My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

Chapter 43: Trial by Combat

The heavy, cold iron of the royal paladins’ gauntlets dug into the flesh of Vince’s shoulders with unyielding force.

The sheer mass of the elven guards was designed to intimidate, their golden plate armor reflecting the ambient starlight pouring through the crystalline ceiling of the grand courtroom. To the dozens of high-ranking nobles and stern-faced elders watching from the curved heartwood benches, this was the end of a brief, pathetic interlude. A magicless human anomaly had crawled out of the wild borderlands, thrown himself at the feet of the crown, and had been summarily weighed, measured, and sentenced to die by sunset.

The two paladins began to violently wrench Vince backward, his heavy iron chains dragging across the polished heartwood floor with a harsh, metallic rattle that echoed off the white-barked pillars.

But within the absolute, hyper-accelerated silence of Vince’s mind, time seemed to slow to a crawl. The physical world dimmed, replaced by the brilliant, high-frequency purple text boxes flashing directly across his retinas.

---

[CRITICAL WORLD EVENT DETECTED: THE BROKEN PACT]

[System Lore Syncing...]

Historical Parameter: The War of Races (Age of Division).

Active Accord: The Non-Aggression Pact of the First Canopy. Article IV, Section I states that neither elven nobility nor human leadership shall cross the established sovereign leyline borders into the lands of the other. Unauthorized crossing by a sentient entity constitutes an automatic declaration of hostile intent.

[Warning: Active Sentence Issued by Sovereign Monarch.]

Host baseline status: Magicless. Probability of surviving sunset execution matrix: 0.003%.

[Emergency Universal Protocol Available]

According to the ancient, multi-race conventions established during the First Accord, any sentient being facing ultimate judgment within foreign sovereign territory retains a singular, unalienable right to invoke the Lex Talionis.

[System Option Unlocked: Trial by Combat.]

Rule: The accused must fight for their life against a champion designated by the ruling authority. Victory grants immediate nullification of the death penalty.

---

A slow, calculating grin spread across Vince’s face beneath the shadow of his messy dark hair. The system had just handed him a legal crowbar, a universal loophole hardwired into the very fabric of this world’s history. He didn’t need the Queen’s empathy. He didn’t need the council’s logical cooperation. He just needed them to be bound by their own ancient traditions.

With a sudden, explosive burst of kinetic energy, Vince planted his leather boots firmly against the heartwood floor, anchoring his weight. The paladins, caught completely off guard by the sudden resistance from a supposedly weak, magicless captive, stumbled slightly as the chains jerked to a halt, unable to drag Vince forward or even an inch from where he planted his legs.

"Wait!"

Vince yelled, his voice slicing through the ambient murmurs of the courtroom like a razor blade.

The entire hall stagnated. The paladins halted their movement, their glowing halberds lowering slightly as they looked up at the dais for direction. The Queen remained perfectly still on her amber throne, her chin resting on her elegant hand, her piercing amber eyes narrowing into slits.

Vince threw his head back, his messy dark hair parting to expose his sharp, purple eyes. He locked his gaze directly onto the voluptuous figure of the monarch, completely ignoring the crushing, hostile pressure radiating from the tiers of nobility around him.

"Because I am human, talking to you will not earn me your trust,"

Vince spoke clearly, his voice vibrating with a sudden, mocking confidence that made the surrounding elders bristle.

"Neither will my words prove the absolute validity of my claims regarding the Dread Commanders. Your prejudice has blinded your capacity for strategic calculation. That leaves me with exactly one option left."

The arrogant, ring-covered elder who had demanded Vince be thrown into the root dungeons stepped forward over the bench, his face flushing a deep, angry crimson.

"Silence, vermin!"

The elder barked, his voice echoing off the vaulted white-bark ceiling.

"You have no options! You are a condemned trespasser standing in the heartwood of our civilization. Your only options is to rot away in the most miserable way possible. Seeing as you are not escaping that fate, humour us, what might that option be, you human worm? Do you intend to beg for mercy from the crown?"

