A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

With no resistance, he settled into a state of higher efficiency. He operated according to a speed that he did not set. He felt it with his body, that balanced speed that he could handle for hours upon hours at a time. The zone of perfect struggle that would allow him to be resilient for years.

He turned the blade aside as it came at him, his movements just slightly sharper than before, and then he buried his sword in his attacker's gut.

The man looked down in surprise. Beam's weapon tore to the left, causing the man's organs to spill out. The man grasped at them in a panic, and tried to put them back in. But his life was already over, and his struggle showed no reward.

A dozen men Beam had faced off against, now that number was cut down by one.

Beam almost smiled. He felt like he was meeting an old friend. This was who he was, deeper and darker than everything else. Progress came and went, progress was the food and whimsy of the Gods. Beauty, as Beam saw it, was struggle. It was his oldest friend.

It was his path to meaning when all else failed. For the struggle wouldn't lie to him, the struggle wouldn't leave him. Whenever he sought to find it, the struggle would always be there.

In fact, those were the moments that Beam shined the brightest. As everything changed around him, as his strength grew, as his efforts suddenly drew praise, as people suddenly looked at him as though he was something special – it was the moments of struggle when he truly knew who he was.

It was in the bitterness of injuring his leg as he lost against the Hobgoblin. That had stirred his emotions, and angered him. In the suffering of those emotions, there lay Beam.

In the physical pain that came with battle against that same Hobgoblin, even as it evolved, there lay Beam.

The struggle, every time, it guided Beam to a path that he never would have found on his own. To strengths and discoveries that he never would have learned without it.

It was in expecting things to go his way that Beam had drawn wrong. He'd let power whisper to him, just as Ingolsol did. It tempted him, it tricked him, it told him that he had control now, they'd grown strong enough, that there was no more need for struggle. But he'd had it all wrong. It was never about overcoming the struggle, it was embracing it. Only then did his mind finally find peace.

Only then did his true worth shine forth. Only then did the Gods smile at him in joy.

It was only that that kept him from Ingolsol's curse when all else succumbed to it. True despair was in that loss of control, that loss of hope. But swimming in the sea of struggle? None could take that from him.

His sword flashed again, and cut another man down. It bit deep into his shoulder, carving him up. Beam was tired. Awfully tired. His calves ached from constant movement. His lungs burned from continually heaving in the cold air.

Even his sword arm was wrought with fatigue – he had could hardly hold it up anymore. And so he didn't. There was no need.

The struggle guided him. It didn't demand that he perform impossible feats, it merely shone a light on what was possible and what was not. No longer could he hold his sword arm up at the ready, and so he didn't. He allowed that pain to give birth to possibility, and it terrified the enemies before him.

The light began to glow in Beam's eyes. Not the gold of Ingolsol, nor the purple of Claudia, but the blue and green that was Beam. They shone startlingly, perfect jewels on the coldest night. They had all the ferocity and innocence of a panther, clinging to the treetops, as it marked passersby as prey.

He didn't kill them out of anger. His reasons for swinging his word had dulled. He'd forgotten the future. He merely knew where he was now, for he'd been here so many times before, he was in that perfect zone of struggle, where lions hunted and buffalo ran.

They'd had a perfect shield wall, for a while, as imposing as a towering mountain. With two of them dead, however, that began to change. The openings revealed themselves more and more. Beam did not pounce on them. He didn't have the energy to properly seize the opportunity.

He merely stood, and waited, gathering his breath, listening to his body and his breathing, noting his weaknesses, and not fearing them, merely taking them into account.

The Yarmdon couldn't afford to stand still. Orders were being shouted from the back, in that harsh Northern tongue.

"SROVAR!" Jok shouted, demanding that they advance. He knew the strength of a Blessed Warrior, and he knew how to stifle them. He knew that if he kept his men tight, and smothered them, at the rank that boy was, he would crumble. With twelve men already through those stakes, already pressing the boy down, Jok's gaze had begun to wander.

He'd seen the boy gather wounds. He'd felt in his chest the feeling that he always felt just before an enemy broke. That building of tension, that mounting of the problems, that overwhelming gravity that brought even the largest of men to his knees… And yet, when he'd glanced back, two of his men lay dead.

His heart missed a beat, as time froze for him. He was sure that a mere five men were already stifling the boy's movements. They covered each other's defences, and made a mighty obstacle to overcome. Now that he'd had twelve men, that was doubly as true. Yet, instead of being broken under the pressure, it was his men that now snapped.

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"What manner of..?" He murmured to himself. Were all the Stormfront like this? It was his first time doing battle against them, and his first time being pushed so hard in all of his career.

He glanced over toward where the other commander was. The commands had stopped coming. The man had all but disappeared. It was merely a sea of his own men over there, trampling the remnants of those Stormfront squadrons.