A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Arthur suffered to look at them. His men no doubt suffered too, as they were held down by the ground itself, by quagmires that the sand had transformed into. By the vines of those forests that had sprung so suddenly up out of the ground, making lush and impassable that which once had been mere barren sand. Others had their fates to drowning, falling into rivers short enough that Arthur could see where they began, and where they ended, yet deep enough and fast enough that they could drown any man, armoured or not.

The Pandora Goblin's strength was not in its giant arms, or the poison that was said to dwell within its teeth and claws. It was in its very existence. Pandora had made it thus. This realm that it was trapped in, it belonged entirely to it. It could warp it however it wished. It was a limited creature, for true, but by the thin line of balance that the Gods were forced to walk, it was made all the more powerful for it. That very thought made Arthur believe that the talk of the wish granted to those that slew it was likely true, for such a fearsome beast could never have been birthed if it didn't have some degree of balance in it like that.

It wasn't magic exactly that the Pandora Goblin wielded. Arthur knew magic by now, he'd developed a sense for it, he fancied he could even feel mana. Dominus had joked that with senses like that, he ought to become a mage himself. The thought made Arthur shiver, for as close as he was to magic, he feared it as well. There were reactions that he brought about in the world around him, in trees, and the animals of the forest, and even people, that made Arthur half-afraid that he was already a mage himself. One of those sinister, mad men, using his powers without even truly knowing it.

By his own magics, he'd formed up that army of ten thousand, and he'd sent them plunging, within barely a handful of minutes of combat, straight to their deaths. Their terrified screams as they were tortured in those final moments, by a reality that went in imagination beyond anything a nightmare could likely conjure up, ate at Arthur with accusation. Left there he was, bereft of his horse, for the Pandora Goblin had snatched that up away from him too with a quagmire that sprang up right in front of him. It did all that, apparently to simply leave Arthur alone, so that it might deal with him by himself.

He tried to circle it, he looked for a path towards its open hide, he rushed and danced over all the obstacles that were placed his way, through thick forests, over rivers, and then again over that deep sand once it was allowed to return. He came closer, slicing through Hobgoblins and goblins as they came at him. That mirrored army of ten thousand targeting him entirely now that they'd dealt with his men. He cut through them as if he were an army of ten thousand himself. Inside a radius of a couple of steps, there was nothing that awaited them aside from a sword swung faster than any creature could track. The only evidence of its movement was the blood that sprayed after it.

When quagmires came for him, at times, Arthur turned his blade on them too. His instincts pointed to a hidden weakness in them, right in the heart of combat. A centre that allowed them to exist for as long as they did – that same balance that allowed the Pandora Goblin to exist in the first place. He sprang straight into swamps now, lunging for those invisible centres, knowing to trust them. There wasn't even a physical sensation when his sword did cut through them, it was purely in the realm of the illusory, yet he did find it.

He paved a way through the chaos, with a relentlessness that was very much expected of him. He was every bit the hero that the Stormfront clamoured for, and the fact of it made him sick to his stomach. Sicker still was the fact that his crown had not slipped from his head either, for all the battling he'd done, he'd still yet to lose his grace. He was still buoyed by those godly hands that seemed to protect him from all things, and guide his destiny towards what it was.

He was right there, all of a sudden, before the flesh of its leg, and he pulled his sword back for a swing, and made a request to those spirits that had seen him protected all his life. "Please, by all the Gods, let me defeat this creature, so that I might…"

That want for revenge, that anger swirled up in him all at once. The High King who had grown so corrupt. His friend that he had seen so crushed. Then, the woman, who had been robbed of her life and her happiness with that dear comrade that she saw the true worth of, just as he did.

Then it came, faster than he could track. A monstrously sized arm swatted down on him, claws extended, dripping purple from its poison. It moved faster than Arthur could track. Fast enough that he couldn't even think to dodge it. Nothing warned him of its coming. The spirits that would normally swim around him were absent.

"Ah," he said, as blood arose from his mouth, and the face of the Pandora Goblin loomed close enough that it might press its nose against his, with all that glee in its dark eyes. "So that was the trick of you spirits that saw me protected. As soon as I wished for something from you, you are forced to leave me… That which is beyond my reach. I see… I see…"

With those words, he had his final bit of understanding. His fate was what it was. The poison wouldn't kill him instantly. The Pandora Goblin would toy with him for a time. He was a creature of Claudia – he had been saved for that purpose. To humiliate her, through him, he would be tormented. The discipline to let go of what was already lost. The dignity to leave it all in the hands of fate, as Arthur had already left it. With the end of his life, he'd lost his heroism, and he was finally sure of it. "Unlike you, Dominus, I could not tolerate it…"