Vince’s grin only widened, his purple eyes flashing with a dangerous, razor-sharp light that seemed completely inappropriate for a man in heavy iron shackles. He ignored the elder entirely, keeping his eyes locked dead onto the Queen’s flawless, sun-kissed face.

His purple eyes staring into her eyes.

"I invoke a trial by combat," Vince stated flatly.

The three words dropped into the grand courtroom like a physical weight.

The entire court froze. The faint rustling of silk robes, the low murmurs of the nobles, the heavy breathing of the guards—everything ceased instantly. The absolute silence that followed was suffocating. Elder Everwood, standing just a few paces away, let out a soft, silent breath, the dark, knowing grin returning to his sharp features as he watched the human completely derail the royal timeline.

The Queen did not move, but the atmosphere around her throne shifted drastically. Her baseline mana, which had been humming in a quiet, dormant rhythm, suddenly flared with a dense, freezing gravity. She sat up straight, her exceptionally busty frame and full, sweeping hips shifting against the carved amber of her throne as she looked down at the human anomaly.

Does he truly believe he stands a chance?

The Queen thought to herself, her analytical mind instantly running a comprehensive scan of Vince’s physical architecture.

Through her eyes and elven perception, she mapped his entire body. His muscular density was optimal for a baseline human, but completely devoid of the internal mana reinforcement that true warriors possessed. His soul signature was entirely flat. There was no hidden reservoir of elemental energy, no dormant magical core, no ancestral lineage markings. To her, he was nothing more than a fragile glass vial standing in front of a crushing boulder. It was an act of pure, suicidal madness.

The Queen slowly raised her hand once more, preemptively silencing the wave of aristocratic outrage that was about to erupt from the benches.

"A trial by combat is a sacred, universal law established during the birth of the First Canopy," the Queen spoke, her angelic voice dropping into a register of absolute, unyielding stone. "An ancient law even a human trespasser is bound by the ancient cords of the Accord, if he possesses the audacity to invoke them. I will not deny the law of the races."

She leaned forward, her deep amber eyes boring into Vince’s soul, projecting a terrifying weight of absolute authority.

"The trial will commence at noon,"

the Queen decreed flatly.

"Within the lower sands of the grand colosseum. You will be unshackled and provided with standard iron armor and a weapon of your choice from the auxiliary armory. In as much as your execution would be preferred by the entirety of this courtroom, a trial by combat would be quite entertaining and so even though inevitable, try not to die quickly."

She paused, a trace of freezing, regal arrogance playing at the corners of her flawless lips.

"You will be facing Orion."

The moment the name passed Her Majesty’s lips, a visible tremor ran through the tiers of elven nobility. Several of the younger nobles gasped, while a few of the older, stern-faced elders actually turned their heads away, their expressions softening into an unexpected, fleeting ounce of pure pity for the human.

Vince’s internal tracking matrix immediately picked up the sudden spike in the room’s collective stress levels. The psychological shift was drastic. The name ’Orion’ wasn’t just a designation; it was a psychological trigger for absolute dread within the elven hierarchy.

"Take him to the eastern holding cells,"

the Queen commanded, waving her hand with finality.

"Let the court prepare for the noon spectacle."

The two royal paladins gripped Vince’s shoulders once more, but this time, their movements carried a strange, subtle restraint—almost as if they were handling a man who was already a ghost. They turned him around, the heavy iron chains clinking softly as they marched him out of the circular hall, the massive twin ironwood doors closing behind them with a heavy, resounding boom that sealed the courtroom shut.

As Vince was led down the dimly lit, white-bark corridors toward the holding cells, his mind was already operating at maximum capacity. He didn’t care about the pity of the elders, nor was he intimidated by the freezing arrogance of the gorgeous monarch sitting on the amber throne.

He listened to the rhythmic thud of his own boots against the floor, his purple eyes gleaming with a dark, intense anticipation beneath the shadow of his messy hood.

From their collective countenance to the literal mention of this Orion figure,

Vince thought to himself, his lips curving into a cold, calculating smile as the system interface quietly updated his active quest log in the background.

It looks like I am in for a fight with an absolute big shot.

How thrilling.