"Father, please!" The Prince implored his Father to help release the Princess.

Even The One True King had a gnawing feeling in the back of his mind that something was amiss.

"My love, if something happens, take the Prince and run as far away as you can." The King whispered to his Queen.

The Queen nodded but said nothing, afraid of what was about to happen.

After entering the throne room, instead of stopping where one normally would to be addressed by the King, Willem continued forward right up to the King's throne. Looking back, the King and Queen were whispering among themselves. However, this close to Willem, nothing could be hidden. He heard their conversation, and could not help but chuckle.

"Are you ready to confer my title?" Willem asked The One True King.

The King tried to swallow some saliva but his mouth was completely dry and he found it very hard to talk.

"Y....Yes." The King approached his throne but when he got to the stairwell he found that he could not continue walking forward.

"What is the meaning of this!"

"You need not approach any further to confer my title." Willem explained as he sat down on the King's throne.

Kinsey sat on the Queen's throne, with Anna and Arania taking the Prince and Princess thrones respectively.

The guards in the room took a defensive position in response to Willem sitting on the throne, but the King understood that even if they wanted to, they could not approach.

"You realize this is treason... Why are you doing this?" The King stridently spoke out.

"Kinsey." Willem spoke only one word.

"Yes, Master. To put it bluntly, you are no longer fit to rule the Bastion of Hope." Kinsey stared down at the King and Queen with contempt.

"On what grounds do you say I am unfit to rule!" The King was engulfed in anger, unable to reason with himself any longer.

"While Master was out fighting against the magical beings, you were here hiding under the guise of taking care of your sick Queen." Kinsey articulated spectacularly.

"Blasphemy! I was the one who gave him soldiers with which to fight." The King was attempting to convince Willem to end this. "Also, who are you to speak to me like this? Grandia, this is not like you. I can forgive you if you stop this farce and remove yourself from the throne."

Willem looked at the guards lined up from the throne to the doors and snapped his fingers. One by one, the soldiers bent the knee as the One True King watched scornfully.

"You should watch how you talk to your Queen. She holds your fate in her hands." Willem gently pulled on the embroidery of the cloth on the King's throne.

The Prince had found it in himself to hold his tongue, especially after seeing Willem's boldness at the throne and his Father's willingness to forgive him. The Queen held the hand of her son, ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

"We need a strong, proper King to lead us against the magical beings. Confer upon my Master the title of King, and he may choose to spare you and your kin." Kinsey stated matter-of-factly.

"Pathetic... I was truly naive to not have killed you when I saw the experiments you and Archus had done. I will die before I confer you the title of One True King." The One True King spat on the red rug of the stairwell, steps away from Willem.

"So be it." Willem waved his hand gently and the doors to the throne room slammed shut with a tremendous amount of force.

The Queen and the Prince both held their breath as their only option of escape became inaccessible. They stood against the door, making sure to get as far away from the inevitable fight as they could.

"I remember when we first met, in the meeting room of the Grand Mages. I believed you were the future of the Bastion of Hope." The King bitterly spoke as he began to cast one of the strongest spells at his disposal.

"I am the future." Willem kicked his feet up and waited for the King to finish casting his spell.

In the King's palm, a pale blue flame appeared that was no larger than a coin. The pale blue flame flickered as if at any moment it would be extinguished.

"Burst." The King commanded the pale blue flame, where it shot forward like an arrow shot from a bow.

The blue flame hit the barrier that Willem created and began to melt it away. After just a few seconds, the barrier seemed to be partially destroyed as multiple cracks appeared on the non-melted parts of the spell.

Willem watched every single action that the old King took when casting the spell and memorized it, processing the movement as closely as he could. From the timing of the spell cast to the movement and gestures of the hands and body, Willem committed it to memory.

When he was done memorizing everything. Willem stood up from the throne and copied the spell exactly as he saw the old King cast it.

"Burst." Compared to the King, Willem's voice was even and non-temperamental.

The pale blue flame was the size of a bucket compared to the coin sized flame of the old King. Upon commanding the flame, it shot forward just like an arrow that had been let loose. The flame hit the King straight on, breaking through his defenses and burning a hole through his chest. As the flame burned through the old King, it continued forward like a homing arrow and set the Queen behind him aflame.

"Shame to have gone through the trouble of curing her..." Willem said as he contemplated his next move.

The old King was helpless and could not protect his Queen as the bucket sized hole in his chest began to slowly heal.

"Darkness Healing?" Willem was quite surprised by the old King's actions. This was a unique skill he had learned after injuring himself excessively, constantly pushing the limits of his understanding on the subject.

"Seeing your abilities gave me the inspiration." The old King openly admitted as he crawled toward his burning Queen.

