Chapter 58: Unexpected Events at the Victory Banquet

In terms of grandness and magnificence, the Royal Palace of Shampoo City could definitely rank among the top three among the many vassal states of the Zenit Empire. All the buildings were carved and piled up from huge white stones. In the center was a vast stone square. To the east, west, and north stood huge stone pillars about thirty to forty meters tall and statues of gods over ten meters high. Behind the pillars and statues stood tall palaces. The north side was open, allowing civilians and soldiers to enter the palace square from there.

Tonight’s victory banquet was held in this enormous open-air stone square.

The celebrating crowd had slowly gathered in the square. Six huge bonfires were blazing, reddening the starry sky. In the center of the square, ten large wooden towers, each about six or seven meters high, were temporarily erected. On them, layer by layer, lay the bodies of the soldiers and civilians of Shampoo City who had died in the battle.

The soldiers of the Royal Guard wore bright armor and carried long spears as they patrolled around the Great Hall and the square. The civilians changed into white, lightweight robes and began singing and dancing. Acrobats flipped and turned on the ground. Beautiful women ran hand in hand around the bonfires, cheering and dancing. People held high green branches, symbols of life and hope, and laughed joyfully.

The night grew deeper.

Amid the sound of hoofbeats, the young Prince Torbinsky of the Zenit Empire finally arrived at the square with his escort of knights. The handsome elder Best led his servants to guide the prince and his party to the VIP platform under the western giant stone statue. Since Zenit was an empire, the subjects of Shampoo City warmly welcomed the prince’s arrival. Many fragrant flower petals and clear water were sprinkled upon them.

Torbinsky was quite pleased with this scene.

At this moment, Torbinsky surprisingly displayed the demeanor and grace of a prince from a great kingdom. He wore a charming smile and continuously waved to the common people around him. However, the cavalry following the prince clearly had no fondness for these lowly commoners from a small state. Seeing the smiling faces around them, they looked down from above with arrogant attitudes, as if watching their own pet dogs wagging their tails and fawning over them, feeling completely at ease.

Seeing that only Prince Torbinsky had come to the banquet, the handsome elder Best felt slightly disappointed. The Princess Royal was the most important figure of the envoy, controlling everything, but he had never been able to figure out her attitude. Originally, this banquet was a great opportunity to observe her, but she did not attend… Nevertheless, Best did not slack off in the slightest, instructing his servants to attend to all the formalities.

After more than ten minutes, the cheering and dancing crowd gradually quieted down, and the square became silent.

At that moment, two teams of guards in splendid armor walked out from the Great Hall on the north side of the square. They stood neatly in two rows on either side. Then, under the gaze of the crowd, King Alexander, holding the delicate hand of his beautiful fiancée Angela, slowly appeared on the high steps in front of the Great Hall.

At this time, Sun Fei had changed into a sky-blue king’s robe. The robe fluttered in the wind, perfectly complementing his tall and athletic figure. On his head, he wore a golden leaf-shaped crown. His long hair was as black as ink, and his starry eyes were as clear as lightning. He was handsome and majestic, with an otherworldly aura. The absolute authority accumulated over days of ruthless killing and his natural affinity merged perfectly in that instant. He looked noble and imposing from afar, like a lofty deity, fully embodying the bearing of a king.

Beside him, the beautiful Angela also wore a sky-blue robe, lightly tied at the waist with a golden silk belt. Her figure was slender and graceful, and her skin was more delicate and translucent than the thousand-year snow atop a mountain peak. On her head, Angela wore a crown woven from various colorful flowers. The breeze gently blew the young girl’s hair, making her look like a goddess who had descended to the mortal world. She was peerlessly beautiful, pure, and noble, making people feel too awed to look directly at her and unable to harbor any disrespectful thoughts.

The two appeared on the high stone steps with smiles, and in an instant, they effortlessly stole all the brilliance in the square. Even the sparkling stars, embedded like gems in the blue sky, seemed to lose their color in that moment.

The citizens of Shampoo City knelt on the ground and shouted, “Long live King Alexander!”

Many people also realized for the first time that their king was so majestic and extraordinary. At that moment, no one could connect the image of this perfect king with the foolish and idiotic Alexander from before. They humbly knelt in the square, shouting with their lives and souls.

Prince Torbinsky, sitting on the VIP platform under the giant stone statue on the west side of the square, also stood up from his seat. During the day, he had been very dismissive of the king from the rumors. Even when he came to the banquet, he did so with the intention of making fun and causing trouble. Originally, he had no doubt about his own grace and handsomeness, thinking that as soon as he stood in the square, he would instantly steal everyone’s attention… But now, the prince of the great empire suddenly felt a sense of inferiority. Looking at the perfectly matched young couple on the steps of the main hall in the distance, the young prince was surprised to find that his previous disdain for this country, this castle, and this king was disappearing incredibly fast.

