A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 873: Reaching - Part 4

"BEHOLD!" Oliver said, bellowing with as much power as he could manage in his voice. "THE GREAT GENERAL BROUGHT LOW OFF HIS HORSE!"

He prayed that those from the other side of the battlefield could hear. He didn't know what their status was, but he could hear their struggle. He could only hope that Verdant had managed to hold the men together. To see one's Commander fall was a brutal blow. Now, at least, he'd managed to inflict the same on the enemy, to a much lesser degree.

If there was any question about whether Oliver's men had heard him, it was soon answered.

"OLIVER! OLIVER! OLIVER!"

Above the din of combat, there was thundered a name like a dragon's heartbeat. Steady, and powerful, any man with breath to spare hurled that name up into the air. Verdant did so even more strongly than the rest, despite the blood that coated him. Blackthorn did the same, shouting with a volume that was ill-suited to her, as she too was covered in Rivera's cuts, pointing her sword at the enemy.

Nila aimed to do better than mere words. She pulled back the string of her bow, and aimed not just for the giant of a man in front of her, but for an ideal, beyond where she was now – the same ideal that she'd scratched when she'd managed to reach Rivera from all that distance away.

Her bowstring nearly snapped from the force she put in it, and even that was not enough for the girl. She needed more from the weapon, regardless of its draw strength. She needed that which brought down the strongest of the mountain beasts. Not merely an arrow, shot strong, and true, but a powerful arrow, shot from an enemy's blind spot.

For the first time in all her time on the battlefield, she actively attempted to make herself hidden, to slip into the enemy's blind spot, and target him from there.

"You…" Talon said, pointing at Oliver with a quivering finger. "You've gone too far."

"As far as one would dare go on the battlefield," Oliver said, not a hint of guilt. "I went all the way."

Talon clenched his teeth hard enough to shatter. His heart pounded in excitement, despite the anger. He spoke of this to Gadar often – he wanted an enemy to surprise him. But whenever such an enemy came along, Talon would always feel anger at his arrival. It was a conflicting set of emotions that drove the man.

Hearing his name, shouting as it was, Verdant's words came back to him like a premonition. To be the centre of an army, with so much distance between the two of them. Dare he believe that to be possible? Verdant predicted that it would be progress that won them the battle, if nothing else – could Oliver dare to believe that he would be their catalyst for progress?

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Even in the moment, needing to believe it, that belief did not come easily. Only in hearing his name, shouted by the voices of his men, did he once more feel that connection, in a way opposite to what they had anticipated. He felt that flow of Command towards him, in the same way that Claudia had encouraged him.

'You thought that I could empower the men, and give them strength, Verdant,' Oliver muttered. 'Who would have thought that it was the men that would empower me?'

Talon rushed in on Oliver, the need for words forgotten. His proud horse Roswalt lay dead and bleeding on the floor after over a decade of service. Rage fuelled his every movement.

Oliver ducked to the side, his feet quick, and agile. He let loose a flurry of sharp pointed little jabs, the sort that he might use to defeat Water Sprites, or such numerous foes. Against the likes of Talon, those blows did little more than buy time, and indeed it was time that Oliver wanted.

He chased after Talon's shadow, as though blind to all else. The sudden urge to want to get into his enemy's blindspot struck him. It was an odd idea for him. It was not how he'd ever fought before, but here it was, all of a sudden, resting in the forefront of his mind, urging him to make use of it.

As Talon's glaive swept through the air, Oliver ducked under it, falling into his Monstrous Style. He didn't bother to alight all the way to his feet. He instead used his hand to steady himself, and kept low to the floor.

He could feel the strength returning to his limbs with every extra moment that he bought, but he wasn't fool enough to think that he couldn't end up on his back again if one of Talon's blows landed.

The General tracked Oliver's movements as best he could, but the unusualness of the style must have thrown him off. The strikes came a half step slower than Oliver had expected them to, and before he knew it, he'd ended up nearly fully behind Talon's back.

From there, it was as if a whole different world was revealed. He could tell where Talon was about to turn merely from the retraction of his shoulder blades, and the slight motion of his hips. When Talon whirled right, Oliver was already dashing left. Somehow, with mere footwork, he'd managed to achieve two steps of advantage ahead of Talon, and now he was inclined to cash in on them.

Switching to the style of Overwhelm, he levelled a strike against Talon's exposed back. There was no way to defend against it. About the only thing the General could do was dodge – and he did just that. It was as if he had eyes on the back of his head. All of a sudden the General had jumped to the side, and rolled to his feet, and Oliver's advantage was removed in but a single instant.

"Trickery," Talon growled.

Oliver tilted his head, confused. That wasn't trickery. He shifted his stance to be wider than it was previously, and allowed his shoulder to loosen up, changing his style fully into the style of Trickery.

"Ingolsol," Oliver murmured. This was the style that he always felt closer to the dark God in. Whenever he settled into it, the Dark God seemed to whisper all sorts of ideas into his mind. He seemed to know the best way to unsettle a man.