake across his mutated hide.

For a moment, I think it might work.

Then Enrydral roars, and the sound carries such primal dominance that several Razorbacks actually hesitate.

He tears free from their attacks, his body already convulsing with another evolution.

The wounds close over with new adaptations—his hide becomes armored like theirs, spines grow from his joints to discourage biting attacks, his strength increases to match their crushing power.

He kills three Razorbacks in as many seconds, each death brutal and efficient.

The colony doesn’t retreat.

These are apex predators, unused to anything challenging their dominance. They press the attack with renewed fury, coordinating their strikes to come from multiple angles simultaneously.

Enrydral meets them with savage joy.

Each injury triggers another transformation. Each adaptation makes him larger, stronger, more monstrous.

His body continues to grow, incorporating traits from the Razorbacks themselves—armored plating across his chest, a tail thick with muscle and ending in a club of bone, jaws that can crush steel.

I watch from the edge of the clearing, Serpent ready in my hand, analyzing his evolution pattern.

’He’s not just adapting randomly,’ I realize. ’Each transformation incorporates something from whatever injured him. He’s stealing traits the same way Serpent steals power.’

But how did this happen?

What kind of Potion did he consume to give him this ability?

I doubt I will ever know.

A Razorback manages to tear off one of his arms. The limb falls to the ground, still twitching.

Enrydral’s body convulses. Where the arm was, two new ones grow—stronger, larger, covered in the same armor plating as the Razorbacks. His height increases again, now easily fifteen feet tall. His face has become unrecognizable, a nightmare fusion of human, Magivore, and something else entirely.

He’s becoming uglier with each transformation, losing any trace of the beautiful noble who once charmed and manipulated allies.

But he’s also becoming unstoppable.

Another Razorback dies, its skull crushed between Enrydral’s mutated jaws.

Then another.

The colony is losing.

Enrydral stands in the center of the carnage, surrounded by the corpses of Razorbacks, his body still twitching with ongoing mutations. He’s massive now, easily the size of five men stacked on top of each other.

Six arms, each ending in different weapons.

His spine has become a ridge of serrated bone. His legs are thick as tree trunks, digitigrade like a beast’s.

And he’s still evolving.

The remaining Razorbacks, finally recognizing they’re outmatched, begin to retreat.

Enrydral lets them go, his multiple eyes—when did he grow extra eyes?—fixing on me instead.

’I let the Magivores retain their savage instincts, but even they couldn’t decisively finish him off, huh?’ My mind delves further into analysis.

"Did you think..." The Hybrid Monster rumbles, his voice now so distorted it barely sounds like speech.

"... That these beasts could stop me?"

RUMBLE!

He takes a step toward me, and the ground cracks beneath his weight.

RUMBLE!

"I will evolve until I am perfect! Until nothing in this world can match me! Not you, not armies, not even the gods themselves!"

RUMBLE!

Another step.

His shadow falls over me like a shroud.

"And when I am finished with you, I will find that disgusting dwarf and tear him apart slowly. I will make him watch as I destroy everything he built. I will erase his legacy so thoroughly that history will forget he ever existed!"

The remaining Razorbacks flee into the wilderness, their survival instincts finally overcoming their territorial aggression.

I stand alone, facing this ever-evolving monstrosity that was once a man.

Serpent pulses in my hand, filled with stolen power but not enough.

Not nearly enough.

Enrydral’s multiple mouths split into hideous grins, revealing rows of teeth that belong to a dozen different predators.

"Now, Knight," He says, "What will you do?"

I think about it for some time.

’Fighting is pointless, but this guy won’t stop until he kills me and Tyrrion. What a conundrum this is...’

My biggest curiosity lies in the cause of this transformation.

So far, this Trial Scenario has been rooted in realism. That means events have logical links that tie everything together.

’Maybe if I know the source of his mutation, I can find a way to counter it.’

But how?

It’s not like he will tell me.

"Your White Serpent Fang is only an inferior version of my current form. It was worthwhile stealing the recipe’s copy from Jeophrey’s archives and turning myself into the perfect vessel with Kamal’s Potion method!"

’Oh wow...’ My eyes brighten.

To think he just told me the answer right when I wanted it.

How fortunate.

’Looks like his nature doesn’t change until the end. Stealing Tyrrion’s work wasn’t enough, so you went after the creation of others, huh? Big mistake...’

Why?

Because the recipe Enrydral stole is an incomplete, unstable version that has a fatal flaw.

And I know how to exploit it!