CHAPTER 119 SUPERIORITY

“Show me how superior humans really are.”

Lea gave me a pensive look, “I don’t think that’s-”

The brat who had yet to properly introduce himself cut her off, “You’re not even worth my time. I have better things to do than trying to polish the feces you call a brain.”

“So you’re going to run away then? Afraid I’m actually stronger than you and don’t want to be embarrassed when I put you on the ground?”

His face twisted into a snarl as I spoke, “Watch your tongue, subhuman trash! Lest I be tempted to mind it for you.”

I just smirked and leaned in a little bit closer and whispered my reply.

“Make me.”

His face twisted into a snarl as he reached to pull out the rod.

I just laughed as I bounced backward, my armor crawling up to cover my body and two swords sprouting out of my wooden arm for me to wield.

Lea had a look of annoyed exasperation on her face but in the end, she stepped back and made her way to the edge of the room to watch.

“I will be stepping in if this goes too far,” She warned as she turned around.

Neither of us seemed to really give her words any credence. My reasoning was that I could always heal him as long as I didn’t remove limbs, he probably believed himself above reproach.

I was about to disabuse him of that notion.

Lightning began to crackle around me and I started conjuring my signature lilies around the room as I prepared myself for whatever he was going to throw at me.

Only for him to disappear.

If I didn’t have the localized omniscience of my flowers, I would’ve completely missed the spike of steel hurtling toward the back of my skull.

Instead, I just moved my head to the side and let it fly past me without so much as a scratch. When it hit the ground nearby, it landed with a powerful thud, burying itself deep into the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.

I scoured the entire room trying to find him without so much as turning to physically look, [Mana Sense] was unfortunately not turning anything up either.

However, he was hiding, completely disguising himself in that sense.

A few more spikes came flying towards me, but I dodged all of them. As I moved out of the way of the last one, I tested the durability of my swords against it.

The blade was nearly knocked out of my grip from the velocity and pure weight behind the attack. But the blade did withstand, any damage that was dealt could easily be repaired as well.

Eventually, he decided to change tactics and tried to unnerve me with words, “Not many handle this tactic very well,” As he spoke his words seemed to come from all around me instead of just any particular direction, “This is good. I don’t often get a chance to really flaunt what I’m capable of among the lesser masses. I also wouldn’t bother with any sort of mana sensory skills. None of them are capable of piercing my [Veil].”

Don’t use mana sensory skills, huh?

I smiled, “How gracious of you to tell me what not to try and use against you.”

If he had a response I didn’t hear it as dozens of spikes spawned all around me and came flying in from different directions and speeds. I moved with surety that came from being able to track all the projectiles almost individually.

I jumped backwards pushing myself up into the air and then spawned a barrier under my feet to push off of and change direction midair. I kept my ability to fly under wraps for now, it might be useful as a surprise for later.

Some of the spikes delayed in launching as I jumped around, instead waiting for more vulnerable moments to try and strike me when he thought I was sufficiently distracted.

None of them even came close.

I just laughed as I moved around the spikes, occasionally I deflected one I didn’t feel I’d be able to dodge comfortably and sent it into the ground nearby.

The onslaught never died down. For every spike fired another was summoned to fill its place. A constantly refilling artillery barrage designed to wear down its target. With his ability to hide and the ability to bombard his opponents from range, I could see now why he was so confident about his capabilities.

It was a strong combination.

I activated [Electric Sense]. Ever since reaching the third tier, the skill had only gotten more adept in its use case. Not only could I more clearly see the currents and how they flowed from further away. I got an idea of the shape the current took.

Whereas before it was a mishmash of signals that I couldn’t fully make sense of, now it showed clarity.

In this case, it showed me the rough shape of a man that stood at just shy of six feet tall, hovering in the air a couple dozen feet away.

I fought to hide my smirk.

The attacks slowly got more elaborate and he started mixing in more skills as well. A whip spawned near my legs and snapped out trying to trip me up. I blocked it with a tendril of wood.

All the while I continued side-stepping spikes and knocking them out of the sky with my swords when I couldn’t.

Swords spawned in the air and began combating me in an attempt to keep me from knocking spikes out of the air. I started shooting webs of lightning instead to counteract them. The force of my lightning only just barely enough to knock them off-course, which was enough for my intentions.

Despite not actually wielding the swords, he was a fairly skilled fighter. Doubly so when you considered he was a mage instead.

I was relatively impressed.

Eventually, I decided I’d played around enough. His spikes were fast and strong, and if he were fighting a suitable target that was distracted, he’d be a nightmare of an opponent.

