The Martial Unity

In a garden outside the Vargard Royal Palace sat four royals.

Prince Randal, Princess Ranea, Rafia, and Raemina sat around a table, sipping tea.

There wasn't much to do these days. Each of them had barely managed to come to terms with the fact that their campaigns for the throne were dead.

They had accepted that their dreams and ambitions for the throne were dead.

It hadn't been easy.

Some of these dreams and ambitions had driven them since childhood, and it was extremely painful for them to accept that they would never happen. Yet, thrust its will onto them.

Or rather, Rui Quarrier Kandria did.

His existence had become a source of primal terror to each of them. Prince Randal was too proud and ashamed to admit that he had recurring nightmares of Rui Quarrier Kandria every night since the royal addressal ceremony.

The Final Prince had made a deep impact on his psyche even before he was revealed to be a prince.

Prince Randal had previously thought that the day of his assassination attempt on the final prince was the worst day of his life.

Nothing else had come close.

That was until the royal addressal ceremony had come, turning his final hope into final despair.

The two events had scarred him. He had come out of them a changed man.

All of them had. While he, Princess Raemina, and Princess Ranea had managed to pull themselves together, the same could not be said for Princess Rafia.

She sat at the table with a vacant, hollow expression. Her eyes were glazed over, unfocused, while her mouth hung open. She had a maid who would occasionally wipe the drool trickling down her mouth.

with severe PTSD, often causing her mind to simply

head at her sight. "…He recently started his

two

and keeps up his promise of letting us live the rest of our lives out," Prince Randal heaved a

their only hope. They hoped that Rui Quarrier Kandria would be able to win and then decide to keep

was not to

The air tingled.

It grew perilous.

glanced up to the sky before

of Martial Masters descended into the

radiated

were varied and diverse, suiting their personal inclinations and Martial Art. Yet each of them bore the emblem of the Kandria

Leading them at the forefront was the famous Surgeon, Master Zentra—a powerful high-grade Martial

was not a man who

appeared before the Martial Masters of the Martial Union and the four

this?!" One of them barked at the Union Masters. "Have you

other way around." Master Ceeran's voice was murderous. He emerged from among his peers with a profound bloodlust radiating from

didn't!" Prince Randal

DID YOU

"-Ceeran."

voice cut through his titanic

was soft, it contained a depth

towards the sixteen Martial Masters, having abated his junior's belligerence. "I am Zentra of the Martial Union. I apologize for my colleague's outburst; you can rest assured the Martial Union has neither declared war against the Royal Family nor

One Martial Master retorted with wary

any and all lands within the Kandrian Empire in pursuit of the arrest of those it charges with murder conspiracy against not just a Martial Artist, but a constituent of the Martial Fiscal Committee,"

Martial Masters and

exactly what had