Power Overwhelming

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”This is such bullshit!” Another trainee exclaimed. His outburst wasn’t the only one of its kind, as similar sentiments had already been expressed several times just today, and the phenomenon had existed for years now. “How is any team supposed to dislodge Omega when their King can solo entire teams by herself!”

“Have you considered using tactics?” The instructor standing nearby suggested. “That’s kind of the whole point of these exercises.”

“What tactics? No, don’t avoid the question. You’re the instructor. What tactics would you use? The entire Team Omega is made up of monsters. How are you supposed to outwit a team when every single member of their team is worth several of yours? How would you, an instructor, out-tactic a King that can just overpower any attempts to subdue them?” Another trainee complained, garnering a lot of support from everyone around them.

“Use the terrain to your advantage. Lure the rest of the team away, while you gang up on the King. Yes, the Princess is strong, but she’s not unbeatable. Just because you haven’t found a way, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” The instructor suggested. “Try competing by going for other objectives if you can’t figure out any other option.”

“Do you think it’s that simple, sir? Do you think we haven’t tried? We even tried to combine the most powerful members of the other teams, and the result was the same. Also, I can’t be the only one that noticed you didn’t give any proper suggestions, sir. You stated obvious things that we were taught on the very first tactics lessons, if someone was uneducated enough to not learn them before even enlisting.” Another trainee retorted.

“We've tried illusions. We’ve tried pretty much every magical element, even at the same time. We even threw two dragons at her, at the same time mind you, and we all know how well that worked.” The one-sided brutalizing that the dragon brothers had received, and not for the first time, was still a source of amusement among the trainees. “Heck, even the older trainees have tried and accomplished nothing. There’s a reason Team Omega is on the top of the standings, and that’s because it’s a bloody unfair team!”

The trainees had rather early on been divided into teams. They had been given the freedom to form their own teams, under the principle that the trainees would learn the value of different kinds of talent when faced with other kinds of teams with more balanced members. Except, for the last three years a single team had dominated all the standings that were used to motivate the trainees to improve themselves. And that team had very little to do with balance, considering that out of the six members, it had four mages. All four mages were also trained in other fields, but it was hard to argue the dominance of the mage corps in the team. And that team had not changed members even once, except to add two new members.

The most annoying thing was that teams were allowed to have up to ten members, yet the team that called themselves 'Omega' only had six. Yet that didn't seem to bother them too much. As soon as the team exercises began, the team shot to the top of the standings, first in their own intake group, and later when they were allowed to join the competition with the older groups, they'd smashed those standings as well. The team exercises were all varied and not just simple group versus group combat, but one rule stayed constant; taking out the 'King' of the opposing group immediately disqualified that group. And ‘Omega’ had not lost their King even once in the last three years.

No matter what kind of exercise they were involved in, team Omega dominated the whole thing. No matter what sort of objective they were handed, no matter how many teams they were stacked up against, team Omega always dominated with seeming ease. One time they had been involved in an exercise that pitted twenty teams against each other, and all the other teams had ganged up against them. The result had been a massacre. Of the allied teams that is. Even the instructors had been flabbergasted as nineteen out of twenty teams had been disqualified on the first day of the exercise, after which the single remaining team completed the exercise with full honors.

Honestly, the instructor was rather sympathetic to the plight of the other trainees, as he too could see no way to defeat team Omega without resorting to something extreme. It was rather outrageous that six rank 10 beings all had Domains and had completed their totems already. Not to mention the fact that they were all also extremely skilled and outrageously powerful for their rank. And they were well-equipped. Princess Ynnead had personally equipped her entire team with items that even gods would envy, so having normal immortals forced to contend with a disparity like that was not exactly an even playing ground.

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The General listened impatiently as one of the senior instructors gave a report about the growing discontent. "I don't really see the problem." The general finally interrupted. "Our job isn't to maintain the sanctity of the standings but to train effective soldiers for the Host. Sounds like team Omega qualifies as exactly that. If the others are having trouble adjusting, then that sounds like sour grapes and something they'll need to get over. We aren't here to protect their delicate fee-fees."

