A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"Damn it…" he cursed, his voice weak and feeble. He barely recognized it himself, so twisted by pain it was. He dragged his head along the floor, as he weakly rocked by and forth, searching for any outlet to the mindless savaging pain. No human was meant to feel that, he was sure. He'd felt like he'd been run over by a dozen carts and horses, but without the external injuries to prove it.

Not even a sword had inflicted such pain on him before. It shook every cell in his body, demanding that it tear itself apart.

He coughed again, and looked at his hand. He was sure that he felt something this time. He looked at his hand, again expecting blood. But it wasn't blood. It was some kind of vague gelatinous material, almost translucent, but also solid.

In his panicked state of mind, he imagined that it could be nothing other than the flesh of his organs, and they tore themselves apart, and who was there to say that he was wrong?

A doctor might have looked at him, and declared that it was merely a bad case of food poisoning, and that he would be fine tomorrow. He might have disregarded that gelatinous material as bile. He might have noted the lack of blood, and thought that it could have been too serious. But Oliver knew different. He'd been forewarned of this.

He knew it was the side effects of his ascension to the Third Boundary.

But what did that even mean? Why this particular type of pain? Why such a strain on his body? He'd escaped the narrow constraints of progress, then what did he feel? Was it whip lash/ Some kind of rebound? That would have seemed right, given the condition of his body.

Even if that Boulder Crab had tossed him off the plateau, he had a hard time believing that he'd be able to feel worse than this.

Anyone experiencing that amount of pain should have already had a critical injury. They should have already been on death's door. That seemed to be more right. That seemed to be what his body was telling him. What they'd done had been such an anomaly that the only rational explanation was that they were already dead.

His body couldn't catch up with his sudden burst of progress, nor could the world around him.

There were Gods that dealt in this type of thing, after all. What would be the point in Claudia if one could merely pierce through all the Progress Boundaries without the prior conditions? What even were the point of the prior conditions? Of course, they were to get the body ready for a new sort of power, a power that it hadn't experienced yet.

So, perhaps, ironically, that was what he was suffering from. He'd progressed, and gained power, but somehow he was suffering from weakness. The state of his existence did not match the state of his strength. How to remedy that? Oliver couldn't think straight enough to even grasp at possible solutions. Every fibre of his being hurt, including his teeth.

Ingolsol seemed to think that they wouldn't survive it. Or at the very least, he suspected the chances were slim.

"Damn him," Oliver cursed, as though it was Ingolsol's fault. He knew that was irrational, or at least, in his normal state he would have. It wasn't Ingolsol that forced this condition on them. It was the side effects of whatever Francis had done. Ingolsol had claimed to have kept some Divine Energy behind – but it was not that Divine Energy that had burned them.

True. It started before even Ingolsol. They'd already been on the downward spiral. This was their resistance against a gravity that looked to claim their lives prematurely. This was their strategic response.

That didn't matter. Enjoy new adventures from empire

"Damn him," Oliver said again. The sweetness of rage spread through him. It didn't numb the pain, but it lent his mind a strength that it lacked. It gave his spirit the slightest bit of energy. His fingernails dug into the floor, painful, bloody. That pain was good – that pain was a distraction from the pain that wrung out his body.

It was as though every organ was looking to declare independence. They were sick of his tyrannical rule, and they were either looking to kill themselves, or set themselves free of him. Either way, there would be pain.

And what was with his heartbeat? How could he feel every pulse so strongly? Surely that was dangerous. Surely he was about to suffer a heartache? Surely if this went on, then his brain would be affected, and that would be the end of Oliver Patrick and all that he aimed to achieve.

Such thoughts brought with them an incredible panic and powerlessness. The panic brought a shortness of breath, and that seemed as good a simulation of death as any. Only anger could override the anxiety, as Oliver cursed Ingolsol again.

"Damn him," he groaned. Now he felt sick. His organs had been spasming for long enough, and now the food that sat in his stomach reminded him of its existence. He suddenly felt very full. He suddenly felt as though his stomach stretched far beyond its normal capacity, and that it would be liable to burst any time soon.

He needed to be sick, but he also needed not to explode. At the same time, he needed something to quell that pain in his kidneys. Suddenly He needed water. He crawled over to the jug on his bedside table, and with a shaky hand he attempted to grasp it. A spasm of pain ran through his body, and his hand twitched, pouring some of the water on himself.

It barely mattered. He hardly noticed it. He forced the rest of it from the jug and down his throat. Not enough. He needed water, but he also felt sick. He needed to be sick.

And then the air in the room seemed to thin. The room itself seemed too small. He needed to be outside. Yes, yes, outside was preferable.