Rise Online: Return of the Legendary Player

Arthas and Davster were seen as heroes by every Tretidian man who joined the army in recent years. Two legendary figures of the old royal guard, but who had mysteriously disappeared into history.

However, all the soldiers in the entrance hall were impacted by the fact that they were now back and seemed ready to help Kaizen.

"Looks like we made it in time! That's pretty good!" Arthas said and laughed, walking like it was nothing after taking down a group of guards easily.

Davster, who was following the former captain closely, was looking more serious than his partner and at the same time calm.

Kaizen was very confused about what was happening, only everything automatically explained itself when another person entered right behind Davster.

"Ravastine? What are you doing here? I thought you were going to stay in a safe place..." The Psyker immediately turned his back on the entire Desert Lions Guild and started walking towards the second princess.

At that moment, Ravastine threw back a fraction of her hair and smiled, confidently. 𝙛𝚛𝘦ewe𝗯𝘯𝗼ѵ𝚎𝗹.𝒄ｏ𝚖

"I couldn't let a friend so important to me sacrifice himself like that, could I?" She said.

"You must be that Kaizen fellow my colleague Davster mentioned!" Arthas exclaimed and approached Kaizen, thoughtlessly interrupting the second princess' moment with Psyker. "You must definitely be a very strong man to have withstood the defense force of my former troop for so many minutes!"

Psyker didn't even know who this man was exactly, yet he was happy that he seemed to be on his side, after all his attributes seem to be incredible.

Davster moved closer too, as did Ravastine, and said:

"Kaizen, Princess Ravastine was the one who opened the gate for us. Without her, it would have been impossible for us to get in so quickly and get this far. It certainly took longer than expected for us to be able to finish off the front wall forces, but I'm glad you didn't die while we took care of it."

Kaizen nodded. "I had no other choice. They may be very strong, as the old man said, but they are also disorganized most of the time. If we stand together, we can beat them." He turned and looked determinedly at Taznaar, who was standing watching everything without saying a word.

The more than a hundred soldiers that filled the ground floor of this hall, as well as the portion that was stationed on the second floor, were downcast at the appearance of the Captain, or rather former Captain Arthas. A few weeks ago, Arthas was relieved of his position as Captain of the Kingsguard, and Thenomor took over this post responsible for the defense of the Queen. Since then, many things have changed, not the least of which is that the classic white armor with beautiful gold ornaments of the Kingsguard has been replaced by sturdy black metal armor with red stripes.

In addition, Thenomor was someone who followed a rigid military philosophy, with little communication and extremely inflexible.

All these soldiers present were also personally trained by Arthas when they joined the army's elite. And although he sometimes disappeared, he always appeared at the most crucial moments. His sudden entrance at this moment in the battle was proof of that and ignited something in the subconscious of all the guards.

"It's Captain Arthas!"

"He's back!"

"What's going on? What is he doing here?"

The tension in the main hall was palpable, even Thenomor, who earlier seemed ready to attack at any moment, stopped for a few seconds and looked at Arthas.

Arthas looked around at the soldiers and smiled.

"You guys don't need to worry about what's going on here anymore. I am here to take care of it. Put down your weapons. There is no reason for me to kill my brothers, but I can't say the same for him." Arthas looked at Kaizen.

There wasn't a single man of the New Kingsguard who wasn't tempted to do exactly what he ordered, like an instinct stored inside their minds. Such was the authority and respect Arthas had from all these men.

However, Queen Niah could not watch all that standing still, so she exclaimed:

"Men, do not hesitate! As most of you well know, Arthas has been removed from office for negligence and suspected treason! Now you see how correct I was! Arthas disappeared for a few weeks and used this to plan together with Kaizen and Princess Ravastine a way to execute, together, a coup d'état in the great Kingdom of Tretidian! We cannot allow this! We are pratiots!"

[Queen Niah's words impacted the people in the area you are in. You have -10 Intelligence until the end of this mission or until you die].

There was logic in Queen Niah's words and so the guards were determined again, after all she was their queen.

"It doesn't matter if he is Captain Arthas! The Queen is the one who really matters!"

