A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

As Beam's arm twitched again for another jab, the Half-Titan unleashed a vicious swing towards Beam's head. It was perfectly timed, all in line with that reality that Beam had been creating, that sense of expectancy, that the attacks would rain down in this position, regularly.

But as it threw its overhand, Beam was already ducking down, in a slash of his sword that started at the ground and flew up towards the Konbreaker's torso. He'd won the exchange – that much was clear, as the wind rushed past his ear, and his balance was perfectly contrary to the Half-Titan's, he landed an attack clean on its torso.

Of course, an attack on the torso of this shelled Half-Titan meant very little. As Beam had expected, the edge of his sword couldn't catch, he couldn't lacerate the shell. If he'd put any more force in, then his blade would have shattered.

Then, what was to be done? His misdirection had created an opening, now what? His style of overwhelming might, that hero's slash, it would have no effect on that shell, no matter how much force Beam put behind it. Not only that, the superior manoeuvrability of this creature, compared to a regular Konbreaker, was already beginning to make itself apparent.

The Half-Titan was already shifting its legs underneath it, to recover its balance, and to return the battle back to an even state. Beam sought the answer to the question – he sought a completed solution, a total battle art.

He could create openings, he could end the enemy in a single slash, and at times he had even been capable of using momentum, but how did he keep the state of battle for himself once he'd taken it?

The eyes of a monster seemed to offer him insight into that instinct. Those predatory eyes, that searched for the slightest hints of weakness. Those monster eyes that delighted Ingolsol so thoroughly.

It was with reckless abandon that Beam moved forward. His sword had failed to do the job, and so he moved in with his fist next, forcing the Half-Titan to defend perfectly, as his knuckle aimed for the underside of its hard chin.

The Half-Titan had been in the midst of moving backwards, and its centre of balance was off. It managed to dodge, but that only set it further off balance.

It was a state of battle that Beam had seen many times before, that state of overwhelm, of shifting the momentum, of attacking continually until the fatal attack finally presented itself, as the enemy grew more and more off balance, and spent more energy on the last attack than this one.

But this time, it felt different. It felt more whole, less like separate thought processes, and more like a singularity, a single idea of poison and of flow. To get under the enemy's skin, and slowly wear them down, until there was nought they could do but accept death.

His misdirection bolstered the monstrous instinct, that free-flowing style of aggressive combat. As the creature dodged Beam's fist, Beam leapt at it with a kick, attacking the same area that he had before.

Just as with his earlier jabs, he implanted an idea in the Titan's mind that he controlled that space, that such an area was to be avoided, and now, off balance as it was, as it moved away, it moved straight into the path of Beam's blade.

Not only did it leave itself open for the attack – its momentum was so off that it lent the attack extra force. Beam's blade easily ran through its neck, missing the lip of that harder outer shell, and severing yet another head.

The head fell to the floor with a thud, with a weighty thing. It hit the ground like a chunk of rock falling from a cliff. Its body took a few unsteady steps on those three Gorebeast legs that it had, and then it collapsed, completely and utterly.

Beam acknowledged the death with a brief glance. His thoughts were more on his technique. His hand felt hot. He felt like he'd touched something special. His heart urged him to grow excited, feeling as though he had earned such a pleasant feeling, but with the danger so near on the horizon, Beam couldn't be satisfied with anything less than the finished product.

For the first time, he'd managed to seamlessly push his three different styles together, with his misdirection creating opportunity, his monster's style creating momentum, and his hero's style delivering the execution. But though it was overwhelming, it wasn't where he wanted it to be yet. He felt more potential from it. It needed to be more unified, more seamless.

They shouldn't be separate styles at all. They needed to be one unified idea.

A stunned state overtook the soldiers as they watched him end that Half-Titan so easily. One pair had to share a glance with each other, so that they could confirm that they'd both seen the same thing. With the Half-Titan head on the floor, they were uncertain – could things really have been ended so easily?

But when the body tottered and collapsed along with it, it was clear that they could and they had been.

Cheers erupted as they abandoned their work and raised their shovels up into the air once more. A mighty enemy, indeed it was, but they had a mightier ally. They raised those spades up high and cheered that fact.

Beam was already running down his next set of enemies – there were still those bothersome archers to deal with, after all. But as soon as he closed the distance between himself and them, the ease with which he slaughtered them, even being Horned-Goblins as they were, was almost tragic.

They raised their bows up to fend off his sword, but his sharp blade easily passed through the wood and the string, before burying itself into necks and into chests, taking organs and taking throats.

They were dealt with soon enough, and Beam left the battlefield as clear as it had been ten minutes before.