A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

A flick of his wrist, and Ingolsol's sword swung, his face a mask of confidence. Even being cut back as he was, after the difference between the two of them was made so obvious in the realm of swordsmanship, his arrogance hardly abated.

He was several metres short of landing an attack with the edge of his sword – but he didn't need to, for the lightning that he'd kept there leapt from it, and like a bolt – far faster than Ingolsol himself was capable of moving in that form – it shot off from the end of his weapon, and thundered past Dominus' side.

With a line of blood, he landed the first significant strike of their feet. His smile widened in satisfaction. His teeth were frighteningly white against the dark of the night.

"Do you see?" He asked. "How amusing is it, that you have spent tens of thousands of hours honing your blade, and I'm able to dismiss it all, by fighting in a realm you have no idea of?"

"Amusing," Dominus agreed, with his jaw hardened. "Had we met six months ago, then you might have ended me with that. But I'm not as rigid as I was once."

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSKRRRRRRRRRAAAAAPPPPPPPP!

There was a sudden shriek of power, and then a blinding light. It came so suddenly that not a single on-looker had the chance to shield their eyes. Lombard had been watching closely – his perception was the most astute out of all those watching, and yet even he did not see the slightest hint of an incoming attack. He saw no muscles tense from either Ingolsol or Dominus.

It was so sudden that, the night being as it was, his first reaction was to assume there was a new enemy.

The blindness passed after a few moments, and their stinging eyes recovered.

Left, in a sea of flame, were the remnants of Inglsol's severed arm, being drunk by a fire so red it seemed almost hellish. This was not the calm orangey flame that burning wood comforted a man with after a long day's work, this was a flame the colour of the red embers that sat at the bottom.

It was hard to tell what had just happened. Even Ingolsol was glancing down at his arm, his expression frozen, showing his lack of understanding. But Dominus drew back his sword with a calmness, as fluid as a dancer, he returned to his original stance, after having completed his strike. The flames began to flicker away, as he returned to calmness.

"The Sixth Boundary," was all Dominus said by way of explanation. "The abandoning of rigid ways, and the questing for higher heights."

"…So it would seem," Ingolsol said. He no longer looked amused, as he eyed the remnants of his arm.

Where Ingolsol's blood ran, the soil spasmed, as plants grew, and then died, and then grew again and again, in an endless cycle. The divine energy that encompassed him melded with his blood, and ran out with it. It spread out at his feet, as he covered the wound with a hand, to slow the rate at which it left him.

After having it in him for so long – or at least, in terms of Beam's soul, it had felt like an eternity – Beam could sense that divine energy with more clarity than the others. He could feel how Ingolsol's aura slackened.

But there too, he saw the first flaking of Dominus' flesh.

The skin that had already been discoloured by purple now began to blotch with black. Those black blotches began on his forearm, and where they appeared, with each breath of his chest that swayed his arms, a fragment of skin fell away with it.

That did not escape Ingolsol's golden eyes. He found himself smiling once more. "Ah. That reminds me of the stakes. Before this battle had even begun, I claimed your life."

"You did not, Pandora did," Dominus said, making the smile falter. Ingolsol narrowed his eyes at him.

"I would not dislike you, mortal, were you not so firm in your heart. There's no room in you for a bit of fun. A most irritating thing to witness," he dragged up his sword again. Massive though it was, he seemed to have no trouble wielding it with one arm.

Once more a bolt of lightning ran towards his blade, energising it. But this time, the sky did not calm, even once Ingolsol had taken the lightning from it. Instead, it continued to spark, flash after flash, in a deadly rumble, like the growl of some bestial God.

Then it struck the ground at Dominus' feet, a single shaft of it, close enough to have been a problem. By the time It landed, Dominus had already disappeared. Once more, he used his speed to close the distance between him and Ingolsol.

A pair of black steel gates appeared between them, large enough to let elephants through, ornate and detailed, they appeared as suddenly as the lightning had. Their appearance was enough to make even Dominus pause for a moment, before he decided to run around them, but where he went, he found a castle wall in his place.

More speed he picked up, and more castle was thrown between them, each brick as sturdy as the gate was. Moss grew over it, and vines grew as well, despite the frigid winter air. It was as though it had stood for a thousand years, rather than a fraction of a second.

Eventually, the castle wall began to circle round again, and as it did, in the centre of the stone circle, there arose a stone keep, rumbling out of the ground like a stone spear. On top of it was where Ingolsol stood, his sword in one hand, as he ignored the blood that streamed down the other.

Whereas Francis had needed to use his hands, and demanded a good amount of concentration for even the most basic of spells, Ingolsol had his castle bloom up around him as though it was only natural. He did not even need to look where his magic was cast. It ran to him, according to his will, as simply as a planted seed growing into a flower.