"Brother," the King's voice contained neither doom nor fear, just a little hope, "let my children go."
Primus turned to Haver, and Khaal understood—nothing good could be expected.
Instead of answering, the commander just coldly flashed his eyes. He waved toward the doors. Whirlwinds of black wind tore from his fingers. They crashed into the heavy doors and flung them open as easily as if they were made of paper.
"Welcome your new prince. My son. Eren Soren!"
Once again, a momentary silence hung in the hall. No one until now knew that the commander had a son. And judging by his appearance, Eren was at least four years old. He stood at the very entrance, a miniature and younger copy of his father.
Cold gaze, arrogant posture, coupled with the same black and gold clothes as Khaal's—he truly looked like a prince.
"Did you really think that something like solar ore could be discovered by mere luck?" whispered Primus, who had approached the thrones. "How easily you believed that tale about the soldier, brother."
He practically spat out the last word. So much hatred and malice was concentrated in it that it literally poured from Primus's lips.
"All this time," the king shook his head. "How old is he?"
"Four."
"Four years..."
Apparently, something happened four years ago, but the prince didn't know what. He only remembered how his father and uncle had gone on another campaign. They took almost two hundred warriors with them, and less than half returned.
Khaal was never told anything about that campaign...
"It was an accident, Primus. Just an accident..."
"Silence!" The commander raised his hand.
Around his palm swirled the same black wind. One look at this miniature tornado made Khaal's heart freeze. It contained so much power that it was enough to destroy the entire hall.
Could it be that he would meet his death, not the first but still a death?
"Run!" Haver spread his arms, and a powerful surge of energy threw his family toward the secret wall at the entrance to the hall.
Khaal felt strong but gentle hands lift him.
Elizabeth, taking the children in her arms, ran down the narrow corridor. She pressed Elaine to her chest, but the prince, due to his already considerable height, was held against her shoulder. So Khaal saw everything. He didn't want to look, but he saw.
Saw how Primus's palm slowly descended onto the king's neck. Slowly, but with the inevitability of the executioner's ax.
Saw how the king raised his sword and how it crumbled under the pressure of the black wind.
Saw how the wall was sprayed with blood, how the leather strap fell and rolled on the floor.
With a clang, the metal inserts rolled across the boards painted crimson.
With a clang, something broke in Khaal's chest.
"Stop, Your Majesty!" Elizabeth's personal bodyguards appeared ahead.
The queen exhaled with relief and froze, only to regret a moment later that she couldn't draw her saber without letting go of one of the children.
The female warriors had no intention of putting away their weapons.
With spears positioned in front of their shields, they looked at their queen.
"Please, don't make us," their leader nearly begged.
"What did he promise you?"
"Please..."
"What did he promise?!" Elizabeth growled.
Her green eyes burned with madness and desperation. Behind, through the magic seals placed on the closed secret door, soldiers were already breaking through.
"That we could become stronger," one of the bodyguards said with slight malice.
"Stronger... this damn world of martial arts. It turns beasts into humans, and humans into beasts."
"Enough, Queen. Surrender."
Thunder struck. At least, that's how it seemed to Khaal. In reality, Primus had broken the wall with a strike of black wind.
"How much longer will you run, Elizabeth?!" he laughed, letting the soldiers in green armor pass ahead.
In front stood the queen's warriors—personally selected by her. Behind ran the empire's soldiers, who had drawn their curved blades. And Her Majesty stood motionless. In this moment, Elizabeth was no longer an adept. Was not the ruler of the kingdom. She was a mother who didn't know which child to put down so she could take up her saber.
"Run, mom!" shouted Khaal.
He wriggled out of Elizabeth's grip. Grabbing the ceremonial sword tied to his belt, too big for his child's body, he rushed toward the female warriors. They were clearly weaker than the imperials. Besides, they didn't have a Heavenly Soldier standing behind them.
"Khaal!" Elizabeth roared like a wounded beast, but it was too late.
The prince literally flowed under the spear of the leader. What was her development level? Bodily rivers? Formation? Transformation?
Khaal didn't care. He held in his hands, though almost a prop, a sword. In his hair growled the eastern wind, and his eyes saw the target.
His heart was pounding wildly when, summoning all his sword mastery, he swung the blade.
A strike, barely visible in the air, tore from the blade. It bypassed the shield held in front of the bodyguard and cut through the unprotected strip of skin between the breastplate and helmet.
The heavy helmet fell to the ground, and following it, decorating the floor and walls with red color—the female warrior. Forever in her glazing eyes will remain the reflection of extreme surprise.