"We will fight for the good of the Kingdom!"

"No one can match the Queen's greatness!"

"The honor of dying in battle for the Queen will be what takes us to Valhalla!"

At that moment, someone else's speech was needed, someone who would make the guards calm down and hesitate once again, otherwise there would be a bloodbath in this place, and the Royal Palace itself would not withstand the intensity of this battle.

That being so, the script of the History Mission would not fail.

From a corridor to the right of the second floor, slow footsteps began to generate commotion among some of the guards in the area, and like a domino effect, this commotion only became greater.

The guards looking behind or to the side couldn't believe their eyes and without further ado dropped to their knees with their heads bowed.

Lydia Spelloyal, the last daughter of King Spelloyal, walked through the hall with a tall man's arm around her neck. This same man had long hair, a large beard, and walked leaning on the wall while dragging his feet on the floor in order to walk.

"I'm fine, Lydia. I can go on from here without help. Thank you." said King Spelloyal in a deep, tired voice.

The reaction of everyone in the hall was one of complete shock. No one had seen the King for many months, since he had apparently grown tired of his work as King and isolated himself, or at least that was what some people believed.

Even the members of the Desert Lions Guild, such as Taznaar, Leohorn, Lara and the others, were completely amazed. They had never seen King Spelloyal in person before.

"Father!" Ravastine shouted loudly, practically crying with joy at finally seeing him.

[A Maximum Leader character stands before you...]

Kaizen saw a notification appear before him, and as if the Mobs around him had seen this as well, everyone in the hall immediately dropped to their knees, including Davster and Arthas.

"My soldiers, stand up. There is no need to bow at a time like this. Just acknowledging me even in this state of mine is demonstration enough of loyalty." King Spelloyal said. Even though he spoke low, his voice full of authority easily echoed throughout the silent hall.

All the guards stood up, even the most obedient guards of the New Royal Guard.

Then the King looked at Queen Niah, who was absolutely shaken, and gave her a look that he never gave even to his greatest enemies. He then approached the balusters of the second floor and stated:

"My daughter Lydia explained what is happening here, and for those who are confused I will explain." Suddenly, he pointed to the Queen. "Yes, Niah, the first woman I loved after so long of the painful loss of my late wife, is the one who caused all this.... A few months ago, the mages of my Court finally managed to finish a Magical Artifact that would help the evolution of the entire Tretidian Kingdom. This artifact had the ability to store mana and convert it into clean energy, which would allow us to finally put ourselves on equal footing with the Vrikhodour Kingdom and the Mibothen Kingdom without compromising the health of the people and our lands, as I promised my grandfather. However..."

At that moment, the King's angry gaze once again fell on the Queen.

"Niah somehow convinced my mages to reverse engineer this artifact, which ended up creating another artifact capable of absorbing mana from any living thing at the slightest touch. I don't know if this was her intention from the beginning, nor if she planned it later, after all she was always thirsty for power, I just hadn't realized it before. She knew that at that time she couldn't kill me with even the sharpest of knives, nor the strongest of spells, nor the most poisonous of potions, so she enchanted me and sealed the artifact in me."

The King turned on his back and let the tunic that covered him fall to the ground, revealing that on his back was an azure crystal in the shape of a half-moon. This crystal glowed brightly and inside was a black liquid that made the light oscillate.

_{𝑓r𝘦𝘦𝘄eb𝒏𝙤vel.c𝙤𝙢}

'So the story about mana disease wasn't entirely a lie...' Kaizen thought.

Everyone who looked at the King's back sighed, and he soon covered himself again with Lydia's help.

"Upon having this sealed in me, I immediately fell over, I was weak, I admit that. It was a very powerful artifact. Still, over the course of a few hours I managed to manage my mana flow so I wouldn't die, which allowed me to extend my life span.... Then the weird part of the story comes in, that even after much pondering about it, I don't understand why she would do that, so I have to ask." He looked at the Queen. "Niah, for what reason? Why did you do what you did? You could have killed me while I was weakening, you could have not fed me, but you didn't, what kept you from finishing the job?"

...

Edited by: DrHitsuji

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