A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 420 Where Danger Lies - Part 8

But in a moment, he was gone.

Blackthorn watched – she watched closely, more closely than the rest, and she could not see how he'd done it.

That irritating boy, with that confident smile sitting on his lips, all throughout the time they sparred.

And yet the man was a liar. She could see that. No man would smile with that sort of pain in his eyes. The way he fought now, it proved it. Trickery - a trickery that betrayed even the onlookers. He brought the lumbering beast that was Bournemouth in close, offering him his head, lowered and ready, as if on a platter...

Then in the next moment, he was gone. Blackthorn looked, but she couldn't see. She couldn't understand. She didn't have the ability to. More than anything, that frustrated her. She couldn't see how she could get stronger.

She'd practised harder than anyone and yet—

CRASH!

A strike from a wooden blade, weighted though it was, brought forth with the fury of a man that had climbed out of the pits of hell.

Bournemouth's armour deformed, the breastplate cave on itself. An impossible feat. Impossible. Blackthorn – quiet, expressionless, Lasha Blackthorn felt her jaw hang open, in surprise, as though she were just another girl, so easily impressed.

BANG!

"Halt! HALT! LEAVE HIM BOY!" Heathclaw roared, recovering his senses, the first man to speak in a crowd of two hundred, that had all turned to watch, their duals forgotten, to see Oliver pound Bournemouth into a messy pulp with a mere training sword.

Oliver looked off to the side, regaining his senses, somewhat, enough to see Bournemouth quiver. Enough to see the blood about his face, and the fear.

"If you're so frightened, run," he growled.

And then the man did. He scrambled to his feet like a beetle, and then began to half-run, half-trip away.

"BOURNEMOUTH! BOURNEMOUTH! GET BACK HERE YOU USELESS LOUT!" Heathclaw called after him. But the man merely kept running. The professor rounded on Oliver, grabbing him by his shirt. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SOLDIER, BASTARD?

WHAT DID YOU DO? YOU'RE LIKE YOUR FATHER, AIN'T YA? YOU TOUCH WITH THE DARKNESS?"

Oliver's fist swept about before he knew what he was doing. It crunched into Heathclaw's face. His anger hardly abated as the man went down. Oliver's breathing came rapidly. He felt like a wolf with the scent of blood in his nostrils. Everywhere he looked, he saw a foe.

He couldn't calm himself. A rational part of his mind told him to slow, that he was safe, that these were merely the grounds of the school, but another part barked at him that he was weak, that these people were weak, that he needed to find foes, he needed strength, he needed more.

It ached at him, he clutched at his heart. Something was missing, something important. Some wounds hadn't healed. Your journey continues on empire

"BASTARD--! YOU STRUCK A PROFESSOR!" Heathclaw's nose was bloody, as he laid in a heap on the ground, half-stunned, though his righteous anger still burned just as hotly.

Oliver reached down, and grasped the man. Heathclaw's hand snuck out. There was power in it, and speed. The speed of a man in the Third Boundary... and yet, this man was weaker than Lombard. Oliver slapped his hand aside, and glared at him, the gold still spinning in his eyes.