However, the prince did not notice that the guards and cavalry behind him did not share this feeling. Beside the prince, a stout knight in full armor with a red cloak stared intently at Angela on the distant stone steps, his eyes filled with greed, astonishment, and lust. The dozens of guards and cavalry around this knight also made no effort to hide the lewdness in their eyes.

At the edge of the square.

No one noticed that in the shadows of the statues at the very back of the kneeling crowd, three figures cloaked in black quietly hid in the dim darkness. When they saw King Alexander and Angela appear, the figure at the front suddenly let out a soft “Huh?” The voice was weak, as if from someone who had just recovered from a serious illness, and it carried a tone of surprise. This reaction made the two people standing behind him exchange a glance. They had never seen this person show such surprise before.

…

After the king and future queen appeared, the revelry in the square gradually came to a halt.

The atmosphere began to feel solemn and dignified. The crowd consciously made way, and Sun Fei and Angela descended from the high steps, slowly making their way to the ten rough wooden towers temporarily built from logs in the center of the square.

The atmosphere grew even more heavy.

On the Azeroth Continent, wars had been constant since ancient times, and countless soldiers died on the battlefield every day. Burying these fallen soldiers became a massive and time-consuming task, wasting a lot of land. To avoid this, the tradition of cremating soldiers had been established long ago. Whether kings, nobles, commoners, or slaves, all who died in battle were placed on wooden towers to be burned. People believed that this way, the souls of the warriors could be redeemed, and they would join the God of War in the divine realm.

Following the traditional ceremonial knowledge he had crammed with Angela’s help, Sun Fei climbed up the ladder of the wooden tower. He turned and took golden coins one by one from Angela’s hand, placing them on the eyes of the fallen soldiers—this was also a tradition on the Azeroth Continent. People believed that covering the eyes of fallen warriors with coins would help them open their eyes again in the flames and find the correct path to ascend to heaven.

It was a tedious task.

Shampoo City had lost 131 brave soldiers in this defensive battle. Originally, there were special personnel assigned to place the coins for these unfortunate soldiers, but Sun Fei surprisingly insisted on doing it all himself. According to tradition, only high-ranking nobles or heroes who had made contributions to the king were eligible for such treatment from the king. Sun Fei’s actions gave these ordinary soldiers unprecedented honor.

Clearly, this was another move by someone to win people’s hearts.

The square was silent, with no one speaking. Even the wind seemed to have stopped. Only a few black-robed women, equivalent to temple priestesses, stood on the steps of the main hall in the distance, singing an ancient and profound ballad. The song had no particular melody, but it was sung across the continent as a soul-summoning song to bid farewell to loved ones.

Under everyone’s gaze, Sun Fei patiently placed coins on the eyes of each fallen soldier himself. Then, he personally used a torch to light the fragrant grass laid beneath them. The flames roared, consuming the bodies of the warriors. Families who had lost their loved ones wept bitterly…

This process lasted for an hour.

Afterward, when the flames finally turned the soldiers’ bodies and the ten wooden towers into ashes, the atmosphere in the square lightened. The crying gradually subsided. The remaining ashes were carefully collected by soldiers and physicians and placed into a large black coffin. Twelve days later, the coffin would be carried to the highest peak of the mountains east of Shampoo City and buried there, so the souls of the brave warriors could see the beautiful sunrise at the edge of the sky every day—this was Shampoo City’s own tradition.

After all this was done, the atmosphere in the square became cheerful and lively again.

People began to sing and dance, celebrating the victory of the war. The frenzied atmosphere grew hotter along with the bonfires blazing again in the center of the square. Men, women, young, and old, regardless of status, held hands and danced. Even the soldiers guarding the perimeter of the square joined the singing and laughing crowd. Sun Fei and Angela were also joyfully pulled into the crowd by some enthusiastic young girls. In this moment of celebration, there were no distinctions of high or low status. The young Prince of Zenit and his knight attendants, sitting under the high platform of the giant stone statue on the west side of the square, were also invited to join the crowd.

Women laughed as they held high plates filled with fruits and roasted meat, weaving through the crowd.

Prince Torbinsky was infected by this atmosphere. At this moment, he finally let go of all his previous arrogance and aloofness, appearing more like a seventeen-year-old boy at heart. He held hands with a group of young boys and girls, forming a large circle as they ran and danced around the bonfire, like a bird finally flying out of its cage, joyfully fluttering about.

However, Torbinsky and everyone else did not notice that the stout red-cloaked knight and the cavalrymen who had been standing behind him earlier were now jostling their way toward the very center of the square. Smirks played on their lips, and their eyes gleamed with an indescribable lewdness.

In the direction they were pushing toward, at the center of the square, Angela, pure as a goddess, was happily dancing with the blonde little Lori Gemma and a group of young girls. The young girl smiled joyfully, her peerless face full of smiles and happiness, like a joyful little angel.