A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1126 A Changing World - Part 4

1126: A Changing World – Part 4

1126: A Changing World – Part 4

“To threaten me…” The High King said.

“Yes, if I was anyone else, I would not get away with it.

That is what you mean to say, is it not?” The man said.

“What worth is this relationship that we have then?” The High King growled.

“I grant you these privileges, and still you get me nothing!

No results!”

“I have advised against this particular plan of action.

I told you that a quiet death would have been wiser.

Poison in the drink somewhere.

An assassin in the night,” the man said.

“We have seen what your assassins in the night did.

He slew them all!

And he walked free in court,” the High King said.

“But look how close we came,” the man said.

“If not for certain inferences, we would have had him, and we would have had him under the banner of justice.

This move you make, with this army of false Yarmdons, it does not sing of the same justice.

People will feel pity, and they will rally to his cause.

Those with experience will sniff out the truth of the matter, and when they do, it will be we that suffer.”

“Make sure they don’t, then,” the High King said.

The man sighed, leaning up against the wall, dodging the light cast by the candle’s flickering flame.

“This is your singular weakness, my King.

If you wished it, we could ensure that your lineage continues to rule as the single High King for generations.

You have set a precedent.

The line of succession can be avoided,” the man said.

“We will avoid it in the same way as we avoided it with Arthur,” the High King said.

“Would that matters be so simple, but I do not imagine the next candidate to go charging off in order to do battle with the Pandora Goblin.

Few creatures have such a strong sense of justice that they can be easily manipulated.”

“Then what would you have me do?”

“Give up,” the shadowed man said.

“Cut your losses.

This is a reckless move.

And it will not work.

You have moved far too suddenly.”

“It will work.

They are mere villagers.

It will be burnt to the ground without that boy.

He is the sole seed of wrongdoing.

He is cursed, I tell you!

Cursed to make my life worse by overturning my fortune into misfortune!

He should not have been born!

For the seed of that damn woman and of Dominus Patrick to live… It should not be so!

He’s a ghost, and I will be haunted by no further ghosts,” the High King said.

“You are haunted enough already,” the shadowed man said.

“When this fails, I will not be in your corner for much longer.

You will not drag me down with you.”

“Insolent–!

Do you know no loyalty?” The High King said.

“None at all.

But in that, you and I are the same, are we not?” The man said.

The High King snatched up the candle from his table, about to throw it at the shadowed man as he leaned against the wall.

But the instant he reached to do so was the instant that he lost track of the man’s presence.

No matter where he looked, no matter where he waved the candle, the High King could not find hair nor hide of that man again.

He seemed to have disappeared in his entirety.

He set the candle down with the barest suppressed rage.

“You… Oliver Patrick… For you, I pray for all the suffering in the world.

The sort of suffering that I should have inflicted on your father.

You will die a slow death, as poison seeps into everything that you love.

How dare you defy me?”

So did the High King wish, not realizing that such a wish was already something that Oliver Patrick had inflicted on himself, in the depths of the forests around the lonely mountains.

It was the fifth day, and with it, Oliver had wandered even deeper into the forests than he had before.

Not by intention, but by mere whim.

He still did not think ordinary thoughts with his mind.

He neglected to consider the future, excluding all things except from the fact that a mere week was his time limit.

He gave in to all that was in him, and pain came with it.

The High King’s poison.

He felt his Fragments eating away at him, with the promise of the future that they would bring.

Both Claudia and Ingolsol ate away relentlessly at his soul.

Ingolsol did with intention, and Claudia did it with mercy, but they both followed their instincts.

“Enough, Oliver,” Claudia begged.

“You go too far.

For your constitution… You ought to know that you need restraint.

You do not have the balance of an ordinary Vessel.

You can not hope to survive this as if it were nothing.

You have to keep it orderly – you have to keep us both chained.”

She was the same Claudia that had told him the wounds of the past had healed, and that he needed to fear no longer, but when it came down to it, she had not expected for Oliver to go so far.

It really seemed to be the efforts of a man willing to give up everything for that single little taste of something more.

It was the return of Beam.

A man that had nothing, and so was able to give up everything.

Only Oliver already had much, and the weight of that sacrifice came far more heavily than it had for Beam.

He had Solgrim, and as if the Gods had heard his willingness to give it all up, the High King had decided to move at the same time as he, to claim that which he valued, to see whether he really was ready to sacrifice all that he had.

So too did he have his army, but he had already left them to their own training.

To him, it felt as if he had cut off a limb by doing that.

He enjoyed watching their growth and their nourishment.

It was a simple week, but that week of parting weighed far more heavily on him than it would another man, for he knew the value of training and of progress, and he knew that in missing it, he was missing the boons of Command that would come with it.

He would struggle to reach those soldiers.