Chapter 67: Tank

"Good afternoon, class. I hope that you all ate well, but not too well. Rich foods will make you sluggish." The elite known as Tank greeted them. "As you heard, my name is Tank, and I am a part-time teacher here at the Academy, as for most of the year I am out hunting monsters. Today's lesson will be a simple one, like the Berserker fighting style, which is simple. Now, you may think that simple means easy to defeat, but you couldn't be further from the truth. I have heard that our volunteer for the day is quite durable, and he has an assistant. Karl, please call for your Windspeed Hawk, and I will begin the demonstration." Karl stepped up to the giant Berserker, and the teacher dropped into a combat stance. "First, go with your instinct, and guide your Hawk to assist you. It will help the others see how the usual tactics against a martial artist won't work on a Berserker." Professor Tank instructed, " Karl immediately threw a net of crossed [Rend] attacks and stepped to the side, intending to kick the knee out from under the teacher, while Hawk went for the obvious attack to the back of his armored head. They had learned that the neck was well defended in the training outfits, and this man was likely too powerful for the attack to work, but if Shred hit the back of his helmet, it might leave him dizzy. The execution was flawless. Shred hit his helmet a split second before Karl's foot hit the teacher's knee, but that's where everything went wrong. The hit to the head triggered the Berserker's [rage], and Karl's foot simply bounced off the huge man's leg. Then, faster than Karl could react to even begin to dodge, one massive, meaty hand had backhanded his chest, sending him flying. Professor Tank smiled at the class while Sergeant Rita helped Karl to his feet. He was in a daze, disoriented from bouncing across the ground. "That, young students, is called [Unstoppable]. The reason I showed you that first is because it's an ability that can be synthesized with magical drugs, so those of you who are in the army might run across it among other nations' soldiers in the future. Unstoppable is a basic skill of the Berserkers; most start with it. You cannot knock them over without immensely overpowering them; any part of their body is equal to their entire mass. Also, while the attack to the back of the head from the Windspeed Hawk, Shred, I believe it used, will trigger Berserker Rage, which increases their power and movement speed multiple times. Now, the common grade Berserker students in your year aren't all that scary yet. But they will be. Instead of what you would normally do, which is taking them down with a throw or leg sweep to put them off balance and make them stationary targets for abuse, you want to aim for vital areas, soft spots, and nerve clusters. That will slow the Berserker down until the damage piles up enough that Rage wears off and they start feeling the pain." He explained to the class. Karl frowned. "So, basically, we dodge and avoid getting turned into paste until repeated attacks start showing their effects, but no leg sweeps and avoid hits to the head?" Tank nodded happily, like a child receiving a present. "Just like that. Also, avoid the face and the crotch. Not because the attack won't work, but because it tends to cause an instinctual bump in the rage effect, and you might get hurt during training." The other students laughed. Of all the bad ideas they had generated so far, punching a man three times their size in the dick was one of the fastest to be dismissed. The hits to the face were only second to be dismissed because half of them couldn't reach his face without jumping. Karl prepared to continue, then asked one last important question. "Does the Berserker class make them huge, or are you just naturally that size?" "It makes them more muscular, but the height is all natural. I'm not even the tallest of my brothers." Tank gloated. Were they from some species that Karl didn't know? The people at the mines were shorter than average, as it was a benefit to be smaller in the narrow shafts, so the larger families had moved on generations ago to find more suitable work. But Karl was reasonably certain that humans weren't supposed to grow more than two meters tall, much less two and a quarter. Karl tried again, ducking under the professor's guard to land a kidney punch, while Hawk went for his lower back and then the backs of his knees. Karl had to tumble to the side to dodge the counterattack, but Tank was holding back on the speed that he had shown earlier when enraged by the hit to the head, and Karl managed to land a solid hit to the sternum before a kick sent him flying again, but this time he was able to twist enough to land on one knee and slide to an ungraceful stop. "Don't underestimate a Berserker's strength. Karl here is awakened, with the physique of an agility-type magical beast, but even with that advantage, a Berserker at his rank could shatter ribs with a solid hit. While they will usually wield weapons, that doesn't mean that their melee abilities are any less damaging than your own classes. Especially when they are in solid armor." Tank explained as Karl circled him, looking for an opening. Tank threw an attack, and Karl blocked it with Rend. That gave him an idea. He had ranged attack powers, but he wasn't fast enough to get away from the professor to use them. However, he could wield them as a shield, as well as the way he had been using them as short-range attacks. The professor threw another punch, which Karl knocked up over his head, just as Hawk hit the elbow and completely redirected the strike. Tank was unstoppable, but those attacks would have either cut through or thrown someone his size to the ground with the amount of power that the duo had put into them. The deflected arm left his side open to attack, and Karl quickly sliced three times while Hawk distracted the Berserker by attacking his chest and stomach, soft areas that he had to block with the one hand that was in position. "That's much better. I didn't think you had it in you, but that Rend really packs a punch." Tank announced with a smile. "Now, in the advanced armor, those attacks didn't cause me anything more than a bruise, which will heal in seconds, but against an attacker at your rank, even wearing Awakened Rank armor, that last combo might well have taken an arm off before slicing open his side and making his insides become his outsides." The berserker finished. "But most of us don't have slicing skills like Rend." One of the students complained. "You're a monk, right? Bring your weapon and come up here. Karl, you can take a breather while I demonstrate how to fight a berserker using pressure points." The whole class gave the boy sympathetic looks for becoming the next volunteer, but Tank wasn't planning to wait at all and was impatiently gesturing for the boy to come forward. Right, Berserkers didn't feel pain. So although he had bruises from the attacks, he didn't feel them.