From Slave to King: My Rebate System Built Me a Kingdom With Beauties!-Chapter 228: The Victor Is...!

Maui was now facing Borg in her transformed state, and the atmosphere in the circle had shifted from excited anticipation to palpable dread. Everyone present could feel the wrongness emanating from her, the unnatural bloodlust that made their instincts scream warnings about predators that shouldn’t exist. Some of the watching orcs wanted to intervene, to stop what was clearly about to become a massacre rather than a fair challenge. Their hands moved toward weapons, their feet shifted as if to step forward.

But the Chieftess Grishka’s presence prevented any such action. She stood at the circle’s edge like a wall made of violence and authority, her expression making it absolutely clear that anyone who interfered would face her wrath before they could take three steps. Her killing intent focused on the crowd served as better deterrent than any spoken command. The challenge had been issued and accepted. It would run its course regardless of how one-sided it became.

Borg circled warily, his earlier drunken confidence replaced by survival instinct that cut through the alcohol haze. He’d seen berserker transformations before—every warrior culture had legends of fighters who could access inhuman strength through rage or ritual. But this felt different, more fundamental, as if Maui had stopped being entirely orc and become something that merely wore an orc’s shape.

He struck first, committing to offense as his best defense. His massive sword swept horizontally in an arc designed to bisect her at the waist, the blade moving with speed that belied its size. It was a killing blow, executed with the technical precision of someone who’d trained for decades.

Maui didn’t dodge. She caught the blade with her bare hand.

The crowd gasped as her fingers closed around the sharpened edge, her transformed flesh apparently too dense for the steel to cut cleanly. Blood welled around her grip, dripping down the blade, but she didn’t flinch or release. Instead she yanked, pulling Borg forward off-balance while simultaneously driving her knee up into his solar plexus with crushing force.

The impact drove the air from Borg’s lungs in an explosive wheeze. He staggered backward, maintaining his grip on his sword only through stubborn refusal to be disarmed. Maui advanced with predatory patience, her twin swords now held in one hand while the other dripped blood that hissed when it hit the ground.

Borg recovered faster than expected and launched a desperate counterattack—a rising diagonal slash aimed at her throat. The blade connected, carving a deep gash across her collarbone and shoulder that should have been crippling. Blood sprayed in an arc that painted the nearest spectators.

But for some inexplicable reason, this injury only increased Maui’s strength and aggression rather than weakening her. Her eyes widened with something approaching ecstasy as she felt her own blood flow, her transformation apparently feeding on damage the way fire fed on fuel. Her muscles swelled even larger, veins standing out in stark relief against her skin, steam rising more intensely from her overheating body.

She moved with impossible speed, closing the distance before Borg could recover his guard. Her twin swords became blurs of motion—not the practiced, technical strikes of a trained warrior but the wild, brutal attacks of something that had forgotten defense existed. One blade carved across Borg’s thigh, severing muscle down to bone. The other punctured his left shoulder, punching through armor like it was cloth.

Borg roared in pain and fury, swinging his massive sword in desperate wide arcs meant to keep her at bay. One blow caught her across the ribs, the impact loud enough to echo across the settlement. Normal bones would have shattered. Maui’s cracked but held, and the pain seemed to drive her into even greater frenzy.

She dropped her swords—didn’t need them anymore—and caught Borg’s next swing with both hands on the blade. Then she headbutted him with savage force, her forehead crashing into his face hard enough to break his nose and split his lips. His tusks cut into his own cheeks from the impact.

Before Borg could recover, Maui drove her fist into his exposed ribs with all her supernatural strength behind it. The sound was horrific—a wet cracking that made even hardened warriors wince. She landed the blow perfectly, shattering everything beneath her knuckles. Ribs exploded into fragments, some pieces driven inward to puncture his lung, others simply disintegrating under the force. Borg’s entire left side collapsed inward like a building with its supports removed.

He screamed, a sound of pure agony that cut off abruptly as blood filled his damaged lung. His sword fell from nerveless fingers, his body trying desperately to curl around the catastrophic injury. But Maui didn’t let him fall. She grabbed him by the throat with one hand and lifted, displaying his broken body to the assembled crowd like a trophy.

Borg tried to speak, to yield, to invoke mercy protocols embedded in challenge tradition. But his collapsed lung and crushed throat made words impossible. Only blood emerged from his mouth, dark and thick, pouring down his chin.

Maui held him there for a long moment, letting everyone witness the cost of opposing her in this state. Then she threw him to the ground with contemptuous force, his body hitting the packed earth hard enough to crater it slightly. He lay there gasping like a landed fish, each breath a struggle, his eyes wide with pain and disbelief.

She stood above Borg, her transformed body still steaming in the cool night air. Her chest heaved with exertion and lingering bloodlust, her eyes still showing more black than their original color.

The circle was absolutely silent. No cheering, no celebration, just shocked awe at the brutal efficiency of what they’d witnessed. Grishka’s smile had grown even wider, satisfaction radiating from her like heat from a forge. This was exactly what she’d wanted to see—strength proven beyond any possible dispute.

Maui raised her head toward the full moon and howled again, the sound carrying triumph and savage joy. The challenge was over. The victor was decided beyond any shadow of doubt.

She had left Borg in such a state that survival was near-zero and stared right into his eyes as he took his final breaths.