3 hours huh, I need to prepare,

“Return within the flames.”

As I did not have enough mana to maintain them all, I returned most of them while keeping only about 1000 of them,

Judging from their pace, it seems they have not yet realized, that their empire has already been conquered by someone else,

Well, I need to rest, the borders were still intact so, that was one advantage,

After 3 hours, the broken gem in my chest was repaired, I was able to recover around half of my mana, after some thinking, I realized, taking on both the undead sorcerer’s and the empires knights would be too reckless and too much on my own, so, I did send a signal to Lazarus, but I have no idea when he will arrive,

“Open the Gates, the imperial army has arrived”

Like I thought they still had not realized, I slowly walked towards the path on the top of the gates,

The people below noticed, “Who are you? Are you the new gatekeeper?”

“Something’s wrong, everyone back, fall back.”

Too late, I raised my hands, “Fire.”

The knights panicked, but the paladins tried to create a shield, but suddenly the ground cracked, their barrier got distorted, the arrows entered and pierced through many knights, the hole formed in the soil also killed many,

[You killed a Human]

[You killed a Human] *66o00

Nearly 1/3 of their previous numbers had survived, well this is what I call the advantage of traps,

The 10 paladins, who had fallen in the hole, jumped out, they had just suffered minor injuries. Also, the poison inside the hole seems to have been ineffective,

The royal paladin stepped forward, “What’s the meaning of this, I demand an explanation from the king.”

“Explanation? Oh yes, you all have been granted the title of a traitor by the king.”

“What? But why would the king do that? We have done nothing wrong.”

“Your crime was being ignorant of what was happening in the empire, and not being present when the empire was taken over by someone else, and the king who gave you the title of the traitor was me.”

“You killed the king?”

I did not kill the king but still, “Yes, I tortured him till his last breath, hearing him ask to spare his life was really entertaining.”

One of the paladins with a surprised face asked, “What? What about the people?”

From what I saw the undead sorcerer’s had killed the people without any sort of torture, they were in a hurry, so they killed everyone quickly and painlessly than the people later got turned into my army but, “Ahh, I see your families, they must have been inside the kingdom, let’s see, to describe what happened to them in simple words, The elders were tortured and killed, the women were raped and killed, and the children, they were sold into slavery, that sums it up.”

“You bastard”, three paladins jumped towards me, the royal paladin warned them, “Stop it you fool”, but alas they did not listen, too bad

As they were just about to hit me, their bodies got sliced into pieces,

[You killed a Human]

[You killed a Human]

[You killed a Human]

The royal paladin took control of the situation, “Everyone calm down, there are strings placed in front of him, the strings have changed its color contrasting with the surrounding, so it could not be seen, and don’t let his words provoke you, haste makes waste.”

He could not have seen those strings, he must have made his deduction based on the wounds inflicted on the 3 paladins,

“You know, first I wanted to kill you all, but now that I look at you all, you are all so young, you have just begun living, the people inside are already dead, even if you do manage to kill me the people inside won’t come back, but you will still suffer heavy casualties, so why not just walk away and find another kingdom to live in and enjoy the rest of your lives.”

The royal paladin took out his visor {head armor} reviling his face, he was an old man with white hair, he was tall and muscular,

A dagger came flying towards me, breaking the strings it scratched my cheeks, if I had reacted a moment slower, my replica could have been destroyed,

There goes my plan of backstabbing them if they had chosen to walk away that is,

With a loud voice, the royal paladin said, “Don’t you dare take us lightly as a joke, we are knights, it's our duty to protect the kingdom, and perish along with the kingdom if we fail.”

“You already failed, the kingdom is already destroyed, you call yourselves knights, where were you when the people of your empire were being slaughtered?, where were you when your wives were being raped?, where were you when your children were being sold?, where were you when your king was begging for help?, where were you when your kingdom was being destroyed?, And yet you still dare call yourselves a knight, take my advice and walk away.”

“Yes, we indeed failed as knights, but a warrior is always motivated by his utmost duty if we walk away now, not only will we be failures as a knight but also as a warrior, a single defeat should not be confused with the final defect, the failure now will forge the path of success for tomorrow, we shall avenge the ones who we could not protect, we shall take back our empire and rebuild it, for even a better future, as that’s our duty as both knights and warriors.”

“ha, how bold of you to assume that you have a future?”