"Captain Knight Cole Beniamino, You are to give me back the proof of authority now!"

Karla screamed with both fear and annoyance.

"No, it's not happening, you'll have to take it yourself if you want it back. Now, if you don't mind, I have a class to teach. Alex, Alais you're the last two to come on stage."

"Wait! Listen to me, if you don't give it back I'll call up grandpa's guards, you better not force my hand."

Slightly intrigued by the implication of having guards assigned to protect her pretty butt, Cole kept their conversation going.

"Guards? You must be someone important, the council can't have someone staying idle in wait to protect you unless you're related to one of the higher-ups. Is it true then?"

The knight managed to momentarily suppress his anger, to make the young woman spill the beans. At this point, it was pretty obvious, but he needed to directly hear it from her. Otherwise, his conscience wouldn't let him.

"Mhp! Of course, you wouldn't know but I, in truth, am a descendant of Ein Van Albert esteemed grand noble. Even if on the family tree I am much further down, we still share the same blood, if I was you I would think twice bef-"

Karla's annoying monologue went on for a while until Cole's temper finally exploded. His usual halberd was no more, instead, a brutal spiked war mace took its place. Thick blood stains were still smeared over the deathly weapon.

The knight was playing no more, without uttering a word he dashed forward, his shadow looming over the young lady.

The sheer terror of death made Karla utter a desperate silent scream, while on the verge of falling unconscious. A loud clang of weapons colliding with each other saved her just in time.

"Oh! You must be the guards then, the pigs that Marquis Van Albert assigned to protect this worm here!"

The Knight's arrogant tone surprised the two that just arrived at the training grounds in their lady's defense.

One guard was very tall, reaching about two meters (6'5) in height, he was wielding a long silver rapier and seemed overall quite agile. The other was shorter, he was about Cole's height but seemed much larger and heavier, he was menacingly wielding a long sword with both hands. The duo was wearing a light, grey chain armor with a long mantle hung behind their backs.

In the middle of their chest was a golden hand, printed over the armor, a symbol to testify which faction they belonged to.

"Step back, give Lady Karla her coin back and you won't regret it later. One more step and we'll have to take measures against you, Captain."

The tall guard looked down at the knight, trying to intimidate Cole's smaller figure, hinting at the fact that afterward, they wouldn't stop even if he pleaded. Yet, this didn't seem to produce the expected result.

"With pleasure!"

The knight's expression turned even madder, Cole's angry laugh gave them shivers. As he took a step back before officially initiating the fight.

Cole's heavy mace hit straight for the tall guard's head, who with his thin rapier would have proven more difficult to enact a timely defense. Before the guard could have his head smashed to pieces, due metallic discs appeared out of nowhere with his help.

Seeing the situation quickly change, Cole took a few steps back to analyze the situation.

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'It must be the unique ability given by spirits. They can manipulate the disks around? Is that it?'

Soon after the stocky guard had made his way up to Cole's position. He rapidly swung his long sword in a diagonal slash, while his disk rapidly flew behind the knight, trying to hit him in the back.

Cole intercepted the disk with a rapid earth wall, while he decided to tank the long sword, covering his already heavy armor with an external, thick layer of dirt. The sword was very shart and packed a considerable amount of force, cutting through his armor and even managing to draw some blood off him.

However, it was nothing like the sort of damage the guard took from the war mace. Cole swung with incredible strength the heavy, spiked mace, as the veins in his arm visibly enlarged, he then covered his lower self in a layer of earth to consolidate his position.

The incredible momentum of the mace squashed the guard right in the middle, throwing the now unconscious body to the other side of the training grounds. The guard flew for about fifty meters before hitting and smashing the walls of the academy.

The man's sorry figure now lay there in a pool of blood, waiting for the reaper's final call.

"AH yes! Look at him go, I thought after a year of inactivity to be quite rusty, yet I am as good as ever. Now you, come!"

Screams of terror echoed among the trainees, in particular, Karla was starting to panic even more. The situation looked grim, one of her guards had gone down in one fell swoop.

'HOW?! how is it even possible, that Cole should only be Captain knight, he shouldn't be this strong by any means. I-I cannot be wrong, it must be a trick, maybe he just used all his strength to take down one of my guards and now can't fight back anymore.

Or maybe Grandpa's informants were wrong and his true rank isn't that of Captain Knight, he must be at least a commander or maybe even Lord, yes! He must be!'

While Karla was panicking in her thoughts, Cole was already over the taller guard, who appeared to be much stronger than the previous.

"I'm sorry but between the two of us, I was the strongest and by a large margin, Ludiv couldn't beat me once in the hundreds of duels we battled against each other! Prepare yourself!."

Screaming at the top of his lungs, the guard called to himself both of the metallic disks! And quickly ran towards the Captain.

'Interesting! Were the shields both yours from the start? You have more to show me then! Come!'

Coming with wide strides, Cole arrived in front of the guard, swinging his mace aimed at the enemy's head. However this time it couldn't find any opponent, as the guard had used the disks as steps to leap further into the air while he was falling with his rapier, searching for cole's soft neck.

However, at the same time, numerous, long earth spikes grew out of the ground, trying to impale him. Coming in his defense were the disks that by hitting him changed the guard's trajectory, as he managed to avoid becoming a human skewer.

Finally, he managed to puncture the knight's torso with his rapier, savoring the feeling of victory, as his rapier pierced Cole's body from end to end.

'Take this, you hot shit. You thought to be something huh?'

"I swear, your battle awareness is as bad as I imagined it to be. You dirty swine have stagnated behind the walls of the council for far too long, and have forgotten thanks to who you're able to play guards with the ladies. Now let me remind you why I and you are on completely different levels."

To the guard's surprise, the cole he just thought to have inflicted a fatal wound on, turned out to be a mere puppet made of dirt. Between all the stone spikes that came out of the ground and the heat of the moment, he failed to recognize the fake.

Now was far too late, as the last thing the guard saw was the spiked end of Cole's war mace. The violent impact resonated multiple times through the training grounds, as the guard's head was broken to pieces, and blood, cerebrospinal liquid, and brain matter were mushed together.

He died on the spot.

"Monster! You're a monster! How could you, I bet you're not even a Captain Knight. Whoever sent you, I assure you the Marquis can pay you much more than what they offered you!"

Karla's stupid ramblings didn't affect the knight that much, as he caressed his bloodied hair and slicked them backward, he spoke to her with words of ridicule.

"You're wrong, I am a Captain knight, however, I am nothing like the worms you hired. I grew my power directly on the battlefield, instead, they were cultivated in a safe environment like plants in a greenhouse.

I was being refined by war and earned my title, while they simply got it as a token of appreciation by the nobles. Disgusting.

Hey! You, Alex, Alais get on the arena, quick the nuisances are gone now."

Without waiting to be called out twice, the duo got on stage ready for battle. It was not long before Cole spoke again, to announce the beginning of the match.

"Also, you'll battle too as soon as they finish theirs. You'll fight Nestor as soon as he wakes up. Right, also, the coin I won't give it back, you'll have to earn my respect in battle to hold it in your hands once again.

Tsk! Don't make that face, you dirty nobles will you ever get a conscience."

At the same time, a small group of people was making their way to the training grounds.