I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 892: Anomaly in the Equation

Adam ignored the burning, wet sensation at the base of his numb fingers, ignored the macuahuitl that sawed its way to the edge of the arena. The cheers of the crowd, Ulgarath's subtle surprise—none mattered. They all faded.

From almost parallel to the ground, he shot up. His muscles roared with life force, qi returning them to the molten masterpieces of destruction he had built.

His fist cleaved toward Ulgarath's face like a spear. He saw the orc clench his free hand, then release it. Instead, his axe already began to whistle back. A blow for a blow. Except Adam knew he'd die at the slightest brush. The crowd, the watching shamans all did too.

His fist slammed onto Ulgarath's chin. Despite all the strength he put into it, it only managed a dull thud—an echo the crowd wrote off as his expected failure. It felt as if he had struck a block of enchanted metal. His knuckles groaned over the orc's smirk as the axe approached, too fast to be seen as more than a silver streak.

The crowd, the shamans, and the other legendary warriors were right. Even if he somehow used qi and mana externally without being caught, wounding Ulgarath seemed like a dream in a dream. Without them?

Did he have to kill that monster in the first place?

He stomped forward, bridging the distance with his adversary until they almost touched.

The dance began.

He ducked beneath Ulgarath's massive arm. The axe cleaved the air behind him; he answered by smashing his elbow into the orc's kneecap. The skin he felt was like the hide of a mythical beast. It wouldn't stop him.

With a sidestep, he spun to the right. His hair fluttered, blasted by an uppercut an inch away from beheading him. In the same movement, he kicked the orc's side. No effect. The counterattack was coming.

He crouched before returning his right foot to the ground without seeing the movement begin—without doubting. The almost invisible shift in Ulgarath's shoulders, the way the leather of his right boot scrunched more than his left. They told him everything.

BOOM

The sound of Ulgarath's knuckles passing over his head rang in Adam's ears, forcing him to clench his jaw. The impact alone was worse than most spells. A sonorous blast at point-blank range that could shatter eardrums, disrupt balance, or even worse, force the brain to shut down. Not his. Every single advantage mattered, and though his much shorter height helped him dodge, he couldn't let the orc fight how he wanted.

With a headshake to clear his mind, Adam stomped forward again. Simultaneously, Ulgarath stepped back, only to let out a guttural snarl upon finding the human was once again too close to swing his axe comfortably. It was...

'Infuriate him,' Adam thought as he punched the orc's axe-wielding biceps. No effect again. The counterattack came as swiftly as the first. He spun along the hulking arm that had aimed to obliterate his face as fluidly as his first dodge, always moving until he could smell the building anger in his adversary's breath.

From that range, he struck. A punch to the temple, followed by a finger planted on the side of the orc's biceps. He leaned to the left when a descending punch that would have nailed him, if it didn't blast his body into a scarlet goo of shattered bones and organs first, ruffled his shirt. Then, he shot forward again, guiding this lethal dance where he wanted it to end, or at least, to the end he had envisioned.

While icy sweat beaded on his forehead with each near hit, the crowd's cheers began to shift from death sentences for Adam to frustrated impatience.

"Pitiful human. Your hits do nothing to our legendary warrior. Give up! Let us savour your death instead of wasting our time with your gesticulations!"

Bao growled at them inside Zul'Gora's hand, but her eyes never left Adam. Each dodge was too fast. It was painful to watch. But the more she did, the more she realised how graceful and incredible her teacher's movements were.

With each new dodge, he added a strike. She felt that most were uselessly random. The others? They aimed at Ulgarath's right arm. Not at the same spot for reasons she couldn't understand, but knew had something more to it... something like a meaning? A purpose? Something she wanted to realise on her own.

Like her, Zul'Gora and Zul'Rakhan watched Adam shove his elbow into Ulgarath's right biceps. Unlike her, their hopes of witnessing Adam emerging victorious melted like the snow that tried to coat their gorge in white every year. They both recognised his bravery and skills, perhaps the very best ever seen in Thaur'Gorath. They were just ineffective when the fundamental power disparity between the two fighters was this vast, not to mention Ulgarath's own skills...

Skills he would begin to unleash with the brutality that made his name feared across the gorge.

Inside the great shaman box, the legendary warriors leaned forward, knowing what would come. One of them, a female broader than the doorsill of Adam's room, interlocked her fingers beneath her chin.

"The great shaman is wise." Her high-pitched voice contrasted with her monstrous body when she declared. "The human's technique is infuriatingly beautiful. However, I'll remember it as brave. Someone who charges into the eye of the storm even though he could die at the slightest mistake deserves my acknowledgement. A pity, truly. He was indeed born in the wrong species."

A few of the other legendary warriors begrudgingly nodded. Others had their faces deformed by a disgusted grimace. One of the latter snarled.

"A human deserves nothing from us, Grakka. I only regret that I can't send his soul to Grash'Thul's embrace myself. Can't you see it? He's not using mana, but something, whether a potion or enchantment we can't feel, helps him keep up with Ulgarath."

Grum'Thal remained silent, his red eyes blazing in the darkness of his hood. The hint of remembrance that shone quickly gave way to bitter acceptance. Anger followed, then an unusual trace of hope no one noticed.

The moment of truth had come. Would Adam survive, earn his warriors' acknowledgement, and become the key to his success? Or was he an anomaly in this old equation they had prepared fifteen thousand years ago? After all, the life force from the humans beyond the sea wasn't part of this equation.