A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor-Chapter 876: Reaching - Part 7

'Heavy…" He grunted to himself. The blows felt like there was even more to them than before. Even timing it in accordance with the strange arc that Talon made, the blows wracked his whole body.

They wracked his body, and the pain was hardly bearable – yet he endured it. Where he had been unable to even stand a single blow before, now, he could at least parry them. There was something there to be had, something to be celebrated. Celebrations would have to wait, though, when death still swung so near.

As ever, Oliver found that he could not properly enjoy what little progress he had, not without transforming it into something even more special.

Enduring Talon's strike, Oliver sent back one of his own, putting a dangerous amount of force in it, leaving himself open to counters. He knew he ought to have built towards such an attack, step by step, but he was eager to assert at least some sort of advantage whilst the ground remained even.

Talon easily caught the strike with the steel shaft of his glaive, offering no more than a grunt. There was no backward step or anything of the like. He threw the blow off, and he once again tried a strike of his own, this time sweeping towards Oliver's legs.

With a significant amount of daring, Oliver took the blow going forward, daring to jump over it, in the hopes that he might seize the initiative. There, he almost fell into another one of Talon's well-honed traps. The sideways slash didn't move straight across, like a normal slash would.

There was a little flourish at the end, a sudden change of direction, as Talon brought the blade upwards to try and catch Oliver off-guard.

It came worryingly close to slicing the back of Oliver's ankles, but he managed to lift his feet out of the way just in time.

"The difference between a Sword and a General," he muttered to himself. The martial style was inevitably different. His earlier observation seemed to hold more and more truth to it. Talon's style didn't seem to build towards strikes – if a General was in extended man-on-man combat, then he'd already lost.

Instead, every blow that he threw was something of the utmost density, designed to finish the fight there and then.

There were advantages to both styles. With Dominus' sword in hand, Oliver could almost imagine the man tutting, as he saw through General Talon's weaknesses.

"A sword of impatience," he said, loudly enough that Talon could hear him.

The General's ears twitched. "Your father's words," he acknowledged. "I've heard him throw that accusation more than once – I never did quite find out what he meant."

"I shall show you," Oliver said. 'Patience,' he cautioned himself. 'Build towards it – don't seize it all at once.'

He steadied his breath, and forced his body to calm.

'Acknowledge the flow of combat, as it flows through all things. That river of progress that Dominus taught you, see how it extends,' Oliver counselled himself, using the same ideas that had allowed him to defeat the Boulder Crab, and had allowed him to take on whole groups of enemies at once.

The steady rhythm of combat, with all its contradictions. That want for speed, but that need to not be drawn in by it. To fall in love with no particular part of the dance, so that he might see the whole thing fully, in its entirety.

It was an ideal, and one that he would not grasp instantly, just as he had never managed to grasp it entirely before. But, that did not stop him from reaping the benefits, even from that incomplete idea.

He struck out with a feint, aiming the blow at Talon's legs, just as the General had aimed one at his. A feint was a good place to start – he'd started to fall in love with the style of Overwhelm too much. A feint was a good step to drawing him out of it.

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The General reacted heavily, as he ought to have. No moment functioned in isolation. Every little interaction they shared served to influence that reaction. It was the foundation upon which Oliver's bridge would be built.

He dashed forward, with a light lunge, in a style not too similar to Blackthorn. It wasn't even likely a strong enough blow to pierce armour, but it drew Talon's attention all the same. The General was forced to swat the blow aside with the end of his glaive – again, his reaction was more than it ought to have been for an attack that Oliver had hardly committed to.

But once more, the General was not wrong to have done so – based on their battle thus far, there would have been no wisdom in letting a single one of Oliver's strikes reach him, knowing how much strength they usually contained.

Now, out of nowhere, Oliver had gained a full step of advantage. That was the aim in both combat, and in strategy – seize the advantage, then capitalize on it. It was a wonder to Oliver that more strategists did not see their art form in single combat.

He circled Talon, feinting again, keeping his step of advantage steady. He could almost see Talon's back fully now, as he forced the General to deal with strikes that ought to have been ignored.

Another feint followed that one, and this time, Talon did not react. The exchange had gone on for a mere ten seconds, and yet the General had already picked up on the pattern, seizing a half-step back from Oliver, nearly crushing his advantage entirely.

That was to be expected against a strategist, though, Oliver thought. On the Battle board, it was rare that a man ever won in a single attack.

Oliver threw another blow, light and sharp, but with enough strength and enough accuracy to do damage. He threw it with the same laziness that he'd done with his feints, with a new style as its foundation – the style of the Speedster. The same style that he'd developed to take on Water Sprites and Bell Birds.

The General, as he'd conditioned himself not to, did not react to this strike. It scraped along his side unchecked, and opened a hole up through the chainmail.