Turning Chapter 955 (Patreon)

Chapter 955

The Cavalry members were certainly tired, but their faith had not wavered in the slightest.

Honestly, it was truly astonishing. The prolongation of the battle was a consequence of Yuder's choice, and not a single crack had vanished yet. It would have been no surprise if someone harbored doubts, discontent, or even irritation towards Yuder's chosen response.

It would have been normal to have some negative reactions, but the complete absence of such was, in its own way, unfamiliar.

Having trained together, they all knew well that Yuder could skip a few meals without issue. Yet, they willingly risked danger to bring him a single potato or a small piece of bread.

The intent in their eyes was clear and definite.

As long as Yuder did not give up, neither would they.

Their sharing of food with Yuder was like a strong assertion that they were one Cavalry, bound to stand together in everything.

Perhaps, to them, caring for their weary bodies and hearts was more important than fearing an unprecedented defeat.

Yuder slowly put a piece of bread into his mouth, meeting their gaze. It was an inefficient act during a time when they should be vigilant against cracks and monsters. Logically, it was madness. Yet, he continued to chew and swallow, even as he felt the growing vibrations from below.

The warmth still lingering in the potato he bit into next felt as intense and stimulating as summer sunlight to his body, accustomed to the darkness and cold of the ocean depths. Strangely, he felt this moment would linger long in his memory.

When he finished the last bite, smiles appeared on the tired faces of his members. The concern he had just moments ago about how to alleviate their mental exhaustion seemed utterly meaningless now.

"I knew you'd finish it!"

"Tasty, right? I wish I could have brought more."

Yuder Aile, despite his long tenure in the Cavalry, felt a sensation he seemed to experience for the first time.

How could such inefficient exchanges of actions feel so helpful?

At that moment, a memory surfaced, a phrase someone had said long ago.

"When do you think is the most crucial time to put your utmost faith in a move? When the game just starts? When you play a winning move? Or when you capture the opponent's king?"

"No. The answer is during the most disadvantageous moments. When it feels like failing, when it's time to retreat, when it's hardest."

"Faith is inherently inefficient. Sometimes, it feels like the foolish blindness of those who can't see reality. But I don't think so. Do you know why?"

What had he answered then? He couldn't quite recall. Probably, he was annoyed, thinking it was a tease during a losing game.

In his hazy memory, a man in white gloves, sitting in front of a strategy game board, curved his lips into a smile.

"I hope someday you'll understand the practical value of that inefficient tactic."

With a definitive click, the stone piece landed on the board, clashing against others, the sound echoing in Yuder's ears. As a void within him began to fill, a vibration that had been softly pulsing at his feet suddenly intensified explosively.

Rumble...!

"Everyone, to your positions. Get ready!"

At Steiber's signal, his arm waving in a pattern, the members scattered with stern expressions. Yuder spared them only a fleeting glance, their movements noticeably slower than before, but he decided not to concern himself any further. Not because he felt it unnecessary, but because he had shifted his focus.

"Yuder! I'll lure it in!"

Steiber sent an attack signal to Yuder and exerted his strength downwards. His power had a way of provoking the monster more forcefully than anyone else present. As expected, his strength took effect, and soon, an ominous current could be felt.

"It's coming!"

After eight encounters, one could roughly predict the enemy's movements. Although fatigued and slowed, the members now moved with familiar ease, exerting the necessary force without explicit orders.

The oncoming tentacle, massive but transparent, used the ocean's darkness as a hiding place, effectively concealing itself. To evade it, reliance on senses other than sight was crucial, especially the ability to keenly feel the flow of water.

The length of time between the eighth and ninth appearance wasn't long just for them. The enemy, too, was subject to the same passage of time, and might have changed in some way. Everyone sharpened their senses to the extreme, hurling blades made of water.

Yuder, blending in among them, threw the most blades, while using his heightened perception to observe and analyze the enemy as best as he could in the chaotic darkness. It was exceedingly difficult, but his determination made it gradually possible.

The interval before the ninth tentacle's emergence, and the subtle changes in the newly appeared foe. His eyes, shining like gold, missed nothing, recording everything in his mind.

Monsters don't act with intelligence. They tear through this world as uninvited intruders, immediately considering all living beings as enemies and attacking them. Some don't attack, usually hiding in places deep underground or in the depths of the sea, where life is hard to detect.

Yuder, recalling the scene in his dream of numerous things trying to escape through a tiny gap, continued his relentless observation of the monster.

In his mind, every detail of the tentacles he had faced, from the first to the present, along with the tactics of the members and the monster's reactions, were all vividly present.

"Ssshh!"

"It's a bit smaller than before."

This time, the tentacle appeared more flimsy, resembling a loosely interwoven loop rather than a singular limb.

Whooosh!

"But faster."

Steiber's water blade sliced through the tentacle, causing it to writhe more swiftly as if glowing. The severed parts, swept away by the current, overwhelmed the nearby members. Previously avoidable, they were now unable to dodge and were engulfed by them.

Blood diffused in the water and stifled shouts emerged as bubbles, bursting forth soundlessly. As Yuder waved his hand toward his team, the current he created bravely collided with the waves stirred by the monster, pushing the members farther away. Yuder's force easily shattered before the monster's thrashing, yet it bought enough time for the members to detach the monster clinging to them and regroup.

Yuder narrowly dodged an oncoming tentacle, flipping his body over. In his inverted view, he faintly discerned the form of the enemy.

‘... it's definitely become thinner.’

While the members might have found it hard to gauge due to the massive amount of tentacles they had cut through until the eighth encounter, Yuder clearly remembered the size of the gigantic mass of the monster he had first seen. By his estimation, even after cutting so much, they had not yet halved it.

That not even one of the six cracks had disappeared was unexpected, but Yuder did not doubt his methods or conjectures because of it.

‘If I consider it as the cause of the Southern Earthquake, it's not strange.’

The Southern Earthquake itself had happened in an instant. However, it took months to deal with the monsters that crawled out from the sea, the subsequent strong currents, and the water that engulfed entire cities.

Furthermore, it took a year for the monsters that thrived in water and excelled in hiding – which appeared frequently after the earthquake – to almost disappear.

A year.

If he thought of it as dealing in an instant with the monsters that had appeared over a year, the amount cut down in eight battles might have been relatively small.

‘Of course, the situations aren't exactly the same, so it's difficult to judge everything based on that.’

For Yuder, the key was not the absolute amount. It was the proportion of what they were chipping away on both sides of the scale.

If the weight of the sand on the scale, carefully reduced little by little, decreased but the scale did not move, what did it mean?

It could mean that the amount of sand they thought they had chipped away was still significantly small. Alternatively, it could mean that the 'sand' on their side had also been reduced so much that, although the overall size decreased, the weight ratio on both sides remained the same, showing no change. This could be why the cracks hadn't disappeared despite them effectively killing a considerable number of monsters.

However, there was another reason worth considering.