A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Every instinct that Verdant had told him to follow that sword carefully with his eyes, and to try to predict its path. He was filled with the urge to use every ounce of information he had, overcomplicating what was simply a routine slash.

He forced his eyes elsewhere, away from the man's weapon. He looked him straight in the eyes instead, changing his focus, doing what felt beyond counterintuitive.

The moment their eyes met, Gadar flinched. He showed the first little bit of proper emotion that he'd shown in a while. His eyes squinted uncertainly, and then he resumed his attack, as though to reassure himself. Verdant kept looking him square in the eye, daring to trust his body to what it needed to do, even without following the arcs of the slashes directly.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Steel rang out, and Verdant still kept his head. He didn't feel any added pain. He assumed that meant that he hadn't been struck yet, but he wasn't certain.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

He grit his teeth, forced to endure another attack. It was an interesting thing to realize, and to prove – that fact that he didn't need to follow the weapon directly. But as it was, it still didn't help him in his current predicament. It only forestalled the situation that they were currently in.

Verdant didn't panic. Even if it was not immediately obvious, he knew that he'd already gained something. That was the freedom of his attention. If he needed not to follow the weapon, then his eyes could feed him other information. There were few better than he at looking inside a man, after all.

Confident that his body would deal with the blows in the absence of direct tracking, he focused his attention entirely on Gadar. He calmed himself. It was as though he was back at the Idris Castle, sent to one of those many tea parties that his father had arranged – purely political affairs. He looked at a man, and saw more than just his face. He saw Gadar's habits, and he saw traces of emotion.

That mask of his face was bared. The nervousness, irritation and fear that lay underneath it all was laid bare. His extreme feelings of loyalty towards his General, his quickly growing impatience for his current position, and his shame for not being able to do more, Verdant began to see them all, and he began to understand just who Gadar was.

CLANG! CLANG!

Their strikes came, yet Verdant only needed to parry two. He stepped in past the third, as if he knew where it was coming.

Gadar appeared unphased, but Verdant could see that beneath the surface that sudden dodge had left him full of doubts. Once again, the man reapplied his attack in order to clear those doubts.

CLANG!

That rhythm of three strikes was overturned by a single parry. The next, Verdant stepped past, dodging it, and closing the distance, and the third he overturned with a counterattack, thrusting his spear straight at Gadar's heart, with only the barest hint of his earlier clumsiness.

Suddenly, Gadar was made to take a step back. His eyebrows wrinkled. He couldn't keep his doubts contained any longer. He didn't understand. The realm of Boundaries was absolute. Third Boundary men always beat those of the Second.

He didn't seem to realize what a distorting factor Oliver Patrick was. Verdant smiled at that, suddenly feeling very comfortable.

This time, the priest forced the attack. His body took care of it. All that training knew what to do. His focus simply remained on Gadar, on looking ever deeper, and understanding him evermore, as the man slowly came to pieces, and revealed more of himself to the priest.

Bohemothia drunk him in. The Sea God's want for knowledge was borderline malevolent. There were boundaries that he was willing to cross that other Gods would most certainly frown upon. Verdant did not mind. Through Oliver Patrick, he'd learned of the use of a certain degree of malevolence.

As he understood more and more of Gadar, he quickly came to realize what he disliked. The more he learned of what Gadar disliked, the more Verdant did it. When Gadar stepped forward to press his attack, Verdant stepped forward with him, asserting a clunky rhythm that went against the aesthetics that a man like Gadar liked, and broke his flow.

Their weapons clashed awkwardly enough to wound them both. Gadar took a backward step in frustration. Verdant made use of the chaos, sending two thrusts this time at Gadar. The first thrust pinned Gadar in place, as he was forced to parry it, and the second broke past his guard and ran through his shoulder.

Verdant's calmness remained. Not watching the fight directly, he was able to make detached decisions in regards to it. He asserted his hold more and more fully on Gadar's mind, well aware that he had not beaten him yet.

When Gadar's desperate blow came, as he let go of all semblance of technique, and put it all into a single looping strike, well out of rhythm with what he'd thrown so far, Verdant expected it. Verdant threw his thrust before Gadar was even halfway through his strike. It was a predictive move. Both Gadar's own forward moment and Verdant's own extreme strength, hit the man all at once.

It broke past his guard, and pierced straight through the middle of his chest, lifting him up high off the ground.

The man gasped, and blood fell from his mouth. Only now did Verdant look at him.

"W-what…" Gadar croaked. "What laws… do you people… operate by?" He said.

The priest spared him a sad smile, his sadness at the death of a great man was the only thing that overwrote the amusement at his rather eloquent expiration.

"The laws of Oliver Patrick," Verdant said. "He is our distortion – he is our strength."

So quiet was Verdant's victory over Gadar, and so separated from the sorts of excitable emotions that men were want to exude upon victory, that none around him seemed to realize what had occurred. Verdant's monk-like calm remained. He did not wish to be in the spotlight. His was the role of the watcher.

It went against his very nature to raise up his spear and assert his victory – but with an immense force of will, he did it anyway.