Hell, if I didn’t have [Parallel Minds] I wouldn’t be doing nearly as well against him as I was. But given that I did have 29 minds to work with, keeping track of all the targets I needed to, combined with my ability to see the entire room, made a cakewalk out of what would’ve been a nightmare to anyone else.

A mantle of lightning exploded off of me as I lifted off the ground and shot forward, twisting around the spikes as they tried to correct for my sudden speed.

Unfortunately for him, I was much, much faster.

By the time he realized I was even moving in his direction, it was too late.

My wooden fist connected with his jaw and sent him careening into the ground. I didn’t have a lot of strength, but whatever it might be, it was certainly higher than his. That hit had to hurt, especially given that he had no armor covering his head.

Whatever invisibility he had been using was dispelled when he slammed into the ground, I landed on top of him and held a sword to his neck and with the most condescending tone I had, said, “Yield.”

He took a moment to recover before opening his eyes and looking up at me with sheer hate.

I waited.

He didn’t respond. So I touched my sword to his neck lightly and spoke again, this time with more force, “Yield.”

He just scoffed and looked away. Thinking that was the best I was going to get I shook my head and pulled my sword back.

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It came so quickly that I almost didn’t even see it, a flash of silver sliced into my wooden arm that I was pulling back disconnecting it from the rest of my body.

He was on his feet in a moment, a sneer on his face.

“That should teach you to-”

He didn’t get to finish the statement as I ran my sword through his stomach.

A new arm was already being created in place of the one he had just removed, in just a few moments it was finished and I grabbed his collar and stuck my foot behind him, and slammed him into the ground, using my right hand to make sure my sword pierced the ground below him, keeping him in place.

I summoned a [Healing Lily] beneath us and then summoned a multitude of tendrils and rapidly started firing [Storm Explosions] into him.

They were my least damaging attack, but I knew they would hurt, I also knew some of them would paralyze him, preventing him from moving as I retaliated in a cold fury.

I saw Lea moving and I summoned several barriers, stopping her along with multiple tendrils, and fired [Webs of Lightning] in an effort to delay her.

“Alex, stop! Now!”

I ignored her and carried on for a few more moments before I did stop. The healing from the lily should easily outpace the damage the spells did.

But it didn’t cancel out the healing.

I knelt over him seeing the lingering shocks of electricity paralyzing him in place.

“You’re going to listen, and you’re going to listen closely because I won’t repeat myself. I’m going to let you up. If you ever try to attack me like that again, if you ever so much as give me a nasty look, if you even so much as breath in my general direction wrong…”

I leaned in until I was just next to his ears before continuing.

“I will make sure they never find the body.”

I leaned back to get a good look at his face, he was sweating and looked fairly pale. It wasn’t pleasant to have a sword sheathed in your stomach. I would know.

Courtesy of Lurks.

“Am I understood?”

He nodded. I grabbed the blade and jiggled it hissing, “Use your words. Am. I. Understood?” I repeated, my voice promising further violence if I wasn’t satisfied.

“ … Yes…”

His voice was pained, as to be expected. But any vitriol his voice had contained earlier was nowhere to be heard in his tone now.

I nodded, dismissing the lily before I yanked my sword out of his stomach.

I stood up and stepped off of him, dismissing the barriers keeping Lea away from us.

“A word of advice, young noble,” I spoke the title with all the condescension and mockery that I could muster.

“This world is vast and wide, and there are plenty of people within it more powerful than either of us. You should be more careful, in the future, with how you address people. Some of them are not as forgiving as I am. One day, you might find yourself on the end of a blade of someone who was once weaker than you but has since become stronger.”

The front of his shirt was slowly staining red as Lea helped him up. She gave me a disapproving glare as she did.

So I continued, “You’re also lucky that the arm you took off is already a fake I created with magic. If you’d cut off my right arm instead? I would’ve taken yours as well. So next time? Keep your ego in check, because I’m not going to entertain your holier-than-thou bullshit next time and instead, I will just beat it out of you.”

“Heal him,” She ordered.

“Only if he asks me politely.”

“I’m not asking, I’m ordering you. We’re a team, if we’re going to work as one then my orders need to be followed when I give them.”

I nodded slowly, “In a life or death situation or out on a mission I will always defer to your judgment. You’re right, we need to work as a team. Which is why he needs to understand that CUTTING OFF MY ARM IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!” I roared at her, causing her to flinch.

“He will ask, politely. Or he can find someone else. We are a team. He will treat me as an equal. There is no alternative. Or should I take your current stance as you believing he was in the right for what he did and that no punishment is deserving? Maybe you believe that he was right when he called me subhuman garbage?”

I looked her in the eyes, challenging her.