“Normally I would agree, but it is becoming a bit of a morale issue. The main purpose of the standings is to motivate the trainees to improve themselves, and it has done well in that regard for thousands of years. Now that it has become impossible to reach the top of the standings, the other teams are losing motivation.” A devil officer interjected. “While the problem isn’t something major, it will show up in the results of the other teams over time.”

The general tapped the table they were gathered around with a finger. “Then let’s graduate team Omega.”

“Beg your pardon?” The instructor that had originally brought up the matter asked.

“You heard me. The team is clearly capable enough. Judging by the reports, they’ve already pretty much learned everything they need to learn here. Why keep them here when it’s clearly not necessary? In fact, isn’t it a bit of a waste to keep them here, when they could be doing something useful out there?” The general gestured vaguely around him.

“I concur.” The devil added. “Their team works perfectly well together, and they are already stronger than most of our instructors, and I suspect they haven’t been going all out either. Let’s send them to the Host for assignment. There’s already precedent for early release from training, so we’re on solid ground in that regard as well.”

“Their team is a little imbalanced.” One of the other instructors pointed out. “Before you say it, I’m well aware that they’ve managed to complete all sorts of assignments in training without trouble, but the headquarters will have some trouble sending a team filled with mages on too many missions.”

"They're going to have trouble anyway." The general said dismissively. "The princess has shown her skill as a crafter in these few years, and judging by the number of orders she's getting, the headquarters will find a lot of resistance to the idea of risking her by sending her out on missions. Sounds like their problem and not ours though."

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“Another easy victory.” Envy declared with a bored tone. “I wonder how long they’ll keep us here. I would imagine they would’ve gotten the message by now.”

They had been making a show of the whole standings for a reason. They’d long since exhausted any benefit they’d gain from this kind of training. “We should be close now. They can’t keep ignoring the problem for much longer. I’ve seen the disgruntled looks on the faces of the instructors as trainees complain to them.” Valor pointed out.

“You’re quite right. I just got the news.” Karna stated as she entered their usual gathering spot. She’d heard the earlier words. “We’re being assigned to the Host proper, and they should start sending us on missions soon after.”

“Nice. Your plan worked Wisdom. We might have wished it had worked a little quicker, but it worked nonetheless.” Envy nodded towards the relatively non-descript man sitting in the corner of the room. He always liked to sit in corners for some reason.

“The result was inevitable. I did warn you that the plan might take a bit of time, but that it had a very high chance of working.” He adjusted a pair of round glasses. Any immortal could’ve had their eyesight fixed at any point, and they all secretly suspected that the glasses he wore were fake anyway, so it seemed likely they were more of a fashion statement. It did kind of work, as it set him apart from most people. His brown hair suited him well, and his cut was stylish, making him relatively good-looking, though in the Divine Planes he was nothing out of the ordinary.

Wisdom was one of the two new people they had added to their team. The virtue was very knowledgeable as his Name implied, and he was relatively good at planning and coming up with working strategies, even when he had to think on the fly. His skill with magic was also rather extensive, though he was on the younger side when it came to reincarnators with such an important Name, just like Valor. Or at least that’s the impression they’d gotten. He didn’t exactly like to go into deep detail when talking about his past. He was happy to draw on the knowledge and lessons he’d learned, but he considered the past to be in the past. He had stated multiple times that he liked to take every life as an opportunity to start anew. A rather healthy attitude all things considered, at least when compared to some other reincarnators.

“Where’s our stabbier friend?” Karna asked. “I’d rather not have to explain this a second time.

“Where else?” Envy asked with a slightly tired sigh. It was obvious from her words that they all knew where the last member had gone.

“Ah. Training it is.” Karna understood the implications immediately.

"Gotta hand it to her. Her work ethics are something I've rarely seen before." Valor commented. "I thought Wrath was a hard worker, but she's even worse."

"You might as well tell us now. We all know she won't stop training until the next mission, or until you spar with her." Hope added.

