Chương 260: Pain And Humiliation

One thing that had become incredibly obvious with my latest evolution was that my 'Base Form' was indeed aptly named, as it was considered my normal state. My other forms 'calculated' the strength, speed, et cetera, based on my 'Base Form'. As such, when this evolution greatly increased my physical 'stats' and the like, all of my other forms were thus noticeably impacted for the better. In simple terms, my knightly form was significantly more powerful than it used to be.

In fact, I would say that thanks to this boost, all that I have learned through watching, and the combat experience I acquired for free thanks to the A. R. DL, I have gone through… I am now a better knight and warrior than the alternate version of me had been. Which meant a lot, that the other me had actually learned a combat art on her own without any form of abilities to help, despite my absolutely miserable talent when it came to such things normally.

So, this newfound strength, swiftness, and combat acuity all shoved inside of a body of solid steel, accompanied by several innate abilities… Let's just say that I would rather not fight myself. Lacking in foresight, the bald man in denial swung his axe at me. His strike was direct. There wasn't even the start of an attempt at deception or misdirection here. It was only a display of brute force and precision, nothing more, nothing less.

Now, the attack itself wasn't bad or anything, but it clearly showed that he either thought far too highly of himself or terribly looked down on me… It was probably a mix of both. In any case, this was a test book example of a bad opening on my adversary's part–And I didn't mean the direct strike that was so heavily telegraphed that I could have seen it coming even if I were in dormancy, but just how much he committed to the strike.

He was really putting his whole body into it, good for extra might, but bad overall. He wouldn't be able to pull back if necessary. It was a shame that my three students weren't here to see this. I could have taught them much about what not to do. Anyway… My opponent certainly didn't realise that I could have a whole monologue inside of my own head while he was trying to attack me, either. I had ample time to find the best way to humiliate him.

Alright, surely he will have more to show than this pathetic display, right? I clenched the handle of my sword and also grabbed the blade itself, and with simple footwork, got myself out of the way as I hooked the underside of his axe, both dodging and parrying his strike in one fell swoop as I wrenched the weapon from his hands, sending it flying through the air and then sliding against the ground. The clanging and friction of this action echoed loudly as the other fools watched in silence.

I did a little stylish spin for no other reason than to look nice. The way my dress would move when I did unnecessary crap like this was simply fabulous, and it also had the enjoyable effect of getting on the nerves of others. Nothing more disrespectful for a warrior than when your opponent would willingly show you their back without the action even having a smidge of reason. It was basically the same thing as stopping during a race and turning around to look at the competitors behind you.

It should usually be a stupid thing to do, but if you did it in a certain way, then it just turned into a plain insult. After this, I didn't do anything else. I merely nodded my head toward his fallen weapon, silently telling him to go pick it up. He turned red with anger as he walked toward the axe in total silence, as everyone, including me, just stared.

"You dare make a fool out of me? I'll fucking kill you!" Would you look at that, he's already getting senselessly mad. This is not the behaviour of a real man. One bad thing happened to him, a minor thing at that, and he's already losing his marbles. Does he really think himself capable of teaching three Unwanteds? If he is really here because of a connection with people from the assembly… Do they really think this guy can be a teacher? I doubt he would have the patience to deal with Williams' questions.

He raised his axe, and several more pulses of red occurred. Nara? What is this sad jester doing? He's merely using more augmentation spells on his body and weapon. While the spells themselves aren't very impressive in any capacity, he is quite good at making them act more like temporary enchantments than regular spells … Does this mean that he can maintain them with ease without consuming much mana at all? Enchantments are supposed to be spells that stay attached to objects, if I remember correctly. Precisely.

This must be the speciality of whatever establishment or school he represents Well, I'm afraid that this isn't really something I can learn from. This is a bit too magicky, but I suppose I can still try…

'Evolving Warrior' was never very precise on what exactly I could learn anyway. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! He swung again, this time with an overhead strike–Probably even a worse idea than the first. There was no trick to it again. It was just a faster and more powerful attack. I sidestepped it and proceeded to kick him in the back of his knees, while his axe had embedded itself in the ground. The idiot couldn't even stop his attack.

He buckled under the force of the kick, but I didn't bother capitalising on his moment of weakness. I just stepped back and let him get up. His face scrunched up as it became undeniable that I was just mocking him. Even the onlookers had their faces scrunched up, unable to watch the humiliation their buddy was going through without showing the second-hand embarrassment they were experiencing. The cycle repeated itself again and again.

