A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 352: A Puppet of Power - Part 3

It was impossible to tell quite what had happened, at least for those who were inexperienced in magic. But Francis – he knew. He could feel his hold over the Hobgoblin broken, shattered beyond all repair. He could feel the heat off those flames, the power of a God, the power of Ingolsol.

It reminded him of when he was sending his monsters into the mountains. More than once, he had felt his bond break with them, yet he could still feel their presence. They'd still been alive, but their loyalty to him had been dismissed, his magic chains had been shattered. He thought that to be merely a symptom of fear, the symptom of any emotionally distressed beast… but now he wondered differently.

Now he wondered if this was not a magic in itself.

Beam put a hand in front of him, and with a great strain, he managed to lift his body up enough to drag himself to one knee.

"Beam…" Nila said, her voice quiet with distress as she watched him.

The monsters were not ones to wait, either. The black flames of the Hobgoblin, they'd burned for a few moments, and the creature itself had inflicted a good amount of carnage, enough for Beam's allies to seize a slight advantage, and buy themselves a few seconds of breathing room.

The Hobgoblin soon turned to ash though, far more quickly than normal flames would burn it through. With its disappearance, the flames began to fade as well, and the caution of the monsters faded, and they dove back in again.

At the same time, the armies thundered in from behind them, merely a few moments away from contact. It wasn't just the monsters either. The black-robed 'humans' – it was hard to tell quite what they were, given their robes – were running after them too, though they struggled to keep up.

A Half-Titan smelt blood and opportunity. It pushed a pack of Horned-Goblins out of its way, as it went stumbling towards Beam, drawn to him, like a magnet. The Titan was also looking in his direction, though with a degree more calmness than its brethren. There was a calculating look to its eye.

The Half-Titan bullied a sword off a Hobgoblin as it came close. It looked rather ridiculous in its clawed hands, and it was hard to tell just how it kept hold of it, but manage it did, and as it drew near, it pulled its arm back in a massive swing, its sword pointed squarely at Beam's back, as he struggled to make it to his feet.

"BEAM!" Nila said again, this time in a shout containing a good deal more urgency. Beam's eyes were fixed firmly to the ground. It was impossible to tell if he knew what was going on around him, given how he'd so suddenly collapsed.

"Damn it!" Greeves cursed, shrugging off the attacks of a Horned-Goblin, as he caught sight of the danger Beam was in, and tried to put himself in a position where he might at least have the option of helping.

But where there was one Horned-Goblin, now there were three, all of them twittering and jabbing at him with their spears. One of them skirted along his side, drawing a fresh trail of blood, and narrowly missing something important. He gave a cry out in pain, and took a frustrated step back.

Of all those that had seen the position Beam was in, none of them could help, nor did any of them truly want to look behind them, as they saw the impending walls of doom closing in from all sides.

Judas found himself tearing his eyes away, as the sword drew nearer, flat against Beam's back.

"BEAM!!" Nila shouted, so loudly that her words tore at her throat. There were several names she wanted to scream in the hell they were in, several people she wanted to look for, that she wanted to desperately protect. But only one of them was right in front of her. She shouted his name with emotion enough for all of them.

Finally, Beam's sword hand twitched, as he managed to steady his ringing head just enough to be comfortable moving his arm. His vision was blurry – but he was used to that. His stomach was riddled with sickness, as though one of his organs had stopped functioning, but he was used to that too.

The hands he looked down and saw, they felt disembodied, not his own, there was a distance between him and reality. But he'd grown used to that as well.

He wasn't used to this power, though.

GAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRROWWWWWWW

Like a clap of thunder, a straight line of destruction opened up in front of him. The Half-Titan was cleaved cleanly in two.

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It didn't stop there, either, Beam's slash ran into another Hobgoblin, and then a herd of Horned-Goblins, and then the last of the Half-Titans… Even the Titan itself was unfortunate to be in the blade's path. The slash killed thirty monsters, and butchered a handful of the robbed figures beyond them, continuing in a line for nearly fifty metres, before it faded into nothing.

And then, once more, Beam coughed up a lungful of black blood, and collapsed.

They were all startled. They were all shocked. The whole battlefield had frozen. But it was only the mighty that understood. The more knowledge they had of combat, the more shocked they were.

The villagers felt a fire burning in them… Indeed, they'd felt that feeling before. But now it was as though they were enshrouded entirely in flame. The moment Beam had swung his sword, and wrought that destruction, enough to part the fog in a misty forest, it was as though he'd parted the fog in their hearts as well, and lit a blazing fire, an impossible flame.

Shock, indeed, they felt shock. But for the villagers, it was more overwhelming than anything. They felt the passion and connectedness usually only reserved for the best trained, most elite fighting force. There was a hardness in their hearts only reserved for the experienced.

If they'd stopped to look, they might have wondered how it was that even the weakest woman was now able to fend off a mighty Horned-Goblin.