A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"I am the General of your Dark Armies," Ingolsol said humbly. "I have conversed with the worst parts of you, and I have united them into a force. They have nourished me into what I am. We both gained from this."

"And she was the General of the Light," Beam said. "We were almost allowed a glimpse of the world through her, and through people. It was far more interesting with the two of you together. Alone, I could have not gone so far."

"You would never have been alone," Ingolsol said. "Surely you can see them now? You can hear their voices. You never needed me. You would have gone further without me – given time, and given reason."

He pointed to the walls around them. The walls that Beam had assumed to be mere black, and infinite void. Now there ran fractures through them, as arms reached through, and voices.

"Kill, kill, kill!"

"Break his back, sneak! Break his back! SNEAK!"

"Frightened…"

Different voices ran out through the cracks, as though from different people.

"You live in a sea of madness," Ingolsol said with a grin, as he pointed around them. "There's an army, out there. Monsters – all of them. Claudia and I, you call us Generals, but we never truly managed to subordinate a single one of them. We were merely their spokesperson. In time, even lumbering giants like those divine fragments – they would have been mere tools for your soul.

They would only have enriched you."

"But time plays its games, and we've had our luck, our chances," Beam finished for him. "In the dusty pit of that iron mine, we both agreed to see it done – to see the world, and its people, and to snatch their chances for our own. To fight the powerful, and secure ourselves a position. It was not what we imagined. We didn't think it would take so long.

But in the span of a few months, the game changed. I am not dissatisfied."

"Nor am I," Ingolsol said, smiling for the first time, in his true form, as his true self, the embodiment of evil. His smile betrayed his warmth, for a kindred spirit. Claudia watched in despair, as another giant's foot came stomping down, threatening to add to the network of fissures, and threatening to destroy Beam's soul.

But before the giant could achieve it, Ingolsol did as he promised to do long ago. He squeezed Beam's heart, and claimed his life for his own.

The moment Beam's heart stopped, they all felt it.

As he'd done battle inside his mind, in the depths of his soul, the battle had raged on around him, and his will had been felt.

The last of the monsters disappeared in a cloud of ash. The final remnants of Francis' army. They'd battled it out with the empowered villagers, and the broken monsters who had turned on their allies, and all had been crushed in their wake.

Those black robbed soldiers had proved to be weak. Terrifyingly so. They barely let out the slightest whispers of life as they were killed. It was almost unsettling. To fight against normal people after having fought the Yarmdon – it slowed a man's reflexes, and made him feel overcome with doubt.

The fact remained that they had been dealt with regardless. All of Francis' followers that he'd brought with him, both the clones and the main bodies. Their lives had been claimed, and then they'd disappeared, in a sea of sludge, as the lifeforce contract that they'd made with Francis long ago finally ended, and he found his power increasing all at once.

Along with the increases that he'd found as a result of his Domain – which was still hungrily drinking in the lifeforce of all that was natural around it – he was almost drunk with power. He'd arrived at the battle feeling as though he was on the edge of the Fourth Boundary, and now he'd easily thundered through the Fifth, all at once.

Inside his Domain, where his own magic was amplified again, it was as though he'd passed through the fabled Sixth Boundary as well.

All at once, Francis seized his progress. Or rather, he seized his power. It made his brain tingle as though it was full of acid. And now he saw it too – the final obstacle in his plan. The boy had died. The steady core containing that dark energy of Ingolsol, it had finally lifted, and it was given something closer to a life of its own.

He shouted out in glee.

"FINAAAAAAAALLY!" He howled, clutching at his head. "CHILDREN OF THE PAST, CHILDREN OF THE PRESENT! LOOK TO ME, AS I MAKE HISTORY!"

The villagers seemed to be aware that Beam was dead. Even as the air around them sparked with pure and overwhelming power, they found themselves looking over to the crater where Beam lay.

The aura that empowered them had faded. That godly strength – for it was literally that. It was the tiniest fragment of divine power that Beam had managed to redirect through will alone, and it had rendered them the most Spartan of warriors, the most terrifying of foes.

And now along with the life of the one that had given them it, it had faded away into nothing, leaving them as weak as they were before, and as tired. Hours upon hours of endless fighting. The village that they had been fighting for was nearly half reduced to rubble.

As luck would have it, Greeves' house still stood. The people thought that to be a good sign, for that building contained their children. But even if it had been flattened, the children would have been fine, inside of its basement. It was only really Greeves' riches that gained from its protection.

"Hey… The boy?" Greeves asked quietly, unable to even formulate a proper sentence. Nila sat crouched beside him. His body was still burning hot – she couldn't touch him. Every time she attempted to, it was like trying to grab a piece of metal fresh from the forge.