It was weird to see a group of participants banding together in a solo ranking competition.
But, that was just how immense Cassandra's star power was.
And, Isaac was present as well.
Along with them was another noble cronie of Cassandra's was present as well.
Roderick Lanoche the 1st son of Earl Lanoche, was blessed with a great affinity for the wind attribute.
Cassandra came along with her lackeys in tow trying to get a good look at the man in front of her.
When she finally saw him she said, "You, which noble family are you from?"
As Adam looked at her and the people around her, memories flashed by.
Memories he had never had.
Memories of the previous owner of this body, all the abuse he had endured for the love of this vile woman.
It made no sense to Adam why his predecessor would subject himself to such abuse just for the love of a woman who saw him as nothing more than an insect.
Maybe, it was because his predecessor was a simp and a loser.
Both thoughts angered Adam to no end, the fact that he had to live with such memories in his head that he would have never allowed to happen in the first place and the fact that the body he inhabited was of a pathetic simp loser.
While Adam was stronger than everyone present there, knowing his bad luck, he had to calm himself down and feel out the opponents and their intentions.
Finally, after all of this contemplation that took place for less than a millisecond inside his head thanks to [CALCULATOR] Adam replied,
"I thought you would recognize me at first glance, knowing how we have spent so many years together."
"Heh, are you one of my suitors? I would probably remember you since your appearance stands out so much. But for some reason, I can't recall. Could you remind me?"
While her words may have sounded polite, her tone and the smirk on her face made it seem like she was looking down at the man in front of her, insinuating that his stature in society must have been so insignificant that Cassandra paid no heed to his existence in the first place.
Adam let out a psychotic smile with his eyes wide open.
"It's me, Adam."
Hearing this, Cassandra narrowed her eyes and came closer. The distance between them was now less than 5 metres.
The tension in the air grew as the distance between them shortened.
"You're not Adam, you look too good to be him, someone can't look this different in such a small amount of time. I will ask you one last time, who are you?"
Adam chose to completely ignore her question and replied,
"Here's how this is going to go Cassandra, I will take out the 3 vassals behind you and Roderick first. Then, I will take out Isaac and in the end, I will come for both you and Isaac. How does that sound?"
"For a no-name trying to pose as my fat loser of a fiance, you sure have a lot of confidence in your abilities thinking you can take on all of us all by yourself. It seems you are tired of living. After this tournament is over, I will make sure I make your academy life a living hell for even thinking that you could contest me."
"Boys, ready your weapons, remember the formation."
Cassandra announced as she prepared her staff and started chanting.
It would be foolish to let a mage cast their spell.
Adam wasn't foolish.
As soon as the first syllable left Cassandra's mouth Adam vanished from his position in front of them, he reappeared behind the 3 stooges with their swords out to hold the flank.
Adam kicked them all on the head with a spin kick along with oscillation causing the 3 of them to fall over and collapse instantly. At the same time, Adam came up behind Cassandra, and blew out some air from his mouth on the nape of her neck as he came up behind her.
This completely broke her concentration and made the mana inside her body recoil, causing her to cough out blood and fall onto her feet.
"*cough* *cough* what the f*ck just happened?"
Adam reappeared right in front of her.
All of this happened in a single second.
"I told you Cassandra, the vassals are now gone, Roderick, it's your turn."
Before Adam could even finish his sentence, Roderick formed his charging stance as speedy winds spun around the blade of his rapier.
These winds had the power to tear apart the flesh of any organism it touched, Isaac prepared his flail and shield, standing in front of Cassandra, he then activated his bloodline ability.
[BLOODY SANCTUARY] was the bloodline ability of Isaac's family which allowed for a debuff to all enemy combatants in its range.
This would evolve into [SANCTUARY OF SOLACE] once he unlocked his domain and refined this skill.
After reaching enlightenment at the 7th tier, individuals gained the power to rewrite reality in a way that signified their existence to give them an advantage on the battlefield. This is what a domain was.
The plan was simple, Roderick acted as the vanguard while Isaac defended Cassandra and she used her spells from the back.
Give her 10 seconds and she will turn this entire Evergreen forest into ashes.
Adam had no plans to let his opponents do as they pleased, however.
It was time to use his strongest weapon, his mouth.
Adam slowly walked towards them he stared at Cassandra with an evil smirk on his face as he said,
"Cassandra! You look so hot with your blood all over you, it makes your fiance very excited."
This did not affect Cassandra, all she did was narrow her eyes and begin to focus on her recovery.
Cassandra was a seasoned veteran when it came to the art of utilizing words to evoke emotion in people. She was coached by the empire's greatest psychologists from a very young age to ensure she upheld the standards of a leader her family had since their inception.
