When Calculus saw four of his subordinates defeated in such a shameful manner, his face darkened, and he shouted a command filled with bloodlust, "Kill Them All!!"
The wind runes underneath the instructor’s Scrying Crystal ball suddenly glowed, and along with it, all present in the staff room heard what Calculus said. Those words made Er Tian, the Head of Student Affairs instructor, turn as grim as death. If things truly become life-threatening, there should be academy staffs nearby that will interfere.
“Finally, we can stop hiding our true abilities.”
“I say, we should’ve done this from the start.”
One of the nobles with uncertainty on his face whispered, “I’m not disagreeing with you. I also feel that it is best to root out such greedy and ignorant commoners, but that Alucard would interfere…”
“Why should we care about him? Even the instructors are looking at this now, but who cares? Calculus will take care of the rest.”
“But… no matter what, Alucard is still the heir to the Angelheart family.”
“Enough!” Calculus barked, “I told you to kill them! What’s with all the small chat? Make sure they do not die too easily, or I will make you be the next one.”
Hearing his command, those nobles under him flashed predatory grins and attacked like starving wolves that found a lost sheep.
Previously, they had been worried about killing people because this is a training exercise that forbade the murder of fellow students. Instead, they had aimed to injure Kairos and his team, just enough so that the Orcs could finish the job and slay them all.
Directly killing someone is considered a major offence during an exercise, and usually, it is tantamount to an expulsion from Saint Cadet's Academy. However, if a student dies in combat against monsters, it will not turn out to be such a big deal.
Right now, however, after his pride was wounded, Calculus' bloodlust has already reached a peak where he couldn't care for the consequence. He believed his family, the Devilheart house, will easily handle the aftermath of killing a few unimportant commoners.
In his seething rage, the real him that Calculus had hidden, came out, thick with his superiority complex. Baring his fangs at those he considers lowly.
“You bunch of plebeians, do you even know who I am?
Nevertheless, it is far too late to apologise now.
I will show you, right now, just who you tried to mess with,” Calculus said as he suddenly took the lead in the attack. In a few quick steps, he rushed at Kairos' formation.
Those that saw his approach held on to their weapons nervously. The chilly wind that travels in the midst of the forest shade that had previously given them much comfort, now caused them to tremble unwillingly.
Blade blazing and fingers clenched tightly on his sword, the dark leaves of the lush green trees fall from each of his ferocious attacks. With a slash and a thrust, two of Kairos' boys were sent reeling backwards into their teammates even though they had successfully defended themselves.
The ones who quickly replaced the gap they left in the formation, flew out almost immediately, even quicker than how fast they entered.
But their training held in place, even this did not make the guys cower, and yet another moved in to take their places.
Yes, those young boys are trembling. In the face of an angry and powerful martial practitioner two full ranks above them it is hard to not be affected, but even so, none of them wavered, and no one hesitated to throw themselves into Calculus' path.
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The reason is simple. They trusted in Kairos, believing in that this formation would save their lives.
Following behind Calculus, the other nobles also could not accept the humiliation and rushed forward and attacked fiercely with bloodlust on their eyes and anger in their hearts. Only Calculus’ slave guards remained expressionless as always.
If a wolf wants to kill a sheep, the sheep should be fleeing or bowing down its head. How dare it try to bite back? In their eyes, a peasant is no different from an animal, and ought to know their places and lie down to be killed when asked.
With their superior rank, and with better equipment, the nobles quickly suppressed the G rankers from Kairos' side, but the commoners bitterly held their ranks and reduced the damage.
Whenever one person got hit by a brutal attack, his fall is cushioned, and his position filled up by another. They strained to fight off their enemies, even as sweat poured down their backs and their muscles trembled with efforts, everyone's eyes started glowing brightly in unison.
"Three to receive a blade!" Kairos yelled immediately in response to the brutal waves of attacks.
"Three to receive a blade!" his guys followed as one.
Suddenly, the 25 of them started fighting much better together. Against their opponents’ attacks, three people will work together to receive a single strike. The effect is immediate and the effort to defend lessened.
This swift response is only possible because of the fluidity of their formation and the amount of time they spent while practising it earlier, on those days of covert action. For this, Kairos was willing to forgo George’s arrangements to introduce F rankers into his team.
