I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 859: An Artillery of Principle

"DESTROY IT!" Elliot and Desmond roared together.

With a sound drowned by the spells, the golem’s small fist shot through the claws of Basile’s creature. The chain connecting it to its shoulder shattered, and bursts of magic carved trenches into its frame. But the fist flew true.

CRASH

Cracks that bled green dust spiderwebbed the crystal’s surface from the impact that shattered the golem’s fist.

Everyone watched them spread with bated breath.

Quintella cheered, "That was cool, Elliot!"

Maxwell shrieked, "Impossible!"

Yet, the cracks halted. The upper layer shattered, but the crystal remained mostly intact underneath.

"They’re safe!" Maxwell leapt from the bleachers, riding a gale to the tower. He scrutinised the crystal, nodding. "The core is intact. My team wins!"

Basile’s team sighed in relief while Desmond clenched his jaw. "That’s unfair, teacher. Your lessons are about strategies on the battlefield. We’ve clearly outmatched your ten best students with just three. Say something, Elliot. We can’t accept that! Elliot?"

The boy’s eyes remained locked on his golem. Even tattered, it still crossed its arms over its chest, its helmeted head held high in stylish pride. Salty tears streamed to his quivering lips as he clutched his chest.

"We almost lost to the dimwit." Basile walked into his field of vision, snorting as he lifted his foot.

CLANG

He stomped on the golem, his face distorted in vindictive satisfaction. Engraved metal caved under the pressure, the enchanted protocols failing. The dim light in its eyes faded when its core shattered. "Oops. I guess it wasn’t that well-crafted."

"N-no..." Elliot felt all his strength ebb from him. He collapsed on the plain, clutching grass and wailing.

"You vicious bastard!" Desmond hissed through his teeth.

"And what are you going to do?" Basile cut in, stepping closer. "You’re at my mercy, chained up, broken. If we were on a real battlefield, you’d be dead."

"Don’t talk as if you knew me. You’re the one who would have died. Free me, teacher! I’ll cleave that bastard in half right here, right now."

"Enough!" Maxwell commanded, his voice covering the entire plain. "We don’t need unnecessary cruelty, Basile. Minus one hundred points." He glared at Desmond. "The challenge is over. It’d be wise to accept your defeat without escalating things. Am I clear?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

While Desmond snarled in reluctance, a tremor shook Adam’s bastion. He gripped the windowsill, sky-blue mana swirling in his throne room.

"Oho..." Quintella’s eyes widened from the bleachers. "Big brother is angry." Bao recoiled between her shoulder and neck, as if to hide.

When he spoke, his voice thundered like grinding stones. "Are you sure Elliot failed to destroy the crystal?"

"I’m," Maxwell answered, a frown creasing his brows.

"Very well." The facade of the bastion shifted with Adam’s words. Gothic columns caved in, and spiralling towers turned into teeth. Like an awakening beast, the structure spat the strike team out onto the bleachers before its jaws split wide open.

"I’ve known someone like you, teacher. She always believed to be right, no matter how many times we shoved facts at her. Do you know how I dealt with her? Violence. Since you’ve decided to be a wall of unfairness instead of a guide, since you refuse to acknowledge our victory, step aside. My crystal still stands."

From the jaws, the muzzle of a nightmarish cannon lined with dense clusters of enchantments peeked out.

Everyone shuddered in horror at its size—one third of the bastion—then almost fainted when they felt the mana pooling into a blinding light in its depths. Wind swirled inside, turning the plain into a tempestuous area.

With a wave of his palm, Adam latched threads around Desmond and Elliot and hauled them to him. He glanced at them. Just seeing Elliot’s tears made him purse his lips.

"Since you hate losing that much, I beg you, teacher, watch me blast their crystal... and them with it. After all, they’d be dead before their eyes landed on me on a battlefield."

A silence fell, profound and heavy, broken only by the weeping of the wind swirling around the cannon’s maw. In that suspended second, hundreds of students held their breath, Maxwell’s face twisted into a mask of dawning horror, and Elliot’s tears froze on his cheeks.

Adam gave a faint, almost imperceptible shrug. Then he fired.

A supernova burst from the melting muzzle, the shriek like mourning metal.

Basile froze in front of the pillar of light blasted through evaporating air. Any hope of escaping died the instant it formed. This was not artillery, but a cataclysm that robbed the world of its colors, of its sounds. A strike at the magus rank.

Death.

Maxwell leapt before him and the other two students, slamming a palm on the ground with a roar. Pure mana crystallised into a mirror barrier tilted upward, while a hulking wall of raging wind reached for the sky.

The contact happened in deafening silence. The mirror reflected light upwards, scattering it into countless shooting stars in the sky. Wind wrapped around the deflagration, spiralling upward under Maxwell’s control.

Even the teacher gaped at the melted cannon poking through the bastion, sweat sticking his blond hair to his forehead. The curious wording about helping if he sent mana into the bastion, the mana-absorbing walls—every piece of Adam’s strategy clicked in his mind. Everything was for this moment, to prove that he could win both strategically and by brute forcing his way.

In his moment of realisation, a shadow blurred past him. He snapped back, only to see Adam grip Basile by the collar, whipping him like a human club to strike at the crystal.

"Let’s see if you like having your things destroyed, and I mean every single bone in your body."

Before any of the hundreds of students could recover from the cannon, they watched Adam swing Basile, each impact with the crystal accompanied by a crunch and an agonising scream.

Wide-eyed, Maxwell gripped Adam’s arm. "Enough, you maniac!"

"Are you sure?" Adam snorted. "There is still a small piece of crystal untouched, and many intact bones in my new weapon. I can’t let you squabble over technicalities, can I, dear Teacher?"

He shrugged when Maxwell snatched Basile from his hands, then helped the teenager lie down. Bones pierced muscles, oozing blood that dyed the charred ground crimson. His face was a mashed mess of broken teeth and sunken skull.

"Serves him right." Adam crossed his arms over his chest.

"That was not a counter-strike. It was butchery. And you will answer for it. For disrespecting your teacher, for endangering fellow students and for almost killing one of them—"

"You’ll deduct my points?" Adam interrupted with a mocking tone. "By all means, do it. Take them all." He stretched his arms wide, his laugh reverberating across the stunned students. "It’s not like hundreds witnessed you deny our victory, allowed your students to strike Desmond after he lost, or destroyed Elliot’s golem. A golem praised by Teacher Viktor, who rewarded the boy with a thousand points. What did you advise Desmond earlier? It’d be wise to accept your defeat without escalating things."

His eyes narrowed into slits, the laughter strangled into a command. "Hand us our points."