A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

The spear was easily brushed aside by the giant. In fact, Beam did not even see it move. It was as though it had been repelled, rather than stopped, as though it was simply too weak an attack to have an effect on it.

But before Beam could even see what was happening next, Ingolsol had appeared in front of his divine fragment, a being that towered over him – yet his sword was swift and without hesitation, it went straight for the next.

The divine fragment had enough awareness to show surprise.

"Our Lord's domain is our domain," Ingolsol told it. "We swim these waters just as well as he. For we are him, for as long as our bonds last. You have no place here. Yield yourself to my blade, and allow me to drink in your power."

Even with that element of surprise, his blade failed to reach the divine fragment's skin.

"Weak," was all the divine fragment said in reply.

"How lacking in personality!" Ingolsol laughed. "I will not be done in by a mere drone. In my presence, in front of my will, you are mere flames, dancing according to my intentions."

Flames though he might have been, Ingolsol's weaponry still did not manage to reach him. Claudia closed in on her own divine fragment from the side, jabbing a flurry of blows faster than the eye could see, all of them striking their target, pummelling her in the chest.

But as with Ingolsol's opponent, her attacks showed no effect. There was not even a tremor of emotion on the divine fragment's face.

"This one is lacking even the will of our main body," Claudia said. "She has the cruel eyes of a God looking at an insect. She's primitive and incomplete."

"I imagine the intentions of both our Gods wound their ways together on their way here, blunting each other's intent," Ingolsol told her. "Frankly, they're eye sores."

Claudia's divine fragment sent her hammer crashing down. Deftly, Claudia managed to slip out of the way of it, but she could do nothing about the tremor that such a powerful attack left in its wake, and she was cast aside by it.

"It didn't break the stone?" Ingolsol noted, after watching the attack land, and the hammer pound into the steps, without even leaving a crack.

And then a moment later, a stream of destruction ran up the steps, sending stone flying, and leaving a fissure that travelled up all fifty of those steps that separated Beam from the battle. The fissure ended just before it could swallow up Beam's throne. He eyed it with narrowed eyes.

"Ah… I suppose that makes more sense," Ingolsol said with a cackle. "These are true monsters, after all. Better not let them land too many attacks like that, Claudia. Each blow to the throne room is a blow to our Lord himself."

"I know that!" Claudia said, biting back a scathing reply, as she once again went to attack the divine fragment, this time targeting her from the back, appearing in her blind spot the same grace that Ingolsol had managed earlier.

The divine fragment must have predicted it, for already there was a hammer coming her way. In a whip of hair, Claudia just barely managed to pull her head back before the hammer shattered it.

Ingolsol slashed again and again at his divine fragment, hitting his upper arm, his shoulders, his hands, his head, and then his back, darting around in a flurry of movement. But each time a blow was set to land, there was a solid inch of thickness before he reached the skin below. He tutted in irritation as a bead of sweat began to form on his brow.

"Woah there!" He barely dodged the sword slash that came in reply against his attacks, only for the wind of the attack to buffet him, and nearly knock him from his feet.

"I have to say, I commend his Lordship for managing to take even a single blow from these monsters," Ingolsol said, as he recovered his breath.

Beam watched their battling with a frown. The more strikes his subordinates landed, the more obvious the strength of the enemy became. It was as though they were beating hammers against an anvil, or sticks against a stone. There simply wasn't any reason for their blows to give, for them to have an effect. The magnitude of difference between the two of them was like ants against a bison.

It was a whole different world.

And then every time the divine fragments struck back, they did so with such viciousness that it left a hole in the surroundings. Every time they left a mark in the stone, Beam could feel a piece of himself being carved away, as though he was the one who was being struck.

He understood it to be his will that was getting eroded, from what Ingolsol and Claudia had said. He understood that, and it was with a degree of alarm that he noted the fragments seemed to be only growing stronger, rather than weaker, with each attack that they swung, and each blow that they took.

They grew to wield their power better, they grew to take command of more of it. Their only weakness was a lack of self. That information came to Beam like a natural fact that he'd grown up with, like it was something that was self-evident. He felt like he'd had such a thought long ago, in a place different from this one.

They lacked will, and yet earlier they had spoken to him with arrogance. Now they were nothing more than machines, relearning what it was to be an individual. He didn't understand that. It was as though as soon as the true fragments of Claudia and Ingolsol had appeared, they'd snatched away the last remaining dregs of personality from the divine fragments.

If that were true, did that not mean that they had already dealt them a fatal blow? Was it less about attacking them, and more about taking away from them, and making it his own?