“Well, she can find out the details when she can be bothered to grace us with her presence. Anyway, like I already said, we’re being sent to the Host. We’re supposed to report in with the airship Dauntless in two days. The ship will be taking us to our new destination, which wasn’t yet revealed.” She curtly explained.

“I hope they’re not planning on giving us something pointless to do.” Envy muttered.

While the Host was, in certain ways, similar to other armies in universes all over, it was also very different in some regards. The Host was very conscious of the fact that the main troops were all immortals. Even if you had to maintain a certain level of discipline and chain of command, you couldn't really treat immortals like normal privates of other armies. You couldn't assign them to embarrassing and nonsensical duties without a good reason, because you really couldn't afford to humiliate an immortal just because. Especially since some of those immortals would end up becoming gods. The officers might talk tough, and strict discipline sometimes required the administration of certain punishments that might be humiliating. However, those situations were always handled with strict guidelines and the person being punished would always know why it happened. The reason couldn't be just because the commanding officer felt like finding some fault in you. Any officers that tried something like that would quickly find themselves demoted and punished.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that too much. I got the distinct impression that they had some plans for us.” Karna assuaged the worry a bit. “I think I better go find our last member, lest she’ll spend the rest of the day practicing when she should be preparing to leave.”

“Try not to destroy anything important.” Hope, who knew they’d probably end up fighting, shouted after Karna.

As she got close to the practice yard, Karna could see the last member of their team swinging a blade dutifully, always practicing the basics. The Kensei’s form was perfect, and a sight to behold, as she could make even the basic movements look elegant. The Oni Kensei took a couple more swings before turning towards Karna. “You’re here for a reason.”

“Yes. Wisdom’s plan finally worked. We’ll be moving out in two days.” Karna gave the pertinent information, not bothering with details.

“Good. This was getting boring anyway. Join me for a spar?” The Kensei, who didn’t really bother with other names, gestured in invitation.

"Don't mind if I do." Karna agreed easily. Now that they were at a similar level, their spars were much more productive for both of them. Sparring with someone with the Kensei's skill kept her own form sharp.

Karna pulled out a straight one-handed Jian blade with a typical red tassel hanging from the pommel. The blade was something she’d specifically created to fight the Kensei. The two didn't waste any time and clashed immediately. Their fight was almost like a dance, two rivers flowing around each other. While the Kensei tried to control the pace, Karna allowed it, and instead fought like a leaf on the wind, not offering resistance and instead allowing her opponent's strikes to push her, while she diffused all the strength in those blows and flowed around them to strike back at her opponent.

This was a style she'd adopted specifically to fight the Kensei, as it wasn't her usually preferred style. However, it worked perfectly against her current opponent. The Kensei was unable to fully utilize her strengths, which would've annoyed most opponents, but the Kensei took this as an opportunity to improve instead. The two often briefly flared their Domains, the Kensei mostly to utilize her ability to strike at anything within her Domain, while Karna mostly used hers defensively to push away her opponent's Domain.

Due to the nature of their clashing styles, their current fight could last forever, something both of them understood well. Normally they’d happily spend a few hours just sparring, but this time the Kensei stopped early, something that surprised Karna, as she was usually the one to put halt to their fights. “Since we are leaving, I’d like to fight you at least once at your full power. I know this isn’t the best you can do. And yes, I understand that you still have a long way to go before reaching your full power. So do I. But I’d like to have something to compare my current self against.”

Karna allowed her sword to vanish. “We can, but we’ll need to use the grand training array to do it.” The training arrays allowed the trainees to go all out since any wounds and even death suffered inside would not carry outside.

“The grand array? The others won’t be able to handle what would happen.” The Kensei realized the reason immediately.

“Yes. The fight will be over one way or another in almost an instant, but the power released would disable any lesser arrays.” The grand array was really meant for battles between large teams, or even armies, and not individuals.

“Bold words. I like it! Let’s go right now. We’re suitably warmed up, and I’m eager to see what you can do."