Or now, it’s called the Blood Clan Court.
This city has completely fallen into darkness, with a dark aura forming ominous clouds in the sky above the city.
Even though it is already noon, only dim light falls from the sky.
In this royal capital, you can constantly smell a faint scent of blood and decay in the air.
Lesser blood races, ghouls, and various evil creatures roam the once glorious city streets.
These monsters have become the city’s residents, or perhaps they were the original residents.
The once magnificent and grand royal castle now looks dark and evil as well.
Black bats fly around the ancient castle and occasionally let out piercing screeches.
Inside the ancient castle.
The rulers of the Blood Clan Court and the key figures from various departments are discussing in the hall.
Still is that majestic, pale figure.
"Martin, my most loyal knight, you have failed."
Martin kneels on one knee below the throne, lowering his head.
"I apologize, Your Majesty, I... have failed."
Although he thought of some excuses, he clearly knew that failure is failure, and more excuses would only incur the King’s disgust.
The surrounding nobles occasionally whispered and sometimes looked gleefully at the knight in the center.
After all, this knight, relying on his strength and status, often showed disrespect to these newly born blood races.
Seeing Martin suffer, they were undeniably happy.
"Tell me, why did you fail, have you become weak or has my son changed, haha."
He even chuckled lightly, not as angry as expected.
Originally, he wasn’t very angry, just surprised at Martin’s failure.
But he, as Martin’s sovereign, was well aware of Martin’s abilities, and such failure certainly had its reasons.
More importantly, the country had completely stabilized.
As for his inconsequential son, he had fled the country with some people.
This wasn’t something he cared about, even though that fleeing son had a shard of the Stone of Creation embedded in his chest.
"Prince Vainsha indeed surprised me, perhaps he has grown."
"Oh? Do tell." This matter intrigued the King.
He wanted to hear how his reckless and rebellious son had changed.
"After I led an assault to cut off their retreat, I was preparing to encircle Lake City with the frontal troops.
But it was unexpected that upon receiving the news, he decisively abandoned the city with his subordinates and retreated promptly."
This was the first thing Martin hadn’t anticipated.
"Hmm?" The King was puzzled too.
He knew his son wouldn’t act so decisively, could he really have grown?
"During the pursuit, I predicted he would stop briefly at Riverbend Town.
I didn’t expect that he would merely have his soldiers take a simple rest before quickly retreating, even preparing boats and rafts by the riverside in advance.
He anticipated it, attempting to evacuate from the river to the coastal outlet.
Moreover, I never imagined there would be dwarven support; there had been no intelligence on this at all.
We didn’t even know that Vainsha had any contact with the dwarves."
Upon hearing this, the King tapped his finger lightly on the armrest next to him, creating a crisp sound.
"No, he wouldn’t be someone so decisive; someone is helping him make decisions, someone is influencing him.
This King understood each of his sons so thoroughly.
"If he were so decisive, he wouldn’t have been chased out so pathetically."
This was a question Martin couldn’t answer.
At this point, the former King, now the Crown Prince.
Kana’s father, Vainsha Count’s brother.
"Then, why did my son die on the way?"
Wolft asked, his expression evidently unhappy, after all, one of his sons had died, and he was a brilliant son at that.
This was something the King also wanted to know, as he too locked his gaze on the Martin below.
"This... was also my negligence, something I completely failed to foresee."
"An unforeseen issue?" The King narrowed his eyes, his tone turning unfriendly.
This indicated a huge gap in Martin’s understanding of the situation, which should not be forgiven.
Martin hastily began to explain, as he too had not foreseen such a situation, believing it genuinely wasn’t his fault.
"Lofner determined from the news that Vainsha would likely accelerate his escape.
He led his forces in a fast pursuit, pinning down Vainsha’s troops.
But the problem was, during that time of holding them down, he was killed by the enemy."
Lofner was the former Second Prince, now the royal grandson.
Hearing this, Wolft’s frown deepened: "Was it my brother who did it?"
In fact, everyone present thought so.
The prince was believed to have died by his uncle’s hand.
Yet Martin shook his head.
With those words, the entire throne room fell into silence.