A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 174: Who Calms The Chaos? - Part 13

There were these two styles that he was working on, with misdirection being far more developed than the overwhelming style, but with neither being truly where they needed to be. There was a clunkiness to his movements that he noted, that he felt. It wasn't apparent against monsters worse than he was, , but when he went up against Dominus it was more than obvious. He had too many wasted movements.

He sought to rectify that now, and he also sought something new. He needed to develop the two styles that he had more, but he also needed to bridge the gap between them and fill in the gaps where they were lacking.

There were five enemies left. The arrows continued to fly, even though the bow-wielding goblins now had distinctly distressed expressions on their face, as they began to feel the gap between Beam and themselves – worse than that, they could sense that he was only continuing to grow.

The unarmed goblin rushed in again with a roar, when everyone else was hesitant to attack. Beam received its blow awkwardly again, and was forced back by it, unable to do much when there were two threats near his side. He needed an opening, just as he had before.

"I can't keep waiting for them to make a mistake…" Beam murmured through gritted teeth, as he held his ground. "I need more."

He needed more out of his defensive movements, he needed more opportunities to be created, he needed to build something, just as he had told Nila to do earlier. When he took a step back from the goblin's onslaught, this time he went sideways. Another fist came flying his way, so he took a step back sideways again, but this time in the opposite direction.

The goblin fumed, swinging its fists wildly, as the archers peppered the area with arrows, and the two remaining spearmen scampered behind the fight, looking for a weak point, attempting to take Beam off guard.

Beam continued to take that sideways step. His mind grew calmer, as he merely focused on trying to create something new, on trying to find that which allowed a person to overwhelm another.

The green fist clattered into his sword, he caught the initial weight of the strike, before turning his sword and allowing the fist to continue past him. Again he did that, and again.

He sidestepped once more, then he turned off the strike, the same two movements over and over, in a perfect stalemate, as he sought that new thing he wished for, that new attack, that ability to create opportunity out of nothing, rather than waiting for it to come to him.

He caught another strike on his sword and this time, as he allowed it to sweep past him, he sidestepped again. The weight shifted differently this time, and the goblin was thrown off balance. The joining of the two basic movements and their continued execution, they did something that he didn't understand.

After performing them over and over, lulling his enemy into the same pattern and lulling himself into it as well, as soon as he combined the two, it was as though lightning had struck. reading-here-on-MVLeMpYr

And yet what he did was exceedingly simple. He didn't understand it, but that did not dull his sword. He created this opportunity – or at least he thought he did – and he moved to take full advantage of it. With the goblin off balance and falling forward, its neck was perfectly exposed for Beam's blade. It attempted to raise an arm to block his blow, but Beam's sword sliced straight through it.

The arm dropped to the floor, as did the head. Spear points raced past the falling corpse as the goblins sought to take advantage of his momentary lapse in attention. But the tide had already shifted. The equilibrium that had kept the battle going for so long was shattered.

With no bruiser to take care of their front lines and distract his attention, the goblins in front of him were no match for his speed.

He employed his misdirection as he normally might, feigning the same backwards step that he had practised over and over, before leaping forward, catching the goblin off guard, twisting his body to avoid its spear and forcing his blade into its throat.

It let out a high-pitched squeal as it dropped its spear and attempted to stem the tide of blood that was spurting from the wound. The goblin next to it squealed too, in fear this time, as its eyes widened, seeing two of its comrades dealt with so easily in quick succession. Beam saw it take a backwards step, as it attempted to turn and run away. But he was on it before it had a chance.

He wrapped his arm around its neck and drove a sword through its back.

Rather than let the corpse fall to the floor as he normally might, he held onto this one, enduring its death throes. Once life had finally left its body, he shifted it into place as a meat shield. Two arrows thudded against it, almost piercing it straight through. But the time they reached Beam the momentum was entirely gone – though they touched him, they did not even pierce his clothes.

Slowly, with his meat shield in place, Beam advanced on the remaining goblins. They both shared a glance with each other as they dared to fire another volley, before turning on their heels and attempting to sprint away.

"Stay," a brief moment of eye contact, and one of the goblins was rooted in place. Beam tossed his shield aside and picked up a spear instead. With a twist of his hips and shoulder, the spear went soaring, impaling the running goblin straight through its stomach. Its bow fell to the ground, as strength left its hands.

It then fell to its knees, before falling face down to the floor, pushing the spear back through itself.

It didn't take much effort to finish off the last one, as it struggled to regain control of its body after Beam's order had locked it in place. He cut it down, no longer caring about keeping the corpse intact, now that he had no way of getting them delivered to Greeves.