I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 893: The Avalanche and the Hurricane

Adam stomped to the right, twisting his chest in the same direction. Ulgarath's foot cleaved like a green spear of retribution a split second later. A spear Adam dodged with a chaotic fluidity that looked like a meaningless delusion to the crowd of orcs.

They anticipated the gruesome spectacle of his death, chanting Ulgarath's name while cursing him. He heard nothing, saw none of them. Not even Grum'Thal and the other legendary warriors entered his vision.

Neither did the icy sweat trickling down his temples as he snapped back to the left—right in front of Ulgarath. Close enough to feel the brutal orc's furious breath on his face, he wrenched his chest forward in the same movement. His curled fingers shot forward with grace, but not only. The wind howled from the strength he put in. From ankle to kneecap, from pelvis to shoulder, and from shoulder to wrist, his tendons roared with life force.

From her position in Zul'Gora's hand, Bao's focused eyes widened. She didn't know why or how, but it felt as if... as if she could see two beasts wrapping around Adam.

One was a haughty white crane, raking her graceful talons. She shrieked at Ulgarath, her wide-open beak breathing storms, her immaculate feathers a challenge to the world to stain her with a strike. The other was a nightmarish cow, taller and more muscular than even Ulgarath. She saw no grace in her, only pure, unadulterated might. The kind that could tear hills from their bases and drill caves in ridges. And the image of her horns shot with Adam's hand and the talons, dense steam billowing from her nostrils.

Even though most moves appeared as blurs to Bao's eyes, she understood. She didn't know what, but she did nonetheless. The adaptable stream became the white crane, while the boulder evolved into the cow. Her teacher... was improving in this death situation before her very eyes.

Like an avalanche pouring on a vagrant beast, Adam struck. Throat, liver, and solar plexus—each blow found a vital point. The orc absorbed the punishment without flinching, moving back while arming his arm for a devastating blow. But Adam did it again.

He danced across the orc's axe-wielding arm as it moved. Fingers dug into skin harder than hide. Was he pressing onto something? Were there other vital points he hadn't taught her about there?

Strength and might. Wisdom and cunningness...

For a heartbeat, she froze. Two more gazes, two more images. Blurry. Couldn't make out. But she picked up a hiss that felt like poison and the clink of iron-like mandibles snapping in cold rage behind silver threads.

"RAAAAAAAH!"

Ulgarath's roar sliced through her thoughts before she could make sense of what she saw.

Adam weaved beneath the orc's arm, then lunged ten steps back. A red light devoured the orc's green eyes. Veins squirmed beneath his opponent's muscles in a hideous spectacle. Just in time...

He glanced behind Ulgarath, to the corner of the arena. Ten steps. If he could push that monster back ten steps, no one would have the audacity to deny his victory in front of the great shaman.

"I'M DONE WITH THIS WASTE OF TIME!" Ulgarath's tight ponytail flapped in the gales raised by his shout. If Adam found the orc's life force far more suffocating than anything he had felt, it now leapt through and beyond the sky.

Those steps... It'll be hard. Perhaps even impossible despite his new application of merging yin and yang to make Cordelia's chaotic battle style his own...

But it was fine. Uncontrolled anger in battle made people sloppy. His eyes narrowed into slits. It was his first lesson to Julius, then to each of his students.

"It's there! Ulgarath's legendary rage-bound onslaught."

"I never thought I'd see it again!"

"Run, Adam!"

Under the crowd's cheers and Zul'Gora's horrified warning, Adam lunged with bestial grace. Ulgarath matched him with a scalding snarl. They met sixteen steps away from the corner of the arena.

An axe fell. He had seen it coming. He snapped to the left. Before he could counterattack, his eyes widened. The axe came from beneath to disembowel him. He hurled his chest back, hands finding the arena tiles. He backflipped to the left, but before he could restore his balance, the axe whistled beside his ear.

Adam barely saw Ulgarath's leaping strike as he crouched. He jumped to the left the next moment, just in time to see a silver streak smash the tile he had stood on into smithereens. Rubble didn't even fly around. The stone simply turned into a dusty pit.

And the silver streak came again.

Clenching his jaw, he leaned, sidestepped, and jumped. This was not an avalanche. It was a hurricane hurling steel-bound tsunamis from every angle every heartbeat. He had no time to think, no time to counterattack, no time for anything. But his strategy didn't change.

'Stick to it!'

To the left, left again, then back and always back. If cold sweat smeared his forehead before, now he was drenched in his own horror each time he felt the cold bite of the axe graze his skin. Shallow cuts made deeper with each passing second painted his white shirt scarlet. It hurt. Everything did from the beginning. His fingers felt like cracked twigs, his knuckles and forearms as if he had pounded a block of magus-ranked ore.

But he would win.

He stepped back one last time, avoiding a crushing blow.

Bao covered her head inside Zul'Gora's trembling hand. Both were holding their breaths without realising it as they watched Ulgarath bring his axe overhead with both hands. His monstrous lats burst like fleshy wings before he slammed his weapon down with one ultimate roar.

Adam growled at the strike. All the plans, the pain, the forced passivity in this last exchange. His eyes ignited with no less rage than his adversary's.

He leapt back, his body parallel to the ground. Behind him, there was no more arena, no more tiles. His hands snapped forward, wrapping around Ulgarath's during their descent with absolute precision. Using them as support, he flung himself over the orc, just before the ground below exploded into a cloud of dust from the mere pressure.

Ulgarath's rageful eyes widened, but Adam struck from mid-air. The first phalanx of his curled finger pierced into the orc's right biceps, nailing not the flesh, but the neuro-muscular junction he had hammered the most since the battle began.

Ulgarath spun before Adam even landed, spinning his axe with his right hand to behead him.

Adam pursed his lips without moving. His narrowed eyes spewed fire, while his lips curved into a smirk despite the wounds littering his body through the cuts of his shirt.

"I win."