Ignoring the fact that he had killed someone, Khaal continued his mad dance. He ducked under the spear of the nearest female warrior. She had already recovered from the initial shock and was about to hit the prince with her shield, but he was faster.
Despite all the warrior's combat experience, hundreds of deadly skirmishes, she was powerless against Khaal's talent and fury. It took him just one sword movement—smooth and elegant, like the sweep of a stork's wing.
He bent his wrist, and the sword, flowing around the edge of the shield, severed the tendon on the bodyguard's forearm.
With a crash, the shield fell, and Khaal, pushing off from it, soared into the air. Like a bird, he flew over the warrior's head, leaving behind a shining metal arc—so quickly did his blade move.
Another body fell behind him, but the remaining bodyguards came to their senses.
Seven spears lunged at once. They attacked from all sides, forgetting they were trying to kill the prince, not a tiger cub that had frightened them.
Khaal jumped. His legs were strong, and his body was light.
He rose into the air again, then descended onto the crossed tips of seven spears. Pushing off from them like from a trampoline, he swung his sword, and the transparent strike that tore from the blade found its target in the eye slit.
More red sprays and the scream of a blinded warrior.
Khaal fell behind her back and shielded himself with the body falling to its knees from several lunges.
Instead of piercing the prince's black and gold clothes, the guards skewered the jerking body of their ally.
In words, what happened sounds long, but in reality, Khaal's movements were so fast that he left behind black and gold, ghostly silhouettes. With just four sword strikes, a seven-year-old boy sent three experienced practitioners of the art to the other world.
"Khaal..."
A familiar voice drew Khaal out of the whirlpool of rage and fear.
He turned.
The ceremonial sword fell from his suddenly weakened hands.
A tight, nauseating lump twisted his throat.
Heavy, salty tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Khaal..." From the queen's chest protruded a hand enveloped in black wind. It squeezed something red and twitching.
On the floor lay the unconscious Elaine. A small, limp bundle. Her hair was disheveled and covered her body like a thin golden sheet.
Elizabeth took a step forward. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Her green eyes were dimming, and her beautiful face was aging before his eyes.
"Mom."
Khaal ran up and hugged the queen who had fallen to her knees.
"Promise... me..."
At this moment, the prince could only hug his mother tightly. He barely understood what was happening. His brain refused to accept reality.
"That you won't enter... the world... of martial arts." Elizabeth's body trembled, she vaguely kissed her son on the cheek, and with her lips, along with her last breath, came her final words: "There is only unhappiness in it."
Khaal looked at his hands, covered in someone else's, but so familiar blood.
At his feet lay the body of the person who had once replaced the whole world for him.
The prince didn't remember, but it seems he growled and rushed at Primus. He didn't need a sword—he would have sunk his teeth into the commander's throat. But Primus merely caught the boy by the throat and lifted him into the air.
"I would advise you to kill them, Primus," sounded a dispassionate voice.
"This is my family, Governor."
"And Elizabeth and Haver?"
"A necessity. There cannot be two kings in the country."
Khaal scratched his uncle's arm, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't leave even a small wound on the Heavenly Soldier's body. There was less and less air—the alarm bell pounded more strongly in his head, his consciousness sliding somewhere toward dark emptiness.
"You saw his sword, Primus. If he lives, you will never be able to rule peacefully."
Primus looked at his suffocating nephew. It was so simple to squeeze his palm. So simple to send the boy to his father and mother. And yet—this was flesh of his brother's flesh.
"Then I will make it so that he never takes up a sword again."
Khaal, if he could, would have screamed in pain, but he couldn't.
[Carrier in critical condition! Irreversible damage to internal organs! Destruction of meridians and nodes!]
The Governor watched without any emotion as the black wind tormented the jerking boy's body. He still didn't care what these pigs were doing. The main thing was that a stable flow of solar ore came to the empire. Yes, the vein wasn't that rich, and solar metal wasn't the best resource, but...
In this world, the number of resources was very limited, and there was a constant struggle for them. Even for such a simple one as solar metal.
Maybe if he worked in this backwater for a couple of centuries, he would get the elements he so desperately needed for a breakthrough to the Spirit Knight level.
After all, the further along the path of development, the more valuable resources were required, and the fewer there were.
So when her son, weakened, fell on the floor soaked with his mother's blood, the Governor's thoughts were occupied only with his own future. Those horizons that opened up for him thanks to the new king of Lidus—Primus Soren.