Adam's words were nothing more than purposeful mockery to taunt her.
What she failed to realize in the heat of the moment was that the mockery was never for her in the first place.
She failed to realize she had 2 chimps with her who were willing to do anything at her beck and call. Roderick and Isaac.
They were the target of the taunt.
Roderick's face contorted with anger as he shouted while charging towards Adam.
"How dare you speak to her like that!"
He ended up moving out of the range of the bloody sanctuary, breaking the formation.
Adam stopped walking towards them, stood still, and had the biggest smile on his face, it was an incredibly fake smile that only existed to mock his opponent's foolishness.
Roderick was a tricky opponent.
Only because he could wind dash away from any attack as long as he had mana and saw the attack in his line of sight.
If you can't hit your opponent, you cannot defeat them.
Adam could easily use all of his boosted stats to end this battle in mere seconds but that wasn't his aim.
The aim was simple, to instill fear in the hearts of his enemies while making sure nobody who observed the footage of his fight knew about any of his skills or combat capabilities.
Always leave people guessing your next move.
Predictability is the death of progress.
[CALCULATOR] on full throttle as Roderick charged in, his wind blade grazed Adam's left hand as Adam was on the back foot blocking the blow with his left hand, the blade managed to tear apart through Adam's sleeves completely and had grazed Adam's forearm, a small amount of flesh was now missing as the bleeding ensued.
This was all under Adam's calculations.
The pieces of cloth were torn apart in different sizes and shapes as they floated mid-air about to fall in the next millisecond however, at that specific instance of time, they perfectly blocked the left side of Roderick's peripheral vision.
In came a right hook from Adam that caught Roderick off guard.
During that moment, Roderick had one foot on the ground while his other food was mid-air as he charged.
This caused him to lose his footing as the right hook connected to the left side of his face causing him to tumble and fall onto the ground.
His grip on his sword loosened up as he fell causing the sword to be on the ground quite a distance from him.
As Roderick tried to recover from his fall, Adam stood right beside him looking down on him holding his sword in his hands.
With an angelic smile on his face as Adam looked down at his fallen opponent he said,
"Hey man, sorry you lost your footing there, that was quite unlucky. Let's have a do-over!"
Even when Roderick's head was spinning, he knew the taunt was incredibly obvious, that angelic smile was so fake even a 3-year-old child wouldn't be fooled by it.
Someone inhuman was trying too hard to act human.
Seeing what was happening in front of him, Isaac realized that if Roderick was taken out, their entire formation would fall apart, and knowing Adam's current capabilities, their fate of losing here would be sealed in stone.
Isaac trusted his own judgement and charged towards Adam, trying to save Roderick from being eliminated.
[SHIELD CHARGE] was activated as he rushed towards his opponent.
It gave the slow tank a speed boost for the duration of his skill as he rushed towards Adam.
Adam had already seen it coming.
He was quite annoyed that his perfectly choreographed play was being ruined by the independent thought and judgement of his opponents.
Some drastic actions had to be taken to ensure that fear was properly instilled in his opponents.
Spinning to the side in a split second, moving away from the path of Isaac's charge [SWORD ELDER] activated.
The tanky Isaac had his body cut clean through his stomach during the charge as he crossed Adam.
Adam only stood there with the bloodied rapier in his hand with a horizontal stance on his left hand as Isaacs body split in half with the top part slowly falling to the ground and the bottom part following suit soon after.
The reason why it was so easy to cut through Isaac was because the wind blades hadn't worn off from the sword.
Not delaying any further, Adam stomped on Roderick's face as he was still on the ground and [OSCILLATOR] was activated.
Both Roderick and Isaac turned into pixels being eliminated from the competition.
The audience was in complete shock and awe at what had just transpired in mere minutes.
The commentators were speechless at the skill being shown off by a prospective 1st year student.
The precision of his movement and sword play, the calm and composed manner with which he made quick decisions to utterly defeat his opponents one sidedly.
It were all things that were impossible for a student of his age to be able to accomplish.
The experience and time required to reach such a level was way too much and the age of the student way too little.
"Uhmmm.. uh uhmmm.. it seems we have another top contender that none of us had expected! Ladies and gentlemen! Adam Alastair Dacre has now become the rank 1 participant overtaking YaketsukuOnigahara! "
The female commentator announced as she stumbled through her words out of pure shock at the one sided massacre that issued in front of her.
Cassandra's mind was racing while her jaw looked like it would fall onto the floor at any moment.
'These f*cking idiots! Why did they have to completely throw away all of our planning just to play hero?'
