A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Then suddenly he sensed it. That which he'd needed to do in increments before, he'd now managed to do all at once. As though they were but a single foe, he'd bound fifteen men together in his flow and now he pushed them off the edge of the cliff.

Never before had men fallen so easily to him. Each strike now was an execution strike – a deep strike in many cases. He half-severed three heads, and bit through cuts and spine as though he was chopping down trees in other cases, so ahead of him they were.

The bandits didn't even seem to notice what had befallen the men to the side of them. The bull-headed man continued to dance, singing a soft song to himself now, as Oliver brought low each of the twenty men that stood in his way.

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He left them in a pile of blood and bone and torn open furs. His breathing came heavy now. A startling thing. He hadn't even realized that he'd been limiting himself so thoroughly – limiting himself so that he hadn't even struggled for breath in all their conflicts of that day.

It seemed that even though he had passed through to the Third Boundary, the body was still tentative about executing the strength of that realm. No doubt that was in part because of what had befallen him a few weeks before, when he'd collapsed on the Academy grounds.

The soldiers rushed, a furious force, yet a nervous one.

Oliver ducked back out again, revealing himself to the men, making it clear to them that he would be rushing the flank of the enemy in the same instance that they would be attacking from the front.

Volguard had taught that there were few ways as effective at crushing an enemy's morale than attacking them in the flank or rear – and few ways of promoting the morale of one's allies by doing the same.

More than half the fighting force seemed to glance towards the re-emergence of the Patrick and his new positioning towards their enemy's side, their spears were lowered, and their mouths were open as they cried a battle charge. Their eyes seemed to be full of expectation.

The weight of it hit Oliver all at once, enough to rock his consciousness. He went dizzy for a second from it.

"Oliver!" Claudia cried, rousing him. "They demand a hero!"

Suddenly, Oliver's sword felt lighter.

Dare he? Dare he even pretend? He knew what lay in him. Ever since he'd learned of the presence of Ingolsol, he'd ceased to think of himself as anything even close to a good person. Despite occasionally doing a good deed, he couldn't dare think of himself as a good man.

And yet dare he?

It wasn't just that his sword felt light – his hand felt hot. It was hard to keep a grip on his consciousness. A power flowed through him like a raging gale, channelling itself into his sword as though to make it molten steel.

He swayed on his feet, drunk on it, hardly able to handle it. He had a brief flashback to the Battle of Solgrim, when he'd wielded the power of the divine fragments. It felt much the same as that… almost. That power had been emotionless. Power for the sake of power. This power was uniquely Claudia's.

It carried with it beauty as well as strength. It was the touch of the woman, a righteous heart, a hero's hope.

"Tsch," Ingolsol tutted in resignation. "I suppose it's about time… Though I don't approve of this, wench."

The soldiers seemed to respond to the power that Oliver felt growing in his hand. As more of them looked his way, he felt stronger for it, though it was a heady power, one that he could hardly control whilst still being himself.

He could not have timed it better. It would have been impossible to mistime it. Claudia had her own sort of resonance with the masses, and she acted through Oliver in that. The second the soldiers lowered their spears, with Northman and Cormrant at the front of them, bellowing their aggression, so too did Oliver drive low and prepare to plough through the side of the bandit line.

The bandits noticed him too late. Those on the end had only just begun to turn. Their high morale proved to be their downfall. Had they been more fearful, then they would have likely felt the darkened grip of death looming above their heads.@@novelbin@@

It was an explosion of martial might and two waves hit.

Oliver's sword carried with it all the force of a row of cavalrymen. The soldier's spears sent the enemy hurtling back, whilst Oliver's sword blasted them in an entirely different direction.

It was like his style of overwhelming might, but a hundredfold stronger. All by his lonesome, in a single blow, he tore to pieces that flank.

He could feel the power already beginning to fade after that, but it didn't fade in an instant. It still flowed within him strongly enough to take another step forward and barrel through like an arrow further through the flank.

The bandits couldn't hold. They were struggling with the front line already. Especially with the range of the long spear, reversing that momentum proved to be the most difficult. They were pinned in place and pierced, as they waited for the charge to lose its momentum so that they could slip in through the gaps.

Yet it never lost that momentum, for Oliver was lending it far more, whilst cutting out the bandit's foundation by himself.

Their line collapsed on the right, buckling, as Skullic's soldiers came and were able to join Oliver and begin enveloping the enemy from the left.

Another step, Claudia's power allowed Oliver. He strode forward again. The line that had already been broken was then shattered. He tossed away the last fragments of resistance, and all the way to the centre of the bandit's line, there was a barrage of destruction.