Turning Chapter 955

The Cavalry mbers were undoubtedly exhausted. But even so, their faith had not wavered.

Frankly, it was astonishing. This drawn-out battle was due to Yuder’s decision, and not a single rift had disappeared yet. It would have been perfectly natural for soone to question his approach—or even feel resentnt or frustration.

And if they had, Yuder wouldn’t have held it against them... but the absence of any such reaction was, in its own way, even more disconcerting.

They °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° had trained together long enough to know that Yuder missing a few als wouldn’t affect him. Still, they had taken the risk to bring him even a single potato and a small piece of bread.

The look in their eyes carried a clear and powerful ssage.

Because Yuder hadn’t given up, they wouldn’t either.

By sharing their food with him, they were affirming—not just kindness—but unity. That they were one Cavalry. That he belonged here, with them.

To them, tending to their weary minds and avoiding a defeat they had never faced before was perhaps less important than that simple act of solidarity.

Yuder slowly bit into the bread, surrounded by those watchful eyes.

At a ti when he should be hyper-focused on monitoring the rift and monsters, this action was utterly irrational. And yet, even as the tremors below began to intensify, he kept chewing and swallowing.

The potato, when he took a bite, was still slightly warm. To a body that had adapted to the cold, dark depths of the sea, that warmth felt sharp and vibrant—like sumr sunlight.

Oddly, he felt he might rember this mont for a long ti.

Once he finished the last bite, the mbers—faces still weary—broke into smiles. That alone made his earlier worries about their ntal fatigue seem almost aningless.

“You ate it! I knew you would.”

“Tasty, right? Wish we could’ve brought more.”

Even after all his ti in the Cavalry, Yuder felt as though this were the first ti he’d experienced a feeling quite like this.

How was it that such an inefficient act could be... genuinely helpful?

As he pondered, a mory surfaced from the distant past.

“When do you think you must place your greatest trust in your forces? At the start of the ga? When you go all-in to win? When capturing the enemy’s royal piece?”

“...No. It’s when you’re at a disadvantage. When you feel like you’re failing. When it’s hardest to go on.”

“Faith is inherently inefficient. At tis, it may seem like blind foolishness—detached from reality. But I don’t think that’s true. Do you know why?”

He couldn’t quite recall what he’d answered back then. He was probably annoyed, maybe even losing at the ti.

In the haze of mory, a man in white gloves sat before a tactical ga board, lips curled into a subtle smile.

“I hope one day you co to understand the true value of such an ‘inefficient’ strategy.”

Click.

The sound of stone pieces striking the board echoed in his ears.

A hole inside Yuder—the one he hadn’t realized was there—felt like it had been filled.

And in the sa instant, the trembling beneath his feet intensified into a roar.

—Rumble...!

“Positions! Get ready!”

Steber swung his arm in a signaling motion, and the mbers scattered, expressions grim. Yuder glanced only once at their sluggish movents—far clumsier than before—but no longer worried. Not because it didn’t matter, but because he had changed his way of thinking.

“Yuder! I’ll draw its attention!”

Steber signaled the start of the assault and activated his power. His ability was especially provocative to these monsters—more than anyone else’s. And once again, it worked. A powerful shift in the water signaled sothing approaching.

“It’s coming!”

After eight battles, they had a feel for how the monsters moved. Though tired and slow, the mbers now responded instinctively—applying their powers without needing instructions.

The tentacle surged up from below. Massive but translucent, it used the sea’s darkness as camouflage. Vision alone wasn’t enough—they had to rely on other senses and their ability to read water currents.

That long pause between the eighth and ninth waves hadn’t just affected the humans. The enemy had ti to adapt too. Sothing might have changed. Everyone tensed, focusing hard, sending slicing waves of water at the oncoming threat.

Yuder moved among them, unleashing the most blades while using his insight to analyze the monster. Observing while fighting in the chaotic dark was no easy task—but determination made the impossible seem just barely possible.

He observed the ti gap between the eighth and ninth waves—and the subtle changes in the new tentacle. His golden eyes glead as he burned every detail into mory.

Monsters didn’t act with reason. They erged, tearing into the world, and imdiately treated all life as enemies. So remained dormant—but only in places where life was hard to detect, like deep underground or far beneath the sea.

Yuder recalled the dreamlike vision he’d had: countless beings writhing, trying to escape through a small crack.

He tracked everything—the tactics they’d used, how the monsters reacted, the nuances of each tentacle’s behavior from the first wave to now. It was all in his head.

—Screech!

“It’s smaller than before.”

This one looked more gelatinous than the last. More like a loose coil than a solid tentacle.

—Whoosh!

“But it’s faster.”

Steber’s water blade sliced it—and it thrashed violently in response, as if glowing with rage. Severed parts were swept into the current and flung at nearby mbers.

Normally, they would have avoided it. But this ti, they didn’t move in ti. They were hit head-on.

Blood spread in the water. Cries that couldn’t beco sound escaped as bubbles.

Yuder flung his hand toward them—summoning a current that slamd into the monster’s wave. It wasn’t strong enough to overco the full force, but it bought ti. Ti for them to tear off the monsters clinging to their bodies and swim free.

As if retaliating, the tentacle struck at Yuder—he barely twisted his body away in ti. From his inverted view, the shadow of the enemy ca into focus.

“...Yes. It’s definitely thinner.”

The others might not have noticed, but Yuder rembered clearly the original bulk of the creature. Based on what they’d severed so far, not even half of it was gone.

Not a single rift had disappeared yet. Still, Yuder didn’t think his tactics or predictions were wrong.

“It makes sense, if this thing had the power to cause the Southern Great Quake.”

The quake itself was a single, sudden event. But it had taken months to clean up the monsters that erged afterward from the sea, the rivers, the flooded cities.

And the types that were especially hard to find—those that lived in water and hid easily—hadn’t vanished until nearly a year later.

A year.

If they were dealing now with a year’s worth of monsters all at once, then even their current efforts—after eight waves—might still be not enough.

“Of course, the situations aren’t identical. I can’t assu everything is the sa.”

But for Yuder, it wasn’t about raw numbers. It was about balance.

If they were shaving away at one side of the scale, but the scale didn’t shift, it might not an they weren’t making progress. It might an both sides—enemy and their own strength—were shrinking equally.

Their power had diminished. Even if they’d killed many monsters, the rifts remained unchanged—because both sides were being depleted in sync.

Still... there was one more possibility worth considering.