After all, they were granted the same rest days no matter which shift they did, so if they were to do any, they were of the opinion that it should definitely be the day shift. It was easy, for a start – and they got to watch a near-effortless slaughter of a foe that all of them despised.
"Is it me, or does he seem even more aggressive today?" A sergeant said.
"Now that you mention it, I reckon you're right... I don't know if he's pissed off... Or maybe he's getting even stronger? He can't be, right? There's gotta be a limit," the same soldier said in reply.
"Fighting monsters from dawn till dusk, all but alone. It wouldn't surprise me if he was getting better," an older soldier said.
And indeed, that was the case, to a degree. Just as when Beam had been training in the mountains, he approached his days of monster slaying with the eyes of a man that desired progress. He did not mindlessly swing his blade, as a day labourer swung a shovel, merely to get the job done.
He swung his blade with the aim of improvement, with the idea in his mind that if he looked at the set of problems just right, that he'd come up with a new idea and be able to act upon it.
Now, there were only two horned goblins left, and a lumbering hobgoblin that a club in its hand that looked more stunned than anything.
But where that hobgoblin was merely stunned, the horned goblins knew to feel fear. Beam had not once exercised his power whilst fighting on the soldiers' battlefield. But the monsters could still feel his aura anyway – they knew to fear him. Beam's very combat style had been trained up to this point with the aim to instil that fear, after all.
But Beam was used to them wielding greatswords that size. Even if the weapon packed a considerable amount of force when swung by the rippling green muscles that made up a hobgoblin's arms, it was hard to show it the same level of respect as the viciously sharp greatswords that he had seen so often forced into their hands.
It swung at him, with that mighty piece of lumber, and Beam easily stepped back, letting it fly in front of him, just out of range.
There were things he wanted to try on this foe, after all. His misdirection skill was only continuing to grow stronger with his speed, though he had not yet made it more complicated, or really added that many techniques to it.
His skill at overwhelming was at the point where he almost matched it – he was far stronger than he was, after all. He was beginning to learn that it was not just strength or speed that made for an overwhelming strike, but it was timing as well.
It was there that his skill at overwhelming and his skill at misdirection began to overlap – for misdirection allowed him to dictate the pace, to create that timing.
The log hit the ground in front of him, sending him a spray of snow and dirt. Beam could have ended it right there and then – he was far faster than the hobgoblin by now, after all, and its arm was so dreadfully exposed.
But there was a third component to Beam's style that he had begun to work on. That method of monstrous fighting, imitates the style of combat that a goblin might inflict. That mode of combining flow with the infliction of fear – that was his new element. That was the puzzle that he sought to solve.
The hobgoblin did not make for the best test target, for there was already fear in its eyes. It was already a dead opponent, in truth – there was already enough of an advantage on Beam's side for him to take that victory. But he sought to create a further advantage, to use the opportunity to practise that which he was weak at.
He allowed his sword to go slack in his wrist – almost to the point of allowing it into the reverse grip, but not quite. He merely didn't force the same rigidity in his arm that he had had before, so the weapon didn't sit quite straight, but moved a little, according to Beam's whims.