'What the f*ck is up with Adam? Since when did he lose all his fat and became so handsome and hot?'
'Forget that, since when did he learn how to fight? Didn't he get his *ss bit by a baby goblin? If he was so good at fighting how would a baby goblin bite his *ss in the first place?'
'Ugh! why am I thinking about a baby goblin biting his ass? He is coming right towards me!'
Cassandra didn't know the limits that a white knight simp would cross to gain the favour of their beloved women.
It was pure stupidity that Cassandra wouldn't understand because it was too stupid of a train of thought for someone like her even to consider.
As Adam made his way towards her, she tried to stall for time with conversation.
"Are you really Adam?"
"No, I am Henry Avery the 3rd, first of his name."
Cassandra wasn't amused, she didn't even get the joke.
Who in the f*ck was Henry Avery?
"What happened since the last time I saw you?"
Cassandra was genuinely curious.
How could her fiance that she treated like a piece of meat for her amusement change so much in such a short amount of time when she had known him for over a decade?
"What happened? I woke up from my delusion."
Adam said as he stared right into Cassandra's eyes.
Cassandra noticed every slight change in expression, throughout the entire fight.
The Adam in front of her was his true self.
The playful mocking fake smile was gone, the excitement in his eyes during the battle was nowhere to be seen.
His deep purple eyes looked beautiful like dark purple gemstones embedded into his eyes shining ever so slightly.
Noticing all these changes in his body especially his eyes made her thoughts drift away as she focused on the meaning of his reply to her question.
His eyes looked dead as if they held no life in them even when they shined as light reflected from them, his face was expressionless as if this entire ordeal was meaningless to him, something that he had already experienced so it held no value to him.
This seemed to be the true face of this new Adam she had never seen before.
A drastic change in personality of humans can only be caused by severe trauma.
Cassandra could only think of one thing that could cause such an enormous trauma that could change Adam like this.
Her.
'Did I go too far that night? No.... that's not it, I have done things much worse than having him lick my feet. There is something else that's missing.'
'His eyes.... they are so pretty now...'
Cassandra wasn't one to be moved by appearances or outwardly charm. It was quite odd that she paid so much attention to Adam's eyes.
"Well Cassandra, I think we will have to cut our reunion short. It's time for me to finish this."
Cassandra was so lost in her own mind she didn't even notice that Adam was now right in front of her with minimal distance between them.
She had already given up on fighting back, after a lot of thought and contemplation about what had just transpired, it was obvious that Adam's combat potential was way beyond what he had just shown to her while taking down her entire squad.
All she wanted right now were answers.
"Why did you go so far to split Isaac in half? I know you're strong enough to deal with all of us in mere moments. Why did you have to put up such a ruthless spectacle?"
Adam leaned close to her left ear with his mouth right besides it as he spoke in a deep low voice whispering, trying to ensure the cameras don't catch it.
"Why???? The answer is very simple. This was all to take back what I lost..."
Some words were left unsaid. It didn't take a magic engineer to figure out what they were.
'His dignity.'
That's the conclusion Cassandra reached after thinking about the entire scenario.
Adam's deep voice so close to her ears was alluring and made her feel comfort even though she knew she was about to be clobbered by him until she loses and is eliminated from the competition.
Adam then swiftly kicked her on her left knee making her lose balance and fall on her butt.
The expressionless face was gone and another fake smile sprouted in it's place.
"You know Cassandra, I have always wanted to know what it feels like to have my feet licked by you."
Adam continued.
"I think I have developed a new fetish to have you lick my feet. As my fiance I hope you will do a good job."
Cassandra narrowed her eyes trying to process what Adam had just said, it was a proclamation that came out of nowhere, it was loud enough for all of the cameras to pick it up and the world could hear him.
"Oh and if you want to know what happened in the past month, you should go ask Mia."
"Wait what..?" Before Cassandra could even ask further, Adam lifted his foot up in the air while looking down on her.
He then went on to stomp right in the middle of her face stopping her mid sentence and eliminating her from the competition with a single move.
There was something cathartic about humiliating her in front of the entire world.
Adam felt a rare sense of satisfaction that was soothing.
As Adam was about to move on after basking in the glory of his victory against his past oppressors, he was brought back to reality with a shout from behind.
The voice sounded extremely familiar.
Like he had heard it a million times before.
"Adam Alastair Dacre, you truly are a monster like no other, humiliating a young woman like that."
Jake Kennedy was here.
He had seen everything that had transpired during the confrontation between Adam and Cassandra's fleet.
It seems that the battle between the hero and the villain was about to take place much sooner than Adam had thought.