"No. Why now?" Zadkiel whispered, as he beheld the army slowly surrounding his city's walls; feeling as though the Gods have well and truly forsaken him. 'Why must I suffer ? Am I not a descendent of yours as well? Am I truly so unworthy in your eyes that you must mock ? You already refused me the gift of your divine blood that should've been mine, but am I also unworthy of even a pitying charity? Why must you spurn me so, revered forefather? Why honoured ancestor?! Please! Just answer me this!' He pleadingly questioned his venerable progenitor in his mind, beseeching him in hopeless desperation. "My King! What... What do we do?!" The old butler came screaming to his side, but Zadkiel did not budge from his catatonic state, continuing to stare blankly at the wolves gathering at his door. "MY KING!!!" The old butler shouted again, but to no avail, Zadkiel did even flinch. Then the two men who were talking to him earlier came rushing to his side as well, with horror screaming in their eyes, and hysteria ejecting from their lips "Sire! We finally found you!" The first called out. "My liege, we need to leave this place! Now, before it's too late!" The second quickly urged. "Leave? Leave where? Do you not see that we are surrounded?" For the first time Zadkiel replied to someone speaking to him, but his voice was unnaturally steady, a startling contrast to how he was no more than an hour ago. "They've only just arrived, and their parameter shouldn't be too secure, with many open gaps still present for us to exploit." The first quickly argued. "We might just still make it if we leave now!" And the second swiftly added. But Zadkiel was not in the least bit convinced, saying "It's pointless, and all we'd be doing is just getting our selves captured sooner and tired." He paused for a moment, finally turning his gaze from the window and onto the sealing as a sigh escaped his lips, before then he grit his teethe so hard they heard them squeak, as he whispered in a muffled breathe "So be it then." "Sire?" They uttered, not understanding what he said. Zadkiel spirit seemed to return to him, as his voiced boomed vigorously through the silently grieving halls "Seal the gates and make sure you station enough men in the port area, we don't want to be flanked by the fox Khairuddin. And someone go tell that greedy old bastard from the cathedral to start telling the people that the Bloody Emperor will not show any mercy and will put everyone in the city to the sword, so they must fight to the bitter end or all their families will be slaughtered in front of their eyes." He finished his words as he turned around and began making his way to his room. "Wha...?!" They muttered in disbelief, not understanding his sudden shift of orders and air, before the old butler asked "Wait, my liege, where are you going?" "To don my armour, of course." He replied nonchalantly, as of his words were the most obvious thing in the world. "What? My liege, you mean to fight?!" The three quickly followed him, their eyes bulging at his words, as they suspected their master had suddenly been possessed. "Yes." He bluntly replied. "B-But this battle is utterly unwinnable! We don't have the men, the supplies, the food or anything that would give even the slightest advantage!" One quickly reminded him, not wanting the man he'd believed in to throw away his life like that. "Perhaps... you can voluntarily offer your surrender, sire. Maybe then you could receive some semblance of the emperor's mercy. You are of his blood relation at the end of the day, so that must account to something; or at the very least that might convince his lordship the archduke Haytham to plead your case and..." The old butler hesitatingly tried to suggest, but Zadkiel was having none of it, as he roughly grabbed the elderly man by the throat. Google seaʀᴄh 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⁂𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾⁂𝔫𝔢𝔱 "NO!" He roared in wrathful indignation "You would have your king bow and beg before those two? To beg and bark like an obedient dog? To flatter, cry and scrounge like a beggar asking for crumbs of forgiveness? Is that what you're telling me to do? To humiliate and degrade myself beyond all redemption and reason? Is that what you're telling me? Is it?!" He said as his cold fingers clutched tighter around his throat. "My liege, please stop!" "You'll kill him!" The two others then jumped at him, prying him away from the elderly butler, but Zadkiel was not yet done, nearly throwing the two men off him if they had not used their fourth and fifth rank auras respectively. But then the old man's voice, now hoarse and weak, sounded out between gasps of air "If... it would mean... your continued... survival.... my liege, then... yes." Zadkiel finally stopped his resisting, and looked at the last three men who stood by his side, his last loyal men and said "I will not kneel and solicit their generosity that won't give; not this time and not from them. I refuse!" He stopped, as if searching for the words, the continued "If this is to be the conclusion of my dreams and ambitions, the closing act of my short lived reign and kingdom, then I will make it such an end that it shall never be forgotten. Even after all has returned to sand and dust, I will make sure my name and that