A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1596 - 1596: To Flow or to Fly - Part 3

Without intention, Oliver had caused an effect. Gar had been struggling to find his ground again, and by Oliver's movements, he found a pocket in which he could gather himself, and set his sword once more to moving.

Oliver acknowledged Gar's wants for a good while. Like the leaf, he could feel the breeze of Gar's blowing, and for a time, the two fought side by side, ruthlessly carving up all that was in front of them. They matched each other's rhythm, as if they had fought together since they had been in the cradle.

A feeling of the utmost pleasure built up in Oliver, and a giant childish smile formed on his face. His heart swelled to the point that he almost wept, as he enjoyed the moment to the fullest, before it too faded away. Before it too became too large to escape the dragon's notice, and once more did he shrink away, a mere piece of nothingness, in a world that was full of carving desires.

Each man next to him had their own force that they exerted, their own will – he'd seen it in the training of his men, and had delighted in withdrawing from it, and allowing them to carry him instead. Inside the mighty forward and wrathful wave that the dragon had sent crashing down upon them, there were hundreds and thousands of little streams, all pushing, and pulling in different directions.

From each of them, Oliver withdrew himself, culling the feeling of flow, and the feeling of will, and the feeling of truly anything at all. And then he would simply drift. Whether it was the best path that he drifted along, or simply the first path that his body recognized, it was hard to say, but the driting kept him moving. He was suspended in the air, more than he was flowing through an infinite set of waters.

There was no substance to him to attack, and whenever there was, he would pull away from that too.

The Minister of Blades, at one point, joined their party of three, ragged, and bloodied from enduring the charge. They had a little radius, in the void, that was the barest candle of a few lights, simply existing, simply swimming for the time that they could. Gar and the Minister did battle raggedly, with dogged determination, and a beautiful fire in their eyes. Once more, Oliver found himself buoyed by a sudden inspiration, and a giant emotion tugging on his chest, and then that too he went away from, ever fleeing, ever mindful of the dragon that chased him.

The dark sea. A melee that was still quietly being fought. After the initial charge, all had seemed well and truly crushed. To have an army surrounded on all sides, by so many men, the job was practically done. But just like Oliver, and Gar and the Minister had once more been able to find their footing, so too did the smallest little seemingly randomly pockets of men.

For it was not simply the strongest that once more touched the ground again. It was men that one would have expected to die long ago. Somehow, they kept to fighting, in an almost irritating manner of resistance, they simply endure, swayed from the attention of the masses, holding themselves in place, whilst the angry and the blood thirsty failed to notice their existence, and went on to other pastures, to see their swords wetted.

Every Patrick banner that had once been raised were the first targets of the slaughter. Each of them were quickly stomped to the ground, and trodden over, and crushed straight into the muddy snow, now so watered with the blood.

All that was visible were quickly made the first of the targets, and all that was quiet managed to stay on, for just a little bit longer.

Though his heart was quiet, Oliver was such a visible thing. The effect around him was not one that was possible to ignore. Nor was the magnificence of his armour, or the loud voices that pointed him out. "THERE HE IS! THAT'S GENERAL PATRICK! GO FOR HIS HEAD!"

In so pointing him out, even more men came for him. The Minister of lades didn't fail to hear their cries, despite his ragged state, and he remembered his duty, as if he were a lesser man than the General that he stood under.

"You," he said to Gar. "Don't allow a single sword to reach the General. I can trust you to do that, can't I?"

"Gar doesn't listen to you," Gar said with a sniff. "Gar listen to him. But Gar defend him anyway. Because Gar said so. But you weaker than Gar. So Gar don't trust you."

The Minister took the insult with an iron look on his face, but he couldn't have failed to notice that, though unarmoured, Gar looked to be in far better condition than he, even with the blood and mud running down his face, and how sliced his clothes were.

"…I suppose that is as good as I am getting out of you," the Minister said, without uttering a complaint.

Oliver wondered at that. Why it was that the Minister went to such lengths, when he had no reason to really be fighting alongside Oliver in the first place. He wanted to ask the question. There was the brief spark of will that he'd always had, and then quickly, the newer feeling overrode it, and that spark was gone, biting down on his old will, and reminding him of something else.

The young General said not a word, and hardly seemed to stir, as the battlefield around him shifted, and that forward facing tidal wave instead converged upon him, with men of all different ranks trying their metal at challenging a General. His sword found each of them, with the same amount of effort, or lack there of it. If he had stopped to think for a second about the men that confronted him, his exhaustion would have mounted quickly enough that just holding his sword would have been a problem.

For the lagging attention he'd put on his own combat training of late, his condition was a remarkable thing. He was able to acknowledge that just for a brief second, as another current that the wind blew him in. "I feel good," he realized, seeing the ease in his actions, despite how casually he'd gone about training the sword in the past month, with his main interactions in it just being sparring Gar.