A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1809 - 1809: A Scramble for Victory - Part 4

Some had their debates about to whom held the most envious attacking might in the Kingdom. Was it the Blackthorn army, and their charges? Was it the Treeants, with their savage straightforwardness? Was it General Blackwell, who knew how to temper his wildness toward a single point? But that day, there could be no debate. Exactly what Volguard had predicted over a month ago, with two swords of the Fourth Boundary, and all the strange Commanders, and now all the stranger still peasants with all their unique styles, in the course of a single charge, there was none that could equal the Patrick army. Especially not a force that was being slowed so drastically from its own poor footing.

They hit with all the force of a hammer on a glass house. Oliver was as good as his word, in selecting King Germanicus as his only target. He forced the King back, with a crushing blow, preventing him too from reaching the solid footing beyond the corpses that he stood on.

The King felt the force of the blow throwing him off balance. There was a sudden hint of terror. He was quite sure that the strength of Oliver's sword was even mightier than when they had last crossed blades – and not just mightier by a small fraction either. But flames of his fury would not be put out so quickly. He found his anger, and threw back a strike of his own with his warhammer – a strike that was cut short by a well-placed arrow from Nila, that made the King dodge before he could finish the blow.

He hissed his discontentment, a bear forced back by a crowd of spears. Once more, he was made to endure a blow from Oliver. So lightly and casually thrown above the shoulder and the wrist and the hips, and yet delivered at the end of it with such a speedy snap that it seemed to disappear from sight. Germanicus couldn't counter it. It was all he could do to hold it in place.

"What art thee?" He said, under the weight of the strike, as he barely held Oliver at bay, with the two of them grappling. They were not only his words. They were the words of the Fragment within him – the words of Gaia. She that had seen him from infancy to possess the immense potential of strength, and she that had without hesitation given him her Blessing, in the same way the forests gave their blessing to whatever creature made it clear that she was the mightiest.

His experience crossing through the Boundaries had been nothing like the others. King Germanicus had simply pursued his instincts in wanting to battle, and duel whatever creature was strong, and as naturally as he had drawn breath, he had breezed his way through the Second Boundary, and the Third, so casually that they could hardly be called Boundaries at all – and indeed, those from the Church of Claudia would have argued against them being called that.

Now he sat in what be believed to be the Fifth Boundary, by the counsel of Gaia. He followed the course that the ancient Goddess set for him, trusting in it implicitly, for always she had been right, and wise, and true. It was she that finally put it in him to accept the crown of King.

But now, even she had found something beyond her understanding. When Oliver's sword continued to battle her vessel, she knew not why they found themselves so overpowered. No creature in the land could be mightier than King Germanicus. Certainly not the young man that she saw in front of him. His sheer physicality, though impressive, was not up to the task. Even more incomprehensible was the fact that he seemed to grow stronger with each engagement. Now he stood incomparable to the first time that they had crossed blades, but still Gaia assured Germanicus that there had been no physical change in Oliver Patrick.

Yet everything was so seamless. The arrows fell with perfect timing in Oliver's strikes. Corpses of dying men hindered Germanicus in just the right way to see Oliver benefitted. It was as though he could do anything at all, and have the results favour him – and indeed, even in the way he threw his sword strikes, did that seem to be case. But each time, he was proven to be right. It seemed less that Oliver Patrick himself was overpowering Germanicus, and more that the entire battlefield, from the very start, favoured him, and unwittingly had King Germanicus wandered straight into the heart of it. As a divine wind that could not be seen, as a flow that could not be matched, and as a result that almost seemed preordained – and then Oliver's sword slashed its way across King Germanicus' stomach, adding there to the wounds that he'd already inflicted in the weeks before.

The newly placed King could barely believe it, as that blood poured down from his severed chainmail once more. How many times had he needed to see those links fixed as a result of Oliver Patrick's batterings? How many times had he needed to skulk into the medic's tent, and beg for stitches at Tavar's orders?

So many times too, had he sworn to himself, that it would never occur again. He'd thought on it, as much as Germanicus was want to think on anything, and he'd come to his own conclusions as to why he had lost. It was luck the first time, he thought, and the second time, he'd merely given Oliver too much respect, he'd feared him after the first time – it must have been fear, he was sure of it.

But then, what of this? If this was fear again, then how was it, that even with fire flowing through his veins, and his adrenaline at the very height, could he still be losing? He'd willingly charged in to face Oliver Patrick on his own terms – could a frightened man have done that?

He didn't think so. Fear no longer served to fill the void between them. They ought to have been equals – no, Germanicus ought to have been far stronger. Oliver Patrick by himself, he was nothing at all, not when compared to Germanicus' might. He could sense a strong Fragment in him, but that would take him no further than the Fourth Boundary. It was not the sight of Oliver Patrick in front of him, nor even his presence as a whole – it was that which hung behind Oliver Patrick, and lingered, for just a split second longer, whenever he did move.