A black and blue mist churned around the hole in the old King's chest, renewing the partially collapsed heart and broken bones. When the heart and broken bones healed, the cartilage and muscle began to cover the wound.

This process was taking quite a lot longer than Willem's own version of Darkness Healing.

"Did I ever tell you the story of me using Darkness Magic for the first and last time?" The old King attempted to buy time for himself by placating Willem.

"No, I do not believe you have." Willem stated.

"Master, he is clearly buying time-" Anna was just beginning to speak when she saw Willem raise his hand for her to be silent.

"Thousands of years ago, I was born a slave to magical beings. It feels like so long ago now that I can barely remember the finer details. At this time, humans were worse than garbage, and if it was a particularly rough winter we were to be used as a food source by the magical beings that owned us. I grew up understanding that I was nothing more than free labor and a meal if things got too tough." The King looked at his healing wounds bitterly. "When I was a little younger than you, around ten or so, I had my first encounter with a magical beast. It was a Horned Earth Rabbit, and it's ability to bend the earth around it gave me inspiration to try it for myself. When I defeated the Horned Earth Rabbit, I continued hunting well into the night. The next few days, I would go into the woods behind the breeding pen to see if I could move the earth. Amazingly, I could push the earth according to the movements of my hands and how I envisioned it, copying the movement of the Rabbit."

Willem remained expressionless as he listened to the story.

The old King continued unperturbed. "When I learned about magic, I immediately brought the information to the humans that were a part of my village. They told me to keep quiet about my abilities and to teach them how to do the same thing. Often times, a pack of us would go into the woods to learn about the movements of various magical beasts. Soon enough we were strong enough to infiltrate the houses of the magical beings to assassinate them. This prompted the King of the magical beings to command his citizens to kill us wherever we were. We escaped and fled North, picking up as many humans as we could along the way."

According to Willem's method of telling truth from lie, everything the old King said so far had been the truth.

"Continue." Willem spoke.

At this point, the wound of the old King had almost completely healed.

"When we took over these Northern Mountains, I ordered my closest friend and the General of my Army to erect a wall impregnable to even the strongest magical beings. He took with him five Earth Mages and together they built the walls that protect the Bastion of Hope. It was after the walls were created that we realized an Army of Magical Beings had gathered to retake the Mountain." The old King looked lost in thought for a moment before snapping back to reality. "I lead my Army against the Magical Beings, but we were outnumbered five to one. My closest friend cut a path for me to escape back to the safety of the Bastion of Hope, and like a coward, I took it. I felt the overwhelming suffocation of Darkness Magic for the first time as I saw him valiantly fighting to defend me. The Darkness Magic pierced through me, and I had no control over my emotions as I doubled back and fought with a strength I could never have imagined. My mind was slowly being corroded as I slaughtered friend and foe, lashing out at anyone that got close enough."

Willem sat quietly and listened, since the story involved Darkness Magic.

"When I finally awoke from my stupor, my closest friend and arguably the most important person to me stood in front of me, skewered by my own hands. We had won the fight, at the cost of many of our soldiers. However, none of those soldiers meant anything to me if I could have brought back my friend. Sometimes, I can still picture his face in my dreams, where I can properly apologize for what I had done." The old King looked hollowed out and broken.

Willem took the story into consideration before snapping his fingers once more, extinguishing the pale blue flame currently burning the Queen alive. Considering the Queen's body was melting, not even an utterance of a scream could be heard escaping her lips. Willem understood that only one elixir made this impossible situation possible.

"This little demonstration should be enough. You are no longer the King, but for now, you still have use. Sit upon your broken throne and live your life thanks to my benevolence. If I have orders for you, you will do your best to fulfill them." Willem looked around at his three attendants before nodding his head.

Kinsey, Anna and Arania stood from their respective thrones and left the throne room quietly to return to their individual works.

Willem stepped down from the throne and removed the barrier that he had previously placed.

"If you try to flee, know there is no place you can escape to that I cannot find." Willem warned before passing a potion to the Queen on the way out of the throne room.

The head of the King gently touched the ground in complete submission where he had previously been standing. The old King understood better than anyone how weak he truly was compared to Grandia.

The Queen and the Prince looked at their King bowing his head and regret filled their hearts.

"One more thing." Willem snapped his fingers and the guards in the room removed their helmets one by one. Underneath the helmets, decaying flesh and the smell of decomposing bodies filled the area around them.

"Undead? When? ..." The old King looked around the room horrified.

"Since the moment I walked in this room." Willem said as a serene look crossed his face.

Upon leaving the Royal Palace, the gathered crowd cheered for Willem whom they assumed had his new title conferred.

"Dragonslayer!" The crowd cheered.