A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 353: A Puppet of Power - Part 4

If they had looked through the eyes of Francis, they might have seen something as well. The shifting, shapeless darkness had a form. With that glance that had burned a Hobgoblin and crumbled its will, there was a slash that bathed his allies in a fog of misty darkness.

Now, they were not villagers. They were soldiers of shadow, by Francis' eye. They wore plumed helmets, and sported spears and armour. They were soldiers of Ingolsol.

He did not breathe the word "how" as was his usual habit. His mind was working too quickly for that, too frantically. Under normal circumstances, he'd never felt such pressure. Not even when he'd slain his family, and he heard the footsteps of the town guard stomping around outside his house. Then, he had been calm, and calculating. Now he was beyond that.

Now he was timeless, his thoughts ruthlessly efficient.

'A conflagration of sudden energy – energy of the Dark sort. Energy that shouldn't have been here otherwise… An offering from Ingolsol,' that was his first conclusion, his first thought. He knew a God to have interfered. He'd known that earlier, but it was worth restating.

That amount of power, it had far exceeded his expectations. It was to no surprise to see the boy suddenly collapse from the weight of it. The surprise had been that it had all been contained in the boy in the first place. Some, yes, that was to be expected, as per the Dark Lord's intentions, to have the mortal crumble, and have all his power spill out… But this?

For it to all be sucked inside and kept there, like an overfilled balloon, that was beyond unexpected.

And then he'd risen. He'd held it. He hadn't burst. He hadn't lost his intention. He'd risen and those eyes – eyes that weren't his own – they'd still been twisted by hatred, by desire, they'd looked at the Hobgoblin with anger. They'd looked, and by the shiver on his back, Francis knew they'd been searching for him.

Then, impossibly, beyond all possible calculation, there had been a swing of the blade. A swing worthy of a man of the Fifth Boundary – easily. To puncture through all that flesh, to travel such a distance… Yes, the Fifth was where one would place it. Read exclusive adventures at M V L

Then where would they place the magic that followed? Was that even magic? It was not mana that fed it. No. Francis could see no lay lines, though he could feel the power streaming off it. It was something else.

Something that bound to souls, like a slaver's whip… Nay, this was not subordination… It was assimilation. He didn't crush them, he empowered them, and by instinct, they fought for his cause.

Was this a natural phenomenon? Was this something that he'd been able to do, before Ingolsol had filled him with such power? Had he been the reason that the villagers held themselves together, even without a magic circle, or the interfering of some Elder?

Francis didn't allow his emotions to influence his decision. His madness was reserved for reality. In his mind, in that warped void where thought occurred, he was beyond match, for he'd given up all that limited him. No, he knew the answer. The more disconnected from the situation around him he grew, the more he knew it.

That boy, a mere child of the Second Boundary, with the scent of Claudia clinging to him, he carried a power to influence will. More importantly, he carried a power to resist a God, if only for a minute.

A rare emotion flickered towards Francis, the slightest warming of the heart, the slightest glimmering of respect. Such things usually didn't reach him so deep in thought. The void was reserved only for ideas, only for the pursuit of truth… and yet that feeling had reached him anyway.

A fellow traveller, that was what he felt. A fellow journeyer into the unknown, the impossible, someone willing to go beyond all mortal understanding. That resonated with Francis, and for that reason, he knew, better than anyone else, that the most dangerous person in front of him, by far and away, was that boy. He believed it now. He was no knight. No knight could grasp that sort of power.

No knight could reach beyond what Claudia had already given them.

With that understanding, as his eyes returned to reality, and he began to once more take in what was going on around him. Half of his monsters, creatures that he'd given birth to – they'd turned on him.

By the eyes of the villagers, it surely seemed as though the creatures had gone mad, for wherever one looked, the monsters that had been so intently pursuing human flesh before, they now turned on each other, and in the process, the armies tore themselves to pieces.

That charge that had come in from the back, with so many hundreds, its force had been blunted. The villagers fought like demons now, and the monsters – at least half of them – offered no resistance, and fought for the same cause. It was a complete free for all, impossible to tell friend from foe. Impossible to tell who might win.

But with two hundred villagers cloaked in Ingolsol's Aura, fighting like Ingolsol's own infantry, the victor seemed to point in a particular direction. It was only Francis' hooded disciples that could have changed the direction, for there were hundreds of them. An observer might have eyed the flaming weapons in their hands, and evaluated them cautiously, but Francis knew the truth of it.

His followers were no stronger than the average human. In fact, their pursuit of magic had made them weaker. It was only their maddened minds and their complete dismissal of pain that made them dangerous.

Even then, had they posed a problem, Beam's sword swing had offered four overwhelming solutions.

The sword swing that had reached the Titan had turned it, just like it had turned the other monsters in the vicinity of it. It now fought under Beam's will, like a crazed goliath, tearing apart all those that stood in his way.