A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 336: The Birth of a Leader - Part 12

Already, the first woman to break was able to hold off a handful of men. One grabbed her arm, pinning her in place, but she was able to overpower him – as a woman half his size – and immediately snatch her arm back, before punching him in the chest, sending him crashing to the ground.

The worst part of it all was the joy that sat on the faces of those that had given in to despair. There were full smiles there, and all the energy of the damned. They were stronger and faster than they'd ever been as sane individuals, and for every man that they stabbed, that strength only served to increase.

Chaos soon ensued.

The mage sighed, noting that he had been forgotten, noting that his hold on them had been somewhat broken, as they determined the despair inflicted individuals to be of higher priority.

"Resist, and die," the mage said, his words accented by the exploding of another dozen people. "It's up to you."

Three more people gave into despair at that. The pressure was too much… From all sides, it ground them down. It was as though they'd become the playthings of a Dark God, and now they existed in his hellish domain, doomed to eternally be victim to his torment.

Finally, Nila could take it no more. Her hand grasped Beam's wrist. He turned to her, seeing the tears in her eyes, seeing the desperation. And she saw it in his, how those golden flecks dance amongst the green and blue, how he hardly seemed to blink.

"Lombard," Beam said, firmly, finally, as though he'd made up his mind. "How's he doing it, and how do we make it stop?"

Lombard didn't need to ask what Beam was referring to. It was the threat of immediate death that they needed to deal with first. The mage's dark ability to snuff out a life with a mere click of his fingers, from apparently miles away… It seemed too strong a power to be true.

Beam could sense that the mage was strong, in a dimension that he could not understand – but he didn't think he was strong enough to hold such a power without weighty conditions.

The answer that Beam was looking for didn't come as quickly as he'd hoped. Lombard was as much of a stranger to magic as he was.

Another man exploded, this time he was but a short distance away from Beam. He could see the light in the man spasmed before his death. He'd been right on the edge of it, right on the edge of despair, just as the others had been before him.

It was a risk, something Beam wasn't even certain of, but he had to act, his body wouldn't allow himself to stay rooted in place any longer.

"IT'S A TRICK!" Beam shouted. "HE'S USING THE DESPAIR!"

Lombard didn't have the same understanding of the situation that Beam had. None of them did. None of them could sense the fluctuating emotions in the hearts of the villagers as clearly as he, for none of them had lived with the curse of Ingolsol as he had, and none had awakened to that power. But the Captain knew just enough for him to understand.

He understood in the same way that he knew a fire was hot. He knew if a person reached a certain breaking point, a certain level of despair, then they would give in to The Madness, or to Ingolsol's curse, as the knights knew it to be.

He understood that, even if he didn't understand it with the same accuracy as Beam… He knew there was peculiar power in the moment that a person gave way to despair. There was something about Ingolsol's curse that rivalled Claudia's in a sense… In the way it made a man stronger.

To take the power that was inherent in that moment, and use it to make a man explode from a distance, as something of a theatrical effect – that made more sense to Lombard. For the mage to take advantage of something that was already happening, and to act as a catalyst for it, that was far different to being able to explode any man at will regardless of circumstance.

The villagers weren't quick to react to Beam's words by any means. But they didn't need to be. There was power in Beam's voice now. He had rarely spoken to them, he'd hardly given them orders – yet he'd been established firmly as their leader. In the centre of chaos, more than the Captain of the soldiers, who'd been baptized in the fires of battle many times before, it was Beam that they looked to.

His words flickered a slight bit of light back into their darkening hearts. It was just enough to stop any more of them from yielding completely to despair. Still, their spirits were far from being stable. It was hell they saw in front of them, surrounded by it on all sides.

These were monsters that many of them had never seen before. Many of them had never even seen a regular goblin, aside from the corpses that a lucky – or unlucky – hunter might have brought back with him.

And now they were being forced to stare off at Gorebeasts, Konbreakers, Hobgoblins and Horned goblins. Then there were those Half-Titans as well, those that had terrified even trained soldiers, sending shivers down their spine.

To top it all off, there were those Titans too, and the man that led them all, with such a handsome face, and such undisguised malice. Even their own people had given way to madness – that was a horrifying thing in itself to witness.

A woman continually ran forward, her small hatchet making a 'whoosh' through the air every time it missed its target. She continually chased the same man – her husband – and he frantically did all he could to stay out of her range, a distraught look on his face.

His wife's eyes were not her own. Her face was long and hollower than he'd remembered. Spittle ran down her chin, and evil radiated from every pour of her body.