“Heal me.”

I looked over to the noble as he spoke.

“Heal me, what?” I queried.

He hesitated before, through gritted teeth, he managed to spit out, “Please.” As if it was the most painful thing he’d ever done in his life. As if the sword wound was only secondary to the pain of asking someone he believed to be lower in the social ladder than him a favor.

I scoffed and shook my head before reaching out an arm and touching him and pumping healing magic through him until the wound closed up on both ends. I doubted I healed him enough to fully top off his health, but making sure he didn’t bleed out was all I cared about doing at the moment.

Once he could stand on his own, Lea let go of him and turned to look at both of us.

“This kind of behavior, from both of you,” She stressed, “is completely unacceptable.”

“No,” I retorted, “His behavior is completely unacceptable. My behavior was completely justified and warranted. I did not come in here spouting insults and racist epithets. In fact, I treated you cordially and with respect. As you deserve. As anyone deserves. It wasn’t until he came in, acting as he did, that I decided to do anything about it.

“In fact, initially I planned to just best him in a spar. Show him that I am capable and worthy of respect. Instead, he tried to permanently maim me instead. Don’t even pretend you didn’t even see him try to lethally take me out at the start. That spike would have killed me if I hadn’t dodged it initially. He’s lucky I didn’t decide to kill him for that alone.”

Lea ground her teeth as she looked between the two of us. I could tell she knew I was right in what I was saying.

To a degree, anyway. I knew that I shouldn’t have escalated, I should have just taken the blow on the cheek and let it lie. But that’s exactly why I didn’t do that.

It’s the same bullshit mentality schools use when you’re getting bullied. ‘Just let them keep bullying you until a teacher steps in, don’t defend yourself’ kind of crap.

If he didn’t want me to kick his shit in and beat him within an inch of his life, he shouldn’t have tried to permanently maim me.

It’s really such a simple solution, I don’t know why more people make use of it.

No one said anything for a moment so I took control of the conversation again.

“Let me make myself, and my intentions perfectly clear. I will not tolerate his kind of behavior. I will not be passive when someone verbally berates me. You wanna come at me with an attitude? You’re going to show me you have the strength to back up that kind of arrogance. Otherwise, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.

“If you try to permanently maim me,” I put heavy emphasis on ‘permanently’, letting a bit of power seep into the word as I spoke, “then I will beat you within an inch of your life.

“I will meet force with an equal amount of force. If I’m not allowed to do that, I expect you,” I looked pointedly at Lea while I spoke, “To take care of it and make sure it never happens. If you can’t, I will take matters into my own hands and there will be a repeat of what happened just now.”

“Maybe in the future, you should give me a damn chance to handle the situation in the first place then!” She yelled at me.

That was…

Fair.

I hadn’t really given her a chance to even try and defuse the situation and possibly address his attitude before immediately jumping to the nuclear option.

I grimaced.

“You’re right, I should have given you a chance to handle it. I’m sorry.”

It hurt to say those words. But it hurt less to say them to her than it would’ve to say it to the noble brat standing next to her.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but my words took her by surprise and she stopped giving me a look of shock.

That made me feel a little bit proud. It showed that maybe I was actually becoming a slightly better person. Able to admit when I was in the wrong.

I looked over at the noble again, on the other hand, maybe I hadn’t grown considering I would happily do everything I had to him again just for shits and giggles.

“I uh… It’s good that you at least understand that?” She said in confusion, unsure how to handle my willing apology.

I frowned, “Unlike the narcissist next to us, I’m capable of admitting my faults. I haven’t even heard so much as an apology from him yet.”

She glared at me again, “Stop prodding. Just drop the situation. He fucked up. You already went above and beyond in making him pay for it. If he does it again in the future, we will address it at that time. For now, I expect you both to be adults and treat each other with respect. I don’t need you to like each other. I don’t care if you like each other or not. What I need is for you two to follow my orders and do what I tell you, when I tell you to do it in the future.”

She glanced back and forth between us with a stern glare, “Or next time I’ll beat you both within an inch of your lives. Am I understood?”

I bit down my retort of ‘I’d like to see you try’ and instead just nodded.

“I understand,” We both said at the same time, both of us glancing at the other with a glare.

Our attention quickly snapped back to her as she gave a grunt of annoyance.

“Good. Glad we could get that figured out,” She then turned to the noble, “Maybe you’d like to introduce yourself properly this time instead?”

He looked at both of us looking mildly annoyed still, despite the thrashing I had just given him.

Eventually, he just sighed and stood up a little bit straighter before speaking.

“I am the scion of House Belthin, Jazzosaur Belthin. You may bow to me if you wish.”