A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 350: A Puppet of Power - Part 1

He opened his ears wide, ignoring the screams of agony and the battle around him, his ears open only for Ingolsol.

"Boring…" Came a yawned complaint, as the Dark God reclined in his chair, watching things unfold. "I'm really not a fan of these scholarly types. A tendency to overanalyse. Not artistic flair. I mean, look at the scale of this magic circle that he's drawn up. Bit overkill, where's the fun in that?"

Again, Desebel found herself rolling her eyes. "Aren't you the one that gave him the power to do all this?"

"I did… But not alllllll this. Terribly boring. Despair is more interesting than that. A close-fought battle – there's a sweeter despair to be had there," Ingolsol said.

"I recall you seeming rather excited by the strength difference at first…" Desebel noted.

Ingolsol waved his hand dismissively. "Yes, yes. That was before a whole village suddenly turned themselves into heroes. There's no fun in that. Dying while fighting? That's meant to be an honour reserved for the soldiery.

If everyone's charging without fear towards a so-called honourable death, I'm going to end up getting put out of business."

Again, Desebel found herself rolling her eyes. At times the Dark Lord fell too quickly into his comedy act, concealing his true feelings on the matter. That was part of what made him so frightening, so unpredictable.

"Well, I suppose we need to shatter this, don't we?" He grinned a malicious grin. "Claudia will be crying compassionate tears for them, I'm sure, singing to her little servants about their wondrous sacrifice. But no, these mortals are dirtier than that. A single moment does not clear away the black stains about their heart. Even the ones that they call hero – they don't exist.

Every man is as dark and twisted as the last. They're a tower of cards, held together by the glue of a false belief."

With that statement, he drew a knife. Not even another God would have been able to tell you where he'd gotten in from. Even before being banished to the land of Despair and Darkness, he was quite well known for his tendency to make all manner of questionable things appear from seemingly nothing, even in the halls of other Gods, places in which he should have had no power.

Desebel felt herself quiver for a second. It wasn't the sight of the knife. It was the sight of the one who wielded it. A figure so inconsistent, so ever-changing, had he been a mortal, they might have named him the most fickle man on the planet.

In one moment, he was as grouchy as a petulant child, in another as witty as a travelling poet… and in the next, he was this, that which had caused all the other Gods to fear him.

His menacing cast up his dark hair behind him, and a vicious grin spread across his face. He shot his demon attendant a scrutinising glance, a look that she swore could see through her.

As scantily dressed as she was, so close to full nudity, with that look, she was more naked than she had ever been, and she held her hands up in front of her chest as though to cover herself, and she looked away with a blush.

By the time she looked again, Ingolsol had already drawn the black knife across the skin of his thumb.

"Lord—" She said in shock.

He smiled at her a dangerous smile, before holding his thumb up above his goblet. Blood welled up at his wound, and gravity pulled away a single perfect droplet. There was a soft splash, barely audible, as it fell into the dark liquid, without leaving a single ripple.

It was only then she knew what he had done. She gasped in horror.

"Your blood, Lord Ingolsol… If they know what you've done, they'll come for you!" She said, her voice weaker and more distressed than she had ever known it.

"If they come, then once more, I will make them kneel," Ingolsol said in a deep growl. "Lord of Despair, or so they scorn me, but there does not go by a single day that they forget who I am."

"You would risk it all, merely for light entertainment?" She asked. "All that you had built up, all the time that you put into these things? I thought you had grown an interest in the boy? And what of Francis? You would wipe the board clean in a single sweep? Only to invite the ire of all the Fullguard – even the Dark Gods will not stand by you on this."

"You underestimate them," Ingolsol said. "You all do. Even she does, my beloved – but I suppose she understands them better than the others. The mortals are the seedbed of our powers, you forget that. They all do. If not now, they would have come eventually.

This is my era. Mine and Claudia's. They'll realize that before soon. The mortal world undergoes a grand shift. Only the powerful will be able to keep their fangs. And who am I, pray tell, Desebel?"

"You're the Lord of Des—" Desebel caught herself before she finished her sentence. A gasp escaped her, as she was struck by a realization, and a headache, as though she'd forgotten something important. Clutching her head, she bent over, and forced the words through her teeth. "No… You're the God of Power."

Ingolsol smiled a rare white smile, the fangs of his teeth not at all dissimilar to those of a tiger. For the first time in ten thousand years, another entity had called him by what he truly was.

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A scream rang out across the battlefield, louder than any of the others, loud enough to draw pause to combat, as Beam fell to his knees.

"Beam!" Nila shouted, reaching to grab him on instinct, to pull him away from the monsters that would surely come pouring his way. It was a vain attempt, for there was nowhere to run, but she did it anyway.