A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 1198 Candles in the Wind - Part 6

1198: Candles in the Wind – Part 6

1198: Candles in the Wind – Part 6

“…Very well,” Blackthorn said, looking as if she had wanted to say more, but holding her tongue.

The charge was made to feel short, with their mounts pushed to their absolute limits.

By the time Oliver arrived in front of a galloping Zilan, Walter’s sides were heaving from the exertion.

Unlike Zilan’s horse, Walter hadn’t been given much chance to rest beforehand.

“URAHHHHHHHHHH!” Zilan said.

He’d changed his sword for a glaive.

He showed no signs of stopping.

He rushed at them with a momentum in no way inferior to the monstrous chariots that he was so fond of.

He would not even give them the respect of a duel – his only intention was to rush straight through.

Oliver gritted his teeth.

His mind flashed back to when General Talon had rushed at him with a similar such charge.

The weight of the blow had sent shockwaves all the way down to the bone.

And that was a Talon without even the blessing of full Command to aid him.

The General that he faced before him now had Command of thousands.

Oliver had not known fear like it in the longest time.

‘But the situation is different from then,’ Oliver tried to remind himself.

‘I’m stronger than I was… And I’m mounted.’

Even in those reassurances, he had to avoid thinking about how easily General Khan had tossed him away, as if he was no more than the youngest of boys, barely a few months deep into his study of the sword.

Before he even knew what had happened, Oliver found himself sagging forth in his saddle, the wind having left his body, his vision dizzy, and his balance all but shot.

It was with the greatest effort that he managed to stay in the saddle at all.

He clenched his feet in the stirrups with all he had, but even then, it was barely enough.

Again, a sudden impact kept him from recovering himself.

It was impossible to trace exactly what it was.

He was vaguely aware of a collision of metal on metal, but he hadn’t traced the arc of any strike, or even thought about putting his sword in the way.

Yet the sword had managed to get there, if only barely, and thanks to it, he was still alive to complain about his confusion.

Then Blackthorn and Verdant were circling.

The Gods only knew when they’d gotten there.

They were behind the looming black shadow that now dominated Oliver’s vision.

Their mouths were open wide in battle cries, but Oliver heard not a single sound that came out.

His world was doomed to silence, all except from the ringing in his ears.

His stomach lurched from the pain.

He felt his food rise back up in his throat.

Every step that Walter took served to upset his balance even further.

His will told him to keep fighting, but he mind started to wonder against exactly what it was warring.

CLANG!

CLANG!

CLANG!

It was a siege, it wasn’t a duel.

He was being broken apart, a piece at a time.

He was just one grape in a field of grape vines.

The vineyard wanted to make wine out of him, and it was a cruel merchant indeed that oversaw that process.

Every drop of red that he could drain from Oliver, he made sure of it.

He blackened his skin, tore through his armour, and made him nothing more than a fruit of triumph that he would boast about in later encounters.

Blackthorn disappeared.

Oliver knew not where she went.

He saw the flicker of Verdant’s eyes.

He saw the vague worry.

Then he saw Verdant’s spear lowered again, to charge at Zilan’s back.

Oliver wanted to warn him.

A spear wasn’t enough.

A spear against Zilan was like attempting to fight the waves of a sea with a sword.

It was a completely different level.

‘This is what a General feels like when he’s going all out,’ Oliver thought vaguely.

Another part of him wondered what would have happened if his encounter with Khan had lasted any longer.

CLANG!

But a series of attacks put an end to any such thoughts.

He was being overwhelmed, and the darkness in his vision only grew with it.

He no longer had any sense for his allies.

It was just him and the darkness.

Any time he tried to raise his head to get a look at Zilan, he was forced to look down again.

He needed to look down in order to keep his back as tight as he could, to give himself the greatest chance of fending off the repeated blows that were sure to come his way.

Even that was a future endeavour.

His sword was being pointed downwards.

His defeat was as inevitable as a cliff’s eventual fall into the sea.

It felt as if he was a piece of another natural cycle.

As if he were the prey that would satiate the predator.

It felt his role to be beaten.

To ask for any more than a longer life under the burden of that pain seemed to be reaching too far.

It would have been a greedy thing to ask.

“You’re a greedy man,” a voice said accusingly at the thought.

It wasn’t Ingolsol.

It wasn’t Claudia.

It was a voice from battles past.

The most overwhelming opponent that Oliver had faced to date.

The mage that was Francis.

A being completely beyond Oliver’s comprehension, a man who had given his soul to the Gods.

He too was of the Fourth Boundary… Or was it the Fifth?

It was hard to pinpoint exactly what the man was, given that he was in a zone of such potential.

It had taken the mighty Dominus Patrick to put him in his place, and even then, the man had to give his life for it.

How could such a man have pointed a finger at the boy – as undeveloped as he had been back then – that was Beam, and called him greedy, with such horror in his voice, as if he was genuinely afraid of what it was that he was witnessing?

It was the vaguest memory, the vaguest bubbling, and Oliver had no comprehension of it any more.

He had a half-minded thought to raise his sword higher, and then even that thought too vanished, and was replaced by a more permanent blackness.