A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Enjoy new chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

Even if the regeneration was all-powerful – which he suspected it wasn't – that should have been enough to deal with it.

He changed his approach. Dodging another swing of the axe, he didn't move so eagerly to deal a wound on the enemy in return. Instead, he merely lightly touched his foe, retaining his advantage in initiative, and continuing to weave his web.

He tapped him on the chest, then the shoulder, the lightest little cuts, but they were enough. With his superior agility, it all but froze the Minotaur in place.

It howled its annoyance, and tried to rush him with its shoulder, finishing the move with an axe swing. It was powerful, certainly, but they were both heavy moments, giving away more initiatives. It seemed clear from the druid's fighting technique that he wasn't used to doing anything more than the lowest level of brawling.

The power of a Minotaur – lesser than Oliver though it still was – remained ineffectual in its hands. A man was meant to grow with his power. To be given it so suddenly, he'd never be able to make fullest use of it.

And now he'd gifted Oliver a further three steps of initiative to Oliver, unaware of just how badly he was giving his position away. This time Oliver was able to give the lightest little cuts in five different places over the Minotaur's body. It made him look like a whirlwind of speed, to be able to do that without a point of retaliation, but it was the Minotaur himself that had enabled it.

The creature's rage only continued to grow. It shrugged off the minor wounds, unconcerned. It stamped its foot like a bull prepared to charge, snorting and tossing its head. It eyed Oliver up carefully, just as Oliver eyed him. It seemed to be concentrating more with this strike, focusing on its timing. Oliver allowed it.

He tempted it. He slowed his step to bait it in.@@novelbin@@

Unaware, the Minotaur did just that. It came rushing in, just as it had before, though its intentions seemed more lucid, as it tried to dial in its strike, and move more efficiently.

It was too little too late. Oliver had already spun his web of control over the battlefield. With its charge – better though it was – it sealed its fate.

It must have seemed so sudden for the Minotaur, completely incomprehensible. If the druid had gone back in time a hundred times he still likely wouldn't have understood why he had lost. He likely would have only focused on the sword strike that came for his head, dodging it, not bothering to ask why he ended up in that position in the first place.

Time was merciless, however, and Oliver's struck with all the authority of fate itself. No more light strikes. No more regeneration. He used all the initiative that he'd gathered, and put all his strength into the blade, timing the Minotaur's charge with his swing, forcing the creature's own weight and power to work to Oliver's advantage.

Oliver's sword went through as easily as through water. It made the Minotaur's thick hide look non-existent. It rushed all the way through flesh and arteries and then towards the spine. The thick block of bone that blocked most decapitation attempts still could not slow it, such was the force of the blow.

Oliver's sword went straight through it all, and out the other side, firmly removing the Minotaur's head from its body.

It landed with a wet and heavy slosh, spraying a mountain of blood from its large head. The body tottered and fell down with it. Oliver eyed it carefully, but as he expected, there seemed to be no sign of it attempting to regenerate. Its heart no longer beat any sort of rhythm of life.

So it was done.

Finished in a display that should have been their most difficult. The soldiers had watched on, fear in their eyes. The boy that they'd felt a distance towards – or even a distaste – at the start of the day had become as firmly entrenched as a comrade as their fellow man. Beyond that, even.

He'd enabled in them achievements that should have always been left beyond their reach. The last encounter was just the most recent example. Two hundred bandits, and though they'd had a few men wounded rather heavily, they hadn't lost a single man to death.

The sort of foe that sent them scrambling back for cover, they'd expected that to be a foe that even the boy they'd learn to look at with awe and respect would struggle with.

And yet he'd made it look easier than anything he'd performed that day. It was almost anticlimactic how easily his sword claimed that monstrosities life. He'd confronted an unknown to them – and to Oliver himself – and he'd sent it hurtling towards the grave, ridding it of all its supernatural might.

"Victory, Commander," Oliver pronounced, looking over towards Northman.

It took Northman a moment before he was able to nod in response. A smile broke out across his face. "Aye," he said. "Victory."

It would be a lie to say that they'd spent the night celebrating after all that they'd achieved that day. It would be a lie to say that they'd even slept soundly. Few could find it in themselves to sleep. Their hearts still pounded after what they saw.

Oliver too, found that he struggled. His hands were tingly to the point of numbness, and his stomach bore with it a sensation for the entire evening that made him mistrust it. Sleep came difficult after that.

Even if they could not relax, nor even find it in themselves to celebrate heartily, it didn't stop the air of victory that hung over the place. Granted, none of them felt particularly comfortable, given the blue flame that they'd found under the keep, but that didn't do anything to diminish the fact that they'd done far more than Skullic could have expected from them, given the circumstances.

Petyr – the carriage driver – was more surprised than any to see the change that had undergone the soldiers in such a short time. More so, the change in their attitude towards Ser Patrick.

He'd been forced to watch it all from the sidelines, where things were safe. It was he and the horses for the most part. He didn't get to see for himself what had happened, only the aftermath.