"What do you think happened?" As they walked towards the capital, the team members started to speak about what was going on there. They all jumped to the same bad scenario that William guessed, yet the latter refrained from joining the talk.
He knew even if the king died, another would take the throne. He wouldn't care as long as the new king stayed away from him and his business. But if the new king was hostile to him, he'd not hesitate to fight back.
The best scenario was for Anjie to take over the throne. By logic, she was the one who should inherit the throne. But she is young, weak, and a girl on top of that. Many old members of the royal family would see this as a golden chance for them to take over.
He walked and listened to many useless debates about what would happen to the kingdom. He didn't share the same attachment to this place as Berry and others, and was feeling exactly like how Karoline did; detached from all this.
Yet when they approached the capital, they all stopped talking. The capital that was bustling with life and activity, filled with signs of awe and prosperity, was now ushered under ruins!
The walls were half gone, with thick tongues of smoke rising up from many places out there. They weren't this close yet, but they could tell how bad the destruction there was.
"All this happened because of a monster tide?!!!" This was the comment everyone had in their mind, shocked and shaken by what happened to such a mighty place in such a short time.
The capital of the kingdom was the most secure and well-defended place in the entire kingdom. To see it in such a state was indeed a new experience for everyone except William and Karoline.
Karoline was originally a monster, so she didn't know how to appreciate the beauty of the old capital and didn't even see it before to feel such sorrow of its loss. Not to mention she used to destroy places humans lived in and didn't feel any bad about that even now.
As for William, this sight brought back many terrible memories. This scene was weirdly similar to many scenes he saw before when the world fell. He wasn't there when the world's strongest forts got crushed by monsters, and he wasn't here to witness how monsters destroyed the capital and overran its defences and masters.
As they drew closer, they found tons of the dead monster bodies surrounding the entire capital. The bodies got signs of burns and ugly wounds, making it clear how brutal the fight here was.
The number of monsters alone was in the hundreds of thousands, and that was just the parts they passed through. The closer they got to the capital, the more deaths they saw.
Slowly they met with dead masters, and they all had no gears or rings on them. They first were curious and inspected many dead bodies around, but soon enough they stopped doing this. There was literally nothing over these masters to tell them about what happened here.
And when they arrived at the capital, they saw a brutal and shocking scene inside. The walls looked as if a god used his colossal arm and ripped everything into shreds. There were many holes, scars over the still-standing walls, and a huge amount of rubbles and rocks filled everywhere.
When they passed through the damaged walls, they didn't find a single building intact. The streets were gone, and were replaced with tons of rocks and fallen parts of the once glorious buildings.
The dead bodies of masters were everywhere, with a few monster bodies scattered here and there. William inspected the dead bodies of monsters and masters. found out that they were dead around a week or two ago.
"There is no one living here anymore," as they passed through the capital, they reached the central place of it. They didn't find any humans or masters, making them feel like they were walking in the middle of a cemetery or something.
"Even if we were walking on a battlefield, we'll find anything living," Lang scratched his head, feeling more annoyed by this situation like others, "don't tell me the kingdom is gone and the royal family is dead."
"We have to go and scout the world around…" Just before William would continue what he was saying, he stopped. He just received a message from Sloth, as the latter appeared in the form of a fog, seemingly quite distressed and disturbed about what was going on back at the tunnel area.
"Just come to the capital with everyone," William said but didn't say anything about the destruction of the capital or the death prevailing here.
He knew how deeply attached Sloth was to the kingdom, and so he refrained from telling him the grave news. He'd wait for him to come here and inspect everything himself. And Sloth's reaction was quite expected.
The old man who acted tough before seemed to get shaken by what happened to his kingdom's capital. William even saw tears sparkling in his eyes, and everyone respected his feelings and stayed away from him.
"Is he going to be alright?" Karoline felt very bad about him, and couldn't help but ask in worry. Sloth was looking miserable over the past minutes and hours, ending up falling on his knees just in front of what seemed to be a big palace before.
William and others didn't need to ask to know what this place meant. It was the palace from where the royal family ruled over the entire capital and kingdom, the place where he held tons of memories towards.
He remained there for hours, not doing anything but looking at the destruction and damage. "He is a good man, he'll be fine," William said before turning to the grand number of masters here, "let's use this time and scout the entire place for any clue. Make sure to give my team your Bullets, and keep contacting them all the time. If you find anything suspicious, just inform them about it at once…"
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