A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1891 - 1891: An Inland Kraken - Part 3

It wasn't camaraderie that motivated the enemy that Blackwell and his men fought against. It wasn't like any army that he'd ever witnessed. There was no morale, and there was no true individual strength either – not in the way that he knew it. It was corruption to the highest, and what they detested most, those men, was the firmness with which those flagging soldiers still continued to hold. Against this monstrous enemy, there were still cries of great will, holding everything together. There were still brothers in arms, who, in fits of heroics, did the exact opposite of their enemy. They gave themselves not to further the cause of the army, but to defend the comrade next to them – their own flesh.

And that was which Tiberius himself, and the enemy they fought, seemed to hate most. They hissed at it, and pursued it, stamping it out. For what reason, Blackwell knew not, but he could not deny the fact to himself, that this was like no battle he had ever fought. These were like no soldiers that he had ever crossed. They had written within themselves, at times, when they really revealed what it was that they were, that same relentless hatred that goblins bore, to the point that it was madness.

Blackwell's battling, up until that point, seemed as if it were just to try and determine that which they faced. They could find no spark, for the sparks that they made were the sparks of Claudia, and that which the enemy operated on seemed to be the very antithesis of that. Claudia was progress, and whatever creatures these were despised that, as if Claudia was their mortal enemy. As if another man's suffering could further their own cause. As if cruelty were the ingredient of strength. As if destruction were the inherent good, the very base philosophy.

A Pandora Goblin was what Blackwell's imagination had at first supposed he was fighting, in a moment of thoughtlessness, and he had been quick to dismiss it. Now, with all he had been made to bear witness to, and with the time that he had bought, even if it had come at the cost of so many men, he made a greater leap, beyond what he supposed to have been foolish from the start. It was not a Pandora Goblin that he faced, but Pandora herself.

A conclusion swiftly drawn. A backwards footstep taken. Blackwell found himself. He now knew the ground on which he stood. That Third Boundary man that had seen him pushed back – mere Third Boundary man, for the likes of Blackwell! – was rounded on. A glaive came crashing down through his neck, with the authority of the Gods themselves.

His was the sort of certainty that could make islands of solid earth in the middle of a swamp. General Blackwell found himself, and in the process, he found that Black rage that had kept his House so strong for so many centuries. He recognized the creature in front of him – the enemy of all mankind, and had been for the longest of times. The Goddess Pandora.

Knowing what it was, he could do something about it. The pieces fell into place. He understood it. That which could cause the kind of disturbance that Tiberius was capable of. That which could snuff out the heart of Stormfront strategy, which indeed, that small spark that a blaze was built off – that was the very heart of Progress.

It was a war between that philosophy, and this creature built up in the dark. A monster he was, and a weapon. Designed by that Wyndon King, who must have understood to a degree the sort of General that he was to fight against. And he understood better, apparently, how it was that he might build up an army that might defeat them. For the army that Tiberius commanded, that too, was not something that could have been made over night. With the twisted sort of cruelty that could only please the likes of Pandora, Blackwell could only imagine what it was that those men had gone through, in order to become what they were. It would have taken a creature of incredible will to bear the stain of Pandora, and still remain in command of his own soul.

To fight Tiberius was to fight her. The perfect irony, Blackwell found. As Arthur had gone east, nearly two decades ago now, to fight the Pandora Goblin, with an army of ten thousand, so too now had Queen Asabel gone west, in order to do the exact same. That, however, was as far as fate would carry them, General Blackwell was determined. For now that he understood the creature that he fought against, he could move to counter it.

Another Third Boundary man was right there, longing for Blackwell's head, growling for beneath his helmet, and stepping on the body of his comrade before he had even breathed his final breath. Not a shred of pity, only that desperate want to cut down that which he deemed to be his enemy. The strength of the Fragment of Claudia was what they all seemed to pursue most strongly, as if it were a lighthouse, beckoning them all forth.

He answered their calls, knowing their seeking, and the destruction that they wished to bring about it. They came forth with the heart of that which was Pandora – which was to say, chaos. The corrosive ability to eat through the solid structures of progress that Blackwell was so used to building up. So, he gave them not that. His was almost a kindness. He did not try to subdue them with progress and order, but instead, he willingly offered it to them, as if to feed a starving child.

He ripped free from the ranks that he'd been trying to form, that flat solid line that seemed to spell security for all of them. Order they had continually pursued, whenever they had been placed upon the back foot. They'd built their castle of orderliness, as was often good strategy to do, and they had waited, supposing that something else, some other sort of opportunity, would soon come their way. Against the likes of Pandora, however, that was a fatal error.