of my shortly realized lifelong aspiration lives on forever." He finished with a drunken smile and yearning eyes, eyes that did not look upon them, but ones that gazed into a paradise that never came to pass. They had never seen their lord before, with such open sentimentality. For a moment they didn't know how to deal with this unprecedented situation, until the old butler slowly rose up from the ground and tidied his clothes and respectfully bowed, like he always did, then saying "Understood, sire. Your will shall be done." The two then quickly mimicked him, swearing to make a reality their lord's final wish, before they rushed to do so, with no hesitation in their steps; even when they knew that they would still not survive this battle no matter how much they readied themselves and their men. Without delay Appethus' army of forty to fifty thousand men, that Zadkiel had spent decades building in secret was deployed to the walls of the city, their rising azure sun and three black fish banner flying high in the air, as thousands of men went to the once prosperous ports of Appethus to guard against the eastern navy's possible attack, all the while hundreds of workers rushed to fill the gates to block them with mortar and stone. But the ordinary people of Appethus only grew more terrified by this, as they again rushed to leave the city, petitioning all they could see wearing an officer's uniform to let them pass, for they had no wish or desire to die here today, but just like last time the soldiers remained stone faced before their pleas, almost resulting in another riot, but then hundreds spokesmen and heralds of Zadkiel, as well as dozens of priests came forth and began convincing them to stay, and resist the Eclipse Empire's despot and his despicable armies, for the good of their children and their future, for the sake of their sons and their daughters not having to live beneath the heel of that inhuman tyrant, who killed without concern and slaughtered without pause, who's greed would never be sated and who would persecute them without cause after he breached those walls. But to their shock the people were not so easily persuaded, as they argued back "This rebellion has nothing to do with us!" "Our only mistake is that we were born and live here, we did nothing in the name of this rebellion!" "It was you lords who did all that yourself! So why should we pay and die for your mistakes!" The peoples' voices stunned them, as they held no errors or falsehoods within them that they could criticize to continue convincing them, so they had to use their secret weapon, the card they decided to only use if all else failed "You fools! You still speak of that demon in human skin? Have you learned nothing of the events of Thalab from a year ago?!" These words silenced the large crowd like a divine command, as the people of the east needed no reminder to recall the horrors that occurred in Thalab nearly a year ago, when the merchant elite of the city rioted against the emperor's new taxation reforms, and he sent his monstrous Chimera Knights to quell them with fire and steel. Thousands died in the streets that were made pyres that day, while thousands more lost all they owned to those same insatiable flames. None were spared the emperor's wrath that day, so much so that some claim that you could still smell the ash of the smouldering homes and hear the wails of the burning in the silent breezes of Thalaban's night. The people's faces turned unnaturally pale, before one by one they started to move away from their families and taking the arms the soldiers were distributing to them. Not everyone did so, but enough did, that the people began to scatter back into their homes, with prayers on their lips. Zadkiel then arrived, just as the crowd was beginning to thin out considerably, making him nod in approval as he made his way up the stone stairway to the nearly thirty meter high battlements, that overlooked the coming battle. "This is my nephew's army?" Zadkiel questioned, as he beheld the army before him, which not only consisted of mostly mortal men, but was only about fifty thousand strong. "Did he only he only send the eastern army?" One man asked in hope. "This isn't the Eclipse emperor's army, sire. It's the Free City of Qayan's one." Another man quickly said, as he gestured at the large flag that flew next to the Eclipse Empire's standard. "What?" The men were shocked by this, as this flag hasn't been raised on a field of war for many a millennia. Hearing this a cunning look crossed Zadkiel's eyes, as he softly whispered to himself "This war might not be lost yet." He then looked at one of the officers behind him and ordered "Bring me ink and paper. I have a special message to write our would be conqueror." "Yes, my king." The officer quickly saluted and rushed to do as told, feeling invigorated by his liege's confidence. But in all honesty, Zadkiel was not so convinced this newest scheme of his would pan out, but it was better than nothing, and all he would lose is just a single piece of paper even if his gamble failed; but either way he was determined to fight this war to the bitter end and join his beloved dream in death. 'Give it your best nephew.' He thought in grim resolve 'I will show you that my ambition has fangs still, even in it's death throes!'