"Five to return the blade!" Kairos yelled once again in his military instructor mode and immediately the guys' responded loudly
"Five to return the blade!"
The group acted as swiftly as before. The Gammadion Cross Formation may be poor for defending, but its expertise lies in counters. With its four directional pincers, their battle array allowed them to attack swiftly from the front and the sides of their enemies, using five times the amount of attacks they receive.
Though both sides have an equal number of fighters, not everyone can fight at the same time because of the small contact area. Most of the time, the attackers found themselves needing to stay back to prevent obstructing each other.
On the other hand, Kairos’ group, using their formation, could move in a complex but intricate pattern, making use of their teamwork to fight in a very compact space.
And the more compact their group is, the fewer contact points for the nobles to attack at any given time. Their foes had to overextend themselves, going closer, to attack.
This short proximity makes it even more dangerous for the nobles. Because if any attacker is even a little careless, he will suddenly find himself surrounded by enemies from all sides as counterattacks rain down on him.
Even so, the current advantage is still on Calculus' side, because after all, their ranks and equipment are truly too large a gap for Kairos to easily overcome.
However, after failing to conclude the fight even after a while, Calculus suddenly stopped attacking. Instead, he stood still, facing Kairos. His face a mixture of frustration and malicious intents and he shouted, "Eat the Berserker’s pill!"
Hearing that, everyone's faces turned into shock, no matter Kairos’ or Calculus' team.
Abiding by his instructions, more for the fact because of how highly ranked his family is, than because they agreed with him, Calculus' team fumbled at their sleeves. Each person pulled out a small white bottle, promptly removed the stopper then popped an unassuming brown pill down their throat.
As each individual ate their Berserker's pill, a powerful and dominating aura burst forth from their bodies and their overbearing aura rises up into the heavens all around Kairos' teams scattering the leaves that are falling and causing the very air to tremble.
Meanwhile, Kairos made use of this time to quickly issue a command, "Reform the Bagua Formation!"
With quick light steps like a well-oiled gear, the guys quickly switched from the Gammadion Cross Formation back into the Bagua Formation.
[http://i.imgur.com/Pdjgfs0.png]
When the instructors saw this formation for the first time from their crystal ball, it looked similar to trigrams from afar, and this gave them utter shock at how intricate the structure seems.
The Bagua formation is based on astrology and looked a little like a circle and a little like an octagon at the same time. With eight points of defence, this is the strongest defensive formation they can currently use. The 24 of them stood in three rows facing eight different directions, while Kairos himself stood alone in the middle, at the heart of the formation.
The heart of a formation is where the array can be easily controlled or be broken. Usually, it is the place where the most critical point lies and therefore in many formations it is also the hardest location for the enemy to reach. Kairos stood there, right in the centre, facing Calculus without a hint of doubt or hesitation even in the face of possible death.
He knows that the optimal number to run this array will require 60 men, and potentially expanding infinitely in multiples of 60, but having not enough people right now he is forced to make do with what he has.
At the fore front facing the 4 Cardinal directions in the North South East and West, the Snowdrifts Team stood resolutely in front of their enemies. In the Primary InterCardinal directions, NorthEast, SouthEast, SouthWest and NorthWest directions, the other four team captains of his group, likewise stood at the forefront.
Being an archer but positioned next to their enemies, Edward nervously looked around.
Close quarters combat is an awkward and strange style of fighting for him, but instead of it all, he stood his ground knowing that in the future there will be many more life and death situations where he will be caught without the safety of distance.
In fact, he had prepared for this a while back. Prior to entering this training ground, Edward Alfonso has approached Kairos and Jim for ideas on what he can do if he was caught in battle at close quarters and Jim suggested to him new equipment for fighting while Kairos proposed training a particular set of moves to hold off the enemy at close range.
He chose to combine both their ideas.
Jim who is good at using and making hidden weapons and traps sat cross legged with all his tools out on a cloth he placed on the ground, and he started looking at each of them seriously in contemplation. The weapon idea he came up with was told to Kairos.
Because they have no actual martial arts skills, Kairos collected all the techniques that the group are good at and for many days and nights, he worked on creating a series of weapon techniques based on Jim’s invention.
Fast forward to now, Edward stood nervously in front of Calculus' team, trusting in those techniques and weapons given to him from his team. His finger rubbed lightly against a metallic object in his sleeve's pocket.