Prologue-2

After a week from the incident, on the dirt-filled road from the castle to the humongous steel wall, a convoy of horses and a luxurious caravan passes by. The people of Kingdom Yuanir stare at the soldiers donning leather armor riding horses ruthlessly thrashing their wip while screaming, "Move away! If you don't want to get your heads cut off, move! The king is passing by!" The citizens terrified it's the king move away on the sides providing a clear path for the cavalry and the caravan to the walls.

You could hear the mutterings of the people, fear and dread apparent in their eyes, some anguished while others terrified but none dared stop the cavalry or the caravan.

The king stares out of his caravan at the anguished faces of people and thinks, "It's true that I am not a good ruler but I can't see the reason why they hate me so much."

The cavalry soon reached the wall and you could see the guards kneeling on the side path with their heads bowing towards the caravan. They proceeded out of the walls with their caravan and cavalry towards the endless snowy forest in the east.

The king stops them halfway in the path towards the forest of endless snow. He steps out of his caravan dressed in superior mithril armor covered with wool and orders a soldier to bring his horse. A beautiful black-colored, tall and well-maintained horse appears with a saddle made up of the softest leather and cotton. The king smiles at the horse and climbs on top of it.

He retrieves his bow from his back holding it in his left hand while he stares at the forest in the front and slowly whispers to the horse, "Let's ride out bruce!" and gently weeps the saddle's girth.

The horse lets out a loud, "NEIGH!" and starts running swiftly towards the forest with the cavalry tailing him in the back.

It is a cold snowy morning and at the 90 km/h speed the horse is running. It is evident for the person sitting on it to feel extremely cold or even get hypothermia but on the contrary, an expression of joy and laughter is shown on the young man. Neither he nor the cavalry behind him is affected at all by the extreme cold enough to kill a normal person.

As the young king speeds towards the forest. His joyous face suddenly turns serious and then grim and he hurriedly shouts, "Enemies!" and turns his horse sideways causing the horse to slide down sideways accompanying him with the horse too.

Accompanied by his shout, numerous whistling arrows are shot from the trees towards the cavalry and the young man. The young king goes scott-free from sliding away but alas not everybody is as skillful as him in riding a horse.

Though the cavalry is not able to do the tricks like the young king, the veteran training hasn't disappointed them. They hurriedly averted the direction of their horse or some jumped down their horse. But again, not everyone has the fast reflex, numerous of the soldiers riding on the cavalry got shot down from their horses, instantly killing them. The young king gets up from under his dead horse, momentarily saddened by Bruce's death. The king wakes up quickly from the stupor due to the screams filled with pain coming from his soldiers.

He looks at the dead soldiers and notices every single of the dead soldier has been shot straight in their head. Only an expert archer of the late stage of Stage-1 can do it! And noticing the number of arrows, only an army of hundreds of late Stage-1 archers can do it.

A cold glint passes by his eyes and he quickly shouts at his unharmed soldiers to carry the dead horses and soldiers and pile them up to make a barricade.

The unharmed soldiers quickly follow his orders and start piling up the bodies while dragging the injured soldiers and first aiding them.

Later, he orders them to gather up the arrows and get ready with their bows and peek only under his command.

He stares at the trees filled with hidden archers and sighs.

Suddenly, his uncle comes near him and says, "Nephew! We can't be sitting ducks here. We will have to move soon or after the enemy rushes up, we will all die."

Listening to his uncle's opinion he quickly shouts, "I am not going to abandon my soldiers and leave them to die in this cold without a proper burial."

Hearing their king's words, the soldiers quickly say," Lord! You don't have to worry about us. You escape, we will hold them off! We are soldiers and our mission is to protect you. You have always protected our family and took care of them. As long as you are alive, we have no regrets about sacrificing ourselves for you."

As if answering their commitment a loud horn echoes out of the forest, following by dozens of cavalry charging towards them donning mithril armor and insignia of Kingdom of Arcana. The king stares at the elite troops of the Arcana's with bloodshot and cold eyes and screams inwardly, "Bastards my father fought for you when you were at your weakest point and in return, you assassinate him and now also try to kill me."

He then sighs ruefully and says, "I King Tristan! Shall never forget your brave sacrifices for me! Don't worry your families will be looked after and your sons and daughter shall be given free scholarships and riches to live their lives in peace. I promise in the name of King Tristan!"

Hearing the promise made by their king, they get emotional too and start shouting, "Hail King Tristan! Hail the King!" and they start shooting arrows towards the incoming cavalry, only to get picked off by the hidden archers behind the trees.

The King gets ready to climb up the horse and the soldiers with a glint of craziness in their eyes almost all suddenly stand up together and release one bout of arrows towards the cavalry and trees, many of the soldiers get their heads sniped off and some get their throats torn apart by the incoming arrows.

They look at their King who was riding away safely and smile thinking their sacrifice by being a meat shield was worth it.

They separate their glance from their king's back and stare at the incoming cavalry and start shouting, " We shall never surrender! We are the king's royal soldiers! Hail the King!" they get out of their trenches and start running towards the cavalry with their swords and spears, many getting torn apart in the process.

The incoming cavalrymen smile coldly and down their lances stabbing through the whole bodies of the soldiers and laugh menacingly. But, the soldiers have yet to be broken they take the advantage of the speed of the incoming horses and raise their pikes towards the chests and pierce through their mithril armor causing the cavalrymen to fall off their horses and only being slightly injured by the pikes they charge towards the soldiers with their swords, slowly massacring till the last soldier.

The cavalrymen took a total of 2 casualties to wipe out hundreds of soldiers.

King Tristan hears the whole incident that took place behind him while he and his uncle rides out towards a secret resting point only known to two of them.

The slogans of, 'Hail the King!" slowly fade away in the snow as accompanied by the metal clashing and sounds of flesh tearing and blood-curdling screams, still screaming, "Hail the King!" accompanied by the gently bellowing of the snow mourning for the dead soldiers.