He would add more augmentative spells, attack with the same thought process of an already dead, premature baby monkey, get humiliated because of it, rinse and repeat. I don't know what sort of nepotism got this guy here, but I would love a part of that. If a worm like this can end up in this position, then with the same thing, I could end up ruling the entire continent. In any case, I made a fool out of this guy for twenty-five whole minutes.

I am frankly surprised he didn't give up, but I suppose being stubborn often goes hand-in-hand with stupidity. Things only ended because he not only ran out of stamina and mana, but also because he used so many damned augmentation spells that he ended up rupturing several of his muscles, having placed far too much strain on them. There was such a thing as 'too much magic'. Anyway, nearly half an hour of first-hand experience, did I get anything from this imbecile?

Wrathful Strike - Using absorbed anger, you can empower your next attack. This skill gains in strength when near sources of anger or related negative emotions Oh, I wasn't actually expecting anything. I suppose the ability is simplistic enough that this whole debacle was actually sufficient to get me a new ability. I tried first-hand experience with a few other things, and it hadn't been so effective. Anyway, this was a fairly nice ability.

The wording told me that it needed to be reactivated since it only mentioned 'attack' in the singular. It could go very well with 'Spectre Blade'. I would have thanked my adversary, but he was currently being dragged away by the other fools who had watched him being humiliated this entire time. I went and picked up my blackboard. Anyone else? I have pupils to teach. If you want to fight, you'll need to wait for me to get them. They could learn a lot from your defeats.

They didn't seem to want to fight much in spite of the provocations, but they all looked at each other, and none left. I suppose their buddies in the assembly really want me out of the picture… I see how it is. In this case, hold on for a minute. I motioned to Xlown, and she quickly ran off to grab the three Unwanted Presences. She sat them down on a bench on the edge of the room and cleared her throat.

"Lady Maya is being challenged by a bunch of talentless hacks who are only where they are today because they know people with high positions. Watch attentively and learn how Lady Maya crushes and humiliates to the point of tears!" My opponents groaned at my daughter's remark, but one eventually stepped forward. An orc-looking fellow who towered over me, wielding a huge, steel-reinforced club.

"I am not like the previous guy" Damn, it feels like I am back in the dating scene. The orc roared up at the ceiling, and he suddenly began to grow in size. He wasn't just towering over me anymore, he was an actual giant–Well, a little giant, I suppose. I remember hearing that some giants literally reach above the clouds. Nonetheless, he was pretty freaking big.

I think he was about nine meters tall now, and all that with a very good muscular build, which I could easily see since he basically only wore enough clothes to conceal his other club. I would usually make a comment on the lack of protective gear, but having anything made to change size with you was probably expensive as hell. This ability doesn't seem like a combat art either, but I was interested. It had even changed the size of his weapon.

Everyone else in the room had already moved as far back as possible, so he swung at me. He ploughed through the air and actually created his own gusts with his strike. Furthermore, he actually acted with more thought than the previous guy. Instead of just swinging down directly at me, he swiped close to the ground.

Basically, he left a bit of space below his weapon, but not enough for me to duck underneath the swing, and with the size of his weapon, jumping over it would be difficult, and that was without taking into account the gusts of wind his speedy motions are triggering. I'll have to close the distance after this. I got down onto the ground and poured all of my focus into 'Steel Manipulation', causing the club to rise upward and thus miss me. This took the orc by surprise, as he didn't understand what happened.

The motion was subtle enough that it could easily be chalked up to a mistake on his end, but since it wasn't impossible for him to figure out that some foul play took place, I quickly used this moment of confusion to get closer to him. Alright, let me test this brand new ability of mine… I felt my weapon fill up with anger as I simultaneously used 'Steel Shaping' to transform my sword into a large Hog Splitter.

Putting my heavy weight behind the strike, I brought it down on my opponent's big toe, splitting it right off the rest of his body. I didn't even bother pulling my weapon back. I just let go of it and resumed running as the orc howled in pain and stumbled around. The big toe was quite important to balance oneself, and combined with the pain caused by its sudden amputation, it was to be expected that he wouldn't be able to strike back immediately.

This gave me the time to use 'Steel Manipulation' to bring my weapon back to me as I circled around my adversary. Noticing me trying to get behind his back, he decided that the best course of action was not to even try to regain his balance and instead let himself fall down on me. Big mistake. I suppose he was simply too eager to test my acupuncture skills…