Alexis leaned against the railings of the Black Ship’s deck and continued to use her gaze to strike fear into any smart or perceptive enough to notice it. Perhaps the military men roaming through the city believed that it was they who were keeping the populace inside their homes, but that thought process was born out of Alexis’ intentional decision to avert the power of her predatory sight from those who were obviously not civilian. Why would she be doing this? That is a rather simple question to answer; she had already been attacked and her nation’s assets were attacked, but despite that she wanted Darksol to be the one who had been declared war upon, not the other way around.

Yes, you might argue that war had already been declared, but it was more of a way to make sure that Kain would not be nearly as peeved when he awoke. If she played her cards right, the Sultanate would soon receive word of their stunning defeat at the hands of a few sailors and a flying monster woman. Perhaps then the Sultan himself would come and make a formal declaration. It was not like there were troops massed at the border anyways, so waiting was, at least to her, the best of the currently available choices to make.

She still had eyes on the border between the Sultanate and Darksol itself, so she could afford to delay until the Sultan gave her a chance to show her winning hand.

…

“You… do you even know what you have done?!”

A very, very angry Arcail IV yelled in rage against the members of the quite successful coup d’état. It was thanks to them that there would be war soon, and even if they were unwilling to accept it or even notice it, Darksol almost certainly had them beat in terms of numbers and possibly even quality. If Darksol decided to initiate conflict based on the slights that they had suffered, it may very well be Game Over for one of the oldest nations in the world.

“We should be asking you that question, murderer! How many good, loyal men and women did your slumbering army kill? How many people who only wished to bring the Sultanate to the peak of all things did you butcher in your panicked desire to stay atop us all and keep us weak and pacifistic?”

“You have no idea what we are up against, do you?” Arcail IV shot back. “Did you even study the slightest bit of the stories written of the First Sultan and those who joined him in building this nation? No, of course you didn’t. You were too busy dreaming of glory and battle to summon the courage to read those tomes. If you had even glimpsed the tales of Darksol’s destructive might written within you would be more of the mind to avoid conflict with them rather than seeking a brutal end at their hands.” Arcail IV said, his growing despair becoming more and more visible.

“All we need to do is trust in our soldiers and the True God, Solinaye. We can win if we all follow those teachings given to us by His Goldenness.”

“You can’t mean to tell me you also intend to abolish the right of Freedom of Religion as well as fighting a war you have no chance of winning, can you?” Arcail IV asked, his despair growing deeper with every word out of his captors’ mouths.

“Of course! The world only needs one faith, after all. Who but a fool who does not deserve his life would argue that to worship any being but Solinaye would be the correct path to take? The other faiths will be erased, and the world shall know the glory of the Golden One.”

“…” Arcail IV did not respond. He already knew what was to come based on the words of his ‘replacement’ alone. If these fools were to try and make the main religion of the Sultanate the only religion in it, it would do a lot more than ruffle a few feathers. Plus, if you took the words of the ‘new Sultan’ as literally as you could, it meant that there would be a potentially lethal crackdown on any faith besides his own, not to mention the Atheists and Agnostics.

At best, it would result in massive instability and force the military to spread itself wafer thin to keep people from acting out during the imminent war. At worst it would result in the entire Sultanate exploding into a mass of various city-states in defiance of the new Sultan’s mandate. Given that most of the Sultanate’s troops would be at the front lines, Arcail IV was leaning toward expecting something closer towards the worst option rather than the best. If his fears came to be, the Sultanate would not need to be invaded, as it would shatter like glass and find itself in a massive civil war unlike any that the world had ever seen.

Arcail IV fully gave in and allowed his despair to consume him, but he would soon be dealt another couple of body blows to any last few bits of hope he held on to. As the Usurper Sultan, Nimroad the First, was about to mock his predecessor, a messenger ran into the Palace dungeons and gave his report.

“Your Majesty, the men sent to secure the Black Ship have failed in their task. Worse still, somehow the ambassador of Darksol escaped from captivity and was also sighted on the ship. But that isn’t the worst of it.”

The teenage Sultan sighed and threw his goblet at the oversized koala beastman who he had left to deliver his words to the Darksolian Ambassador. The beastman didn’t dodge and instead let the empty goblet bounce off of his rock-hard six-pack like a fly banging its head against concrete.

“And what is that worse news?” Nimroad I asked.

“We have unconfirmed reports that a vampire who could withstand the might of the Morning Star was the one who routed our soldiers and fully pushed them off the docks. Other reports indicate that the parasite is still there.”

Nimroad I growled and stood from his seat. Arcail IV asked him what he thought he was going to do, and the answer was enough to force Arcail IV to cry.

“I am going to go give that monster a piece of my mind and issue a declaration of open and total war against the infidels of Darksol, that’s what!”