The Golden Throne

"What the hell happened here? Five guards dead? Without so much as a struggle?", one of the soldiers who had come over because of the noise said, confused.

"Idiot, sound the alarm first. Alert everyone. There are intruders here.", the soldier next to him reprimanded him. All of a sudden, they felt a cold shiver up their necks. They looked back with surprise, but saw nothing. They looked back at the guards. 

"I don't have the horn. Maybe someone here does.", the first soldier said.

"I don't really like taking things from the dead.", his comrade said, a little uneasy by the fact that his partner was moving corpses and looking for a horn.

"I cannot do anything about this. Do you understand the severity of the issue? Five people dead, and no one heard anything. If, at times like these, someone important gets assassinated, then we are officially screwed.", he said as he finally fished out a peculiar shaped rock. It had a button on it. 

"Close your ears now.", he said as he pressed the button, dropped the rock on the ground, and closed his own ears.

"Aoooooooooogah", a loud and piercing noise swept the whole magic academy like a storm. All the soldiers had immediately woken up and they knew exactly what to do at times like this.

After thirty minutes,

The army was in disarray. Everyone was panicked that an intruder set foot into the camp. And the fact that five soldiers were killed before they could even react, and clearly not even fight back, was unnerving. As the clamours rose, the atmosphere in the king's tent was different. The same shadow that killed the soldiers was in the tent kneeling in front of Liu Man.

"You put me in a very bad situation Number 3. I thought that I would reward you after all the wonderful job you did looking after Liu Feng, but now you go and bring the war to a losing edge before we have even started. What should I do about this?"

"I merely quelled treason, Your Majesty."

"And how do we tell them that this was treason? You are putting me in a bad position in front of my peers here. Tell me, what should I do?", Liu Man shook his head as he took a seat.

Next to him, Damascus and Filden were sitting. They did not speak and just looked at the black robed man. 

"Just announce that they were demoralizing the troops, and that a higher up had killed them for the capital offense. Just use one of the senior officers as a scapegoat for this one. A hundred whips should do. Take one of the pigs that everyone hates. Like that cousin of the duke in the east. The one with a few sex offences in his name.", Liu Man said.

"Yes, Your Majesty. It will be done.". The man disappeared, leaving Liu Man alone with the other two kings. He sighed. "How the hell are rumours of the Night kingdom still alive? I did everything I could to stop them. What did you guys do for this?"

"Us? Dwarfs and Elves live for much longer than you humans. Our countries know, we still remember that bloodbath. We just… don't speak about it.", Damascus said.

"Well, I can't trust a human to do that. I did my best to baby proof my palace as well so that Liu Feng did not see any record of the Night Kingdom. Do you know how long that took? And to think that these rumours would reappear here! Looks like I have to do another thorough cleaning after the war is over. God, I want to put all of this behind me."

"Urgh, just at times like this, when we have so many things to do, we just had to be reminded of this stupid thing again. I thought that I made it clear to everyone who participated in the war not to reveal anything at all to anyone. God, no one knows how to follow the orders do they?", Liu Man shook his head.

"Nothing can be done about the past. Let us focus on the demons for now. They are a huge problem right now, and they are much more important to defeat.", Balor shook his head. 

The night was spent quelling the chaos in the tents mostly, with the lower ranked soldiers displaying outrage at the situation. Of course they did not believe that the officer that they held responsible could kill five soldiers on his own, but they settled after he was whipped. A lot of the soldiers even cheered at the punishment, because he was very hated in the army.

When the day arrived, the army did not start moving. Because of the incident, the entire army was awake all night, and was tired. No idiot would set off to war right now. The top brass decided that they would stay at the encampment for another day before going to the battlefield. 

The next day,

The army was still very grim. The bitter taste of losing comrades so early into the war really damped the mood. The army set forward, and they left the campus of the magic academy into Glade territory. They progressed slowly and a few hours in, a man approached them. He was clad in cyan, and bore a white flag. He stopped in front of Liu Man and the general of the Aegonian army. He got off his horse and went to Liu Man. 

"Greetings King of Aegon. I am the messenger of Glade. It has come to our attention that Aegon, and Elvan wish to wage war against Glade. I advise you against doing so. Glade has broken no rules of the four kingdom pact, and hopes that you will reconsider your threat. This will bring only losses to you."

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