A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He spoke eloquently, and lucidly, like an entirely different person than before. His eyes were calm, and if one ignored the strange twitching of his cheeks as he spoke – a symptom of his prolonged habits as a madman – then his handsomeness shone through. He even seemed like a model intellectual.

The motivation for that sudden bit of sanity was right in front of him, as he recalled the reason why he was there in the first place. More power – that was always the answer. Or at least, now that he was in the position he was in, that was the solution. Before it was more knowledge, cleverer solutions, different angles. But the game was done – he'd done all his planning.

The villagers felt themselves exhausted after a night of battle, several lifetimes worth of struggle. But for Francis, it was even longer. Years upon years of maddening pursuit had led to that which he now saw in front of. To dare to hope for an end to it all, perhaps that was what fed his madness.

He reached for the divine energy, stained black now, and he called to Ingolsol.

"MY LORD! BEHOLD! I HAVE SET THE STAGE FOR YOU! ENLIGHTEN US WITH YOUR PRESENCE! THIS POWER IS YOURS – PURIFIED BY YOUR ESSENCE! CLAIM IT!" Francis said, in a sudden burst of religious fervour, as he shouted at the sky.

Dominus looked unimpressed. "If you were able to hold your mind for even a moment, your potential would have been unimaginable. I have seen youths like you, scarpering around the city, with the same greedy look in their eyes. They dismiss morals – they state that the timid man who lets his morals lead him, they say he's a fool, a coward, and a weakling."

"And to a degree, they're perhaps right. To be faced with a difficult choice, only to run and make no choice at all – that's weakness. But in you, I see the path that I instinctively shunned. The body breaks itself. There are some crimes that we cannot forgive ourselves for. That will never be overwritten.

I see only death in your eyes. You're a ghost of your own ideas."

It was only Dominus' words that met Francis' cry towards Ingolsol. They came cold and merciless, like nails in his coffin. The silence stretched on – still, Ingolsol did not respond.

The grand finale that Francis had been hoping for, it did not come.

That one moment, all those years ago, that had shifted the course of his life. When he had slain his family, and Ingolsol had acknowledged his sacrifice. He'd built plans on a single assumption: that Ingolsol would respond once again, if only his sacrifice was greater, and the conditions were perfect.

Such conditions could not be more perfect. Francis had over delivered. He'd sacrificed far more than he ought to have for the results that he desired. Yet the sky was silent.

A Dark God watched, a venomous smile on his face, as he saw the trail of despair begin to flow out of Francis, denser than anything that the villagers had been able to excrete. It ran out of him, thickening the air, as Francis' mind ground to a halt.

"It did not work, then," Dominus said. His voice was not gloating. There was only pity there, as though he had expected such an outcome. "You would have made a fine pupil, if we had met earlier. In different times, perhaps your name would have been spoken in awe, rather than in fear."

The despair continued to pour out of Francis as he looked up at the sky, waiting for his God. Black and thick, it reached that puddle of hanging divine energy, and sparked it back to life, as it began to twist and turn once more, flowing into the streams of his own despair, and once more filling him with energy.

Dominus noticed it at the same time Francis did. Dominus sighed, shifting his stance back into something more ready. "Come then, let us end this."

Francis' hand hardened into a fist. He pulled the divine energy towards him all at once, finding that it flowed him far more willingly than before, as it mixed in with the despair. A whole stream of it ran towards him, crashing into his nerves like electricity. It shocked him with a tremendous amount of power. Dominus watched, half-expecting him to crumble.

"Hoh…" He said. "The two of you really aren't that different then. To both be able to withstand the divine energy… Though I suppose you have that dark power to support your soul from crumbling."

Francis remained crouched, as he drank it all in. A gauntlet sprang up on his hand – heavy black iron, covered in spikes. He wore it well. His hand did not fall.

Dominus observed, without interrupting, as more and more of the divine energy ran towards Francis. He cast an eye back to Beam. He saw Nila's mouth fall agape, as there was a sudden spurt of blood, and Beam's heart began to beat once more.

'I was never much of a strategist,' Dominus thought with a wry grin. 'But I hope at least you'll have caught a glimpse of my one and only clever plan.'

He continued to watch as more divine energy flowed over to Francis. Instead of his knees buckling, the mage only seemed to grow stronger. His thin face thickened out, and his eyes had a light to them that they didn't before.

"Finaaaaaaaaaaaaaally, this damnable mage shows he has some use, after all," came a voice, as the mage stood up, his shoulders straight, and his arms thick with muscle – and yet more energy continued to flow to him. Armour ran up the length of his arm, giving him shoulder plates, all black and spiked on both arms, and then a chest plate in the centre.

"Ah… I suppose that was outside my expectations," Dominus sighed. "A strange world. I pity the boy. When this is done, he'll have no idea what normality is. He'll think it's common for Gods to walk among us, and mages, and monsters."