A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Once more, Oliver captured the spearmen with his archers. He wondered if he was chipping away a piece of Skullic's heart as he did so – whether he'd be able to find the heart of the man's attack, and do away with it.

"Where do you suppose it lies?" Skullic said, as if reading Oliver's thoughts. "The centre of this formation here? What do you suppose it all hinges on? Where are the weaknesses? If I were to break the formation, and move these archers here, would the heart of the formation shift along with it."

"…Maybe it's to do with how much remains the same when you break it, then," Oliver guessed, using Skullic's own question against him.

"Then you would say, roughly, the centre of the attacking idea is also the physical centre of the formation, because those are the most difficult pieces to move and change," Skullic said. "Then, if I were to do this – if I were to break my formation like this, would you call it weakness?"

To Oliver's horror, Skullic took the perfect attack that he had been building up, and he made a move that seemed worse than novice. It looked as if he wasn't reading the board at all. He took a spearman out of the centre of his formation, and sent him blundering off to the side.

Oliver made a hurried response to capitalize on the supposed mistake, but on the very next turn, Skullic sent another piece to join the first. And so Oliver added to his own attack, feeling the need for a counter attack building up.

"The board is not particularly big," Skullic said thoughtfully. "You've noticed, I'm sure, that there are many times when our pieces seem to be stuck. When they're all in their perfect placements, and you wish not to move any further, for to do so, would only be to ruin your position… So it seems to me, that part of the strategy of the Battle board lies in breaking.

You are forced to make a move each turn, and by virtue of that move, you are forced to break what you've built."

Skullic continued to commit his spearmen away from his central formation, and Oliver continued to press his attack, but the confidence of that attack was beginning to die down. Somehow, he hadn't managed to pierce his way straight through the centre. He didn't understand why.

But he did note that what had first seemed like a mistake, in that separate formation of spearmen, was instead beginning to grow into a threat in its own right, one to which held no counterplay.

"One could argue that the necessity of sacrifice on the Battle board is only by virtue of the limitations the board itself imposes. But I am of the opposite opinion. I believe that to be a universal law of strategy. It's fundamental, I believe… I think in terms of destroying what I have built, whilst exposing the fewest weaknesses that I possibly can.

You, rightly, saw that my centre was weak, when I decided to break it, in favour of a new idea, as this one reached its stagnation. However, I saw too that it wasn't weak enough for you to immediately break through. The knife's edge, Patrick," Skullic said. "That is what we as a General must walk upon."

There hadn't been a move for a good few minutes now, as Oliver eyed up the strange position that Skullic had forced him into. He'd had the most perfect, overwhelming attack, and he'd abandoned it willingly. It couldn't even be called a pincer that he'd set up. It was like self sabotage. As if he was attacking himself before Oliver could do it. And yet, it had worked to an alarming degree.

There didn't seem to be any good options for Oliver to respond with. In the end, it was a threatening cavalry move that was the best he had – an ignoring of his own defence in hope of an enemy blunder.

"Your nature reveals itself in that move," Skullic said, hovering his finger over Oliver's lone cavalry piece, as he focused it with arrow fire. "You rely on your strength, Oliver, and that is only natural. It is a mighty strength that you have been entrusted with. However… That strength is a tactic – the only thing that you have saving your battlefield strategy from being completely redundant.

You rely on the fact that you can best a man in a duel. It's not a bad thing. But it is one dimensional. It isn't the sort of thing that you can do twice. How many battles out of a hundred do you suppose you would beat Zilan in?"

Oliver didn't have a reply. He tried to grasp all the pieces that he could of the Battle board, in order to force something to happen. Even Ingolsol seemed to be rising to meet his expectations. Just like him, the supposed Dark God hated losing. That greedy desire for victory began to overwhelm Oliver.

He'd never beaten Skullic before, but the man was so certain of his victory that now seemed like the best time to surprise him.

"I will tell you the answer, Patrick. One time out of a hundred – that is all that would be given your way, provided you made no progress. The first battle, the first meeting, that will always be where you hold your advantage," Skullic said. "But this one, indeed, was an even bigger surprise than the others.

For your battling with him to push you through to the Fourth Boundary, that is more fortunate than it could be called praiseworthy. Perhaps I can compliment you, for the sheer fact that it was an option. But the Gods are fickle, Oliver. To rely on the Boundaries, on your own progressions in the heat of the moment, when you yourself do not understand those laws perfectly, that is folly.

Hard-won battlefield strategy and experience will always be the superior card."

Even as Oliver searched for it, the perfect move would not come.

"Strategy is not an act of a single move," Skullic said. "Is a vast network of plans that facilitate the playing of that single move. You should not need to begin each turn starting from scratch. You have already lost. It's your willfulness in being unable to admit your defeat that gets you into trouble. But that too is a strength."